FCT #2: plum cake + perfect weather

Canberra has been wooing me with awesome weather. Cool, clear daybreak unfolding into glorious sunshine. Jeans-and-tshirt temperatures. Brightest blue sky tempting the pale moon out til mid-morning. On Thursday I was woken by a hot air balloon, colours like sunrise, huffing and puffing right outside my window. It doesn't get much more magical than that!

I finally started uni on Monday, and whilst I remain mildly terrified, the balance of emotion has tipped over into excitement. My many hesitations about attending the Australian Catholic University have been dispelled by engaging subjects, attentive lecturers, and ridiculously small class sizes. My cohort is tiny. There's only one other person starting with me and perhaps 15 or 20 students all up. In half our classes we're chucked in with the senior undergrads, but in the other half we number five or six. The expectations are high, and there's definitely nowhere to hide... hence the remaining terrified bit! But I feel like I might just learn what I need to in order to take the plunge into teaching. I'm even feeling positive about a three hour maths lecture each week! Jeez!

Dickson Pool is just down the road and has been a treat to swim in. Deserted except for a handful of lap-swimmers and kids. The crystal waters and perfect temperature of the Leisurely Swimming Lane all to myself. I'm still surrounded by the past - school swimming carnivals; that eerie light, turning the water red in bushfire season; long school holiday days, sunburn and Frosty Fruits. But there's no real menace to the memories now. It feels good to be making peace with familiar old places and spaces and stories.

I've been discovering new places too. A small dip into the burgeoning Canberra wine scene on Sunday. Some yummy sparkling shiraz in the sparkling sunshine! (I forgot my camera but stay tuned for a return visit and full report.) And a picnic by Lake Ginninderra on Tuesday night. Belconnen! Tell me about it! I know! But it was surprisingly beautiful, seeing the sun setting over the lake surrounded by black cygnets, wood ducklings, and very noisy moorhens. 

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Didya know?

Moorhens are kinda like those monks who can sing two tones at once. They squalk (high) and honk (low) at the same time. Talented? Yes. Annoying? Mildly. Loud? Definitely.

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Tonight I'm heading out to see Dan Kelly and the Falling Joys at the National Museum of Australia. (Dan Kelly... swoon!) I've turned a bowl of tiny plums - which Slim delivered straight from the tree - into a pretty special cake. I'd save you a piece but I think it will be devoured quick smart by the picnic posse!

FCT #1: beginning at the beginning

This return-to-blogging lark is harder than I thought it would be. The idea is there. It has been for more than a month. And I think it's a winner... or at least you've given me the benefit of the doubt... Favourite Canberra Things have been flowing in thick and fast. Yippee! But getting myself flowing is proving a little harder. It's the case with any creative practice, right? When we're rusty things come slow - writing, drawing, making, cooking, whatever. The only way to get started is to dive back in. And in a way we're always beginning at the beginning.

So here I go!

Yesterday I looked for a more concrete starting point, and spent the morning exploring the neighbourhood where I grew up. The vast childhood canvas of Back Then is a single grid on the small map of Right Now. But it's amazing how much that little grid holds. The strangest things are remembered or trigger memories. The smell of a conifer hedge, the squalk of sulfur crested cockies, a concrete patio on an otherwise unrecognisable house, a fast-flowing storm drain. In my gentle stroll around two suburbs my first Canberra home is steps away from my pre-school, where I met my beautiful friend Adi more than 30 years ago. My primary school is steps beyond that, then my second home, knocked down and transformed into neat-and-tidy units, bordered by neat-and-tidy paths, against a neat-and-tidy park. So much neatening-and-tidying.

In my mind a ramshackle house is bordered by falling-down fences, against a wild and enormous park. But the house and fence is gone, and I can't see any wild enormousness in the narrow lawns in front of me. All those memories are up against each other and the park seems waaaaaay too small to hold them. Climbing and cubby building; arguments and adventures; fireworks and families. I like to think that I can trace out the hole we spent a summer furiously digging, stymied only by a neighbour's complaint. Our planned complex of tunnels and dens was more a pit-of-no-obvious-purpose in reality. And to give the neighbour credit, it would have posed a serious hazard on a night time stroll. 

The spot where I saw a couple having sex in the long summer grass - "Why is that man doing push-ups with no pants on? And what's that woman doing lying underneath him?" - is brazenly close to the bike path. The spot where I smoked my first joint is brazenly close to home. My first babysitting gig is around the corner. I collected our first (and only) family cat a block or two in the other direction. Across the drain we snuck into someone else's company Christmas party, stuffed ourselves with sausage sangers and then snuck back. I remember the crunch of leaves in autumn, trees loaded with apricots and plums and cherries, running home in soaking summer rain, the once or twice when snow fell, the icicles created when the water froze in the tap.

This is where my Canberra began.

claire sees canberra

It’s hard to really see a place when you’ve known it your whole life… especially when you’ve been trying to escape it for almost as long.

So what happens when you make a choice to be right back - smack bang - in the middle of that place? Can you learn to love it when you’ve struggled to in the past? If so, how?

I spent 14 years of my childhood in Canberra, then 17 years in other places, and now I’ve returned. I want to reconnect. I want to seek out the good bits and rediscover a city that I think I know but really don’t. My mission is to open up my heart and mind; to learn to see the Can, the Berra, Canberry with new eyes.

But I can’t do it without your help!

Have you ever lived in Canberra?

Have you ever had fun in Canberra?

Do you know someone who has or does?

What’s your number one Favourite Canberra Thing to do?

I pledge to embrace your Favourite Canberra Thing as my own. Or at the very least to give it a damn good go. I’ll even document my progress so that you can see how this town and I are gettin along.

It’s sink or swim people, so please help me get beyond a dog-paddle!

Send your Favourite Canberra Thing to canberrachachacha@yahoo.com and stay in touch with the adventure right here.

And please please please spread the word to anyone you know who has a Canberra connection.

Cheers,

Claire