It seems an odd place for a favourite coffee shop. It’s on the edge of a small shopping centre dominated by the branch of a major retail grocery store and the new office block or car park being built next to it. There is a small square, 20 paces by 20 paces, and the coffee shop backs onto a veterinary surgeon’s premises.
The coffee shop itself is somewhere between unpretentious, untidy and trendy. The coffee seems good – but I’m no expert. It’s on a busy road, with the bus stop within spitting distance and a church on the other side of the road. “Refugees are welcome here.”
It’s just a reasonable bike ride from home, requiring sufficient effort to feel deserving about a coffee once there. I bonded further with place when I took part in a working bee to plant some seedlings and bulbs – part of the floral bounty distributed this year to suburbs in all directions under the banner of Canberra’s Floriade which was abandoned in its usual form months ago due to COVID.
The de facto manager of the working bee encouraged me to claim one of the half-whiskey barrels as my own – in the sense that I could plant it out. I check on ‘my’ barrel occasionally and compare it with the six or seven others. I must have planted my tulip bulbs a little deeper than some of the other volunteers because mine are slow to appear.
I FaceTimed Pella in Sydney and gave her a tour of the various planters. Most of them are coming on well but one of them looks very sad indeed. I can’t help wondering what happened. Was the fertiliser forgotten? Did the people on the watering roster forget it? Did a volunteer under-perform?
Another lunchtime in the early spring sunshine. The wind is from the south, cold but subdued. There is so much traffic I can’t hear myself shiver. A bus pulls up and to my surprise there are a few people aboard. I suck on my takeaway cup, trying not to feel guilty that it’s single use.
I try Pella for a catch-up but there’s no answer.
A single leaf is blown towards me across the red brick pavement. The wind stops and the leaf assumes the attitude of a swan on dry land – the arch of the neck perfectly framed and proportioned. Another blast of cold and the leaf roles over twice, only to reassume the swan’s neck position as if to give me a second chance. Three of four times it moves, until, convinced, I pick it up. It’s as dry as a crisp and it seems certain that it must break. Nevertheless I push it gently into the pocket of my high-viz cycling coat.
Having completed the shopping for home, as much as I can accommodate in my pockets, I head off. The swan is almost certainly being crushed by a plastic sleeve of dill on its way to our kitchen.
She proves surprisingly resilient. I reunite her with the water needed to complete the illusion, in a white cereal bowl.
Here she is for you to see again.
And here are her sisters waiting for their chance. It’s a competitive business this ballet of Nature.
