The morning chorus of magpies sings out across the neighbourhood. Cicadas scream in the heat of the day, joining in choral unison to make their presence known. Frangipanis – velvet soft, creamy white – bloom from street-side trees.
Summer is here.
Mornings start warm and the heat builds and builds through the day, broken only by an evening swim – bodies thrashing through the water or floating serenely on top of it, at the beach or in a pool. There are languid days of loose layers with criss-cross tans and wet swimmers underneath; wet hair dripping down sun-warmed backs.
Balcony breakfasts begin the day and dinner is eaten outdoors to end it. In the office, we have pineapple platters drizzled with lime, and mangos, fresh and dripping with juice. At home, apricots on the side of toast, and an evening nectarine in lieu of dessert.
There’s a sense of heat-induced languor, even on busy days, and carefree conversations that fizz and spark with the freshness of the season.
Summer in Sydney – it’s a good place to be.
“Currawong music gurgles in the trees high above our heads, and the air frazzles with heat and cicadas and the heady scent of the eucalypts.”
– Charlotte Wood, Pieces of a Girl
Early in the new year, I meet a friend outside the ladies’ baths, tucked into the cliffs south of Coogee. We find a spot under the shade of a tree to lay our towels between groups of other women.
It’s a warm day so we quickly peel off dresses and shorts, clamber down the steps that cling to the cliff edge, and put our feet in the water. It’s colder than expected and our toes, then our calves, then our knees, turn slightly numb with shock.
We stand there, hovering, daring ourselves and each other to take the next step and plunge into the bright turquoise water. We watch as others dive in effortlessly and as people clamber out with a look of contentment.
A woman – mid-70s, we think – swims gracefully towards us, gliding through the water with ease and a lifetime of practise. She passes us as she steps out of the water. “Just do it, girls!” she exclaims.
We laugh, we get in, we swim.
Later, refreshed and sated, we eat a picnic under the shade of a tree and take internet quizzes and talk about the books we’re reading. It immediately becomes one of those perfect summer moments. One I’d longed for when thinking about moving to Sydney. One I’d longed for throughout the record-breaking rain of last year. One I’d longed for when ill over the festive season.
I walk home, admiring backstreet cottages and full of honeymoon-like love for my new neighbourhood. My friend texts, reminding me of the woman’s words.
Just do it, girls. We both agree: it’s the perfect motto for the summer and the year to come.
Ella Risbridger recently wrote about the concept of on years and off years; the notion of fallow periods of retreat interspersed with years of change and growth. Each being as necessary and important as the other, and the labelling of a year being a useful act, if only to give oneself permission to lean into the fullness of rest or activity.
I write a list of things I want to achieve before my next (big) birthday. Nothing huge – no life-changing resolutions – but they’re decisive changes nonetheless. To swim more. To enjoy the end of a European summer. To learn two important life skills. A thoughtful intentionality to see out my twenties.
After two years ‘off’ years, I’ve told myself this is a year of ‘on’. One of adventure and of bold leaps of faith. It’s a year of just doing it, instead of mulling over the possibilities of doing it.
The rain returns and pours. I spend a day inside, reading. I read in bed as the rain falls against the attic window. Read at the dining table as the rain falls on the broad, jungle-like leaves of the small courtyard outside. Read on the sofa as cars drive on the drenched road outside. I continue to read; it continues to rain.
After the joy of having friends staying for a weekend in December, I feel the desire to welcome more friends into my new home. To offer up hospitality in a way that is gentle and easy – come over for dinner after work, I invite a friend. Let’s have dinner on the terrace, I tell another. Long and luxurious dinners talking books and films and catching each other up on the substance of our lives.
Early mornings are spent pottering around my new place, beginning to understand its rhythms: the pattern of the sun across rooms of a morning and the way the afternoon breeze ripples across terraced rooftops and on into my bedroom window. The flow of sun around the four walls of the small courtyard by the kitchen throughout the day.
The way mornings are slow, steady and sun-filled before the heat of the day sets in. A morning breeze, blowing through the courtyard’s abundant foliage, causes the garland of paper-cut birds to dance across the fireplace. The perfection of curling up on the sofa of an evening with a book or a show and some dessert in a bowl before me. The way music ebbs through the living room’s speakers, bringing the space to life.
I book flights and text friends – I’m coming to see you soon. There are dates in the diary, scattered across the months, of various trips interstate and abroad. Active decisions to push the year into unfurling with adventure. Good things are on the horizon and the hope of it all is intoxicating.
The neighbourhood hibiscuses are in bloom, as are the frangipani, as are the hydrangeas. An explosion of colour amongst the tropical greens.
Life is lived outside at the moment. I meet friends for brunch outside. Go for lunchtime walks. Celebrate a birthday with drinks in a pub garden. And, most joyful of all, meet friends for swims in the ocean.
The heat grows and grows. Humidity makes everything clammy. The office air-con is broken and we quickly become tired and irritable in the stifling conditions.
I head to the pool after work to cool off with some gentle laps and it seems as if everyone else in the inner city had the same idea; the pool is heaving. I swim a few laps and then climb out, drying off in the warm glow of the evening sun.
I watch as lane after lane is filled with swimmers. Lap after lap, stroke after stroke, breath after breath, they churn and churn through the washing-machine water. Despite the visual chaos, there’s something so soothing about the familiar sound of tumultuous water; it sounds like summer.
I book a spontaneous day trip to Canberra solely to see the Cressida Campbell exhibition. A trip worth taking.
Her lifelong focus on beauty moves me. Beauty in all its forms – a box of food scraps piling up at her mother’s place, the stacking of bowls and spoons and pans in a washing up rack, a collection of ceramics collected throughout South East Asia displayed on a shelf.
At the back of the first room, against a wall that’s somewhere between navy and emerald green and a dark, rich grey, are four wooden panels connected within one, horizontal golden frame. The kitchen shelf, 2009, captures exactly that. The tops of the taps are visible, next to bottles of oil and washing-up liquid. Above it gathers a collection of vases and kitchen miscellany: a leek resting against the horizontal wood panelling of the wall, a metal coffee maker, and gerberas sprouting from a vase. There’s a bulb of fennel standing in an earthenware display and a collection of lemons nearby.
The whole scene depicts a scene of oft-overlooked so-called mundanity, yet the Australian lifestyle it evokes – one of carefree cooking full of fresh fruit and veg, of nature brought indoors, and of everyday material comfort – is one that feels worthy of capturing, so distinct is it against the tradition of still life paintings by European Masters.
As the season shimmies on, I swim more and more, returning to the water like a newly converted believer arrives at church. I relish it, luxuriate in it, seek it out. I squeeze in dips before seeing friends and after work and while doing errands. Lap pools and beaches and salty coastal baths – each with their merit; each to be enjoyed in their time and place.
The past few days, I’ve snuck down the coast to be with friends who joined me at my place in mid-December. What was then a slow (broken-toe-inhibited) weekend of market mooching and rooftop pub visits, is now a joyous and active few days of fish and chips, breweries, baps on the beach, and scenic bushwalks followed by refreshing swims in crystal-clear water.
They live deep in a national park and when we arrive the night sky is bright above us. Someone points out Mars, another starts with Orion’s Belt. We turn and there, strung across the evening as if painted just for us, is the Milky Way.
Kangaroos roam the site, a possum named Larry sprints across the grass to climb a tree, and an echidna’s spikes are visible above its burrow. It feels incredibly remote and incredibly far from Sydney.
I think about the importance of contrast: how much one thing is improved by juxtaposition against its opposite. Time surrounded by wildlife and raw, rugged nature made more enjoyable by coming fresh from the city. An on year after off years. A summer of sun and beach swims after a soggy year of rain. What I hope for the future instead of what I had in the past.
Summer in Sydney is when the city most comes to life, but escaping it for a break by the beach is important too. It helps to step away, to come back renewed.
On my final full day down the coast, we drive to the beach I spent countless hours of childhood summers on. I feel a full-bodied sense of relief – it’s still here, still beautiful, still as vast and as turquoise blue as I remember.
We eat fish and chips until the rain creeps in and then drive back home, stopping to view the holiday rental my family used to stay in. Sometimes, when looking to the future, a nostalgic nod to the past helps.
Each evening we slump on the sofa, sated and sun-drunk. It feels good to be tired from a day immersed in nature: to have salt in our hair, legs sore from a hike, arms tired from swimming through waves.
I hope the year continues as it’s started: joyfully and full of swims, friends and adventure.
This was beautiful Emma! I felt like I was living through a hot summer’s day while reading. And hell yes to having an “on” year and to all the hope and adventure in the months to come xx