I arrive in Sydney at the start of October to find that summer is already in full swing. It’s in the high thirties and sunshine beams through my attic window. My post-holiday piles of laundry dry quickly with a satisfying air-dried crunch.
The city feels tropical thanks to the heat and the lush greenery, large plants with leaves that stretch over footpaths in sculptural sweeps.
The next morning, I wake early thanks to jet lag, and attempt to make the most of it. I walk a large loop of the nearby park and then buy some breakfast (I’m still in holiday mode after all) before walking home again. A friend is waiting for me as I turn the corner into my street and scoops me into a ginormous hug.
It felt so good to be back in London but it feels good to be back here, now, in Sydney, as summer begins to bloom.
I start a new job and attempt to start new habits too. I walk to the office a couple of days a week and the longer commute gives me more room to properly dive into audiobooks.
‘What a luxury,’ one of my housemates says, ‘the gift of time.’
At the end of my first week and closing out a big 24 hours, I head to one of Sydney’s many ocean pools. The water is cool but I ease myself in. I swim back and forth and then float, looking towards the ocean beyond the concrete wall. Waves crash against it and against a break a little further out.
Three girls stand on the edge and gaze at the ocean, the view stretching towards the horizon. The whole scene looks postcard-perfect; an idyllic Saturday afternoon and a cliché of Australian childhood. The sun, the surf, the beach, the fearlessness.
I float a bit more, then swim to the side and get out. I need help getting my shoulders out of my thin, spring wetsuit. ‘That’s the thing,’ the woman who stretches and pulls the neoprene says as I shimmy my way out of it, ‘there’s always someone here that’s willing and happy to help.’
I begin the next week by going for a sunrise dip before work. I drive towards the beach as the sun glimmers over Centennial Park. The ocean is churning, a rough tumble of waves, with white horses dancing along the surface. I cling to the railing as I step down the metal steps, pausing as waves surge across my ankles, crash against my knees, and splash across my face. A guy stands on the concrete edge a bit further along and we look towards each other as if it will give us the mutual courage needed to take the plunge.
‘You jumping in?’ I ask.
‘Trying to!’ he shouts back.
I step down another step, and then onto the rocky ledge. I look towards him. He’s swimming through the water already.
Right, I tell myself, you can do this. I take a deep breath and launch forward.
I attempt to swim, but mostly float, moving towards the beach in a push and pull, lulled along with the ebb and flow. I feel thoroughly awake, sloshed around by the force of nature. The water glistens. I lick the salt off my lips and smile, looking beyond the beach to the waves crashing against the rocks.
The sun continues to rise as I drive home, triumphant. What a way to start a week!
Days pass, then weeks, then the month of October. A whirlwind blur of meeting new people and learning new things. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling content. Feeling excited. A whole month gone in not much more than the blink of an eye.
There are twelve gum trees, in various stages of infancy or established growth, lining a major road near my house. I walk home one evening as the sun sets behind them, making the edges of their leaves shine with a rich golden glow. This Sydney life! This ready access to such natural beauty! I’m trying my hardest – still, two years in – to not take it for granted.
I think of the man standing up at the beach in Menorca and declaring it to be a good day. I regularly catch myself these days wondering ‘How lucky am I?’
As more human suffering – near and far – continues to flood the news, I remember how important it is never to forget my sublime luck in being here, now. Of having had two whole years of this.
I have lunch with a friend in the park between our offices. The harbour is spread out before us, a glittering aquamarine jewel.
I tell her that this Friday – today – will be my second anniversary of being back. When she asks how I’ll celebrate, I say – ‘Well I was thinking it would be nice to go for a sunrise swim but I’ve got a service for my car booked in.’
‘Maybe that’s even better,’ she suggests. ‘A sign that you’re putting down roots.’
But a few days later a friend of a friend offers last-minute tickets for Paul McCartney’s concert this weekend. A once in a lifetime concert. A perfect way to celebrate. It’s funny how life has a way of laughing at plans, and of working out regardless.
I pinch myself. How lucky I’ve been. How lucky I am.
With friends moving to Darwin in the new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about my time there two years ago. Or just outside it – in quarantine. Today marks two years since the bus drove us along the main roads from Howard Springs to Darwin Airport. The ground along either side of the road was a deep ochre red, with sharp, spinifex-like plants jutting out of the ground. It felt so foreign to me, yet so Australian too. The heat. The humidity. The richness of it all. We passed signs for a crocodile park and, a little further along, ones advertising croc meat by the kilo. Barramundi fishing on billboards and a sense that Sydney was a long way away from all this.
Now, here. Inner-city Sydney streets are covered in a blanket of jacaranda petals – bright purple and shimmering as the day begins. Illawarra flame trees are striking in the sun, their coral-like orange blooms standing proud against the emerald fig tree leaves.
In so many ways, the pandemic feels so long ago that it’s almost as if I imagined the whole quarantine ordeal. Metal sheds in the tropical heat? Police and army patrols? Dinner delivered in hazmat suits? Did any of that actually happen? I remind myself that it did: yes, yes, yes, and yes.
I think again and again of how my friend joked at the time – ‘At least you’re getting the complete pandemic experience.’ But also of how stressful the entire ordeal was. The amount of uncertainty. The sense that anything could flip and change and fall out from beneath my feet at any second. Not knowing what to expect or what curveball might happen at any moment along the way. How heavy that much change felt at the time. How different I feel now.
I could not have expected then – alone, eating strange meals in an intensely air-conditioned room, unable to walk freely or explore my surroundings – the life I have now.
Even a year ago – when I marked the first anniversary by staying in a boutique hotel, a generous gift from my dear friend – I could not have imagined how this second year back in Sydney has turned out. That weekend – with the sun shining, and the wooden bath filled with fragrances – now feels like the start of my falling back in love with this city. The weather began to turn for the better. I moved into a house that truly felt like home. I gained more courage. Made bolder choices. I found the freedom in driving and the whole of Sydney, and beyond, opened up. I made new friends who make me feel deeply nourished. I started a new job.
There’s a fullness now to this Sydney life. Before I left London, a wise friend gently reminded me that they say it takes two years for a place to really feel like home. I think she was right.
Two years in and I’m proud of the life I’ve carved out for myself. Of the choices I’ve made. Of the things I’ve said yes to – and no to.
Two years in and I’m beginning to lay the foundations for all that is still to come.
I’m looking forward to enjoying it as it all unfolds.
There is so much joy and hope in your words. What an exciting two years it’s been x
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