On Andreas Street
Autumn has a way of softening the human heart like no other season. It’s a time in which there is a quiet, unobtrusive turning over of the heart’s soil and despite those seemingly modest machinations, we are left in no doubt a difference has been made, deep in our soul. How? I don’t know exactly.
It seems to come in the guise of a quiet hopefulness, a resolute inner confidence that when Spring does come there will be a heady rush of colour, there will be answered prayers and there will be life too. I never know when it happens, just that it does. And anyway, will it matter?
Today is a sombre day outside. A day when one thinks of sobering thoughts. I love autumn because it holds no hostages. What you see is what you get. Whether pungent life in the form of smoked paprika-red coloured leaves on the one hand or life-drawn, fallen-by-the-way-side leaves kicked to the curb on the other. This is not a question of balance, rather, this is life and death and life again. Autumn is both life and death at once, a heady paradox.
Autumn is the time I miss my mother most and it reminds me of growing up in the small rural community of Waipukurau in Central Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. People there are earthy and despite my having lived in cities for over one score and ten years now, that same earthiness has kept my feet firmly in the mud, whether in business or at play. Such earthiness is firstly hewn from common sense and secondly, respect.
I moved into my place here twelve weeks ago, I live in a suburb now fondly referred to as the ‘sham, that’s Petersham, NSW. Read the blog pages of our own in-resident artist Lucas Ihlein and understand why the ‘sham (for now) has become my turangawaewae. Translated from my native Maori language, it means a place to stand, a place to belong, a place of the heart.
The other thing about autumn is, it directs our ruminations every-where and nowhere, so if you’ve come this far with me, thank you. It will get like that sometimes in these pages, a veritable beagle sniffing experience that will have you haring off in one direction and leave you scratching your head as to how you got somewhere else when you were still looking.
My friend ‘Blackey’ (Strepera Graculina) came by this morning, some would call him a common Pied Currawong. Trust me, there’s nothing common about himself’s majesty. He’s such a regal cad. It’s autumn and he knows that backdrop makes him look good.
