Author: annabelharz

Many people are glad to see the back of 2020. For all our projections of 2020 vision at the start of the year, our hopeful plans of what was to come, our 2020 hindsight is vastly different.

I know that when Victoria opened up (in November, out of our second lockdown, after nine months of iso), social events appeared in my diary again and I wondered, “Where did I find the time?” And that was with only one or two social events! It was a really different feeling after such a long time to be driving somewhere to something … rather than grabbing another cuppa to Zoom something …

With its enforced complete change of routine, 2020 allowed me to catch up on sleep for the first time in at least 20 years (since I joined the Motherhood Club) or even earlier! Consistently having one hour’s extra sleep because I was not commuting, alongside no social engagements keeping me up beyond my preferred bedtime, turns out to be a highly effective solution for wellness.

I wondered about my need for social interaction versus how much I – ‘endure’ is perhaps too strong a word (even if the sentiment is accurate). Turns out, as long as I have my husband around to cuddle I don’t need too much face-to-face contact with others. Not that I don’t like it, just that I can do without it. Another valuable learning from the year.

I realise how lucky I am to have a Significant Other around (my friends who live on their own had a vastly significantly different experience of lockdown), especially my Significant Other whose company I enjoy, and who enjoys my company. Our imposed working from home meant we spent a LOT of time together … and it turned out to be a rediscovery of things I hadn’t been aware we’d lost along the way, the busy demands of a modern lifestyle revolving around our children having slowly eroded our time together. How lovely to have the time to chat at leisure rather than firing off a curt reminder as we’re rushing out the door to our external demands. How amazing to find, looking back over three decades, that we still have things in common and WANT to share our time, that we both feel happier for that. I am grateful that the global Pause button turned out to be a Reconnect and Rediscover button (as it was for many people): that’s something I don’t want to lose sight of again.

Statements that 2020 hasn’t been all-bad have flushed the media, and I am certainly aware of the gains I have made personally. I am equally aware of the privilege of my position: living in a first-world country with stellar health care and government support for my trouble-and-strusband‘s lost work; my work (therefore, our income and as a flow-on, our ability to pay all our bills) unaffected; in a secure house not damaged by the Black Summer bushfires which preceded the Covid-19 lockdown by mere months (many are still living in caravans one year later); with fresh vegetables from our country garden forming the base of our daily meals … I recognise that we are very fortunate indeed and I am immensely grateful for that.

In terms of ushering in the New Year, Sydney is the first big display on the international circuit of fireworks. The multi-million dollar display from the Harbour Bridge is watched around the world. The ‘northern beaches outbreak’ (that’s where the best views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House are from) has brought Sydney under lockdown again, over Christmas and into the New Year. This has necessitated curtailing of the New Year’s Eve festivities: no 9pm fireworks (the family-friendly version) and limited fireworks at midnight with few attendees, the “vantage points around the Harbour … reserved for frontline workers this New Year’s Eve to say thank you for keeping the community safe throughout the year“.

May we recognise – and appreciate – the positives of this incredibly difficult year.

May we give gratitude for the gains we made – and maintained – through iso.

May 2021 continue – and further – the blessings of 2020.

GLOSSARY:

trouble-and-strusband: the equal opportunity version of trouble-and-strife?

trouble-and-strife: rhyming slang for ‘wife’. Rhyming slang arrived in Australia with the cockney convicts. No longer in common usage, especially in millenial generations, it’s still fun to use.

To end a Covid-constrained year we now have a Covid-constrained holiday period. My thoughts go out to all the people who can’t share festivities – from all cultural and religious backgrounds – with their families this year. My heart is heavy from the people who are no longer with us, due to Covid (and indeed from other reasons).

It’s certainly been a year like no other that I’ve experienced! A year of changes on many levels, both external and internal = an opportunity for personal and societal realignment, and consequent growth. Individuals have their own reflections on the impact of the devastation and generosity of this year, in equal or unequal doses depending on personal circumstances. May we all recognise the gifts that this year brought, alongside the pain.

May the environment – the healing of which made such great progress when the world stopped in lockdown – be able to maintain its momentum towards health. May we humans take note – and not wantonly destroy it again, just to get jets in the sky ‘because our pleasure is more important than the health of our host planet’.

With Australia having predominantly Christian-settler background the biggest Christian festivals (Easter and Christmas) are granted public holidays. These two Christmas-themed items sum up 2020 as a year like no other:

Lightbulb moment: the West Gate Bridge is thusly named because it is the Gateway to the West!

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet it’s something I never questioned: this feat of construction is something that was always in my childhood and I never stopped to think about its whys and the wherefores.

I had this elucidation mere months ago, while commuting from Melbourne’s northern suburbs (where my mother lives) to the western suburbs (where my son’s house recently burnt down). Traversing routes I don’t frequent caused me to reflect more closely on their names, and what they represent in the historical context of Melbourne town. Such as that Sunshine is the birthplace¹ of the Sunshine Harvester, that piece of farming equipment that revolutionised the way farmers … you guessed it … harvested their crops, around the turn of the (19^th to 20^th) century. Who’d’a thunk?

Here’s a fun fact about Sunshine: I heard that Sunshine was called such because it has fewer rainy days than other areas of Melbourne. Lovely thought, isn’t it? However, it’s totally unverified – although the map in the link does support it…

When I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s the western suburbs were dangerous places, where a lot of crime happened: if there were murders or bashings on the news, they always seemed to come from here. The Italian and Greek immigrants who settled there after the Second World War were, as first-generation immigrants often are, impoverished and working manual jobs (regardless of what qualifications they had and what jobs they used to do in their home countries). The western suburbs were not the only places these people settled – many moved to the eastern suburbs where I grew up as they became more affluent.

The arrival of Vietnamese refugees (as a consequence of the devastation of the war) into the western suburbs gentrified the area – not so much in Sunshine, but in adjacent suburbs. These days it’s a mix of ‘residential suburb with a mix of period and post-War homes, with a town centre that is an important retail centre in Melbourne’s west’. I’ve never spent much time in Sunshine – it wasn’t a place people went to willingly during the ’70s and ’80s, and I haven’t lived in Melbourne since then. Spending time hanging out with my son, I have been impressed with this little area of Melbourne and can understand why he likes to live there!

DRIVING THE BRIDGE

The West Gate Bridge is a little scary to drive for people who are not used to it. With five lanes in each direction the volume of traffic it carries at any one time is impressive. When an accident occurs the traffic is often stopped across all lanes in one direction, for hours – not an incentive to use that thoroughfare, especially for impatient people with lots to do.

With Son as learner driver we were trying to get to a suburb we weren’t familiar with. Using GPS we approached the Montague Street intersection. (Everyone who listens to Melbourne radio would be familiar with this street name, regardless of whether they have seen it in real life, because it is always on t

he traffic reports with hold-ups…)

Long story short, we were in the far right lane and worked out – too late – we had to be in one of the three left lanes to get to our destination. We had one suburban block to do it … in gridlocked traffic. Son enthused, “That’s ok, I can do that!” as he switched the left indicator on. To his credit, he got across two lanes … but we were still one short, so we ended up going over the bridge. Never one to miss a teaching moment, I used it to explain about bridge-etiquette: “Don’t change lanes on a bridge – or in a tunnel, for that matter – because if there is an accident there’s no way out, and you can be stuck for HOURS.”

When we got to the other side guess what the lady in my phone asked us to do: turn around and go right back again! So that’s what we did.

We did eventually find our destination, and we had enjoyed the scenic route.

^{1 Actually it appears that Sunshine was named after the harvester company; that town (completely separate to Melbourne) was originally named Braybrook Junction. These days Sunshine and Braybrook are adjacent western suburbs, with Sunshine being more ‘recognisable’, no doubt because it’s on the trainline, whereas Braybrook is not.}

Fifty years ago Australia experienced its second-worst construction disaster. Here are my memories: my humble contribution to this story of national psyche.

The West Gate Bridge is a vital piece of infrastructure which connects Melbourne’s Central Business District to the Western suburbs. Prior to the bridge’s completion this route was slow and haphazard, due to the geography of Melbourne having water to traverse.

It seems like I’ve always known the story of the West Gate Bridge’s collapse on during its construction: it’s always been part of my understanding of the world, despite my being too young on 15 October 1970 to actually remember it.

The fiftieth anniversary of the collapse, with its accompanying interviews of survivors and media releases of the time played on the radio, brought these memories of mine to mind:

MY MEMORY:

The bridge was finished eight years after its collapse; the first cars went over it on 15 November 1978. I was in Grade Six, my last year of primary school. Our fantastic teacher, Mr Tyrell, took us on a school excursion to walk the bridge before it was opened up to traffic. Truthfully! It’s unfathomable, in contemporary times of government red-tape and legally-constrained risk management, that such a school excursion would be permitted … yet there we were, thirty ten-year-olds, walking around freely, 58 metres (190 feet) high in the sky, enjoying the view of the docks way down below, the cars like ants snaking through the streets … ‘protected from falling’ by a hip-height guard rail …

I remember taking it all in and saying to my friend, “You know how seagulls fly really high?” I waited till she nodded her affirmation, then continued, “Well, look at them way down there!” Her gasp of realisation confirmed my own cognition: This. Bridge. Is. High.

My Grade Six teacher was inspiring. However, I’m sure we were not the only school class to walk the bridge in the three months between its completion and official opening: still, a school excursion with ten-year-olds!! That would never happen today!

1978 was a different era: Melbourne was a provincial town with close-knit community and social interaction. Kids spent their days outside and were given responsibility to get themselves to and from places. My final observation is that my excursion – which we children took in our stride as something exciting and fun, yet not overly remarkable – occurred decades before the suicide-prevention fences went up.