I showed up at the supermarket checkout at closing time with a tub of ice cream. She said, “How are we this evening,” and I said, “Well, I can’t speak for you, but I’m fine!” I gave her such a big smile she took a blink and stepped backwards. But she was game, we’re human, they could put big windows up high in those places to let the trapped staff gaze out. Rewards card? Nope. Bag? I opened my little folding one with a whoosh. “I’m in the supermarket, in my pyjamas, buying ice cream,” I rejoiced. “This is a beautiful night in my life.” She laughed. She folded up my receipt over and over into a very neat square then pushed it inside the bag. We wished each other a great evening. All the way home I was peering up through the windscreen following the shrouded moon. Brisbane, you have so very many trees. So many friendly young women who are competent and under employed. So many tubs of fine ice cream.
Tag: joy
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supermerch
In the supermarket I queued for the African check out dude who’s always calm in the midst of all the Germanness. A blonde woman behind me set down, emphatically, a bagful of fresh pak choy and then behind it, all in a heap, several packets of cream-filled biscuits, a jar of chocolate pudding, some plump filled fresh pasta and a tray of chocolates. I said, indicating the leafy greens, “This seems cute to me. Because one buys that – one gets to buy all of this.”
She burst out laughing. “Stimmt.” True. I looked at my own pile and felt concerned its greenery might seem chiding. “I’m the same,” I said, showing her the huge bag of green grapes. “These are really a sweet treat but they look like vegetables.”
“Very wise,” she said, still laughing, “it’s perfectly balanced.” We were chortling. The man at the register bade good evening to the person in front and picked up my Toblerone, the excuse for all the grapes. “Guten Abend,” he said, and I said, “Guten Abend.” Every sly glance sideways between me and the blonde girl started us both spluttering mirthfully. I stashed the grapes in my thousand-use bag and took the bar of chocolate from his brown hand, saying, “Beautiful Celebration-Evening!” which is how Germans tell each other, I am glad for your sake it’s nearly knocking-off time. Heading out to my bike parked under the trees I was thinking for the hundredth time that some poet among Germans has decided the wooden divider separating my groceries from hers shall be called a cashier’s Toblerone: Kassentoblerone.
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a homemade flower festival
A woman in my neighbourhood has put up little signs all round the flower gardens in our local park. Her signs are handwritten, but laminated.
“INVITATION TO THE FLOWER FESTIVAL, JUNE 16. Yeah maybe ‘festival’ is somewhat high flown. But I will bake a cake and hand a slice of it to everyone who feels themselves somehow connected to these plants and who wants to come by. There have been so many lovely engagements and so much enabling mutual assistance taking place locally, I would really love to offer my friends an impression of it all. And in case we haven’t yet met, then this will provide us an opportunity.”
She writes a smily face, in her own handwriting.
“It would be practical, if youse (the informal German you) would bring something to sit on and some stuff that goes with cake eating and coffee drinking. I’ll be glad if you come along!”
Flowerbeds in Berlin are always overgrown, because the city is broke and there’s no money to pay people in fluorescent vests to destroy our every Sunday with leafblowers. Nearby, even more overgrown and underkempt, a tiny meadow has evolved where consistent and assiduous neglect year after year has allowed all the native flowers and butterflies to come back.
On the main road, when I reach it, a man with a ZZ Top beard has settled himself and his paunch next to my favourite seat outside the writing cafe. He turns the pages of his newspaper with noisy harrumphs. We exchange a few words. “I’m going inside to order,” I tell him, as Berliners do, “are you here a few more minutes?”
The informal ‘you.’
“Then would you mind keeping an eye on my stuff?”
“Either that,” he says, “or I’ll be gone, with your little red rucksack,” and he laughs, and I laugh, as I’m heading inside where it is shady and the bartender on his stool is reading Camus, in French.
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everything in sequins
Yesterday I was reading the paper over coffee in a huge, bleak market hall in Berlin. The place has all the atmosphere of an airplane hangar, it was raining hard outside and had turned bitterly cold. I was reading about the coward shooter in Vegas and had screwed up my mouth. He shot from behind the curtains. He had no courage and no manhood. Next to me two people browsed on their phones, one of them breastfeeding a baby. All of a sudden a familiar hoot rent the air. The guy flipping pancakes at the next stall was singing along, joyous and loud, to the Rolling Stones riff everybody recognised, the oooh hoo hoodoo hoodoo hoo from ‘Miss You.’ I looked up, people looked up. It was as though John Travolta had come strolling in, jive talking, with his panther grace and his hands in his pockets and leaving a trail of tiny sequins.
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we want our country back
Most joyous demo/march I’ve ever been involved in. There was a sense of colourful exultation, a kind of rejoicing, a feeling of laughing at each others’ placards and of coming together to ridicule the ridiculous. So many intelligent, open facial expressions, so many cool handmade signs. Someone had made extra signs, proper ones on poles, and left them leaning on the corner of the old Treasury building for people to pick up: one of those said: YOU WORK FOR US. There was HOW DARE YOU, ABBOTT, HANDS OFF OUR WORLD HERITAGE. There was a family of three solemnly crossing the road every time the traffic stopped, holding high their placards so the waiting drivers could read them. Before the march, joyous reefs of cheers rose up during the distant speeches. The square was teeming and people stood thickly on the sidewalks on all sides, holding their signs. When we set off, an upper storey of more drunken Australians leaned over from the balcony of the Irish pub, cheering and clapping and unfurling huge flags. My friend dropped out to get a bit of shade and when we ran into each other again, she was exultant: there were people going past me for ten minutes!
I fell back, attracted by the band. They had struck up a spurling tumultuous din and I boogied and jittered my way down shady Adelaide Street and back into the sun. I’ve never seen so many people lining the route of a march holding up their own signs: LET THEM LAND, LET THEM STAY, and HANDS OFF OUR COUNTRY. A guy up a tree rattled his sign and whistled and waved. A man propped against a light post held: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CARING, SHARING AUSTRALIA? I ARRIVED AS A REFUGEE 26 YEARS BACK.
Everywhere evidence of people’s sincerity and generosity. Four girls in front of us had on boat hats folded from newspaper. A bikie with a creamy white beard stood in front of his motorbike on his head and his big boots did the splits up in the air – his friends either side held up placards and everybody hooted and hollered. An eight year old boy had made his own fiercely vehement, illegibly penciled sign on a folded piece of paper studded with exclamation points and was wearing it paperclipped to his visor.
Now, I hate marches. I’m shy and I don’t enjoy crowds. I find it mildly traumatic to be around mobs of angry people, even when I agree with them. But this was delicious from start to end. We rounded the corner back into the shade, there were colourful people filling the street as far forward and as far back as I could see. A man marched on crutches. A plump guy held a gigantic placard saying YOU KNOW THINGS ARE BAD WHEN EVEN I GET OFF THE COUCH. The feeling that ran through the whole gathering, for me, was that reasonable, kind, humane, open, curious-minded people have mobilized and sat up and said, man, this is an outrage, we’re putting a stop to it. Before all the dancing I was marching in hot aching tears: for my country, beloved and troubled occupation that has yet to face its own history. For the goodness and generosity in our hearts. For the inexplicable bold kind tyranny that fearless truth-telling and balanced perspective have over shady dealings, and dire manipulations, and all the kinds of politics that sink us into the stupidest and most destructive, dangerous kind of animal.
“If this was in Germany,” my companion pointed out, “the entire route would be thickly lined with riot police in riot gear.” Instead, our friend told him, the Queensland police have been really supportive of this gathering. I could feel joy and celebration in the air and I felt we were all on the same page, same rambunctious rampage. A bewilderness of thrumming democracy, an entire array of people, a luscious diversity, a beautiful thing.