The Walk

For my dear buba mara in Belgrade who always tells me to walk, you must walk. And for my friends who will never see my streets here and know me only as the Upper NYC Broadway girl. As I write this, take you on my tour, I hold in my heart all that is happening to our human selves on other streets on this day.

Before we start, here is a visit to CERES, an environmentally friendly, organic, hippy like center that is filled with free roaming chickens, home made bread, large vegetables lovingly grown, old clothes and young families buying their weekly supply of healthy food. Here we are only a few k from the city center and there is room to play in the dirt. I always feel a little sad here, as if I am too old for such innocence. I know though I am in Melbourne for sure when we spend a morning here trying not to look too middle class.

My walk this morning goes along the tram tracks, past the green of the municipal golf course heading towards the Royal Zoo. The sky opens up here and I walk with a longer stride. 

Thwat goes the club and I keep my eyes open for a wayward ball but never have I seen one. Parrots I see in the elegant gums and wattle birds and Willie Wag Tails, perky blue white birds with stiff tails that never stop wagging. Nothing fancy on this walk--but the big sky with the city in the distance and the ever present railroad crossings. We live between two of these 19th century dividing transport lines and thus know of barricades.

Cello does not accompany me on this walk--he finds the thawck of the balls, the clamor of the trams a bit too much for his lower to the ground perspective. I walk and think and think, I pass an old woman with her head covered and her shoes worn foraging for wild grasses along the train tracks. I pass a sign

about a loss.  Somewhere out there in this green sward before the rush of city streets is Splotch and I hope nightfall finds him safe. Those of you who know me from my Broadway walks, down past Murray's and the City Diner, down past Barnes and Nobles and Zabar's will understand how sometimes I just stop and wonder where I am, a little like Splotch perhaps. I have much to think of these days and where I walk seems of less importance, I live in the acres of my thoughts, wondering how I will manage the journey ahead.

Just to reassure you there is a city at the end of my walk. Lonsdale Street with a passing tram, a little street art in the center and rain slicking the streets. From my bedroom in our house I can hear the trams bringing people home for work and I am comforted by that urban sound of transport, of our movable human dreams moving through the night.