Twice-a-day swim at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney
My winter-softened toes gasp at my enthusiasms — blisters festooned with band-aids, layered one over the other, sandals rotated to provide new pressure points. I’ve washed the grime of a 30-hour day’s travel from my skin in an overlong shower, blown my hair dry and “put on my face” as my mother would say.
I’ve tramped up the hill through Darlinghurst to Elizabeth Street to a favorite boutique, and then across and down through the Cross to my favorite Potts Point Bookshop and found a new Nicholas Rothwell to read. Just up Macleay Street, at the Potts Point Deli, I loaded lovely buttery Sicilian olives and marinated artichoke hearts, a short baguette and a soft Kings Island Blue into my carry bag.
I gasped at the price of tulips ($35 a bunch!) and retreated to my favorite Bloomy’s flower shop on Bayswater for some equally pricy hyacinths from Tasmania and with the owners, Janet and Nelson, had a chat about global warming as their clever fingers made wedding arrangements with mandarine-colored tiger lilies and sage lambs ears — textures and colors alive in celebration.
And now I’m back in Darlinghurst, full circle, on my daughter’s terrace under cover from the warm rain, my skin soaking up the air thick with moisture, cheese on baguette, a pile of pits the only remnants left from archies and olives, dozing over Rothwell. Tomorrow, we’ll walk some more — down to Rushcutters Bay and back again.
Content, at peace. I’m back in Oz, my home under the heart.
