Outside my bedroom window, beyond the sill, is a street, which in two weeks time will no longer be mine. I have dwelled in this small apartment, with T, for two years. That is two birthdays and two Christmas’, for only one of which we had a small tree. Seasons have rolled around on the calendar opposite the toilet, which to my delight is a twelve-month series of glistening firemen holding tiny puppies. I wonder where the firemen and puppies might go in the new home, where the wall opposite the toilet is already occupied.
Outside the window, beyond the sill, I have watched the cauliflower trees on our street dress and undress, shake, dance and break. I have watched them so stark and still in Autumn I remember wondering if out the window, beyond the still, were wallpaper. Opposite our new home, out the bedroom window and beyond the sill, is a wig shop that I have always found unsettling. Barnetts wigs 1828. The man who operates the business does so at strange times and looks as though he was born in 1828. In the corner of his shop is an operating chair that I sometimes fear does, in fact, get used, as he proudly advertises that all his wigs are 100% real hair. I tell this to T, but he says we are still moving.
Approaching the 18th of February I have been deliberate in spending more time than I usually would in our apartment. I sit in places I wouldn’t usually, to gaze and consider the things or aspects I will miss most about this quant art deco apartment in Ripponlea. This morning I feel a little dissatisfied; I don’t think T and I have had sex in all the places we could have had sex. I have also, to my full knowledge, been incredibly lazy in the inviting and hosting of my friends. Two luxuries I have taken for granted because our next home is a studio apartment whose floor also happens to be the roof of my sister’s deli. There will be seldom opportunities for dinner parties and loud sex wherever I want.
When I mention to people that we will be vacating our flat they look at me in disbelief, asking, why on earth for? Those who have been over attend generous awe-filled adjectives to the space and re-visit regularly. I go on to tell them about the cheap-as-hell rent and zero utilities we will be paying monthly and they sort of, kind of, get it. But the big question that follows is, how are you going to go living above your work? And my apprehension intensifies. The truth is, I have no idea, though I do find there is something quite romantic about living about a shopfront, especially a deli. I recently read the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, by Alexander Chee. In one of his essays, he talks about the series of mundane jobs he has had, including his job at a deli while he was simultaneously writing his debut novel. I got out a pen and underlined this section; I clutch onto it when I can’t sleep at night and when I am looking around my soon-to-be-former flat, a little devastated.
Last night I lay my body down horizontal on the bed. My two lamps were lit, emitting a warm light that makes one fond. The helicopter fan above our bed was swinging to an even tempo -it went click, click, click in time with my heart. I am often transfixed by the blades spinning in this way. T rolled his eyes when a truck swung around the corner and I thought aloud for the hundredth time that I properly feel like I’m in Asia. T chooses not to engage in the fan’s cadence, preferring instead to loathe it and allow it to disrupt his sleep. Last night I felt the most in Asia I have ever felt under the fan because the overnight temperature was dropping to a warm eighteen. There were heavy falls hitting the NSW coastline in the two days we were in-between, rendering Melbournes climate humid, the air viscous.
I will miss the low hanging sealing that makes me feel cosey and content, the bright light that breaks through the trees in the living room and the full sun that blankets you when reading in the big blue chair. I will miss the old spacious kitchen and talking to T, who likes to smoke on the fire escape, while I chop the veggies. Most of all I will miss the sea breeze that cools down a hot day, the epic sunsets over the tree line from the fire escape and the route along the canal that so quickly spits you out on the bay.
T reminds me when I’m feeling extra-apprehensive that I will not miss the lack of bars and restaurants or the thirty-five-minute journey to university which has been trimmed down to a pleasant ten. He tells me I will not miss the inconvenience of getting to the north side or the sizable amount of my income that comes out of my account every month. He reminds me that change is good, great even, and so this morning I am beginning, very incrementally, to clear some stuff out.
Yellow Days 