Standing at the gate of the old workers cottage, I check the address only to step inside and check it again. It seems too quiet for a birthday gathering. Halfway down the hallway, I register the tones of familiar voices and become aware of the feeling of blood moving around my body. The hallway gives way to a bright living room, which I struggle to make out due to the sun streaming in. People greet me with energy and warmth, which I mirror. It quickly becomes clear I have forgotten how to socialise with all my vocabulary available to me. When living in a foreign country, you are reduced to certain verbs and phrases, and so much gesticulation. I decline alcohol and accept the strong coffee. It takes a good hour for my words not to wobble in my mouth and when they come out, I want to suck them back in. I take in the disposition of the brunch table: all the old and familiar faces have gathered here today in a backyard of the city’s inner north. I find the faces are both the same and not at all the same as before I went away. Some are gaunt and tired, while others appear wider and enlightened. Most are in the depths of new love or navigating the workforce for the first time. It occurs to me that I am the only one still studying.
At 4pm, I walk four hundred meters to the next birthday where The Man has messaged me to say he has just arrived. His friends are mostly married, promoted, preparing for children, and own, among so many other things, the houses they live in. I feel as though I am crossing a threshold as I move from one party to the next. But if a threshold indicates a value above which something is true and will occur and below which is untrue and will not, I do not know which direction I have moved. The offering is endless, and every second person I speak with works in an industry that prerequisites genius. The awareness of the blood moving around my body has disappeared – a product of the fizzy wine and warm day. Instead, I feel acutely aware of my age, non-existent salary, and my entire life relative to theirs – unreal and inaccessible, no matter how hard I try to penetrate it. Yet, next to this inadequacy, there’s a tinge of relief in not yet being there. I hear murmurs of holidays, cars, renovations, and babies just beginning to grow, and I genuinely consider whether I ever want to be there, acquiescing to what feels like a false premise of success. When Mum calls to ask how everyone was, I shrug as if she can see me: Avocados, Doc Martens, and Coopers Greens are still all the rage, I say.
Harriet and Sophie are outside occupying the smoking section when I arrive. I approach the bar, unable to discern if I desire a wine or a beer and sample three kinds of each only to order a gin and tonic. This indecision has been salient since I stepped off the plane – along with sleeping less and smoking more. I slide into a chair next to Sophie, opposite Harriet, and see the next months – how many I do not know – spelled out to me. I am excited, I think, to live with them. I see it as a process, a test, of unravelling all the parts of myself I am so adamant about controlling. I recognise it is a part of life, a natural progression, I have been actively trying to skip. Harriet is the picture of stress, anxiety, and fatigue this afternoon. She drinks her pint quickly, sucking cigarette after cigarette, and I find myself admiring how unapologetic she is in naming her burdens and her insecurities. There is something so attractive about this level of exposure, I think, and I make a note of this impression in the hope I might one day let go of my own pride. After a second gin and tonic, I feel something move through me I was worried might never arrive: a feeling that I cannot wait to live with these women, even if the cat is mad and has caused Harriet to bleed several times this week.
Moving between work locations today, I lose reception in an affluent suburb. My music simply ceases playing and so I drive in silence, looking at the enormous houses fronted by tall fences and spacious mailboxes. Many of these addresses, I recognise, likely belong to the miserable clients I speak with on the phone during the week. Though it’s mostly gardeners and delivery drivers who populate these streets today. I detour via the main street to collect a clothes rack, which a business, closing down, advertised on Marketplace for free. I slide into a park opposite a chopped salad bar, between a Mercedes Benz and a Tesla, slowly so as not to make contact. The driver of the car behind me, another Tesla, uses their horn towards me for the longest duration I’ve ever heard, and I forgo the park. The husband of the shop owner is manning the empty store, and I consider if this is because his wife is too ashamed to be here giving away the racks she once used to hang clothes she could not sell. He apologises because he forgot the tool to take the clothes racks apart, so I put my name down for two, irritated I will have to return to this suburb, and this strip of shops. All day, I walk around hearing the horn, wondering what I did wrong.
On March 12th, it becomes apparent that I am already behind on my thesis relative to my cohort. I declare a self-imposed ban on novels, essays, and poems until my honour’s degree is complete. Podcasts are my only indulgence, allowed while walking or performing non-study tasks exclusively. This decision, born from the realisation that later can no longer be postponed, that it must be now if I want to succeed and move, as my supervisor likes to say, through the tight bottleneck from honours to masters. You are limiting your chances if you are not prepared to move interstate, they advise. So, for a short time there will be no more novels. No more light.
Though it isn’t so easy. I realise I cannot just shut myself off from the world or decide to change the way I see it. It’s like an unfinished connect-the-dots drawing I am unable to abandon. Leslie Jamison refers to these dots as instances of concentrated living. Didion refers to them as shimmers: I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer around the edges, Didion wrote in her 1976 essay Why I Write as she reflects on her curiosity about a woman wandering through the Riviera casino at 1 a.m. to take a call at the concierge desk.
For me, these dots appear in spaces as nondescript as the number three tram bound for the city, where my university stands. I slide into a seat far from the doorway and open my 49-page reading on Mental State Examinations, a comprehensive manual on reading people. At St Kilda Junction, an elderly man in shorts and mismatched socks boards, hesitates, and sits beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him pull out a lined notebook, a calculator, and an iPad displaying the stock exchange. He places tiny orders, one after another, prompting a familiar reflection, which is that I secretly check my own stocks daily, and my WordPress reader every other day – both of which barely move. This compulsion feels like a way to control the disorder of life, to stay prepared, though for what, I’m unsure. If my stocks lost all value tomorrow, I wouldn’t know why; I bought them on a whim after my ex boyfriend’s dad suggested it. So, I check, but I don’t understand. As the tram reaches Flinders Street, I realise my reading is now under my arm, untouched, while I’ve been typing this. I step off and chide myself for failing to prepare for class yet again while I wait for someone to make me a coffee.
In my pursuit to stop pulling together sentences and scenes, I remind myself writers make no money, not even the ones I like. Then I think of the image of The Man last night with his belly on the carpet, his legs kicking into his bum, his elbows supported his torso while he moved through several of his favourite art books. A handful of times, he has conceded to me that he wishes he went down a more creative path and still envisions this will be a part of his future, though he cannot nominate how. Perhaps because his reality it too disparate: right now, he is sitting high in the sky, getting paid six figures to compose slides to pitch to banks to explain to them how they can make more money. When I ask him what it is like up there, he says you cannot hear the birds, and rarely does he make the descent to ground level because they provide snacks to keep them there. These snacks, of fancy granola bars, kombucha, popcorn and coconut water, have gradually filled my fridge and pantry. At first, I welcomed the free snacks, though now when I open my cupboards, I only think of him high in the sky, spine jutted, while he types away in his gold-plaited handcuffs. It is not uncommon for people take Tamazapam to fall asleep and caffeine pills to wake up, I remember being told by his friend at the birthday party in January who had worked there for years.
The share house life is precisely what I’d imagined it to be. I buy bed socks and flannelettes to get through the winter, researching the effectiveness of weighted blankets because still I wrestle with sleep. I observe my breath when I am reading in bed at night and am reminded on my teenage years in the privacy of the bungalow at the back of my family home. When The Man stays over, I am reminded of what it feels like to be warm. Though still, we wake to foggy windows, which I recall my dad telling my mum is a sign of very poor ventilation. I become accustomed to the neighbours’ constant bickering, and the husband’s extremely loud expectorating every morning. Is this what we are destined for: a mortgage and a disgusting husband? Sophie, Harriet and I like to declare aloud. One Wednesday, I agree to meet the real estate agent for an inspection, though Harriet and Sophie caution they have missed the last four. For no longer than five minutes, I watch the real estate agent’s high heels click across the floor, her pant skirt swaying as she pretends to scrutinise our house, which I do not yet call my home. The agent makes me think of Daisy, who recently admitted she wanted to leave midwifery for real estate after years of study and practice when she learned the peak of her salary. At first, I contested this, pronouncing it self-betrayal. But then I thought: who am I to judge? It’s not Daisy’s fault our society chooses to celebrate and reward the wrong people.
The Man phones twice, which is uncharacteristic in the middle of a weekday, so I pick up. His cousin is desperately searching for someone to house and dog sit. My immediate thought is no, until I realise I have no other responsibilities other than to study. The house is nice, newly renovated in Northcote, and it will be a luxurious break from your share house, he says. Plus, they’ll pay you, but you’ll need to be there tomorrow, he says. Ok, I say, ruminating on what he thinks of my share house. When he was my age, he had already owned his home for several years. This fact always floats on my periphery but in moments like these it comes to the forefront of my mind. I push it back by reminding myself that passing this threshold has not arrived him anywhere meaningful. I move through the rest of the workday reconfiguring the week I had envisioned in my mind. I’d always wondered how people acquired paid housesitting jobs. They have always sounded to me like such an ideal but inaccessible phenomenon. But now here I was, becoming this person. It isn’t until the morning after my first night in the Northcote family home that I understand my fascination with housesitting isn’t about the money but the intimate glimpse into someone else’s life—and the reprieve from my own. There’s something soothing about being in another person’s space, offering something tangible to observe without reflecting my own interior back at me. Here, there’s nothing to fix, question, or improve – it simply exists.
The Northcote home lends me novel proximity to certain friends. I meet Jack at a bakery where The Man once worked during a phase of deliberating whether to rejoin the rat race. As I type a message The Man, asking about the quality of the kimchi and cheddar croissant at the bakery, I consider if he was happier then or now, though his fatal optimism makes it impossible to tell. Jack looks half-awake, his bloodshot eyes scanning the counter before ordering a cinnamon scroll and a milky coffee without hesitation. I ask for a black coffee and a kimchi and cheddar pastry, briefly wondering what our choices reveal about us and what the cashier might infer – just as I silently note his green nail polish, groomed mullet, and tank top.
Jack asks how I’ve been, and I tell him life feels easy right now: I’m limited to 16 work hours per fortnight on student support payments, with paid housesitting on top. It feels indulgent, like I should be hustling more like The Man, my housemates and what seems like everyone else. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Jack says: I thought I’d get $4,000 back on my tax return yesterday but turns out I owe money instead. He explains how his accountant rattled off reasons – Medicare, HECS debts – before ending with a sardonic welcome to adulthood. He says he called Daisy straight away, who’d just had the same experience but owes less because of her smaller salary. Finally, Jack tells me he phoned his mum to rant about the futility of working if it all gets taken away anyway. Midway through Jack’s speech, a message pings from The Man: It’s ok, a bit wet, he replies about the croissant. Another from him follows moments later: Start your journey towards financial independence today. Sign up to Pearler using my referral link and we both get free investment credits.
The Northcote address receives so much mail, and I wonder if this is what adulthood is. The concrete floors are heated, as are the towel racks, all set on a timed cycle to provide bursts of heat when you need it most. Their pantry is so well-stocked I can cook delicious meals without stepping outside. They have their own honey from their bees, and passata they squeezed with their own hands. There are chopping boards, baskets, jars, pillows, and handmade bowls and plates perfect for entertaining. I wonder if this family is content with all they have, or if they feel there’s more to acquire, that they haven’t yet arrived. At the beginning of each study day, I must repeat a motivational mantra in order to sit down. The Northcote home helps fuel this motivation, and I realise much of what we desire comes from observing what others value. Wrestling with my hardest subject, Advanced Research Methods and Statistics, it occurs to me that I’m striving to acquire skills that promise success, and with it, I reason, the social advantages and respect that naturally follows. But no one tells you that even as you achieve these things, the stability of success is fragile – like glass cubes striking rocks – worn down by entropy. The culture, fundamentally capitalist, determines that the family is not content. The culture ensures that our aspirations are constantly shifting; expectations evolve, and culture flows like an endless tide, pulling us toward an uncertain horizon. Where is all this effort leading? What will life look like in two decades, I wonder, when we think we’ve ‘arrived’?
On my last night, Daisy and Harriet come over for creamy pate, salty olives, and a prawn tagliatelle. It is luxurious to host this food in this space, though I also resent how much I enjoy it. Harriet and Daisy scrutinise the house aloud, declaring their satisfaction or disapproval of each item, each decision in the same way I did when I arrived. Where are they anyway, they ask. Europe, I think. What do they do, they ask. I don’t know, I say, but The Man says they are extremely busy. I can see the same moment of realisation wash over each of our faces: a recognition that this is what it takes. Meanwhile, Harriet is upset and anxious her boyfriend doesn’t want to buy a house with her, while Daisy says she has finally accepted she will not meet her dream, which is to have a baby by the age of thirty. I say nothing. I only listen and chop the garlic, then the parsley, followed by the prawns on a different, smaller chopping board, composing sentences out of their monologues for my next blog. Because I can’t help myself.
One month later, at morning time, the house empties. The Man exits first as is typical of his workplace, then Harriet and Billy shortly after, followed by Sophie who skips peak hour with her 10am – 6 pm shifts at the gallery. I sit up with a coffee to finish transferring yesterday’s lecture slide to a word document. I do this in a hurry, not pausing to re-read and really learn them like I said I would. As I copy-paste, copy-paste, edit-text, edit-text, my mind wanders to other, more important things. Like the trot of the blue staffy on this sand last night; the smell of fruit-toast hanging in the room; the morning light slicing through the blinds; the drip of the tap – heavy and unwavering; my toes in my slippers and my container of roast chicken in the fridge that I will later heat up and swallow when this day has been and gone. I have since given up on trying to stop the shimmers, and connect the dots. The Cato Institute is right: prohibition does not work. I flick back a few pages in my journal, re-reading, for the first time, the entries I made during my two weeks in Northcote:
I strip the bed and find the duvet cover does not have buttons or a zip but is pulled together by little bows. I imagine the person who made this bed for me two Friday’s ago right before they climbed into the car to drive to the airport. I wonder how traditional the gender roles are in this house – whether it was him or her that tied these bows? I attempt to imagine both and am not surprised when the image of him cannot form. When I remove the top sheet, I am humbled by their blemished stain protector. At the end of the day, they are big basic mammals too – even with all this stuff.
Yellow Days 