Being a tourist in everyday life

Alistair and I spent Christmas in Sydney, a city which was home to both of us for many years, before we met.

There’s something special about being a tourist in a place which is familiar: you know your way around, you remember what’s good and where it is; at the same time, everything sparkles with unfamiliarity. All the things which were once commonplace suddenly seem quite special: sitting in a cafe choosing between several different chai teas, dressing up to go to the theatre, lighting a fire on a chilly night, street art, buskers, jacaranda trees, teenagers playing music on a bus, an old lady (who was once young) shaking her head and tutting; the strange crowd at the beach on a Sunday, all the different breeds of dog, the feeling of cold water on hot skin.

Sydney harbour is sooo blue. There is evidence that human beings only developed the capacity for seeing blue in the last couple of thousand years. There is no mention of blue in the Old Testament; Homer, who sent armies across the bluest of all seas, the Aegean, called it “the wine-coloured sea.”

I used to catch ferries to work every morning. This time I did it just for fun.

Our society tends to look down on awe. We consider it the domain of children and the infirm. We think it much better to barge through life with a hard beak and skepticism and eyes blinkered to only see the future.

Awe has a wonderful way of lifting us out of our tunnel vision, and showing us that life’s really not as serious as we sometimes take it to be.

Alistair and I spent Christmas night sitting by the waterside with cups of tea, watching the city lights on the water, listening to the music and the parties and the people phoning their relatives overseas. It was very nice.

Now we’re back in mission beach, where everything is so green you can feel it dribbling down your chin, and our cat sleeps between us at night, and rain showers wash in over the ocean, and the mangoes are the size of my head. Everything is beautiful if I take the time to look at it. I hope to spend a little time being a tourist every day.