I’ve got a heavy head cold, and so went out before to get some medication to help me through the day. It was just after 9, after the peak hour commuter rush, the streets then quieter, more pedestrian. The cold was biting without being chilly, and the sun bright in the blue winter sky. I crossed over Elizabeth Street, looking both ways. To the right were some trams stopped at the terminal, the end of the line, like a couple of behemoths at rest. To the left Elizabeth Street stretched into the distance, clear of traffic to Bourke. As I ambled across the road the thought occurred to me how most cities of reasonable size don’t differ too much. The city seemed to be taking a breath after the early rush, a stretch and a yawn as it properly woke to the day. Melbourne I know like the back of my hand, but there was something familiar in that feeling that reminded me of other places far away.
Often when you’re travelling you’re up early to make best use of the day ahead. I am anyway. Often times the day is fresh early on, the streets begin to fill and the day unfold, another in a long series, and all around, in all the little things that seem novel to the traveller, the stalls being set-up, odd newspapers being sold on odd but familiar street corners, and people who look different going about things that might happen at home – hustling to work, waving down the bus, and so on – happening again and again, here in another place from home, novel but familiar. The city comes to life.
In many places early morning is the calm before the storm. I remember in Delhi being up early and watching the cycle rickshaw drivers, skinny as a pipe cleaner, clamber out the back of the rickshaw they had slept in, and stretch in the early daylight, before washing themselves from a bucket of water. Soon enough they would be in the thick of it, like no other place. Or Paris, the street cafes facing out onto the road, the café au laits and the quick croissant on the way to work, the Eiffel Tower sticking out over yonder like in a postcard. Funnily enough as I crossed the road to the chemist Izmir popped into my head. Of all places Izmir. I spent one morning in Izmir I think, in transit to somewhere else, and remember the cool weather and the slightly ratty streets near my hotel, and the odd little sights like I wouldn’t imagine seeing at home. But something familiar too, like it is everywhere I think because it is a human rather than cultural behaviour.
Strange the things you think about on the way to buy some Codral.
