Travelling back

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Last night I drove through the warm streets of suburban Melbourne back into a small part of a previous life.

I grew up in a place called Lower Plenty. It was a good place to live as a kid and I had great adventures. Every so often I would hop on the train with my mates and head into town to watch a movie. I remember that trip very well, repeated hundreds of times over the years, through Macleod, Rosanna, Eaglemont, Ivanhoe and so on. I remember occasions when we would hop into my Dad's car and head off, to visit my grandparents maybe, or to go to the footy in Essendon. Sitting in the car I would look out over the route slowly absorbing it, until it became second nature. Then one day I moved away and never returned and the memory faded, and even the thought of those days hardly recurred.

Last night I went to dinner at some friends living beside the railway line in Macleod. I've been before, but last night chose to go by another route. I cast my mind back and went by the roads I knew as a child, and driving again became nostalgically familiar to me. Stopped at some lights I glanced in the rear view mirror at the girl in the car behind, a battered red Japanese something, putting her make-up in the pause and on the way to some party. Then the lights changed.

I turned onto Upper Heidelberg Road before veering off onto the Lower version. I glanced around me at familiar landmarks, remembering times and conversations from the past. Passing Ivanhoe Grammar school I reflected how I very nearly went there. By now I was travelling by nose, enacting a long forgotten but seemingly preserved sense of direction. A couple of times I would pause remembering, then it would become clear to me.

I remembered those trips out of the suburb, and by extension remembered where they led to. Stopped at another set of lights I recognised the small shopping centre there and in a flash of memory remembered an occasion many years before when my grandparents - my Mum's parents - had picked me up from school with 2 weeks of holidays before me (what a joyous feeling that always was). I recalled we stopped at that very shopping centre on the way to their home, where I was to stay for a few nights. I remembered how waiting in the car I looked at the car beside us and the driver, and wondering at the days before me.

Then the lights changed again.

As it happens it was a night of nostalgia. Besides my friends I caught up with an old and dear friend I had worked with at Shell over 10 years ago, where we had all met. I walked in smiling and embraced Cheryl, 10 years my senior and a person I had always had a cheeky and familiar relationship with. It was like yesterday, and I found myself falling into the old bantering pattern teasing her as she fired back. It was a lovely night. We sat on the back decking in our shirt sleeves thinking what a good life this is, and how lucky we are really to have and to enjoy this. The sky darkened, it was warm, we laughed and talked and remembered, and then I drove back home through the dark and familiar streets.