Kicking at the leaves
Most disconcerting for me, however, is that I think I’ve begun to settle, and I’m not noticing things as I did when I first moved here—just the other morning it dawned on me that I hadn’t noticed the birdlife of the area for some time, and the shifts of mood synonymous with the descent from Autumn to Winter have almost gone unnoticed for me. The large oak trees that line a number of streets near where I live were raining acorns when I arrived, in many cases they blanketed the ground. Now, most of the autumn colours have faded to the stark bleakness of winter, and even the oaks and elms of the city have begun to drop their leaves in large volumes.
The elms of Glebe Park have made the mornings quite intriguing over the past fortnight in particular, with an equal balance of yellowed leaves on the ground and in the canopy setting off a surreal, diffused yellow light throughout the park. Fortunately I noticed it in time and fired off some shots last weekend.
As you can see, life here is very exciting. It has made me acutely aware of how restless I have become in recent years, and I wonder if, once I begin travelling, I will be able to settle again. A month is about the limit for me before I get bored with a place, and I think to some extent, that restlessness has stemmed from the fact I have averaged a change in accommodation every 10 months or so for the past six years.
To hold to the average, my housemate has decided to move out, just three months after I arrived (I repel them a lot faster these days), and as virtually all the furniture in the house is his (including white goods), I now find myself once again having to weigh up my choices of either staying put in a house that is next to empty and trying to replace the departing housemate and their furniture (possibly the other one as well, when he comes back in a few weeks); or trying to find accommodation elsewhere. Until I get an actual departure date from the confirmed departee, it makes it difficult to try and recruit a replacement or know what can be done on the staying put front, but at least I can start looking for alternate accommodation.
My hope is that an extended period of constantly travelling will flush the restlessness from my system, and on my return, I’ll be able to be like the autumn leaves, and settle where ever the wind drops me.