hell or high water

Inner Brisbane, January 29, 1974. Bruce Postle/The Age

I wasn't quite sure how to start this post. It's been a while and I'm out of rhythm here. But today feels quite surreal. So I'll go with that. 

Went to work this morning after having yesterday off - sick all weekend with throat lurgie that migrated to chest. Anyway. Woke up nauseous but optimistic so K (now in lurgie-dom too) dropped me in. We'd been shocked last night to see images of the devastation in Toowoomba. Early reports were saying the floodwaters were headed for Brisbane and these would coincide with a king tide. It wasn't talked up, but K had picked up some stuff from the stupid-market and fuelled the car. At work I was whisked into a meeting straight off the bat. But after that, everything seemed to grind to a halt. It was all flood talk, people checking the news, calling family, wondering whether to leave. News reports were now saying the flooding would rival that of the mythical 1974 floods.

A colleague walked by my desk and recalled a photograph from the '74 floods of someone diving into the water from an awning at the old Festival Hall, where high rise apartments now stand in its place. 'Festival Towers' are just round the corner from my work. 

Albert Street, CBD, January 1974.
Copyright State Library of Queensland, author unknown

Our executive director came round several times telling people to leave if they needed to. I encouraged my team to leave and made sure everyone was OK to get home. Just after lunch, I left, worried that if I stayed it might be difficult to get home, which is across the river. I'd already seen photos on the ABC news site of the river encroaching on Davies Park at West End, just down the road from us. 

I was one of the last to go. It was eerie outside, the middle of the day but like peak hour with everyone heading home. Traffic was banked up. People were running. Rain fell from low grey skies - as it has for several weeks months. I wondered whether I'd get home my usual way, across the Goodwill pedestrian bridge. I always walk, even in the rain. (My pack-cover and wet shoes have become normal.) Anyway, the busway on the southside had closed at 12pm. K came to meet me, as he usually does. We walked along the river in the Botanical gardens. There's a looped boardwalk out through the mangroves there we often take on the way home. It was underwater. Surreal.

The Goodwill bridge was fine and gave us a birdseye view of the now very high and fast-flowing river. Full of debris. Gangways to floating CityCat pontoons were angled upward to meet the river, instead of their usual downwards tilt. The pontoons were at the very top of the pylons. We wondered what would happen to the pontoons as the river continued to rise beyond the pylons. I've since heard people say they've seen pontoons unloosed and flowing down the river.

At home we hovered over our computers, where K was streaming some tap to a police scanner. I thought Twitter might explode and cursed people jamming up the qldfloods hashtag. Tweets were running so fast as to be an illegible blur on TweetDeck. Anna Bligh held her first press conference at 3pm. I fell in hero-love. She was calm, in control and sympathetic. Clearly teary, even. Twitter subsequently went mad again in praise of Premier.

Tonight we helped K's brother's girlfriend and her sister move their furniture and stuff to the top floor of their townhouse. They (and their poor little spooked kitty) are staying at K's brother's place which is probably one of the highest points in Brisbane. Leaving their place it was odd to see people still sitting inside neighbouring townhouses watching TV. Everyone in their street had been warned to move cars etc to higher ground! People are strange.

So tonight we are fine but feel kind of useless. I heard that 75 percent of Queensland is underwater. Our place is safe and will continue to be so - high on the hill. Everything is damp as it has been for days and we have garbage bags over a window that doesn't shut properly. But we have water in jerry cans and non-perishable food. And internet connections, for now.

I have no idea whether I'll be able to get to work tomorrow. I suspect it's not such a good idea.

All is eerily quiet. For now.

theme of the week: cups

Had I posted this last week, it would have made a lot more sense. So. Humour me. Pleeease. And pretend you’re reading this during Melbourne Cup week…

This time last year, someone with wisdom beyond the urban bind baffled me with a Taoist parable about cups and the value of their contents. The moral being that a whiff of possibility is far more valuable than any precious stone, sweet intoxicant, nay, anything that can be held/measured by the cupful.

Upon recently re-reading this post, the story made a lot more sense. At the time I barely realised that my cup was empty. (I guess that’s the whole point though: fullness is relative.) I had no fixed address, no next calling. I'd spent more than a year being pulled along by a fluffy dream cloud on a string.

Now my cup overfloweth. With fizz and delight. (But also fair amounts of spillage, stained tablecloths, and working it out as we go etc. Ahem.)

After a long-ish stint of independent living, the house on the ‘Hill welcomed another member. K officially moved in after several months of unofficial cohabitation where we pretended to have separate abodes and he would duck home (to his beautiful motorhome bus) once or twice a week to water plants and pay rent.

So his arrival, with the rest of his worldly belongings not already at my/our place, was not the huge merge of stuff I’d expected (sort of stupidly, knowing his possessions are restricted by the confines of the bus). He came with computer, a few clothes, four indoor plants and an obligatory man-box of power tools. My long neglected spare room is morphing into The Creative Space (the one I have always dreamed of but somehow put up with a dining table instead... though it now more closely resembles a bank manager's office, with big wooden desk from The Salvos and a big-wig type reclining chair... we'll work on the ambience thing.) 


Anyway, back to cups. I came out a dollar ahead in the workplace sweeps. I’ve been scouring the local op shops for vessels of all sorts of late. Last week I picked up another old-school glass sugar dispenser.

A dollar, a sugar jar and a whole lotta love. Glass half full indeed.

4101

It’s official: I live in the best neighbourhood in the 4000s. Yes, this is a dorky ode to my new hood, because we have:

1. The best video store (think Black Books but with moving images and social skills, staffed by film students who let you keep stuff if you haven’t quite managed to watch it by the due date).

2. The best markets. I have probably raved enough. So you'd think I'd be over it after about five non-continuous years of patronage. Nup.

3. The best felafels and the competitors yet to try.

4. The best Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Greek...

5. The coolest apartment block (mine!) which has a water tank, compost bin, resident blue tongue lizard, and a rooster down the road who is not really mine to claim but makes me feel like I’m back in rural Laos every morning! And the girl upstairs who plays a sweet guitar and the boy next door who makes honey.

6. The Greeks across the way have perfected the art of sitting on the balcony watching the world go by.

7. Furniture gifts by the roadside. Hello new cane deck chairs and lounge.

8. Walking to and from work. Who needs the bus?! iPod, backpack, hotshoe over the Goodwill (pedo bridge), through the botanical gardens, along the river, look at the boats and pick one to take out for the day, shower, desk, brekky. LOVE IT!

9. Getting round on two wheels, a VERY exciting prospect. Coming soon.

10. The local thrift shop. Reverse Garbage. The Green Grocer. Mick's Nuts. The Rumpus Room, Lychee Lounge, wamble home. Neighbourhood lolly bag of the good stuff.

I am planning on moving anytime soon WHY?