The sun just coming off the morning horizon is slanting directly down the length of Adelaide’s main streets in one of those movie angles that is supposed to warn us that something prehistoric or alien will be stalking out of the brightness any second now. But no one is around. The occasional car putters past. A homey gives me a grin and a thumbs up from the front steps of a church building – it does not look like its been used for religious purposes for a long time. I round the corner and the only life across the whole intersection is a fountain gushing water. A bus rumbles past. Adelaide is supposed to be quiet but this is ridiculous. Come on, it’s a working weekday, not a weekend or public holiday.
To be fair it is the 29th of December and many businesses, if not most, will be closed. But even the pigeons are in go-slow mode. They don’t stand or fly but sit. Sit! I step over one, then another. They are too stuffed or hungover or something to even bother to move. I am intrigued and walk between another two. They cock their heads to watch but don’t shift a feather. So even the Adelaide pigeons are on holiday. I buy a coffee and sit in the street checking email and fighting the urge to do some work. The first group of people who walk past are five women who were on the flight over from Sydney. Maybe only visitors are out and about at this time. But the post office bells chime out the time and tell me it is nine o’clock. So where is everyone else?
But the languid stillness is nice. It’s taken the last year at SIMaid for me to slow down a bit and to enjoy not being in a rush or to sate the urge to be doing. Then again there is that manuscript in my bag that needs editing and the bus is still two hours away. Red pen out.
