Twelve months ago I said I’d never move back to Sydney.  I loved Copa too much; Sydney could never be as leafy and peaceful and uncrowded.  But twelve months ago I still thought my commute to work could be managed with books and my Sunday night Safran, First Tuesday book club, and SlowTV podcasts.  They helped, but the days were still long.

Getting home after 8pm most nights is hard because we’re spending our nights getting home.  Not doing overtime at work to advance our careers, not catching up with friends at the pub, and not going to the monthly Monday night book club at the bar up the road.  A few months ago I knew I couldn’t keep it up for much longer, but Eddie who says he likes the commute, broke during lunch at Cheung Sing, our favourite Chinese restaurant when we were living in Sydney, last weekend.

We were in Sydney to pick up some lithographs for Eddie’s brother-in-law, C.  C’s best friend’s mother E, who is 91 now, crossed the road on her way home from the shops a few weeks ago and found that she couldn’t mount the kerb outside her house.  She sat down and eventually her neighbour across the road saw her sitting there and phoned her next-door neighbour and they both came out to help her up the kerb and into her house. Soon after, E phoned her daughter-in-law and told her she would accept her offer of a bedroom overlooking the swimming pool at her home in Queensland, if she could bring her cat Bella with her.

Since then, E must have spoken to C to tell him she was moving and offered him some of her late son’s lithographs.  C  lives in WA, so we offered to pick them up for him.  As instructed, we called E before leaving the Central Coast for Sydney.  The phone was busy.  We tried a few more times on our way down, but the phone was still busy.  Eventually we arrived in E’s suburb and stopped at a florist to pick up a bunch of flowers to take with us.

E was initially suspicious of our intentions as we stood on her doorstep, but we assured her that we’d tried to call her before visiting and C was our brother-in-law and his wife R was Eddie’s sister and in fact we’d met E about ten years ago and that’s why Eddie looked familiar to her.  E said “Oh C, he was my son’s best friend” and that she’d had her phone disconnected because she was moving and a few minutes later we were sitting in her living room.  E told us she’d changed her mind about giving C the lithographs and that she was having problems remembering what she’d done yesterday but could remember her childhood vividly.

One of the things I’m really looking forward to about getting old is remembering my childhood more vividly.  In my early 20s I thought I’d remember everything in as sharp detail as I remembered it then.  But, now that I’m 40 even things that happened five years ago have a hazy look to them unless I wrote them down.  So, I pounced on the poor lady and asked whether or not she liked being able to remember all those things.  So, she told us about her childhood in Exeter, and about how happy it was, and what beautiful people her parents were, especially her father.

I really wanted to ask her if she thought she remembered now  things that she hadn’t remembered even in her 20s, or if they were old memories come back to her. But she’s 91 and fragile and it didn’t seem a fair question when she was plainly enjoying reminiscing for us, and we were enjoying her stories.  But it’s something I’d still like to know.  What sort of memories we’re supposed to get or get back in our old age.  I know I’d love to recall a memory of an uncle who let rats loose on the street on Sundays just to upset the neighbours, as E did.

After we visited E, we went to Cheung Sing in Maroubra with my best friend L and her husband K and their two beautiful children.  The adults got to pick a dish each.  L ordered BBQ pork, Eddie Shan Dong chicken, me salt and pepper tofu, Karl beans and minced pork, and at K’s suggestion we got half a roast duck for the table.  There’s something almost peaceful about eating good food, especially when it’s your favourite food.  We caught up on what we’d all been up to,  Eddie and I living a life with children vicariously through L&K and L&K living a life without children vicariously through us.  Eventually, we had to pay our bill and say our goodbyes.

On our way home in the car Eddie said “Cheung Sing was good.  I could eat Shan Dong chicken, salt and pepper beancurd, and beans again tonight.  Actually, I could eat it every night.”  I said “Yeah, it was really good wasn’t it.  It’s a pity we can’t find a place like that on the Central Coast.”  And Eddie said “We may have to move back to Maroubra.”

Of course, I laughed uproariously.  But, I didn’t underestimate the seriousness behind the statement.  I said “Well, I should tell you I don’t think I can keep commuting for another few years.  And I know I won’t get a job on the Central Coast that’s even near as good as the one I have now.  I love where we live, but I’d still consider moving back to Sydney.”

And so we are.  By the end of this year or the beginning of next, we’ll be back in Sydney. Maybe Maroubra.  I feel relieved, though sad.  I will miss our eucalyptus tree, and the little veggie garden I’ve just started, and the ferns out the back, and the birds.  But, we haven’t moved yet.  And I never believe anything is really going to happen until it does.