ANG SMITH ACROSS THE STATE-LINE

Words: Ang Smith

My boss had offered me the day off. In fifteen minutes I had booked a plane ticket. Some call it spontaneity. I just call it living.

I had learned through my short list of travels, that you could feel each city just by walking the pavements. Melbourne was how my fifteen year old self had remembered it, but with the difference that I was five years on. The buildings didn’t seem so large. The noise didn’t seem so over-whelming. The city didn’t seem so far.

Melbourne is a great city. The architecture is world-class. The coffee is perfect. The food is beautiful. And the air is always fresh and crisp with the bite of a southern breeze. It is a great city and I didn’t have to put in much effort to find something inspiring. An old house. A painted alley. A lemon tree in the street.

I enjoyed time in Melbourne very much, though I was not infatuated with it, in the way that people had predicted me to become. The short time that I did spend within its concrete walls, was time spent wondering why I wasn’t feeling a connection. Time spent wondering why I didn’t care to take out my camera too much, because I didn’t feel that there was much to see.

There is only so much you can learn about a place in three days. And three days is never enough to fall out of love, and fall back in with something new. Melbourne was Mia’s city. Melbourne was Caitlin’s city. And in this way, Melbourne was not my city. Melbourne was always someone else’s city. It harbored someone else’s house. Someone else’s job. Someone else’s dreams.

The return flight was quick and I read Henry Miller on the plane. I surfed Tamarama and I sat at my favourite cafe’ in Bondi and wrote this:

Melbourne is a city I would fuck. Sydney is a city I would make love to.

*Ang Smith is from the Gold Coast and currently resides in Sydney, where she works, writes and makes love, (apparently).