For all of my teenage years and early twenties I lived in Queensland; North Queensland at first, in a small sugar town called Sarina, and then Brisbane. So I’ve lived in a fair few houses on stilts. You probably know them as Queenslanders, and I love them. Especially if they have a big old verandah wrapped around their curves. I have countless memories of balmy nights spent on verandahs with family and friends, in good times, and not so good. I’ve even tried to replicate the Queensland verandah at my house in Spotswood.
And there lies a curious contradiction about Queensland and those who live there. Outsiders might sneer at a perceived backwardness ‘up north’ and the occasional talk of a possible ‘Quexit’, and in many ways it is an insular state. But it’s also a place where neighbours seem more connected, and friendlier (most of the time). I guess because it’s hard to keep your privacy with everybody up so high on stilts, perched on verandahs at bird level, overlooking each other’s backyards.
One night quite recently, while sitting quietly on my father’s back verandah in Moreton Bay, I felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude for all the neighbours I could hear around me. It was a warm, still night; the birds had gone to bed but the crickets, frogs, and occasional gecko were still chattering, and all around me I could hear human festivity.
Kids laughing and splashing in a pool over to the left of me somewhere, music floating on the gentlest of breezes, adults celebrating amongst the sound of dinners being enjoyed, and, oddly enough, not a single television to be heard. I was surrounded by the sounds of life. Of people living joyously.
So I just want to thank those humans, whomever they are, for embracing friends and family and living life with delight. Thank you for letting me sink into my hammock and briefly forget about all the woes in the world; to breathe in the sweet moist tropical air, pretending, momentarily, that all is as it should be. Or once was.
Barbara Heggen
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