the love affair is over-part two

Just as I wrestle with my feelings about Sydney, so too do others, such as Dave and Dave's friends (who I am enamoured of, in a kind of admiring way). I've been put off by the superficials: long trips commuting when I am visiting on weekends. My inability to find any trace of my presence still there, five years after being a resident. How anonymous you can feel, how tiny. The glorious nature of the harbour, and the grief of getting caught up in the suburbs without a view. Being broke, trying to pursue hedonistic pleasures. How just as you are ready to hate it, something as simple as a swim in the sea baths turns the tide of infatuation.

But I think I'm forgetting or ignoring the bigger story of a city, it's politics, how it is home to big business, corporate dreams, corruption and suspicion. Political tensions during the 1930s in Sydney are worth revisiting to make a comparison with current times. I've witnessed punch ups in a suburban bowling club and crimes against food in their bain marie. I think I love the myth more than the reality. My memories of summer scents, flowers squashed on Glebe streets, late night wine sessions in Newtown restaurants and sea spray at Bronte baths can be polished and kept away somewhere else.

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