An Australian in Connecticut

Imagine you are in a place nearly 10,000 miles from where you grew up. And you are surrounded by teenage girls a whole thirteen years younger than you. When you were their age they were babies, some not yet even born. When you wake up in the morning you don’t hear the raucous call of kookaburras, magpies or cockatoos. You hear woodpeckers and the pretty chirps of birds unrecognisable. The girls eat cheerios and eggs and bacon for breakfast. The tea is “er-bal”. They eat fries instead of chips, and drown them in ketchup not tomato sauce. Nearly everything they eat contains high fructose corn syrup. They wear tank tops not singlets. Thongs are considered inappropriate day wear. When it’s “cold out” they wear sweaters, not jumpers. They giggle at your accent and wonder why you call trash “rubbish” and cell phones “mobiles.” But across time and space, you find yourself sitting on a picnic bench on a porch. And together you are writing stories. And you all love to write, and create things, and play music, and dance, and sit under a bright blue sky with trees sparkling in sunlight. And one night you have a slumber party. And you listen to the rustle of chip packets, and smile at their giggling, and look at the world anew again because you remember what it was like to be them, even if you have grown up world's apart. And it fills your heart with light to know these girls and to share a piece of summer with them.