Sam and Ali arrived at my apartment, and to avoid encroaching on my flatmate Nick's routine news time, we filed upstairs and into my room, each taking up a slice of my queen bed to watch the DVD Sam had brought around, 'Sex in The City'. After watching the movie we all chatted, and as our stories unfolded Ali and I found ourselves with some newly paved common ground, with a chasm of freshly made room in our lives, and from that night on we were inseparable.
I don't remember ever planning to see Ali, but we saw each other almost every day in late 2008, early 2009. And even though nothing more than 24 hours separated our face-to-face catch-ups, we still felt the need to call each other in between visits, because life at the time was running at an unusually eventful pace.
Though the season we were in was far from ideal, I look back on this year as one of the richest times of my life. It was the year that I took the most risks, pushed myself the hardest, ate the least, spent the most, exercised obsessively, said 'yes' to any and every social invitation, said 'no' to every advance from the opposite sex, and learned an enormous amount of lessons.
Through this season Ali was my closest compadre. We lived just a few cafe-lined streets from each other on the east coast of Newcastle, and it was just as well, because the shoreline that separated our apartments became a very well worn trail.
One of the highlights of this crazy beautiful season would have to be our autumn trip to Melbourne.
Late one Saturday night while we played endless games of Black Maria with flatmate Nick and his unlikely friend Tim, Nick decided that we all needed to share his enthusiasm for his much loved AFL team the Brisbane Lions, who just happened to be playing at the Docklands Stadium in a few weeks. Ali and I were instantly on board, our enthusiasm had more to do with Chapel Street than the Lions V's Carlton game, but there would be plenty of time to do both, so we all booked flights, Tim booked accommodation, and we eagerly anticipated our getaway.
As with all memorable moments in life, I had given this trip a theme song. As we touched down, collected our bags, and entered the city, the 'bum-bum-be-dum dum-dum dee-dum-dum' intro of Rhianna's 'Disturbia' was echoing through my mind in beat with our footsteps on that sweet city pavement... "Put on your break lights, we're in the city of wonder"... we were in the city of wonder, and though we were all relatively newly single through disillusionment, divorce and even death, we were making the most of it.
When it comes to class, you can be sure that none of Ali's is ever counterfeit, in fact she has a wardrobe philosophy that I genuinely appreciate, 'better the luxury you can afford than a lot of cheap imitations'. You can be sure that when Ali is sporting Oroton hand luggage, it is the real thing. So with this 'quality over quantity' understanding we headed to Chapel Street.
We packed as much as we could into our short trip. Shopping, dinner at a beautiful Italian restaurant on Lygon Street, the Lions V's Carlton game, saving Nick from his routine diabetic hypos, dinner and roulette at Crown Casino where we welcomed a fifth member to our holiday, Owen, a recent acquaintance from Newcastle who happened to be in Melbourne for the weekend, and perhaps a little more shopping.
As I type this it is Ali's birthday. She is somewhere in the Hunter Valley auditing some huge and hopefully non corrupt mining giant and looking forward to her fast approaching spring wedding. Life has settled down now, for us both. We eat full meals now, and have more healthy intervals between our catch-ups, but I love this girl for the unexpectedly close friendship we shared. I love this girl for her rare and often surprising mix of country farm girl and city glamour puss. I love her for her intellect and ambition. I love her for all I have gleaned from her and for the myriad of condensed and colourful memories we share.
Life is in the details - the people, places and events that we somehow forget the intricacies of as time goes by. Our memories become increasingly pixelated, that's why I am loving penning them out, catching them while they are still vivid and sharing them with those whom helped create them in the first place.
Write your memories down.
Create them. Love them. Share them.
Globe Cafe / Chapel Street / Melbourne
