Guest Barista Tara
Marketing calls it the city of sails, but this city is about soil. You can smell it when you arrive, crumbling and moist, even above the steam rising from the asphalt.
The city was birthed in a slow orgy of eruptions, but there’s nothing showy or dramatic about the result. There is plenty for everyone, with a generous spread of small dormant mountains, mounds of tumbled volcanic debris, and warm crater lakes.
More recently, the contours of the city have been haphazardly dug, like a hangi for an impromptu gathering. Even the salt of its two harbours is just seasoning for the feast – the water sweet with the taste of mussels and pipis, lapping at the golden, grubby beaches and the hundreds of rickety jetties.
No matter how hard we try to dig in our toes, civilisation is only temporary here – paint flakes from weatherboards and corrugated iron rusts to scoria under the dull sun. We’ve built bungalows with wide verandahs, and laid out broad parks with band rotundas, phoenix palms and birds of paradise. But subtropical summers have loosened the colonial collar. Now this city wears its motorways unlaced, dirty concrete petticoats sprawling open to let the swollen earth breathe between the seams. Stormwater streams from its pores, and watercress and flax drown thickly in the drains. The city is a greenhouse full of orchids opening their throats, waterlilies in the black pools of the wintergarden. We plant our money in the furrows of this rich volcanic loam, and hope to get rich. But the soil grows what it likes, and instead the city breeds fat happy babies.
At night, the city drifts afloat on its vast ocean, and sings to itself to outshine the loneliness. There are candles and nightlights and quiet strumming on verandahs, neon invitations and buildings left lit, electrical hums and photocopiers flashing cheeky pages after hours. Cicadas sound their amorous alarms, and moths stroke wingshimmer across your face as they flutter up into the streetlights. Its people light fireworks, and build bonfires on the beaches.
This is heartland, not headland. These are my mountains and this is my place to stand.