We arrive in FremantleI blinked into the silvery sunlight, I shaded my eyes and here it was Australia. A canvas painted without horizon, red soil streaked with muted, dusky silvery green. Soaring trees with giant dancers limbs and a never-ending sky lascivious, jubilant blue.
Could this land be mine, called home, with its colours so different from Switzerland? It affected me greatly, this strange land which I didn’t find beauty in the way I was used to, will it ever grow on me or will I be forever a stranger. I had to remember it was not the land that was the stranger it was I, the newcomer. I would have to adapt or I was to be forever torn apart. I was confronted now by these questions while the land stood still in its extraordinary glory, displayed its colours like fireworks at the sunsets.
My senses must get used to this surprising, flat red land with its lethargic vegetation. Birds don’t sing they screech, their colouring bold in rainbow hues displayed in flocks of swift wings. The slightest, tiniest cloud does not mar the sky the most brilliant blue bathed in a diaphanous sunlight.
Will I ever love this land as much as the land I came from? The green meadows and hills, the Alps blue with Gentian in late spring. The snow-capped mountains, the lakes and rivers. Will I not terribly miss the first call of the cuckoo and the trilling of the lark high up in the sky on a hot summer day with the warm scent of dry, warm hay in the air?
I told myself I will learn to appreciate new landscapes, new colours, and new sounds. I will learn the patterns of the seasons, when it rains and when it will be dry. I will be thrilled with the flora and fauna of my new country. I didn’t yet think about the people who live here about every day’s fallacies if you didn’t speak the language of a country properly. I felt numb, tightly wrapped up in this strange country it enfolded me like a big blanket and I only just could peep out. I looked out for roads that lead to airports, train stations, and buses in case I wanted to flee something I couldn’t explain.
We strolled around streets with strange names in an unfamiliar city in an alien land. The road lined with individual shops, was teeming with people. The shopfronts looked to me like they were set for a western movie and I glanced around if there might be also a saloon and some cowboys on horses galloping around the next corner, but there was no commotion, no shooting, just the happy talk and hum of people strolling from one shop to the other, sitting quietly on benches their faces shaded by sunglasses and hats.
Peter and the girls were sipping their milkshake, while I disappeared into a bookshop. I walked slowly around the shelves my eyes searching the titles about gardening in Australia.
A very old lady with a bright red scarf lightly tucked around her shoulders stood nearby leaning heavily on her ornate walking stick. The book she carried slipped suddenly from her hand. I made a few steps towards her bent down and picked up her book. I handed it to her and she thanked me and said with a slight smile it’s not easy anymore to bend down at my age. She said with a chuckle that she thought she was over 120 years old. I thought I hadn’t understood her rightly and asked did you say you are 120 years old. Oh yes, she said, all my family had reached this ripe old age, but unfortunately, I am the last of the family. She adjusted her red shawl that had slipped from her thin shoulders and leaning on her stick she walked out of the shop with a surprisingly light step. Before the sunshine enveloped her she looked back to me with a mischievous smile. Oddly I felt a bit sad I would have loved to know this lady. I had forgotten about my book and my eyes followed her until her red scarf disappeared. Perhaps she was just a tiny bit mad but she was very charming.
When I came out of the bookshop Peter and the girls asked me what I had bought. I said I have bought nothing and I went back into the shop and chose quickly a gardening book. It was a huge volume and on the title it said that it covered every aspect of gardening in Australia and New Zealand and Peter had the pleasure to carry the mighty tome around until we went back to the Galileo.
