Home is where the heart is

We pass Chiba and I smell the sushi hand rolls. Every morning I think that I will get one for lunch, but I never do. I forget about it until the following morning. We negotiate our way past Stinton’s, the card shop, with its oddments for sale on tables and stands, and past Modish, the stationery shop that has tried to copy Smiggle. Then it’s over the train tracks and down the hill to the river.

Sometimes we see the Stick Dog, but not very often. He carries his stick in his mouth and, when he gets to the oval, his owner throws it for him and he retrieves it, over and over again. He runs so fast he overshoots the stick and has to turn around and race back to pick it up. But it’s the Italian man and his two dogs, Soprano and Bianca, who are my favourites. Soprano, the chubby pug, puffs and snorts his way over to the rubbish dump, while Bianca plays with the birds in the park. Their owner calls them his son and daughter. I think of our ragdoll cats like our children. I feel an affinity with the jolly Italian man. I wonder where he will think we have gone when he doesn’t see us anymore. Somehow it is too sad to tell him we are moving. And I realise that my home is a few hokey shops and strangers with their dogs, and I like it.

In Salem there will be dogs with sticks and far more corny shops to pass on the way to the Common. We will go to the CVS, the drug store, but it won’t be as fun. We won’t have to stockpile cold-and-flu tablets and aspirin because Australian pharmacies don’t stock strong enough over-the-counter medicine; they will always be on hand. I won’t have to try every American chocolate bar. Instead, I will crave Violet Crumbles and Chokitos. Sadly, Australia got rid of its own Polly Waffle. And I’ll miss Twisties, Tim Tams and Vegemite. But I will be able to eat Lucky Charms every morning for breakfast, and it won’t cost seventeen dollars because the box of cereal is imported. Imported things should cost more, but in Australia it is often so much cheaper to buy the Asian option and I can’t always afford to buy Australian Made. And sometimes, even though they claim to be, they aren’t made in Australia. I wish Dick Smith’s Tim Tams tasted as good as Arnott’s, but they don’t. His peanut butter is pretty good, though.

There will be other strangers to bond with in Salem, and other men drinking coffee in cafés. We will go to the Peabody Essex for an overpriced snack and edge our way past the Cry Freedom actors in the square. Maybe after a few years we will roll our eyes and sigh when we hear the trolley bringing tourists. I’ll be able to walk more comfortably along the cobblestones in my stilettos, and I might even grow to like the second-hand bookshop, with its books rising like stalagmites from every available piece of floor space. Maybe we will walk past the Elizabeth Montgomery statue and eat at Finz again. He will join the historical society and I might join the book club. I’m not sure about going to see sporting events. I don’t go to see sporting events in Australia. I hate the AFL – the players and the way they are worshipped. No one worships people with brains in Australia. I will barrack for the Red Sox. Somehow in America, baseball brings people together. It’s refreshing that everyone in the same area barracks for the same team. It will be our new world, but it will be far from home.

Currently I have to time my showers and keep them to four minutes. And I used to love the comfort of a long, warm shower on a cold night or a cool bath on a boiling-hot day. I can’t wash my car with the hose. I have to water the garden before 7 am or after 8 pm. No sprinklers. Children in Australia have never known the joy of running under a sprinkler, or a slip-and-slide across the back lawn. I had a clown’s head sprinkler and his hat used to rise up when you attached the hose and spin, cartwheeling water across the sky. In primary school, on days over 35°, our teachers used to take us out to the asphalt and spray us with the hose. It was a treat; we loved it. But it’s different now. I wish I could lend some of the green of the Salem Common to the nature strips and front lawns down Holmes Road. The platinum grass crumbles into dust when we walk on it. I’m leaving. You won’t see me for dust.

Last week we bought a house in Salem. House prices are so much more reasonable in America. We bought a beautiful pale-pink condo and we’re not afraid of losing money on it. How could we be? In my lifetime the Australian dollar has never even reached parity with the American dollar. When America is having a recession or a depression, we are still somehow doing worse. Or so it seems when I hand over my Australian dollar and get seventy cents back. When the Australian dollar finally hit ninety cents to one American dollar, we transferred our money telegraphically to our lawyer’s bank. And now we own a house in Salem with a wooden deck and an attic.

He is excited about the attic, even though we have never seen it. He thinks we can use it for storage – things like our Christmas tree and some books. I wish we could take our fibre-optic Christmas tree that lists to the left. We have had it since we were married. One decoration boasts ‘Our First Christmas Together’ in a heart. But we can buy another Christmas tree in America, probably a nicer one for less. America has a much better lead-up to Christmas than Australia. Macy’s windows are incredible, not like the disappointing Myer windows this year, Olivia Helps with Christmas. It wasn’t really Christmassy at all. And Dame Edna narrated, despite Barry Humphries hating Australia. Why are we giving him work?

When it snows I am going to stand on the deck of our Salem condo and pretend I am inside a snow globe. Maybe I’ll twirl around like Winona Ryder’s character in Edward Scissorhands. But what if I get dizzy? What if I click my heels together and say ‘There’s no place like home’ and I don’t go anywhere, because Salem is my new home? What if I click my heels together and I’m not taken back to the Maribyrnong River, the Puckle Street cafés and the nameless men with their dogs? What if, despite everything, I’m not ready to leave Moonee Ponds?

He reads the Salem news online and researches shipping costs. He’s here next to me, so come closer while I tell you this. Let me whisper it in your ear. I can’t say this too loudly or he might hear. Huddle up while I tell you a secret: I might just stay.