It hit me tonight that it’s been a year. Last year, we didn’t gather together around big family Seder tables. Last year the streets were quiet, pin-drop quiet. You could cut through the silence with your footsteps at 9pm at night. The city was hushed, like after a big snow storm. Except it’s Melbourne and it never snows. It was strange.
I generally hate birthdays. The attention, the fuss, the expectations, uggh. Something about turning a year older, and realising I’m not exactly where I want to be in life, is just plain depressing. So this year when my husband asked what I wanted for my birthday, I suggested we skip the traditional present ceremonies and just go away somewhere instead.
The task was simple enough. It wasn’t meant to be a drama. It wasn’t even a big project, or worth a ton of marks. But it was close to 11pm, and I was still at uni, with the last of the stragglers, plugging away at a multimedia assessment that was beyond my capabilities.The task was to create a two minute audio clip that told a story. I had a plan for it. It was about a young woman entering a coffee shop and hearing a song over the speakers that connected with her, and walking out slightly changed because of it.