City limits

Living in Phnom Penh, I was very aware of noise and the variety of its sources. Thinking back now it was on a small scale and at night, there would be pin drop silence until I heard the birdsong at dawn.

I'm struck by the industrial grade noise in Sydney. Layered, faster in speed, it is surround sounds and continues through the night without a pause when it becomes less dense. The traffic on Chalmers Street is non stop. I hear cars, buses and trucks and their compression brakes, heavy duty machinery, music from the neighbours, people talking loudly on the street below, men shouting in the park, church bells, an alarm going off, door slamming, shower running, the sound of plumbing pipes adjusting as taps are turned off, someone hammering and in the gap of the layers of sound at varying distances, as I write, the chirping of a bird close by made it through for a second only to be drowned out.

I like cities. I've never been someone who felt the need to make a tree change and live a long term rural life, preferring to go to the country only for short breaks.

But I've realised recently that I now prefer small cities. Big cities make me anxious and a lot of it has to do with heavy duty noise.

Even in a beautiful city like Sydney, people tend not to utilise all the facilities but rather, live in enclaves and whole lives and rituals are carried out in urban villages within a 5km radius.

When I worked with refugee communities, I would drive to outer Sydney metro neighbourhoods of Blacktown, Fairfield and Mt Druitt 30-35km away. I know many Sydneysiders who have lived here their whole lives but never ventured out that far. They have no idea nor interest in discovering the contrast and the other worlds that exist within this city unless they were to get a glimpse of it on the news.

Who knows; maybe I'll even consider living in a real village one day. My main criteria is that the places I live in have multicultural communities, access to nature and a thriving food and arts scene.

I came to stay at a Louise's place last night. It's been so wonderful to have the time; just the two of us catching up on the past year. We made our own noise and talked for 10 hours until 4:30am. The plan was also to go to yoga this morning just as we used to on Saturdays with a stop afterwards at the Italian deli for coffee, biscotti and people watching. We might get one out of two done today. I'm looking forward to my coffee.