Disobedient Daisies
Paradise sits between having nothing to worry about and choosing to worry about nothing. The cool air nips my nose as soon as I step outside. The May sun is sitting close to its highest point, off-centre and leaning towards the north. My eyes soften, my chest rises. The urge to open my phone and look for the app I deleted overcomes me. My fingers mime the movement of swiping. I shudder, putting my phone back in my pocket.
I’ve put on the newest LDR album as the soundtrack of my movement. I always like to either clean or walk when I listen to her new music; sitting and listening is not an option.
My trustworthy sneakers, a 3-year-old pair of Asics, grow slightly damp with dew. I step purposefully over the tall patches of grass of my front yard, onto the paved driveway. There’s no workmen in the driveway today: surprising, as there is almost always at least one. A gardener, a landscaper, a housekeeper. It’s not uncommon for several to be tending to one of my two neighbours enormous houses. They rarely hold any regard for the people they aren’t working for, so blocking my home’s personal driveway is always on the cards. Too many times I’ve breathed heavily, sitting tense while I waited for them to saunter back to their vehicular obstruction.
The suburb I live in affords me a lot of privacy. Yet I always find myself looking over my shoulder, even on my lonely walks. Many of the homes here are large and ominous; growing ever taller and shinier; year in, year out. Some have names — “The Chateau”, “Cerulean Castle”. Few look warm from the outside. These mini-mansions have shrubbery that is never overgrown, the flowers blooming in choreographed paths.
I stare at some rogue daisies a couple metres out from the front of the property line of a brick-built house. There is a trampoline with small rips in its netted-fence. I think this house has a cat, but its nowhere to be seen today. Its a friendly tri-colour moggy that likes to sit on a branch of the small tree next to the trampoline. Its meows are soothing, homely even.
When I reach the look-out, there’s an older trio of women powerwalking on the footpath, so I step a little closer to the edge and off the path. They make no move to make any space for me, nor offer any acknowledgement of my movement.
Wealth is an accumulation of space in various capacities. The emptiness in the homes I walk past, the vastness between myself and the ocean I look out at. My sneakers are worn down, but the reason there aren’t new ones on my feet has nothing to do with money.
I look over my shoulder. There is another woman, about my age, in the distance. Walking towards me. I turn my gaze forward again and, hearing what sounds like a dreamy chorus playing in my ear, press the back button on the current song.
