Monday, June 16, 2008

i'm byron my time.

there are some places in the world where you arrive and want to leave immediately. buffalo, for one. an outlet mall. a pauly shore revue. and then there are places where you arrive, take one long, sweeping look around and immediately start trying to figure out how you can stay here longer. byron bay is one of those kind of places.

byron is a little contry town near the queensland-new south wales border, about an hour south of surfer's paradise. it is the eastern-most point in mainland australia and is bordered to the north by the ancient peaks of a centuries-old volcano. the beach ambles along for ages and the surf rolls in with a steady purpose, breaking off the just-visible mast of a rusted shipwreck just offshore. the sun rises in the east and sets brilliantly in the west, just like everywhere else. for all intents and purposes it sounds just like any other australian coastal town. but there is something different here.

there are no highrise buildings. there are no mcdonald's or hungry jacks. people have surfboard carriers on the side of their bikes and walk a bit slower here. the community is adamant about avoiding the creeping commercialism that seeks to turn all of the east coast into one giant highrise daytona beach party town. but it is more than the architecture of the city, even more than the free range-eating, earthtone-clad, djembe-playing citizens of this hippie mecca. the air is different, the time seems to wander forward, almost accidentally towards the next day, not fussed about what happens along the way. and people smile at each other on the street, cars let you cross with a nod of the head. you get the sense that the city has taken a collective deep breath. it's easy to be here.

you get the distinctive sense that byron is a place that people get stuck, not in a bad way at all, but stuck by their own choosing. my friend hannah described it as such:

"it's like regular, everyday people like you and me, people with jobs and lives and responsibilities somewhere else in the world arrived here and decided that they just needed to stay. and they thought, 'hmm, what can i do to make a living here? what am i good at? well, i'm really good at making windchimes. i think i'll open a windchime store!' or 'i've always wanted to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian contortionist- i think i'll stay here and do animal-friendly street theatre!' and they've just stayed and stayed."

it's true in many ways. the streets are full of second-hand book shops, crystal sellers offering to draw a portrait of you as a mythical fairy, beadworks shops and countless hemp clothing retailers. it is a city of dreadlocks and bare feet, campervans and herbal teas. it is everything kensington market wants so desperately to be and isn't quite. it is authentic and virtually free of any trace of pretentious, holier-than-thou self-righteousness. vegans dot the footpaths but don't sneer at you when you emerge from the kebab stand, your pita dripping with lamb. it's a community in the strongest sense of the word, a community of people who love this place and want to keep it as special as it is. and they are nice enough to share it with others.

i know it sounds a bit kumbaya-ish. i always thought of myself as a city boy through and through, the kind of person who would cast a cynical eye at a place like this. but after a day of surfing the brilliant blue waves, drink freshly sqeezed orange juice in the park, and watching the sunset paint the clouds in brilliant technicolour, you start to think about things a bit differently. you start to think, "hell, i've always thought that papier mache is a lost art. i wonder what i could do with that..."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

enjoy byron bay over the next few days and keep that peace and tranquility in mind as you set off for the intensity of beijing (in only 10 days!).