Thursday 3 April, 2008
Storm
Yesterday in Melbourne was insane. I didn't feel so sad about the flower show being upended, because that seemed to me like the Carlton Gardens getting revenge on the constant indignities visited upon it. But the gardens themselves copped a real beating, which was awful.
This big fella went down in Murchison Square. It made me sad to see.
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Views from the Floor
Di Parsons says:
Hi Sophie,
I was re-reading Geography last week when the storm hit. I came across the bit where Ruby remembers the dust storm over Melbourne in 1983, the first 'really scary' thing she can remember. Last week's storm was similar to that event but luckily it was outside the fire season; a month earlier and it might have been followed by terrifying fires like those we had over twenty years ago on Ash Wednesday. After I found that reference in the novel I was more alert to all the weather that followed - the hot days in Australia, the ice storms in America- the sense of disruption and change to expected weather patterns.
When I saw the '83 duststorm I was also really scared. I had driven down to Melbourne from my house in the hills. I was on a busy road near an old armaments factory in Maribyrnong when the dust came over and blacked out the sky. The terrible thing was I didn't know what it was; I thought maybe something big had exploded and I didn't know if I was driving into a hot spot or where I should go. I was close to panic.
It's a very odd thing not knowing what some big natural phenomena actually is. I had a similar experience when I took my first trip into the tropics a few years ago. I was on the train from Pondicherry to Tiruvannamalai in the late afternoon. Looking south from the train window I saw a gigantic red fire on the horizon. What was it? I'd never seen that kind of red before or a light so big. I thought it might be a nuclear power station ablaze. I did finally wake up that it was the sun, but for a moment I hadn't known it was that familiar object. It made me think about the power of those who could come along and offer an explanation of what things are before we work them out for ourselves.
Cheers, Di
sophie says:
How weird that you were reading the book when the storm hit. Yes, as you can tell, I am a woman obsessed with weather. And that was before talk of climate change. Your story about the sunset reminded me of the fact that the best moon rises and sun sets seem to be triggered by pollution. In everything it's opposite.
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