Adelaide

Adelaide is my home town. I’m so loving it right now and it’s not a fleeting feeling and I wanted to jot down why. I’ve lived here since I was 8. I can imagine it’ll probably always be home base. Or not.

Years ago on Triple J they used to say – ‘Adelaide…. It’s ok’ (like it actually wasn’t). But it is so OK! Right now, I’m proud to say I’m an Adelaide girl. I guess it’s the perfect place for the loner, slacker artist who now has a family, a house and a professional job.

A few years ago I felt differently. I seriously thought I had to get outta here, that it was too ‘coma-ey’. I was all hating on ‘dlaide. Luke and I did a reconnaissance to Melbourne one weekend, thinking this might be the only way we could do things, like be in a musical scene and have a more exciting life.

Melbourne IS a way cool place. Of course. I could spend all my time in those gorgeous laneways. But to be honest, it didn’t feel THAT different. Just 3x the stuff going on, and a bit harder edged.

We had fun but I came back a little deflated. Melbourne was no magic bullet. It wasn’t going to make me younger (der!) or change the fact that I was a parent, or that I had lost a band and just had a shitload of work to do with less time to do it in. I was just being lazy or lacking vision, or something.

As soon as we got off the plane, Adelaide started shining at me. The ease of getting back home from the airport, even though in Adelaide terms we live quite far away. The unbelievable nature that is at my doorstep. I immediately stopped hating and realized that as Jon Kabat Zinn said ‘wherever you go, there you are’. Times had changed. I’d been holding on to what was. If I didn’t align myself with how things actually were I was going to remain frustrated. Being a parent, where your time is not your own, trying to be an artist, working. Everything. There’s a lot to keep your head around. It wasn’t Adelaide I was hating, I was just struggling with adapting.

So, about Adelaide, I love love love:

The pace. What the hell was I thinking, I am lazy, it’s a match made in heaven!

Working is easy here for Luke and me. Luke has been able to run a studio in the city for low cost and somehow we make ends meet. I have so much space around me I can yell and scream and no one can hear me!

Traffic is easy. It’s easy to get around. And park. Yesterday, I pulled up right out the front of the Central Market, parked for free, ran in grabbed lunch, did a bit of shopping then went to work which is also in the city, where I also park for free.

The nature bedazzles me. The city is bordered by some amazing nature reserves – Waterfall gully, Belair national park, Morialta falls. I have streams down the road and I basically live in a forest. It’s bloody beautiful.

And then there’s the beach. Brighton beach is my 100% all time happy place. Carrickalinga, on the Fleuriou Pensiula is not just beautiful but often deserted in the middle of summer.

I can do my music here. It’s slow going. But I live in a beautiful suburb for relatively low cost and don’t get bothered much.

The down side (for me):

It’s a bit slow. I’m a bit slow. Chicken or egg? A bit coma-ey…

The news says the economy is bad, something must be done, young people are moving away etc. But I don’t get my sleepy town if it becomes the place to be do I?… Double edged sword.

It’s a bit conservative, a bit insular. Sometimes I don’t feel challenged enough.

It’s not for everyone, I know that. That’s ok. But for me, where I am in my life. It’s actually perfect.