Stories in Another City by a Different Sea: Teapots and Tigers in Fremantle
Last week my old friend Sally and I spent a day in Freo. It was a subject of great fascination in my youth and remains a place that I nostalgically yearn for sometimes in Melbourne. It occupies a space of almost mythic significance in my memory. As a teenager I once melodramatically declared "I have lived and died a thousand little deaths in this town". I was referring to all the amazing highs and lows one experiences as a teenager and that, for me, seemed to occur amongst the nooks and crannies of Fremantle's landscape.
The lows include my first heartache over a boy and other little things that I can't even remember now but at the time felt so intensely. I imagine they were to do with having some of my more childish illusions swept aside. There are so many highs though. I remember about forty of my friends and I running around Freo Esplanade at night with glow sticks and fire twirling gear, watching the sun rise sitting on a blanket at the beach, going swimming one morning -fully dressed in jeans etc after dancing all night at a doof near South Beach, being at Gino's on the Cappuccino Strip for hours, never ordering anything but chatting all afternoon and evening with friends and strangers about anything and everything. The summer after I turned sixteen was the pinnacle of such adventures.
Jess, Sal, Lou and I were a tight-knit group who hung out together so much that we became known as the Motley Crew amongst our friends. Any of us could just walk into Freo at any time of day and see at least fifteen people that we knew and could have a glorious time with. It was magical and not just in that 'ahh, looking back, everything was rosy and golden and brilliant and we didn't even know it blaaah'. We knew it then. We would give each other secret smiles that said 'we are the luckiest people in the world! We are having the best summer ever!'
Hey, I'm really meandering with all this. I was going to write one or two sentences.
Anyhoo, Sal and I revisited some of our favourite places like Gino's (this time, we ate breakfast there which seemed incredibly grown up) and Pickled Fairy. We went into a new shop and saw these miniature tea sets which I had to take photos of to commemorate the day. (Also, one of Sal and my favourite things involves the ritual of making and taking tea together and having long chats, so it was only fitting that tea pots be the subject of the photos below.)
Sal really liked the crochet tea pot
Sal fell in love with this little tiger toy with the green eyes and decided to walk around the shop with it sitting on her shoulder.
It's funny... Sal has these amazing green eyes and so did her favourite toy. The next time I get a shot of her face I am going to put the above pic and hers side by side to showcase the similarities.
The lows include my first heartache over a boy and other little things that I can't even remember now but at the time felt so intensely. I imagine they were to do with having some of my more childish illusions swept aside. There are so many highs though. I remember about forty of my friends and I running around Freo Esplanade at night with glow sticks and fire twirling gear, watching the sun rise sitting on a blanket at the beach, going swimming one morning -fully dressed in jeans etc after dancing all night at a doof near South Beach, being at Gino's on the Cappuccino Strip for hours, never ordering anything but chatting all afternoon and evening with friends and strangers about anything and everything. The summer after I turned sixteen was the pinnacle of such adventures.
Jess, Sal, Lou and I were a tight-knit group who hung out together so much that we became known as the Motley Crew amongst our friends. Any of us could just walk into Freo at any time of day and see at least fifteen people that we knew and could have a glorious time with. It was magical and not just in that 'ahh, looking back, everything was rosy and golden and brilliant and we didn't even know it blaaah'. We knew it then. We would give each other secret smiles that said 'we are the luckiest people in the world! We are having the best summer ever!'
Hey, I'm really meandering with all this. I was going to write one or two sentences.
Anyhoo, Sal and I revisited some of our favourite places like Gino's (this time, we ate breakfast there which seemed incredibly grown up) and Pickled Fairy. We went into a new shop and saw these miniature tea sets which I had to take photos of to commemorate the day. (Also, one of Sal and my favourite things involves the ritual of making and taking tea together and having long chats, so it was only fitting that tea pots be the subject of the photos below.)
Sal really liked the crochet tea pot
Sal fell in love with this little tiger toy with the green eyes and decided to walk around the shop with it sitting on her shoulder.
It's funny... Sal has these amazing green eyes and so did her favourite toy. The next time I get a shot of her face I am going to put the above pic and hers side by side to showcase the similarities.
It's such a cliché, but Freo does seem a little smaller to me now. Yet it still retains a bit of its magic. For example: on the bus on the way home an old man dressed as Santa gave lollipops out and wished 'Merry Christmas' to everyone on the bus. He wasn't being paid, he was doing it because: "it's nice, yes?"
On the whole it was a splendid, Lou Reed day (as in the song: 'It's such a perfect day...') which ended, fittingly, with a cup of tea and a long chat back at Sally's Freo apartment.
Mood: Moondance and coffee
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