Two of the dearest neighbours my family has ever had were elderly widowers. Byron shared a fence with us, Mario lived opposite. Both were eager gardeners, both loved our kids, both showered us with gifts. Byron, a retired police officer, often popped up from behind his fence to chat. He’d comment on the weather and the news, on the lotto jackpot that he never won but often invested in, pledging us a very generous share. He would pass us vegetables, slowly grown, quickly given. There were ice-creams too, whole boxes of choc-wedges, for the kids. He’d joke they’d fallen in his trolley at the shops, acting all surprised, and the kids would play along with happy grins.
Eureka Street
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A few years ago, the editor behind one of Australia’s most lucrative non-fiction writing prizes changed its rules. The Saturday Paper’s Erik Jensen decided the Horne prize would no longer consider any essay purporting to ‘represent the experiences of those in any minority community of which the writer is not a member’.
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My kids brought their report cards home last month. I’d been thinking about the election campaign, and about society’s obsession with productivity. I’d been wondering how ‘the unemployed’ and ‘pensioners’ might feel — like a burden? Like a problem to be solved?
I’d been thinking about my own productivity too as an employee, as a freelancer, as a parent; about what left me feeling satisfied, worthy, competent, or guilty, unproductive, unfulfilled…
