The 3 trials of the Volvo
All my life I’ve had to have big 4wd cars - living in the desert and the Kimberley. They have carted me across the country, my independence, freedom, security, safety... all of it buried in a vehicle. It’s strange that a car could be such a significant marker of identity. When I moved to South Hobart I had the pleasure of buying an old Volvo. I loved it. The smallness and old ness of its luxury yet the normal ness, the ordinary ness of it.
That flood water, sitting in the lounge room in the cottage in Degraves was so loud. I thought it was rain on the roof. Opening the front door and looking into the darkness and seeing the reflection of the sky in the river that should have been the road. The volume of the wet in the Kimberley in black and strangely wrong. Sinister even, police driving the streets and standing on their bonnets peering into houses that were full of water. Red and blue lights permitting glimpses of the rapids. Water lapping at the doorstep. We were the lucky ones.... flowing around us and down the side garden into the rivulet.
The debris in the morning scattered everywhere, bins, huge rocks, rubbish, plant material, stinking mud. Cars askew down the street. Wandering residents, the silence. The underside of the Volvo stuffed with rocks, sticks, mud till the little undersides were popping out. My independence security normalness..askew. It started... bless... we could go back to normal.
Except it wasn’t...The council trucks, bobcats, tv crews. Rakes, shovels, shit everywhere. Moved the Volvo to make room for the bobcats. The truck smashed into the back of the Volvo. Broken windows, doors. Taped it up with a garbage bag. Securely to bring it back to the normal.
Except it wasn’t....Closed roads, more tv crews, lounge suites in the street, seas of styrofoam and glass in the garden, skip bins of brokenness. Get back to the routine and the normal will resume... surely. Drove the Volvo to the weekly Pilates class... so normal in my middle class whiteness.
Except it wasn’t.... Driving home after class in the dark... smokey smell and glowing embers, dried debris against the hot engine catching on fire, burning. Afloat again.
The Volvo gone, flooded, then smashed and then burned. The trilogy. The independence, safety, security, freedom, life disrupted.
And I was one of the less affected.