Cup overflows when all we want are the simple things

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It is pleasing to think that Melbourne will be hosting the Melbourne Cup and a music event at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Those who attend such events will be delighted.

Many though have not seen a person outside the immediate family for months and the prospect of attending an event with ten thousand strangers might feel like being offered cake when we have been starved of more basic food.

Punters will be allowed to attend the Melbourne Cup on November 2.Credit:Justin McManus

I don’t yearn to attend big events, although I like that their staging suggests we are on the way out of the isolation in which we have been living and that Melbourne is stirring from her long sleep.

What I look forward to is being able to see my parents in their home and to sit with them in the sunny family room, nursing cups of tea in our hands before having a wander through the garden, which I hear has exploded in colour since the coming of spring.

I look forward to strolling arm-in-arm with my daughter through actual shops, where she can try clothes on properly instead of taking a chance and ordering them online. She has grown a lot during lockdown and is now much taller than me.

I am looking forward to going with my husband to that local restaurant where we have been patrons since before the children were born, where once one of the children’s vials of specks of gold from Ballarat broke on the floor and the restaurateur was so kind.

Many of us are simply looking forward to going back to a local restaurant.Credit:iStock

You know the type of place, where the restaurateur knows you by name and proffers a glass of port, on the house, at the end of a meal.

I want to be able to sit in that restaurant holding hands with my husband and not talk about numbers of infections or deaths in Victoria or whether we need booster shots and if so, when that might be.

I want to talk about Christmas and great hikes that end at a nice eatery with a view.

I want to dream about getting back to that beach with the rolling surf where you never want to be the one furthest out in the waves, just in case, the beach where the fins heading towards swimmers turned out to be dolphins, thankfully.

Drying off in the sun, holding a pie with sauce in hands from which you can’t quite rub all the sand, with an ice-cold can of Passiona to follow, is to feel completely alive.

These are the kinds of things that fill my heart with hope about the future.

Simple things.

Melissa Coburn is a freelance writer.

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