Whenever I hear the fireworks, I don’t think of celebration, for it sounds like someone’s bombing the hell out of us, and I think of all those in war torn countries. On New Year’s Eve it doesn’t sound like the end of the year, it sounds like World War 3.
I don’t like talking on my mobile phone when I’m out, I like to let others get off the tram before I get on. I like churches on Sunday, I don’t watch television, I don’t like concerts because there are too many people, although I love live music. I like OP-shops, and stopping to pat cats and dogs, and smiling at children. I like the feel of turning the paper pages of a book, I like sipping a cup of tea, I don’t like McDonald’s or Hungry Jacks or KFC, I like buying my eggs from a farmer’s market. I like catching trains and buses and seeing the countryside, I like saying hello to the postman, I like leaving bottles of beer out for the garbage men at Christmas time, I like writing letters and sending cards, I don’t like drunken parties, I like getting up before dawn, I like storms, I like giving compliments, I like condiments, I like the thought more than the gift, I like taking the stairs and not the lift, I don’t like gyms, I like looking up words I don’t understand in the dictionary, I like teddy bears, I like the sunlight pouring into a room, I like getting caught in the rain, I like seeing old couples holding hands, I like getting hugs, I like seeing what people are reading on the tram, I don’t like made in China, I’d like to see a free Tibet, I like picking roses from someone’s garden, I don’t like people putting plastic bags in the recycling, I don’t like cyclists who don’t ring their bells, I like to buy records, I like to listen to birds and watch fish, I don’t like people putting their bags on the tram seat, or not standing up for those in need, I don’t like tagging but I like graffiti, I don’t like spitting, I only like shopping at dawn when no one’s there, I like poetry, I like the wind through the trees, I like praying in the quiet where no one can hear, I don’t like hearing about celebrities or cellulite, I like reading the paper in my local café, I don’t like the devil with his charm and good looks, I like Jesus with his rags and black feet, I don’t like how the shops close on Christmas day and good Friday because of some law when they make a killing from these holy days, I don’t like reality T.V shows when all I see is jealousy, I don’t like all the choices we have in supermarkets when so much of the world goes hungry, I like the beauty of age, I like wrinkles and grey hair, I like someone to hold my hand as I go to sleep, I forgive the mistakes of youth, I don’t like drug dealers, or clairvoyants who make money out of some one’s loss, I don’t like labels on people or their clothes, I like hot air balloons in the morning, I like subtitles, I like family bibles.
Peta Yowie is a writer living in Melbourne.