Jasmine (September)

Jasmine is the world of Melbourne backlanes, the first mild evenings of springtime. The bluestone lanes were smooth in their horse-and-cart days that have enjoyed unevenness for years, due to eucalypt roots and re-fencing. We amble along them still in a different time zone, away from the franticism of arterials, for time goes slow here. Jasmine was the natural complement to our drug-infused twenties, ranging from one party to the next: half-hinged back gates open all night and everyone raving in the beery garden, through the crowded kitchen, along the chatty corridors up the creaky stairs and out onto the balconies. What ecstatic music rose from the turntable! What insane conversations could only have been possible due to such excellent education! What noise and substantial desires!  Impulses led us onward to eternal delight and some very messy affairs. Jasmine clouded our judgement with its instant perfume. Lips and language and meaningful looks. Jasmine was not to blame though, it was the air we breathed. Next morning nothing much had changed except our sense of anything is possible. Jasmine was the great clump we tore with pleasure from a wall and arranged in a glass of water. Rooms took on an air of sweet surprise. The parties turned into plans for the future, or else directionless dissipation. 9 to 5 with 2 and a half children or daily over the limit in Byron Bay: at the time it was impossible to guess which way people would go. It’s still hard to understand. The young gods of vinyl records made way for other heroes. The flowers turned brown in a short time. Their stars waned. But jasmine is the forgotten year that comes round again and hits the senses, all over. It springs eternal like bicycle wheels over a bump in Canning Street. Its profusion dazzles the eye. It clambers over a fence, like someone visiting their lover secretly at 3 in the morning.