Reporter’s Notebook –

The View Out The Window On A Gloomy Day

By Jeff White

Seldom does music sound as good as it does right now. But then again, rarely does life feel as good, as secure, as confident, as happy.

It is my turn to buy the round – my shout, as Australians would put it – and I decided to take the full pint, made slippery as its contents spill assuredly down the glass and onto my pants, out onto the dance floor. Steve’s there, as are Brian and Greg, along with Laura, Courtney, and Lisa. Jack is back at the bar, probably wondering how a bottle of Bud can be so expensive, yet this wonderful, infinitely more flavorful Australian beer is so cheap.

Steve is Steve Hennessy, a guy of about my size, five-eight, with copper-red hair and a matching goatee. He is from Penn State University, and doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. Brian is Brian Hacker, a tall, often disheveled 21-year-old from Illinois with a dazed personality that produces laughs with almost every comment. Both Steve and Brian are here in Australia to see if they can help out the country’s tobacco industry. Judging by the rate at which they light up, it is in good hands.

Jack is Jack Zissler, a tall, lanky blonde whom I first met on the tennis court my senior year of high school. We went on to room with each other during orientation at Boston College, and would be roommates during one semester of our junior year.

Greg Ball, Laura Boyd, Courtney Connelly, and Lisa Millora are fellow Boston College students whom I didn’t know until arriving here a month ago. Greg is at that point in the evening when he decides to get his elbows going in a motion that calls to mind a bird trying to take off. It is a dance move that follows the cadence of the music. It looks more like a nervous tick.

But who cares! We’re all bouncing around this dance floor like so many pinballs knocking off rubber bumpers. Michael Flatley I’m not, but when the band starts another number, when the fiddle and acoustic guitars join in concert, I do my best Riverdance impersonation, hopping from one foot to another like a man on hot coals. Soon half my beer is on my shirt, which I take off in favor of a T-shirt.

I love this place. Bridie O’Reily’s, here in one of Melbourne’s suburbs, is the kind of Irish-theme bar you find all over this city. You know, the kind that pours brooding pints of Guinness and highlights local “Irish” bands that play covers of U2, the Cranberries, and Van Morrison, yet ultimately does not resemble anything you’d find in Ireland. We happened in here on a lark, and it does not look like we’ll leave. The Hooligans are playing and the dance floor is full of people hoisting beers at the band’s request.

Bar owners want to get an early start on emptying the place out, and gradually nudge us toward the door. Our group spills out onto the wet Melbourne sidewalk, a good train ride from our university, with that invincible feeling that shouts “Where to now?”

We assemble and push down the street, to a place that we hope stays open later than other haunts. Steve wants to find more cigarettes, and a meat pie to stave off his hunger. Laughing, he says…

Okay, wait a minute. I confess. The above should have been written in the past tense. I’m not really walking recently rain-washed Melbourne streets. I’m here in Newtown, pecking these words as I look out at trees swaying in a damp-feeling wind. It’s one of those gray days that call for retrospection.

And the internal eye of my mind dredges up memories of those wonderful six months in Australia, two years ago. I often travel back there, in my mind, in my dreams, when the rain raps with particular fury against my window, or when the sky looks like charcoal.

It’s funny how much the bonding that can occur within a group of people can be magnified through a shared experience. When I arrived in the Southern Hemisphere in late February of 1998, I didn’t know anyone else at the university where I was purporting to study. Yet it wasn’t long until the shared experience of being international students drew all of my friends together.

We weren’t all from America, either. Barbara was from Switzerland, Thomas was from Germany, Mike was from Britain. We met each and every night for dinner. We spent weekends playing sports. We took the same large class required for all international students.

Jack and I traveled on weekends into the Australian bush on camping and hiking trips. I took a harrowing car ride in Tasmania with Mike and Brian. Greg, Courtney, Lisa, Laura, and I weathered seemingly endless 16-hour bus rides. Steve and I bobbed our way out to the Great Barrier Reef together, as well as jettisoning from an airplane at 14,000 feet.

I left Steve finishing a beer at an open-air bar in Cairns as my taxi pulled up out front. Shaking his hand, I hopped in the cab and swerved to the airport for a plane to New Zealand. The bonding of those seven days together trailed the taxi, and slowly dissipated, as it did with many of my other friends from those six months abroad.

I haven’t seen Steve in almost two years.

I don’t think of these things strictly because of the gloomy weather outside this window, you see. Actually, I’ve been in this contemplative mood for some time, thinking about the adventures I had with my friends back then, in that time, in those places.

Maybe Steve’s phone call the other week helped to jostle the old memory juices.

Out of the blue, at 12:30 in the morning, the phone rang and it was Steve. He wondered if I remembered him. “We hung out together that week in Cairns, remember?”

“Remember?!” I exclaimed. “Of course I do!” I proceeded to rattle off highlights from those sun-soaked days. We talked for a bit, he filled me in on his life. He was finishing up with Penn State, but didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. We exchanged e-mail addresses and I promised to look him up the next time I was headed south.

How funny, I thought, to have been so close to someone for a relatively long period of time, and then to lose track of two years of his life. Since my return from Australia, Brian has gotten married (to a girl he met in Australia), Jack has returned to Melbourne for a master’s degree, Laura is working in New York, Courtney is working in Los Angeles, Lisa is studying in Boston. Greg is writing sports for a newspaper in Chico, California.

Little did I know on those nights at Bridie O’Reily’s that we pinballs would soon be scattered by those execrable winds of life that separate people. Yet I will get e-mails from time to time from my friends, now in distant places, and I know that they are all right. I also know that if they’re anything like me, they have been staring out of windows from time to time.

Although my mood right now is dwelling on the past, I’m also thinking about the future. I can think of a few groups right now whose pinball games are about to end. I’m thinking of you college seniors who are staring out into the real world. I’m thinking of you high school seniors, staring at the imminent reality of college. And I’m thinking of you eighth graders, who have to be thinking a little bit about high school next year. Your groups of friends will change dynamics in just a few short months. There’s nothing you can do about it.

But I think I can pass on three truths that I can draw out of my experience in Australia, and the years since, that you may all want to tuck away in the back of your heads for future use.

First, and I’m not ashamed to sound really cliché here, bond with those around you with fierce, wild abandon. Those moments you share will be the stuff to frame windows and brighten gloomy days.

Second, not only is the memory an awfully dexterous thing, often popping up at just the right moments to make you feel better, but so is friendship. Stay in touch with those with whom you share those experiences. Know where they are. Know what they are doing. Even after two years, it won’t be too late to pick up the phone.

And thirdly, life really is as good, secure, confident, and happy as it feels right now; even more so if you remember to never dance an Irish jig while holding a drink — especially if you’re wearing good pants and a nice shirt.