Cocooning

You don’t hear the word “cocooning” used very much nowadays when it’s an actuality for most of us, not a fad. When it was first coined in the mid 1980’s by Faith Popcorn (no me neither – but she wouldn’t have received the same attention with a name like Carol Boggs) and George Will (now that’s a proper name)  it described a trend among the people who felt harassed by “..daily life -- looming nuclear incineration, rude waiters..” and wanted to create peace of mind by insulating themselves from the world by withdrawing to their homes at every opportunity.

Well now that rude waiters evokes wistfulness and the source of nuclear incineration, although still with us, has moved east, cocooning has moved several steps down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from psychic safety to preservation of life.  

Being not so much cocooned as incarcerated has changed our perspective of how to have fun at home. Not completely – I can see that Aldi are having trouble shifting the 25kg bags of flour they have been stocking in the Specials aisle for a few weeks now.

But I’ve noticed that being effectively housebound has changed my awareness of the surroundings.  Being around more makes you more aware of the little rhythms of your local environment, both natural and human. The Noisy Miners keeping the area free of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, the pair of Ravens who live around the dead trees in the park, the Brush Turkeys that have multiplied since they started baiting the foxes, the dog walkers who have the same timetable I do, the exercise enthusiasts who’ve now disappeared from the park – presumably back to the gym.

Without the commute, I have time to walk the dog early in the morning as well as late at night. It’s the winter solstice today so the morning walk has been predawn the past few weeks. The weather has been particularly pleasant in Sydney lately so that predawn period has been still and warmish.

Grotto Point at the end of our street has a nice view over Sydney Heads and one routine I never knew existed happens every Thursday.

That’s rubbish day in our street, and like the airport 6am curfew – remember airports? – the rubbish men don’t appear to be allowed to start before 6.30.

So each Thursday morning the rubbish truck is parked at Grotto Point and the three garbos are seated on their deck chairs having breakfast and watching the dawn come up over North Head. The driver usually does calisthenics to offset the effects of a day behind the wheel, but the other two who are going to get their 30,000 steps in for the day and don’t need limbering up take their ease on a deck chair with a Caltex sausage roll and a carton of chocolate milk while the sun lights up the dawn clouds.

I’ve taken to having a chat with the one of them who’s a New Zealander, from Dunedin. He remembers the good old days at Carisbrook Park when the students going to the rugby would carry a sofa with them to the grass stand. It’s a long way back from Carisbrook to the city so it was permissible to simply set it on fire after the match. They don’t allow that sort of thing any more.

He hasn’t been back to Dunedin since he arrived in 1998.

Who’d want to when you can eat breakfast on a still June morning watching the sun come up over North Head.