Crying at the pedestrian crossing

M C Escher - Sketch of Rome (1924)

It has just started to spit rain when I see the fox.

It is twisted away from me, hind legs crossed like a ribbon, its moistening body tucked between the pole of a traffic light and a wedge-shaped concrete barrier. Within view is a slice of its upturned face, oily with blood, a bright circle looping its open mouth like a planet’s rings.

The light winks green, and red, and green again, a slot machine for walking. A little earthquake flings droplets from the roof of my rain-jacket, and I realise I’ve dipped my head down to cry.

Foxes are a pest in Australia. They invaded this land alongside the people who brought them and have spread across the landmass, extinguishing native species and causing irreversible havoc. Not only is fox hunting legal in all states, but baiting and violence is encouraged. I’ve always found it curious the firm consensus among Australians that these animals absolutely do not belong here, but the people who brought them unequivocally do.

Back at the pedestrian crossing, questions come like push-notifications. Where did this fox come from? How did it make it to a busy intersection? Was it moved to this undignified clearing, or did it crawl there for safety as it choked on its own guts? And why am I crying?

Unlike the descendants of the people who claimed this country for their own, the Australian fox has no concept of its history. It does not understand that its fore-foxes crept out across an old-but-new land and made a clumsy home out of a place they might not have otherwise opted for. This fox knows only what it has been shown, what the foxes before it adapted to. It paws into an unaccommodating dirt, skewers unfamiliar critters to feed its young, and tries to make it work, tries to secure its own survival. It tries to slot into the ecosystem because that’s the only choice it can make, and we hate it, we loathe it for trying.

I am not crying because I have romanticised the plight of the white man's fox. I am crying because I am sad, and it’s the divine right of the sad to be self-involved and insert themselves into whatever feels tragic around them. I am crying because in this moment, a tote bag of groceries slung across my weary side, I feel like I am this fox - trying to make a home here, trying to make do, constantly swallowing the feeling that I am butting against a choice made for me a generation ago, to be in this place, to mould my surroundings into a house I can live in.

I have written so much in this newsletter about belonging (or not) to a place that it has become insular and repetitive. Blah blah, my parents are immigrants. I swing from wondering if my home is abroad, to contemplating a home here, to deciding home is an unworkable construct altogether. The answer is that there is no answer. Home is solid for some, elusive for others. My sense of home, for whatever host of reasons, came out of me like a baby tooth, and nothing grew in its place. Any bid to remake an alternative returns an error message. 404: home not found (does not exist, dummy).

The light winks green again and I walk. I don't look back. The evenings are arriving earlier, and not long after I make it to the apartment I've been housesitting, night comes down like a guillotine. The red and green birds that fly right up to the balcony and demand feeding scream at me from the window, which surprises me - I've never seen them come at night before. I try to coax one to eat out of my hand, but she nicks my finger as if to say no, weirdo, and I accept her dismay. I look out to the vista I have of the headland, watch the ocean gurgle. The line of cars that snakes through the road below me is thinning, lights fanning on to guide people back to, or away from their homes. There’s that pesky home again.

My phone buzzes and it’s my sister sending me photos of my nephew’s first trip to daycare. They’ve made him pose with a comically large backpack on, so big that his doughy knees are buckling and his dad has to hold him up like a marionette. I laugh, because it's impossible not to, and then I cry again. Big, burly sobs. I love him so much. I never thought I would love a child like this.

There are days like today, where the fact that I belong to this place feels like a throat I never manage to clear, an exam I haven't studied for. But as I laugh again at this little boy, resplendent and giddy, I wonder if maybe there's a place for me here yet still. Maybe the only home I'll ever need is wherever he will be.

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