On Leaving Melbourne

I wrote about moving to Melbourne in July 2021. The ongoing pandemic, the postponed renovation plans for my house in London, and Australia’s closed borders, all suggested that delaying the move would be wise. I didn’t really know what to make of going back to Australia or settling in an unfamiliar city. I wrote:

“To me, it feels more like another expat relocation. Melbourne is a place I’ve visited only twice and only for a few days each time. And as much as I love visiting Adelaide and miss the regular cadence of trips I made there, Australia stopped feeling like home a long time ago.”

Then, in 2023, a year after I had arrived in Melbourne, this theme of feeling like an expat in my home country continued to linger.

“Melbourne is a new city to me. I visited once, 25 years ago, but didn’t know the city or anyone who lived here. I had all the usual expat-type questions. Where do I shop for food? Get a haircut? Buy clothes? It was familiar in a way, since I know Australia, the way you know people you went to school with but haven’t seen in years, but unfamiliar in the kind of detail that makes daily life easy.”

Nearly two more years have passed and I’m packing up my apartment in Melbourne. That feeling of disconnection has never really gone away. I did my usual things. Tried to find a favourite cafe, a hairdresser, a cool guitar shop; joined some galleries and museums; explored a few food markets; went to some events; and walked, a lot.

But I leave Melbourne after nearly three years, having made no friends, feeling like I never really met anyone, and never getting to know the city deeply.

A large part of this is my own fault. When I arrived, the city was still partially paralysed by the pandemic. My own circumstances found me often away from the city. My mother’s illness. Her passing. Frequently travelling back to Adelaide to help my father. Trips to the US to visit my daughter at college. Family holidays back in Japan. I rarely got to spend three weekends in a row in Melbourne.

And unlike Tokyo, London, or Hong Kong, Melbourne isn’t a city that attracts visitors from my circle of friends. I’ve met up with way more folk whose travel to Japan coincided with mine than all the number of people I know who visited Melbourne during my years here.

I’ll leave with some good memories. Live music, like Taylor Swift’s Eras Concert at the MCG, IVE on their first world tour, and a particularly special live set from St Vincent on the rooftop of the Crown Casino. I saw lots of good films here and enjoyed several exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria and the ACMI. I will miss my weekly trips to South Melbourne Market. And afternoon walks along the Yarra and through the Botanical Gardens.

But compared to everywhere else I’ve lived, that’s a very short list.

I lived in Singapore for only two years. And yet when I look back on what I wrote about leaving that place, the “the cycle of lasts”, there’s an emotional heft around saying goodbye to people and places that I don’t feel about leaving Melbourne. Back then I wrote:

“I can still recall the sound of every last door closing, from Sydney, to London, to Delhi and Hong Kong. I can still recall the smiles thorough the sadness of all those last goodbyes and best wishes. And I can still feel the heavy heart and the lump in my throat every time I walk down the skybridge from what had been my home airport, one last time, before pausing to touch the airplane’s door, then boarding and looking out the window one last time at the city I’m leaving behind and all the people who will awake the next morning and then get on with their lives without me.”

I felt the same way about closing the door on Tokyo and both times I left London. But I’m not sure I will feel that way when I close the door on Melbourne and board my final flight to leave this place. Perhaps because the city and its people still feel like strangers.