As we hurtle towards the equinox, notwithstanding the odd dip in the mercury (15 degrees in my capricious Melbourne), spring seems to have sprung with a palpable “boing!”.
Blue, cloudless skies, the air sweet with blossom and giddy with birdsong. Sap rising, buds bursting, etcetera. As the late Robin Williams put it, “Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’”
Throughout the natural world, flora and fauna are showing out, strutting their stuff and generally getting their freak on. Lordy, how I have loved this time of year.
Only, now that my protracted “late youth” has given way to no longer deniable middle age, I find I must curb my responses to shifting circadian rhythms. I must resist the urge to reach for those gaudier shirts in my wardrobe, forego gaily skipping along streets to a hearty rendition of "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah".
In short, act my age.
If I sound like a bitter old fart, that could be because I am one.
One of the paradoxes of a 21st century, first world society is that, while our population is steadily ageing, we increasingly worship youth. The sun-kissed months, like so much else, have become the domain of the young.
If I’m sounding like a bitter old fart, that could be because I am one. What’s worse, an expat bitter old fart.
In my homeland of chilly England, a sunny Sunday was so rare a wonder that its miraculous arrival would incite the masses, regardless of age, physical form or relationship status, to strip down to their undies and gather together for a communal frolic. Or at least to sprawl, as one, on whatever scrub of grassland was in the vicinity.
It took me some time to adjust to Australian etiquette in this regard.
Working on a university campus during my first Down Under spring, it was my habit, on any day over 25 degrees Celsius (a scorcher, in Brit terms) to spend the occasional lunchtime sizzling and pinkening bare-chested in a nearby park.
I’d loll on my picnic rug, newspaper spread out before me, shovelling sushi into my happy face and trying not to think about skin cancer.
One day, a group of students passed by, close enough for their remarks to reach my burning ears.
“Hey look, there’s naked guy.”
“Oh, you mean Muffin Man?”
“Ha! Yeah! Muffin Man! G’day, Muffin Man!”
I was mortified, and have not removed my top anywhere beyond the beach, bedroom or backyard ever since.
As their inadequately suppressed sniggers and guffaws faded into the distance, I slowly realised that this snippet of repartee did not refer to the jolly baker who, according to the old nursery rhyme, lives on Drury Lane. It referred to the little roll of blubber that extended over my waistline as I was leaning forward to read the editorial.
Muffin Man. That’s who I was, in their eyes. I was mortified, and have not removed my top anywhere beyond the beach, bedroom or backyard ever since. I even, momentarily, considered going on a diet.
You’re as young as you feel, we’re told, by those same idiots who insist that everything happens for a reason, or what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Rubbish. If that were true, most of us would still be about 25. Because that’s how we feel, emotionally at least, on the inside, where it’s meant to count.
In my heart, and in my mind’s eye, I’m still around that age. Certainly under 35. The age when you could smile at a stranger you passed on the street – on one of those spring mornings when all seems right with the world – without appearing mad or lecherous.
In a world where image is everything, we’re clearly only as young as we look. And if that’s not young enough to be listening to Triple J, the party’s over.
Ask not for whom the spring boings, for it does not boing for us.
Maybe it’s time we, the wrinkled, balding and flabby majority, insisted on our day in the sun, striding once again down the bright side of the road, offering mischievous eye contact to all passers-by, figurative tails-a-bristling, to reclaim a stake in this most fecund of seasons, instead of shuffling, apologetic, through its shadows.
As I write this, the forecast says 27 and sunshine. Students of Melbourne, brace yourselves for the return of Muffin Man.
Ian Rose is a Melbourne writer.
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