My Sunday
Max Olijnyk – freelance
I wake up an hour earlier than my alarm. Ally and James are staying in our spare room, so I tiptoe to the
kitchen and make juice, which is extremely loud. Over the juice, Rosie tells me
she had a dream in which James told her that her father would die soon. I tell
her I had a dream about a paraplegic girl who was my friend. I skip over the
sexual undertones.
I ride to yoga class and realise I forgot my bike
lock. I stash my bike in the stairwell of the yoga studio and look forward to a
tense hour or so worrying it will be stolen. But once the lesson is underway, I
fall under the spell of yoga. Through focusing on my breathing, I manage to
turn down my inner monologue and almost exist in the moment.
There are many messages on my phone when I emerge
from the class, all to do with today’s skateboarding mission. I decide to take
a Zen approach and ignore them all, apart from Jason’s ‘are you coming to my
place?’ to which I reply ‘Yes’. Tim arrives at Jason’s a minute or two after
me. We walk to get coffee, from a cafe. When we return, Pete and Chris are
waiting outside.
We drive for two hours through amazing forests.
Jason, Tim and I sit across the backseat of Pete’s car, with me in ‘skiing’
position. We crack jokes and discuss various topics. I wonder if I am being
annoying because Pete is uncharacteristically quiet.
The park is brand new and covered in red dust. We
have it to ourselves and it is quite strange and fun. It takes me a while to
get warmed up, but it turns into a good skate. We all do ollies in a row for
Pete’s tiny camera on the end of a golf stick. In an unexpected stroke of luck,
there is a steel drum festival happening next to the park. We eat our lunch to
a joyous rendition of Amazing Grace. There are camels walking around with
children sitting on them. There is a goat race. I ask a nearby mum if it’s her newborn
baby’s first steel drum festival. She laughs and responds in the affirmative.
We are bored of the park and decide to drive to
another one. Chris jokes that it will be wet there because the photos of it on Pete’s
phone were taken after it was raining. It takes ages to drive there and by the
time we arrive, Chris’ dark prophecy has been fulfilled. We walk around the
park and marvel at how good it is and what fun we could’ve had. Back in the car
and another long drive back to civilisation. I ride home to find James
has built me a perfect cutting table in my absence. I feel guilty for going skating all day. Ally
cooks a delicious pumpkin risotto for dinner. We watch The Voice and hang shit
on the contestants and the judges. After a few too many scenes of Jack
Nicholson and Diane Keaton going head to head in Something’s Gotta Give, we go
to bed. The internet is on the blink, so we can’t watch comedy clips on the
ipad. We go to sleep.
