Life goes on...

Ever since I moved to Orleigh Street, 5 years ago, I've loved walking down my street on the way to catch the bus.

I'm usually still half-asleep, and running late, and irritated about facing the cruel, cruel reality of going to work for yet another day. But one thing that brings a rare spontaneous smile to my face on those mornings, when the air still has a hint of delicate coolness before the humidity settles over it, is the street.

The giant fig trees in Orleigh Park with branches weighed down by clouds of green, the ducks foraging in the thick mangroves beneath them, the scent of the frangipani and jasmine from the neighbours' yards, the sparkle of the river, old couples wandering down the path, cyclists and joggers in bright colours, all below the clearest blue Brisbane sky. I always want to stay in that world, where morning holds promise, instead of piling onto the bus and heading towards the hectic tedium of the city.

Since the floods however, the picture is not quite right.

Blades of grass are slowing peeking through the mud in the park. The fig trees, giant and immoveable, look just the same. The cyclists and joggers are trickling back.

But the mangroves lean to one side, some dying, some still festooned with river debris, and they are brown rather than green - like the river. The road still has a sheen of mud, even after the summer storms. The neighbour's frangipani tree also leans to one side where the current of the river beat at it for two days. The neighbour's house is a building site, while the elderly residents live on the second floor. Another one was luckier, but the Queensland flag still hanging from their garage door is a reminder of the creeping water and how it made a community desperate enough to cling to each other. The cheery, colourful Orleigh Park sign is gone, taken by the Council after the water snapped its metal legs and left it lying in a broken, faded pile in the mud.

I feel as though something nasty and insidious took root in me during the floods. I don't know what it is, or how long it will subsist. But walking down my street in the morning no longer makes me feel happy. I look at the struggling mangroves, and I feel despair.