Laura Kennedy: This time of year feels very familiar … and yet everything is different

We’re deep amid the cosy season, that surreal stretch between Christmas and the new year consisting largely of leftovers sandwiches, Netflix, and sitting about. It’s the holiday equivalent of a long-haul flight without internet access.

We hunker down satisfied in the knowledge that, for the most part and just for a while, no one can get to us. We don’t have to answer that email. We can ignore those messages for a few more days. With the amount of fried food being consumed, day drinking and lack of instant access to everyone we know, it’s the closest thing you can get to a restorative weekend in 1980s Ireland (perhaps with less smoking in the house around children).

Psychologists might call our collective attitude this week dissociative. The rest of us just call it a little holiday.

Your least disciplined friend will declare for the 10th year running that, ‘this is it, now. I’m making moves’. Last year they tried to obtain a bank loan for a microbrewery. This year? Who knows?

In this liminal in-between place over the next few days, the annual shift toward reinventing ourselves is not yet upon us. That’s next week — when we’ll start seeing and hearing people’s aspirations creep forth into the light. The guy at work affectionately known by all as “couchbound Harry” will declare his staunch intention to complete a triathlon this summer. The woman who is always next to you at your once-a-week(ish) pilates class will try to recruit you to her new Irish language night class — she does love a class — which sounds nice but you’re too tired to commit. Your least disciplined friend will declare for the 10th year running that, “this is it, now. I’m making moves”. Last year they tried to obtain a bank loan for a microbrewery. This year? Who knows?

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Everything feels possible at this time of year.

Our first Christmas in Australia was always going to be different. At about 27 degrees, eating your body weight in stuffing becomes something of an endurance sport. I understand why a lot of Australians opt for barbecued fish or meat with cold sides on the beach for Christmas dinner — having the oven on all day long induces a mild hallucinogenic episode in this heat. The climate and culture just sort of force you to approach this time of year differently. As a new immigrant to Australia, that could be a source of regret as part of me reaches toward the traditions and rituals of a recognisably Irish Yuletide. Here at the height of summer though, it just doesn’t work.

The casualness and friendliness of Australians feel familiar to me as an Irish person, but here it seems more of a reaction to the harsh intensity of the natural world than in Ireland

Christmas had to be approached with an open mind. With our stuff still in a shipping container on its way to Australia, the few Christmas decorations we packed (not to mention my little address book for Christmas cards — a quaint analogue indulgence that proves why digitising information is generally a good idea) nothing looked familiar. The same goes for this in-between period and for the new year to come. In this place, everything except the people seems to be so much more intense than at home — we recently had a thunderstorm that was so unconscionably loud we two blow-in bumpkins felt sure that the first boom was a bomb exploding somewhere outside.

The casualness and friendliness of Australians feel familiar to me as an Irish person, but here it seems more of a reaction to the harsh intensity of the natural world than in Ireland, where the most common natural threat is having nice hair ruined on a misty morning. Our casual, laid-back approach feels low stakes when here in Canberra, ABC news recently shared footage of a magpie and a snake fighting in the Botanic Gardens the same way we share videos of a fluffy cat falling short on a big jump while chuckling to ourselves.

Even in Canberra — this relatively manicured city which didn’t exist 120 years ago — the weather is intense and unpredictable. Punishing if infrequent rain, lightning like a smiting from an antagonistic God, and blistering heat that requires constant vigilance around sun protection (especially if you’re from Limerick and basically transparent). It’s no brisk afternoon in Roscommon.

My husband gets regular emails at work warning of various kinds of snakes being spotted loitering with intent in the car park, so people from other countries mince to their cars, dilated pupils scanning the blazing hot tarmac

White cockatoos waddle about shrieking prehistorically like pterodactyls. There is one hefty guy who visits our building to extort food from the residents and he is the size of our (admittedly small) cat. Butterflies and moths are significantly larger. I can attest to this after a moth flew into my face at speed, making a grotesque thudding sound. Kangaroos stop what they are doing to watch you pass like nosy old ladies waiting for the 46a bus. My husband gets regular emails at work warning of various kinds of snakes being spotted loitering with intent in the car park, so people from other countries mince to their cars, dilated pupils scanning the blazing hot tarmac. Australians don’t seem to mince, as a rule.

They have a greater respect for and hardiness about nature than we do, and living here, I can see why.

It’s a change. This time of year feels very familiar, and yet everything is different. The waiting that always characterises this week is still my companion as I curl up on the couch with a purring cat, a film I’ve seen a thousand times and a plate cradling the dregs of the Christmas leftovers. What I’m waiting for, though, is new. None of us ever know what’s coming as the new year stretches and warms up for the marathon before us but here, on the other side of the world, everything is unexpected.

Nothing is certain — even that friend might make those moves this year. Life is infinitely surprising.