The first time I ever saw Northam was in weather like this.
I landed in Perth three years ago, almost to the day.
The plane set down just as the wingtip of a hurricane grazed the WA coastline, and we drove to Northam a few weeks later with concrete grey skies contrasting against the neon-green fields that hem the Great Eastern Highway.
A week later I woke up to find the entire town drowned in a dollop of opaque fog.
For the first month, we spent every day remarking about how beautiful it was.
Every drive to Perth was punctuated with oohs and aahs, as every hill we crested presented us with yet another vista, featuring divine sunsets and an idyllic countryside, dotted with sheep, and blanketed with canola fields.
Then you get to live in it a bit, and the reality of it all makes it mundane.
The sheep, you discover, aren’t fluffy white, but usually muddy grey.
They don’t “baaa” either, rather they make a coughing, hacking sound, like a toddler trying to regurgitate an unwanted carrot.
Then summer hits, and the countryside gets seared and everything colorful becomes a sort of featureless brown.
The Avon River dries up, and soon the ducks that waded across it, are walking its length like the last runner at the world’s most depressing marathon.
And then I meet Aussies who say, “I love this weather,” and “I can’t stand the cold.
Thank God for the heat!” They then step outside and their skin boils with cancer.
I started thinking about this when I realized I’d been here for three years now.
We get used to new places quite fast, adapt to new homes quicker than we think we can.
A lot of what used to catch me off guard about life in country WA, I now just take for granted, much like everyone else who lives here.
I stop appreciating the safety and security I now have, the serenity and peace of mind I now indulge, and instead whinge about not having anything to do on weekends, and how there was a break-in three houses over a month ago and so we no longer feel safe as we did.
But every time winter rolls around, the sheer unparalleled beauty of rural Western Australia smacks me about the face, and I remember to appreciate it just a bit more.
