What goes up, often must come down. And just as affectionate feelings and first loves blossom in unexpected places, they often wilt and decay just about anywhere, too. But there’s one location where many of us have had our hearts trampled on — or shattered someone else’s.
Grassy, sunny, and expansive, there are few places better suited for a break-up than a public park. Café patrons have a propensity to turn their ears to any drama unfolding on neighbouring tables; it’s more cumbersome to exit a house or alight a bus after a tense discussion.
Parks have seen it all: children flying kites, lovebirds expressing an indecent level of intimacy, teenagers illegally swigging from swindled alcohol bottles amidst the crack of a fresh nang — break-up tears are just drops in the cocktail of human experiences that take place in these slices of natural paradise. Come with Honi Soit on a journey around Sydney as we chart a map of heartbreak, honouring those changed from lovesick to lovelorn, or those tasked with delivering heavy news.
At approximately 2:02pm, March 8th, 2023 (I have the BeReal timestamp to prove it), I was dumped facing the magnificence of the Gilgamesh-adjacent tree on the Sydney University Oval. It was a lovely, sunny day. Birds chirping. The occasional leaf detaching from its stem and floating down to the cool concrete. Just behind the tree, a sheet of bustling people marching to Susan Wakil. This dumping then transferred to the Cadigal Green, under another tree. Needed a change of scenery, I guess. I feel that the devastation of the DUMPING was cushioned by the complementary transcendence of nature. You know, leaves fall, relationships fail, grass is cool and everyone around you has things to do.
Hollis Park, on a beautifully sunny winter day. He was a musician, and a whiny one at that. He spent time monologuing about how “just because I’m not ready for a relationship now doesn’t mean I won’t be in a bit” (we’d been dating exclusively for a probably a few months at this point), and he doesn’t want to feel held back by me because he “wants to feel free to move to America.” Oh and also, his ex-girlfriend started dating someone, how sad for him! I don’t know why he felt like I needed to know that. But the park was beautiful !!!
I was at Steel Park, when I overheard two children – they looked about 6 years old – declare that they could not continue with their relationship. The main point of contention was the mutual lack of trust when pushing each other along the flying fox. I wager it was a good call.
First year, I broke up with my ex just after our shared art history lecture, right near the classrooms outside the Nanoscience building. The February sun bore down on us as I told him I couldn’t date him anymore and he cried. It wasn’t a great move from me. Fast forward to last year, after being in a half year long situationship, we met up in Victoria Park for a post break-up chat. This time I cried and we shared a cigarette.
A breaking up of my hopes for something more than friends. Started in Victoria Park and then he walked me to that greenspace behind Central Park mall. Tastes of rejection-apology-Anita’s. Sights of the art installation slowly going round and round just like how my feelings for him in the following months. Another sight of cockroaches scuttling in the darkness. Sounds of the hustle and bustle of Parramatta Rd, runners passing by as well as other park goers in their own conversations. I felt comforted hearing murmurs of other private conversations in public spaces because it reminded me that everyone’s worlds goes on. Anita’s will always taste bitter-sweet now but goddamn, that night’s flavour kept me coming back for more.
My first breakup happened in Victoria Park, a convenient fifteen minute walk from the history class I had timetabled that morning. It was grey and raining, perhaps a sign of pathetic fallacy, but more likely a testament to the unbearable and suffocating weight of beginning a new life in late February. As we sat on a park bench nestled beneath the trees canopies and behind Lake Horsham’s water lilies, he told me he did not love me anymore. I refused to cry and handed back every t-shirt he had given to me during our year together. I shook my head when he tried to hug me. After many hours of trying to understand, I watched him walk the long and winding path out of the Park and towards Central station. That was the last time I ever saw him.
It was in the dark in the park outside the USYD main gates, and was him just explaining to me how I was not ready for a relationship. I couldn’t even see him and he made me feel bad for being a gal! Like damn sorry you wanted a real relationship and didn’t tell me about it. Damn.
So whilst some of us may still shudder or grimace when we near a park or tread down its path, soon a feeling of collective experience washes over our mind. Every patch of grass has a story to tell, whether it be the site of a dissolving union, or another footstep in the march of life, love and loss. Bittersweet it is that the only constancy we hold onto is the certainty of endings.