A few years after we lost my nonna, Franco was diagnosed with dementia. These first few years were the hardest. A social man and a great orator, he slowly withdrew into himself. Yet, over time, parts of Nonno’s personality began to bear fruit again.
Through stuttered sobs, I thanked him for being a good grandad. He snorted; “I haven’t done much”. I said that he had, trying to articulate through my running nose and gasping breath how much he had done for me, but in the moment, I couldn’t.
As someone who has been writing in a diary since 2011, I’ve looked back at my past diaries. I’ve laughed and cringed. 12 years later, now in my early 20s, I’ve started to reflect on what they mean to me.
Chinatown is not a timeless exotic town square separated from the rest of Sydney. Rather, it is an institution shaped by people with diverse identities interacting with one another in Australia’s unique cultural landscape.
It takes genuine effort to recall the sequence of events in the unfolding global catastrophe of COVID-19. Instead, I am left only with memories of reconnecting with nature and family, and discovering new friends and new eyes through which to see the city I had spent so much time as a child.
Some may wonder why Sydney’s last video rental store mattered in the age of streaming. But for Sydney’s film enthusiasts it was a haven of long-lost cult classics and community.
When recounting past relationships, sometimes an object is worth a thousand words.