Eighty-seven little crushes on Canberra

Canberra's best season has returned.

The plane trees have wrapped the entire street in shades of brick red. Their tangled branches slice the golden morning light into scattered fragments, which fall softly at her feet. Beneath her shoes, fallen leaves crunch with every step, releasing a faint sweetness into the air, tinged with something almost tart.

That familiar scent carries her back to a distant time - to the first day she set foot on this land, ten years ago.

The light was the same. So were the temperature and the scent in the air. Back then, the girl arriving with a newly bought denim backpack and two 28-inch suitcases could never have imagined that she would spend the next decade in Canberra - a small city of fewer than half a million people.

Spring, summer, autumn and winter. People came and went. The seasons turned, again and again.

Even now, whenever she goes to the airport, she still carries that same denim backpack. The straps are a little worn and the seams have begun to fray, but everything else seems almost unchanged.

People often say, “You fall in love with a city because of someone.”

But without that someone, would a city still linger in your heart?

Perhaps, amid the rush of life, it has already faded from memory. Or perhaps, on some warm afternoon softened by the spring breeze, you will still find yourself thinking of a little city, and of those fleeting days that vanished before you knew it.

So, before this brilliant golden season comes to an end, she has decided to write down 87 little things about Canberra.

87 little crushes on the city she has called home for ten years.

1. Franklin was where my life as an international student began.

2. You had to run if you wanted to catch the Murrays coach.

3. The tattooed barista at CBE hummed while pouring a swan with a heart.

4. Two years after marriage equality passed, Andrew Barr married his husband.

5. My old Holden's hail-dented skin made it thousands cheaper.

6. Before Anzac Day, turning on the heater was an admission of defeat.

7. At 3:30 one winter morning, we freed a kangaroo caught in wire below Mount Ainslie.

8. That was when I learnt kangaroo fur is coarse outside and soft underneath.

9. I have seen ANU at one, two, three, four, five and six in the morning.

10. One mid-semester break, we drove to the Gold Coast.

11. Everyone should see the Milky Way from Mount Stromlo once.

12. One early-autumn morning looked almost like Türkiye.

13. Copland's possums emerged after nine.

14. Before a deadline I bought $100 of food at Coles and ate it for two weeks.

15. Canberra wind: you win.

16. I saw more rainbows that year than in the previous twenty — many of them double.

17. After the deadline, let's go for a drink.

18. Actually, let's drink while we work; it may be more efficient.

19. Tuesday coffee at Union Court was partly an excuse to see you.

20. Kaleen at midnight in deep winter is not for the timid.

21. Canberra during university holidays really can be boring.

22. Canberra thinks you're boring too.

23. After semester began, we went to Kiama and Nan Tien Temple.

24. If a kangaroo lands on the windscreen, scream — but keep hold of the wheel.

25. We climbed through a window into the locked common room to study.

26. If security comes, you said, we will pretend to faint.

27. When Chifley was full, we tried the Law Library.

28. How many things did you finish on the pre-graduation list?

29. Weekends meant the lake, the dog and sunlight.

30. The kangaroos I met were more muscular fighters than cute mascots.

31. Canberra's pho and bánh mì can taste better than Vietnam's.

32. I learnt grass could be this green and sky this blue.

33. It felt as though every household had a dog, so I wanted one too.

34. Australian mandarins arrived: time to eat back the airfare.

35. A black-and-green Kathmandu puffer was Canberra's unofficial uniform.

36. April's limited palette was red, yellow, green and blue.

37. In a supposed food desert, I learnt to make pork buns from scratch.

38. When bored at night, we wandered through Kmart.

39. A slightly tipsy Friday night in the city came with free live music.

40. My first driving instructor sent me onto a 100-kilometre road.

41. That pho shop near Northbourne rescued many winter nights.

42. I remember when a lunch box was $9.90.

43. I wore ANU clothes to study at UC while kangaroos blocked the path home.

44. Cherry blossom, wisteria and wattle meant it was time for Telfast.

45. ANU folklore said that if fluff was flying before you began revision, you were doomed.

46. Because of you, I learnt to like spicy maoxuewang.

47. Then I admitted I did not really like spicy food at all.

48. The exhausting search for housing ended when I finally got a room on campus.

49. A Pokémon Go obsession took me to every Canberra landmark in a week.

50. At Union Court's Asian buffet, I always served too much.

51. Coming back from Sydney? Please bring watermelon cake.

52. A semester felt impossibly short and impossibly long.

53. ONA coffee made my heart race.

54. I failed the driving test three times.

55. My first salary bought a Golf older than I was.

56. We found an old game console at ANU and played Super Mario instead of studying.

57. Manuka is not pronounced the way Mandarin makes you expect.

58. On the first Saturday of October, I stayed awake wondering how summer would steal an hour.

59. After graduation, even delivering food in heavy rain felt bearable because you were beside me.

60. Then a dog arrived, and the dog park became a weekend ritual.

61. I learnt hail can fall in midsummer.

62. And that hailstones can be larger than eggs.

63. Two strangers stopped beside me in tears and asked, Are you okay?

64. I learnt to answer racism loudly rather than swallow it.

65. Holding the door for the person behind me became instinct.

66. After the dog arrived, every piece of clothing gained a hole.

67. The Koko Black in the city disappeared.

68. Sleeping late meant missing dew, birdsong and the smell of grass.

69. For a long time, my bank balance was always negative.

70. A fire alarm woke me; I ran through smoke carrying the dog. This time it was real.

71. At Grill'd, I only wanted the Summer Sunset burger.

72. A puffer jacket with bare legs and shorts was standard winter menswear.

73. Ruining the plan for your life does not necessarily ruin your life.

74. We drank beer and sang.

75. I learnt to say yes when I meant yes, and no when I meant no.

76. After light rail opened, getting home somehow took longer.

77. Belconnen dog park had too many tough dogs; Yarralumla felt safer.

78. On Thursdays after work, you brought fried chicken to someone sleeping rough in the city.

79. I stopped pretending to understand colleagues' jokes; they did not understand mine either.

80. If I leave Canberra, I will miss the thick chips at Kingsley's Chicken.

81. The beeping pedestrian signal still makes crossing the road feel safe.

82. I lay on grass with my eyes closed from afternoon until dusk.

83. Wake early in March and see sunrise from the Arboretum.

84. McDonald's cones rose from fifty cents to $1.10 and somehow returned to fifty cents.

85. Some people were never seen again.

86. I met you in a Canberra autumn.

87. Ten years later, under the same maple light, I realised the days I thought forgotten had been glowing quietly all along.

All of us have, at least once, felt our hearts move fiercely in some corner of this city.