World Youth Day (All Week Long) is having some unexpected benefits:

1. In jaded inner city suburbs such as the one I like to inhabit, there is now often the sound of cheering, singing and clapping. Yes, clapping. Not clapping as in applause, but clapping like a production of Hair when they start singing Let The Sunshine In. You know, clapping ... with rhythm. It's weird. But oddly ... cheering.

2. People are wearing funny hats and bright yellow-orange-blue backpacks on the bus. And they're *smiling*. In a kind of benign, good-natured way. And occasionally taking the mickey out of themselves by loudly counting the number of souvenir flags they've affixed to their funny, funny hats. How can you not laugh along?

3. There's a buzz of activity on the edge of town even on a Wednesday night.

4. The age of people hanging out after dark at the local pizza cafe has just trebled. Older people are sitting at tables; middle-aged people (ie. anyone 15-20 years older than whatever age I happen to be) are chatting and laughing at the bus stop, eating chips and interacting with teenagers. (There's also a fair share of sullen teenagers and strange, loud types with giant flags, but luckily I don't think they're allowed on buses. The flags, at least.) I kinda like seeing the crowd get a little mixed up for a while.

Reminds me of a night I had in Naples four years ago, sitting at a stepped restaurant on a steep cliff opposite Mt Vesuvius*, eating something my hosts referred to as 'Italian sushi' (a kind of ceviche, I think) and trying to ignore the sense of dread that comes from watching the volcano that wiped out Pompeii so very effectively.

So I was instead staring at the people around me, the elders sitting in the family groups, the youngsters watched over by aunts, cousins, parents. And I was just on the verge of verbalising how nice it was to see these extended family groups, the crossing of generations, etc, etc, when my young host said in his thick accent,

"I miss Sydney. I miss all the young people in the city." Then he eyed me morosely and said, "I don't want to grow old."

He was strange & maybe kinda fucked up, & I reflected he probably wouldn't.


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* Says wikipedia of Mt Vesuvius, "It has erupted many times since and is today regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people now living close to it and its tendency towards explosive eruptions. It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world."