Sun on Sun
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - S
In The Theory of Everything, a character remarks about the summer sun and its inescapability.
I thought of him today as I was walking towards my café.
It is sun multiplied by sun, a proliferation, an extreme radiance, a blaring that obliterates every thought except the heat.
In her book Only Happiness Here, Gabrielle Carey notes the sunlight in Elizabeth von Arnim’s work. She partly attributed it to the writer’s early years in Australia.
In conversation, Gabrielle once commented on the uniqueness of the sunlight here. In the middle of summer, the sun is so intense that every surface is turned white.
It is this heat and light that distinguishes Australia from every other place in the world and it is my strongest association with Parramatta on any day with the clearest sky.