Alien

I should have been prepared for the sweet-sad hit of homesickness when I crushed the eucalyptus leaf and breathed in the dry, blue sky scent. It had been a reflex action on seeing the gum tree so unexpectedly in the middle of the Parc André Citroën, a modern and rather strict stretch of green between the Seine and the 15^th arrondissement. In seeking shelter from another bustling spring shower, I’d found myself in a towering glasshouse featuring the flora of Australia and New Zealand. I wandered around the unlikely patch of sandy scrub, revelling in the familiarity of the plants and quietly amused at how incongruous they looked, these straggly spiky things, encased in their glittering palace and categorised with bombastic botanical signage. I walked and greeted them one by one, pricking my skin on their sharp little leaves and smelling their small honeyed flowers. I ran my finger between the red fibre ridges of the bottlebrush, licking the nectar drips and tasting my childhood.

Sweet, yes, but sad too, to see these friends transplanted so far from home. The anaemic silky oak stretching towards the glass roof made me think of the shivering clumps of wallabies I’d seen in the dismal menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes. Or the poor mute kookaburra pining in the Hong Kong zoo. At least I’d chosen to uproot myself and come to the other side of the world, unlike these dejected specimens, enforced foreigners, bravely drawing my pity away from myself.

The rain passed and I held the gum leaf to my nose, inhaled home deeply, and stepped out blinking into the gorgeous, garish green.