Friday, September 07, 2007

We'll Meet Again



It's been a week of goodbyes at The Pink House. A handful of long termers have done the off and headed their separate ways. During the day, Aidan and Hannah made their way to the airport, and by the time I arrived in the evening Richie and Dave were all packed up ready for the 12 hour Greyhound bus journey to Byron Bay.

Richie and Dave, two thirds of Team Rave, had been with us for 4 weeks and so were part of the family (God knows what that makes me at 5 months). One immediate upshot was that because of Raj's decision not to go on the road with the other two members, the "Raj-less" Dave and Rich had to be be renamed Team Ditch - something which the new duo accepted immediately.

As we all gathered to give manly pats on the back to men overloaded with backpacks the size of Hotpoint Dishwashers, leaning foward to stop themselves falling backward, we realised how much camaraderie there is in The Pink House, as the air was filled with the usual exchanges: "...cool, take care, yeah?"; "keep in touch, you've got my email, right?", and Franc's typically ascerbic, but not serious "....I never liked you, anyway...".

Usually goodbyes don't really have an immediate effect if the person leaving is still stood in front of you. It's only later you feel it - when the courtyard is one voice missing, or the conversation is one joke short. The silence that falls is not an absence of noise, but an absence of atmosphere, and of feel. The Pink House is essentially an empty recepticle coloured by the characters who grace its creaking bunk beds, and now we are five of our most vivid people down, there's no telling what hue The Pink House will adopt. It probably won't be Pink.

No comments: