Return to the Mummy

The ties to my family draw me back to Australia every year, but this is usually for one week or less. Because the time is short, I spend only a few hours in Sydney before catching a domestic flight to my family home on the North Coast of New South Wales, about 700 kms north of Sydney. A few years ago, I spend this time not shopping us usual but visiting Sydney University to enjoy the memory of the happy years I had spent there.

The desire to visit my old university came to me in the weeks before I make my annual Songkran escape. I'm not sure why it came. I had recently started using Facebook, so perhaps the old friends that I caught up with there had reminded me of the time we had spent together among the beautiful old sandstone buildings as we read, argued with each other and our professors, and generally enjoyed the challenges of becoming members of a thriving academic community. I found myself remembering the purple flowers of the jacaranda tree in front of the philosophy department offices, where I had spend hours every week. I also recalled the wide green lawns of the main quadrangle that the philosophy department was in one corner of, and thinking also of the scarred wooden desks, perhaps a century old, in the rooms of the Latin department. And of course the ancient Egyptian mummies in the university museum down the corridor. I suddenly wanted to see all those things again.

My usual Qantas flight arrived in Sydney on a clear, cool day in mid-April  I took the airport rail link into the city as usual, and grabbed some bacon and eggs at the small cafe at Circular Quay, from which I could enjoy the sights of the fresh morning over the harbour, with the sun glittering on the water, lighting up the ferries going back and forth across the gently swelling water, bringing passengers to work in the towers of the city behind me. As usual, there were white gulls taking advantage of bits of food dropped by people eating quickly on the way to work: lawyers in suits, clerks a little less formally dressed, and laborers for the many construction sites that are constant part of downtown Sydney. It was a relaxing start to my half day in the city.

After I'd finished my bacon and eggs, and a large coffee, I didn't walk into the city for the usual shopping for cakes, pate, cheeses and chocolate for my mother, brothers and sisters, but instead I caught a bus to Newtown. I could have walked to Sydney University as I had many times when I was studying and living there, but although I had time, I wasn't sure that I my memory of the route through the streets was reliable, so I got the number 423 bus, which was still running on the same route. This cost $2:00 dollars for the short trip to Sydney University. I got off at the new, although now not so new, student union building on City Road, across from the large university grounds. As always, the cars and other traffic was hurtling along City Road, but I was on familiar territory now as I made my way across the pedestrian bridge over the road and into the university.

The old Carslaw Building, home of the mathematics department, where I had spend many years entranced as much by the sometimes odd professors who taught as calculus, non-Euclidean geometry and other fun things as those subjects were themselves, was the first landmark that stood out. It is a tall, rather boring cube, but I knew where I was and what lay beyond it. A short walk along the broad, quiet paths brought me a few minutes later to the massive old main quad., its solid sandstone looking exactly the same as it had when I had first arrived in February 1978.

It was the Easter break, so there were not many people around as I enjoyed retracing the steps I'd taken many years ago. The old jacaranda was in full bloom, making the ground beneath it purple with dropped flowers. The sandstone was the same light brown. I knew he wasn't there, but I imaged popping my head into the main lecture room and seeing Professor Stove expounding no philosophy of science, stuttering Dr. McDermitt leading his logic class through Godel's proof of incompleteness in mathematics. And the richly decorated mummy case was exactly as I'd remembered, or perhaps a little more dusty in the silent museum.

I didn't have as many treats to distribute to my nieces and nephews when  I arrived on the North Coast a few hours later, but I glad I'd taken the time to revisit the place where I had become an adult and enjoyed my introduction to academic life. Mum missed out on her chocolates from Sydney's best chocolate shop, but the mummy was worth the visit.