Searching for a happiness solution in these dark times? Just look up

How far would you travel for a moment of joy?

Come for a walk with me down McDougall Street in harbourside Kirribilli. You’ll be joined by people from all over greater Sydney. Not exaggerating. Our best street for jacarandas draws people from all around the harbour city, and beyond.

I’ve been going for years now. It began as a way to cheer myself after regular visits to my adored mother-in-law in her dying days. She lived not far from there. We would walk down, surround ourselves in those lavender petals. Now it’s my happiness solution and I pass the street where she once lived and remember only the good bits. She died in the middle of that first COVID year and there were no good bits then.

This year was the most crowded I’ve ever seen it. We were all coming to get brief respite from war and more war, inflation and death on every doorstep. And jacarandas, well, they really do make us feel better, even if just for a moment. Naturally, being a roaring busybody, I started asking questions. “What suburb do you live in?”

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Campbelltown. Pymble. Punchbowl. Bankstown. Coogee. Blacktown. Woollahra. London – but I won’t count her because she was there with local relatives. “I live here,” one woman smiled, gesturing towards the mauve tunnel.

Another question, do you have jacarandas in your own suburb? Yes, but not like this. Come Sunday (heaven forfend wind, hail and pelting rain), the jacaranda flowers will form a lilac arch over our heads, branches and blooms reaching each other. Life-affirming. There will be more people cheerfully posing in purple frocks and suits. More kids lying on the road, smiling awkwardly. More people bringing their ladders to get the best possible angle for their photos. And maybe someone else will bring their friends to celebrate graduations, weddings, anything. This is the second year that the road has been closed to traffic and surviving pedestrians salute North Sydney Council.

If the jacarandas were not enough, some actual genius decided to plant a stand of Illawarra flame trees. Should be compulsory companion planting across the region. I reckon this is their best season ever.

Zoe Baker, the mayor of North Sydney who lives just around the corner from McDougall Street, agrees. And she tells me something which makes me cry. (True, I’m prone to tears, especially now.)