I’m walking home now at 10pm, having barely moved for the past 6.5 hours beyond our little corner of the footpath. I’ve swapped chairs, had a stint standing up and hovering over the rest of the squad. The table has become less and less visible, pixelated beneath the evidence of the day’s takings.  At my feet I see small tokens of the day’s guests: a squashed can of Cass, a sriracha-speckled banh mi paper bag and my now-empty packet of Japanese Camels, signalling that it’s finally time to call it a night.

I dismount my place at the table, announce my surrender to those left over and begin walking homewards down the highway of the inner north (Canning Street). In my slightly drunken haze, I find  myself questioning why this day felt so special. It wasn't a birthday or a particularly radiant summer day. But, it felt different. 

I thought about how the morning had started. someone had texted: are we still on for tonight? Fuck.

I often find myself in this position, watching from above as my plans crash into one another. A catch-up with an old friend scheduled on the same day as a movie, when I’d also agreed to support a mate trying to crack the art scene who needs a security blanket. I start calculating the travel time between each venue. Coburg North isn’t actually that far from Richmond, right? Wrong. The internal bargaining begins. Which one matters most? Which one can be sacrificed? Who would mind the least if I cancel? I’m halfway through drafting my rain checks, realising I’m only going to make two of the three.

A while ago, I went to a hypnotist to try and get a handle on it. I arrived at a frosted glass office off Sydney Road, led down a narrow hallway passing other ‘holistic healers’. There I found Nina, a stern German woman with non-smiling eyes and a stiff set of bangs, who was going to help me with focus and time management. I explained to her that both had been a struggle my entire life. Her prescription: quiet the mind; focus on one thing at a time; try, for once, to actually be somewhere while I’m there.

The first half of the session, Nina interviewed me about my habits, my typical week, and how I allocated time for myself. I detailed the play-by-play, before work, during work, after, and after that too. Her eyes widened as she typed into her iPad. My busy schedule clearly amused her. The call was coming from inside the house.

Now, I don’t remember much of the second half, where she actually hypnotised me, because I naturally fell asleep in her recliner leaving me convinced I paid $250 for a nap. But one line stuck when I replayed the recording later: “Being busy is different to being fulfilled.”

Looking back at today on my way home,  I realised what had made it feel so different. I hadn’t tried to make it to everything. I hadn’t darted across the city trying to satisfy everyone. Instead, I’d done something completely unnatural for me: I’d stayed in one place.

I’d cancelled my plans and just started parking up.

Parking up has always fascinated me. Those people who have found a routine of attendance outside of their home and simply kept showing up:  the bar flies, the regulars, the quiet operators of a neighbourhood – people who seem to exist just slightly outside the usual rhythm of urban life. They’re not rushing between commitments or optimising their time. They’ve chosen a place, and they’ve stayed. Think of the Greek old boys parked up near the Coburg Library, or that one mate drinking a slab of warm VB out of a duffel bag outside the Bottlemart on Rathdowne. Sad? Creepy? Or have they figured something out?

Parking up works because it has no structure, and for groups, allows the quiet assurance of an ever-evolving hang. People cycle through, day turns into night, a week into a year. Your location might shift slightly, but mostly you will hold it down, a grass patch, a bench, a median strip, a table just close enough to the street to catch the flow of people moving through it. It’s not planned or predictable. That’s the beauty of it.

With parking up in my circles usually reserved for birthdays or wedding recoveries; the classic “come through, we’ll be here all day, bring whoever”. I decided to try it on an otherwise unremarkable day.I headed to my local watering hole, the beautiful Wine Corner.

I walk in and am immediately greeted by Steve, Rachel, Annabelle and co. The girlies fill me in on their most recent ventures in life and love. I order some wine  Jack recommends and settle in outside on the table furthest from the bar, glistening in the sun.

I climb into my seat and text my mate Liam:

POGITS? (Pint Of Guinness In The Sun)

“Go on den”

Liam rocks up shortly after. Pints are poured. Pints are drunk. We catch up on his new ridiculous concept or product he’s come up with and gradually other texts start coming through:

“What’s cracking?”

“What’s doing tonight?”

“Where the ‘ell are ya?”

Either there’s something in the air or a public holiday I don’t know about.This feels odd for 3pm on a Friday. Maybe they can smell the freedom or are also running away from plans. People start to arrive. Some intentionally. Others accidentally, passing through, caught by the gravitational pull of a friend's recognisable laugh from our now illuminated and busy outpost. 

A crew starts to build around our four top. Not nearly enough space for everyone to settle in comfort, but we make do, near enough to shout over one another.The park up starts to spill onto the streets, one foot in conversation, the other in the gutter. Cigarettes are smoked between parked cars and Coronas are wedged into windscreens by your mate who’s too cheap to buy from the bar. We’ve created a grey zone between outright public drinking and being a genuine customer. 

Smoking becomes a big part of the park up, my Japanese Camels acting as a form of communion. Strangers join and stay, being coaxed in by a passed Old Virginia or Tally Ho. 

Drinks are being bought  individually or in pairs as we’ve lost track of our places in the round. Bottle-buyers start to emerge, with people matching one another round for round at an ever-escalating rate. A newcomer offers a switch up, “How about a shandy?”  You welcome the change of pace as you realise you’ve drunk nearly every type and temperature of drink the bar has to offer. I somehow stave off getting properly rollicked. I teeter on the edge but keep getting distracted from the noble task at hand by new faces and conversations. There’s always time to pause, to reset and notice you’re still here.  Nothing remarkable seems to happen at the park up, but that’s exactly why it's working. In staying put, something else has started to emerge.

Connections form not because we scheduled them, but because we made a space for them to happen. People have overlapped who otherwise wouldn’t’. Conversations stretched. Familiar faces become something a little bit more. Rather than moving on, we’ve  collectively decided to lean in. 

This creates a window where people know they might find you. Not locked into a time slot, not squeezed between commitments, but available. Formalities fall away. What you take from strangers isn't their job or where they went to school – it’s their laugh you meet, their Nic Cage tattoo, where they're heading and a weird connection through a friend you share. People who were just out of reach, now connected in a  flowing state of our parking up. 

I announce my departure, destraddle the end of the table and head towards the lights of Alexandra Parade. I look back at those still hanging on, half people I know and others I now know, all reckoning with their next move as the bar staff begin to close around them. Idling down Canning Street, it clicked why today had felt so different. 

Rather than surrender myself to my plans, I had surrendered myself to the day. I didn't try to make it more efficient, didn't pack it full. Instead, I had simply made space, and let my community fill it.

I realised then what my hypnotist had been talking about. Being busy is different to being fulfilled. Who knows, maybe I'll come back tomorrow, see how long I can get away with this.

Just come and find me. Wherever you're heading, swing by. Help yourself to a Camel and park up.