Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 29

Anzac day was a different one this year.

When I was living in Sydney, Anzac Day had a completely different energy about it. For a lot of people around my age, Anzac Day was when you would crowd into pubs for rowdy games of two-up, where it was not uncommon for people to ride a few fifties on the flip of a coin. There were drinks specials and long lines at the bar and the whole thing had vibe that I would liken to Australia Day yabbie races. It was all a bit weird.

Like, I’m very much pro yahoo-ing and hooha-ing, but standing in the scrum of screaming people packed into a bar didn’t feel right – and not just because the drinks “specials” were still ridiculously overpriced.

I mean, this obviously feeds into the I’m-a-small-town-girl-with-a-country-heart-and-geez-I-have-a-hat-and-all-that identity I like to play up to, but I do much prefer the way we do Anzac Day back home.

Being back in Queensland, I was looking forward to settling back into the routine of the annual calendar. My middle sister and I haven’t lived at home for years now, but we like to go back for Anzac Day when we can. We stay the night before and all set our alarms for the dawn service. It’s usually pretty crisp so we hastily pull on jumpers and thick socks as the kettle boils. Then we clump together in the kitchen, which is silent except for the sound of sips of tea. Then we walk around to the cenotaph in the darkness.

It’s not a long service in the morning. There’s no unnecessary pageantry or pomp, but it’s very moving to hear the Last Post played live as the sky starts to lighten.

The dark silhouettes lighten to reveal the features of familiar faces. The birds start chirping. Old friends shake hands other after not having seen one another for the entirely subjective, immeasurable unit of time that can only be described as “yonks”. Then there’s the scraggly procession down to the main street towards Senior Citizens Centre for the gunfire breakfast and, if you’re game, a rum and milk.

It’s all very lovely.

The collective ritual of remembrance leaves you with an overwhelming feeling of connection. And that sense of belonging that is hard to manufacture.

But this year, obviously, none of that could happen. We had to make do on our own.

Earlier in the week, our house decided we’d do a driveway dawn service like we had seen on the TV ads. We weren’t really sure how it would come together. We figured we’d get up just before 6am and cobble something together on the veranda. There was an audio file of a dawn service we could download from a website, so we’d just play that.

I woke up at about 5.45am and up and down our street were clumps of people standing on the footpath in front of their homes holding candles.

I grabbed two candles we had floating around the house – we didn’t have any of those plain white candlesticks that are suitable for a wide range of liturgical purposes, so our wanky don’t-tell-Dad-how-much-I-paid-for-these scented candles had to do the job.

Then my housemates and I stood on the footpath.

For some reason, the audio file wasn’t playing on my phone, but thankfully the people a few houses down were broadcasting the service through their car speakers.

It was just a bunch of people standing on the footpath in their pyjamas – expect for the one kid who wore his Navy cadets uniform – but it was actually quite moving to be part of it.

There was no mingling after the broadcast was over, everyone just turned back into their houses and apartments. But we tried to recreate the gunfire breakfast experience. We poured ourselves a rum and milk (which, I have to be honest, was mostly milk). We cooked bacon and eggs on the barbecue. And then we whipped up a batch of Anzac bickies.

And when I scrolled through my phone, I saw a lot of people had done a similar thing – dressing up mannequins in military uniforms, making wreaths out of old fencing wire, drawing chalk poppies on the footpath, lighting up candles. My Instagram feed was full of it.

Even though we weren’t physically close, that sense of connection came through. As my father would say, we were “doing it in different towns together”.