🇬🇧 The Bondi shooting through my eyes: the sorrow that binds me to Sydney
Australia is my thirty-third country, my first real experience living abroad.
It’s the country I’ve dreamed of for a long time, the one I wanted so much that I left, at least for now and very likely forever, my life in Italy. It’s a dream I want to make come true, because deep down, I dream of never looking back.
I arrived here to go with the flow, to follow my heart, my most precious resource. At first, the plan was Brisbane and the East Coast. However my flight after a very long layover in Chengdu (China) of over twenty hours, landed in Sydney. Just one sentence from a friend a few weeks before my departure was enough to make me change course: «Sydney is beautiful». I had planned to stay only a short time, but after almost three months, I am still here.
My greatest fear wasn't being able to keep up with its pace: Sydney is a competitive city, at times ruthless, because everyone wants to live here. I immediately understood why: dream beaches within everyone's reach; an ocean that is a weave of blue, turquoise, emerald and liquid light; an energy that is festive in its own way, which doesn't exclude, but embraces. It is a dynamic, vibrant city, but not cold. It is a city that challenges you and I accepted this challenge with all of myself, with all my resources and all the hunger I feel. Sydney doesn't caress you or pamper you at all: it demands your presence and, if you stay, it forces you to grow. It truly forces you to grow.
I began my journey here staying at the Zen Harmony House. As soon as I arrived, I immediately started looking for a single room in a shared apartment, but in the end, I chose to stay at the hostel, from which I never moved. It is a place of constant comings and goings, of new faces, of intersecting stories. I try to embrace everything I can from the people I meet: lessons, hugs, sincere advice and connections whose true nature only time will reveal. This is exactly what a thirty-something expat needs, who alone has chosen to rewrite their own life.
Here, we practice at least an hour and a half of meditation together each day; we don’t do it to feel better, but to be with what is. Not all meditative practices are the same. There are days when everything flows; others when you sit, feel resistance and struggle even to stay still. There are moments when looking within is difficult; others when it seems impossible. There are practices that bring pain to the surface, practices in which, therefore, you wouldn’t want to see anything.
On Sunday December 14th 2025, I was at Bondi Beach, in the famous suburb located in the eastern part of this metropolis, which spans over 12,000 km². To put it in perspective, Rome, the largest city in the European Union, covers an area of "only" 1,285 km²: this comparison highlights just how enormous Sydney is and how small it can make you feel when you live here and cross it every day on an electric bike. Bondi is home to Australians, to many expats and it has also become one of my homes across the world. However for me that day was far from pleasurable. I was working: completing a delivery for Uber Eats.
Since arriving in Sydney, I’ve had three jobs: food delivery rider, kitchen assistant in a Vietnamese fast-food restaurant and waiter for a catering agency that handles luxury events (a world I had never seen before, at least not at that level). I still do the rider and waiter jobs today: the first out of necessity, because in a city with such high competition it’s far from easy to get into other entry-level jobs without experience; the second to push myself beyond what I believe are my limits.
I chose to start over from scratch. Here, I’m not the teacher, I’m not the lawyer, I’m not the labels that have defined me for years. I’m a person starting anew, with an immense hunger. I realized immediately that I truly want this city and this country, at least for now.
That day I was over half an hour’s ride from where I stay. Sydney is an efficient city, but it’s not bike-friendly everywhere. I was riding along New South Head Road, one of the streets I like the least when cycling: six lanes, no bike path and drivers speeding by, oblivious to your presence, as if you were invisible, as if the world was moving too fast to notice someone just trying to cross it on two wheels.
At a certain point, a police car speeds by so fast that it almost brushes past me. It’s heading toward Bondi Beach. Then more arrive. Then the ambulances. I reach Campbell Parade, the main road that runs along the beach and is usually full of life. It was strangely empty.
Like every rider, I was focused on completing the delivery. I was not yet fully aware of what was happening: the authorities were closing off the area. I deliver the order, and the guy I give it to says to me:
«Stay safe, there are shooters»
It takes me a while to process. Instinctively, I accept two more orders: it promised to be a profitable Sunday. It was the only thing I was thinking about, completely unaware of the reality around me. Then I open the internet and read about the tragedy.
I look up and see three helicopters above me. I’m standing there, in the middle of the street. I cancel the orders, something I never do. Inside me, a part I know well and often keep hidden activates: the part that drives me to efficiency at any cost. It’s a resource, but it can easily turn into a monster capable of even putting your life at risk.
Even as a delivery rider, those numbers that represent perfection for me easily activate in my mind: 100% acceptance rate, 0% cancellation rate, that 94% satisfaction rate that absolutely must become 100%: it’s possible, because the platform only considers the last 100 completed deliveries. I also have to reach Diamond level, the highest level available, and I’m almost there.
In that moment, I realize that the monster hadn’t been defeated at all, as I had believed. This awareness washes over me completely. Then I stop. I look at the news on my phone again and read that Bondi is an absolutely off-limits area. But I was already there and I neither could nor wanted to get back on my bike to return to the city.
Fortunately, a Swedish girl notices me and invites me into her home. I stay there for about three hours. The curtains remain closed and the lights off the whole time. Through a small gap, I catch a glimpse of a forbidden, almost stolen sunset, the sunset that those who lost their lives that Sunday will never see again. We reassure families and friends, talk about this and that to distract ourselves, not to think about what’s happening outside, not to follow the incessant noise of sirens and helicopters. When the situation calms down a bit, a dear friend I met along this life journey comes to pick me up by car. I leave my bike at Bondi. My evening continues and I cook myself a good plate of pasta with gratitude. I was alive and it could have gone differently. Life is a beautiful gift and it is never to be taken for granted. Never.
The next day, with a lot of laziness, I return to Bondi to pick up my bike and get back to work. I do what I have to, but the usual energy doesn’t ignite inside me. I feel empty, drained. An unusual, almost unreal silence reigns over Bondi. The streets, normally bustling with life and laughter, are still monitored by police at every corner. That silence, so rare in Bondi, wraps around me in every breath, every step, every pedal.
During Monday’s meditation, I was restless. However today, looking inside myself was truly a struggle. I feel Sydney’s pain within me, perhaps more intensely than many who have lived here for years. Today, there is no sun, neither in the city nor inside me. I associate that bike with pain: I don’t feel fear, but a deep suffering. That’s why today I didn’t go to work. I really didn’t feel like pedaling.
Dear Sydney, I stay with you in this sorrow, without running away, without speeding up, without pretending it doesn’t hurt. I stay with you because today I truly chose you. You are and you will be the city that embodies the courage I believed I didn’t have. You are the place that has stripped me of every definition, the place that is making me grow like never before.
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