People probably think I'm a crazy woman. On a hill in a park in my inner-Sydney neighbourhood, I can often be found bent over, digging in the sandy ground. Joggers and walkers and ball-chasing dogs pass by and I barely notice – I'm absorbed in unearthing the mysteries of the hill. My imagination is firing, in my head, questions trip over each other.
My amateur archaeological diggings on this hill have yielded masses of broken antique blue-and-white porcelain, pieces of domestic history bearing hints of stripe or pattern – flowers, diamonds, vines, leaves. I have found the bowl of an old clay tobacco pipe, stamped with a maker's mark, but missing its stem. A ceramic inkwell. Glass apothecary bottle shards with traces of writing, half words – “ydney”, “e ulcers”, “oison”, “prietor”. A Victorian amethyst and gold brooch. One day I see a small pale circle in the earth and dig until an object emerges – a glazed china doll head, barely an inch high, the ghost of a childhood passed. I carry her home with me and wash away the dirt filling her eye sockets until she no longer resembles a demonic horror movie character.
Onlookers seeing me digging might think I'm crazy, but I hardly care. I'm possessed with curiosity, driven to learn why this hill throws up such little treasures.
The benefits of curiosity and creativity, of infinite explorations in the world, of brain meanderings, of continuing to learn throughout a lifetime, are incalculable. Professor Cassandra Szoeke, a consultant neurologist and the director of the University of Melbourne's Healthy Ageing Program,
