This return-to-blogging lark is harder than I thought it would be. The idea is there. It has been for more than a month. And I think it's a winner... or at least you've given me the benefit of the doubt... Favourite Canberra Things have been flowing in thick and fast. Yippee! But getting myself flowing is proving a little harder. It's the case with any creative practice, right? When we're rusty things come slow - writing, drawing, making, cooking, whatever. The only way to get started is to dive back in. And in a way we're always beginning at the beginning.
So here I go!
Yesterday I looked for a more concrete starting point, and spent the morning exploring the neighbourhood where I grew up. The vast childhood canvas of Back Then is a single grid on the small map of Right Now. But it's amazing how much that little grid holds. The strangest things are remembered or trigger memories. The smell of a conifer hedge, the squalk of sulfur crested cockies, a concrete patio on an otherwise unrecognisable house, a fast-flowing storm drain. In my gentle stroll around two suburbs my first Canberra home is steps away from my pre-school, where I met my beautiful friend Adi more than 30 years ago. My primary school is steps beyond that, then my second home, knocked down and transformed into neat-and-tidy units, bordered by neat-and-tidy paths, against a neat-and-tidy park. So much neatening-and-tidying.
In my mind a ramshackle house is bordered by falling-down fences, against a wild and enormous park. But the house and fence is gone, and I can't see any wild enormousness in the narrow lawns in front of me. All those memories are up against each other and the park seems waaaaaay too small to hold them. Climbing and cubby building; arguments and adventures; fireworks and families. I like to think that I can trace out the hole we spent a summer furiously digging, stymied only by a neighbour's complaint. Our planned complex of tunnels and dens was more a pit-of-no-obvious-purpose in reality. And to give the neighbour credit, it would have posed a serious hazard on a night time stroll.
So here I go!
Yesterday I looked for a more concrete starting point, and spent the morning exploring the neighbourhood where I grew up. The vast childhood canvas of Back Then is a single grid on the small map of Right Now. But it's amazing how much that little grid holds. The strangest things are remembered or trigger memories. The smell of a conifer hedge, the squalk of sulfur crested cockies, a concrete patio on an otherwise unrecognisable house, a fast-flowing storm drain. In my gentle stroll around two suburbs my first Canberra home is steps away from my pre-school, where I met my beautiful friend Adi more than 30 years ago. My primary school is steps beyond that, then my second home, knocked down and transformed into neat-and-tidy units, bordered by neat-and-tidy paths, against a neat-and-tidy park. So much neatening-and-tidying.
In my mind a ramshackle house is bordered by falling-down fences, against a wild and enormous park. But the house and fence is gone, and I can't see any wild enormousness in the narrow lawns in front of me. All those memories are up against each other and the park seems waaaaaay too small to hold them. Climbing and cubby building; arguments and adventures; fireworks and families. I like to think that I can trace out the hole we spent a summer furiously digging, stymied only by a neighbour's complaint. Our planned complex of tunnels and dens was more a pit-of-no-obvious-purpose in reality. And to give the neighbour credit, it would have posed a serious hazard on a night time stroll.
The spot where I saw a couple having sex in the long summer grass - "Why is that man doing push-ups with no pants on? And what's that woman doing lying underneath him?" - is brazenly close to the bike path. The spot where I smoked my first joint is brazenly close to home. My first babysitting gig is around the corner. I collected our first (and only) family cat a block or two in the other direction. Across the drain we snuck into someone else's company Christmas party, stuffed ourselves with sausage sangers and then snuck back. I remember the crunch of leaves in autumn, trees loaded with apricots and plums and cherries, running home in soaking summer rain, the once or twice when snow fell, the icicles created when the water froze in the tap.
This is where my Canberra began.
This is where my Canberra began.
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