Behind me, a discord

Today I look forward. I have aims and goals and demands to be made. I distract myself with illustrious daydreams and fanciful missions that take me far, far away...

At my desk I sat down and smiled.

It’s 7.47pm and I am writing of sound mind and body at my desk in the tiny corner of the globe that is reserved entirely for me.

It’s sunny in here.

Actually that’s a lie but allow me that poetic license, because it was this morning. And somewhere in the corner of my desk the sunrays have been captured and are still radiating heat. In this I firmly believe.

My desk is old. It’s vintage. It’s positively antique. Currently it holds more interest for me than the long dead historian whose dismally long sentences I am trying to decipher. If I squint I can imagine my desk lost beneath rolls of parchment and piles and piles of ink blotched papers upon which an ageing man is scribbling his memoirs, to be read one day 200 years later by a disinterested history student on the other side of the world. I can imagine a distinctly English gentleman of the colonist variety, tucked away in some godforsaken corner of Africa sketching the behaviour of the natives, his desk the only piece of furniture to remind him of home, that chip in the wood a reminder of a stray bullet that tore through his hut, the painting on the top shelf a fading memory of the distant Scottish highlands. I can hear the gentle tapping of a young woman’s shoe on the footrest as she writes her best friend, her would be lover, telling him of the terrible drought and the rigours of the home front while he rots in some shallow grave on the fields of France.

Perhaps this is the very desk upon which a grand narrative will be composed, perhaps it is here in the pages of this book or other that my partially completed manifesto will be found, after I wander off into the jungle one day and do not return to type those final words, and thus leave the world wondering... whatever happened to her purple striped socks?

Here I am Lord of all that happens, and queen of all that may one day come to pass... Even though it’s just a Thursday, I am just a girl and this is just my desk.

One last time

Once again, I have said too much. I have gone and on and on and spent hours scribbling on tiny lined sheets of paper and I have said too much. I have offered up my honesty in the place of my anger, my anger in the place of my hate and I have gone around and around in circles. I have moped my way through pen after pen, filled an entire notebook with words of weariness and all in all, I have gone on and on. I suppose the trick is to know when the last word has been said, because if you miss the tiny warning beep, you will never know that the moment has gone. You’ll carry on unaware that you are now digging up old wounds and turning the knife deeper and deeper. At this stage you become the arsehole, because you’re foaming words at the mouth and drowning happy people in your antipathy for life and your rage at the twists and turns of fate. I have been clouding the bare essentials with heavy black smoke and exasperating issues. Sometimes I surrender the blame, sometimes I have felt the full weight of it resting firmly on my own shoulders. I have been framed impossibly, unavoidably reincarnated as the bad guy. No matter what you do, no matter how you think you are unselfishly offering up your light to illuminate someone else’s life, in the end you become the taker. So it seems, I have whispered and yelled so long I have become the hopeless loser who needs to let go.

And then I tried to say nothing.


I struggled to maintain my dignity in silence. But the last word, the last word crept out from around a corner and dared me to speak its name. I gave in, I gave into that vice of repetition, I brought it all up again one last time. One last time from the top, the list of how you have offended me, how I have failed you and how I have been left for dead. The last word roared from the folds of a letter, another letter. More words, ink, paper wasted. Wasted. Because the last word is deceptive, like all the words that came before. It means everything and yet nothing and in the end, in the end can I really let it be the last?

You know, it’s funny...

A word of advice, when undressing manikins, it’s not a good idea to name them. Addressing the manikin, “Hey sexy,” whilst tearing his pants off in the sight and hearing range of customers lends itself to slightly perverse interpretations. It also doesn’t make it any less weird when you have your head in Bob’s chest, your hands on his arse and you’re staggering backwards up the stairs panting. I don’t know, perhaps it’s only me who found the situation funny; the raised eyebrows of my customers led me to believe they only found it inappropriate.

Incidentally, the “Jesus died to save your soul” so “repent ye sinner,” lest you suffer “eternal damnation” for “all of fiery eternity” in the “rages of hell” yadayada missionary van that roars around the streets honking its horn went passed 8 times after that incident. Coincidence?

Just to clarify, I’m not attracted to plastic people.

In other news, I’m leaving oranges behind me wherever I go. I take them with me in good stead for a healthy diet and invariably do not eat them because I can’t be bothered cutting it up, getting all sticky and having shit stuck in my teeth, and so it’s left alone and partially damaged in the sandy corner of my bag, behind a pile of papers on my desk, turning into an icicle in the over enthusiastic fridge at work or silently rotting in the passenger seat of the car... It’s sad really and a phenomenal waste of fruit. So I went about and collected them up, dusted them off and put them back in the fridge.

Have you ever wondered where that orange you’re eating has been?

Forms. Application forms, cancelation forms, registration forms, enrolment forms; they are all different and yet more or less the same thing and yet if you don’t have the correct one the lady behind the counter will scowl at you and if you use blue ink when it clearly states black she’ll know what a no-hoper-arts-student you must be and if you tick where you are supposed to cross? Well how in the heck will they ever be able to figure out what you really mean?!?! Thus, when filling out a basic heres-my-credit-card-details-take-my-money-you-bastard-governement form just recently I started to draw a cross in the specific box, before realising to my horror that unlike the previous form from the same government department, this one required a tick. Panicking, I decided to add a line at the top, to make it look more tick like. The result was an upside down, back to front tick which looked retarded, to be as politically incorrect as possible, and so I sighed and decided it may as well be a cross after all, drew another line before realising with a shock that it was now beginning to look all too much like a swastika..... oh dear.

Apparently I’ve lost weight, through absolutely no fault of my own. I’ve noticed because I’ve gone down a belt notch and because nice, friendly, observant people keep mentioning it.
“Wow, you’re looking slim,” they muse. “Yep. A diet of stress and heartache will do that to ya’” I laugh.“Oh, that’s no good, hope you’re feeling better?” they respond, taken aback.“What, you want me to get fat again, is that what you’re saying?”

Some people just cannot take a compliment.

Talking about talking, as a student there’s a question I get asked a lot. What is it, people would like to know, that I will do after I graduate. Where am I headed, what’s my grand plan, my ultimate scheme for world domination per say.

“Well I majored in German and History.”
”Oh, so you’re going to be a German history teacher?”
“No.”
“A historian in Germany?”
“No.”
“A German historian?”
Sigh.

There’s probably only one thing I’ve become sure of lately and that is that I am not cut out for academia. It’s just so frightfully hard not to laugh in the midst of a serious historiographical discussion on the merit of theory vs. facts when the person next to you claims to have independently disproven 200 years of historical consensus with her honours thesis on the anti-something sentiment in England between 1641 and 1643 *inhale* and your finger is throbbing because a Kookaburra stole your muesli bar, the rest of which is melting in your pocket while your stomach growls audibly.

Then they ask you for your opinion and being always prone to say the smartest most intellectually stimulating thing you can,you state that you’re not entirely sure of the worth this wordy, dry and boring reading may have, but at least this historian is better looking than the previous one.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he.That arsehole.

And if you’re not yet “riding the roflcopter” so to speak I’ve got one last, random, incoherent but potentially funny anecdote to share with you. It may or may not have become apparent to you, but the last few weeks in Lea’s world have been full of angsty angsty angst, the culmination of which is anger, frustration and hateful inner currents. As I have stormed about dramatically this past week I have pulled a muscle kick starting my scooter, burst the blood blister I got from a particular kookaburra attack, lost my pen, glared vehemently into space and caused myself a decent bruise on top of my head from throwing myself against immovable objects. Suffice to say I’ve had my knickers in a bit of a twist. In fact, yesterday I actually discovered that they were literally on inside out. I know, I know, TMI right? Well take it from me folks, realising you have been wearing your undies inside out all day is both hilarious and frightfully scary.

It was then that it occurred to me that I might actually be weird. But that’s never stopped my before, so here’s a tip that will definitely save your life, put your undies on inside out and get out there and laugh.

Introducing my home.

I have an ambivalent relationship with the city I live in. I love it, it's my home. But sometimes I want nothing more than to evaporate from it's surface. It's concrete grates on my skin and pulls on my hair. But when I go away, and return again, I realise this is where I left my heart, somewhere in its midst...

On that note, this blog consists of two parts,

1. A short story that I wrote to entertain myself many months ago and left never quite finished. I decided to haul it out of the depths of My Documents and unleash it on the world. It's hard to say who's story it's telling, the story of the city or the story of it's narrator.
2. A Minutemovie about wandering the streets, walking past people working, eating, drinking, talking, kissing, living, dying, breathing... and feeling miles apart from them, like a ghost in their midst.

My city and I

There is a city that stands alone, distant from all others, tucked away in a tiny corner of the globe. It’s a big city, with a small heart and its story begins with a tree. Well actually it begins with a ship and a man named Stirling but it was only after the felling of a tree atop a hillside and a few official words that the city was born. Some would say that was the start of the destruction, others that it was the humble beginning of development and progress. For every year after that first tree was felled, 1000’s more were cleared to make way for roads and farms, then freeways and industrial areas and above all, for large sprawling homes. The tiny colony of free settlers grew strong on the backs of convicts and over the decades the city grew wider and wider, aiming to take up as much space as possible with the smallest amount of people. That meant mandatory two-bathroom-two- carport-houses and no boat people allowed. The city was built on wool, saved by gold and made ever fatter by its metals. Before long the city begun to sprout large glass buildings which cast shadows much longer than their tiny colonial predecessors and yet still, it grew.

However, the story of that place on the river banks actually goes back a lot longer than that tree or the men who cut it down. The land around the river was very rich and was always home for many people. The people lived in small groups, and travelled great distances. Mooro, Yellagonga’s peoples land was in the north, to south of the river lay Beeliar, the realm of Midgegooroo and his warrior son Yagan, Weeip’s peoples territory was in the north east and the land to the south east was known as Beeloo. In the middle was Boorloo, the place where the city was born. They say it was Waugul, the rainbow serpent, who created the land. It was his journeys in ancient times, the dreamtime, which formed the rivers, hills and lakes. I don’t know the story so well and I am not the best person to tell it, but I know every hill and river bend has its story and the stories go way back, all the way to the dreaming. They show how old this place really is. Much older than 1829 when that first tree was felled. Yet the first people must have been able to make themselves invisible, because when Stirling arrived, he and his friends saw nobody there who owned the land. Only swans.

There is a girl; she is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it’s like she is waiting, for nothing.

The city that stands alone, distant from all others, is where I live. It is not where I was born, but it is where I have nearly always been. I ride the train here like a tiny blood cell being pumped through the body’s arteries and veins, under bridges, past houses and roads that forge out away from the city but always flow back to the river at its core. There are days when the city is bathed in the warm glow of a merciful sun, with high bounding clouds and a gentle breeze, and others when the sky closes in and casts a dense spell over the urban sprawl, until a distant lightning bolt allows the first fat rain drops to fall down. Today holds hope in its ambiguity. The sky seems awash with indecision as the rain runs gently along my window on one side of the train, while the sun shines indiscriminately on the other. The only constant is the wind. Whether it brings heat from the east or relief from the west, it is always there and it is always travelling in the opposite direction to me. At the moment it is flying in from the east, so fast it hasn’t brought the heat with it yet. This is the time of day when the most people are on the move. They are yawning in their cars, jogging along beaches, shuffling kids out of doors and standing pressed between strangers on trains like me and millions of people in millions of cities. I wonder when it is exactly, that people cease to be groups of individuals and become masses. When does a breath cease to be my own and become the city’s?

When she pauses, the city buzzes around her. If she stops for too long, she is certain she’ll never walk forward again, that she’ll become stuck. Just watching.

There is the sound of a Velcro bag, the ding of the doors closing bell and the turn of a page, before my attention is stolen by a petite squeak from the sunny side of the train. I listen unintentionally.

“So the tickets are booked then? We leave on the 5th? That’s exactly 3 months! I’m so excited! Hola Brazil! Oh I know. I’ve been reading up on Chile as well, you know my Grandad was born there. What? Hell yes! Only 3 months and we are outta here! Finally!”

The city is a place people like to leave, for awhile, forever. To go to other cities and sit on trains, enthralled by their unfamiliarity but perhaps dismayed in the end. People storm away from the city, swearing never to return. But somewhere far away they dream of its reliable wind. Sometimes I wonder if the city feels sad when they leave or happy when they return.

Her feet pound against the path, her surroundings are at once familiar and despised. She wishes she was soaring across the waves, spurred on by a wind that didn’t oppose her every movement. She wishes her gait was light and her body on fire.

I lean against the door my feet wide apart and gaze from face to face, book to iPod, briefcase to sports bag. The headlines scream “34 more boat people intercepted” and a grey tied man huffs and puffs over the sports section. Ever since Stirling cast his royal spell on the land, the city has been a place people come to, from far and wide. It holds the promise of space, youth and vitality in its arms. It conjures up images of a reliable paradise, endless sunshine and perfect jobs. But for some people it just means a place with trains and buses, clean water and safe streets. Sometimes people put their savings, faith and lives in others hands, cross mountains and oceans in tiny leaky tubs, to arrive at its doors and be told no. There’s no space. It seems that arriving in ships has become outdated. It would probably be okay if they arrived on yachts.

While I’m busy wondering, the city moves. The city is childlike, known for its future. The first thing I do when I arrive in the city’s heart is look up. I see refurbished facades and terraces, hidden between the pavement and the tall glass boxes, tickled by pale blue sky. In the ebb and flow of its conversations people talk of no past, no tradition, only future. The people haven’t learnt yet, how to tell the city’s stories. But I have snuck up on them as they sit rusting away in big libraries, subdued in memories and smiling out of gift books. These stories rise and fall like the legends of much older cities. If you pay close enough attention, you can see them holding its bricks together. They tussle for space in the revised version of the grand tale.

In one corner of the city, a bold looking man stands statue still, looking out towards the distant hills, with a quiet cough he introduces himself, “C.Y. O’Conner”. In the city’s infancy the Irishman hatched a plan to link the city and its distant wealth, hidden in the dry, dry desert, with water. Only he never lived to guess at his triumph for in the summer of 1902 he took his own life and plunged it into the sea. I wonder how he would gasp now, to see a statue of himself proudly displayed in the city. Would he cry aloud, to think of his soul forever stuck in this distant corner of the globe?

In a very different part of the city, a different story waits. This is the saga of Yagan, a warrior they dubbed the courteous savage who walked this country both before and after the arrival of the tall ships. The tree incident marked the dawn of a new and dangerous time of war and peace for Yagan’s people and sometimes he was known as a friendly native while at other times he was a feared and fierce warrior king. It was inevitable that blood would be spilt and a fight would be had, but still the newcomers seemed surprised when it did and were so blind with rage, they sent Yagan’s head far, far away from its dreaming place. I think if he saw his land and people today, his heart would be heavy with the change, only the wind and the gentle whisper of the river would be familiar to him.

Sometimes she feels the city greets her, embraces her and returns her to its heart. Her name is written at the foot of its bells, she knows it as one does an old friend, she carries its hope in her hands. But its houses close in around her, and its veins coil tightly about her. She gasps for air but only the wind is there. Only the wind.

The city is nestled in a sort of shallow valley, and when the train bends in along the tracks from almost any direction, it offers the first glimpse of its small heart. As the train rounds the final curve and disappears into a tunnel I am reminded of something I was told once, by a man who moved to the city, from somewhere far away and fell in love with it. Now he lives just outside its borders, on the other side of the distant hills. “Every time I drive into the city,” he told me, a curious smile and happy glint in his eyes. “I come down those hills, and when the city is all spread out before me I think, there she is. Isn’t she beautiful...” It sounded like a question but I knew it wasn’t. Still I wanted to ask him what he found so beautiful about the city, to interject and tell him he was harbouring gross delusions. But with a little wave he left me where I stood, bemused and waiting to understand his curious smile. I wonder what makes a city a city. What makes a city a home? As I walk the streets of this city I watch it rush about me and I sense that it exists both inside and apart from me. Sometimes I wonder which of us is more lost.

With a final beep the train announces our destination. “This is Perth.” We flow out of the cities veins and arteries like ants streaming out of an anthill. My shoes tap across the pavers which conceal the earth where people have walked for thousands of years. Beneath me, the train travels silently onwards and high above me, the sky takes a big breath in, exhaling its strangely gentle breeze out across the city.

She is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it feels like she is waiting, for something.

****

Oh, and by the by...

I believe the world is still turning, but I have to admit I’m not 100% sure. Lately all I’ve really paid attention to is my own navel. I am that hooded figure staring blankly into the distance. I am that moping soul, wallowing in its own pitiful icky mess. I seek wisdom amongst prophets and wise men from across the ages, in dusty crumbling hardcover’s, on thin and crumbling paper. I peruse the words of literary genius’s and ponder the verses of the most dignified poets, but all the wisdom of the ages could not spare me from this most basic heartache. I live a life of monstrous highs and lows, and in the present tense my heart is so heavy it is as if it were my own cross to drag to my own crucifixion. When I entertain my split-personality, I stand apart from myself and laugh. Because in the end, it honestly really is funny, I assure you.

If one day I said everything I really thought...

Communication, I’m sure you’ve heard, is the key and honesty the only way. You’re supposed to communicate, the experts say it’s unhealthy to bottle it all up inside, to let your woes fester and boil alone and unheard in your gut. So I’ve started telling people what’s on my mind. But suddenly I’m an open book and I can’t seem to go back. Suddenly I’m incapable of lying.

What if it doesn’t stop? And I start to tell people what I think... all of the time?

Imagine if, on any given day, on any train, in any lecture theatre, I was just entirely honest.

Wow! Your nose is huge! No really, has it always been this way, or did you wake up this morning and bam, it was huge!?

You are so beautiful you bring tears to my eyes.

That shirt is so hideous it is an insult to bad fashion.

If you say, “Fo shiz man, like wow” just one more time, I will personally tear your teeny-bopper tongue out.

I really wish you’d notice I exist. Since you didn’t, I’m here to tell you, I exist!

I don’t hate anyone. But one day, when I’m old and bitter and have nothing better to do, I reserve the right to hate you.

Will you marry me and have 100’s of children with me and massage my smelly feet? Because I think you are like... so hot.

I can smell your breathe from 5m away. It’s called a toothbrush, they are in aisle 5.

I know you just farted. Don’t try and hide it.

You are most definitely, without a doubt the most boring orator on the planet.

Needless to say, my generously offered opinions would not be well received. People lie about wanting you to be honest. Self-preservation teaches us to censor what we say. And thus, we hold our tongues. Or we lie.