The Old Haunts

Way back when this blog began (coming up for 9 years, which is hard to believe), I was a resident of Melbourne, and as I touched on in my last post, I have just come back from my first visit in 6 years. Leading up to the trip I was filled with great excitement, but also some trepidation and apprehension at visiting the city where I spent the happiest years of my life. The line between euphoric nostalgia at seeing old friends and places, and melancholy at what’s been lost, well that line seems greyer and harder to define the older I get.

Regular readers will know that I moved there because of the relationship I was in, and it didn’t work out, and I left. That’s the nuts and bolts of it, but when I moved to the city I never had any intention of coming back. That was it. So the upheaval (both emotionally and physically) of leaving had a massive impact on my life, and will always left me prone to bouts of what-might-have-been, and wallowing in self-pity that things didn’t work out as I dreamed they would.

Thankfully I remained on a fairly even emotional keel throughout the trip. Seeing some old friends for a few beers was exactly like I had hoped, full of joy and excitement. I managed to keep on the side of feeling grateful that I have them as friends at all, as all the guys and gals I met were incredibly kind to me (especially being a Pom!) and made me feel welcome from day one. I’m lucky to have had that experience, despite it ending in heartache. My ex and I have remained friends and caught up for dinner on a couple of nights, and I’m proud of myself that in the end, we’ve been adults about everything. I still care about her greatly, and always will.

I think that’s the hardest lesson to learn in life, that you have to move forward. Even when getting out of bed feels like the hardest task in the world. I’m a firm believer that people can be so heartbroken and unable to move on that they slip through the cracks of society and go under, vulnerable to mental health issues, addiction and crippling loneliness. I don’t have a secret formula, no-one does. And I had moments when I skipped closer to that line than I would like. But everyone deserves to be, if not happy, then at least secure and content. I don’t wish for much more now than my own roof over my head with a view of the beach (finally happening after 43 years), enough money to live on, something to read every day, and something to drink when I get the urge. It’s not much, but it will do.

So I wandered the streets of Melbourne, visited the old Fitzroy haunts and a few others besides, and I’ve survived. Don’t get me wrong, I will always miss the place. But I value the time I spent there more than anything, and cherish that it happened to me in the first place.

A Homage to Libraries

At the rear of this buiding, Fitzroy Library – a gem

I never feel that I have truly settled in a new place until I’ve found myself a library that I can call home. A local pub and a good library are the two most important things to sort out when you move, for stimulation of mind and body!

The library where I grew up in the UK is nothing special to look at – a nondescript shell wedged beside a busy doctors surgery and overlooking Sainsbury’s car park. But I probably spent more of my formative years in there than I did at school.

This undoubtedly sounds sad but every time I walk into a library I have a little flutter of excitement in my stomach. For me its anticipation that I could stumble across a book that changes my life. OK, maybe that’s a bit strong, but in the past I’ve walked out of a library with a book that, once read, I don’t know how I ever survived without.

My strongest feeling of this was when I was first getting into reading crime in my late teens. I had grown tired of horror novels and wanted a change of scenery. I was browsing one of the paperback carousels (you know, the ones that have that annoying but strangely comforting squeak when you turn them) and for no apparent reason I was drawn to a book called Sins of the Fathers. I had a look at the blurb, thought the book sounded reasonable and got it out. By chance, it happened to be the first in a series.

Within 24 hours I had devoured the book and a whole new world had opened up in front of me. If you don’t know, the author of the book is Lawrence Block, and Sins of the Fathers was the first in the Matt Scudder series of private detective novels. So there was the rest of the series to get through, which I did in about a year (15 books in total then, with 3 more published since). And it was an absolute joy from start to finish. I lived and breathed Matt Scudder for that whole time, walking the New York streets, hitting the bars, confronting the bad guys, all that. I realise now that the underlying sadness and pathos is what gives the series such strength and such a powerful narrative voice. Pure beauty.

Anyway, that pleasure all came from that random moment in the library all those years ago. And I liked the fact that sometimes the next book in the series was out on loan or had to be ordered from another library – it wasn’t frustrating, it was fun being on tenterhooks for a few days, wondering where Scudder was going to go next. Now you could just buy the book cheaply on Amazon but there was something about having to wait, like it was worth something extra by being patient.

So, once I moved here I hunted down the local library straightaway. And Fitzroy Library is a joy, housed at the rear of the beautiful Town Hall building. When I first joined up (always free of course, all that knowledge and excitement and it costs nothing) I struck up a conversation with the library assistant, who asked me about the state of libraries in the UK.
‘Good,’ I said,’but unfortunately whenever councils want to cut services to save money they always go after libraries.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, it’s similar here. But the local people won’t stand for it, so whenever we’re threatened with cutbacks, in the end nothing happens.’

Quite right too. Libraries are one of the great gifts of life and should be treasured. And I’m proud that I live somewhere that respects that. So hopefully others can experience those joyful moments that helped to shape my life.

The Heart of the City

The place that I call home…

 

As a welcome I thought I’d make my first post a homage to the suburb of Melbourne that I call home. The first time I came to Fitzroy was in 2003 as a fresh-faced twenty-something and I took to the place straightaway. The obvious things I first noticed was the vibrancy of the streets and the sheer variety of the shops, walkways and of course the people. I walk around and every time spot something new or different, whether its a tucked away piece of street art or a hairstyle I’ve never seen before!

I grew up in a small provincial English town which could kindly be described as ‘conservative’ and the contrast between that and the bohemian thread of Fitzroy couldn’t be more paramount. I’ve never felt out of place though, and I’m not what you would call the most left-field of people. It’s a casual shrug of acceptance and welcome and away you go.

I’ve been back twice since my first visit but never imagined that I would end up living here. Now I am I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.