Melbourne

You might think that I could get further than 3 days in without heat that burns my eyes out, but other things transpired. It was almost immediately clear why the man who had spent 3 months at the first joint wore strictly linens; why he was okay looking like someone’s drawing of a Moroccan.

Switching hemispheres felt inappropriate. My aisle mate lost his grip on something halfway across the Pacific, and despite his asking around the plane, was unable to find it. When he video called me 2 weeks later from some beach town I can’t reproduce, in the middle of discussing much nonsense, he talked about the thing he lost, how it weighed on him 

It felt weird, man, I’m not sure I can find something that 

Mark, it was a pen. Can you 

I know I know, I just think it meant something 

I did not think it meant something poetic. I thought that Mark thought it meant something. I still see him across the ether, posting pictures of golf courses that are being kept pristine, under his watchful eye. You would hope his freelance coding course would have paid out, but you know what they say - the riding mower beckons. 

A piece of art I’ve parroted to far too many people is called Madness, Rack, and Honey: a collection of essays given by Mary Ruefle, and in one particular passage she discusses the ugliness of poets who stretch life into meaning in their work. Her argument goes such that life is inherently meaningful and poetic; you shouldn’t really need to bend things into shape to make a ‘point,’ or some amalgamation of a point. Bad writers try to write meaningful sentences. Good writers know that things are inherently beautiful when you look at them from the chosen angle, and you just have to write for long enough for that to transpire, and long story long I think Mark could let go of his idea of a pen. Of course your illusions will come to pass. You are creating them, and an illusion needs nothing more than thought to be as real as it’ll ever be, but the fun part is watching for the blue duck.

Melbourne’s Chinatown is the longest-running in the southern hemisphere. In 1859, the Chinese community made up almost 10% of Victoria’s population. If you sit at the furthest table from the entrance at the Jazz Cat, a man from New Zealand will finance your drinking for the night and offer you a couch. If you move in with a local bartender in Camberwell, you will get pissed on Wednesdays at a steep discount. In the space of 6 weeks, he will cut you (give or take) 5 new keys and not once will he seem angry about it. If you do not buy a suitcase but instead a 90 Litre duffle bag, you will regret it deeply every time you have to move. When your coworker Jenny asks for help to move, thou shalt not let James’s mother drive the pickup, for she will hit the building with a vertically-stacked couch and be subject to fourteen hundred dollars in repair fees. If you are stupid enough to get several accessibly ambiguous tattoos stamped onto a fairly obvious part of your arm, every middle-aged woman you serve will indeed ask about it. The mother with two rather attractive daughters, who comes in for brunch and engages you in somewhat pleasant and drawn-out conversation, will pass you a napkin when she’s done. This does not have anybody’s contact information but instead is her attempt at proselytizing, which is lost on you, being someone who speaks to the powers that be fairly frequently. 

  It seems to be in the bones of many moderately aimless Canadian youth to pack their things and log onto Jetstar, operating under the assumption that picking fruit in a different country will make up for…whatever…ails their frontal lobe. It’s okay that you didn’t make it all the way to law school, Allen, but save yourself the plane ticket and try finger-painting behind your local Cloverdale. Try pottery. It will pan out the same way (give or take) spiritually, but you may not have to deal with quite as much jet lag with the latter as with the former. The reprieve from crippling vitamin D deficiency is welcome, but that’s more or less where the meaningful differences end. Being in Canada is not where your beef lies. The beef is lying down elsewhere. but these things will happen regardless of my whinging, so: when you think you are done in the land beyond, spend another month there. Much like breaking sobriety, travelling to solve your problems is best avoided if you binge the shit out of it in the moments that you do indulge. Being sick on the bottle discourages frequent use. 

On some rental site, I met Jon, with whom I shortly moved in with. Living with Jon was a glimpse into something I am or was or may be. The third night I was there, I asked him if the decisions in his life leading up to him being what he was were worth it. I wasn’t trying to be a prick, although I imagined he took it that way, but I was curious about someone like that. At the end of my first week there, he had some guests; two young gals, one from Berlin and the other Swedish (Gothenburg, maybe?), and we all carpooled to the Hand of God (?) along the great ocean road. The german girl’s driving made me nauseous. The famed directness of the German people does not lend itself to good conversation. Christ. Pulling teeth. Mikeala, however, could yam with the best of them. She said a thing or two about a famous serial killer, and I said many more things about other somewhat ubiquitous sociopaths, we laughed. Instead of taking up her home country on its free post-secondary education, Mikeala went to London to study fashion, which (god bless you Mikeala. Life has a way) may the the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. But sometimes cool people have to do very dumb fuck things because it sounds great over a pint. Jon had some fun stories like that - reasons for breaking up with people that sound agreeable if not outright funny, at first, and then descend into meaninglessness the longer you think about it. Career choices. The writing. Jon had woken up in stranger’s bathtubs and torn apart (give or take) 2 marriages. He had an uneasy truce with living and no desire left to speak it onto other people. Him and I watched several great films together and took the local dominoes for all they were worth, given that they had a 5$ pizza deal and we lived 2 blocks out. Eventually I packed my things in 8 minutes and left, skateboard and all, while Jon was at work. He came home to an empty house and an email, and I have to say that he took it much, much better than most of the people I’ve done that to. His next roomate was a student and seemed much more buttoned-up than I had any interest in being. If you’re reading this, Jon, I still remember your poem about fucking on the couch.

The entire poem was not about Jon getting dirt nasty with some woman on his couch. Let’s not put that on him. 

While abroad, it’s important to have a friend group with internationals and one with locals. This is so that when you’re elsewhere, you can tell stories that sound authentic by virtue of local charm, but you can also go to a museum with a bunch of other idealistic twats who have abdicated anything that resembles an obligation. It goes against the disposition of a young cynic in the midst of this socializing is when you discover, in short order, that people love to give you things. They love to help. People give you maps. Old people type out 5 page instruction documents guiding you along one particular coastline’s beaches. Employers give you food. Not your employer, but…others. Geriatrics give you lots of advice, and some of it is even useful. The young give each other their time, for they often have little else, but their time is a little shinier than the old man’s. Not better per se, but certainly shinier. People give couches, they give food, they give wine; they give stories, maybe somewhat selfishly, in hopes that they’ll be in yours. Stories nonetheless. Pass on the ones from the bags of bones who sell you trinkets at an absurd markup, and then pass the favour on to someone younger and less weathered. 

I’m glad I went to Melbourne, but would not quantify myself as a city person any longer and am unlikely to return. I still have a card, unopened, from Il Papiro on Degraves street. I was meant to send it to someone that neither of us remember. Long live the city. 

Cheers