Welcome to the south. Only a few hundred kilometres from Antarctica, I find myself travelling alone. Pin-balling between city streets and alleyways looking for new ways to kill time I settled for a brief moment by the beach. Although this wasn’t the sand I was used to nor was the absence of the prolific surfers polka dotting the crests of great ocean waves. I could tell this city was different, as if it had stringent borders inhabiting mass breeding of arts and culture, eventually seeping its way into every nook and cranny of every street and alley. A flurry of sentiment and yearning swept over me and I wanted to be swallowed whole by this odd little metropolis. An urge to be uncomfortable as if the sense of vulnerability was a compass toward greater things and memorable experiences. A goal to breathe dusty air I haven’t before, trying to get some sort of high of the fumes. With my feet leading the way, I took to the roads and used my ability to look the camera to see this city the way I wanted to.
It wasn’t long after meeting her did we become familiar. I was at the skatepark and she was too so I asked how she was and she asked me the same. I went back to the hostel, quickly becoming frustrated with being surrounded by strangers and a dirty room only to find myself the next day in the girls home. She was going on a clinical trial and said I could stay in her room while she was gone for a week and a half. It wasn’t something I would ever see myself doing, but I wasn’t about to go back on my word that I would do things that make me feel uncomfortable. It was going to be a good place to rest for awhile after spending the last two months in bars or between them along the entire Australian east coast.
Then only a short train ride away, I found myself at the mouth of where I was to be swallowed. Gazing upon the sharp white bone and soft pink flesh fading to a black hole as you looked deeper. Graffiti plastered to every available brick and slab of concrete actually added to the charming neighbourhood of Fitzroy, Melbourne. The people, breathing manifestations of expression and collective individuality. There were places to buy new clothes, old clothes, hot coffee, cold beer, hand crafted garden tools, genuine leather gimp suits. Well worn sidewalks connected these places and I paid homage to the deteriorating concrete, several times. A concentration of urban diversity such as this inspired many exposures and I felt I framed this suburb the way I intended. An abstract society of colour and emotion linked together by the mutual feeling of freedom while being accepted for being rough around the edges. I had edged my way closer to the lips and could feel the exhale of this living and breathing environment. It was air I had never breathed before in a somewhat familiar territory, regressing to discomfort when reminded I am no where near home. But it was fresh air. It was sweet and I enjoyed being enveloped by it. I enjoyed being welcomed into it like I could stay as long as I like and join in on the mysterious disappearance of repressed souls.
Beginnings only made possible by embraced isolation. Something I am starting to get used to, but have always been. A journey through new territory slowly becoming a part of my everyday memories, replacing ones that were deemed less vital to my own well being. I mean there really wasn’t anything else better to do than to embrace this place. For what other reason did I come here than to meet new people and breath new air? And so I did just that. I might have over stimulated myself with the amount of scenes to watch on the streets., trying to balance between observing the wave and becoming apart of it. All of this becoming only the introduction to the beginning, the more I let go, the more I could feel something new.
