The Old Man Next Door I Never Saw

Old Man.

I think I recognise this place, or maybe just the sense of place it evokes. It's as though Stuart has peered into my bleery eyed memories of the years when I lived by the beach. In Bondi.

The seaside village is a special place, or at least it was for me, back in the day. It remains so in my memories. I go there still, to my happy place, when I need to get away from where ever I am in the world of real things.

Mostly I dwell there in the surf, the blue bowl of the Pacific which I am sure sits right in front of this old house. I feel the bite of a burning sun on my shoulders and neck, the same sun which is peeling the paint from the façade of this building, and throwing deep shadows over the upper floor. I can feel the cold kiss of the surf on my legs, cool and dark like the enclosed, secret places behind those garage doors.

And I recall myself wandering the streets of the village, past hundreds of places like this. Decaying, frayed at the edges, smelling a bit of mould and salt water in the Whitlam-era carpets. These places are shelter, and stronghold. You could live out your entire life in them, if your life was to be about nothing other than pure indulgence.

Not the indulgence of things, the love of stuff, of electronics, or gold, or designer restaurants or jet travel. But the indulgence and the danger of pure autonomy. Of living life stripped back to its essences. A pumping surf break. A lack of commitment. A free floating existence that means nothing beyond the moment of take off as the wave piles up behind you.

That there are no human figures in this piece makes it all the more powerful as a sort of memory fragment. It is as though it's been shaken loose from somewhere inside me and is waiting for me to fill it with life.

But I can't.

Because you can never go back.

John Birmingham