The Heart of Dampness

It has been said that it’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.

The Kurtz, the great white whale, the Gandara of our travels – Japan – remains ever illusive; we are currently trapped in a waiting room called Brisbane, watching the clock...

...tick tick tick...

Questions arise in this kind of spiritual wasteland that don’t beg consideration when life is running according to plan:

What if your journey drives you mad before you reach your goal?
What if you lose everything you wanted to take with you in the getting there?
Is it worth risking everything for your dreams?
When your plans go this far wrong, is it a good idea to keep making more plans, or should you just give up and live in the now?

At least when you’re sailing up the river looking for Kurtz the scenery changes. For the last couple of months we have been trapped in a Groundhog Day of temp jobs. Everything is the same as it was in Hobart, but somehow annoyingly different. The uncle, who had been so "kind" in allowing us to stay in the first place, turned on us for no good reason and kicked us out. Since then we have been staying with Emma and Adrien in Milton. I can not show them enough gratitude for what they have done in letting us crash on an air mattress in the front room. They have shown me the true meaning of kindness.

Each day that we spend in Brisbane is a day spent in a place that we never wanted to be in. We only ever expected to be here for two months. Three months later, we’re over it. It’s beginning to take its toll, the feeling of being stifled in your ambitions so completely. Sometimes it makes us both angry. Other times we get trapped in wells of despair. We take turns in being optimistic and buoying each other’s spirits, whilst the other stares into an existential pit of angst, but it's very hard.

We hate it here.

We are trapped in never ending suburbs, leafy green, “laid back,” and filled with the same stores, over and over again: Coffee Club, Zone Fresh, Baskin and Robbins, Dan Murphy’s, Wagamama’s, Crazy Clark's, Fernwood, Sushi De Lite, Bucking Bulls, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC – never ending strip-malls in varying states of flourish and decay. The Westfields; The Centros: Chermside, Brookside, Strathpine, Toombool, DFO. A kilometre of mall. Tom plays Ariadne to my Theseus, holding the clew for me as I delve deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness...

People who proudly tell you that this is ‘beautiful weather’ when it is obviously revolting, armpit soaking, humidity and heat. When quizzed, you actually demonstrate to them that they spend no time in the weather - they have an air conditioned house, from which they get into an air conditioned car, to drive to the air conditioned train to go to the air conditioned work. The only time people exercise is when they are in an air conditioned gym because if you move too quickly in the actual climate you'll die of heat exhaustion.

People who get defensive when you tell them that you don't like it here. Parochialism in all of it's ugliness, everywhere.

Suburbs where there are no through roads, just an intricate web of cul-du-sacs.

For a pair of inner-city urbanite ‘artist/musician types’, living in a gated suburb was akin to the seventh level of hell. At least Milton is not so foreign, and affords us the ability to walk to and from the city when the mood strikes.

I mean, it’s nothing personal, Brisbane – but you’re just not my home - and you never will be.

And so we have agreed: if we do not get good news regarding our applications to go to Japan with ECC, then we will go to Melbourne. Regroup. Figure out what comes next.

At least there the restaurants are better. There are galleries and music venues (unless they’ve all been closed down in the last two years – which is quite a strong possibility). And at least there we know people. Brisbane has been terribly isolating. We have made a couple of acquaintances, but on the whole, it has just been the two of us, together alone, intensifying the feeling of being stranded. If it was not for the existence of Emma and Adrien, I think we would have gone mad and ended up homeless and destitute, living under a tarpaulin on the banks of the Brisbane River. But the wide circle of friends that I am used to enjoying is noticeably absent from here, and again, I look for the Rachels and Laurels of my life and find none.

So, on Boxing Day we did something we have been meaning to do since arriving here. We went to a beach and threw ourselves in the water. They sky was grey and it was periodically raining, but the water was warm and the surf was quite gentle. And in moments like that, I can forgive Brisbane for being a shithole – if only for half an hour when I’m splashing about in Moreton Bay.

We went to Stanthorpe over the New Years break (for those of you who don’t know where Stanthrorpe is, neither did I until I happened to drive there – it is about 30km shy of the border with New South Wales, inland in the Darling Downs). It was cool in the evening up in the mountains, and I saw shooting stars throughout the sky. It felt a lot like Cygnet to me - a sensation that sits somewhere between being comforting and crushing. I really did hate growing up in the country. I was actually so knackered from driving 250km there and 250km back (five hours each way) that I was delirious with joy when we got back as far as Ipswich. It might be the only time that I will ever be happy to see Brisboring.

But since the uncle got rid of us, Emma and Adrien have shown us marvelous things. Adrien took us out a couple of times on his boat. One time to Flinders Reef, where we went diving/snorkelling with giant turtles and a miriad of tropical fish in a thousand colours in the water, it was just so magical, so exciting. The other time they took us to Peel Island, which used to be a lepper colony, where we just splashed about a bit, relaxed in the shade on the beach - and in that regard, Brisbane makes sense. Moreton Bay is fantastic. Emma and Adrien's company is fantastic. It's just Brisbane itself that is disappointing.

The words of my Aunt Marion keep ringing in my ears:

”You’ve got to give any new place six months. It takes six months to get over the change.”

And you know it’s true. It is in human nature to despise extreme change. It is difficult and alienating. But then, after the newness has worn off, you get to actually start to be in the place, rather than react to it. Marion said these words to me when I called her from Japan, three months into my first trip there, blubbering, lonely, confused, alien, threatening to come home.

“Snap out of it. If you still hate it when you reach the six month mark, then you should come home.”

When I reached the six month mark, I loved Japan.

But from four months in, I'm pretty certain that when six months of being in Brisbane will have passed, I would still hate this trumped up country town.

The humidity, the humidity, my clean clothes are damp on the coat hangers! Mould grows everywhere! I just hate the humidity, I hate it!


Next week we have our ECC interview, and once we finish that, we will know, once and for all, whether it's Japan: here we come, or Melbourne: here I am. Shall let you know as soon as I do. The drafted date for leaving Brisbane is in the second week of March - and that is pretty much certain. But other than that, where we are going to go is still yet to be written.