Do you ever get anxious when going back to your hometown? Me too. You’re not alone!
The passage of time changes us. Distance, maturity and new experiences alter our view of the world we once knew. We wonder if we’ll fit into the people and places we left behind (we wonder if they’ll fit into us, too). Unpleasant and unfinished business may lay in wait. An old school friend or work colleague who thought more of a past relationship might want to rekindle something that doesn’t need lighting. It can be exhausting having to dodge, duck and weave our way through someone else’s version of history.
Something about going back niggles me. It’s not about dodging past lovers or gossipers. It’s more about family. In part, it’s about trying to shake off a past. Unfortunately, I’m also caught between places of fear and curiosity. I want to see how things have changed, but I don’t want to touch them in case they infect me. I seek closure, but I want to be able to peer through a partially opened window. It’s ridiculous. I can’t help it!
Most trips back home start the same way. An upcoming birthday party, wedding, birth, funeral, or such forces my hand. So it was that I had a reason to make the trip and headed back home for my mother’s birthday. She turned 80.
I know some mothers love stories like these, see themselves written into the narrative and want a wonderful story to evolve out of it. Alas, I’m not an offspring who follows that line. My family split up a long time ago, and I’ve been away from it for so long that I don’t feel like a part of it anymore. The past was a nasty, turbulent time. It’s the reason why I hate going back to revisit it.
Sorry to all mothers reading this!
Brisbane is five hours away from where I live. The flight itself was a red-eye errand, but I did it. Rather than worry about my family’s history, I decided to enjoy my hometown as a tourist.
My first stop was to revisit the other home I had before leaving the sunny east coast. It had a waterfront property, literally. I’d spend my days sailing the bay in my 27-foot sloop, Last Laugh, trying to rediscover what I’d lost after a disappointing marriage. (Yes, I lived on the water!) They were the best of times. It’s where I left the shore as a hollowed-out shell of a man and returned to the land full of life again. It’s where SEETHINGS was brought into this life.
I caught up with some extended family while sitting on the shore of the marina I lived in. (If you look closely, you can see the sailing masts way off in the background. One of those was mine!) We had a beer, talked about old times, and watched the seagulls fight for fries that were handed to them by nervous, giggly children.
Liana and I have been friends for over twenty years. We caught up over coffee and felt the water dragons run between our feet. So much history to talk about. So much reptilian skin against our ankles!
And then came my mother’s birthday party. She’s a keen KENO player. We spent much of our time together picking numbers and laughing about how we came up with them! She’s (shrinking) doing remarkably well, considering her age.
Then, I had two days to explore the city where I grew up. Some of it has improved, while other parts need a desperate overhaul. I took a brief video of the sights from Kangaroo Point to Southbank (and another in a highrise). There are two days represented in the video below; one is a sunny morning, and the other is so overcast that it looks like it will become a subtropical thunderstorm. (My flight back home was delayed because of the torrential downpour it caused at the airport.)
I noted two interesting changes in Brisbane City since my last visit. Toll roads are everywhere, and new highways burrow underneath the city, letting motorists bypass it. It’s helpful but scary. I never knew if I was on a road that’d take me to a place I didn’t want to go!
The second thing is the number of electric rental scooters and bikes on and around the streets. They weren’t there the last time I was in Brisbane! I hear that there have been some major injuries and one death since because of them.
Okay, I’ve seen my family, done my duty, saw some sights and then left. I’m done for another decade or so. Bye Brisbane. Be good. Don’t wait up for me.
–Michael (Dark fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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