Things that Happen Part I
Sometimes you lose someone and sometimes you get them back. Sometimes the moment of loss is the moment that you realise what you really want. And sometimes the moment you get them back is the moment that you realise that the thing you want is simply the idea.
It's not about the having, the possession of the person, but about the moments in between, the transitions between states, the moments where we move in and out and around each other's lives, the pull of attraction and the push of regret, like two heavenly bodies spinng slowly.
I met Al at a Blue Light Disco in Toowoomba in 1992. Toowoomba is a town I never felt a part of, too small and narrow for a bright kid staring wide-eyed at the horizon and knowing the world was a much bigger place.
Strange what you can remember, depsite the tyranny of time and distance. I remember very precisely what I was wearing. Army pants, Cure Wish T, Jungle Boots.
The army, or cargo pants as they are now called (when did that happen) where the style of the time. Kharki fatigues rolled up, rather than cut-off, because we had to wear them for school cadets (character building, apparently) and in any case Toowoomba got cold enough that you would be glad to roll them back down in winter.
I still have the black Cure Wish Tour t-shirt, now grey and faded. The Cure had only just toured, and being as confused and adolescent as I was, I couldn't bear to go ... the Cure were like, my entire life ... the thought of actually going and seeing them was all too much to bear.
The music at the Disco was terrible, of course - bad 80s and Top 40, but right at the end the DJ broke out the good stuff, risking the ire of the organisers, some old punk and then the new stuff - Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It was during 'Alive' that I first noticed her ... too tall, and way too thin, fragile and lanky, sleek black jeans impossibly tight (and this was already the second or third time the black jean thing was in fashion ... I am old enough to see these things reappear and to wonder how I ever fit in those fucking things). Al spun across the dance floor, lithe and elfen, flicking her long dark hair from her almond green eyes. As the song ended, the first words I heard her speak were to mock my boots.
From such simple beginnings ...
--
Written in Carlton, Melbourne on a rainy Good Friday with a slight hangover.
Sometimes you lose someone and sometimes you get them back. Sometimes the moment of loss is the moment that you realise what you really want. And sometimes the moment you get them back is the moment that you realise that the thing you want is simply the idea.
It's not about the having, the possession of the person, but about the moments in between, the transitions between states, the moments where we move in and out and around each other's lives, the pull of attraction and the push of regret, like two heavenly bodies spinng slowly.
I met Al at a Blue Light Disco in Toowoomba in 1992. Toowoomba is a town I never felt a part of, too small and narrow for a bright kid staring wide-eyed at the horizon and knowing the world was a much bigger place.
Strange what you can remember, depsite the tyranny of time and distance. I remember very precisely what I was wearing. Army pants, Cure Wish T, Jungle Boots.
The army, or cargo pants as they are now called (when did that happen) where the style of the time. Kharki fatigues rolled up, rather than cut-off, because we had to wear them for school cadets (character building, apparently) and in any case Toowoomba got cold enough that you would be glad to roll them back down in winter.
I still have the black Cure Wish Tour t-shirt, now grey and faded. The Cure had only just toured, and being as confused and adolescent as I was, I couldn't bear to go ... the Cure were like, my entire life ... the thought of actually going and seeing them was all too much to bear.
The music at the Disco was terrible, of course - bad 80s and Top 40, but right at the end the DJ broke out the good stuff, risking the ire of the organisers, some old punk and then the new stuff - Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It was during 'Alive' that I first noticed her ... too tall, and way too thin, fragile and lanky, sleek black jeans impossibly tight (and this was already the second or third time the black jean thing was in fashion ... I am old enough to see these things reappear and to wonder how I ever fit in those fucking things). Al spun across the dance floor, lithe and elfen, flicking her long dark hair from her almond green eyes. As the song ended, the first words I heard her speak were to mock my boots.
From such simple beginnings ...
--
Written in Carlton, Melbourne on a rainy Good Friday with a slight hangover.