After completing my degree, I quit my 2 nights a week working quiet lonely nights at a local suburban service station to travel overseas indefinitely - i was to just go and come back when i ran out of money - my brothers did the same, so i guess i just picked it up from there - amazingly i did this while i had a girlfrend who, as a 23 year old, was willing to say goodbye, good luck, i trust you - at the time i didn’t even think about it - i don;t know if that makes me naive or in touch, as 10 years later we’re happy and together and married - i trailed my way across canada on greyhound busses, and did the same top right to bottom eft in america - but my main call for the trip was mexico
i ended up spending 2 months in mexico - a week at a time in small towns here and there, often chosen from mentions in books written by the beat generation, or in movies like the shawshank redemption
new to travelling, an australian woman named Rosemary, who had an open and warm heart taught me some tricks of the lifestyle - we’d go out for drinks and dinners, and she’d tell and show me how to travel well - hotels, taxis, people, bars, food - we all have to learn the first time sometime
in puerto escondido, we befriended two american guys and the four of us formed a strong friendship for a couple of days - we took an amazing and funny walk along the beach of escondido that will always stick with me - i don’t know why, but after the walk i ended up borrowing money from Rosemary, and had promised to meet her the next day for a drink and to pay her the money back
that night in my hotel room i got savagely sick - desperately sick, convulsing, snatching the bin liner out of the bin in my room to have a solid base to puke in - mushroom pizza it was, to start with anyway - i puked and puked and being a humid place, became severely dehydrated - i had vivid hallucinations of sitting on a cliff top with two elderly men - we were all shirltless - i drifted in and out of sleep and consciousness for a full 18 hours, i’d say - i had completely no energy - it was at complete zero and probably dying
i knew there was a cantina maybe 150m down the road from my room - piece by piece i formed the energy i needed to step by step my way to the store - hands on knees - sitting in the gutter for a rest every 10metres - i eventually made the 150m and bought 3 ltires of drinks - one was a 1.5lt bottle of sprite - i managed my haul home and begun sipping - i struggled, but eventually returned to life
Rosemary somehow found out where I was staying and found my room - i’d earlier told the owners of the small hotel that i was sick and needed to stay longer than expected - that was another mammoth effort - I think word got out about the sick australian pale-boy, and Rosemary found me that way - I answered the door in my boxer shorts and apologised for missing our meeting and paid her the money back as i always entended to - i assured her i wasn’t trying to rip her off, and i hoped she believed me - it was a sad and unfortunate last meeting between us, and a petering farewell to what was a friendship i was extremely thankful for
time past and i travelled again many times - by this time my girlfriend had travelled the world several times as well, and before long we were travelling together - including an epic 3 month honeymoon that will never be beat
memories overlap onto memories and you find yourself growing up a happy person - you become one of those people who have been to germany 3 times, greenland, lithuania, bhutan, and gotten bored of new york, and it’s a happy little addition to your back-pocket - fond memories get blurred and altered, and the ones you spent alone get questioned as to whether they actually happened at all, or was it all just a dream or a fading hope life is teasing you with?
10 years had passed and im walking my 2yo daughter to childcare when a woman stops me in the underpass at blackburn train station - it’s Rosemary and somehow im not surprised about bumping into her - 10 years… we both say to each other a couple of times - she’s surprised i remember her i think, and i tell her they are formative memories i have of our time together in mexico - we talk about my daughter and where im living now, and she says she’s seen me around and laughs about sounding like a stalker - i shrug my shoulders and say if you see me, you see me - it turns out she is in a similar situation to me - living in blackburn with a 3 year old daughter - we talk about catching up, and i’d love to get a beer with her, but she mentions a play-date with our kids and i say sure - we exchange numbers and she’s enthusiastic - we say goodbye and i continue my way to childcare with little-Zed - something in my head shifts aware that all those mexico memories were actually real, and i was just confronted with an example of that reality
we even bumped into each other again that evening, as i walked my daughter home from childcare - we didn’t stop this time, just motioned to each other that we’d catch up and smiled and laughed - twice in a day after 10 years
i never got a call or message about catching up - it’s been quite a few months - im not hurt or annoyed by this at all, but it makes me uneasy about my memories - i wonder if i slipped into some sort of mental state in the underpass, and begun talking to myself, imagining the whole thing - i wish little-Zed could confirm the meeting with Rosemary - did it actually happen? - was my beautiful sleep-depravity turning against me?
i like the mystery and the open-ended nature of these memories - i just hope i haven't missed a beat and accidentally given her a wrong number or something, or missed her call and never returned it, giving her the wrong impression once again, like the time in mexico i never turned up to pay her money back, until she found me half naked in my hotel room recovering from a maddening mexican sickness in my underpants
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While I don't know why this guy was looking at photos of dead-bodies on his phone at Flinders Street Station, and I can assure that I don't care and it doesn't matter, I am frustrated by the "hyper-vigilance" it caused in response.
The people who dobbed this guy in to the cops will go home tonight, fall into an over-used saggy couch, and watch television shows that reenact real life murders for their entertainment.
People are so eager and willing to jump on board and ride the media-wave, agreeing to live in fear and paranoia, all the while saying things like "We won't change our way of life - We won't waiver to terrorists"
Don’t let a saturated media scare you. It only makes them money, and makes politicians more powerful to do as they wish.
More power to the freaks and weirdos and outcasts and curious around us.
What's the alternative?
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