I’ve wanted a house by the sea all my life, ever since we lived right out in the middle of Alice Springs and it took us the better part of a week to hike there. Honestly, a beach holiday as an eleven-year-old is just ruined by the fact that our parents refused to drive us there and sent us off into the wilderness as a test of our character. I’ve often thought that gave us trauma, but my brother and I often managed to hitchhike a lot of the way and stay in homeless shelters along the way, so it’s no big deal.
Anyway, now I’ve moved to Melbourne and the first thing I did was get me a place right near the beach! And wow…it’s noisy. So amazingly noisy. I know a lot of trade goes on at the beach, people visit it for holidays, the docks are still full of activity, but…didn’t expect quite this much. I go to the local cafe and even there, everyone’s having chats about plate alloy boats like there’s some sort of approved conversation list for people near the sea. I feel like I’m committing some kind of felony by mentioning how people do things further inland.
Oh, and don’t even get me STARTED on the dock situation. For real, marine fabrication is one of the loudest things ever. I know we need the services of boats to do all sorts of important, economy-related things, but I feel like I should’ve listened to the estate agent when they said you can hear the shipyard from here. You really can hear it. Ah well…I’m used to sleeping rough when our parents used to lock us out of the house and make us scavenge a living in the back garden to teach us life lessons. I even made my own fishing rod holder out of bark and a rod out of a fallen branch so I could catch the family goldfish right out of the pond, after which my brother cooked it up over our campfire. Oh, that could be a conversation topic for my new community! I think I repressed that memory…
-Y. B.