[Miscellany]
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Port Melbourne
The other day, I went to Port Melbourne. You know, I don't think I've ever been there before. Not that I can remember anyway. I know, I know, I've only lived here my whole life! Anyway, all the relators have moved in, snatched all the land and made it into modern restaurants and exclusive apartments. Living by the sea is so trendy now.
I wonder what my father, uncles and grandmother saw when they first docked in this godforsaken land of red desert and chico rolls. Certainly not Rex Hunt's Fish and Chip shop, that's for sure. I wonder what they thought and felt, what they expected to see and whether they were dissapointed. After all, moving from a country with thousands of years of civilisation to a land less than 100 years of federation would have been a shock, to say the least. These are all questions that have come too late for me to ask my dad. God, it just seems so dumb that we spent all that time bickering, when all I want to know now is who he really was. It's a shame I never will know.
It felt a bit strange wandering the pier and imagining what it would have been like, to leave everything you knew behind only to find yourself where opportunity lived. I feel a strange affinity with Port Melbourne, even with my one visit. This is the place of the first steps of my family on soil that I now call my home. Hope and excitment must have been on the horizon and that hope was Australia. I mean, that's what we're all waiting for, right? It makes the rest so much easier, when you know that there's a glimpse of hope in the sea spray.
I wonder what my father, uncles and grandmother saw when they first docked in this godforsaken land of red desert and chico rolls. Certainly not Rex Hunt's Fish and Chip shop, that's for sure. I wonder what they thought and felt, what they expected to see and whether they were dissapointed. After all, moving from a country with thousands of years of civilisation to a land less than 100 years of federation would have been a shock, to say the least. These are all questions that have come too late for me to ask my dad. God, it just seems so dumb that we spent all that time bickering, when all I want to know now is who he really was. It's a shame I never will know.
It felt a bit strange wandering the pier and imagining what it would have been like, to leave everything you knew behind only to find yourself where opportunity lived. I feel a strange affinity with Port Melbourne, even with my one visit. This is the place of the first steps of my family on soil that I now call my home. Hope and excitment must have been on the horizon and that hope was Australia. I mean, that's what we're all waiting for, right? It makes the rest so much easier, when you know that there's a glimpse of hope in the sea spray.
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