write care of...

streets I have lived on (alphabetical):

devon st south
dukes lane
fernhill rd
fuller st
halifax st
penny place
vincent st
william st


halifax: this was the view from the halifax balcony (it's looking on to hutt, early morning)

i was looking for a picture of the one I love this morning when I found the above photo. It's not a good one, but it made me start thinking about places I have lived. Vincent, for instance, had the best house; but dukes was the coolest address. (this was one of the views from dukes:)

Devon st sth I rented from a great lady and a beautiful sleek black cat (Nesbit); I lived in a renovated, old old cottage, which was behind a big old house. After I moved out the lady sent me a note, saying she'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I hesitated over how to reply, and then moved house, and then lost the note and then found it again; and the day after I finally drafted a reply to her, I read that she had died. (It was within 5 months of being diagnosed.)

I walk past that house now almost every day. It's a bit out of my way, and it's hard to articulate why I do it; I don't think about it consciously any more, it's just something I do. When the light falls certain ways in that area, I think of her; it's her light, it's the light that coloured her expereinces; it's the light that she lived in.

I often wake at odd times, and, sometimes lately, in that not-awake-verging-on-dreaming state, I am sure I am in my bedroom at fernhill. Quite convinced. So I go back to sleep, and only when I wake up properly the next day do I realise that I am miles - years - away.

It's a strange thing, what the mind does with memories. They accumulate up there, pile upon pile; and they jangle sometimes when you turn your head quickly, or when the wind blows in a certain way, or in that particular light.