Sunday, February 18, 2007

The old shell...



“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
Gaston Bachelard

I am saying goodbye to a house (which I have just sold) that has sheltered me and many friends over the last 20 odd years. I do not live there now and left it a few years ago but it lives inside me as a treasured repository of many memories good and bad!
The house has a distant view of my old State School and is near a bridge which spans the Yarra River. This bridge was one, I and my adventurous friends, used to scramble under to find the most dangerous way possible to cross the river. It is near the site of my first smoke (I have since given up tobacco) at the age of 12. A parkie, sitting on a bench near the river helped us kids light our first pipe! It helped fund my studies in England and Germany and has held many a fine party.



I managed to renovate the back of the house and transformed it (with help from an Architect friend) into a kind of teahouse space. I found all the recycled wood to build it with and had a lot of joy directing the building. The house always resonated with me and I found it very difficult to make the decision to sell. As I thought about it I realised I had owned it for over 20 years which, is a far longer connection with a house than any of my childhood abodes. I had found my base there in more ways than just physically in space.

So, farewell old shell, and thankyou!

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