St Kilda

Was trawling through St Kilda real estate, not for any practical reasons, but just 'for the heck of it' and I came across an apartment on Fitzroy St that I used to live next door to. I moved in in 1987 when I was 20 and paid $325 a month. It was my first real place on my own, far away from my Presbyterian Parents and Melbourne's 60's brick veneer landscape. I felt at home, here was somewhere that I fitted in.
Jimmy lived in the flat that's now for sale. Jimmy was intellectually disabled. His flat was piled to the roof with junk he'd collected from the streets, he said once that he'd lived in St Kilda all his life. One day I got home and there'd been a fire in Jimmy's apartment and it wasn't 'til years later I saw him again, 'big fire' he said, he was still shaken by it.
'i got a new place' he motioned with his head 'Jackson St' he said.
I was glad he was o.k., still independant and to have seen him again. His old flat still sat empty and fire damaged.Not long after I left Melbourne, I moved to Cairns, London, Sydney and now I'm in New York. I don't know if anywhere's felt quite like that flat did, it was the first place I felt I could be me.
Jimmy's old flat is up for sale for $289 000,it looks pretty slick, I guess I could say that's a lot of money, but having spent 10 years in Sydney, it somehow doesn't seem so.


( Painting by alf)