In seeking to accomplish this, I am very much aware that change is inevitable - it is one of the best lessons I learned from being Buddhist. It probably helps that I've seen so much change in my life. As a few of the smaller examples:
- As a kid, from before I was old enough to go to school and for my first years of school, we lived in a place called Syndal (it is now part of Glen Waverley). In those days, it was on the outskirts of Melbourne, and we used to walk to a State forest at the bottom of the hill, and find all sorts of fascinating things like discarded snake skins. Now, it is not too far from the geographic centre of the population distribution of Melbourne. I went back there when I came back to Melbourne, many years later, and could not even recognise where our house used to be - all the houses had been developed, rebuilt, and retaining walls put in. The magnificent forest was, sadly, long gone ... I did buy a set of tuning forks, though, at a music shop, which I used for many years while meditating on sound and vibration.
- After Syndal, we moved to Parkdale (I still support the Parkdale Seagulls [I signed the petition not to change the name of the women's team from the Seagulls to the vultures when the men's Parkdale Seagulls and Mentone Vultures combined to form the Parkdale Vultures, so I'm stickin' to that :) ] in the VWFL), where I had my first "first day" at high school [4]. I also went back there when I returned, as an adult, and was struck by the fact that the streets were half the size I recalled. (I was also struck by the fact that someone who had subsequently owned the house we had lived in had concreted over the front lawn and painted it green! Uuughh! Vandal - ENVIRONMENTAL vandal!)
- After we moved back to Queensland (I was actually born in Brisbane, but was adopted at three weeks and then flown to Melbourne shortly after, in the back of a DC3; the next few years were, I found out later, a lonely time for my [adoptive] Mum), we wound up involved with the now defunct Mackay Sailing Club because of my interest in sailing (I've mentioned sailing and my love of the sea in passing elsewhere: it kept me going through some personally very challenging times as a teenager, as I came to terms with myself). One of the highlights of the year for me, both sailing and personally, was out two week stint during the August school holidays at Kurrimine Beach [5]. In the few years I went there, I witnessed the coral reef just off the beach being desecrated by tourists taking bits of coral (this was long before anyone had even started talking about Marine Parks), and I also witnessed the change of character of the regatta as it became better known, and we had more skilled but more aggressive sailors come up from down south for a warm winter's holiday. In fact, I have witnessed the changes in a few groups that happens when the groups becomes larger: this was no exception. I haven't been back there for ages, but was still sad to hear of the devastation caused to the area by Cyclone Larry (I am very pleased, though [proud, even], one of my nephews helped with the clean-up effort).
- I have seen lots of changes happen since my return to Melbourne, not all for the better, but dome definite improvements to the physical environment and, above all else, to the psyche of the place and the people. Discrimination against LGBTIQ people is now largely prohibited (see here for a history of the changes, and here for the current legal situation in Victoria), and there are active changes to improve inclusion of a wide range of people - for instance, see here and here.
Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)
