Rather than write a long and maudlin response, I'm going to transcribe one. See, I have a series of journals, and everytime I feel in the mood to write, I grab one and do so. However, the one I grab is usually at random, so there's often a gap of years between entries. They work as time capsules summarising my moods so I can read them later. This is one I wrote the other night.
I'm glad it rained today, in my final week in Dunedin. If it had been glorious and sunny it would have seemed somehow false, a facade, not the Dunedin I call home. Because the Dunedin I loge is not sun. It is not shorts. It is not hot, dry days that make you want to sit outside and drink beer. My Dunedin is the rain and the cold, the vicious southerly that tears through your bones, and makes you wear every piece of clothing you own. The Dunedin that makes you take a coat during a sunny morning because you know the rain is just out of site.
She's cold, infested and uncaring. And I love her.
I've lived in Dunedin longer than any city in my life. Six years! My God, I'm practically stable.
I have to go though, even though it's home. And once I've gone, I can never return, not really. I've seen them try, back for a weekend. The city rejects them. They are foreigners again, they've lost against her hyperfluidity. But still, I need to leave. I'm starting to lose touch with the town. I'm too old for the students, too poor for the professionals. I don't belong anymore.
I'm sitting on my balcony, eating chocolate and drinking whisky. I think that's a pretty good description of my time here: booze and sugar.
She's half barren, my city, with her students gone, left deserted till March. The recent high school graduates take this time to lay stake to the streets, to temporarily take over, and feel the power of youth and booze, before relinquishing it back to the uni students and going their own way.
It's quiet here. I can almost hear the city breath.
This whiskey sends shivers down my spine.
I don't want to sleep, sleep will damn me. Lose me. Bring me closer to goodbye.
Goodbye Dunedin. I never once threw up on your streets, nor threw a bottle at your housese. I've respected you, and you me. I'll miss your closeness, your acceptance, the wonder you provide in the smallest thing. I will never forget this city. Nor will I ever truly remember it.
12/12/07
Dunedin
1:10AM
Peace out, cats and kittens. I hope summer finds you, and that you all get where you're going.
TB/Ac
