Time for a higgledy-piggledy post.
My dog's got a degenerative eye condition, which has finally blinded him after years of his narrowly missing, or running into our legs/the bin/trees. Now he's all the way there; a white film across his eyes. He follows sound and smell now, pounces on our voices, scurries after the scent of a rabbit. I've been wondering how he manages to move through the world without seriously injuring himself. When I take him for walks, he's a stubborn little thing, pulling me this way and that in pursuit of rabbits that he'll never catch, leash or no leash. Despite his blindness, he runs at top speed, darting from right to left, into trees, posts, other dogs, rocks, unless we see the danger first and give him a sharp tug on the leash. It's like driving a remote controlled car. But even when he does hit something, it rarely seems to hurt him, and I've just worked out why. He's got a sharp muzzle, like a boat's prow, and when he encounters something, he just rubs past it, like a canoe thrusting through water - it slides past to one side.
Coming back through the park, I noticed two pieces of graffiti on the underside of a road bridge. One claimed that 'Eltham Sux' in 03, while the other wondered sadly what happened to the Eltham s/he knew - 'Back when Eltham was... Eltham'. The same writer hit the side of an abandoned antiques shop one night as well, leaving similar sadness: "I knew Eltham back when it was just dirt roads". Someone disagreed with this retrospective, however, and showered it in orange paint. Kind of funny, really - the tacky orange ties in nicely with my suburb's new pretensions. Cafes are multiplying, and trendifying, with their waves of al fresco chairs colonising the sidewalks. We've even got our first private school bar, which fills up with the beautiful people nightly. The Eltham Hotel, our tacky, pokies-subsidized suburban pub, has been deserted by the local aspirational youth. (Actually, this demographic probably went into the city before the new bar opened, which is probably a good thing for Eltham's self-esteem). Car parking is now an Issue. But most of Eltham's beauty still lingers; parks abound, with windy, go-slow paths, possums, gum trees and brown creeks. A few token dirt roads survive (ours went last year, in a burst of shonky workmanship and poor consultation). The main attraction still lives and breathes though; from a high point, Eltham does not exist. The houses are cloaked by a suburban forest, only the town centre and light industrial estate daring to clear the trees. I love this, and I love the freshness of the breeze. But sadly, developers and the nouveau riche have heard about this, and, with a compliant council on side (the greenies lost the last elections), massive, Templestowe-esque houses are sprouting, flattening the forest, laying claim to the light. Subdivisions, extensions, pretensions. Excuse the bitterness, but in five years, the 'lifestyle' they came for will have died. And yet there is this strain of self-disgust and self-loathing amongst the youth, the products of young families moving out to the leafy beauty ten years ago, the newly bored, the park drinkers, the scornful vision of Eltham as the periphery, the regional, the dying. Eltham Sux in 2003.
But who am I to condemn this? I'm leaving it too, coming down from the trees to the city, to immerse myself in people. And though I'd protest it halfheartedly, I am leaving Eltham for another place because I've outgrown it. It was an amazing place to spend my childhood/adolescence in: riverswimming, bikeriding, ropeswinging, blackberrygathering, burbanflirting, bingedrinking. But the city beckons; I go to uni there, most of my friends have joined the sharehouse contingent, and Eltham is half an hour away by car, an hour by train/tram. I'll miss the place, and I hope it doesn't go to shit. My Korean neighbours (some of the first Asians daring to live here - Eltham has traditionally been very white-artist / young middle-class family) say that this is the best place they have lived, the best in the world, they claim, and I can't say they are far wrong. This is how suburbs should be; treeburbs, foresttowns. Not concrete and thistles.
My dog's got a degenerative eye condition, which has finally blinded him after years of his narrowly missing, or running into our legs/the bin/trees. Now he's all the way there; a white film across his eyes. He follows sound and smell now, pounces on our voices, scurries after the scent of a rabbit. I've been wondering how he manages to move through the world without seriously injuring himself. When I take him for walks, he's a stubborn little thing, pulling me this way and that in pursuit of rabbits that he'll never catch, leash or no leash. Despite his blindness, he runs at top speed, darting from right to left, into trees, posts, other dogs, rocks, unless we see the danger first and give him a sharp tug on the leash. It's like driving a remote controlled car. But even when he does hit something, it rarely seems to hurt him, and I've just worked out why. He's got a sharp muzzle, like a boat's prow, and when he encounters something, he just rubs past it, like a canoe thrusting through water - it slides past to one side.
Coming back through the park, I noticed two pieces of graffiti on the underside of a road bridge. One claimed that 'Eltham Sux' in 03, while the other wondered sadly what happened to the Eltham s/he knew - 'Back when Eltham was... Eltham'. The same writer hit the side of an abandoned antiques shop one night as well, leaving similar sadness: "I knew Eltham back when it was just dirt roads". Someone disagreed with this retrospective, however, and showered it in orange paint. Kind of funny, really - the tacky orange ties in nicely with my suburb's new pretensions. Cafes are multiplying, and trendifying, with their waves of al fresco chairs colonising the sidewalks. We've even got our first private school bar, which fills up with the beautiful people nightly. The Eltham Hotel, our tacky, pokies-subsidized suburban pub, has been deserted by the local aspirational youth. (Actually, this demographic probably went into the city before the new bar opened, which is probably a good thing for Eltham's self-esteem). Car parking is now an Issue. But most of Eltham's beauty still lingers; parks abound, with windy, go-slow paths, possums, gum trees and brown creeks. A few token dirt roads survive (ours went last year, in a burst of shonky workmanship and poor consultation). The main attraction still lives and breathes though; from a high point, Eltham does not exist. The houses are cloaked by a suburban forest, only the town centre and light industrial estate daring to clear the trees. I love this, and I love the freshness of the breeze. But sadly, developers and the nouveau riche have heard about this, and, with a compliant council on side (the greenies lost the last elections), massive, Templestowe-esque houses are sprouting, flattening the forest, laying claim to the light. Subdivisions, extensions, pretensions. Excuse the bitterness, but in five years, the 'lifestyle' they came for will have died. And yet there is this strain of self-disgust and self-loathing amongst the youth, the products of young families moving out to the leafy beauty ten years ago, the newly bored, the park drinkers, the scornful vision of Eltham as the periphery, the regional, the dying. Eltham Sux in 2003.
But who am I to condemn this? I'm leaving it too, coming down from the trees to the city, to immerse myself in people. And though I'd protest it halfheartedly, I am leaving Eltham for another place because I've outgrown it. It was an amazing place to spend my childhood/adolescence in: riverswimming, bikeriding, ropeswinging, blackberrygathering, burbanflirting, bingedrinking. But the city beckons; I go to uni there, most of my friends have joined the sharehouse contingent, and Eltham is half an hour away by car, an hour by train/tram. I'll miss the place, and I hope it doesn't go to shit. My Korean neighbours (some of the first Asians daring to live here - Eltham has traditionally been very white-artist / young middle-class family) say that this is the best place they have lived, the best in the world, they claim, and I can't say they are far wrong. This is how suburbs should be; treeburbs, foresttowns. Not concrete and thistles.
posted by Doug @ 2/09/2004 05:33:00 pm
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