Brisbane

A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same...that is why I think a photograph can be kind.

~ Albert Einstein

Well over a decade ago I somehow managed to escape the clutches of a bunch of vile Neanderthals with whom I had existed in a dark, stinking soul destroying cesspool. I fled to Brisbane. It was a city which was quite literally heaven on earth. The dazzling Tropic of Capricorn sunshine made everything sparkle. The city was clean and green. The people were friendly, kind and happy. The food was delicious. And the sapphire blue Brisbane River, beside which I lived, carried me on a ferry during my explorations all over that paradise on earth. I met wonderful people there, lifelong friends who made me laugh once more, changed my perceptions, taught me to draw again and most important of all, taught me never to be ashamed of being myself.

But it looks like my life has never been without its ironies. While over the years I’ve created a heaven here for myself with whatever I had, that heaven I once knew and which was once so important to me, suddenly no longer exists. It is Brisbane that has turned into a cesspool. All that remains of that world now are idealized memories and old photographs.  What is most painful is that I don’t even know whether the people I once knew and befriended even exist anymore. If I could I would fly there in a second to help clean up that city that I once loved so much and still do. I wonder what it takes to offer a helping hand from a different continent. While the virtual world in which we exist so much of the time is a powerful tool, it looks like it ceases to be effective when it comes to doing things that really matter during a calamity.

Germaine Greer's Article on the Australian Floods >>