The Places I Go To

On the road that leads up from the beaches of Byron Bay to the mountain top of Bangalow, lies one of The Places of my memories. Not the whole road. One particular part of it. One exact spot. You come out of a bending and fumbling strip of black tar hidden under over-hanging trees and rise up into a clearing, that reveals lumpy, rolling hills of dairy fields and shadows in the valleys below. 

That is where it is - The Place I go to in my mind when I need it most.

Byron sees more than its fair share of visitors and escapists and most have never been out on that road. And if they have, they speed past that spot. Maybe one or two passengers in the car look back towards the famous lighthouse behind them. What they see is the white of its tower set against the blue of The Pacific and the sand and the surf blowing and hovering in the air in a blurry horizon.

This would be pretty memorable to them. If they saw it, that is. If they bothered to look back. Though, for me it isn't the beauty of the sight of it all that is my memory.

Emerging from under those trees - as you hit the clearing - the road straightens out and you see a driveway to your left. It is a hard, right-angle turn to pull in. Easier if you're on a bike though. The house at the end of the driveway is The Place.

****

When I first moved to Byron, I rented a room from a single mum with a small boy. He was nine. After he finished school for the day, she would still be at work at the local crystal shop and I would watch over him till she got home. When she'd work on weekends, a girl she knew from art-school would babysit for the whole day. 

Byron didn't change me. It wasn't the place itself that did it. It was the point I was at when I got there. I arrived with so much to shake off - that is the reason most of my biggest changes were there.

The art-school-student/babysitter became my girlfriend. She showed me more than I could list here. She continues to do so even to this day. The biggest thing I learned from her was after we broke up. She taught me that after vulnerability comes momentum and if that momentum doesn't move the direction you want, then you are stuck - and only the truly courageous can admit that. 

On the afternoons when I would watch the boy alone, he would often come back from school with his best friend. This friend was a short lad, with straw-like hair and a faded gaze. He carried himself in a detached and yet still satisfied way. This is such an odd characteristic to see in a child under the age of ten. But that is how all the kids you'd meet in Byron were - way older than their height and years would suggest.

The mother of the little friend would come collect him at dinner time. By then, my landlord would be home from work and we'd all sit around talking for a while. One day, his father came instead. I recognised him instantly. He was the fellow who sat out on the sidewalk in front of the pub and played raw and dirty blues on his acoustic guitar. To both tourists and locals alike, he was a legend. He art was so pure, his honesty so easy and his songs so great, that he always drew thick rings of crowds. He was the real deal. Once that crowd got - to his mind - too big, he would stop playing and wait for them to disperse. Then he would start up again and go round and around on this routine for hours.

That day, as the boys finished up their game, The BluesMan stood just inside the front yard and we chatted. We spoke about bands and music and of The Blues and of blind men who played harmonica with guitar-playing-men who couldn't walk. He was more connected to The Blues than I knew was even there to be connected to. He wasn't like all the other great musicians I'd spoken to before about their music. He was a real part of his own atmosphere - not a character in it.

That was the only time he picked his son up. After that, I'd only see him on the street. He'd notice me, finish up the song he was in the middle of and we'd talk about our lives and our failures. He always had a story to match my losses. All I've ever wanted for my pain is your stories.

****

A few years after I moved on from Byron, I went back for a music festival there. There were four of us. We left our planning too late and all the accommodation in town was booked out. We somehow managed to find a camping spot available a bit out of town at Broken Head. We borrowed tents, packed a couple a cases of wine and flew on up.

Up until that weekend, that part of the country had been in the midst of one the driest spell in its history. No meaningful rain had fallen for several years. Well - and you know where this is going - the water starting falling hard, steady and loud from dusk on the first night. By 2am, our tent pegs had washed away. We took our wine and guitars and huddled under the sheltered BBQ area. We played music and drank past dawn.

Around 10am the rain stopped and the sun came out. We called a taxi and - exhausted, drunk and wet - headed into Byron for eggs and yoghurt. The BluesMan was there on his regular patch of pavement. He stopped mid-song and held out his hand for a handshake. He was always about the handshake. The crowd around him cleared off and I introduced him to my friends. He told a story or two and I sent the others on ahead to the cafe so I could talk to him one-on-one.

He asked about my pain and joy and I asked about his blues. Neither of us had the time for a proper catch-up. We swapped a few more stories, just to feel satisfied. I told him that we were in town for the festival and he asked where we were staying. He said I should come up to his place the next morning. That I should come early before the festival started for the day. To bring my guitar and we could drink dark liquor and play a bit of music.

****

That night, the rain started up again. We slept on the wooden picnic-tables in the BBQ area and sleep came rough. In the morning, I showered off the dirt and fatigue, rented a bike from the Front Office and rode through the rain up that road to Bangalow. His house was located just where he had described it the day before - just as I have described it to you above - right alongside that clearing.

And just like he'd also said the day before, we drank and played music. At first, we didn't talk at all. He loaded up a glass of Rye Whiskey for each of us and we started straight into Neil Young's 'Helpless'. We played those three damn chords over and over for what seemed like an hour. Swapping back and forth between lead and rhythm.

After some time, we started in on a hollowed out version of Taj Mahal's 'Fishin' Blues'. This song, we played straight and regular. No extended parts. Just the standard amount of verses and choruses. When we finished it, he put down his guitar and looked at me.

"You're getting better. You're getting there."

I felt proud and then immediately self-conscious. I looked away from his intense stare and took a mouthful from my glass.

"Don't do that!" he commanded with a raised voice. "Don't do that! Don't get embarrassed or afraid of a compliment of your Blues. 

I turned back to face his eyes. He paused a moment, took a drink and wound up into his speech.

He started off by telling me that The Blues is not a song or a chord or a lyric or a sound. It is a feeling. A feeling inside all of us. And no matter how much you do or don't have in this world - how much stuff or people or health or fortune - The Blues still comes and goes from inside of you. 

He said that you don't discover The Blues - it finds you. And because of this, when it does come, most people don't want it. Aren't ready for it. So they don't admit it. Don't listen to it. Don't talk about it. They get scared of it. And then, when it goes away, they believe they never even had it all.

And the rest - the ones that do admit it. The ones who sing their Blues or tell their stories about it or listen to other people's Blues. They will tell you they're doing it because they have to. They have no choice. It just flows out of them. Unconscious and steady. But this is not true - we always have a choice. Always. And in actuality, because they tell their Blues so easily, they don't notice how brave they are being when they do. They don't see all of the courage it took them to to lay their Blues out so clear.

And this is what every great Blues Artist has in common - a great courage that they are totally unaware of. And that particular type of courage will never come - never grow - if you're too busy being scared.

****

And that there speech is the memory - The Place I go to in my mind when I need to.

The Place I'd love to take you to.

Come to think of it now, I believe both The Babysitter and The BluesMan taught me the exact same thing.