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On having left, but not yet having arrived

by Dean Kyte

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about

Melbourne writer Dean Kyte reflects on the state of being for ‘a soul in transit’—of having left one place you call home, but not yet having arrived at the unseen destination where you intend to start a new life; and of the curious misrecognition of seeing a place that reminds you of the ‘home’ you just left.

Watch the video essay on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/650486477

lyrics

When I fled Bellingen for Melbourne, making, in one day, the greatest southward bound in my soul’s expansion, crossing a border as yet unmet by my eyes in this lifetime, my heart leapt in intuitive recognition of a place where it thought it might find a new home: When I first glimpsed Euroa flying by my window on the XPT, I had the brief intimation that here I might refind that paradise of bourgeois bohemia I had, only hours before, reluctantly renounced, fleeing the scene of my longestlasting happiness.

Many times since, shuttling in my aller et retour entre Sydney et Melbourne, I have, beyond Benalla in the one direction, and Seymour in the other, made a point to look out for it, that viaduct over a dusty stream, dapplegladed, which seemed to mark on a map in my mind, the afternoon after my départ de Bellingen, a past in un lieu perdu and a potential avenir, here, which recalled it.

When I had, for the first time, the opportunity to alight at this nom de pays which evoked nothing of Ned Kelly for me and everything of Bellingen, I knew—but not at once—my intuition’s error: this place is not that one. In seeing, one afternoon, a fleeting image of a landscape which reminded me of the one I had left the day before, I was mourning a life I had lately fled, not imagining the future I was flying to.

credits

released November 27, 2021
1pjladd2: “Nightingale_near_street”
freesound.org/people/1pjladd2/sounds/155362/
(CC 0)

Bluesy1905: “bells » 160903 Golf Bell Golspie.WAV”
freesound.org/people/Bluesy1905/sounds/353370/
(CC BY 3.0, changes made)

corkob: “Lisbon Ambiences »
Ambience EXT night subcity court light traffic (lisbon portugal xabregas).flac”
freesound.org/people/corkob/sounds/392666/
(CC 0)

creativechick95: “Soundscapes » Soundscape of the Wind”
freesound.org/people/creativechick95/sounds/377010/
(CC BY 3.0, changes made)

FunWithSound: “Butterfly Wings Fluttering 2.mp3”
freesound.org/people/FunWithSound/sounds/479233/
(CC 0)

kintana24: “Universidad » Room Tone Stairs.wav”
freesound.org/people/kintana24/sounds/387341/
(CC 0)

mrfineppine: “Canon 310XL - Super 8 Camera - Motor Sound”
freesound.org/people/mrfineppine/sounds/323158/
(CC 0)

PatrickLieberkind: “Ambient » Dark Ambience”
freesound.org/people/PatrickLieberkind/sounds/244961/
(CC BY 3.0, changes made)

tammarpokk: “ice storm”
freesound.org/people/tammarpokk/sounds/420596/
(CC 0)

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Dean Kyte Melbourne, Australia

Dean Kyte is a writer, filmmaker and flâneur.

His CD of prose poetry and literary crime fiction, “The Spleen of Melbourne”, is available on BC.

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