1. The birth house in Brisbane, Mt Gravatt. I remember walking. I saw everything from toddler level. So I developed an intimate relationship with my parent’s knees.
2. The first place in Kingaroy. School oval next door. A street that led into the centre of town one way, and to nothing the other way. I remember fields across the street, and the sun setting on an infinite horizon. It was a Steinbeck novel.
3. The pink house in Kingaroy. I created the ‘David Channel’, a TV network in which I would host, write, and produce content. It would also carry helpful messages, like ‘at this time, no other channels are showing ads, so it’s a great time to flick around’. I drew the logo in chalk on the pathway to my front garden. When an older kid from next door came over and asked what it was, I lied. They rubbed it out. That kid was Lachlan Murdoch.*
4. The crappy house in Toowoomba. A new school. I remember the backyard that always felt damp, and my new best friends next door. We put on a play in our garage. It received mediocre reviews from our parents, who sat in the audience and talked through everything. Rude.
5. The amazing house in Cambooya. Yellow. Big. Old Queenslander. Fireplace. Trampoline and chooks out the back. It was the house where I became a teenager. No plays, no TV networks, but a lot of reading. Douglas Adams. Doctor Who. Harry Potter. I was 13 years old. It was the house where my dreams linger and my nightmares still play out.
6. The other house in Toowoomba. The dog kept pissing on the one bit of carpet. The day where Dad bought the new computer and it was amazing. I listened to a lot of bad pop music very loudly using Windows Media Player. High school. Slamming doors. The pile of never-to-be-ironed clothes in the corner. Darker times.
7. My first place. With mates. I drank too much vodka and threw up. I got testy with friends. I learned how to mow a lawn badly.
8. My second place, three months later, when I learned that you can live with some friends and not others. A favourite. I bought a washing machine. And had an excellent office. Finished the last Harry Potter book. Smoked.
9. Brisbane. Mangoes fell in the backyard and rotted. The bathroom ceiling was covered in mould. I cleaned it and felt grown up. There was a big window. There was lots of sunlight. I left too early to go live in a van with my then-girlfriend.
10. Brisbane, again, a fortnight later. The van broke down. Unemployed. No money. Hot Summer. Read 52 from DC Comics. Didn’t understand most of it.
11. Toowoomba, again. My girlfriend and I living in fragile, questionable domestic bliss. I wrote a play about indigenous issues and a couple more that have never seen the light of day. Broke the lease early when the relationship broke. Yelled at the landlord. First and last time I’ve ever yelled at another adult, as an adult. Shook with fury.
12. Brisbane. A bedroom on the bottom level of a happy couple. I was broken hearted and single. Hot Summer. Bad decisions. Wrote the darkest of dark plays. Stayed awake through New Year’s Eve and jogged around Brisbane on New Year’s morning, dodged five separate and distinct piles of vomit.
13. Toowoomba. Living with my parents. Starting again. Career launched proper. Did a lot of Sudoku. Got up early and watched the mist roll in over the back horse paddocks. The most Australian I’ll ever be.
14. Toowoomba, solo. My own unit. Alone and happy. Wrote some good stuff. The best shower I have ever had. My first nights with my now wife.
15. England, six weeks, in a little cottage in the middle of sheep farms. Ran to my partner after trekking around the States. Cold. Sharp. Clear. Lambs.
16. Brisbane. Opposite a truck depot. One room. Mattress on floor. A pit stop.
17. Brisbane. Our place. The place where we decided to marry. The place where we came home and opened wedding presents. The place where I fare welled a best mate. The place with the screaming pink office. Hot Summer.
18. The new place, owned by my in-laws. We get a puppy the color of caramel and let it sprint across the school oval that’s on the other side of the road. We map out our future here and wring our hands about our careers.
19 We had to give it a go. Sydney. The big smoke. And we’ve landed in a flat in Lane Cover with a partner of a friend you used to have and it’s beautiful and clean and I write a book that doesn’t get published. There’s construction happening next door. The place is awash in dust all the time and the sounds of a circular saw cutting through metal at dawn.
20 The dog is restless in this place where the landlord camps on the other side of a thin wall. There is a kitchen with no oven, a windowless death room, a clothesline in the shade and bathroom without a sealed shower. We are poor and defeated and trying our best.
21 The sheer size of the unit feels like luxury. Augustine Heights. We are in deep suburban Brisbane, Ipswich really. And within a few weeks my wife is pregnant and then Ellie arrives and we are breathless, confused and hungry.
22 A bigger place. Springfield. Yellow. So big we swear we won’t fill out. A weird gazebo out the back. But a great playground across the road for Ellie, and eventually number two: Ruby. We don’t sleep in this house. We bounce babies on gym balls.
23 The first house we own. Bellbird Park. After all this time. Number 23. It’s ours. The dog dies. The kids grow up. We mark their heights on a piece of the wall. We renovate and settle in, suddenly interested in interest rates. We are so old, so young, and life is so short and hard and good.
Magic. Every bit of it.
Though I could never do such poetic justice as you have composed here, I'm kinda inspired to try something similar, purely as a 'trip down the proverbial memory lane'... and as a record for my own kids who are about to embark on their own 'post-familial' domestic experiences in the coming years. For them it may be so different, and yet so the same, I suspect. Thanks for the provocation to go back through all the memories - it has prompted a lot of gratitude, joy and a little bit of sadness, too. All the feels... 'Such is life'.