Everything is as it seems and also not.
The park benches along the Todd river (Lhere Mparntwe), the watercourse Alice Springs is built around, sit facing the river, honouring human desire to sit facing a body of water. Except there is no water. And that’s why I love this place. Everything is as it seems and also not, a feeling that follows me everywhere I go but is particularly present here on Arrernte land.
Spending the month at the WTS residency got me thinking about the times I’ve come to Mparntwe before. As a child we’d pile into Dad’s station wagon to drive down the Stuart Highway, travelling south from Humpty Doo where I grew up on Larrakia land. Dad was probably meeting someone to talk about water pumps, his business. As a teenager, I’d travel down on a bus to play basketball, our puny rural team thrashed by the desert teams AND the Darwin teams. I also passed through here on my way to Melbourne to start a PhD. It was winter and there were sheets of ice inside the tent. I’d been living in my car in the Kimberley and Mparntwe felt like a big city after a few months in the bush. And last year when I came across the Plenty Highway, relocating my parents car back from Queensland when my father got sick and flew back to Palmerston hospital, where he stayed.
The longer I spend here the less I feel I have any solid reflections on this place, the classic the more you know, the more you don’t know. Looking forward to some more unlearning soon. Xxx