Kicked Out Like a Bum

My hometown of Canberra is notorious across Australia for being terrible. Add to this the tendency of those returning from international travel to scorn the worn and familiar places they left, and it would be natural for me to loathe returning to my home city. But, my return to Canberra has been quite the opposite. Despite chasing winter for the last twelve months, visiting a Canberra winter has been an exceedingly pleasant experience. Canberra winters are cool, rather than cold, and crisp clear days with open skies and mellow sunlight are the norm. They are the sort of days that make you want to plant bok choy.

That is not to say that everything about my return to Australia has been rosy. It seems almost traditional to sigh about how nothing has changed when you return after a few months absence, but in my case a whole bunch of things have changed, some for the worse. But you, dear reader, don’t care at all about changes in my personal circumstances. Staying with my folks because I broke up with my girlfriend? No one cares. None of my keys (from just twelve months ago) work? Boring. You all read this blog to hear about my embarrassing or unpleasant experiences. Have I had any of those in Canberra? A couple, perhaps, but nothing of notable quality. I haven’t been on any dates if that’s what you’re hoping for.

Perhaps the most telling change upon my return to Canberra was getting kicked off the climbing wall at my old high school. A few preliminary statements are in order to understand the situation. First, the climbing wall is on the outside of the school gymnasium. Second, it is excellent quality – really well thought out climbing, interesting holds, neat moves. It’s made from real rocks epoxied onto a brick wall, so the texture and feel of the climbing is way better than your average artificial wall. Third, to get to this wall you have to climb over a large and very easy to climb fence. Now, some people would take the presence of such a fence as an indication that the school did not wish for members of the public to use their bouldering wall. But to my mind the idea of putting such an easy to climb fence in the way of a rock climbing wall suggests a more subtle intention is at work. To me, a fence like that says "Climbers, it might look like we don't want you here, but in fact this fence is just to keep riff-raff away. Please, come in and avail yourself of our excellent facilities." In my mind (and perhaps nowhere else) there is a clear distinction between climbers and riff-raff.

You might think my opinion of the fence somewhat fanciful and absurd, but it has been borne out by experience. I have been noticed using the wall on several occasions by school staff who have either turned a blind eye to my presence, or (especially if they recognised that I was an previous student) struck up a friendly conversation. But this time, two staff members wandered past and one of them KICKED ME OUT.

First they asked what I was doing and I pointed out that I was bouldering.

Then they asked how I had gotten in and I explained that I had climbed over the fence.

Then they said I shouldn't do that and I explained that I had been climbing over that fence for ten years.

They made the valid point that it wasn't a public climbing wall, and I countered with the equally valid point that it was a very good climbing wall. Although this argument is strictly non sequitur I think that it was a reasonable rebuttal in what was essentially a comparison of competing values.

She clearly did not find my value claim convincing and rather indignantly pointed out that I should leave. I agreed to do so.

At this point, the other staff member (who taught me chemistry back when I used to learn things) said hello and we had a quick chat while I pulled off my climbing shoes and hopped back over the fence.

Getting kicked off the climbing wall is more that just inconvenient. It’s a sign that I’m no longer a welcome dirtbag in my own home town. In cities all around the world, there are dirtbags and climbing/skiing/mountain biking bums living alongside regular folk every day. Not long after regular folk have left for their jobs in the morning, these dirtbags and bums will wake up and face the prospect of choosing what they will do for the rest of the day. Their lives are intertwined with those of the hardworking decent folk who fill the offices and businesses of the town, but different in all kinds of financial, recreational and hygienic ways.

I was once such a person in Canberra. I was more of a skiing and Frisbee bum than a dirtbag per se, but I was still tolerated or even welcomed by the institutions from whom I leeched resources and opportunities. But it seems my absence, and perhaps my graduation from bum to dirtbag, has put a stop to this. Now the familiar and reliable haunts of my youth are denied to me. The lady who kicked me out doesn’t realise that I still know the sequence for traversing the wall off by heart, or that I can tell which holds (or bits of holds) have broken off or where new holds have been attached, or that my initials are written above the ingenious arête climb I worked out in 2002 (and then couldn't repeat after I replaced my ailing climbing shoes). In all honesty, I should probably have kicked her out, but she probably wouldn’t have been comfortable climbing over the fence.

Does this mean that any return to Canberra to live must be accompanied by a submission to the norms and expectations of a real job and a normal life? I think (and hope) not. Does this mean I will hide in the bushes at the Narrabundah College bouldering wall if I hear people nearby? Most certainly.