The nest in the hills
Writing to alter reality
When I think about Mudgee, it is the most minute details that come to mind: the graffiti under the bridge, the abandoned chemical tanks, bits of torn clothing strewn amongst pines uncaring. I remember the small details because while I was living there, I had made such a strong and conscious effort to blot out the generalities of life that nothing else came to sight. If you asked me to give you a general feeling for Mudgee, or for my time there, I couldn’t give you an answer. I can only talk about small, fleeting memories.
I refused to acknowledge the frightening realities of the world, and instead warped them to my own liking. The product of my environmental denial was a short story of about fourteen thousand words called The Harley Chronicle. The story is many things — a reminder of just how far my ability at writing has come in three years, for example — but more than anything it is a record of my emotional chronology. In other words, it exemplifies how I wished to change the world, and myself.
My memory of Mudgee is, in a very substantial way, tied to that story. One cannot stand without the other to prop it up. There were parts of my life, and by extension the town of Mudgee, that didn’t make it into Chronicle, but undeniably it was a significant influence on my writing.
The story of Chronicle was essentially a retelling of a breakup.
Looking back on it, it’s kind of ridiculous how seriously I took the whole thing. Sure, it was tragic in its context, but this relationship ended and it threw my whole world off balance. 2013 had been a pretty awful year prior to that, but after August it became abysmal.
School wasn’t a great place to be. I went to a crappy little Catholic school, and my form was perhaps thirty people in total. Such a small group was bound to be submerged in inane adolescent drama. All my friends had moved to the high school on the other side of town. I only liked myself when I was around them.
The Chronicle is a series of vignettes, about two pages each. The first of these had some semblance of narrative structure: Harley gets dumped, has a flashback, gets berated, has his sunglasses smashed, then beats the culprit into unconsciousness. From there, the Chronicle becomes a structureless commentary on the latter part of that year, with recurring appearances from a small cast of characters.
Most of these focus on characterisation of people, but a few mention the town itself. One even goes all meta-narrative:
When Lachlan Hawes [Harley’s real name] writes down a fictionalised version of his interpretation or experience of an event, he changes names and compounds characters because it helps him to steady the lens through which he views his reality.
— Chapter 3
And the main character was the epitome of Mary Sue. He was emotionally disturbed, but always cool and distant. That’s not to say that the problems I experienced during that time of my life were somehow fraudulent or made up, but I have to admit to myself that the way in which I presented them, at least in the Chronicle, was romanticised.
But what really interests me is how the story treats its setting. Mudgee gets no specific mention, but the Pines is a recurring feature. Twice Harley goes there to be at peace, to forget about the rest of the world.
In a sort of spiritual successor story, set two years later, Harley goes there to meet with the girl he broke up with to discuss how the event affected them both.
In retrospect, this treatment is probably a little dishonest.
The Pines was a place of mysterious character. I have had so many conflicting experiences of the place that it fails to take form in my thoughts. In the Pines, pain and laughter are close like brothers. In that most demented and otherworldly of places, childlike innocence and vitiation go hand in hand. Entering the Pines, one leaves the real world and enters a sort of sub-reality in which every variety of emotion can occur all at once.
Time loses its meaning in the Pines, because I can look at the same spot on the ground and see two memories at once.
In 2011 I played hide-and-seek there; in 2013 I lost myself there. I won’t go further into the details, for my own sake as much as yours.
The point is this: I warped my memories and created a false retelling of them because it suited me. The reality of what had happened — with that girl, or in the Pines, all of it — was too difficult to deal with at the time. I took refuge in lies because they were more comforting than the truth.
I vowed to myself that I would stop doing that, but I wonder if it’s even possible. There are parts of my mind that I can’t control, and those parts will always tend away from pain or trauma. I wonder if this campaign of sabotage on my memory has been conducted from within my own mind.
Anyway, that’s all very abstract. What matters is to be truthful in our accounts, because for now I can see through the lie and remember the truth of my situation in that town. But what happens when I grow old and can’t tell the difference anymore?
We must use the stories of our past to question ourselves and grow as people. Honesty is the best policy, because without it the stories of our lives become void.
