9.30 this morning J sees this bedding, she gets off her bike to take a photo and realises there is a sleeper in inside. She thinks about all those mattresses going to waste near her house.
You don’t see people sleeping out so much now. St Kilda’s changing… another wave of sadness hits. The rent has gone up but it’s still free to sleep in the park. J tells her friend F about the photo, who says “you didn’t take it did you”. J confesses that she had already pressed the button before she fully realised the bundle contained a person. F said in a disgusted voice “that was somebody sleeping”.
J said “but all you could see was bedding”, but she is still wondering ……..
Two more mattresses, this time in Carlisle St, J gets stuck on the past lives stuff again.. Love, pain, birth death, dreams, nightmares, if only a mattress could talk. They are single beds, she starts thinking about child abuse – J is glad they are mute.
She gets a text message from P.
Mtress alert Balaclava Stn. The camera batteries are flat.
She’ll have to miss this one.
J is taking a photo of more mattresses and sees K. She tells her that their conversation about dumpimg furniture has prompted this investigation.
K says “I can’t understand why people think they can just leave rubbish on the street”.
“I guess some people think they are being helpful by doing a bit of recycling. replies J.
Then she tells K about her neighbour who emptied the contents of his house into a skip. He was renting it out and was on a flying visit from Singapore where he lived most of the time.
J couldn’t stand the waste so she asked if she could salvage some of his rubbish. “He was really embarrassed and so was I, but in the end we both jumped into the skip and retreved all of the good stuff”. Some of it sat in the front garden for weeks until it was re-distributed through rooming houses, neighbours and Sacred Heart.
K said “oh if I see a something that’s good I always pull over and pick it up . My husband hates it”.
Taking L to school again, there are more mattresses in the street, these ones are wrecked. They are old St Kilda. Itinerant community, lots of short term rentals, people moving on but leaving a piece of their intimate history behind.
J thinks of all the times she’s seen some poor bugger camped out on a mouldy old piece of discarded bed in the park. Maybe that same mattress had been a site of love and comfort for a small child. Maybe in another life this poor bugger also had bed where there was love and comfort. But maybe the opposite was true. You don’t see people sleeping out so much now. St Kilda’s changing. J gets distracted by the springs they look so good and you wouldn’t find this stuff in… … …
More mattresses… about eight of them out the front of an old mansion, there are 2 men cleaning up. J asks if she can take a picture but starts firing off questions instead. Has this place been sold? The younger man says it used to be a boarding house. Did your family own it?
“Yes. Vlad is my uncle he lived here and was the Manager”.
Vlad says “finished, liquidated, no more.”
How many people lived there? “Twelve” comes the answer.
Have they all found new places?
“Yes, but there are two that haven’t moved on yet…”
J is getting pushier by the minute. Did you live there as a kid? “No” comes the reply.
Where are you going to live Vlad?
He says “liquidated, finished, no more”
They tell J she can take anything she wants. She is invited into the backyard. The only thing she takes is a photo. On the way out she takes a peep into the grand hallway as she passes, it’s gorgeous. J wonders how many people will live there in the building’s next incarnation.
This baby change table has been on the corner of the street for a week. J started thinking about who put it there and why. Was it dumped or did somebody think they were passing it on. As she focused her camera she focused on the tear. How did that happen?
At that moment Lyle (artist and local mechanic) came up and said,
“I’m surprised nobody has taken that, you could use it for all sorts of things, like take the plastic off and turn it into artist shelves”.
J was still wondering about the baby who had its little pink pooey bum wiped clean many times a day.
Then he said “I guess people are a bit more fussy about 2nd hand baby things these days”