I’ve lived in Sydney for 21 years. I don’t know how that happened.

I moved here in 1995. My daughter’s father was living here and he missed her. After returning I had a friend who was Queer and she took me out to things… I guess that’s how I connected to the community.

I was moving from Melbourne. Being in a new city meant you can reinvent yourself and I did. I started reading poetry. There were a few places in Kings Cross you could read poetry. It was really vibrant at the time. There was one place where you could go for poetry readings but you could also go there for parties.

It felt full of possibility. It was really exciting. It was new. It was different… it was just really exciting. There was lots of performance at the time. Yeah… Darlinghurst and Kings Cross were just really vibrant. I lived there a few years ago, just as the lock out laws were coming and it just died.

SCENT

Sweat, smoking indoors, coffee, cigarettes, rain on hot concrete, grass, summer

By

Mary