Gympie

Gympie is not a glamorous name for a town, but it is the name that it deserves. I remember sitting in the back of my mother's car when I was 8 or 9 and we had just rolled in to town from a small beach side town to begin this new chapter of our lives (or to put miles between the past chapters as I believe is more accurate from my mother's train of thought), and my mother and her room mate / long time friend / guy who had been hopelessly in love with her forever even during a decade long relationship, were telling my brother and I that Gympie meant 'devil' in the native Aboriginal language. I still don't know if this is correct. I've also heard that if you come from Gympie it means you have two-heads and are an inbred. Those are a little harsh, maybe, but the word itself is not very nice to say and doesn't give the impression of bright city lights and quaint hipster cafes, so in that sense, it is the name it deserves. As I was growing up, I would make a point to always tell strangers I came across that I was travelling from the Sunshine Coast. Often I'd have some daft friend beside me who openly corrected it to 'Gympie, we're from Gympie', and I'd cringe and take on the embarrassment as though living there was my own 13 year old self's choice and that it meant that I was deeply connected with every shoe-less, cussing person in the Centerlink line, or heavily pregnant woman smoking cigarettes at the bus stop. As I got older, my innate pull toward propping up the underdog changed this behaviour to one where I would always put in a good word for Gympie - "It's not that bad, actually. We have a lot of nice trees. And it's the people you know, anyway". This new approach, I believe, was an attempt at making people feel like they were judgemental pricks and that also maybe they should like me more because of how positive and small-town patriotic I was - which is a very adult attitude to take on, I decided somewhere along the line. That "it's not that bad, actually" line has been with me for the past couple of years. I think I had almost come to believe it true. I have seen both sides of this town in the past decade that I've lived here. My formative years took me through adventures down the uneven streets of a seemingly sleepy town, which would eventually lead to the low lit lounge rooms of drug dealers who were only selling to us 14 year old girls because one of my friends had already slept with them and they were hoping for another go by being romantic and giving us a few free cones before we left. I've seen enough backwards caps, unwashed hair, and crying, drunken children to last a dozen life times (Finn, this means you needn't bother getting into these crowds). Pro tip: If you ever find yourself in a Gympie hotel over night because your car broke down on the way to the airport in Brisbane where you were meant to catch your 1am flight to LA to meet up with all your successful, famous friends, and you're feeling pretty down about the fact, all you need do is go down to the local skate park (is that still what kids are calling it?) and ask literally anyone for some weed, and their hungry asses will go and get you some (just don't expect that there won't be any missing by the time it gets to you). I've also, in more recent years, since moving back for my partner, seen the cultured, well adjusted side to the town, which more often than not leaves me feeling cosy where I am. We currently live on the South Side, which in my opinion is the nicer place to live if you are going to live here. Southside is full of estates with white brick houses and sweet elderly folks. It has in-tact footpaths and people use them for running or walking their tiny little dogs. Yeah, it's a real Beverly Hills thing going down over on this side of town! For the near two years that we have lived here, I believe that these small differences completely coloured my perceptions of Gympie that I had spent so many years learning from experience. But you can only wear rose coloured glasses for so long, and mine are slowly being folded up and put back in their faux leather pouch for the next town I move to. Let me elaborate: as I sit on our back deck, I am surrounded by a block of houses. To the left of me are the old couple who despise us because we owned a small dog who would bark for the hour I left him home to do the shopping each week. We had to get rid of said small dog for a few other reasons but I like to blame them for the pressure they put on us, anyway. The old man has about six small plants in his back yard (okay, he has exactly six, I have a good view, ok?) and each morning he cuts off all the bottom leaves, places them neatly in a plastic bag, waters each individually, then returns inside. That's not romantic, that's psychotic. It's psychotic because I don't like them because they don't like us and they didn't like our dog. Beside them, and this shouldn't even come into what could have been a perfect four-point story, is a couple with young children and a noisy beat-up car. They also have a rottweiler. I love those dogs but the people who own those dogs are usually pretty easy to evaluate after realising the fact that they own said dog. They can frequently be heard out on the street have ridiculous screaming matches. I've never seen the children, but there are play things in the yard and school uniforms on the line. Behind us, on the right block, is home to a middle aged couple and their young child. I am not exaggerating when I say that, without fail, multiple times a day when I am outside, I can hear this woman screaming abuse at her toddler from inside the home, so loud and aggressively that individual words can be deciphered. It breaks my heart into a million pieces and reinforces my need to be a good parent to Finn. I have gotten to point where I might take their address and send a copy of my favourite parenting books to gently motivate her to cool her shit down a level. If a few weeks passed and nothing has improved, I truly believe I'd be doing a disservice to that child if I didn't go and have a word with the police. Behind us, on the left block, is a house which I can not see beyond their trees. I can hear it though. As I am typing this, I can hear what I always hear. Loud banging, and a male screaming, and it has been going on for the past hour or so. I do not write this to make some novel point about how shitty it is that I can't sit on my back deck and enjoy some peace. I write this to drive home that what goes on behind closed doors, in pretty estates, beyond well manicured lawns, does not always follow that pretty stories' lead.  I also write this to open the door as someone who will always have room in their home for you if you are suffering at the hands of any kind of abuse, and I mean that. To finalise this part of the story, the house to the right of us is home to a quite couple with an older daughter. The only time I hear yelling from this house is when they are telling the dog to come inside. I have already decided that I am best friends with these people and that their dog is my dog, too, and I dreamily picture them feeling the same way about us.
Every day, I sit in our noise-free home, where there is never an argument that reaches vocal frustration or physical harm, where our children are well loved and respected, and I try to believe that there are more people somewhere in the world who don't make other's lives a living hell on a daily basis and who consistently try to be good, loving people. Please assure me they exist! Please tell me you grew up in a home where you felt safe and your parents weren't spending more money on drugs than they were on you! Please tell me you are horrified by what you've just read because I must be making it all up because you've never heard these things coming from your neighbours homes!
Gympie does have nice trees, this is true. It also is improved or tainted by the people you know, as with any town. But I might drop the line "it's not that bad, actually", until proven innocent. And please, mayor of Gympie who is almost certainly reading this, command someone to open a vegan cafe so I have somewhere to buy a pie from or something - I'm not particularly fond of pies but I feel like half a person not having the luxury to buy one if I'm feeling like ingesting 600 calories in a few bites.