I am absolutely useless at finding my way around streets. Actually, I lie. I can find myself around the streets…but when it comes to recalling the name of the street I am on, I just can’t do it. I can not make it stick.

I’ve been like this all of my life. While my brother basically came out of the womb ready to face the world and get lost if he had to, I came out scared of getting lost and unwilling to try. Terry took himself to school from his very first day. Granted, we lived three doors from the school…but when it was my turn, I had to be taken right to that front door and there was NO WAY my Mum was going to get me to do it alone. Did I mention that we lived three doors from the school?? That we had no streets to cross, no lights to wait for?? We didn’t even have a dog I could be scared of.

It didn’t get better as I got older. When I was 12 and decided I wanted to have music lesson’s I needed to find my way to Collins Street in the heart of the city. I had to get a TRAM all by myself and I still had not stepped on a tram by myself before that. But Mum made me do it. I guess there was a life lesson in there somewhere. The thing was, I was so scared I would miss my stop and end up lost in the city. Despite the fact that a tram on it’s return run (remembering trams don’t miraculously jump tracks)…would go right BY OUR HOUSE!

So Mum came up with a brilliant way of teaching me where things were. She used landmarks. Collin’s street was the next stop after Bourke Street. And Bourke Street was a pedestrian walkway covered in bright red bricks. The only one in the city. Mum would say “Push the button’s after the red bricks”. All I’d have to do is get off at the next stop.

So I sat on that tram and I watched as the streets went by. I didn’t look at street names, I looked for the red bricks. The second I saw the red bricks, heart pumping in my ears from the fear I was feeling, I got up and pushed that button as quick as I could.

Mum had a back up plan too. If I missed the red bricks, all I had to do was get  off at McDonald’s…and go two blocks back.

It worked. I knew where the red bricks were and I knew where McDonalds was and from there I could be directed through a series of landmarks to the place I needed to go. Eventually I was able to name a few streets.

I was totally lost when the city took the red bricks out and replaced them with your every day standard bricks.

But 20 years on, I’m still the same. I still use landmarks to find myself around town. By moving here, I reduced the number of street names I actually needed to remember by more than 95%. But still, I don’t know which one Grafton St is, or Albion Street is. We only HAVE one main street to remember.  Tim, now has to say “Go to Eagle Boy’s Pizza and turn right” or “It’s on the same street as the statue”

I wonder, if in 40 years I will ever know the streets of this town by their name and not their landmarks.