THE MILK BAR QUANDARY

On feeling detached from the very place you are meant to call 'home'. 

If Janis Ian was giving me a Mean Girls-style introduction to the suburbs in Melbourne, I’d imagine it’d go something like this:

“You got your Fitzroy flannel-wearing hipsters, Richmond football jocks, Northcote coffee snobs, Toorak everything-snobs, Brunswick drugged up band geeks… Oh, and in the corner? That’s South Morang. We don’t talk about that guy.”

South Morang would open his mouth and chomp down on a burger the size of his head, causing barbecue sauce to spray onto his dirty red flannel with holes at the armpits. 

Damian would offer a wide-eyed whisper: “He’s new, sweaty, and smells like kangaroo shit.” 

I’ve lived in the borderline-country side of South Morang since 2011, back when my house showed up as a massive clump of dirt on Google Maps. Since then, the suburb has developed into a maze of modern-looking houses, sprinkled with family-friendly parks and boardwalks. There is a tiny milk bar plonked startlingly in the middle of the labyrinth, but otherwise, there are no shops, cinemas, galleries or landmarks within walking distance of my house. South Morang is not a horrible suburb by any means. It’s just sort of… there.

Houses in South Morang are microcosms behind coffee-coloured rendered facades. On the left of my house lives a young couple with a toddler named Jett and a baby girl, Jamie. We visited them once when Jamie was first born, and Jett said, “Watch this!” then deliberately ran headfirst into one of the cupboards. Behind my house is a quiet Indian family with a huge television satellite dish in their backyard, which peeps over the wooden fence like an ugly pet that no one quite knows how to admit is ugly. And on the right of my house lives who-knows-how-many. People are always coming in and out. The middle aged woman (who'd I'd assume is either a landlord or a mother) sits out every few nights and screeches things like, “Faaarken told ‘im,” among a host of other mush I can't begin to decipher, while puffing on her cigarette – the smoke of which seeps into our house during the summer and gives my brother a bout of asthma.

Yeah, there is no way I belong here.

Despite living here for five years, I still feel as though I don’t fully understand the nuances of South Morang. It’s like there is a complete lack of a deeper connection and wonderment with the space. In my mind, there is no difference between my family sporadically deciding to live here to the misplaced milk bar. It’s just my house. 

Green Day – and specifically the frontman Billie Joe Armstrong – has always written songs that are emotionally resonant and reflective of my experience in life. They aren’t just the kind of band I’d listen to in order to fit into the pop punk teenage stereotype, shouting, “FUCK OFF AND DIE!” in my head. Much of Armstrong’s earlier lyrical concern was to do with being confined within suburbia, wanting desperately to escape, or wanting to incite a kind of social revolution against the overwhelming sense of isolation through anarchy and rebellion. In other words, he felt (and created characters who felt) like intruders in their own homes. 

And really, the notion of social unrest – particularly among young adults and teens – has been ever-present in popular culture. Ghost World’s Enid loathed her town, mocked its hypocrisy and detested its dependence on consumerism. In SLC Punk!, Stevo’s insistence on the pursuit of anarchism is perhaps his only source of entertainment: “There's nothing going on. That's what I saw when I looked out over the city: nothing.” And in American culture specifically, there is a great deal of emphasis on that ‘moving out’ when going to college – an idea reinforced to kids even in Toy Story when Andy leaves his beloved toys behind and moves on with his life. 

So maybe it’s a cliché to be thinking, “Gotta get outta this town, man”. But why is this so? Every cliché has got to start somewhere. Why are people so intent on congruence with the area around them?

Perhaps the answer to these questions is related to our psychological interpretation of what it means to belong in a place. Julie Beck published an article for The Atlantic in 2011, titled, “The Psychology of Home: Why Where You Live Means So Much”. She suggests that “a home is a home because it blurs the line between the self and the surroundings, and challenges the line we try to draw between who we are and where we are”. By inference, a place that does not blur this line cannot constitute a home. Even if you sleep there every night, the lack of inner connection with outer surroundings causes a person to want to explore other places in search of this bond. 

Beck also argues that one can have many homes at the same time. She points out that the Western understanding of the word ‘home’ is “consistently coloured by factors of economy and choice” (white picket fences, a trimmed lawn, a friendly neighbourhood, et cetera). However, as Beck researched further into South Asian mentalities and theories, she realised “a home isn’t just where you are, it’s who you are.” 

Let me tell you about one of my homes, the Melbourne CBD. I find that I simply understand the place, despite having spent less time there when compared to South Morang.

The CBD: that endearing smell of coffee drifting through the laneways, the puffs of smoke and silent trams reminding you to stay alert, the delightful places that spring out even if you’ve walked that street a hundred times and instantly connects with you. Old men busk in pink tutus while playing the harmonica with their right hand and controlling a demonic-looking puppet with their left. Crowds cross here, cross there, all moving like a synchronised team. “Sorry!” you’ll say if you bump shoulders with someone, and “You’re ‘right,” they’ll reply. And the best thing? No out-of-place milk bars in sight. ✦