Systems: The Ecology of Place and Line:Towards and Architecture Of Healing

Chapter Three

I never met my father. I met his brother, my uncle, once. This was about 16 years ago. My uncle told me that after my Father found my grandmother in the kitchen, he started running and never stopped. He ran into substance abuse and gang membership. He ran into selling drugs and illegal firearms. He ran straight into prison. I hope he had a rest in there. Running away all the time is exhausting. I have no idea if my Father is living or dead. When I was twenty I followed in my father’s footsteps (in a sense). I did not run away and land into a Penitentiary. I ran away to Australia and got married. I ran to Perth, Western Australia; the most isolated capital city in the world. Perth is similar to a prison. It is located between a vast uninhabitable desert and an ocean. Perth’s geography coupled with an oppressive eight-year marriage and extended periods of depression isolated me just as effectively as any prison. May be even more so; in theory I could have walked out of that prison any time I wanted to.