A Signature Like Yours

I saw the colours first, the blues and the browns, and then the shapes of the leaves. I immediately thought of the Australian painter Fred Williams, and wanted to make some photographs before it all disappeared. It was the stimulus.

You said you would clean the pool next week and that I still had a few days to make some more photos. I didn’t bring a camera with me so I borrowed one from Gary and he gave me five rolls of 30-year-old film.

As I looked through the viewfinder, I started to notice other things too — the extension on the back of the house you did when I was young, the concrete steps that lead to the granny flat, the model plane you recently built, your ’32 Ford, the washing drying on the line without pegs. The dining room table where we all used to eat dinner together.

Remember that time in Haberfield when we had that massive blue and you drove back to Canberra and we didn’t speak for a while? I wrote you a handwritten letter saying I was sorry and that I loved you. 

I have always liked that my signature looks like yours.