notes on the landscape

It is often hard to explain the philosophy behind psychogeography. When I discovered it, I realised I had been practicing it all my life. To me there are no specific rules in the study of it. I just experience memories, and discover my own myth behind personal landscape and how it appears in my mind. Art lines my paths, hidden down lanes, through parks and seldom walked roads.

Headphones on, I usually walk pass this gate, unearthing forgotten hours. On this particular day, the gate was open. The fact that it was wide and unlocked startled me.  I’d never seen this path and I have lived here for over five years. I dipped into my bag as train people scurried past. I focused and stopped to take a picture. Questions started to appear. Why hadn’t I ever seen this way before. Where does it lead to and what will I see as I walk through? The anticipation got to me. Like a magnet pulling, I turned around and stepped through the suburban corridor, a deliberate new angle, I walked through. The slow stroll took over me. My eyes inside the sky, lost over fences, orange blossoms overtook senses. I heard carriages speed by tracks. Birds darted past people in private thoughts. Back steps, angled rest, punters smoking, picking lint, our eyes met deep caught spying. I brushed through dry leaves only swept by breeze. The concrete crunched faded cigarettes. Brilliant pickings if some loner needed a puff, a decent punch would reside in their hand. When I came out the other end, I brushed my arms from webs and imagined crawlies. This path was not new and felt seldom used. A minor scale re-birthing, a heroes journey, a distraction from my usual route. A new way to enter and leave the neighbourhood I thought I knew.