I was heading back home from dinner at Karen’s – first by an attempt at the bus and then by catching the last tube east – when a song clicked onto my ipod. It was ‘One Foot In Front Of The Other’ by Bright Eyes, and though I’d listened to it countless times in other scenes, I could pinpoint the specific time and place of that song. It was 2004 and I was the back seat of a car driving the backstreets of Leederville in Perth, Western Australia. The song was being broadcast on the local public radio station, a track off the record company’s compilation. It was Spring then, September I think, and the weather was that confused mix of not knowing whether to turn on the air con or put on a jacket. No one demanded the air conditioning so we neglected it, and I remember how my skin prickled as it was tenderly coated with humidity. The other passengers were my sister and brother. I can’t remember who was at the wheel. We were heading to pick up a friend from his house before we drove into the city, to the office where we’d spend a day printing copies of the mini-comic zine that our small collective had been working on. I was in love with him then, I guess, and the combination of the near-heat and song made the muscles in my chest beat agitated against their bony frame.
I remember listening intently to the song, more so to the words. It got to the bit where Conor Oberst sings “the world’s got me dizzy again // you’d think after 22 years I’d be used to the spin.” He sounded like an adult to me, like even though he didn’t have it all together right then, he was going to. I was 18 at the time and I suppose I mentally earmarked 22 as the time when I should be as grown up. I wanted to have such profound words when I got there. I wondered if I could achieve as much too, even without the whole wunderkind baggage attached to my lapel. I thought of that song again when I did hit 22. I didn’t feel grown up at all. I don’t know what I was expecting. Clarity? Wisdom? That was all over six years ago now; I’m 25 years old. I do feel like a grown up, finally, though sometimes I feel like I’m self-consciously reaching out for what I expect the pinnacles of adulthood to be. I have a plan; it took me a while but I’m getting there. I’ve collected stories, but goddamn. I wonder if Conor was still dizzy after 25 years too.
