I am back for the third time after another long absence, searching for my eighth St Kilda address. I walk around the streets and gaze at the amazingly diverse architecture with fresh eyes. I find comfort in the familiar – the buildings and restaurants and cafes that have been here for so long. They form the fabric of my memories and tell the story of my life. So take a journey with me, if you will, through the streets of St Kilda, on a trip down my hazy memory lane…

Grey Street, just opposite the Sacred Heart Mission. Here is the apartment block I lived in when I first moved to St Kilda at the age of 17. I could see the purple orb of the Cadbury Schweppes building at St Kilda junction from my bedroom window.

February, 1985. Luna Park isn’t the only rollercoaster ride St Kilda has to offer – it’s pretty much at the height of its reputation as the place for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Brothels aren’t yet legalised and street prostitution is rife. As is heroin use. Grey Street is part of the cruise block for the johns looking for girls. So the journeys home from work at a café in the city, via the train station, become my training sessions in street-wisdom.

At first I am shocked seeing girls younger than me stake their place on the street in broad daylight. I see the same faces day after day and watch them slowly deteriorate from heroin abuse or abusive pimps or both. Then they just disappear. I wonder what happened to them and wistfully dream up their rescue by family or friends.

I learn not to wear skirts or lipstick and to hide my long hair. I learn to walk fast, head down, ignoring the curb-crawling vehicles slowing along side me and the calls of how much luv? More than you can afford, my favourite reply.

Down Grey Street to Fitzroy Street. The paint is now peeling off the majestic George Hotel. Flashback to the Eighties: I am upstairs at the Ballroom, drinking beer and watching icons like Nick Cave and dancing to new wave. Flashforward to the Nineties: drinking champagne downstairs in the late Donlevy Fitzpatrick’s creation, the hugely popular Melbourne Wine Room. Forward again to the Noughties: drinking in the local talent on exhibition at Patricia Autore’s gallery.

Cross over Grey Street, the Amcal chemist is still there on the corner. Further down Fitzroy Street, Topolinos and Monroe’s.

August, 1985. I start evening shifts at Monroe’s, clocking on at 5pm, knocking off at 3, 4 or 5am. Sometimes a Jesuit priest called Brother Alex brings some of the younger street prostitutes in for a coffee and a chat in the early evening, before the dinner rush kicks in. I start to get to know some of the girls by name, learning a little about their lives, and the dangers they face with every john. Sometimes I see one of the girls on the street during the day and we chat a bit. Alex asks me what keeps me off the street. I’ve got a job, I tell him. I’m making cappuccinos, serving pizza and pasta and the occasional chateau brione….and I love it. I love St Kilda and the eclectic mix of characters I meet in the restaurant: the locals, the travellers, even the occasional celebrity. I call St Kilda my City of Black Sheep. For the first time, I feel like I belong somewhere, I fit in.

Now I stand outside Monroe’s on the pavement looking in. There are things I saw from the other side of those windows at crazy hours of the morning that I don’t really want to remember. There were things I heard, too – the sound of gunshots fired, rumours of stabbings, the occasional blood-curdling female scream, the frequent scream of ambulances racing by to revive yet another overdose victim. I wouldn’t look at the people shooting up in the shadows of alleys or doorways on my way home. But sometimes I’d hear wanna score luv? And it was very easy to say no thanks, then walk away a little faster. I’d already seen the worst of what smack could do.

A little further down Fitzroy Street, I am outside the Prince of Wales. Flashback again to the Eighties and thrash punk bands and the crush of my first mosh-pit experience. I am too small to stand too close. I see stage divers at a Dirty Rotten Imbeciles gig, locals crowding in for I Spit On Your Gravy. Fast-forward nearly twenty years and I am dancing to bands like Cat Empire and Gerling.

Around the corner and on to the Esplanade. What a relief to see the iconic Espy still standing, somewhat altered, but its heart is still there. So many bands I saw over the years in the Gershwin Room and the front room, especially when I was doing gig reviews for In*Press circa 1989-90. So many beautiful sunsets I watched melt into the bay. The sticky carpet is long gone, but the smell of sweat and stale beer still lingers.

I look down towards the seabaths on Jacka Boulevard. A snapshot of early childhood: a visit to the old seabaths with its majestic domes crowning the roof – it is mouldy and dark inside.  From 2001, I swam in the new light-filled pool weekly for the next few years. But now, there is no sign of the nightclubs that once stood beside the old seabaths in what seems like another age…

Les Mis and Bojangles, 1985: dancing transvestites and dodgy crims. I go to Bojangles with another waitress after finishing work at 4.30am. All the other pubs have long closed, but my 18 year old eyes are wide open. I don’t think I knew who Chopper Read was back then but from the kind of characters I saw hanging around, I didn’t go back.

I walk over to where the Palace nightclub once stood. A montage of memories from the early Nineties back to the late Eighties: my first techno rave, dancing madly to the Violent Femmes, hobbling up the stairs to see Blue Ruin’s last gig on crutches. Quincy, the lead singer, passes by and says something like You’re keen! I nearly faint from joy.

The Palais, still cutting an imposing figure in the St Kilda skyline. It is daylight now and I wonder if the red light still shines eerily at night in one of the top windows. I’ve sat in those uncomfortable old seats through film festivals, concerts, gigs…I think my very first gig there was The Motels, in the early Eighties, years before I lived in St Kilda.

I walk back to the upper Esplanade to the site of the old skating rink, now the Novotel. In 1985 this was also the site of The Venue, Earls Court – once a classic parquetry-floored dance hall but then, it was a huge two-stage music venue that thundered and shook the floorboards with the likes of The Angels, The Saints, INXS, Hunters & Collectors, Uncanny Xmen, Split Enz, Kids in the Kitchen, Mental as Anything, Blue Ruin, The Astro Boys… and so many more.

The Venue was my venue of choice at least once if not twice a week before it closed its doors for the last time that year. It was often full of muso’s and music industry reps. I was barely 18 and barely able to keep my cool rubbing shoulders with so many rock stars I’d only seen through a TV screen on Countdown. Although there were other music venues in St Kilda that were still going strong, I missed that place when it was gone.  The Venue’s end seemed to signal the beginning of the closure of several live music venues, either shutting down for renovations or disappearing altogether. The ‘gentrification’ of St Kilda was underway.

Where am I? Back on the Esplanade, heading towards Acland Street, back to the late Eighties. I see Greasy Joe’s. It’s 1989 and I have just finished an evening rehearsal at the National Theatre where I am a part-time drama student. We go to The Galleon for coffee before the class and after, to Greasy’s, where we talk and laugh and drink and sometimes we are drunk enough to dance. Is that a cop up there, dancing on the next table?

Over the tram junction, The Vineyard. It’s 1987 and there is a bluestone block of public toilets next to it. I work directly opposite, upstairs, at the Commonwealth Employment Service. From my desk I see the bluestone block, Luna Park and a glimpse of the bay. The block is a hangout for rent boys and junkies and at times it seems more popular than the job-boards downstairs. But it is nothing I haven’t already seen.

That year, I wanted to save for a car so I took a second job delivering pizzas for one of the smaller restaurants in Fitzroy Street, just down from the infamous Topolino’s. I got to know every back street and lane in St Kilda driving the owner’s car through rain, hail and storms, climbing dark stairs, searching for the right apartment number. I even delivered to several brothels. One of them offered me a job – you’ll make loads more money, she said. I’ve already got two jobs, thanks anyway. She didn’t tip.

From the Esplanade, I turn right into Acland Street. The cake shops are still here, so is Deveroli’s.  I pass Cicciolina’s, with it’s gorgeous little bar out back – my favourite local place for a cocktail in the early Noughties. Back in 1986 it was the Red Rock Restaurant where I served huge schnitzels and steaks to a loyal clientele.

I look towards the end of Acland Street, I see the Village Belle hotel on Barkly Street. January 1992 – I am having farewell drinks there with friends. I have waitressed my way through the professional writing and editing diploma at RMIT, I have packed up the gorgeous little house I shared in Chapel Street, East St Kilda for nearly two years, I have sold or given away most of my furniture. I am ready to pursue my career as a writer. There are more jobs for a writer in Sydney than Melbourne. I am taking the overnight train with a suitcase and two boxes and I am too excited to be sad.

In 2001 the Village Belle’s Doulton Bar is my frequent Friday night hangout. I am back from 18 months in Sydney then six years in London, and I am a student again, doing my post-grad at VCA’s School of Film and Television. This time I am writing instead of waiting tables to get through uni. I buy a tiny apartment up on the hill on Alma Road. From my bedroom I see into the bell tower of the Presbyterian Church on the corner of Barkly Street – its steeple becomes my landmark for home. From my tiny living room balcony, I see right across St Kilda to Elwood and the bay. But not for long. A giant cherry-picker soon appears and a nine-storey apartment block begins to steal my view.

In 2002 I am looking into a construction site from my living room but I still have St Kilda on my doorstep. I regularly walk straight down Princes Street and take advantage of the new groovy cafes and restaurants on Fitzroy Street or see a movie at The George cinema. I get on my bike with my Super 8 camera slung over my shoulder and ride down to Catani Gardens to film the colourful crowds at St Kilda Festival. I go back to Europe and return to St Kilda later that year. Another development application has arrived – this time for a five-storey building that will block my last window and view of the bell tower. I’m three floors up but I will still feel hemmed in. I lodge an objection, but I think I am fighting a losing battle. I sell up and rent a flat in Elwood. By the end of 2004, my itchy feet get the better of me and I am gone again.

Where am I now? It’s 2009 and I’ve walked back up Acland Street to have a coffee at a place where I’ve had countless coffees and glasses of wine and stimulating conversations over several decades. I am at Dogs Bar. When I lived interstate and overseas and I’d come back for a fleeting visit, I’d always want to go to Dogs Bar, where I knew I could get a great wine by the glass and maybe see a familiar face from the past. Over the years, the crowd may have changed, but the ambiance is the same.

That is the essence of my St Kilda – it is what stays the same. Yes, St Kilda has changed. And so have I. I am a stranger here again after another four year absence, but I still feel at home. As much as I have been away, this is the one place I have spent the most time living, working, playing, sleeping, eating, drinking and dreaming throughout my gypsy life. My favourite memories are etched in St Kilda’s buildings and walls and streets, they hold my history firm and near so I can still grasp the fading pages of my past. Now I am ready to write a new chapter, back in St Kilda. Back home.