Marmal Hall

I could show you a horizon as far as the eye can see, stretching far and beyond your ability to even comprehend. I could show you the wide open skies awash with a harmony of pastel pinks, blues and purples. I could show you a lake once full and shimmering but now the home of rabbits, kangaroos, foxes and possums. I could show you my father’s crops standing thick and tall before harvest, a golden sea of wheat that would ripple in the breeze. I could show you the oasis in the middle of a desert – my mother’s garden that brings birds, bees, frogs and snakes to bask in what it has to offer. I could show you the farm I grew up on.

Or, I could have chosen to share with you the small town I went to school at. I could share with you the main street which would almost be empty. I could share the sun beating down on the tennis courts by the glistening blue lake, home to fishermen, boatmen, skiers and swimmers. I could share the large football oval bordered by a trotting track with the hockey field and netball courts nearby, filled with an excited community on a Saturday.

There are a lot of things I could have written about and photos I could fill this post with that would have you thinking ‘wow, I want to go there’, but I chose not to. The small town I grew up in is a place people from across the state come to spend their summer in the middle of Victoria, Australia. The beauty and value of that town has already been discovered by many, but reflecting on it, it isn’t a place where I feel comfortable. I didn’t exactly fit in to the small town image.

I live in the city now and whenever I return to my family’s farm it is like an unreal escape from society. Travelling the planet, seeing the French catacombs, climbing Mount Everest, walking the Great Wall of China, experiencing the city nightlife, being caught in the mass of tourists flooding a natural wonder, a museum, a zoo . . . it can be fun, you can laugh and enjoy the busyness of the crowds and the smell of the street food with a line of customers while you are holiday. You can take hundreds of picturesque photos of the landscape, the scenery, yourself and your friends and post it all onto social media, sharing your joyful experiences with the world.

There is something else more impressive however that I think everyone needs to experience. When I go to visit my family home, there is a moment when the soft sound of the bitumen road beneath my car tyres turns to a loud noise of rocks crunching and flicking into the underneath of the car as I veer onto the gravel road, my car sliding as I turn. When I wind my way around the grey gravel-stoned road at the edge of the empty lake there is a moment where I feel a sense of inner peace while approaching my family’s home. I can see the rise of the golden hill where the gravel side-road is a powdery pink-red colour stretching up to the top of the hill and out of sight. To my left is the lake that is a dirt bowl filled with dead trees, prickly bushes and empty shotgun shells. Upcoming on my right is the Marmal Hall.

The area feels completely abandoned. No other souls are within sight and for just a moment it feels like it is mine. All mine. It is my haven. My home. My peace. For the briefest period of time only me and my thoughts exist in the world and the hall rests there as the only other entity within miles, waiting like an old friend for you to visit. The feeling only lasts for a few seconds while I drive past, but it is surreal and leaves an impression all the same. Everyone needs to experience this kind of aloneness and peace; it is such a particularly rare feeling and more valuable than your flustered and busy plans at your holiday destinations or your houses full of chores and obligations. Home, for me, is always going to be aligned with the places I feel most at ease. For this reason, if I am going to recommend a destination to someone, I will say you should find a place where forgotten buildings are your welcoming neighbours, where empty places steeped in memories and flickers of life that once was are awaiting new life to join it again. Find this place and revel in the silence. Feel your own presence in the landscape.

I can picture the moment I approach the dilapidated hall each time I went to visit my parents. I always turn my head the very second I pass the hall to see how far it has slipped this year. The white paint on the wooden boards is cracked and peeling, if the boards are even still nailed in place. The front entrance room is already missing half of the boards so you can see right through to the main doors leading into the hall. The small glass panes of the front window are all busted out so it is only a black hole now. The only thing that has kept the marvelous building somewhat upright for so long is the small tin water tank pushed against the side of the building which leans on it heavily. I wonder what it is exactly that always fascinates me about the hall. Is it the way the hall manages to stay standing for so long? Or is it the tank that has stolen my attention all along, drawing my respect for the way it manages to preserve the ancient building? Is it the vulnerability of the building? Is it the vulnerability of myself should I be standing inside it as risk of it crumbling on top of me?

Marmal Hall has such a rich history and long standing place in the hearts of the people spread across the area. Over 100 years ago this building served as a school for the children nearby. When I was a child, the hall wasn’t in use other than the year we had a community Christmas gathering and we kids spent the evening having a water fight in the heat. For my teenage years it was a spectacle of sorts for the scary lean in was on.

Unfortunately, what I have neglected to mention until now is that the hall no longer exists. I am sorry if I might have misled you. While sharing this with you I share it like I am reliving it just so I can hope that you, too, might be able to imagine what it was like when it was still in physical existence. This heritage building is now gone. Only photos, memories and my feeling of home as I pass the land it used to stand on remain.