#unexplored spaces

[chroniclerofthecatacombs]

A Potholer’s Eye View of the Capital

As busy and as crowded as could be, the capital of the Federation still holds many secrets from its denizens and visitors. Galt’s urban sprawl reveals a multitude of picturesque abandoned spaces. Urban exploration (Urbex) is a time-honored hobby in the city. Urban explorers like myself are constantly fascinated by the indescribable beauty of modern ruins. Desanctified churches, old factories and warehouses, and old utility tunnels from the Steam War era are among the many hidden jewels of the city.

Urbex Galt and other similar or affiliated groups have advocated for responsible exploration excursions in both public and private lands, taking great steps to ensure that urban explorers travel safely and within reasonable legal bounds. In many cases, most owners are more than willing to let urban explorers snoop around with permission, albeit with a waiver signing away liabilities. Public spaces can generally be accessed without permission unless otherwise stated by a local officer, and Urbex Galt maintains that all explorers follow protocol and only enter usually prohibited areas through legitimate channels.

In general, photography and videography are the only things allowed by Urbex Galt and other groups, and great care must be taken to respect the structural integrity of the buildings explored. Vandalism is considered grounds for membership termination.

The relationship between Urbex and Law Enforcement are best described as complicated. While many amateur/unaffiliated urban explorers, including my teenage self, have chafed under stringent tresspassing ordinances, urban explorers have been responsible for leading the police to criminal operations. The dangers associated with criminal activity means that Urbex Galt nominally discourages "active amateur sleuthing” but does provides guidelines on how to handle crime scenes encountered during a trip.

Urbex reveals a lot about the city that most people tend to ignore, especially if it happens to be underground. For instance, most people are hardly aware of the network of steam tunnels linking up some of the major thoroughfares of the city or that the rather cavernous storm drains, used to keep the Catacombs high and dry, can be used as evacuation access points in the event of emergency. It has also been responsible for helping bring to light the plight of many abandoned buildings of architectural importance. The old Galt Penny Opera house was saved through the photos taken by urban explorers, which was enough to name the building a city landmark by the Galt Metro Historical Society.

[lettingitthrough]

Unexplored Spaces

A whole portion of my psyche screams to me to lay back down, to go back to sleep, imagine how good it will feel. You need to go back to sleep, or you will feel tired and off for the rest of the day.

First it tries the promise of pleasure to lure me, then coercion through fear, there will be consequences later on for not going back to sleep, but this morning, something more profound that all of that lead me to meditate instead of going back to sleep. And now I am here, writing whatever it is that I am writing and the thoughts arise of positing this online, in public display, potentially, because wherever I post it, it will be obscure in the beginning, and I probably won’t share it with anybody, but I wished I could be like these people that constantly speak their minds on podcasts, regardless of repercussions. I guess my biggest fear about that, is my family, most of my family will be oppose or even disturb by the things I really have to say…. So, I stay quiet and I stay safe. Do I even express to myself, I am conflicted, splintered between two things that do not coalesce. Just like a friend who store away dozen of journal of his writings, but none has ever been shared. Victims of their fear… is that how I am? I have shared my writing, but only with individual who I feel could resonate or at least not outright judge or ridicule, who give me the time. Nevertheless, what about family members, will anyone even bother reading these, dialogues with myself? These introspections, I write these words for me and not specifically for anyone else, so what does it matter?

              As I keep writing, it almost seem like the doors will be sealed shut at any moment and I won’t have anything else to write. Isn’t what I am writing right now just filler? Am I writing about anything at all?  If not, then what’s the point? Here, I do not even know how to move forward; well I guess I could just write about my day, yesterday. For starters.

                It all seem very mundane and uninteresting, but it might be worth to take a closer look at the mundane because our hidden machination might be reveal by doing so. I feel like, there is resistance. How do I even spout it out naturally?

Sometime I am just so tired of consuming, I want to be a creator, we are just looking for the next thing to consume, to spend our time, we looking to spend our time with something that consumes our time, we do not engage with our time. I am afraid of everything, I am so afraid, but I still hold firm in my beliefs and integrity and slowly that stand get more firm.

              As the day ended yesterday, I felt a deep longing to get away from it all, to live in the woods, or forest, somewhere. Like I am wasting my life away here. As if no one really sees me, absolutely no one, no one wants to even look…. But maybe I do the same on the instances where someone attempts to show me themselves. In all their rawness.  Sometimes I am so consume by the things I want to consume, so consume by the desire, to indulge in these things, that I ignore the awkward realness that could ensue. The unexplored spaces that lies between our relationships, where any social convention is outdate, or more precisely, irrelevant, or useless. Where you have to stand in that deep unknowing with someone else, with the courage of not covering it up with meek words to distract from the unspoken realness that can be reach. Where we meet our feelings and emotions in the purest forms, where we move towards our spirit, in the center of it all, to commute with God in a matter that defy all logic and intellectuality. If only both of us could fall towards that space. Without restrictions, we could meet the divine.            

                                                                          Inside and without.

                             Amen.

[chroniclerofthecatacombs]

Urbex Trouble

My father and I never did see eye-to-eye much. I sometimes joked that was the reason I was named after my uncle Torben, his younger brother who he didn’t exactly get along with all that well either. 

To call me the problem child wouldn’t give Hansen and Dagmar any justice, but I do concede to setting the precedent. Sven, Jr. was everything he could’ve asked for in a son; none of us were obligated to be anything like him. At our best, father was this icy, distant figure whom I can stay in a room and not quarrel—if he wasn’t was giving me an earful for deciding to be an urban explorer.

Perhaps the only thing I ever do owe my father an apology for is how I went about my hobby of urban exploration. 

I’ve always been naturally curious and had wanted to go caving, but the Tezuka River Delta didn’t have much in the way of impressive natural cave systems., I stumbled upon a fascinating disused tunnel one day at age 15, and it was then that I knew what I discovered urban exploration.  After a few initial incursions, I was caught and fined for trespassing and loitering a few times, and I continued with the hobby clandestinely until I turned 19.

Had he let his hair grow, dad would’ve torn it all out by now due to the number of times I’ve been caught and had sought to dissuade me from urban exploration up until I decided to move out in college. In hindsight, it reflected poorly on a decorated colonel to have a son he couldn’t keep in line. 

Although far from giving her seal of approval, mother was a lot more reasonable than the Colonel. She introduced me to the Urbex Galt group, a dedicated association of urban adventurers in Galt who helped me learn the ropes of responsible urban exploration and the procedures of procuring permission from the pertinent authorities.  She jokes that I’m more like my father than either of us would ever admit. Looking back, she was probably right: father works for Special Ops and did a lot of field work in his youth.

Predictably, mum brought it up during Junior’s fancy breakfast. The colonel seemed to have conceded that urban exploration becoming my hobby was indeed something he shouldn’t be too surprised and later jocularly said I should be embarrassed at myself for repeatedly getting caught all those years. Not to be outdone, I mentioned that this was precisely why I’m not a commando.