You lost me on this part. I get everything about perpendicular bisectors but I don't understand how we suddenly use this notation:
When you say that the distance from z to a what is z? Is this just the general form of straight lines in complex form?
z is just any complex number representing a point on the line formed, z = x+yi (like what we do with all that loci stuff).
In general, for the distance between two complex numbers, say

.
So if

and a is another complex number, say

(x,y,c and d are real numbers)
We know using pythagoras that the distance between those two points will be
^2+(y-d)^2})
.
This step might be a bit iffy, but from that, we can see that's equal to
i|)
(modulus of a complex number)
Continuing on
|=|z-a|)
Does that help? (I'm not too sure if I've answered your question).