[fiction]
Do you believe that we are reincarnated when we die? That I could come back as a caterpillar that would metamorphosis into a butterfly and you a baby lamb to be lead to the slaughter? Do you believe in the fiery eternalness of hell and the heavenly highs of God’s good grace? Do you believe in Karma or an oasis where seven virgins wait? Do you believe when they put you into the earth you stay there, trapped, while the earth slowly tries to reclaim what humanity has stupidly locked in a wooden box, chaining it to an in between world? Or do you believe when your ashes are thrown into the sea, you’ll become part of the fish and coral, hidden in sharks and shells? Do you believe that your soul ceases to exist but your energy flows into other living things? Do you believe in ghosts, in unfinished business and haunted buildings? Will you stay here and haunt this hayshed where we have spent so many hours, your spirit the essence of myths and urban legend? Do you think perhaps that when you stand before God, he’ll see the pure heart that no one else did and he’ll make you an angel with sweet golden wings and soft knowing eyes?
What is the beyond?
Where is it?
Is it up there behind that cloud, do those towers of vapour conceal the gateway? Or have we been eternally damned, left to cohort with the rotten and evil of this world in a prison of immortal souls? Are we sinners because I held your hand and you held mine and it meant all the world to us? Do you think perhaps the Pope is there, right next to God and Jesus and Mohammed, and Gautama is there too, with Krishna and the Rainbow Serpent and all the many creators? When you arrived did they great you with a grin that made it clear, they are in this together, they are the many faces of one great thing, so wonderfully large we cannot fathom it. Or were we, two bodies intertwined, cloud gazing together just a collection of atoms and molecules? Did bits of matter collide one day before time begun, before good and evil had even be conceived, did they build together slowly, growing as shrubs and trees and birds until we arrived at that moment in time, with the soft young grass and the racing cloud-ships? Did we even exist or is this too a virtual world? Are we just someones pawns or charcters in an obscene storybook? Do you think some power far, far bigger than us brought us together, that everything happens for a reason? Do you know how our story sits in my memory, how it possesses me and smoulders in my mind? Can you really believe that someone could so cruelly script this plot? Do you think we are we really the champions of our own destinies, the makers of our own fates? Are we really so wonderfully, so terribly alone here?
Do you see that cloud shaped like a wave from where you are? It’s a great big grey wave of despair that is about to wash over me, to drown me where I lie. I have never hated God so much. I have never doubted him more. I have never wanted, so hard and so urgently, to believe he exists.
There are many ways for a person to die, this is just one. I will lie here until I disappear. I will wait like Buddha under the Bodhi tree or Christ in his cave awaiting reincarnation, until the grass grows over me or the gates above me open. I will lie here until I disappear, until three heavenly angels lift me gently away, or the devil himself grows weary of waiting and comes up and carries me home, until I am consumed by the earth, retuned to stone and soil.
I will lie here until I disappear, or until you come back to me.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
In other worlds, in other ways I live my life, side by side with this one and yet somewhere else entirely.. this is a world of fiction, these are the tales of other lives, these are my characters, they come and they go and sometimes, in fact often, they are far more interesting than me.
Sonja felt as though she was the breeze. A happiness rose from somewhere deep inside her, it seemed to scratch at her navel and tingle behind her knees until it burst out across her face and raced down the hill away from her. On the swings the smell of the metal chain and sunscreen mingled under her nose, sending her back, way back into the vaults of her memories. Sometimes she could recall so clearly it was as if she had spent her childhood gathering tiny splinter memories in a wicker basket. The air whirred in her ears on the downward arc, her feet stretched out before her. It was strange, she thought, how her legs seemed to know to bend and tuck up underneath her on the upwards swing, an instinct that she had to actively resist just to test the theory. She wanted to let go of the chains and hold out her arms until she floated away, such was the rush of happiness inside of her, so much stronger than it had been in a long time. She didn’t understand why the park was so empty while the road screeched and growled away behind her. But she rejoiced in having the whole green expanse to herself, she was alone with the rush of the leaves in the tree’s and for that moment in time it didn’t matter at all that she was alone. She swung her legs back and forth, building the arch of her swings higher and higher each time. There was something she wanted to do, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She let go of the chain and tucked her elbows into her side and then, arms spread out wide she jumped from the swing . She was flying but, for a short time at least, it didn’t feel like falling.
Sonja felt as though she was the breeze. A happiness rose from somewhere deep inside her, it seemed to scratch at her navel and tingle behind her knees until it burst out across her face and raced down the hill away from her. On the swings the smell of the metal chain and sunscreen mingled under her nose, sending her back, way back into the vaults of her memories. Sometimes she could recall so clearly it was as if she had spent her childhood gathering tiny splinter memories in a wicker basket. The air whirred in her ears on the downward arc, her feet stretched out before her. It was strange, she thought, how her legs seemed to know to bend and tuck up underneath her on the upwards swing, an instinct that she had to actively resist just to test the theory. She wanted to let go of the chains and hold out her arms until she floated away, such was the rush of happiness inside of her, so much stronger than it had been in a long time. She didn’t understand why the park was so empty while the road screeched and growled away behind her. But she rejoiced in having the whole green expanse to herself, she was alone with the rush of the leaves in the tree’s and for that moment in time it didn’t matter at all that she was alone. She swung her legs back and forth, building the arch of her swings higher and higher each time. There was something she wanted to do, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She let go of the chain and tucked her elbows into her side and then, arms spread out wide she jumped from the swing . She was flying but, for a short time at least, it didn’t feel like falling.
***
Friday, December 25, 2009
This Christmas.
Christmas is hard work. As I’m writing this I’m full and bursting with food, my eyelids are threatening to close up shop for the evening and i can feel the snores coming on already. I should mention it’s only 4pm. We just arrived home from visiting the people you generally only see once a year at Christmas, ones you can’t decide if you only visit them at Christmas because they are so special or if there’s a reason you only see them once a year.
I know Christmas, the season of festive frivolity, can be a terrible time of year. I know that in some houses Christmases are remarkable for the absence of food and piles of wrapping paper. In so many ways we who stuff and overstuff ourselves are amazingly blessed, blessed with the opportunity to go back for seconds, to float in the pool and nap in the sunchair.
And this is not all that is bad about Christmas. Christmas sucks when you’re an adult. It’s magic gets checked out at the shop counter where you maxed out your credit card. No one can be bothered to put the tree up, tiny hands don’t tug on Dads pinkie begging to pull the decorations out anymore, the suspense has fizzled out of the month of December because you aren’t counting off the days till Santa visits. Somebody eventually puts the tree up anyway, like a priest who’s forgotten why he prays but remembers where to put his hands. Then suddenly the 23rd is upon you and so to the realisation that the tree doesn’t sparkle anymore, it’s all just plastic and that’s some terrible type of fake. You whinge about the terrible time of year, and everyone agrees, the stress, the total absence of car parks, the wait in the queue at the post office, which is the only queue longer than the one at the bank. Christmas is not only so far removed from the religious celebration of the holy myth, it’s a grand consumerist orgy. In this credit crunching cult people who already have so much have a Christmas splash out that’s more like a king tide, so devoid of meaning it feels we are adrift in a sea of plastic cups and broken toys.
And yet, and yet and yet, it’s still something so much more than this. On the beach watching my dog run here and there at a dizzying pace stealing everybody else’s ball, there are big dogs and small dogs, fat men and pretty women, children running and somebody kayaking, people are smiling and sharing drinks out of eskies, dogs are barking and prancing about with tinsel collars and the cool blue waters are a welcome respite. The narrow beach was full of people celebrating life and enjoying the very best of a summers day with family they might only see once a year, maybe because that’s about all they can handle.
Christmas is all these things at once and it only happens once a year, once a year to over indulge, once a year to put plastic tinsel on plastic trees and put up with long queues in supermarkets. Speeding along the road on the way home, past fire engines and the smoking cinders of someone’s Christmas lunch gone up in flames, I feel asleep in the car like a 5 year old, a very happy 5 year old on Christmas evening.
I know Christmas, the season of festive frivolity, can be a terrible time of year. I know that in some houses Christmases are remarkable for the absence of food and piles of wrapping paper. In so many ways we who stuff and overstuff ourselves are amazingly blessed, blessed with the opportunity to go back for seconds, to float in the pool and nap in the sunchair.
And this is not all that is bad about Christmas. Christmas sucks when you’re an adult. It’s magic gets checked out at the shop counter where you maxed out your credit card. No one can be bothered to put the tree up, tiny hands don’t tug on Dads pinkie begging to pull the decorations out anymore, the suspense has fizzled out of the month of December because you aren’t counting off the days till Santa visits. Somebody eventually puts the tree up anyway, like a priest who’s forgotten why he prays but remembers where to put his hands. Then suddenly the 23rd is upon you and so to the realisation that the tree doesn’t sparkle anymore, it’s all just plastic and that’s some terrible type of fake. You whinge about the terrible time of year, and everyone agrees, the stress, the total absence of car parks, the wait in the queue at the post office, which is the only queue longer than the one at the bank. Christmas is not only so far removed from the religious celebration of the holy myth, it’s a grand consumerist orgy. In this credit crunching cult people who already have so much have a Christmas splash out that’s more like a king tide, so devoid of meaning it feels we are adrift in a sea of plastic cups and broken toys.
And yet, and yet and yet, it’s still something so much more than this. On the beach watching my dog run here and there at a dizzying pace stealing everybody else’s ball, there are big dogs and small dogs, fat men and pretty women, children running and somebody kayaking, people are smiling and sharing drinks out of eskies, dogs are barking and prancing about with tinsel collars and the cool blue waters are a welcome respite. The narrow beach was full of people celebrating life and enjoying the very best of a summers day with family they might only see once a year, maybe because that’s about all they can handle.
Christmas is all these things at once and it only happens once a year, once a year to over indulge, once a year to put plastic tinsel on plastic trees and put up with long queues in supermarkets. Speeding along the road on the way home, past fire engines and the smoking cinders of someone’s Christmas lunch gone up in flames, I feel asleep in the car like a 5 year old, a very happy 5 year old on Christmas evening.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Summertime
It's summer on these streets. For long burning hours the sun beats down upon the path, fries the grass, tans the leaves, bleaches, drains and burns. Shoppers flock like birds to water, to air-conditioned worlds and jostle through the crowds carrying tinsel, beer and junk. In backyards kids splash in paddling pools and race under sprinklers, while Dads and uncles absentmindedly turn sausages in the tired afternoon sun. Working her way slowly up a sticky hill on a yellow bicycle in the middle of this clichéd suburban scene is a girl with a backpack full of books, with more bags of books hanging off the handle bars. It’s not particularly discernable at a first, second or even a third glance, but she is rather unhappy. Inside her mind is only a dark and dreary hole, despite, or perhaps because of the sun, the struggling breeze and the lemon-scented bush.
Welcome to the inaugural Summer edition of this bloggety-blog, summer has in fact been kicking along for at least a month now, but I think I just woke up and felt the sunburn on my nose. Inaccuracies aside, I’ve decided that this summer is not about losing weight, or eating healthy, drinking less coffee, saving the planet or any of the ho-har, but that it is absolutely necessary that I dance in my underpants more often. In so many ways I am the bane of my own existence. Henceforth, I intend to reverse this ridiculous state of affairs and go on a summer journey, a search if you will, for the good things, the positives and some deeper, hopefully not mythological, state of contentment. Hitch a ride if you like ;-)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
I’ve been thinking about freedom a bit these last few days. Come hang out with me for a little while I try and put my thoughts into words.
The reason it's been on my mind, is because it's been all over the news, in the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall and communism, the keyword freedom is on everyone’s tongue. We had it, they didn’t, that’s why we won the Cold war. That’s why we sit here pretty in our free, democratic states and don’t really ever have to think about freedom, because we just know, this is it. Freedom is what people living in dictatorships like Iran or North Korea do not have. The particular type of freedom they need is free market capitalism of course, but that should also include freedom of speech, movement, association, oh and you know, to walk to the market without being blown up.
I put the question to google, just for kicks. Tell me, kind sir, genius and gateway to the knowledge, I asked, what is freedom? The answer according to Wiki: its the right to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes both Freedom to and freedom from for every member of the human race. Freedom to join trade unions, take holidays, to worship where they like, or to chose not to worship if they so please. So too is it every individual’s right to be free from persecution, slavery, discrimination, torture or arbitrary arrest.
There’s something heart-warmingly comforting when you read the UDHR, the great declaration forged from the joining of so many nations which should govern all of their actions. It’s something I believe in wholeheartedly. It’s something I want to paint in big fat letters across the sky so that everybody throughout the world can see the thread of respect that unifies us. Or rather, should unify us. It’s something I want to believe can govern the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that human rights abuses occur everyday, all over the world and that individual freedom is so transient, still. We hope, some people pray, others protest, politicians sign papers in pursuit of the goal of universal freedom, to make universal human rights actually be universal. Some people go to war and fight for these freedoms, or for the freedoms of others. But I don’t really want to dwell on the inherent ironies of pointing a gun at someones head and throwing democracy at them. Or blowing up other people so you can force them to live their lives how you think they should.
What I’ve actually been thinking about, is what freedom means for us in our air conditioned lounges on a quiet evening writing blogs. I live in a society where I am free to write a blog, and in it I could satirise or criticise my countries government as I please without fear of the website being shut down or getting myself arrested. I live in a country where I can question God and not be declared a blasphemous heretic worthy of public beheading. I’m even so lucky to live in a society where “freedom from want” is addressed, and an individual’s right to health care is honoured.
But while all the world leaders praise how free the free world is, comparatively, in so many ways our freedom is an illusion. Certainly, in contrast to a gay man in Saudi Arabia, I am very much free. I am more free than I would be if I had of been born a woman 60 years ago. But the idea that we are 100% free agents is an illusion. Even the free world isn’t free when you require passports and visas and documentation to go anywhere. Where you get fined for not wearing a helmet on a bicycle or the police can arbitrarily search you. Where if you are a refugee, travelling across wide oceans in little boats, running away from injustice in pursuit of freedom, chances are the free world is going to treat you like a quasi-criminal engaging in an illegal activity.
True freedom would theoretically be anarchy, open borders. I do not hold such faith in humanity that these things are actually a good idea. Take away all laws and lines in the sand and I know there will still be someone ready to tell you how to live your life, and be prepared to force you to do it.
But even if I think the notion of true freedom is little more than an illusion, I think there is real danger in forgetting the meaning of freedom and forgetting that we do have it. In the “free world” we don’t have to think about freedom on a daily basis. We lose touch with how thankful we should be to live in democratic societies. Our key concern should be with maintaining our freedoms and rights, and sharing them. But instead, with our notion of our own freedom vaguely in the back of our minds, we call for tougher policing and tighter border security.
Even as my cynicism and my realism destabilises my fleeting youthful idealism, I’ll continue to believe wholeheartedly in the United Nations and the dreamy notion of a world where “..recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace..” This will be my only religion.
The reason it's been on my mind, is because it's been all over the news, in the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall and communism, the keyword freedom is on everyone’s tongue. We had it, they didn’t, that’s why we won the Cold war. That’s why we sit here pretty in our free, democratic states and don’t really ever have to think about freedom, because we just know, this is it. Freedom is what people living in dictatorships like Iran or North Korea do not have. The particular type of freedom they need is free market capitalism of course, but that should also include freedom of speech, movement, association, oh and you know, to walk to the market without being blown up.
I put the question to google, just for kicks. Tell me, kind sir, genius and gateway to the knowledge, I asked, what is freedom? The answer according to Wiki: its the right to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes both Freedom to and freedom from for every member of the human race. Freedom to join trade unions, take holidays, to worship where they like, or to chose not to worship if they so please. So too is it every individual’s right to be free from persecution, slavery, discrimination, torture or arbitrary arrest.
There’s something heart-warmingly comforting when you read the UDHR, the great declaration forged from the joining of so many nations which should govern all of their actions. It’s something I believe in wholeheartedly. It’s something I want to paint in big fat letters across the sky so that everybody throughout the world can see the thread of respect that unifies us. Or rather, should unify us. It’s something I want to believe can govern the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that human rights abuses occur everyday, all over the world and that individual freedom is so transient, still. We hope, some people pray, others protest, politicians sign papers in pursuit of the goal of universal freedom, to make universal human rights actually be universal. Some people go to war and fight for these freedoms, or for the freedoms of others. But I don’t really want to dwell on the inherent ironies of pointing a gun at someones head and throwing democracy at them. Or blowing up other people so you can force them to live their lives how you think they should.
What I’ve actually been thinking about, is what freedom means for us in our air conditioned lounges on a quiet evening writing blogs. I live in a society where I am free to write a blog, and in it I could satirise or criticise my countries government as I please without fear of the website being shut down or getting myself arrested. I live in a country where I can question God and not be declared a blasphemous heretic worthy of public beheading. I’m even so lucky to live in a society where “freedom from want” is addressed, and an individual’s right to health care is honoured.
But while all the world leaders praise how free the free world is, comparatively, in so many ways our freedom is an illusion. Certainly, in contrast to a gay man in Saudi Arabia, I am very much free. I am more free than I would be if I had of been born a woman 60 years ago. But the idea that we are 100% free agents is an illusion. Even the free world isn’t free when you require passports and visas and documentation to go anywhere. Where you get fined for not wearing a helmet on a bicycle or the police can arbitrarily search you. Where if you are a refugee, travelling across wide oceans in little boats, running away from injustice in pursuit of freedom, chances are the free world is going to treat you like a quasi-criminal engaging in an illegal activity.
True freedom would theoretically be anarchy, open borders. I do not hold such faith in humanity that these things are actually a good idea. Take away all laws and lines in the sand and I know there will still be someone ready to tell you how to live your life, and be prepared to force you to do it.
But even if I think the notion of true freedom is little more than an illusion, I think there is real danger in forgetting the meaning of freedom and forgetting that we do have it. In the “free world” we don’t have to think about freedom on a daily basis. We lose touch with how thankful we should be to live in democratic societies. Our key concern should be with maintaining our freedoms and rights, and sharing them. But instead, with our notion of our own freedom vaguely in the back of our minds, we call for tougher policing and tighter border security.
Even as my cynicism and my realism destabilises my fleeting youthful idealism, I’ll continue to believe wholeheartedly in the United Nations and the dreamy notion of a world where “..recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace..” This will be my only religion.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Please take me book, absorb me body and soul...
I can only begin to imagine how it would feel to be haunted by terrifying memories of war, to flinch at sudden sounds and be paralysed by reoccurring images. I’m familiar with the power of happy memories that bring a smile to your face at the most random of times or make you burst out laughing for no apparent reason. But I can’t begin to understand how it would feel to wake feverishly in the night at the slightest sound, to be pursued by frightful memories of the past or terrorised by images of death, disease and despair. I have enough trouble with happy memories that time has turned into cement blocks of regret, memories of emotion that can very nearly wind me as I walk down the street, memories that should in no way be significant, but are to me.
When uni classes finish and free time abounds, these memories begin to prey on me. I drag myself down into despair and allow negative thoughts and images to stampede into my brain, just because my neurons have suddenly found themselves without sufficient stimuli or indeed a reason to get up and dressed and ready for the day. I have this feeling hanging over my head like an irritating fly buzzing about my ears that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing. That I’m wasting my time, my life yadayada... It seems I function best if my brain is too busy to be concerned with itself.
Finding myself with time, I picked a random book off the bookshelf that I hadn’t got round to reading and escaped out the back door. I soon found myself so completely and utterly drawn into its pages that the prospect of finishing it scared me to death. I felt safe in this fictionalised world. I remember once reading an article that discussed how our brains categorise characters that we meet in books or on TV as our friends, perhaps a little sad, but definitely true. I had the sense that I would be ok as long as I was reading, as long as I was in this slow meandering story of other lives. I read and read and read, all day long, in the park, on the train, on my couch, in a different park. This was a world in which I didn’t have to make decisions, where I had no memories, all I had to do was float and watch it pass me by. I dreaded the time that I’d eventually have to go back out there to the world I rather not be in, the one in which I’m the main character and the plot is only halfway appealing 20% of the time. The story gave me a purpose. I worried about what I would do when I finished the book, about how I could actually go on without it.
And now here I am, out in that world again, waking, sleeping, drifting... It is an incredible paradox that I’m free to do exactly what I like, and yet I’ve never felt so unfree, mentally.
When uni classes finish and free time abounds, these memories begin to prey on me. I drag myself down into despair and allow negative thoughts and images to stampede into my brain, just because my neurons have suddenly found themselves without sufficient stimuli or indeed a reason to get up and dressed and ready for the day. I have this feeling hanging over my head like an irritating fly buzzing about my ears that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing. That I’m wasting my time, my life yadayada... It seems I function best if my brain is too busy to be concerned with itself.
Finding myself with time, I picked a random book off the bookshelf that I hadn’t got round to reading and escaped out the back door. I soon found myself so completely and utterly drawn into its pages that the prospect of finishing it scared me to death. I felt safe in this fictionalised world. I remember once reading an article that discussed how our brains categorise characters that we meet in books or on TV as our friends, perhaps a little sad, but definitely true. I had the sense that I would be ok as long as I was reading, as long as I was in this slow meandering story of other lives. I read and read and read, all day long, in the park, on the train, on my couch, in a different park. This was a world in which I didn’t have to make decisions, where I had no memories, all I had to do was float and watch it pass me by. I dreaded the time that I’d eventually have to go back out there to the world I rather not be in, the one in which I’m the main character and the plot is only halfway appealing 20% of the time. The story gave me a purpose. I worried about what I would do when I finished the book, about how I could actually go on without it.
And now here I am, out in that world again, waking, sleeping, drifting... It is an incredible paradox that I’m free to do exactly what I like, and yet I’ve never felt so unfree, mentally.
Friday, October 16, 2009
sleepless musings
It’s late and I’m tired but I’ve had too much coke (of the cola variety) - which I never drink and now I remember why. My eyes feel like they are wedged open by toothpicks but they are itching to close, despite the fact they just will not shut and my mind is ticking over almost audibly...
Or perhaps that’s some cheeky cicada outside my window?
Anyway, I’m thinking about people. Awesome people in particular. People who in their own unique way embody the best of what is generosity, or good humour, positivity, drinking ability, wisdom or just plain good company. Why is it that so often the very best of people are the ones that are only in your life for the blink of an eye? Awesome people who live miles and miles away, whose path you cross only rarely or who you get to know well before they disappear into the vastness of the universe again... or become lost behind the heavy stones of their barricades.
Is it purely so you appreciate having met them more? Probably. It’s God’s plan, fate, just the way it is etc etc.
All the caffeine in my system is leading me to conclusions. Primarily, I wish there was a way to keep the awesome people on the same continent. But I know there is email and jet planes and paths that cross again and funny memories in the meantime. In other cases, I wish there was a way to stop good friendships from dying horribly slow deaths at my own hands. But I know I should know by now when to stop shaking the life out of it.
Coke you see, provides the answers, but not the sleep.
Or perhaps that’s some cheeky cicada outside my window?
Anyway, I’m thinking about people. Awesome people in particular. People who in their own unique way embody the best of what is generosity, or good humour, positivity, drinking ability, wisdom or just plain good company. Why is it that so often the very best of people are the ones that are only in your life for the blink of an eye? Awesome people who live miles and miles away, whose path you cross only rarely or who you get to know well before they disappear into the vastness of the universe again... or become lost behind the heavy stones of their barricades.
Is it purely so you appreciate having met them more? Probably. It’s God’s plan, fate, just the way it is etc etc.
All the caffeine in my system is leading me to conclusions. Primarily, I wish there was a way to keep the awesome people on the same continent. But I know there is email and jet planes and paths that cross again and funny memories in the meantime. In other cases, I wish there was a way to stop good friendships from dying horribly slow deaths at my own hands. But I know I should know by now when to stop shaking the life out of it.
Coke you see, provides the answers, but not the sleep.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Send me back to suburbia, before academia claims my soul
[Warning: Rant will ensue.]
Here’s a fact for you, I am sick to death of facts. I have a growing distaste for words I can barely lift with a forklift and metaphors you have to hurl an encyclopaedia, a PhD and two separate bi-lingual dictionaries at before you can even begin to understand what they might be getting at. Historians and their truths, lies and unknowns are getting on my nerves, as are the high and mighty in-joke’s that fly around in the reputably stale old world of academia. It’s not all that stodgy and stale most of the time, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m playing in a sea of theoretical codswallop larger than I can handle. Post-structuralism, deconstructionism, superstructure, cultural hegemony, truth...
...or dare? No? Ok...
Nobody appreciates jokes in languages they can’t understand, or names of people they don’t know that espoused theories that they’ve never heard of but oh-my-you-really-should-know-that. Those kinds of intellectualities are why people don’t like the cultural elites that hide in their university offices dressing things up in big-big-words and arguing over the nitty-gritty and bemoaning common society before retiring to their books and fantasies. I belong to this less than heavenly world of pen and paper. I spend my time philosophising and hurling large, ridiculous words at people. I kind of like it. But right now I’m entering the final round of semester with only 2 essays to knock out and I’m about to start flatlining on the brain monitor. The realisation is fast approaching that I’m 99% sure I cannot remember a damned thing I’ve been studiously attempting to absorb all day because low and behold, my carefactor is speedily approaching 0 with 1/1000 chance of radical turnaround.
Disenchanted? Disengaged? Dis-dis-dissertation will be the end of me.
Here’s a fact for you, I am sick to death of facts. I have a growing distaste for words I can barely lift with a forklift and metaphors you have to hurl an encyclopaedia, a PhD and two separate bi-lingual dictionaries at before you can even begin to understand what they might be getting at. Historians and their truths, lies and unknowns are getting on my nerves, as are the high and mighty in-joke’s that fly around in the reputably stale old world of academia. It’s not all that stodgy and stale most of the time, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m playing in a sea of theoretical codswallop larger than I can handle. Post-structuralism, deconstructionism, superstructure, cultural hegemony, truth...
...or dare? No? Ok...
Nobody appreciates jokes in languages they can’t understand, or names of people they don’t know that espoused theories that they’ve never heard of but oh-my-you-really-should-know-that. Those kinds of intellectualities are why people don’t like the cultural elites that hide in their university offices dressing things up in big-big-words and arguing over the nitty-gritty and bemoaning common society before retiring to their books and fantasies. I belong to this less than heavenly world of pen and paper. I spend my time philosophising and hurling large, ridiculous words at people. I kind of like it. But right now I’m entering the final round of semester with only 2 essays to knock out and I’m about to start flatlining on the brain monitor. The realisation is fast approaching that I’m 99% sure I cannot remember a damned thing I’ve been studiously attempting to absorb all day because low and behold, my carefactor is speedily approaching 0 with 1/1000 chance of radical turnaround.
Disenchanted? Disengaged? Dis-dis-dissertation will be the end of me.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Salty memories of lighthouses
I don’t like fish or fishermen, but I like their company from afar. I have to admit I don’t see what’s relaxing about fishing, but it relaxes me to watch them busy about their hobby, diligently becoming smelly and salty, enjoying the pretension that they are catching their own food, hunting for their keep, or perhaps just escaping their families. They form part of the scenery, the backdrop in my mind. Their fishing rods merge with the birds and boats. Two kayakers soldier on out into the wind and swell, two white specs disappearing into the grey horizon before me. If I stand here long enough I’m sure I’ll acquire the weather-beaten, rustic look of an old fisherman’s bucket, spotted with fish scales and blood.
It’s the salt air that reminds me how once, sitting on an ocean rock wall on a dark and starless night, I told someone I felt like a lighthouse. That I was a distant flickering light that no one ever really approaches, built on a rocky outcrop, standing strong alone in the cold, crazy world, but not altogether sad. It didn’t occur to me until afterwards that perhaps this was information I shouldn’t share, a secret that contained something so vital to my fragile inner existence that when I butchered it, I was left with nothing. Except for the seaweedy taste in my mouth that you get when you give away too much of yourself to someone who doesn’t really want it anyway.
My headphones are like earmuffs but even still, they don’t block out the whistling of the wind in the yacht masts or the rumble of planes overhead. Today I feel neither sad or happy, not exceptionally high or particularly low, I just am. I stand stoically on my rocky outcrop, a quiet lighthouse, seagull crowning my shoulder, salt encrusting my face. A face blanker than Mona’s with a gentle lost look which only the feral rock wall cats notice hiding in its eyes. Tiny birds dart about me. From point to point the coast stretches out either side of me and I can just make out the distant two legged figures pushing on through the sands of the beach, or clinging to their knives and forks in their windowed, sprawling homes, so see-through and yet tall and guarded. Already my leg has begun to cramp up, my jeans slowly being worn away by that steady wind, how long before they are reduced to threads? How long would I have to wait on my rock before I became a statue, or as silent and unseen as a ghost? How long before my heart starts to beat in tune to the tides and the light in my eyes to flicker?
When I turn to leave, to hop across the big rocks that try to keep the waves out and the boats in, I carry with me in my hair, my eyes and my notebook the salt and the clouds, the wind and seagull cries and a tinge of regret that I can’t stand there forever, a lighthouse.
It’s the salt air that reminds me how once, sitting on an ocean rock wall on a dark and starless night, I told someone I felt like a lighthouse. That I was a distant flickering light that no one ever really approaches, built on a rocky outcrop, standing strong alone in the cold, crazy world, but not altogether sad. It didn’t occur to me until afterwards that perhaps this was information I shouldn’t share, a secret that contained something so vital to my fragile inner existence that when I butchered it, I was left with nothing. Except for the seaweedy taste in my mouth that you get when you give away too much of yourself to someone who doesn’t really want it anyway.
My headphones are like earmuffs but even still, they don’t block out the whistling of the wind in the yacht masts or the rumble of planes overhead. Today I feel neither sad or happy, not exceptionally high or particularly low, I just am. I stand stoically on my rocky outcrop, a quiet lighthouse, seagull crowning my shoulder, salt encrusting my face. A face blanker than Mona’s with a gentle lost look which only the feral rock wall cats notice hiding in its eyes. Tiny birds dart about me. From point to point the coast stretches out either side of me and I can just make out the distant two legged figures pushing on through the sands of the beach, or clinging to their knives and forks in their windowed, sprawling homes, so see-through and yet tall and guarded. Already my leg has begun to cramp up, my jeans slowly being worn away by that steady wind, how long before they are reduced to threads? How long would I have to wait on my rock before I became a statue, or as silent and unseen as a ghost? How long before my heart starts to beat in tune to the tides and the light in my eyes to flicker?
When I turn to leave, to hop across the big rocks that try to keep the waves out and the boats in, I carry with me in my hair, my eyes and my notebook the salt and the clouds, the wind and seagull cries and a tinge of regret that I can’t stand there forever, a lighthouse.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Some random thoughts sewn together while the flowers sleep
I have no idea what I want to say.
There is a story in my heart with a beginning, middle and an end
but it has no characters and the scene is hazy,
the plot eludes me and the words evade me,
all I know is it starts, gets complicated and then ends happily ever after,
several thousand times.
What on earth is goin’ on in my heart?
I’ve been a powerhouse of focused reading, a tour de force of note taking. I have submerged myself in a void, and filled it with distraction. But now I’ve lost my mojo, my way and my light. I woke up, or I’ve fallen back asleep. I just want to drink tea and nap, read novels and philosophise. I’ve been day dreaming about hiking mountain ranges and sailing on calm bays of empty thought. It’s all variations of nothing in particular, something so familiar all over again.
There’s a person inside me I want to be, I can see them, but I don’t know whether they are me, or an imaginary being. I’m staring and waving my arms but for some reason I can’t get their attention.
So I bought a shrub. Her name is Boronia and she will be my offering to this world. In this graveyard garden, amongst the remnants of tennis balls, where mangled bones lie on upturned dirt she’s going to flower in the winter and spring, absorb sunshine and carbon and make people smile... if I don’t kill it.
So come along, it wont be long
There is a story in my heart with a beginning, middle and an end
but it has no characters and the scene is hazy,
the plot eludes me and the words evade me,
all I know is it starts, gets complicated and then ends happily ever after,
several thousand times.
What on earth is goin’ on in my heart?
Has it turned as cold as stone?
Seems these days I don’t feel anythin’
‘Less it cuts me right down to the bone
David Gray
I’ve been a powerhouse of focused reading, a tour de force of note taking. I have submerged myself in a void, and filled it with distraction. But now I’ve lost my mojo, my way and my light. I woke up, or I’ve fallen back asleep. I just want to drink tea and nap, read novels and philosophise. I’ve been day dreaming about hiking mountain ranges and sailing on calm bays of empty thought. It’s all variations of nothing in particular, something so familiar all over again.
There’s a person inside me I want to be, I can see them, but I don’t know whether they are me, or an imaginary being. I’m staring and waving my arms but for some reason I can’t get their attention.
So I bought a shrub. Her name is Boronia and she will be my offering to this world. In this graveyard garden, amongst the remnants of tennis balls, where mangled bones lie on upturned dirt she’s going to flower in the winter and spring, absorb sunshine and carbon and make people smile... if I don’t kill it.
So come along, it wont be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free
Sia
Sunday, September 13, 2009
It’s September, did you know? I don’t think I got the memo. Part of my head is still tangled in August’s heartache and July’s nausea while the other, regrettably, is wearing Sunday’s pants in Monday’s world. Apparently there’s no room for slippers in the daily grind, which is where we begin to disagree, the world and me. Spring afternoons are short and sweet like Perth winters and soon forgotten by long summer days. And I am addicted to cloud watching like my contemporaries are to debt and energy highs. I don’t think I dance alone but its where I find myself, day and night, in my slippers, dancing upon pages and words, words upon pages, pages upon words. But just before I drown in the unabated flood of information I arrive at the life raft of knowledge that it’s tea time. This is an ode to the time spent in escape, except that it is no ode at all. And I know before long September will give way to October like sadness gives way to surreal calm or calm gives way to disarray and eventually I’ll have to learn to stop writing in paragraphs that are lost from top to bottom.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Yellowbetty was looking at me with a conspiring grin and a wink that said lets go and not return, for the hour at least. Let’s take this spring day and roll on by, past picnics and car crashes and screaming toddlers alike, let’s dream this fine Sunday alive. So I’ve been working hard at my daydreams. I have etched out a fantasy in which, there are no castles in the sky, but every hard road is a grassy path where there hides an abundance of tea and sugar in tiny yellow cups and people speak not of peace, for they have known no war and gentle waves crash on sandy shores, sandy shores greet grassy plains and there where the blades dance, my heart beats again.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Behind me, a discord
Today I look forward. I have aims and goals and demands to be made. I distract myself with illustrious daydreams and fanciful missions that take me far, far away...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
At my desk I sat down and smiled.
It’s 7.47pm and I am writing of sound mind and body at my desk in the tiny corner of the globe that is reserved entirely for me.
It’s sunny in here.
Actually that’s a lie but allow me that poetic license, because it was this morning. And somewhere in the corner of my desk the sunrays have been captured and are still radiating heat. In this I firmly believe.
My desk is old. It’s vintage. It’s positively antique. Currently it holds more interest for me than the long dead historian whose dismally long sentences I am trying to decipher. If I squint I can imagine my desk lost beneath rolls of parchment and piles and piles of ink blotched papers upon which an ageing man is scribbling his memoirs, to be read one day 200 years later by a disinterested history student on the other side of the world. I can imagine a distinctly English gentleman of the colonist variety, tucked away in some godforsaken corner of Africa sketching the behaviour of the natives, his desk the only piece of furniture to remind him of home, that chip in the wood a reminder of a stray bullet that tore through his hut, the painting on the top shelf a fading memory of the distant Scottish highlands. I can hear the gentle tapping of a young woman’s shoe on the footrest as she writes her best friend, her would be lover, telling him of the terrible drought and the rigours of the home front while he rots in some shallow grave on the fields of France.
Perhaps this is the very desk upon which a grand narrative will be composed, perhaps it is here in the pages of this book or other that my partially completed manifesto will be found, after I wander off into the jungle one day and do not return to type those final words, and thus leave the world wondering... whatever happened to her purple striped socks?
Here I am Lord of all that happens, and queen of all that may one day come to pass... Even though it’s just a Thursday, I am just a girl and this is just my desk.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
One last time
Once again, I have said too much. I have gone and on and on and spent hours scribbling on tiny lined sheets of paper and I have said too much. I have offered up my honesty in the place of my anger, my anger in the place of my hate and I have gone around and around in circles. I have moped my way through pen after pen, filled an entire notebook with words of weariness and all in all, I have gone on and on. I suppose the trick is to know when the last word has been said, because if you miss the tiny warning beep, you will never know that the moment has gone. You’ll carry on unaware that you are now digging up old wounds and turning the knife deeper and deeper. At this stage you become the arsehole, because you’re foaming words at the mouth and drowning happy people in your antipathy for life and your rage at the twists and turns of fate. I have been clouding the bare essentials with heavy black smoke and exasperating issues. Sometimes I surrender the blame, sometimes I have felt the full weight of it resting firmly on my own shoulders. I have been framed impossibly, unavoidably reincarnated as the bad guy. No matter what you do, no matter how you think you are unselfishly offering up your light to illuminate someone else’s life, in the end you become the taker. So it seems, I have whispered and yelled so long I have become the hopeless loser who needs to let go.
And then I tried to say nothing.
I struggled to maintain my dignity in silence. But the last word, the last word crept out from around a corner and dared me to speak its name. I gave in, I gave into that vice of repetition, I brought it all up again one last time. One last time from the top, the list of how you have offended me, how I have failed you and how I have been left for dead. The last word roared from the folds of a letter, another letter. More words, ink, paper wasted. Wasted. Because the last word is deceptive, like all the words that came before. It means everything and yet nothing and in the end, in the end can I really let it be the last?
And then I tried to say nothing.
I struggled to maintain my dignity in silence. But the last word, the last word crept out from around a corner and dared me to speak its name. I gave in, I gave into that vice of repetition, I brought it all up again one last time. One last time from the top, the list of how you have offended me, how I have failed you and how I have been left for dead. The last word roared from the folds of a letter, another letter. More words, ink, paper wasted. Wasted. Because the last word is deceptive, like all the words that came before. It means everything and yet nothing and in the end, in the end can I really let it be the last?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
You know, it’s funny...
A word of advice, when undressing manikins, it’s not a good idea to name them. Addressing the manikin, “Hey sexy,” whilst tearing his pants off in the sight and hearing range of customers lends itself to slightly perverse interpretations. It also doesn’t make it any less weird when you have your head in Bob’s chest, your hands on his arse and you’re staggering backwards up the stairs panting. I don’t know, perhaps it’s only me who found the situation funny; the raised eyebrows of my customers led me to believe they only found it inappropriate.
Incidentally, the “Jesus died to save your soul” so “repent ye sinner,” lest you suffer “eternal damnation” for “all of fiery eternity” in the “rages of hell” yadayada missionary van that roars around the streets honking its horn went passed 8 times after that incident. Coincidence?
Just to clarify, I’m not attracted to plastic people.
In other news, I’m leaving oranges behind me wherever I go. I take them with me in good stead for a healthy diet and invariably do not eat them because I can’t be bothered cutting it up, getting all sticky and having shit stuck in my teeth, and so it’s left alone and partially damaged in the sandy corner of my bag, behind a pile of papers on my desk, turning into an icicle in the over enthusiastic fridge at work or silently rotting in the passenger seat of the car... It’s sad really and a phenomenal waste of fruit. So I went about and collected them up, dusted them off and put them back in the fridge.
Have you ever wondered where that orange you’re eating has been?
Forms. Application forms, cancelation forms, registration forms, enrolment forms; they are all different and yet more or less the same thing and yet if you don’t have the correct one the lady behind the counter will scowl at you and if you use blue ink when it clearly states black she’ll know what a no-hoper-arts-student you must be and if you tick where you are supposed to cross? Well how in the heck will they ever be able to figure out what you really mean?!?! Thus, when filling out a basic heres-my-credit-card-details-take-my-money-you-bastard-governement form just recently I started to draw a cross in the specific box, before realising to my horror that unlike the previous form from the same government department, this one required a tick. Panicking, I decided to add a line at the top, to make it look more tick like. The result was an upside down, back to front tick which looked retarded, to be as politically incorrect as possible, and so I sighed and decided it may as well be a cross after all, drew another line before realising with a shock that it was now beginning to look all too much like a swastika..... oh dear.
Apparently I’ve lost weight, through absolutely no fault of my own. I’ve noticed because I’ve gone down a belt notch and because nice, friendly, observant people keep mentioning it.
“Wow, you’re looking slim,” they muse. “Yep. A diet of stress and heartache will do that to ya’” I laugh.“Oh, that’s no good, hope you’re feeling better?” they respond, taken aback.“What, you want me to get fat again, is that what you’re saying?”
Some people just cannot take a compliment.
Talking about talking, as a student there’s a question I get asked a lot. What is it, people would like to know, that I will do after I graduate. Where am I headed, what’s my grand plan, my ultimate scheme for world domination per say.
“Well I majored in German and History.”
”Oh, so you’re going to be a German history teacher?”
“No.”
“A historian in Germany?”
“No.”
“A German historian?”
Sigh.
There’s probably only one thing I’ve become sure of lately and that is that I am not cut out for academia. It’s just so frightfully hard not to laugh in the midst of a serious historiographical discussion on the merit of theory vs. facts when the person next to you claims to have independently disproven 200 years of historical consensus with her honours thesis on the anti-something sentiment in England between 1641 and 1643 *inhale* and your finger is throbbing because a Kookaburra stole your muesli bar, the rest of which is melting in your pocket while your stomach growls audibly.
Then they ask you for your opinion and being always prone to say the smartest most intellectually stimulating thing you can,you state that you’re not entirely sure of the worth this wordy, dry and boring reading may have, but at least this historian is better looking than the previous one.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he.That arsehole.
And if you’re not yet “riding the roflcopter” so to speak I’ve got one last, random, incoherent but potentially funny anecdote to share with you. It may or may not have become apparent to you, but the last few weeks in Lea’s world have been full of angsty angsty angst, the culmination of which is anger, frustration and hateful inner currents. As I have stormed about dramatically this past week I have pulled a muscle kick starting my scooter, burst the blood blister I got from a particular kookaburra attack, lost my pen, glared vehemently into space and caused myself a decent bruise on top of my head from throwing myself against immovable objects. Suffice to say I’ve had my knickers in a bit of a twist. In fact, yesterday I actually discovered that they were literally on inside out. I know, I know, TMI right? Well take it from me folks, realising you have been wearing your undies inside out all day is both hilarious and frightfully scary.
It was then that it occurred to me that I might actually be weird. But that’s never stopped my before, so here’s a tip that will definitely save your life, put your undies on inside out and get out there and laugh.
Incidentally, the “Jesus died to save your soul” so “repent ye sinner,” lest you suffer “eternal damnation” for “all of fiery eternity” in the “rages of hell” yadayada missionary van that roars around the streets honking its horn went passed 8 times after that incident. Coincidence?
Just to clarify, I’m not attracted to plastic people.
In other news, I’m leaving oranges behind me wherever I go. I take them with me in good stead for a healthy diet and invariably do not eat them because I can’t be bothered cutting it up, getting all sticky and having shit stuck in my teeth, and so it’s left alone and partially damaged in the sandy corner of my bag, behind a pile of papers on my desk, turning into an icicle in the over enthusiastic fridge at work or silently rotting in the passenger seat of the car... It’s sad really and a phenomenal waste of fruit. So I went about and collected them up, dusted them off and put them back in the fridge.
Have you ever wondered where that orange you’re eating has been?
Forms. Application forms, cancelation forms, registration forms, enrolment forms; they are all different and yet more or less the same thing and yet if you don’t have the correct one the lady behind the counter will scowl at you and if you use blue ink when it clearly states black she’ll know what a no-hoper-arts-student you must be and if you tick where you are supposed to cross? Well how in the heck will they ever be able to figure out what you really mean?!?! Thus, when filling out a basic heres-my-credit-card-details-take-my-money-you-bastard-governement form just recently I started to draw a cross in the specific box, before realising to my horror that unlike the previous form from the same government department, this one required a tick. Panicking, I decided to add a line at the top, to make it look more tick like. The result was an upside down, back to front tick which looked retarded, to be as politically incorrect as possible, and so I sighed and decided it may as well be a cross after all, drew another line before realising with a shock that it was now beginning to look all too much like a swastika..... oh dear.
Apparently I’ve lost weight, through absolutely no fault of my own. I’ve noticed because I’ve gone down a belt notch and because nice, friendly, observant people keep mentioning it.
“Wow, you’re looking slim,” they muse. “Yep. A diet of stress and heartache will do that to ya’” I laugh.“Oh, that’s no good, hope you’re feeling better?” they respond, taken aback.“What, you want me to get fat again, is that what you’re saying?”
Some people just cannot take a compliment.
Talking about talking, as a student there’s a question I get asked a lot. What is it, people would like to know, that I will do after I graduate. Where am I headed, what’s my grand plan, my ultimate scheme for world domination per say.
“Well I majored in German and History.”
”Oh, so you’re going to be a German history teacher?”
“No.”
“A historian in Germany?”
“No.”
“A German historian?”
Sigh.
There’s probably only one thing I’ve become sure of lately and that is that I am not cut out for academia. It’s just so frightfully hard not to laugh in the midst of a serious historiographical discussion on the merit of theory vs. facts when the person next to you claims to have independently disproven 200 years of historical consensus with her honours thesis on the anti-something sentiment in England between 1641 and 1643 *inhale* and your finger is throbbing because a Kookaburra stole your muesli bar, the rest of which is melting in your pocket while your stomach growls audibly.
Then they ask you for your opinion and being always prone to say the smartest most intellectually stimulating thing you can,you state that you’re not entirely sure of the worth this wordy, dry and boring reading may have, but at least this historian is better looking than the previous one.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he.That arsehole.
And if you’re not yet “riding the roflcopter” so to speak I’ve got one last, random, incoherent but potentially funny anecdote to share with you. It may or may not have become apparent to you, but the last few weeks in Lea’s world have been full of angsty angsty angst, the culmination of which is anger, frustration and hateful inner currents. As I have stormed about dramatically this past week I have pulled a muscle kick starting my scooter, burst the blood blister I got from a particular kookaburra attack, lost my pen, glared vehemently into space and caused myself a decent bruise on top of my head from throwing myself against immovable objects. Suffice to say I’ve had my knickers in a bit of a twist. In fact, yesterday I actually discovered that they were literally on inside out. I know, I know, TMI right? Well take it from me folks, realising you have been wearing your undies inside out all day is both hilarious and frightfully scary.
It was then that it occurred to me that I might actually be weird. But that’s never stopped my before, so here’s a tip that will definitely save your life, put your undies on inside out and get out there and laugh.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Introducing my home.
I have an ambivalent relationship with the city I live in. I love it, it's my home. But sometimes I want nothing more than to evaporate from it's surface. It's concrete grates on my skin and pulls on my hair. But when I go away, and return again, I realise this is where I left my heart, somewhere in its midst...
On that note, this blog consists of two parts,
There is a city that stands alone, distant from all others, tucked away in a tiny corner of the globe. It’s a big city, with a small heart and its story begins with a tree. Well actually it begins with a ship and a man named Stirling but it was only after the felling of a tree atop a hillside and a few official words that the city was born. Some would say that was the start of the destruction, others that it was the humble beginning of development and progress. For every year after that first tree was felled, 1000’s more were cleared to make way for roads and farms, then freeways and industrial areas and above all, for large sprawling homes. The tiny colony of free settlers grew strong on the backs of convicts and over the decades the city grew wider and wider, aiming to take up as much space as possible with the smallest amount of people. That meant mandatory two-bathroom-two- carport-houses and no boat people allowed. The city was built on wool, saved by gold and made ever fatter by its metals. Before long the city begun to sprout large glass buildings which cast shadows much longer than their tiny colonial predecessors and yet still, it grew.
However, the story of that place on the river banks actually goes back a lot longer than that tree or the men who cut it down. The land around the river was very rich and was always home for many people. The people lived in small groups, and travelled great distances. Mooro, Yellagonga’s peoples land was in the north, to south of the river lay Beeliar, the realm of Midgegooroo and his warrior son Yagan, Weeip’s peoples territory was in the north east and the land to the south east was known as Beeloo. In the middle was Boorloo, the place where the city was born. They say it was Waugul, the rainbow serpent, who created the land. It was his journeys in ancient times, the dreamtime, which formed the rivers, hills and lakes. I don’t know the story so well and I am not the best person to tell it, but I know every hill and river bend has its story and the stories go way back, all the way to the dreaming. They show how old this place really is. Much older than 1829 when that first tree was felled. Yet the first people must have been able to make themselves invisible, because when Stirling arrived, he and his friends saw nobody there who owned the land. Only swans.
There is a girl; she is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it’s like she is waiting, for nothing.
The city that stands alone, distant from all others, is where I live. It is not where I was born, but it is where I have nearly always been. I ride the train here like a tiny blood cell being pumped through the body’s arteries and veins, under bridges, past houses and roads that forge out away from the city but always flow back to the river at its core. There are days when the city is bathed in the warm glow of a merciful sun, with high bounding clouds and a gentle breeze, and others when the sky closes in and casts a dense spell over the urban sprawl, until a distant lightning bolt allows the first fat rain drops to fall down. Today holds hope in its ambiguity. The sky seems awash with indecision as the rain runs gently along my window on one side of the train, while the sun shines indiscriminately on the other. The only constant is the wind. Whether it brings heat from the east or relief from the west, it is always there and it is always travelling in the opposite direction to me. At the moment it is flying in from the east, so fast it hasn’t brought the heat with it yet. This is the time of day when the most people are on the move. They are yawning in their cars, jogging along beaches, shuffling kids out of doors and standing pressed between strangers on trains like me and millions of people in millions of cities. I wonder when it is exactly, that people cease to be groups of individuals and become masses. When does a breath cease to be my own and become the city’s?
When she pauses, the city buzzes around her. If she stops for too long, she is certain she’ll never walk forward again, that she’ll become stuck. Just watching.
There is the sound of a Velcro bag, the ding of the doors closing bell and the turn of a page, before my attention is stolen by a petite squeak from the sunny side of the train. I listen unintentionally.
“So the tickets are booked then? We leave on the 5th? That’s exactly 3 months! I’m so excited! Hola Brazil! Oh I know. I’ve been reading up on Chile as well, you know my Grandad was born there. What? Hell yes! Only 3 months and we are outta here! Finally!”
The city is a place people like to leave, for awhile, forever. To go to other cities and sit on trains, enthralled by their unfamiliarity but perhaps dismayed in the end. People storm away from the city, swearing never to return. But somewhere far away they dream of its reliable wind. Sometimes I wonder if the city feels sad when they leave or happy when they return.
Her feet pound against the path, her surroundings are at once familiar and despised. She wishes she was soaring across the waves, spurred on by a wind that didn’t oppose her every movement. She wishes her gait was light and her body on fire.
I lean against the door my feet wide apart and gaze from face to face, book to iPod, briefcase to sports bag. The headlines scream “34 more boat people intercepted” and a grey tied man huffs and puffs over the sports section. Ever since Stirling cast his royal spell on the land, the city has been a place people come to, from far and wide. It holds the promise of space, youth and vitality in its arms. It conjures up images of a reliable paradise, endless sunshine and perfect jobs. But for some people it just means a place with trains and buses, clean water and safe streets. Sometimes people put their savings, faith and lives in others hands, cross mountains and oceans in tiny leaky tubs, to arrive at its doors and be told no. There’s no space. It seems that arriving in ships has become outdated. It would probably be okay if they arrived on yachts.
While I’m busy wondering, the city moves. The city is childlike, known for its future. The first thing I do when I arrive in the city’s heart is look up. I see refurbished facades and terraces, hidden between the pavement and the tall glass boxes, tickled by pale blue sky. In the ebb and flow of its conversations people talk of no past, no tradition, only future. The people haven’t learnt yet, how to tell the city’s stories. But I have snuck up on them as they sit rusting away in big libraries, subdued in memories and smiling out of gift books. These stories rise and fall like the legends of much older cities. If you pay close enough attention, you can see them holding its bricks together. They tussle for space in the revised version of the grand tale.
In one corner of the city, a bold looking man stands statue still, looking out towards the distant hills, with a quiet cough he introduces himself, “C.Y. O’Conner”. In the city’s infancy the Irishman hatched a plan to link the city and its distant wealth, hidden in the dry, dry desert, with water. Only he never lived to guess at his triumph for in the summer of 1902 he took his own life and plunged it into the sea. I wonder how he would gasp now, to see a statue of himself proudly displayed in the city. Would he cry aloud, to think of his soul forever stuck in this distant corner of the globe?
In a very different part of the city, a different story waits. This is the saga of Yagan, a warrior they dubbed the courteous savage who walked this country both before and after the arrival of the tall ships. The tree incident marked the dawn of a new and dangerous time of war and peace for Yagan’s people and sometimes he was known as a friendly native while at other times he was a feared and fierce warrior king. It was inevitable that blood would be spilt and a fight would be had, but still the newcomers seemed surprised when it did and were so blind with rage, they sent Yagan’s head far, far away from its dreaming place. I think if he saw his land and people today, his heart would be heavy with the change, only the wind and the gentle whisper of the river would be familiar to him.
Sometimes she feels the city greets her, embraces her and returns her to its heart. Her name is written at the foot of its bells, she knows it as one does an old friend, she carries its hope in her hands. But its houses close in around her, and its veins coil tightly about her. She gasps for air but only the wind is there. Only the wind.
The city is nestled in a sort of shallow valley, and when the train bends in along the tracks from almost any direction, it offers the first glimpse of its small heart. As the train rounds the final curve and disappears into a tunnel I am reminded of something I was told once, by a man who moved to the city, from somewhere far away and fell in love with it. Now he lives just outside its borders, on the other side of the distant hills. “Every time I drive into the city,” he told me, a curious smile and happy glint in his eyes. “I come down those hills, and when the city is all spread out before me I think, there she is. Isn’t she beautiful...” It sounded like a question but I knew it wasn’t. Still I wanted to ask him what he found so beautiful about the city, to interject and tell him he was harbouring gross delusions. But with a little wave he left me where I stood, bemused and waiting to understand his curious smile. I wonder what makes a city a city. What makes a city a home? As I walk the streets of this city I watch it rush about me and I sense that it exists both inside and apart from me. Sometimes I wonder which of us is more lost.
With a final beep the train announces our destination. “This is Perth.” We flow out of the cities veins and arteries like ants streaming out of an anthill. My shoes tap across the pavers which conceal the earth where people have walked for thousands of years. Beneath me, the train travels silently onwards and high above me, the sky takes a big breath in, exhaling its strangely gentle breeze out across the city.
She is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it feels like she is waiting, for something.
On that note, this blog consists of two parts,
- A short story that I wrote to entertain myself many months ago and left never quite finished. I decided to haul it out of the depths of My Documents and unleash it on the world. It's hard to say who's story it's telling, the story of the city or the story of it's narrator.
- A Minutemovie about wandering the streets, walking past people working, eating, drinking, talking, kissing, living, dying, breathing... and feeling miles apart from them, like a ghost in their midst.
My city and I
There is a city that stands alone, distant from all others, tucked away in a tiny corner of the globe. It’s a big city, with a small heart and its story begins with a tree. Well actually it begins with a ship and a man named Stirling but it was only after the felling of a tree atop a hillside and a few official words that the city was born. Some would say that was the start of the destruction, others that it was the humble beginning of development and progress. For every year after that first tree was felled, 1000’s more were cleared to make way for roads and farms, then freeways and industrial areas and above all, for large sprawling homes. The tiny colony of free settlers grew strong on the backs of convicts and over the decades the city grew wider and wider, aiming to take up as much space as possible with the smallest amount of people. That meant mandatory two-bathroom-two- carport-houses and no boat people allowed. The city was built on wool, saved by gold and made ever fatter by its metals. Before long the city begun to sprout large glass buildings which cast shadows much longer than their tiny colonial predecessors and yet still, it grew.
However, the story of that place on the river banks actually goes back a lot longer than that tree or the men who cut it down. The land around the river was very rich and was always home for many people. The people lived in small groups, and travelled great distances. Mooro, Yellagonga’s peoples land was in the north, to south of the river lay Beeliar, the realm of Midgegooroo and his warrior son Yagan, Weeip’s peoples territory was in the north east and the land to the south east was known as Beeloo. In the middle was Boorloo, the place where the city was born. They say it was Waugul, the rainbow serpent, who created the land. It was his journeys in ancient times, the dreamtime, which formed the rivers, hills and lakes. I don’t know the story so well and I am not the best person to tell it, but I know every hill and river bend has its story and the stories go way back, all the way to the dreaming. They show how old this place really is. Much older than 1829 when that first tree was felled. Yet the first people must have been able to make themselves invisible, because when Stirling arrived, he and his friends saw nobody there who owned the land. Only swans.
There is a girl; she is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it’s like she is waiting, for nothing.
The city that stands alone, distant from all others, is where I live. It is not where I was born, but it is where I have nearly always been. I ride the train here like a tiny blood cell being pumped through the body’s arteries and veins, under bridges, past houses and roads that forge out away from the city but always flow back to the river at its core. There are days when the city is bathed in the warm glow of a merciful sun, with high bounding clouds and a gentle breeze, and others when the sky closes in and casts a dense spell over the urban sprawl, until a distant lightning bolt allows the first fat rain drops to fall down. Today holds hope in its ambiguity. The sky seems awash with indecision as the rain runs gently along my window on one side of the train, while the sun shines indiscriminately on the other. The only constant is the wind. Whether it brings heat from the east or relief from the west, it is always there and it is always travelling in the opposite direction to me. At the moment it is flying in from the east, so fast it hasn’t brought the heat with it yet. This is the time of day when the most people are on the move. They are yawning in their cars, jogging along beaches, shuffling kids out of doors and standing pressed between strangers on trains like me and millions of people in millions of cities. I wonder when it is exactly, that people cease to be groups of individuals and become masses. When does a breath cease to be my own and become the city’s?
When she pauses, the city buzzes around her. If she stops for too long, she is certain she’ll never walk forward again, that she’ll become stuck. Just watching.
There is the sound of a Velcro bag, the ding of the doors closing bell and the turn of a page, before my attention is stolen by a petite squeak from the sunny side of the train. I listen unintentionally.
“So the tickets are booked then? We leave on the 5th? That’s exactly 3 months! I’m so excited! Hola Brazil! Oh I know. I’ve been reading up on Chile as well, you know my Grandad was born there. What? Hell yes! Only 3 months and we are outta here! Finally!”
The city is a place people like to leave, for awhile, forever. To go to other cities and sit on trains, enthralled by their unfamiliarity but perhaps dismayed in the end. People storm away from the city, swearing never to return. But somewhere far away they dream of its reliable wind. Sometimes I wonder if the city feels sad when they leave or happy when they return.
Her feet pound against the path, her surroundings are at once familiar and despised. She wishes she was soaring across the waves, spurred on by a wind that didn’t oppose her every movement. She wishes her gait was light and her body on fire.
I lean against the door my feet wide apart and gaze from face to face, book to iPod, briefcase to sports bag. The headlines scream “34 more boat people intercepted” and a grey tied man huffs and puffs over the sports section. Ever since Stirling cast his royal spell on the land, the city has been a place people come to, from far and wide. It holds the promise of space, youth and vitality in its arms. It conjures up images of a reliable paradise, endless sunshine and perfect jobs. But for some people it just means a place with trains and buses, clean water and safe streets. Sometimes people put their savings, faith and lives in others hands, cross mountains and oceans in tiny leaky tubs, to arrive at its doors and be told no. There’s no space. It seems that arriving in ships has become outdated. It would probably be okay if they arrived on yachts.
While I’m busy wondering, the city moves. The city is childlike, known for its future. The first thing I do when I arrive in the city’s heart is look up. I see refurbished facades and terraces, hidden between the pavement and the tall glass boxes, tickled by pale blue sky. In the ebb and flow of its conversations people talk of no past, no tradition, only future. The people haven’t learnt yet, how to tell the city’s stories. But I have snuck up on them as they sit rusting away in big libraries, subdued in memories and smiling out of gift books. These stories rise and fall like the legends of much older cities. If you pay close enough attention, you can see them holding its bricks together. They tussle for space in the revised version of the grand tale.
In one corner of the city, a bold looking man stands statue still, looking out towards the distant hills, with a quiet cough he introduces himself, “C.Y. O’Conner”. In the city’s infancy the Irishman hatched a plan to link the city and its distant wealth, hidden in the dry, dry desert, with water. Only he never lived to guess at his triumph for in the summer of 1902 he took his own life and plunged it into the sea. I wonder how he would gasp now, to see a statue of himself proudly displayed in the city. Would he cry aloud, to think of his soul forever stuck in this distant corner of the globe?
In a very different part of the city, a different story waits. This is the saga of Yagan, a warrior they dubbed the courteous savage who walked this country both before and after the arrival of the tall ships. The tree incident marked the dawn of a new and dangerous time of war and peace for Yagan’s people and sometimes he was known as a friendly native while at other times he was a feared and fierce warrior king. It was inevitable that blood would be spilt and a fight would be had, but still the newcomers seemed surprised when it did and were so blind with rage, they sent Yagan’s head far, far away from its dreaming place. I think if he saw his land and people today, his heart would be heavy with the change, only the wind and the gentle whisper of the river would be familiar to him.
Sometimes she feels the city greets her, embraces her and returns her to its heart. Her name is written at the foot of its bells, she knows it as one does an old friend, she carries its hope in her hands. But its houses close in around her, and its veins coil tightly about her. She gasps for air but only the wind is there. Only the wind.
The city is nestled in a sort of shallow valley, and when the train bends in along the tracks from almost any direction, it offers the first glimpse of its small heart. As the train rounds the final curve and disappears into a tunnel I am reminded of something I was told once, by a man who moved to the city, from somewhere far away and fell in love with it. Now he lives just outside its borders, on the other side of the distant hills. “Every time I drive into the city,” he told me, a curious smile and happy glint in his eyes. “I come down those hills, and when the city is all spread out before me I think, there she is. Isn’t she beautiful...” It sounded like a question but I knew it wasn’t. Still I wanted to ask him what he found so beautiful about the city, to interject and tell him he was harbouring gross delusions. But with a little wave he left me where I stood, bemused and waiting to understand his curious smile. I wonder what makes a city a city. What makes a city a home? As I walk the streets of this city I watch it rush about me and I sense that it exists both inside and apart from me. Sometimes I wonder which of us is more lost.
With a final beep the train announces our destination. “This is Perth.” We flow out of the cities veins and arteries like ants streaming out of an anthill. My shoes tap across the pavers which conceal the earth where people have walked for thousands of years. Beneath me, the train travels silently onwards and high above me, the sky takes a big breath in, exhaling its strangely gentle breeze out across the city.
She is walking because she has nowhere to go. Because if she stands still it feels like she is waiting, for something.
****
Monday, August 3, 2009
Oh, and by the by...
I believe the world is still turning, but I have to admit I’m not 100% sure. Lately all I’ve really paid attention to is my own navel. I am that hooded figure staring blankly into the distance. I am that moping soul, wallowing in its own pitiful icky mess. I seek wisdom amongst prophets and wise men from across the ages, in dusty crumbling hardcover’s, on thin and crumbling paper. I peruse the words of literary genius’s and ponder the verses of the most dignified poets, but all the wisdom of the ages could not spare me from this most basic heartache. I live a life of monstrous highs and lows, and in the present tense my heart is so heavy it is as if it were my own cross to drag to my own crucifixion. When I entertain my split-personality, I stand apart from myself and laugh. Because in the end, it honestly really is funny, I assure you.
If one day I said everything I really thought...
Communication, I’m sure you’ve heard, is the key and honesty the only way. You’re supposed to communicate, the experts say it’s unhealthy to bottle it all up inside, to let your woes fester and boil alone and unheard in your gut. So I’ve started telling people what’s on my mind. But suddenly I’m an open book and I can’t seem to go back. Suddenly I’m incapable of lying.
What if it doesn’t stop? And I start to tell people what I think... all of the time?
Imagine if, on any given day, on any train, in any lecture theatre, I was just entirely honest.
Wow! Your nose is huge! No really, has it always been this way, or did you wake up this morning and bam, it was huge!?
You are so beautiful you bring tears to my eyes.
That shirt is so hideous it is an insult to bad fashion.
If you say, “Fo shiz man, like wow” just one more time, I will personally tear your teeny-bopper tongue out.
I really wish you’d notice I exist. Since you didn’t, I’m here to tell you, I exist!
I don’t hate anyone. But one day, when I’m old and bitter and have nothing better to do, I reserve the right to hate you.
Will you marry me and have 100’s of children with me and massage my smelly feet? Because I think you are like... so hot.
I can smell your breathe from 5m away. It’s called a toothbrush, they are in aisle 5.
I know you just farted. Don’t try and hide it.
You are most definitely, without a doubt the most boring orator on the planet.
Needless to say, my generously offered opinions would not be well received. People lie about wanting you to be honest. Self-preservation teaches us to censor what we say. And thus, we hold our tongues. Or we lie.
What if it doesn’t stop? And I start to tell people what I think... all of the time?
Imagine if, on any given day, on any train, in any lecture theatre, I was just entirely honest.
Wow! Your nose is huge! No really, has it always been this way, or did you wake up this morning and bam, it was huge!?
You are so beautiful you bring tears to my eyes.
That shirt is so hideous it is an insult to bad fashion.
If you say, “Fo shiz man, like wow” just one more time, I will personally tear your teeny-bopper tongue out.
I really wish you’d notice I exist. Since you didn’t, I’m here to tell you, I exist!
I don’t hate anyone. But one day, when I’m old and bitter and have nothing better to do, I reserve the right to hate you.
Will you marry me and have 100’s of children with me and massage my smelly feet? Because I think you are like... so hot.
I can smell your breathe from 5m away. It’s called a toothbrush, they are in aisle 5.
I know you just farted. Don’t try and hide it.
You are most definitely, without a doubt the most boring orator on the planet.
Needless to say, my generously offered opinions would not be well received. People lie about wanting you to be honest. Self-preservation teaches us to censor what we say. And thus, we hold our tongues. Or we lie.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
One fine day.
I made a mistake; I’ll be the first to admit it. It’s not my fault there is no one to watch me get dressed in the morning and stop me from mixing knee high rainbow stripped socks with my big, red breezy Fishermans pants. Only when my pants blew up like a fat suit whilst screaming along the road at 60km/h and exposed my little stripy legs to the world did it occur to me...
There’s no point to suffering if nobody sees it. There’s no point to wandering aimlessly unless somebody stops you.
There are flowers in my garden. Mum said they were freesias, I thought they were daffodils and it turns out they are joncles or something. Either way, they sprout miraculously every winter from bulbs that were planted years ago, like a nice little surprise you left yourself to bring cheer with the chilly winter sun and make you...
Wake up, cough, splutter and gasp for oxygen.
A beauty parlour 5000kms away called me 3 times to ask if I wanted to change my appointment for this week with Clara. I said I think you have the wrong number. I don’t get my eyebrows waxed, oh and my name isn’t Lisa either, also...
It’s so frustrating when it’s never quite the right time to tell someone you love them. It’s also really awkward when you do, and you know it doesn’t matter anyway.
My big red pants were washed and they died everything else orange. Like my shoes that are still shaded with pindan dirt from Broome and the shell in my pocket that reminds me of another time and place.
I’m trying so hard to concentrate. But instead I’m dreaming feverishly. I have a reoccurring dream of one sunny afternoon, seen from 4 different angles.
One see’s a lying, miserable, filthy whore who cannot be trusted and has cruelly run off to another place to conduct a secret affair. Bit by bit he becomes more blinded by rage and he doesn’t know it’s not the truth he see’s anymore, he forgets who the person once was.
The second feels alive and excited by a new start, but despite this she sails on a sea of tumultuous confusion spiced with guilt, an ever more pressing guilt that will turn the whole world upside down before long. She doesn’t know where to turn, she doesn’t know where to begin.
The third is slowly beginning to understand she’s alone. She decides to try and keep somebody else’s boat afloat rather than save her own because it makes sense at the time, in the end she’ll wish for a replay, she’ll wish she wasn’t pushed away, that she had a chance and it wasn’t all somehow her fault.
The fourth saw the whole thing from way above, apart from the world and this curious story, it bore witness to 3 competing threads, and died the whole thing orange with its spectacular light.
And when the orange light disappears, all three scream and I wake up to find myself still staring at the crest of the hill.
There’s no point to suffering if nobody sees it. There’s no point to wandering aimlessly unless somebody stops you.
There are flowers in my garden. Mum said they were freesias, I thought they were daffodils and it turns out they are joncles or something. Either way, they sprout miraculously every winter from bulbs that were planted years ago, like a nice little surprise you left yourself to bring cheer with the chilly winter sun and make you...
Wake up, cough, splutter and gasp for oxygen.
A beauty parlour 5000kms away called me 3 times to ask if I wanted to change my appointment for this week with Clara. I said I think you have the wrong number. I don’t get my eyebrows waxed, oh and my name isn’t Lisa either, also...
It’s so frustrating when it’s never quite the right time to tell someone you love them. It’s also really awkward when you do, and you know it doesn’t matter anyway.
My big red pants were washed and they died everything else orange. Like my shoes that are still shaded with pindan dirt from Broome and the shell in my pocket that reminds me of another time and place.
I’m trying so hard to concentrate. But instead I’m dreaming feverishly. I have a reoccurring dream of one sunny afternoon, seen from 4 different angles.
One see’s a lying, miserable, filthy whore who cannot be trusted and has cruelly run off to another place to conduct a secret affair. Bit by bit he becomes more blinded by rage and he doesn’t know it’s not the truth he see’s anymore, he forgets who the person once was.
The second feels alive and excited by a new start, but despite this she sails on a sea of tumultuous confusion spiced with guilt, an ever more pressing guilt that will turn the whole world upside down before long. She doesn’t know where to turn, she doesn’t know where to begin.
The third is slowly beginning to understand she’s alone. She decides to try and keep somebody else’s boat afloat rather than save her own because it makes sense at the time, in the end she’ll wish for a replay, she’ll wish she wasn’t pushed away, that she had a chance and it wasn’t all somehow her fault.
The fourth saw the whole thing from way above, apart from the world and this curious story, it bore witness to 3 competing threads, and died the whole thing orange with its spectacular light.
And when the orange light disappears, all three scream and I wake up to find myself still staring at the crest of the hill.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The edge of the world
These past weeks I have wandered from the far north, where the earth is red and the sunsets glow brilliant orange at dusk to the cold south where the big smooth boulders of the coast are battered by high seas and driving rain. Beaching and road tripping with my friends I had the time to absorb the world around me and revel in those quiet moments amongst trees and rocks, oceans and rivers and simply enjoy being around the kind of people that make this world worth it.
I stood alone on Cable Beach and gulped down big breaths of endless sky, and on the roads that wind through the depths of the forests I learnt of the tingle tree that burns through the heartwood in bush fires to survive only by a thin layer of living matter on the outside. I’m going to be like that sky and those trees, free and empty but alive.
My holiday time flew by, as it always does when you’d like it to pass slowly and now I have arrived at the gate of uncertainty, unsure what is to come my way these next few months. I am slogging my way uphill but my vision is blocked by the crest of the hill, I have no idea what’s coming my way. Maybe the road will twist beneath me so fast that I’ll come to a screaming halt in the bush, maybe it will continue as it has been... maybe this is in fact the edge of the world and I’m about to fall off?
If you never hear from me again, you know where to look for me.
I stood alone on Cable Beach and gulped down big breaths of endless sky, and on the roads that wind through the depths of the forests I learnt of the tingle tree that burns through the heartwood in bush fires to survive only by a thin layer of living matter on the outside. I’m going to be like that sky and those trees, free and empty but alive.
My holiday time flew by, as it always does when you’d like it to pass slowly and now I have arrived at the gate of uncertainty, unsure what is to come my way these next few months. I am slogging my way uphill but my vision is blocked by the crest of the hill, I have no idea what’s coming my way. Maybe the road will twist beneath me so fast that I’ll come to a screaming halt in the bush, maybe it will continue as it has been... maybe this is in fact the edge of the world and I’m about to fall off?
If you never hear from me again, you know where to look for me.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Packing.
I’m taking flight again, channelling my inner migratory bird and fleeing to the great north and its rays of sun. In a way it’s the opposite direction to that which I want to be going, but all the same it’s suddenly hit me I’m going to leave the storms, cold and rain for a brief sojourn to sun, dirt and water. Bullshit will only get you so far, I’m not exactly sure how far, but probably far enough. At the moment however, I’m losing steam, I’m inspirationless and borderline brain dead. I’m hoping I’ll find something I’ve lost in a place I’ve never been to, I’m hoping at least the tinniest glimmer of inspiration returns to my mind, I’m hoping for that instant rejuvenation that one seeks ‘on holiday’. If all else fails I’ll get drunk. And sunburnt.
Tonight was the historically large $90 million lotto jackpot that had the whole country dreaming of what they would do if they won the big prize... The words on everyone’s lips? It would be nice. A big help. I considered myself lucky today when I found a new pencil on the ground, $90 million dollars? I could buy myself and the rest of Australia a friggin pencil. But the jackpot I’d really like to win is one particular heart. Yes, I’m that lame. It may be just as unlikely, but I’ve bought a ticket anyway. In a way I wish my heart would give up, its mad faith, like all faith but I’m praying, crossing my fingers and rearranging my furniture. If all else fails, I’ll get drunk.
Hat, towel, jandals, book, hairbrush, chess - I’m packing a bag and leaving my baggage behind. I’m going somewhere new, I feel it already, the wind in my hair, the sand at my feet, the emptiness of my wallet.. things are looking up. Yes indeed! Adieu cold wind, ciao grey cloud, please don’t follow me, take care Yellow Betty and send me fair weather Sky God...
And if all else fails.. well, you know.
Tonight was the historically large $90 million lotto jackpot that had the whole country dreaming of what they would do if they won the big prize... The words on everyone’s lips? It would be nice. A big help. I considered myself lucky today when I found a new pencil on the ground, $90 million dollars? I could buy myself and the rest of Australia a friggin pencil. But the jackpot I’d really like to win is one particular heart. Yes, I’m that lame. It may be just as unlikely, but I’ve bought a ticket anyway. In a way I wish my heart would give up, its mad faith, like all faith but I’m praying, crossing my fingers and rearranging my furniture. If all else fails, I’ll get drunk.
Hat, towel, jandals, book, hairbrush, chess - I’m packing a bag and leaving my baggage behind. I’m going somewhere new, I feel it already, the wind in my hair, the sand at my feet, the emptiness of my wallet.. things are looking up. Yes indeed! Adieu cold wind, ciao grey cloud, please don’t follow me, take care Yellow Betty and send me fair weather Sky God...
And if all else fails.. well, you know.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
All kinds of things lost and unwanted and found anew
I’d like to tell you that everything has changed. That I woke up this morning and the universe had rearranged itself. Plates were cups, cups were spoons, endings meant beginnings and I was happy. But truth be told, that’s a lie.
So let’s not tell the truth, let’s dance around in metaphors. It has been raining and raining and raining, and I have been walking in circles in the rain. I have knelt despairingly on the wet grass, watching the water slowly but surely seep through my pants. I have mumbled hazy words into the phone to confused ears miles and miles away. The rain has been a change, but I have to admit I’m over it. It’s grey and dramatic, but I’m chilled to the core now. There are somethings not even a warm coat and a yellow umbrella can protect you from. I’m ready for some sunshine.
Sunshine came via Sydney from the US of A with piles of chocolate and a lot of jetlag. Sunshine slept for many hours, and eventually emerged with a yawn and a wonky grin. The Great American Distraction, comrade Ruth and I made the most of a windy but fine winters day, eating good pizza and frites, being blasted by the wind and waves and wandering about the city of Perth. Good people, big laughs, and no rain.
As good a mood as I'm in, I’m still busy peeling the remnants of my heart off the pavement. It’s a cruel world, especially if you are an analogue TV in a digital age. We recently replaced our trusty hand-me-down, wheelie, pre-historic TV with a hyper-über-skinny-new-digital-flat-screen, and I found myself nostalgic for days past as I gazed at the forlorn TV sitting in the trailer on its way to the rubbish tip. I know it’s a little bit dramatic to react this way when things change and your old TV is thrown out but what can I say? I relate to inanimate objects. I understand their plight. In a moment they are rendered useless, having been unceremoniously discarded. Absolutely necessary one moment and mere clutter the next, they have been loved, but not quite enough to be kept around. They give us what we want, then we turn them out because times change, no matter how fond of them we still are. I guess thats why you're not supposed to form close relationships with your TV.
But anyway, I made this video, an ode to our old TV.
So let’s not tell the truth, let’s dance around in metaphors. It has been raining and raining and raining, and I have been walking in circles in the rain. I have knelt despairingly on the wet grass, watching the water slowly but surely seep through my pants. I have mumbled hazy words into the phone to confused ears miles and miles away. The rain has been a change, but I have to admit I’m over it. It’s grey and dramatic, but I’m chilled to the core now. There are somethings not even a warm coat and a yellow umbrella can protect you from. I’m ready for some sunshine.
Sunshine came via Sydney from the US of A with piles of chocolate and a lot of jetlag. Sunshine slept for many hours, and eventually emerged with a yawn and a wonky grin. The Great American Distraction, comrade Ruth and I made the most of a windy but fine winters day, eating good pizza and frites, being blasted by the wind and waves and wandering about the city of Perth. Good people, big laughs, and no rain.
As good a mood as I'm in, I’m still busy peeling the remnants of my heart off the pavement. It’s a cruel world, especially if you are an analogue TV in a digital age. We recently replaced our trusty hand-me-down, wheelie, pre-historic TV with a hyper-über-skinny-new-digital-flat-screen, and I found myself nostalgic for days past as I gazed at the forlorn TV sitting in the trailer on its way to the rubbish tip. I know it’s a little bit dramatic to react this way when things change and your old TV is thrown out but what can I say? I relate to inanimate objects. I understand their plight. In a moment they are rendered useless, having been unceremoniously discarded. Absolutely necessary one moment and mere clutter the next, they have been loved, but not quite enough to be kept around. They give us what we want, then we turn them out because times change, no matter how fond of them we still are. I guess thats why you're not supposed to form close relationships with your TV.
But anyway, I made this video, an ode to our old TV.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Communi-huh?
Communication.
Im sorry what? I was going to say something but I’m not really sure what, because I know what I should say, but that conflicts with what I want to say, so I need to restructure this in my brain. I said I don’t like your shoes, that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. You asked me a question and I answered honestly like you wanted me to and this is what I get? Why won’t you speak to me? Tell me what’s on your mind. Communicate with me. I don’t know, I’m confused, I’d like to eat a rainbow. You aren’t communicating enough with me. What do you want me to say? I want you to communicate with me. I am communicating, I’m communicating that I don’t know what to say. Are you? I feel like I’m hitting a brick wall with you. Why won’t you open up, tell me everything. Ok. I think I love you. And I am in a relationship with someone else. What are you getting at? Ok I don’t like your shoes, I think you should change them; I don’t want to be seen in public with you. What kind of a statement is that? What is the point? There’s nothing in it. You’re lying. Overreacting. I’m surprised, I’m shocked, and this is exactly what I expected from you. Why won’t you just tell me what’s on your mind? If I had known, if you had told me, things would have been different. I couldn’t tell you, the words chained themselves to my tonsils. You should never be afraid to be honest. I love you. I can’t believe you said that, why would you say that?
I’m hardly the first to begrudge God for not sharing the ability to read minds with us lesser mortals, and generally I am more than happy that no-one can read my mind, but sometimes, like right this very second, I wish communicating with my fellow humans was not such a strenuous activity. I aspire to be the quiet type, but I’m not. I rattle on and on like a train rolling backwards down a hill but still I have the distinct feeling, I’m not really getting the point across. Sometimes that’s because I don’t know what I’m trying to say until I’ve said it. Sometimes its because the person stares at you, with the biggest open eyes and demands you communicate. Um.. next question? They rephrase, tell me how you feel about this? I ehrmm well I feel rather, particularly, lost for words.
What is it about communication that is so damn hard? In the past I have, rather foolishly, scoffed at people who do entire degrees on the act of communication, when they could, I don’t know... do entire degrees on history... but all of a sudden, I understand the intense conundrum of communication. There are the things you say. Then there’s what you mean. There’s what you want to say, then what you are expected to say, and what you are understood to have said. What isn’t said is often more important than what is. There is the question of whether what you say is actually true, the conflict between the conscious und sub-conscious self. Then there are the outright lies, which further befuck the entirely fucked attempt you are making at communication.
I mean what I say, and I generally say what I mean. But the problem is, when I don’t know what to say, or how to say it, or how to understand what is being said. The problem, and the solution, is communication. When it comes to navigating the waters of the emotions in the ship of communication, I fail, epically. I should just as well be deaf, blind and dumb and high on drugs.
Give me your hand and I’ll show you. Take my hand and show me. Don’t complicate this with attempting to communicate wordy nothings. Help me to see.
Im sorry what? I was going to say something but I’m not really sure what, because I know what I should say, but that conflicts with what I want to say, so I need to restructure this in my brain. I said I don’t like your shoes, that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. You asked me a question and I answered honestly like you wanted me to and this is what I get? Why won’t you speak to me? Tell me what’s on your mind. Communicate with me. I don’t know, I’m confused, I’d like to eat a rainbow. You aren’t communicating enough with me. What do you want me to say? I want you to communicate with me. I am communicating, I’m communicating that I don’t know what to say. Are you? I feel like I’m hitting a brick wall with you. Why won’t you open up, tell me everything. Ok. I think I love you. And I am in a relationship with someone else. What are you getting at? Ok I don’t like your shoes, I think you should change them; I don’t want to be seen in public with you. What kind of a statement is that? What is the point? There’s nothing in it. You’re lying. Overreacting. I’m surprised, I’m shocked, and this is exactly what I expected from you. Why won’t you just tell me what’s on your mind? If I had known, if you had told me, things would have been different. I couldn’t tell you, the words chained themselves to my tonsils. You should never be afraid to be honest. I love you. I can’t believe you said that, why would you say that?
***
I’m hardly the first to begrudge God for not sharing the ability to read minds with us lesser mortals, and generally I am more than happy that no-one can read my mind, but sometimes, like right this very second, I wish communicating with my fellow humans was not such a strenuous activity. I aspire to be the quiet type, but I’m not. I rattle on and on like a train rolling backwards down a hill but still I have the distinct feeling, I’m not really getting the point across. Sometimes that’s because I don’t know what I’m trying to say until I’ve said it. Sometimes its because the person stares at you, with the biggest open eyes and demands you communicate. Um.. next question? They rephrase, tell me how you feel about this? I ehrmm well I feel rather, particularly, lost for words.
What is it about communication that is so damn hard? In the past I have, rather foolishly, scoffed at people who do entire degrees on the act of communication, when they could, I don’t know... do entire degrees on history... but all of a sudden, I understand the intense conundrum of communication. There are the things you say. Then there’s what you mean. There’s what you want to say, then what you are expected to say, and what you are understood to have said. What isn’t said is often more important than what is. There is the question of whether what you say is actually true, the conflict between the conscious und sub-conscious self. Then there are the outright lies, which further befuck the entirely fucked attempt you are making at communication.
I mean what I say, and I generally say what I mean. But the problem is, when I don’t know what to say, or how to say it, or how to understand what is being said. The problem, and the solution, is communication. When it comes to navigating the waters of the emotions in the ship of communication, I fail, epically. I should just as well be deaf, blind and dumb and high on drugs.
Give me your hand and I’ll show you. Take my hand and show me. Don’t complicate this with attempting to communicate wordy nothings. Help me to see.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Ageing - shaken, not stirred.
I have aged. I have grown wise. The sands of time have changed me, the dunes have shifted, the autumn leaves aren’t quite falling, but the tick-tock hurries on over the hill. I slip about the house in my grandpa slippers, lost in a dressing gown. My forehead is creased with fresh lines that tell stories of pain and experience. I start sentences with “back in my day...” and dream of my ever more distant youth...
And yet, for all this wisdom that one of my vintage supposedly possesses, I still seem to misunderstand the fundamentals of life. Such as, the drunker you are, the more bruises you get. Or, the drunker you were, the worse your hangover is. Having turned 21 precisely 7 days ago, I may or may not have over-indulged in various alcoholic substances. I’ll leave that up to your imagination. Wether as a result of this or not, my 21st passed in a crazy fun whirlwind that ended in a pile of crushed lollipops and black tufts of fake hair. I have amazing friends and family who made me feel very special, in a loved as opposed to a retarded kind of way. I learnt that you’ve never really lived until you’ve had a bite-sized cupcake and revelled in the power of its tiny icing-capped-peak and that it’s a shame you only get to turn 21 once. After that, you’re just old.
However, I have very few concrete recollections of the last week at all, despite the fact I was only actually intoxicated on one particular evening. This time last week I was saying a mournful goodbye to my 20 year old self, and now here I am, trying to establish what exactly happened to the last 7 days of my life.
I remember swinging my jacket like a stripper and shaking my ‘booty’ on the dance floor, eating two MacDonald’s chips and vomiting my guts up. I remember fresh ocean air and warm cosy pillows. Wrapping paper, friendly smiles, a bowtie and swinging a cricket bat, and then yakking my guts up. I remember staring into space feeling like someone had tried to remove my heart through my navel. I remember an overbearing numbness and dozing off leaning against a pile of t-shirts. I remember waking up even more tired and vomiting my guts up. I remember an evening when reality pissed off, and my heart flew freely. Then the dawn came, cool crisp air and there I was again, vomiting my empty stomach up for no apparent reason at all.
I vaguely recall having what was probably the most grown up conversation of my life. It was strange words whispered in an oppressive darkness and far too many “I don’t knows”. I have been talking so much, too much, vomiting honesty, carrots and hope. It all came and went so quickly, leaving only a fading memory, nausea and some embarrassing photos to testify its existence.
At 10.28pm on the 17/06/2009 it struck me that I hate every fucking song on the radio. Do they ever sing about something other than love or being rich and famous? Im sitting out in the dark, alone and cold and small. There are a million stars or more, and my heart is swallowed up again by the empty nothingness. When you are scared of loosing something, you hold onto it extra tight, even though you know you can’t win, you hold on anyway. I have the distinct feeling that someone shook up the fanta bottle in which I float and then opened it; the fizz was fun, but the ensuing silence is just sticky.
And yet, for all this wisdom that one of my vintage supposedly possesses, I still seem to misunderstand the fundamentals of life. Such as, the drunker you are, the more bruises you get. Or, the drunker you were, the worse your hangover is. Having turned 21 precisely 7 days ago, I may or may not have over-indulged in various alcoholic substances. I’ll leave that up to your imagination. Wether as a result of this or not, my 21st passed in a crazy fun whirlwind that ended in a pile of crushed lollipops and black tufts of fake hair. I have amazing friends and family who made me feel very special, in a loved as opposed to a retarded kind of way. I learnt that you’ve never really lived until you’ve had a bite-sized cupcake and revelled in the power of its tiny icing-capped-peak and that it’s a shame you only get to turn 21 once. After that, you’re just old.
However, I have very few concrete recollections of the last week at all, despite the fact I was only actually intoxicated on one particular evening. This time last week I was saying a mournful goodbye to my 20 year old self, and now here I am, trying to establish what exactly happened to the last 7 days of my life.
I remember swinging my jacket like a stripper and shaking my ‘booty’ on the dance floor, eating two MacDonald’s chips and vomiting my guts up. I remember fresh ocean air and warm cosy pillows. Wrapping paper, friendly smiles, a bowtie and swinging a cricket bat, and then yakking my guts up. I remember staring into space feeling like someone had tried to remove my heart through my navel. I remember an overbearing numbness and dozing off leaning against a pile of t-shirts. I remember waking up even more tired and vomiting my guts up. I remember an evening when reality pissed off, and my heart flew freely. Then the dawn came, cool crisp air and there I was again, vomiting my empty stomach up for no apparent reason at all.
I vaguely recall having what was probably the most grown up conversation of my life. It was strange words whispered in an oppressive darkness and far too many “I don’t knows”. I have been talking so much, too much, vomiting honesty, carrots and hope. It all came and went so quickly, leaving only a fading memory, nausea and some embarrassing photos to testify its existence.
At 10.28pm on the 17/06/2009 it struck me that I hate every fucking song on the radio. Do they ever sing about something other than love or being rich and famous? Im sitting out in the dark, alone and cold and small. There are a million stars or more, and my heart is swallowed up again by the empty nothingness. When you are scared of loosing something, you hold onto it extra tight, even though you know you can’t win, you hold on anyway. I have the distinct feeling that someone shook up the fanta bottle in which I float and then opened it; the fizz was fun, but the ensuing silence is just sticky.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The fear within
I have a fear of buses. It’s alright if I’m on the bus, hanging on for dear life trying to remain standing and not fall on the granny next to me, that’s an adventure. But when I’m cruising along the road, hair waving in the wind, like a happy, high, hippy child on my two-wheeled-weapon of choice, and a bus comes flying past, ripping me from my blissful daydreams of daisies and kittens and ah-who-am-I- kidding- I-hate-cats, sending me careening uncontrollably into the gutter – I get a little scared. Bicycles that get it on with buses only end up in several thousand tiny pieces, and even the widest road doesn’t seem wide enough to fit their two bustling egos. The same goes for trucks. It’s at this juncture that the car-drivers among you will shout “well get off the road”, but the grannies I attack on buses also don’t appreciate being bowled over on the footpath, so your point is null and void. Anyway, fear and persecution isn’t the platform from which I’d like to launch my Cycle Instead campaign, and the point is really the fear, not the cycling.
Fear is an all powerful emotion. It drives humans to do ridiculous, regrettable, if not totally disgusting things. Or conversely, to be so paralysed as to make like a rabbit in the headlights and freeze. Some people seem to get high off the adrenaline of scaring themselves shitless, others, like me, would rather run screaming from deaths door than stare it bravely in the face. More sinister people get high off other peoples fear. Most fear is fear of pain, fear is a basic instinct that says “fuuccckkk!” and a choose-your-own-adventure with only two choices; Fight or Flight.
But there is another level of fear that plagues my mind, fear of the unknown. A thread of fear that perpetually runs throughout my thoughts is the fear of growing up and getting old and becoming somebody who I wouldn’t like. Of not succeeding in doing the things I want to do and at being a good person. It’s such an abstract and useless fear, that I can’t quite decide what to do with it.
Fear is important, but if it’s in charge, it gets me nowhere at all. Bravery takes fear by the scruff of the neck and tells it where to go. I was thinking today, that if I have a hero, it is probably the man who stood in front of approaching tanks in Tiananmen Square on that fateful day. If I have only an ounce of his bravery, dealing with the buses, bees and minor confrontations of everyday life will be a breeze.
But for now, the bus wins and I'll continue to avoid arriving too early, too late, walking into rooms full of strangers and eating pips.
So here in (slightly over) Minute Movie format – My fears.
Fear is an all powerful emotion. It drives humans to do ridiculous, regrettable, if not totally disgusting things. Or conversely, to be so paralysed as to make like a rabbit in the headlights and freeze. Some people seem to get high off the adrenaline of scaring themselves shitless, others, like me, would rather run screaming from deaths door than stare it bravely in the face. More sinister people get high off other peoples fear. Most fear is fear of pain, fear is a basic instinct that says “fuuccckkk!” and a choose-your-own-adventure with only two choices; Fight or Flight.
But there is another level of fear that plagues my mind, fear of the unknown. A thread of fear that perpetually runs throughout my thoughts is the fear of growing up and getting old and becoming somebody who I wouldn’t like. Of not succeeding in doing the things I want to do and at being a good person. It’s such an abstract and useless fear, that I can’t quite decide what to do with it.
Fear is important, but if it’s in charge, it gets me nowhere at all. Bravery takes fear by the scruff of the neck and tells it where to go. I was thinking today, that if I have a hero, it is probably the man who stood in front of approaching tanks in Tiananmen Square on that fateful day. If I have only an ounce of his bravery, dealing with the buses, bees and minor confrontations of everyday life will be a breeze.
But for now, the bus wins and I'll continue to avoid arriving too early, too late, walking into rooms full of strangers and eating pips.
So here in (slightly over) Minute Movie format – My fears.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
My day in clouds.
The first thing I wanted to know when I woke up to my alarm clock far too early this morning was how a jet plane with 300 people on it goes missing. People embarking on holidays, leaving home, returning home, vanishing into thin air.
Then, like a simile for my very existence, when I strode triumphantly out of the house to announce to Baloo that I had indeed finished the last ridiculous, elephant-sized-shit on a page of my undergraduate degree, the sky was blue and the joyous fluffy clouds had chased away the grey.
Jet planes go missing when humans get too sure of their ability to fly. Perhaps clouds are mountains we should leave unconquered, just because we can pass through them doesn’t mean we should walk all over them. But it’s just that they are so inviting, really we are more like them than we would like to admit; transient, watery and moody.
The day was drawing to a close, and while the sun reflected on the clouds, I was roaring along the coast on my scooter. I have realised that I am not very driven or motivated to overthrow the world. Yet I feel I should be. Sometimes I am dismayed by the fact that I am quite content to watch the clouds and point out the ironies of the world. To write blogs that are premised on statements like “Today I ate a banana” and suggest that we all be nice to each other for a change and then have the audacity to think people might suddenly start doing just that. Am I just a bored white middle class youth with a blog? More or less. I think it’s important to make people smile, but that’s like the soft-core porn of activism. Piss weak. And then I can’t decide if I wouldn’t be better off contemplating the clouds, maybe that’s just what I’m meant to be doing.
I don’t know. I can only begin to wonder. And so I chased the sun to the end of the world...
And sat there and waited for the night to begin.
An essay deadline and a rumbling in my belly prised me kicking and screaming from my nest. Cold air and work to be doing never made anyone want to get up. Its like tempting a donkey with a brick. When I walked next door to tend to the two fluffball dogs my neighbours trustingly left in my care, the sky was forebodingly dark, like grey paint swirled on a canvas, the contours and texture made in a flurry of movements by a moody artiste. I was running on tea-power alone, and the stormy attire of father sky seemed to my semi-hysterical brain to be a sign. Indeed, as I blundered blindly through the final lines of my essay, wielding an axe and slashing wildly, torrents of water and flashes of light tumbled down upon the roof.
Then, like a simile for my very existence, when I strode triumphantly out of the house to announce to Baloo that I had indeed finished the last ridiculous, elephant-sized-shit on a page of my undergraduate degree, the sky was blue and the joyous fluffy clouds had chased away the grey.
Jet planes go missing when humans get too sure of their ability to fly. Perhaps clouds are mountains we should leave unconquered, just because we can pass through them doesn’t mean we should walk all over them. But it’s just that they are so inviting, really we are more like them than we would like to admit; transient, watery and moody.
As I sidestepped, hopped and danced my way over tree roots and loose bricks of the university pathways, the whole expanse of the sky seemed to worm its way inside of me, as the elation of being free from uni set in. I breathed in the cloudless, generic pale blue Perth sky, with its cool winter breeze and begun to feel a vague sense of achievement. Suddenly I became aware I was at the end of something. I had a strange out of body experience, in which I saw a young girl, orange hair tied back in a ponytail and hidden under a woollen hat, lying in the sun in awe of everything. Seeking wisdom and learning to know herself, the peacocks, and why one shouldn’t feed ducklings bread. I’m still a little girl, what can I say, I’ll always be short, but 3 ½ years down the track, what have I learnt? I went to uni for answers and questions tumbled down upon me until I learnt to stop expecting answers. Now I am content in these shoes and I see things in the mist that I can believe in.
Where am I going? I am going to live, love and learn.
But right now I am going to lunch.
And to lunch I went. Back on the bus , into the city, up the stairs, across the bridge, along the street to stop and stare... at the cappuccino froth clouds. It looked like the crane was reaching up into the sky to catch the cloud and tie it down while it was trapped neatly between two towers of glass. I was inspired to do a little research on cloud science. I learnt that when people got enlightened and started classifying everything in the physical/metaphysical/possible world, some young dude took the trouble of conquering the clouds. He picked them up and set them into families like Nimbostratus, cirrostratus and altocumulus, along with many other names I wouldn’t try to pronounce. I figured, if he can do that, then so can I. This cloud is called Henry. He escaped the ravages of the crane.
The day was drawing to a close, and while the sun reflected on the clouds, I was roaring along the coast on my scooter. I have realised that I am not very driven or motivated to overthrow the world. Yet I feel I should be. Sometimes I am dismayed by the fact that I am quite content to watch the clouds and point out the ironies of the world. To write blogs that are premised on statements like “Today I ate a banana” and suggest that we all be nice to each other for a change and then have the audacity to think people might suddenly start doing just that. Am I just a bored white middle class youth with a blog? More or less. I think it’s important to make people smile, but that’s like the soft-core porn of activism. Piss weak. And then I can’t decide if I wouldn’t be better off contemplating the clouds, maybe that’s just what I’m meant to be doing.
I don’t know. I can only begin to wonder. And so I chased the sun to the end of the world...
And sat there and waited for the night to begin.
The use of pictures in this blog was difficult and hard to format, but more importantly, partially inspired by the wonderously creative daily photo blog of a friend, which you can/must check out here http://introducingruthie.blog.com/
Friday, May 29, 2009
Metaphorically speaking, "I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell."
I’d like to marry my shoes. We’d honeymoon with my bicycle in the Swiss Alps. We’d have an apartment in the city, with a veggie garden and a good sound system. One day they would fall apart, and I’d move on to a new pair, just like that. Inanimate objects are so much easier to understand. And talk to. You only have a problem if they’re answering back, but that’s nothing a little discipline can’t fix. With inanimate objects, I am in control, I have the power. Generally.
If I was an object I’d be a human sized tennis racquet. I’m strong and athletic, but a little round. Everything that comes at me I hit away, sometimes it comes flying back in my face, but generally everything is deflected.
And yet occasionally the ball comes flying at me at such a pace that I am knocked over. Strange scents grasp moments in my memory and thrust them into the light, bringing both fond memories and waves of nausea. Feelings surge within me so violently that I have to shut my eyes and walk away. I spin in a disorientating circle, burning from the basic and yet unfamiliar whirlpool of anxieties within me.
Desire is a dangerous and scary force. Its urgency is practically primal; it conspires against you, drawing you away from centuries of level-headedness, to seconds of whimsical spontaneity. It threatens to destroy the control we like to believe we have. In a manifold of ways we exert control over our environments, despite being at the mercy of the world. One day you are walking along the street, and then all off a sudden you’re lying on the street in a pool of your own blood and you realise you weren’t in control after all. In the same way we exert control over our inner being, despite there being a force almost entirely unconquerable that lives within us. If I was a brave person I could surrender to the movements of the universe. Grab the moment by the hand and spin it around and around. I guess I’m not brave. I control my emotions and when I fail, I panic. Like an actor who can only repeat her lines, I disintegrate in the face of impromptu theatre.
I am fast learning that control is overrated, which is why I can’t marry my shoes, metaphorically speaking.
If I was an object I’d be a human sized tennis racquet. I’m strong and athletic, but a little round. Everything that comes at me I hit away, sometimes it comes flying back in my face, but generally everything is deflected.
And yet occasionally the ball comes flying at me at such a pace that I am knocked over. Strange scents grasp moments in my memory and thrust them into the light, bringing both fond memories and waves of nausea. Feelings surge within me so violently that I have to shut my eyes and walk away. I spin in a disorientating circle, burning from the basic and yet unfamiliar whirlpool of anxieties within me.
Desire is a dangerous and scary force. Its urgency is practically primal; it conspires against you, drawing you away from centuries of level-headedness, to seconds of whimsical spontaneity. It threatens to destroy the control we like to believe we have. In a manifold of ways we exert control over our environments, despite being at the mercy of the world. One day you are walking along the street, and then all off a sudden you’re lying on the street in a pool of your own blood and you realise you weren’t in control after all. In the same way we exert control over our inner being, despite there being a force almost entirely unconquerable that lives within us. If I was a brave person I could surrender to the movements of the universe. Grab the moment by the hand and spin it around and around. I guess I’m not brave. I control my emotions and when I fail, I panic. Like an actor who can only repeat her lines, I disintegrate in the face of impromptu theatre.
I am fast learning that control is overrated, which is why I can’t marry my shoes, metaphorically speaking.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Fall to your knees...
Sometimes I run really fast, just to pretend I’m running for my life. Make my heart pump, lungs heave and muscles explode. Take the soundtrack of my life up a notch; embrace the necessity of the moment.
The clouds roar overhead and I inhale the first breath of winter. They are white ships speeding along in a blue sky, heralding the end of the autumn calm, driven away by a ferocious whirlwind. Summer is heavy and hot with short spells of relief, winter blasts into your core, now light and cool, now brutal and chilling. The water swells so high in the river it swallows the jetty up, so that if you walked along it you’d look like Jesus, or Michael Jackson. The wind swirls around me, sneaks across the small of my back and into my holey shoe. I get lost in a tornado of fallen leaves. The trees have been brought across the seas to mark the seasons for us. They swing and sway and shed summer slow and steady. We think of mourning, death, tears. But when the wind shakes the bark, twigs, leaves, even branches down, it’s making way for something new. Winter descends upon the south and the trees settle down to their deep slumber. Our own trees do not change; they transcend the seasons, their sense of time eternal, broken only by times of drought.
I’m a winter baby, born amongst snow and screams and goofy 80’s hair. Almost 21 years later and a continent away I listen to winter blues and float, tucked up in the corner of a chilly cafe, face pressed to the cold window. Students stride in, hidden away in cosy winter coats, wielding broken umbrellas, raindrops falling from their hair. I am here because the sperm-that-could met an egg with a vision. I don’t remember this stage of my development. I don’t remember the nappies, tears or birthday cakes. I remember the lamb that died and crying because I had snow in my stockings. I remember tumbling and turning like I was drowning, I remember when I realised I wasn’t a character in a book and I remember running. I never had any idea why, I just knew I had to go and go and go.
Cold air is harder to breath. It burns my nose and catches in my throat. Still my feet pound the footpath. Eventually the feeling of my lunch churning too high in my belly and the absence of oxygen in my brain brings me to a stop. The wind roars tremendously overhead, unabated. It carries me so high it’s like divine intervention, except I’m not on a hill or mountainside, or alone in a cave.
Generally I do everything slowly, without particular purposefulness or direction. I ponder, philosophise and rationalise. I walk here and there aimlessly, I cruise the footpath on two wheels. I watch the winter, observe the people. But sometimes I run. Not away from anything or after anyone, but because I can and the free winters air demands it. Because I need to remember why oxygen is necessary, my life depends upon it.
P.S. I totally dig this song, share it with the world Laura Marling - ghosts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-vbyIkkHiQ
The clouds roar overhead and I inhale the first breath of winter. They are white ships speeding along in a blue sky, heralding the end of the autumn calm, driven away by a ferocious whirlwind. Summer is heavy and hot with short spells of relief, winter blasts into your core, now light and cool, now brutal and chilling. The water swells so high in the river it swallows the jetty up, so that if you walked along it you’d look like Jesus, or Michael Jackson. The wind swirls around me, sneaks across the small of my back and into my holey shoe. I get lost in a tornado of fallen leaves. The trees have been brought across the seas to mark the seasons for us. They swing and sway and shed summer slow and steady. We think of mourning, death, tears. But when the wind shakes the bark, twigs, leaves, even branches down, it’s making way for something new. Winter descends upon the south and the trees settle down to their deep slumber. Our own trees do not change; they transcend the seasons, their sense of time eternal, broken only by times of drought.
I’m a winter baby, born amongst snow and screams and goofy 80’s hair. Almost 21 years later and a continent away I listen to winter blues and float, tucked up in the corner of a chilly cafe, face pressed to the cold window. Students stride in, hidden away in cosy winter coats, wielding broken umbrellas, raindrops falling from their hair. I am here because the sperm-that-could met an egg with a vision. I don’t remember this stage of my development. I don’t remember the nappies, tears or birthday cakes. I remember the lamb that died and crying because I had snow in my stockings. I remember tumbling and turning like I was drowning, I remember when I realised I wasn’t a character in a book and I remember running. I never had any idea why, I just knew I had to go and go and go.
Cold air is harder to breath. It burns my nose and catches in my throat. Still my feet pound the footpath. Eventually the feeling of my lunch churning too high in my belly and the absence of oxygen in my brain brings me to a stop. The wind roars tremendously overhead, unabated. It carries me so high it’s like divine intervention, except I’m not on a hill or mountainside, or alone in a cave.
Generally I do everything slowly, without particular purposefulness or direction. I ponder, philosophise and rationalise. I walk here and there aimlessly, I cruise the footpath on two wheels. I watch the winter, observe the people. But sometimes I run. Not away from anything or after anyone, but because I can and the free winters air demands it. Because I need to remember why oxygen is necessary, my life depends upon it.
P.S. I totally dig this song, share it with the world Laura Marling - ghosts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-vbyIkkHiQ
Monday, May 18, 2009
Extraordinary accidents
I keep accidently hailing taxis when I stand on the side of the road. Perhaps there is some kind of road-crossing etiquette that I’m not aware of, perhaps it’s my super power. In any case, I don’t wave my arms at all, but they appear out of nowhere when I don’t need them, and I’m sure if I did stand on the side of the road waving my arms frantically, no one but the police would stop for me.
I also accidently used the last of the milk this evening. As I poured the last drop into my glass I heard a faint “We haven’t got much milk” drift towards me from the other room. I shrug and say I’ll go and buy some in the morning. I know in the morning, I’m going to grumble about the idiot who used the last of the milk.
But the worst of today’s accidents was the letter I accidently posted. Letters provide one with a false sense of anonymity. They enable you to expand on your usual repertoire of conversation. They are dangerous things. I wrote this letter to be read, so I could say the things I have never said and chase the festering words from the depths of my heart. It was a letter so raw with honesty it’s comparable to finding yourself naked in the middle of your class. And then you remember you walked there and took your clothes off voluntarily. Certainly this was some extraordinary accident.
Except of course it wasn’t accidental at all. But this doesn’t mean that when it fell through the envelope slot I didn’t faint metaphorically and bash the evil red box on the side, trying in vain to stick my hand down its throat and retrieve my lost baggage. I knew it was an accident, and that letter should not have been posted. But its finders-keepers and the letter doesn’t belong to me anymore.
I’m a history student, so if anyone should know the value of the past it’s me. And yet I run through hoops and jump hurdles to avoid old feelings I’d rather forget. The thing is that the past is the bricks upon which the present is laid, it doesn’t go away. And you can choose to tell your story however you like, but secrets are silent burdens that take on a life of their own. Sometimes I feel like I live in a world of bricks and mortar, within which I contain myself, for protection, for comfort. Tonight I blasted an honest hole in a wall of deceit. I’d be lying if I said that I’m not scared. I’d be lying if I said this was the last time I keep a secret.
But in a moment I felt both liberated and petrified. Such is life.
So if you want my advice, free yourself of that baggage, post that letter. Then move house so you don’t have to read the response!
I also accidently used the last of the milk this evening. As I poured the last drop into my glass I heard a faint “We haven’t got much milk” drift towards me from the other room. I shrug and say I’ll go and buy some in the morning. I know in the morning, I’m going to grumble about the idiot who used the last of the milk.
But the worst of today’s accidents was the letter I accidently posted. Letters provide one with a false sense of anonymity. They enable you to expand on your usual repertoire of conversation. They are dangerous things. I wrote this letter to be read, so I could say the things I have never said and chase the festering words from the depths of my heart. It was a letter so raw with honesty it’s comparable to finding yourself naked in the middle of your class. And then you remember you walked there and took your clothes off voluntarily. Certainly this was some extraordinary accident.
Except of course it wasn’t accidental at all. But this doesn’t mean that when it fell through the envelope slot I didn’t faint metaphorically and bash the evil red box on the side, trying in vain to stick my hand down its throat and retrieve my lost baggage. I knew it was an accident, and that letter should not have been posted. But its finders-keepers and the letter doesn’t belong to me anymore.
I’m a history student, so if anyone should know the value of the past it’s me. And yet I run through hoops and jump hurdles to avoid old feelings I’d rather forget. The thing is that the past is the bricks upon which the present is laid, it doesn’t go away. And you can choose to tell your story however you like, but secrets are silent burdens that take on a life of their own. Sometimes I feel like I live in a world of bricks and mortar, within which I contain myself, for protection, for comfort. Tonight I blasted an honest hole in a wall of deceit. I’d be lying if I said that I’m not scared. I’d be lying if I said this was the last time I keep a secret.
But in a moment I felt both liberated and petrified. Such is life.
So if you want my advice, free yourself of that baggage, post that letter. Then move house so you don’t have to read the response!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A successful day, a new concept..
Today was like a blue moon, a day so rare in my life they are practically mythical.. a day for getting things done. It seems once I decided on one thing and stopped the wheel of perpetual deliberation that has been spinning out of control, I got busy with that to-do list and just got on with things for once. Its refreshing.
So refreshing, in fact, that I started to get a little creative, and decided that rather than getting that essay done.. I could try out something new.
And so here we are, trying something a little bit refreshing in this blog - Minute Movies. This is my directorial debut, taking Paint to a whole new level, for the first ( and possibly the last) film lasting under a minute, on The Adventures of YellowBetty and I...
... tell me what you think :)
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Notebookery
The moon was a great big biscuit, hanging out in a purple sky and I was two eyes, two legs and one persistent, pumping heart, streaming through the evening air with Yellow Betty. Purple jeans, yellow headphones, blue backpack, green shoes and defiant grin. The universe conspired and its truths were revealed to me.
I learnt everything I know from movies. And books. And trains. I know a lot of things. But I only know these things that I know. Come to think of it, there is so much I don’t know. Here are some things I know.
Drinking chocolate milk makes your hair brown, coke makes you gay, but eating crusts never curled anyone’s hair.
The number of men carrying flowers on trains increases exponentially on the eve of mother’s day.
Trees liked to be climbed, it’s like getting tickled. They weep when you cut them because they can’t run away. So they rain down leaves instead.
The best way to see the world is through a kalidescope, it tells no lies.
Everywhere we look there are white lines. Close your eyes, open your mind, your heart will follow.
We are tiny. Absolutely miniscule. The universe is huge. Like huuuggggeee. But some days I feel almost as huge.
God is just one way of accepting your powerlessness. It doesn’t work. I’m sorry.
I would be suicidal if I believed in heaven.
The reasons life is worth living are manifested in brief but ecstatic moments of sheer happiness.
You have to trawl through a lot of average and below average and downright horrid days, but it’s always worth it. Always.
The music of my heart sings a song no one’s ever heard in its entirety. I firmly believe that if anyone ever does, I will spontaneously combust. I hope to disprove this hypothesis.
This world will probably turn me into a bitter old spinster before I’ve ever been young and happily spouting love and sonnets like a teenage teapot.
My hands are at ease in my pockets with their lint, pen lids and sand. They get cold on their own.
My love of clashing colours is probably just my intellectual rationale for bad fashion. Deal with it.
The theory of all things has been overtheorised. My brain has a theory, it’s called post-post-post theory.
I avoid contradictions like the plaque. But they are never far away. They haunt me. They want my soul.
Birds. Their offences against me are various, but I hate them because they can fly away, flutter high in the air with no destination at all.
I have no idea where a single amazing idea begins. It’s more amazing to see where it ends up.
I want love to win. I want to change the world. I want peace and I think we can all agree here.
If I can’t break the mould, I can at least jab at the edges. And learn to blast down walls.
These are my whispers against the roar of the world; they are the facts of life... or they are the random scribbling in my notebook... I can’t exactly remember which.
I learnt everything I know from movies. And books. And trains. I know a lot of things. But I only know these things that I know. Come to think of it, there is so much I don’t know. Here are some things I know.
Drinking chocolate milk makes your hair brown, coke makes you gay, but eating crusts never curled anyone’s hair.
The number of men carrying flowers on trains increases exponentially on the eve of mother’s day.
Trees liked to be climbed, it’s like getting tickled. They weep when you cut them because they can’t run away. So they rain down leaves instead.
The best way to see the world is through a kalidescope, it tells no lies.
Everywhere we look there are white lines. Close your eyes, open your mind, your heart will follow.
We are tiny. Absolutely miniscule. The universe is huge. Like huuuggggeee. But some days I feel almost as huge.
God is just one way of accepting your powerlessness. It doesn’t work. I’m sorry.
I would be suicidal if I believed in heaven.
The reasons life is worth living are manifested in brief but ecstatic moments of sheer happiness.
You have to trawl through a lot of average and below average and downright horrid days, but it’s always worth it. Always.
The music of my heart sings a song no one’s ever heard in its entirety. I firmly believe that if anyone ever does, I will spontaneously combust. I hope to disprove this hypothesis.
This world will probably turn me into a bitter old spinster before I’ve ever been young and happily spouting love and sonnets like a teenage teapot.
My hands are at ease in my pockets with their lint, pen lids and sand. They get cold on their own.
My love of clashing colours is probably just my intellectual rationale for bad fashion. Deal with it.
The theory of all things has been overtheorised. My brain has a theory, it’s called post-post-post theory.
I avoid contradictions like the plaque. But they are never far away. They haunt me. They want my soul.
Birds. Their offences against me are various, but I hate them because they can fly away, flutter high in the air with no destination at all.
I have no idea where a single amazing idea begins. It’s more amazing to see where it ends up.
I want love to win. I want to change the world. I want peace and I think we can all agree here.
If I can’t break the mould, I can at least jab at the edges. And learn to blast down walls.
These are my whispers against the roar of the world; they are the facts of life... or they are the random scribbling in my notebook... I can’t exactly remember which.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
While I was walking, I dreamt of 100 other places to be
I wander the streets of Rome at night. Running my hand along the wall, walking blindly through its maze like streets. From the Pantheon to St Pauls Cathedral, a million different answers to the simple question why? The Vatican states its power, I weave in and out of the large stone pillars, turn my back on it and follow the river out of Rome, in search of vineyards, gladiators and truth.
In the early morning light I clamber along the large, smooth rocks. Battered by years of storms, wind and the waves of the Indian Ocean, they dot the cost from point to point and create pools of life to be explored. It’s so quiet and calm that anything seems possible, miles away from cities and towns, a hiker steadily moving forward.
A great big expanse of land lies before me, its dusty and red and spans north for days and days. My car and I zoom along, quick as possible into the north, where the trees are sparse and the sky is wide.
Up stair after stair after stair, around and around in a tight coil, up an old, rickety ladder, through a tiny hole and here I am, finally at the highest point of the old Dutch country church. From the turret of its castle like tower I can see the Amstel river winding its way along, at home in its banks.
Oh to be on the road. To be swaggering about the countryside, backpack and boots, sky and road, endless open road. To follow a whim and freely move, wherever, whenever, whyever I please. To carry only the necessities, some cash and hope. A great big burning hope, a hope fed by the open road and its elusive possibilities. The lonely traveller is not nearly as lonely as a lone soul in a big city. A sense of purpose guides his feet, he’s seeing the world. He finds faith like a religious person, in life itself. He dabbles in the intoxicating illusion of moving forward, passes life by rather than watching it pass him by, leaves and returns the same, but changed.
I wander the streets of my suburb dreaming I am in 100 different faraway places, and wondering all the while, what’s so wrong with being here?
Friday, May 1, 2009
de-stress, re-address
I’m frreee to do what I want, any old time... except right now, coz I have 1001 other things to do, and this is how that song, really should have gone..
I need to chill out for a second or I’m going to implode. I feel cramped, blocked, deaf, confused, bewildered, like a rabbit in the headlights or a guinea pig high on pot. I feel like if I was asked which was up and which was down, I’d say, “Martha ofcourse.” The little Brain Function Operator inside my head has sat down on his little stool and buried his head in his overworked hands. He’s down to the bone, empty, alone, over it, in need of a really good cheeseburger. And maybe some fries.
Whilst on the train between young female passenger A reading Twilight and young female passenger B reading Twilight, I found myself fretting once again about the state of that essay I handed in 2 days ago that was worth 45% and will probably earn me about half of that, if not less. It was more or less utter shite, it annoys me because I feel I let myself down and it wasn’t through lack of trying. It’s such a great weight in my head that I have trouble lifting my arms to do anything other than support my throbbing head.
It was full steam ahead into total meltdown, and my poor little Brain Function Operator let go of the steering wheel, turned off the engine and called the trade union. No one should have to work 24-7.
It’s completely ridiculous how caught up I get about an essay, which doesn’t even register on the radar in the scheme of things. Yesterday, it turned me into a giant ball of stress. In a few weeks when I get it back, I’ll be angry at myself, and maybe even my lecturer because it couldn’t possibly be my fault. When I get my grade at the end of the semester, I may sigh and mourn that I didn’t try harder. In four months time, chances are I won’t even remember it at all.
Neither God nor the moon cares how much of a total cock up that essay was, so how did I come to put so much importance on something that has next to no bearing on my life at all? That essay doesn’t feed me, clothe me or shelter me. It doesn’t keep me sane, in fact it does very much the opposite, and it never tried to make me happy. Writing it was like pulling teeth, tearing hair out strand by strand, physically abusing my Brain Function Operator until he couldn’t take it anymore. I got so pissed off that I couldn’t think clearly, and the sole reason for that was because I was stressing about 10 pieces of paper and some sad, contrived words.
It was time to repair the engine.
Step 1: Consume chocolate.
I don’t know what people did in the days before this fine, sugary goodness became available to the masses in such great quantities as it is today. I think we should force feed chocolate to angry people until they smile. I think we should pay the people who produce it more than we pay the companies who sell it too, but for today, I’m just thankful for its existence.
Step 2: Hit the Beach.
In the scheme of the great blue vast ocean, I am nothing. I stand on the windy beach, waste deep in the waves and let its power slap against me. The wind chills me to the core and the water offers an icy warm retreat on this fine autumn day. The salt seeps into the very core of me, stinging, healing. I spread my arms wide above my head and let the waves pull me wherever they should like. If they ate me up today all that would be left of me was a scooter standing in the carpark, 10 pages of crappy essay and this blog. I wouldn’t be sad.
Step 3: Lie in the sun.
I remember now what’s important. Breathing. It kind of takes precedence over everything else. Smiling, laughing, learning, loving, being... writing good essays doesn’t feature.
The rush of air into my brain wakes my Brain Function Operator. “Finnnallly!” he says, as he flicks the switch. It’s all systems go again.
With a hop, skip and a jump I dance my way down the beach, because it’s important and that essay was not.
I need to chill out for a second or I’m going to implode. I feel cramped, blocked, deaf, confused, bewildered, like a rabbit in the headlights or a guinea pig high on pot. I feel like if I was asked which was up and which was down, I’d say, “Martha ofcourse.” The little Brain Function Operator inside my head has sat down on his little stool and buried his head in his overworked hands. He’s down to the bone, empty, alone, over it, in need of a really good cheeseburger. And maybe some fries.
Whilst on the train between young female passenger A reading Twilight and young female passenger B reading Twilight, I found myself fretting once again about the state of that essay I handed in 2 days ago that was worth 45% and will probably earn me about half of that, if not less. It was more or less utter shite, it annoys me because I feel I let myself down and it wasn’t through lack of trying. It’s such a great weight in my head that I have trouble lifting my arms to do anything other than support my throbbing head.
It was full steam ahead into total meltdown, and my poor little Brain Function Operator let go of the steering wheel, turned off the engine and called the trade union. No one should have to work 24-7.
It’s completely ridiculous how caught up I get about an essay, which doesn’t even register on the radar in the scheme of things. Yesterday, it turned me into a giant ball of stress. In a few weeks when I get it back, I’ll be angry at myself, and maybe even my lecturer because it couldn’t possibly be my fault. When I get my grade at the end of the semester, I may sigh and mourn that I didn’t try harder. In four months time, chances are I won’t even remember it at all.
Neither God nor the moon cares how much of a total cock up that essay was, so how did I come to put so much importance on something that has next to no bearing on my life at all? That essay doesn’t feed me, clothe me or shelter me. It doesn’t keep me sane, in fact it does very much the opposite, and it never tried to make me happy. Writing it was like pulling teeth, tearing hair out strand by strand, physically abusing my Brain Function Operator until he couldn’t take it anymore. I got so pissed off that I couldn’t think clearly, and the sole reason for that was because I was stressing about 10 pieces of paper and some sad, contrived words.
It was time to repair the engine.
Step 1: Consume chocolate.
I don’t know what people did in the days before this fine, sugary goodness became available to the masses in such great quantities as it is today. I think we should force feed chocolate to angry people until they smile. I think we should pay the people who produce it more than we pay the companies who sell it too, but for today, I’m just thankful for its existence.
Step 2: Hit the Beach.
In the scheme of the great blue vast ocean, I am nothing. I stand on the windy beach, waste deep in the waves and let its power slap against me. The wind chills me to the core and the water offers an icy warm retreat on this fine autumn day. The salt seeps into the very core of me, stinging, healing. I spread my arms wide above my head and let the waves pull me wherever they should like. If they ate me up today all that would be left of me was a scooter standing in the carpark, 10 pages of crappy essay and this blog. I wouldn’t be sad.
Step 3: Lie in the sun.
I remember now what’s important. Breathing. It kind of takes precedence over everything else. Smiling, laughing, learning, loving, being... writing good essays doesn’t feature.
The rush of air into my brain wakes my Brain Function Operator. “Finnnallly!” he says, as he flicks the switch. It’s all systems go again.
With a hop, skip and a jump I dance my way down the beach, because it’s important and that essay was not.
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