Since booking the course I have rested so insanely easy with myself that I'm scared for the time when I am no longer bathed in this contentment. If I hadn't heard of the Three Marriages I might in fact myself be alluding to the three marriages; work, relationships and the self, and how when in supreme balance you just feel so, light. Add no carbs and we're talking lite light. My 30s dress and this nail varnish and that book on the ratten chair next to the blooming tomatoes so perfect I just think it could all end at this moment and I'd die quite happy. I got my new license in the post this week and counted how many more dire photos until death; it didn't feel heavy but plain.
I've been floating all week. After watching an old coffee crush read in a new context on Monday, I just thought, that's it, this chasm between me and them, this ugly hero-worship that I'm slopping about in, this me being in the performers area as an admin and you being in the performers area as a talented truth, well it's got to stop. No more. After the reading I treated myself to solo Vietnamese (on a Monday!) and looked up the courses she mentioned. I checked my Croatia-bound week in August, and 'one possible female shared space, please call Dan' plus a tutor I am inspired by, made my heart rush. I want this, I thought. I think I really want this. It doesn't feel like a excuse or a trend following or a peer pressure or a trial or a suffering, but it feels like a chance. I have a chance to close this gap between where I am and where I want to be, and if it doesn't work, then not only have I tried but I will gladly go back to the day job because it's actually brilliant. I have a brilliant day job thanks and you'd want it.
I've been blaming the day job for my disquiet (yet another book I half-started...) for some weeks now, probably as it's the only thing I've had within grasp. The self was medicated with yoga but didn't yoke so much as curdle, the bliss coating the hard ground and running off the sides wastefully in the light of day. Relationships were dealt with trepidatiously. Not that 'a pull' (as she so lovingly put it) is the epitome and sole goal of 'relationships', but it's felt like it. So this week I started to Talk To Boys. Find ways to talk and engage and a reason to speak. In the tent at 1.30am it was a self-rhetorical question, is this band running over? Because I'd like to talk to you about my knowledge of the following band, and perhaps you will find me not only scintillating but cute, as I coincidentally find you on my better side.
I talked to the coffee crush author the day after, I need a reason I need a reason, I panted as he crowd-weaved, I made one up, another self-rhetoric which worked, despite not delivering a phone number or card swap. That was his girlfiend or his agent, I didn't know. The next day at dancing I pursued an old crush by way of his 'Virgina is for lovers' t-shirt. I was really pushing my luck and didn't work our if he had got married since I last saw him, or whether the ex-lover he went to Virginia with was also his ex-fiance. He withheld the vitals but did set me up a double-handed high-five that I wasn't quite cool enough to reciprocate. Yesterday I eyed up a gay boy before I knew he was, and another courier crush clocked me as he ran a bus lane on red and mistook my 'whoa that was close' for a, 'whoa you are hot'. It was funny. As it should be. I lay in bed last Friday asking for a change, and it came. I'm both watching it happen and not standing in its way.
*self-rhetoric is not the right word but I can't think what is. A question asked with a known answer as a conversational device*
Saturday 23 July 2011
Sunday 17 July 2011
Change
I lay in bed on Friday night, and called for a change. Out loud, I spoke to myself that change would happen, a new skin would form, a truer idea of the world with new inspirations and less old crap to drag around. I've been bored with myself for a while. It dangles it's legs on the council estate wall, bashing calves against bricks with pointing-sharp edges scraping skin. I'm bored. I'm hanging round waiting for something to happen. I called for a change and closed my eyes.
On the bus down from dropping off the car I saw streets in fresh lights, angles from anew, paths from another perspective. I made readjusted maps of the area in my head and cheered internally from the sight of the lights of the Rio, some pokey Dan Flavins above the rooftops. I'm here in that same old, but I'm seeing in different new. All it takes is a bit of country air, some truths, some laughs, some inspiration to help me ignite mine. I was banging on about humour not working in a vacuum. Neither do ideas or happiness. No man is an island. Senses are only made by reiterations and swaps and shares and generosities and illuminations and sparks. You can't make them happen. They are the ether.
I watched him surrounded by three girls on Friday; a sparkly jacket, a luscious head of hair, a familiar warm embrace. I watched like a fanatic, covertly in the room full of louche festival-goers. My jealousy questioned itself. I felt so far away from them, my context here paid and not born. It displeased me and I wasn't comfortable. I laughed at several versions of 'comedy' under other guises, and felt disatisfied that my way is not always actually that funny, and for this I was obviously doomed. I walked back to the tent chattering invisibly about my talentless, senseless existence. It didn't plague me, it was, just displeasing.
When the work bit finished I enjoyed watching several things that did please me, a mix that would usually happen over two weeks doing so between 10pm and 3am. I was reminded of that thing he said about the good stuff being inspirational, the so-so stuff just being frustratingly wasteful and confusing morally. I talked to strangers and enjoyed a new freedom. I chose a stranger who looked cute. I told him I was waiting for my bad patch to move along and that it hadn't happened yet, but it was probably happening at that precise moment. Free-flowing freedom is what drives me, potentials warming gently, the universe delivering.
It involves some effort. It involves stepping out of the habitual way things are set, recognising that this set is just one way, not the way. Her words made me want to be faithful to the sage again, to trust in something other than my weak ego. He asked me if I was available to work in coffee, it looped back to my 'finding value' in that time. Sometimes you just have to step into what you've got with the aid of a higher power. Offer a warmth to life and see if it mirrors. There has been a change I'm sure.
On the bus down from dropping off the car I saw streets in fresh lights, angles from anew, paths from another perspective. I made readjusted maps of the area in my head and cheered internally from the sight of the lights of the Rio, some pokey Dan Flavins above the rooftops. I'm here in that same old, but I'm seeing in different new. All it takes is a bit of country air, some truths, some laughs, some inspiration to help me ignite mine. I was banging on about humour not working in a vacuum. Neither do ideas or happiness. No man is an island. Senses are only made by reiterations and swaps and shares and generosities and illuminations and sparks. You can't make them happen. They are the ether.
I watched him surrounded by three girls on Friday; a sparkly jacket, a luscious head of hair, a familiar warm embrace. I watched like a fanatic, covertly in the room full of louche festival-goers. My jealousy questioned itself. I felt so far away from them, my context here paid and not born. It displeased me and I wasn't comfortable. I laughed at several versions of 'comedy' under other guises, and felt disatisfied that my way is not always actually that funny, and for this I was obviously doomed. I walked back to the tent chattering invisibly about my talentless, senseless existence. It didn't plague me, it was, just displeasing.
When the work bit finished I enjoyed watching several things that did please me, a mix that would usually happen over two weeks doing so between 10pm and 3am. I was reminded of that thing he said about the good stuff being inspirational, the so-so stuff just being frustratingly wasteful and confusing morally. I talked to strangers and enjoyed a new freedom. I chose a stranger who looked cute. I told him I was waiting for my bad patch to move along and that it hadn't happened yet, but it was probably happening at that precise moment. Free-flowing freedom is what drives me, potentials warming gently, the universe delivering.
It involves some effort. It involves stepping out of the habitual way things are set, recognising that this set is just one way, not the way. Her words made me want to be faithful to the sage again, to trust in something other than my weak ego. He asked me if I was available to work in coffee, it looped back to my 'finding value' in that time. Sometimes you just have to step into what you've got with the aid of a higher power. Offer a warmth to life and see if it mirrors. There has been a change I'm sure.
Sunday 3 July 2011
A scam?
Her face is still burning into me, like the face from the horror movie poster by the Basak Supermarket (which incidently came into my dream last night, along with carbohydrate-based meals). It's been over an hour and a half and I'm stuck in a groove of weighing up whether I should trust her, whether she's a hugely talented faker, whether twenty five quid is a worthy price for being made into a fool, Googling her pieces for some sort of lead to the truth. I think truth is the one thing I aim for, and open ends keep me dangerously hanging, brain whirring, a torture continuum.
I gave a stranger twenty five quid like it was £2. After saying just two days ago that I hate charity, never having given a penny to a homeless person and never warming to leaflet pleas, there I was on the way home from the car boot, head in bargain cookbooks, when an honesty pulled at my arm. I connected with it's real desperation, wherever it came from, and sat her on the wall by Tesco. A broken-looking thing, all bruises and swollen ankles, mashed in nail varnish and smudged eyeshadow, she jarred on the sunny Sunday street. She told (stories) as I listened and conferred with myself, wading in my views which were far from straight-up.
Perhaps I went out to spend some money this morning, and the car boot didn't provide objects. Perhaps I bought a person today, like the adopted-granddaughter my nan has in Africa, who's handwritten letters are likely scrawled by a left-handed scammer. Whatever. It teaches me a separate lesson, that even after an activity has passed, I must continue to process it and run in through until ultimate truths are reached. What I need to do is sacrifice the search, and all the effort it takes. Sometimes truth doesn't deliver.
I just followed a piece to Homerton Hospital admissions department, her maybe-I-didn't-quite-catch-it name wasn't on the discharged list. Maybe she was an excellent fake. Maybe she took the notes back to her mates in Maccy's and got full breakfasts all round. She definitely needed it. Maybe true fakes are the most true of all. I wasn't pressured into giving her money, in the moment, on the wall there. My cynic sat back for once, as I saw us the same. I don't care if I got robbed of one purple and one blue. I don't, really. It makes my cookbooks non-bargains if anything, or covers the ballet-lindy-ballet I didn't do this week because of my shoulder. But the truth, hanging, hurts. And which column does it fit in my accounts?
I gave a stranger twenty five quid like it was £2. After saying just two days ago that I hate charity, never having given a penny to a homeless person and never warming to leaflet pleas, there I was on the way home from the car boot, head in bargain cookbooks, when an honesty pulled at my arm. I connected with it's real desperation, wherever it came from, and sat her on the wall by Tesco. A broken-looking thing, all bruises and swollen ankles, mashed in nail varnish and smudged eyeshadow, she jarred on the sunny Sunday street. She told (stories) as I listened and conferred with myself, wading in my views which were far from straight-up.
Perhaps I went out to spend some money this morning, and the car boot didn't provide objects. Perhaps I bought a person today, like the adopted-granddaughter my nan has in Africa, who's handwritten letters are likely scrawled by a left-handed scammer. Whatever. It teaches me a separate lesson, that even after an activity has passed, I must continue to process it and run in through until ultimate truths are reached. What I need to do is sacrifice the search, and all the effort it takes. Sometimes truth doesn't deliver.
I just followed a piece to Homerton Hospital admissions department, her maybe-I-didn't-quite-catch-it name wasn't on the discharged list. Maybe she was an excellent fake. Maybe she took the notes back to her mates in Maccy's and got full breakfasts all round. She definitely needed it. Maybe true fakes are the most true of all. I wasn't pressured into giving her money, in the moment, on the wall there. My cynic sat back for once, as I saw us the same. I don't care if I got robbed of one purple and one blue. I don't, really. It makes my cookbooks non-bargains if anything, or covers the ballet-lindy-ballet I didn't do this week because of my shoulder. But the truth, hanging, hurts. And which column does it fit in my accounts?
Saturday 2 July 2011
The Sneeze
This might be a little ridiculous, but I felt there was, really, some sort of, block. For just over two weeks, I've felt angry, pent-up, wrong, wound, bound, bored, blocked. I've been living for the weekends, realing (sic) in the weeks, I am this now? I'm blocked, bored, bound wound wrong. I don't know why! I'm making up little excuses in my head, seeing outside of the situation at suitable points to 'tell myself,(pause), it's OK (capital letters)', but I feel like all I need is a good shake. Put me in a bin bag and raffle me off. What sentiment.
Well it turns out, all I needed was a good sneeze. I just sneezed, cheered, kicked shoes off / folded legs up, signed out of Google and into Mac, here I am. I sneezed and I just felt free. I really did. It surprised me, it came up without my noticing, atop a belly churning avocado feta egg breakfast with nettle, and there is was. It was a sneeze. And it felt like the most freeing thing in the world.
To contextualise, I haven't been able to sneeze since Tuesday 21 June. Every time I've welled up for perfection, something has reeled me in; refrained; tightened; refused. I've sat there underwhelmed, disappointed, angry, pent-up, wrong,wound,bound,etc,etc. Carried on with my day, but ever so slightly more, tense. Tension in the arms, the sneeze moved down perhaps. Why shouldn't the body sympathise with itself? As a massage moves a knot outwards and away, the sneeze seemed to hide in the wrists. The hands are where the words come out. The words are where the work happens.
I am communicating daily. I speak barely a word. I am best wishes and hopefully's and my apologies and looking forward to's. Still words are happening. I told her I would start again tonight, two days ago. To begin, begin, he said. Don't be scared of the unknown it said, dull the ego and align. Everything takes practice, from making the perfect cup of tea, puffing the perfect pillow, to writing things both substantial and (not). I am not practicing, hence I am not improving nor trying to improve. Making one's own blocks seems foolish. If I should need an ego-driven result, I'll think of the excitation of having something to say when I next see them, placing myself contemporarily.
Well it turns out, all I needed was a good sneeze. I just sneezed, cheered, kicked shoes off / folded legs up, signed out of Google and into Mac, here I am. I sneezed and I just felt free. I really did. It surprised me, it came up without my noticing, atop a belly churning avocado feta egg breakfast with nettle, and there is was. It was a sneeze. And it felt like the most freeing thing in the world.
To contextualise, I haven't been able to sneeze since Tuesday 21 June. Every time I've welled up for perfection, something has reeled me in; refrained; tightened; refused. I've sat there underwhelmed, disappointed, angry, pent-up, wrong,wound,bound,etc,etc. Carried on with my day, but ever so slightly more, tense. Tension in the arms, the sneeze moved down perhaps. Why shouldn't the body sympathise with itself? As a massage moves a knot outwards and away, the sneeze seemed to hide in the wrists. The hands are where the words come out. The words are where the work happens.
I am communicating daily. I speak barely a word. I am best wishes and hopefully's and my apologies and looking forward to's. Still words are happening. I told her I would start again tonight, two days ago. To begin, begin, he said. Don't be scared of the unknown it said, dull the ego and align. Everything takes practice, from making the perfect cup of tea, puffing the perfect pillow, to writing things both substantial and (not). I am not practicing, hence I am not improving nor trying to improve. Making one's own blocks seems foolish. If I should need an ego-driven result, I'll think of the excitation of having something to say when I next see them, placing myself contemporarily.
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