winter #6

winter is for kneading dough
warm ovens
sticky fingers
and a little sprinkling of flour

an element of construction

I scrambled in the dark
fumbling fingers around
pieces of you and me
our body parts, sexual organs
and fragments of thought
fitting this piece with that
tessellating clumsily
and binding together tenuously
with viscous adhesives
from deep inside you

to construct a connection

Joshie #2

I rest my chin upon my folded arms
wordlessly
I feast upon your eyes
what is it
that makes your eyes dance like that?
a little bit wild
a little bit fantastic
my eyes lick yours eagerly
unfolding you and beckoning
your honest and shy beauty
I want it to come and and play

I can feel my own eyes
resplendant
for the excitement I draw from you

how long did we sit there
eyes locked in mirthful curiosity?

until my jaw and cheeks ached
from the special smile that is only yours

savage desire

paralysing desire
you set something alight in me and
it's dangerous

stutter, fluster, move away
occupy my hands with another activity

feel her unrelenting eyes bore into me
unclothe me
burn my skin
and eat me alive

the way she looks at me
savage desire

she moves towards me
around me, beneath me
moulding into one another
heart beats racing one another
the hunter
              and the hunted

I'm constricted in agony
paralysed
              but desperate
what were those reasons again?
heavy breathing
laboured struggle
whispering desperation
lust, desire, yearning
course tangible between us

we do not touch
but for her teeth upon my skin
filling my senses

my lips run for as long as they can fight
the final resolve yields
the beast awakes
and i kiss her
fearfully, fiercely, forcefully



(this is an old poem i wrote about my ex, and how powerless i feel around her)

farrago

this is my nature
intrinsic aversion to organisation
entrenched chaos

this is my process
a determined absence of order or structure

in perrenial pursuit of
living honestly
I can only write freely

unfinished poems
from ephemeral fevered moments

the ebb and flow of my inspiration
within the framework of my erratic vertiginous heart
scattered sporadically by
my dichotomy of needs

silenced by standards...
or mired by delight in detail
tantricly turgid, beautifully bombastic

page after page
of a perpetual deluge
of visceral self reflection
of vigilent awareness and exploration

for me
to be
(fabulous fervent fucker)

is in chaos

what now?
(the question that paralyses me at the precipice)

do I pull together the scattered pieces
stitch them together,
a colourful patchwork

a farrago of chaos
of frustration, creation
and fervent cacophany



(i wrote this last year in response to what i felt completely creatively paralysed by at the time - my dichotomy of needs - a need to create at all costs, and a need to never have any element of my creativity be fabricated or calculated. I needed to celebrate my scattered farrago of inspiration.)

everyone went to sleep but i could not sleep for wanting so i wrote a poem

intense wanting
constricts my body

I think of you here in this room with me

constricts my body

I think of you sitting, still, quiet, watching

I drink some wine. I have just brushed me teeth
so it tastes like delicious poison

I want you, intensely

I think of you coming over here
kneeling next to my tangled legs
taking away my book and wine

and without a word

untangling my legs
and holding my head in your hands
or maybe kissing me
or maybe just looking at me with

intensity

body constricts

heavy breathing
seek me with your eyes
fuck me with your eyes

one long sip of poison

and then
putting one hand on each knee
press your hips against mine

my body constricts with
the intensity that
i want you
to want me
intensely

a list of fears

1) not being enough

2) being too much

A new understanding of capacity

something kept me awake for hours that night
after I untanlged myself from you
the incessant pounding of my restless, wicked heart
something buried into my stomach
and crept through my chest
gnawing at my ribbones
and said
'you created me, now attend me, address me, understand me'

-november 2012

Joshie

a bottle of red wine down
and we sit in the dimly lit room
with only a scarf between our bare skin
there is an unruly and overgrown cityscape on the curve of your arm

I always knew you had a wild heart.

The jealousy of Hera

The most powerful, the most desired
my  name is Hera, Bride of the Gods
A woman wreathed in gold
as jealous as I am beautiful
and my beauty is rampant and divine

By cunning, craft and seduction
I claim my wedded victory, my matriomonial prize
the fidelity and adoration of Zeus
it is sacred, it is mine
I will protect it with all the might of heaven

You will fear me, you will honour me
and you will fall in despair and thrall at my feet

My husband, he will stray
he has a weakness for foolish beauty
he is restless and easily charmed

You, foolish girl
we are women
I am your Queen
you must be wiser than that, girl
to betray your kind and kin
to cross the bride of heaven
to steal what she protects fiercely

Do you feel your fingers pricking?
does your skin begin to itch?
look into the waters, does your beautiful face stare back
or the face of a grotesque bearded beast?
those hands that you caressed my husband with
are they soft and supple?
or mangled claws?
your voice, seductive siren,
can you still sing sweetly,
or does a growl whisper from your lips?

I will blind you, foolish girl
I will scratch out your eyes
I will silence you, beautiful siren
I will constrict your chest

Do you hear the lions roaring
the snakes snapping at your pretty heels?

I will come for you
with all the might of heaven
you will pay for your beauty
you will pay for making him stray
I will come for you with roth and rankour
a fury unbound

Gaity will erode and weep
for nothing endures as long as my rage
when the foolish beauty of the world fades
my husband and I will remain

time circles around us
these great cities of Argos evolve
and we remain implacable
at the centre of all of the universe
lies our marriage bed
and it is forged by my fidelity

Tinpan Orange at Mojo's

Having spent the weekend in a frenzy of folk music at the FolkWorld Fairbridge Festival, I was not quite ready to let the atmosphere go. So I was thrilled to have a little piece of folk waiting for me back in Perth. If I shut my eyes I could imagine Mojos was a little bar in the bush under the stars.

Tinpan Orange has a well developed style. It is sure of itself. Even though their songs are so thematically diverse – ranging from sweet and cute to intense and haunting – I feel that throughout this range every song has a distinct ubiquitous ‘Tinpan’ feel to it. I can taste it. It’s … mmmm… cinnamon sweet with a citrus kick of intensity. I appreciate anything that can warm my heart and curl my toes and all in one evening. Tinpan leaves me feeling quite drunk on atmosphere.

As a front woman Emily Lubitz is glorious. She is strong, confident and commanding in her vocals. Throughout the evening she took us on a vertiginous and dynamic range of emotion with sweet uplifting tones and then moments of deep operatic quavering (I think I may have made that word up). Her voice has a tonal quality to it that is unique and intriguing without being so bizarre as to convince me that she’s ‘putting it on’. And that is very important to me in music – organic and natural.

Her stage presence is quite charming – but in a slightly haughty way. She has these quirky gesticulations and movements – her left hand extended and her right hand shaking limply. She’ll raise her arm in a windmill and let her body fall limp to the thudding beat of Harry Angus’ keys. She’ll twirl around the stage and imitate Alex Burkoy’s violin, her hair falling across her face. I can’t tell if these movements are uncontrollable, visceral responses to the intensity of her lyrics, or if they are calculated, prepared and rehearsed. I get a very strong sense that she is a “performer”. She is putting on a show – but that being said it is an enchanting show and I am captivated. I think that is an important element of the ubiquitous Tinpan style that is so addictive.

Guitarist and vocalist Jesse Lubitz is everything I want a performer to be – without any element of actual ‘performance’. His voice is warm and sweet, his posture is comfortable and he seems so accessible and unassuming.

Harry bounces around in the background on keys in a mustard coloured jacket. This man’s falsetto harmonies make me quiver.

Alex, a beautiful bear of a man with wayward curly hair dabbles with fiddle, mandolin and guitar. He gently demands my attention and I find I can’t look away. I always find myself completely mesmerised by the way this man’s subtle movements.

The boys backup harmonies were impeccable. Harry’s ringing falsetto, eyes clenched shut, Alex’s deep rumbling bass. It’s all so well layered, so well pieced together.

Mama Kin and Loren Kate joined the band for Lonely People – which Emily called an anthem for truck drivers. It was an ethereal but cathartic cacophony of chanting voices.

What stood out for me about Tinpan was how I can see and feel them working together. They seem to be so well cultivated, to know each other musically so well, that together they create this united force. What I saw was five essential parts of one creature. The whole band grows, swells, breathes together – and this… force… clutches at the audience and we are completely suspended, breathless for a golden, vulnerable moment.

I found myself completely usurped by the swelling of their united sound, their haunting harmonies and their captivating presence.

Words by Fiona Hugo

This review was published at http://colosoul.com.au/colosoul_2.0/?p=19047

Fairbridge Festival

Hunting through the scrawl of notes from my weekend, I feel that familiar dichotomy of needing to record an experience. I could then create a vestige out of something so divinely ephemeral, but without distracting myself from being fully and freely in the experience. The result is a few muddy sheets of paper with mad illegible sporadic bursts. How will I ever draw something sensible from such a mess? But in a way, this article should reflect the experience that I had this past weekend. It should be mad, it should be vertiginous, and it should be organic.

The Folkworld Fairbridge Village Festival was all of my ridiculous musical dreams come true at once. A euphonious and delightful farrago of styles; rich and organic Australian folk and country, layered and bouncing bluegrass, smooth and growling blues and a sort of European funky orchestral jazz.
I found myself unconsciously on a scavenger hunt, voracious for little moments of delight. A woman in a polka dot halter dress. A giant French horn. A banjo-ukulele hybrid. Drums made out of garbage bins. Drinking red wine in a leafy alcove. Dirty knees and muddy boots. A cacophony of tambourines. Delight, delight, delight.

At one point I sat drinking peppermint tea in the rain listening to my favourite discovery of the weekend, a bluegrass band called The Company. There really is nothing better than bluegrass. With two fiddles, a mandolin, a banjo, a guitar and a double bass, what could top that? Jaunty rhythms, lyrics rich with story and myth and every piece of the band huddled around the one mike to bellow out twanging harmonies. I thought to myself, sipping on my tea, how deliciously lucky I was to have this secret delight all to myself. It felt so rich and decadent, but wholesome at the same time. Like dark chocolate. A rampant feast. I felt like a jolly fat man rolling around, drunk on loveliness.

If you are like me and find people who talk during gigs morally repugnant, this is the festival for you. Sometimes I find audiences so maddening, like the time some guys thought it was appropriate to have a burping competition during a show. But at Fairbridge – people waited until songs were finished to leave the tent, everyone sat attentive and eager to hear each artist’s stories, and when the artist was singing… silence. A number of artists seemed very impressed and grateful for this respect. I believe it was due to the unique atmosphere that is cultivated in Fairbridge.

There is something so wholesome about the atmosphere at this festival. It is welcoming and nourishing. It is organic and comfortable. There are kids busking on the market street. Everyone has been camping, we are bouncing around full of fresh country air and we are all unwashed and care free. Everyone is there in united pursuit and celebration of music. Music is not the means to some drunken raving end; music is the end itself.

There is this rhythm pulsing through the property. It is foot tapping, leg slapping and hip shaking. I think that my feet are still bruised from dancing so hard. Everyone is mad with folk fever. And I still can’t stop humming Flap!’s new album.

Speaking of Flap!, they were an absolute joy. A five piece jazz band bounding with vibrant energy and adorned in sequined dresses, tuxedos and red bow ties. They imbue such exciting creativity into every element of their creation and performance of music. It’s funky and audacious.

Loren Kate in the Fairbridge Chapel was an incredible experience. She quietly and intimately weaved beautiful stories of wandering and creating. She was completely stripped bare and vulnerable and I felt I was witnessing the most present and genuine musical experience. You could see the intimacy and honesty left her quite exhausted and overwhelmed.

I missed out on seeing Mama Kin due to the tent brimming with hordes of people spilling out the sides. But my friend came running up to me afterwards, took my arm and looked me square in the face with a light in her eyes. She told me of a moment during the set, completely entranced with Mama Kin’s presence, her subtle confidence, her organic energy and listening to her rich mellifluous voice where she felt so full that she thought she might surely burst. Although it was not my moment, I had to share it because music has such value in its ability to fill our capacity to feel.

There were also workshops available throughout the village. I went to a bluegrass harmony workshop, in which we bellowed our four parts to a rapt audience of gumtrees. On the first morning my friend and I stumbled across an Indigenous dance workshop. We learned about the importance of dance in the role of story, tradition and teaching. The best moment was at the end of the workshop when we all formed a circle, stamping our feet, and people could run into the middle to feel the energy of the circle and dance freely. My heart swelled in my chest when the dance instructor told us that with an interest to learn a little bit about other cultures comes respect.

In an example of the effect Fairbridge has on people, we spotted a man at The Justin Walshe Folk Machine on the first night. He must have been at the festival alone. A few people had gotten up to dance and you could see in his body that he was nearly bursting for the desire to join them, but he just stood tentatively on the sidelines tapping his foot. Then, on the final night, we saw the same man at Flap! He threw off his jumper, took off his shoes and danced with us, barefoot in the mud, with his eyes closed and his hands in the air. I think that is what Fairbridge does – cultivates your inner carefree, wayward self believer and lets it run amok.

Words by Fiona Hugo

This review was published at http://colosoul.com.au/colosoul_2.0/?p=19099

Lucy Wise and the B'Gollies at Kulcha

As a general rule, if a band uses a ukulele as one of their primary instruments, for me it falls a little too far along the ‘cute’ scale. You know when folk music just feels too sugary? But at Kulcha on Saturday night Lucy Wise and the B’Gollies crept up on me with light dancing feet, swept me up in their warmth and nestled themselves into my heart. Consider me a complete uke-convert.

Image courtesy of the label

This music is the perfect balance of the elements of folk. The lightness of the tenor ukulele – who we’re told is called Tony, with the richness of the double bass, called Mortimer. There are shades and levels of light and dark. It’s sweet but soulful, fresh but full. With trundling syncopation and folky minor chords it feels like magic.

I want to dedicate a whole paragraph to an unidentifiable quality to Lucy Wise’s voice. It is depth, warmth, colour, a sort of oaky flavour. But I just can’t seem to articulate it. I suppose there is magic in that. You will just have to listen to understand what I mean.

A few B’Gollies seemed to be missing – and I would have loved to have heard the piano-accordion, but the remaining two had such a presence. Fiddle player Chris Stone moved so beautifully with the music. I could feel the joy in what he does – he just can’t contain it. It buckled his knees and his hair fell across his eyes as he bended with the flow of the music. Holly Downes wore a dress with large green polka dots and was absolutely mesmerising. I always feel like double bass players are really dancers, with a beautiful elegantly stoic wooden partner, whom they guide through wambling bass lines.

Lucy Wise’s stage presence is gentle and graceful. It’s all so beautiful in a pure and wholesome way. And there is a genuineness that I adore – I think she puts it best in her song Little Bag when she sings “you can see what’s hiding in plain sight.” There is such value in music that has no performance, no pretence. I feel the artist gives so much, gently but boldly and intimately. And I walked away from the gig feeling so much fuller and richer.

Lucy Wise’s words are poetry. With vivid imagery of hats with feathers, bike rides through the country, well dressed birds and love songs dedicated to hot air balloons, her songs are free, warm and lovely. I love imagining what inspired her to pen such sublime words.

Kulcha as a music venue is fantastic. It feels sophisticated and jazzy. We sat in a long narrow room, only as wide as the stage. It is an intimate space – a perfect environment for this special music.
I’m completely hooked on how this music lifts my heart. It is just so joyful.

Words by Fiona Hugo

This was published at http://colosoul.com.au/colosoul_2.0/?p=19309

moment

there was a moment,
you gave me warm tipsy words
and i held your face in my hands,
i could feel the hair around your ears against my fingers
and i looked you hard in the eye
and wondered what I close myself off from.

home made pasta

tonight mum and dad made home made pasta while I made the sauce. I love to cook in the evenings - it is ritualistic - it almost feels religious. creating and nourishing. I listen to beautiful music and drink red wine. it's soulful and gentle and joyous.

Now I am drinking tea, listening to classical music and writing. I marvel at my capacity for happiness.

seek

you should not be afraid of my curiosity
you should let me seek you

muse

an ephemeral inspiration
a perrenial flirtation
that ebbs and flows and swells my heart
to sporadic creation

furtive and nimble
he creeps around the corner of the page
ardently i pursue him as
he invokes me to engage

a desire usurping
of this i cannot choose
i follow him desperately
my elusive muse

an ambit of mischeif
that radiates his girth
a pirate smile, wicked yet sincere
seductive wild mirth

surely a stranger
but somehow i know him well
familial yet esoteric
my charming infidel

winter # 5

winter is for temptation

the ocean on my right

I went for a run tonight. I missed the sunset, but there was something so beautiful about the evening. Beautiful evenings just have to be given to someone, don't they....
I looked out to the ocean on my right, into the dark wide expanse of deepest blue, and I thought, I felt, for a glorious suspended 30 seconds, that the ocean would swallow me whole.

(For Gemma)

Sophie's dancing

There's this thing that you do....

You dance with your eyes closed

Not clenched shut in defiance.

Just a .... gentle shutting of the curtains. 

It's a beautiful expression of... Feeling free. I feel like you are in your own world, but still here with us. You don't shut anyone out by closing your eyes. You simply.... Bring something very special, very free into your body. I think maybe your eyes are shut to protect that thing. 

And you dance. Sometimes it's just a little shuffle. You bop your head around 

Sometimes it's an all out jive. 

You get this beat in your whole body. You do this great thing with your hands. 

I love watching people watch you. 

This quizzical expression on their face. I can imagine their thought process: surprise and thrall in equal parts. 

Because its not that usual. To see someone dance freely. 

But it's beautiful. And they understand that. I recognise certainty on people's faces. People know when they are in the presence of something strong. unique. untouchable. 

I wonder if you know the impact you have on people, when you are peacefully, comfortably, insouciantly yourself. 

attenuating future fears

I have had a very definitive and glorious turn around in my thoughts about a certain area of my life. and I have just felt so mired, so dismantled by my fears in this area. So a new perspective is a wonderful, welcome thing.

What scares me is the future. Not generally - mostly I feel very excited about it. I have a beautiful foundation level of confidence in my life. in my soul, in what i seek, what i cultivate. Except for the very specific area of my studies and my future career. Maybe the fact that I usually feel so bold and sure and confident, even in my erratic-ness - maybe thats what makes this fear seem so powerful. Because I am not used to that kind of... lack of self belief.

I remember the moment that I realised that a lack of self belief was bound up in this fear. It's not me, it has no place in my heart. But it has crept in and I dont know how to combat it.

I find the legal field - to get a job - it just seems so unachievable to me. so elusive. so complicated. there is nothing about it that feels simple, or achievable or even understandable.
I like studying law. I am pretty good at it. I enjoy it most of the time, to a reasonable extent. But this next step... it just feels so far away. I dont know how to get there, or to get to a place where getting there seems more achievable, or even the steps involved in getting there....
I feel like I dont even know the little steps involved that would get me there. that would make me less fearful, less intimidated.

But then I am so afraid of anything that represents getting a job, so afraid of being confronted with this reality, that I am too scared to even start looking. To figure out what those steps are, which would probably attenuate my fears.

Fear is so powerful. I dont often feel that afraid. I dont know how to respond to large scale intimidation.
little things that intimidate me... I thrive on that. I love a challenge. it excites me.
But anything beyond that ambit - anything TOO uncertain or TOO intimidating or TOO important ...

it completely dismantles me.

and my mind, it puts up walls. I cant deal with this intimidation so I just shut it out. 
So I have been clinging to the fact that I will finish at the end of next year, a semester after most of my friends. because i feel like i need time. to find out how to not be so afraid. i need to put off facing that fear for as long as i can. facing the fear of finishing a 5-6 year degree without a job. and how demoralising that would be.

But yesterday I realised that I had done more units than I thought, and that I would probably finish midway through the year next year.
and for the first time that did not paralyse me with fear.


I am starting to think about other options. i am starting to wonder about how comitted i really feel to studying and praciticing law. I feel.... like sometimes ive put in a mediocre effort to studying. ive felt ambivalent too often. I have great moments of dedication, passion even,

but now i just feel so sick of it, but i dont feel i even deserve to be sick of it. I know what its like to have a usurping desire, a usurping comitment for something. and ideally, naively, i dont want anything less for my life. but thats not law for me. not right now anyway. i dont know how to reconcile myself to that.

i know that i started law thinking that i would do this for the sensible version of myself. i would do this because i beleived it was my potential. and then if i wasnt happy with it, i could pursue something more reckless and creative.

so maybe i will do that. Maybe I could save up and live somewhere new for a year, and do some study in something that really thrills me like language. or like creative writing.

maybe i will even audition for waapa. which is what i really wanted to do in high school. act.

The most important thing is that I have realised that if I dont get a job in law it is not the be all and end all... its probably not even what i want to do, or will be happy doing - so why let it make me so afraid!? maybe if I feel less intimidated, maybe that will open doors.

sunset

I am sitting at the beach and the evening is gathering around me. The tide is very high tonight. The waves are like heavy hammers against the shore, the sand is sinking under its weight. 

There was this great mass of clouds, like a heaving purple beast. A dark deep purple, almost grey. Splayed across the horizon. And the sun dripped beneath it, like a golden amber liquid. It was like this purple beast was wounded and bleeding across the sky. When all the light had finally gone, the purple clouds dissipated and dispersed. Like the golden liquid was all that was holding the beast together. I felt like I was attending some sort of majestic funeral of the sky. 

And then the clouds regrouped, but darker this time. An angry deep gathering grey of cumulus. 

I love the dimensions of clouds. I feel like I'm looking deep into the horizon.

(For Dylan)

Winter # 4

Winter is for
Jumpers with tartan elbow patches
Wearing two pairs of socks
And colourful crochet blankets

Winter # 3

Winter is for
Ginger and red lentil soup
Carpet bags
And seeing ghosts

Riverside ghost

I don't know how I got here

But here I will always walk

A riverside, a muddy bed

A ghost for company

It's always evening here 

Along the riverside 

The sun almost sets on the almost horizon 

And here I always walk

Tripping on gumnuts and wayward stones 

I tumble down the riverbank 

Hitting branches along the way 

They bruise my arms they scratch my face 

And I am tumbling down

Stumbling tumbling down

To the muddy bed of the river 

Stumbling tumbling down 

Sinking, mired into the mud 

It seeps around my ears

Above me, my taunting ghost

Looking down at me, looking up at her

There's mud on my hands

So paint it across my face 

And bend deep into my knees

To rise up again 

I scramble up that riverbank

Clutching at tree roots i climb 

My body is heavy, my bones they groan 

My ghost throws her head back and laughs 

I chase that ghost along the river 

And that ghost, that ghost she flees

She laughs with derision, she laughs with mirth

And so I push her down 

My ghost be tumbling down

Stumbling tumbling down

To the muddy bed of the river

My ghost be tumbling down 

The rocks don't bruise her translucent skin 

The branches don't tear at her face

The dense muddy waters don't pull her down 

Plunge, lunge, rise again 

I've turned my back from this scene 

Turned my head to walk away

But she follows me down that riverside 

For like the sun, she never sets

My feet they cannot run no more

But my heart is stronger yet

So I stand my ground on that riverside

And push my lover down

Maybe sometime not so soon

I walk while the sun still sets

She'll find me, and reach out her hand 

And I'll push her down again 

And that ghost, she tumbles down. 

winter #2

winter is for
study nooks, Handel's Messiah
and for African tea and short bread

delight and diligence

I have come down to Bunbury to spend study week with my grandparents. So I am writing from the living room, with the hum of conversation in the background, and a soft trundling buzz of gentle busyness around me. Oumie is making a pie for dinner and Oupa is collecting our wine glasses to refill them. I can hear the sound of clinking glasses, chopping potatoes, and general kitchen rustling.
Its not a very cold evening. There is something about an intense cold that really enchants me, in a way nothing else does. its almost romantic. Maybe there is something in the action of making yourself warm. or maybe its the trappings of winter that I adore. the scarfs and cardigans. the mulled wine and tea and roasts. But its not just those things. they are.... ancillary. additions. things that result from the causative factor. its.... something deeper. something at the core of winter. maybe its just a divine amalgamation of all the chilly delights. but whatever it is, it burrows right into my heart, and i am in a perrenial state of enchantment.

oumie just said, sipping her wine - 'red wine is very good for colds.' she has the most beautiful ideas about wine. she says its all about 'ambiance'. she says 'you just dont have the same ambience when you have conversations over tea'.

oumie has a bit of an obsession for candles. its so sweet. so the house is filled with different lovely scented candles. oumie loves to create a lovely atmopshere.
every morning oumie and oupa wake slowly to classical music, and get out of bed at 6. they sit together in their dressing gowns, plodding and floating around in slippered feet. they have a pot of earl grey tea, and light a scented candle, and watch the sun from the big glass window.

its such a beautiful and inviting environment. I love being here. It gives me so much, nurtures me so much.

anyway, this is a very tangential way of talking about my study week. a bit of scenery detail is never wasted or superfluous in my opinion.

so here I am, for study week. and I often come here to study. it just seems to work so well in so many ways. to have such a clear and definitive change in environment, to signal the start of the week. to invoke and inspire the understanding that this is the week. sometimes a big shift is needed to bring about that change in attitude. it is also an environment that is conducive to diligence. its quiet - unlike my home which is charmingly cacophonous.

most of the time I feel so erratic, so inherently without structure. which i love. but sometimes I crave routine. sometimes, i celebrate some structure to frame my frenzy. Its interesting to know that i have a big capacity for diligence, and commitment. its interesting to reflect on my spectrum of capacities.

my routine is quite strict here. I am up at 6, and i stumble bleary eyed to the kettle to make very strong black coffee, and then off i go to study, and i dont stop (apart from little hobbit breaks for breakfast and second breakfast and sporadic teas) until lunch which we all sit down for, for an hour. and then steady study again until 5, when i go for a run.

i go running along the eaton riverside, which is one of my favourite places. I wrote a poem about it actually which i think is on this blog somewhere.

and then its time for wine, and conversation, and dinner, and then tea and shortbread.

so this is my week. seeking and celebrating structure and diligence. in a delightful environment.

Evolving philosophies on walls and tattoos

I am thinking a lot about getting another tattoo. Which then makes me curious about why I want tattoos, and the thought process that is involved in making that decision.

I have a wall in my room which I stick curious and beautiful things. I have an addiction, an intense desire for what I find beautiful. I want to be surrounded by it all of the time. I seek it and hoard it. I want to capture it, collect it, to have it for my own.
Bound up in what i consider 'beautiful' is (materially) is a strong sense of uniqueness, quirkyness. The beauty that inspires me has substance and texture. Inspiration is active and involved and challenging.
So this wall is full of beautiful curiosities.
I remember at one point I started to question, and filter what I put on the wall. What qualifications or requirements something had to meet to be 'wall-worthy'. And then I realised.... inherent in curious beauty is a rampant freedom. Order has its place... but not on my wall. Not in my definition of beauty. Surely the fact that something, or even some element of something captures my attention, invokes a desire in me, makes it worthy of the wall.

For my first tattoo I had such a high standard. Which I think is fair - branding something on your skin is serious. What I decided was worthy of marking my skin forever was a life philosophy, that I felt was an exhaustive expression of so many deep running threads in my life.
In that way, even if this philosophy develops - or even if it significantly changes later in my life - its ok, because at 19 years old, this concept was so definitive, so thrilling, and so positive. I'm sure I will be happy to look back on that, and whether it has developed or changed, celebrate my 19 year old philosophy.

Since then, naturally, I have not felt anything quite compare to that standard.

But I still have this desire to mark my skin.
I used to believe that anything less than a definitive, exhaustive, usurping life philosophy (i really cant explain how important my first tattoo is to me, how much the joy of it, the passion and desire of it completely fills and usurps me) ... that anything less than that was not worthy of branding my skin.

I also resist this process of first deciding that I want a tattoo, and then searching for something to get to satiate that want. rather than a tattoo satiating the want to mark a concept. I think for me that is not the right order. Or else I will end up picking something less than the standard I seek just because its the nearest thing. I want something to develop in my mind, or even just present itself to me (like the tattoo idea that I want right now) which I know with certainty, that it is worthy of tattooing on myself.

This is something that really intrigues me... people's thought process on this issue. what inspires them to get marked on their skin. what is 'worthy' of permanence.

I think recently I am changing my perception on this. like my wall.... I dont want tattoos to be so... rigid, so strict. of course its important to be certain. But I think I need to evolve this idea of 'certainty'. I think I can be certain about something that is less than a life philosophy.

Something I am entertaining getting is a series of beautiful quirky things - just like my wall. Maybe scattered around my body - a treasure hunt, or a little cluster in one place- a huddle, a collection of beautiful things. They dont have to be enormously meaningful. I think the fact that I find them beautiful and unique is reason enough, special significance enough. I want a bear, because bears are warm and protective, but also just because i like them! I want a fox, because they are furtive, and dandy. I want a grammar phone, and a type writer, and a tent. I want an eggplant. or a sweet potato. I have an unspoken list of my favourite things, warm, rich, deep, unique. that enchant and invoke warm feelings in me. how is that not a worthy reason?
I just want beautiful things on my skin.

I have another idea for the next tattoo that I want, and that IS a life defining concept. which I am so thrilled and certain about. But I will talk about that in another post.

I think the reason I want tattoos is to make manifest of a usurping feeling. and i think those feelings can be fleeting. and maybe fickle. or less than an all encompassing philosophy. but still be legitimate.

if of a moment they fill me.

I celebrate that. I want to mark that.

Winter # 1

Winter is for whistling red kettles
Fairy lights
And scattered little notes