Winter is for
Jumpers with tartan elbow patches
Wearing two pairs of socks
And colourful crochet blankets
Thursday, 6 June 2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, 2 June 2013
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