It's a Sad Day

For midwifery in Australia. *sigh*

Taking Something Non-Linear and Putting it into Words that Imply Causality Doesn't Really Make Sense, But...

Sometimes we do things, and we know just how to do them. And sometimes we say things, and we know just how to say them. And sometimes we don’t. And sometimes we do things not because we necessarily want to, but simply because not doing them isn’t something we can bear.

And sometimes there are events in life that become markers; vast in their importance they are the signposts with which we mark the passing days and weeks and months until they turn into years. And sometimes those markers get bigger, and they become the barriers with which we define moments that turn into the seconds that will eventually form a life. And those barriers become the delineations with which we measure our time, because our time is not something that can be counted on a twenty-four hour clock and it’s not something that we can mark on the door jam every year as a child gets taller. When you look back on the finger snaps of your life you look out for those moments, those times where whether you knew it or not, what was going on in that very instant would turn into a thing that when you remembered it it would make you say, “there was before this, and there was after this.”

Most often though, we don’t know what those moments are going to mean as they’re happening, because we suffer from the misplaced notion that it is the big things that make us change direction, make us stop and stare, make us remember not to forsake the walking for the speed, when really it’s the everyday, the here and now, the extraordinary in every ordinary moment.

Sometimes there are people who come into our lives and their presence allows us to be changed. And sometimes there are lessons we seem to need to learn the hard way. And sometimes there aren’t. And sometimes we fight when we should put down our arms and rest. And sometimes we return to the scene of the crime. And sometimes that really is the best thing that we can do. And sometimes it’s not. But sometimes it is. So we do it, because sometimes it is. And when it is it’s great, and when it is it’s worth it, and when it is we feel as though there’s nothing we can’t do. So we do it because sometimes it is, and sometimes is enough.

This Season

It's Fall, Autumn, October. My favourite month in my favourite season. It's crisp and cool and it's a halfway point; the trees are as emerald as they are everything else.

There's an explosion of colour--saffron and ruby, marigold and claret. There are piles of leaves on the ground and mouldy decay wafts into the air.

The Earth is like a dead thing taking a slow journey inward and her people walk on her and pluck things from her; reaping what they've sown. Will they have enough to get them through the winter?

We harvest now so that soon we can have cobbled streets and Christmas markets and mulled wine as our breath fogs the air; I love fall and winter in England.

I need to take more pictures. On this weekend's walk I will.

One of These Days

I'll have something to say that can't be construed as being in any way depressing, I swear I will.

One of these days I'll get to where I'm trying to go and will therefore no longer feel the need to spew out bizzaro posts that say everything and nothing and are probably annoyingly vague.

And as a result of that one of these days I'll start making sense outside my own head again.

And one of these days I'll fix up the layout of this blog again, because seeing it like this makes me want to break out the sad face.

One of these days, one of these days not too far away.

These Black and Blue Days are the Most Beautiful

There’s a simplicity in these days that would be beautiful if it wasn’t so tragic. It’s funny, you know, the years and years I longed for this very thing—easy independence. The ability to come and go as I pleased and not owe an explanation to anybody. No one to ask where I was or what I was doing or even if I was okay. The satisfaction that comes from taking care of yourself, financially and otherwise. The “I can do whatever I wants” are so hollow to me now.

Am I still searching for some arbitrary value or have I given up such futile quests?
I suppose if I have to ask that question then the answers are yes and no, respectively.
And I sigh with exasperation.

Why is it that I do my best writing under these kinds of circumstances?
It’s as if I need to tap into some kind of font of melancholy in order to have something to say.
In order to say what I want to say how I want to say it.
Artists do tend to be depressive types.

“I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend. You could cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in.”

I talk to myself as much as I talk to others.

Is this weird? Sitting here on this bench in the glaring sun, laptop resting on jeans. The brightest October sun I’ve ever seen beating down on purple-sheathed arms. I see myself reflected in my screen and for some reason I don’t think I’ve ever looked more like me. Strange, seeing as how I’ve got gel in my hair and makeup on my eyes. A purposeful mask. Where does one image start and the next end? Where do you start and I end? How can the lines be so delineated and yet so blurred?

“Everyone I know has got a reason to say, put the past away.”

The grass is puffy, you know the kind. The fall asleep outside Burger King at 19 after the first real bar hop kind. That kind. Only now it’s the hottest part of the day in a month that isn’t supposed to be hot and it’s just not the same. A country of contradictions, I’ve said it before. The hottest afternoon we’ve had in quite a while and marigold leaves behind me. I suppose that’s why I love it here so much. Pathetic fallacy once again. This place mirrors me in every possible way.

I rather enjoy chandelier earrings and fierce eyes and blasting music at 4am.

And she reapplies her lip gloss slowly. It's a dance. Intended to insight a specific reaction. She's aware of the effect she has. She shrugs, again.

If you walked by me right now what would you see? And why is it that I’ve always had this almost morbid fascination with seeing myself how other people see me?And why the hell is it that I self-identify most with tragic beauty? Could I be any more film noire if I tried?

And let me live my own personal Casablanca, here’s looking at you, kid.

Why am I like this?
Glass eyed Black Dahlia, once again.
Wistful sigh.
Wishful thinking.
Why?

My cheeks are flushed and I’m listening to the same song on repeat. Fingers bounce off keys with practised nonchalance. I’m shocked that the wireless reaches all the way over here.

“The angry boy, a bit too insane, icing over a secret pain.”

Yeah, that’s a story I know well. Flip the pronouns and you’re talking about me.
What we can’t see in ourselves we see in others.

“Well, he's on the table, and he's gone to code, and I do not think anyone knows what they are doing here. And your friends have left, you've been dismissed. I never thought it would come to this, and I, I want you to know. Everyone's got to face down the demons. Maybe today, we can put the past away.”

There’s a chorus for all ages if I ever heard one.

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Karl Marx at his best that is, and yet maybe...maybe one day.

It’s hot out here and I want to go back inside but I don’t want to go back inside because it’s real in there and I like it here. Outside. Here where I can fake it for a while. Here where I can sew stitches in my own story. Here where I can believe that fluttering leaves are fairies and no one can tell me any different.

Why can’t I live in a forest?
Why can’t I be sitting up to my hips in an ocean?
Why is there concrete and not rotting leaves or sand?
Why here, why now?

There’s a girl, a woman, no, a girl sitting on a bench. She’s dressed to make a “don’t fuck with me, I’m hot and I know it” impression. But she’s not just dressed in clothes. She has an air of something around her, something that she both wraps around herself and finds herself enveloped in. It suffocates her and she claws to get out but as soon as she peaks out over the haze she remembers how much more comfortable it is to be choking when you’re choking on something you understand. She accuses him of running away when she’s doing the same thing. She personifies lies. She doesn’t know how much of her own strength is built on illusion. Smoke and mirrors. Slights of hand. Who is she when that gets stripped away? She’s a caricature of the her she wants to be. She’s a masochist to her very core—asphyxiating herself on self-inflicted grief, guilt, and loss.

How many ways can you rip a life apart? And why is it that I so enjoy purposely breaking so that I can put myself back together? It’s egoism to the extreme and it’s sickening.

“You're the first to fight, you're way too loud, you're the flash of light on a burial shroud. I know something's wrong.”

Lay yourself bare with words on a page. Once again.
Fail to internalize the lessons. Once again.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. For all time.

I've never been afraid to feel pain, but happiness? True happiness? My god, that scares me more than anything else in the world.

“I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.”

Regression

Sitting here alone staring at my ceiling in an empty house does not allow any kind of escape from my own thoughts.

Time ticks.
Ticks.
Ticks.

And if I believed in the ridiculous notion that time is a linear thing, well, I'd have to conclude that lately I'm going backwards in a big way.

Tick Tock, once again.

I need a vacation.
I need to sort out money and stop avoiding the important list of shit I need to get done.
I need to spend more time with my friends.
I need to go to yoga tomorrow.
I need to read more.
I need to write the way I want to and stop being so fucking scared of it. God!
I need to practise my photography.
I need a vacation. Like, seriously.

I need to write something on here that isn't so fucking depressing.

Why hello, brick wall, it would seem that I would like to run full speed into you once again. Please proceed to do as you always do and not fall over. Apparently I like the bloody nose.

WHY AM I SUCH A GODDAMN CONTRADICTION?!

That's not a rhetorical question, please feel free to email me the answer as long as it's in two points or less. I'm too tired to think through much more than that. Whoa, there's a sentence fragment and a half, way to go Amber, you're a great writer. Stupid stream of consciousness, again. That's all I can write lately, it seems.

Hah, there's a metaphor--searching for structure. What a joke.

Why am I so ridiculous?

Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.

Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.

Against the wall.

Why can't I ever stop asking why?

Hello, Green Day, how is it that you're always so good at being better with words than me? And you just have to make them work as a song too, right? Really?! Apparently so.



Sigh.

What is my problem? I could have sworn I'd already learned this lesson. Hint as to what I'm missing here, please? I'm sick of hearing crickets.

(FYI, the lesson is that you'll never find things that you look for outside yourself.)

Blog Shmlog

I'll fix this up again soon, can't be bothered right now. It's just that the broken background image was annoying the crap out of me.

That is all.

"Let Me Show You What You're Made Of"

It’s grey outside.
I’m sick of the same voice on the train PA system every day.
It’s doing that irritating misty rain thing that England does so well—I normally like it, today I don’t.
Same goes for the fog.
There’s a girl talking on her phone a few seats behind me; I want to turn around and yell at her to shut up.
The sound of pages turning as someone goes through their notes across the aisle is far too loud.
Same goes for my laptop keys.
I’m on three hours of sleep and a hangover.
There is nothing about this morning that will impress me.
I’m looking outside trying to find something to impress me.
There has got to be something there.
I have the very repetitive chorus of an annoyingly ironic and clichéd song stuck in my head and it’s going around and around in inescapable circles.
Why is that woman’s coat so white? That’s ridiculously white.
Everyone has umbrellas and is looking unimpressed.
I’m slightly happy with myself for remembering what pathetic fallacy is. Go grade ten English.
There’s a boy with red hair (not ginger, red, damn it) wearing army fatigues. Normally I’d cultural studies the hell out of that image but today I can’t be bothered.
To do anything I don’t have to do.
You don’t have to do anything.
Shut up.
The pattern on the seats in here hurts my eyes.
“At least they’re not lonely...”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, ahhhhhh!
Why is this country so fucking contradictory?!
How is it that you can have the most stunningly beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen and blue skies that rival oceans and also have the most dreary, grey, depressing landscape imaginable when it rains?
And why is it still so gorgeous?
That’s annoying.
It’s like when people tell me I’m pretty when I’m angry.
A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G.
The water is streaming down the windows “of this four coach train.”
Stupid PA system, I don’t care how many coaches this train has, alright?
Why is it only 8:16 in the morning?
My back hurts because I haven’t been doing my yoga.
What does god existing have to do with the meaning of life? Stupid advertisement that doesn’t make sense.
Twelve minutes of stolen wifi here I come.
Sometimes there is no other way.
I refuse to believe that.
I want to go back to bed.
Why is that guy humming? What the fuck does he have to be so happy about? No one wants to hear your humming at 8:21 in the morning, dude.
Why is it raining again?
I say again but it hasn’t rained in ages.
Ages for England or ages in general?
I can’t remember what other places are like anymore.
I’ve had this scarf since I was six years old.
It’s red and it’s not soft anymore.
I don’t want to.
What?
Umm, anything?
That’s pathetic.
Streams of consciousness are fun, no?
I’m going to get soaked on the walk from the station to work.
I have an umbrella (because you do not go two feet in England without an umbrella), but the hems of my jeans are going to get soaked.
And then I’ll have to sit in soaking wet jeans all fucking day.
WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE HATE ME SO MUCH?!
Is it Friday yet?
My god, I’m a peach today, aren’t I?
See, I’m just writing all this out now so I get it out before work because I don’t want to subject myself or the guys to my foul mood all day.
Foul moods are a choice, Amber, and an idiotic one at that.
I know okay, Jesus Christ, I’m allowed to be annoyed as hell if I bloody well want to.
Allowed? Really? Did you really just say that?
PS, what are you, five?
Yes. *pouts*
Oh grow up.
Fine. *glare* and all that.
Stop glaring at your own consciousness, that’s ridiculous.
Why do you insist on running these fool’s errands?
Because. I. Like. A. Challenge. Okay?!
Challenge is relative, you idiot.
Shut up.
Why is it still raining?
It’s grey outside.
I’m sick of the same voice on the train PA system every day.
It’s doing that irritating misty rain thing that England does so well—I normally like it, today I don’t.
Same goes for the fog.

And If I Could, Maybe, One Day

• Remember things that I already know.
• Believe that which is true beyond doubt.
• Be who I am without feeling some misplaced need to apologize for it.
• Realize that sometimes there's nothing you can do.
• Understand that when people steadfastly refuse to help themselves it does more damage to everyone to keep trying.
• Let go of arbitrary attachments, because all attachments are.
• Regain the feeling I had all summer that things work out, that life is full, that gratitude is worth it and beauty exists in all things.

And if I could, maybe, one day let go of this feeling I have that is so strong that it feels as though it's rooted to everything I am then that would be good.

Integrate and let go, right?
Catch and release.
Yes.

E(?)RCS

Check this out over at Rixa's. Is it sad that this kind of thing doesn't even shock me anymore?