an adventure

the sea is loud late at night, without competition from sea-soaked, sunscreened families, and the relentless buzz of nearby traffic. it's very noisy, and it's very quiet. they're completely alone on a soft pillow of sand. moored. it's dark: midnight's grey washing all around; water a deep creamy coffee brown, white-tipped with frothy crashing waves. it's cold, too. a tough, gritty wind that rises, falls, whips up sand, blues lips, and chills bare legs.

she's wearing a summer dress. she wraps herself in a beach towel, and in his arms. they talk about big and lasting things.

how much.

my mind is constantly occupied with finding inventive ways to describe this - constantly because none ever satisfies. it is really quite fun. it's liberating to move beyond the realm of the easily explainable and therefore codified, controlled, boxed and ribbon-tied. we are anything but that, and it's fantastic.

p.s. thomas and isobel are finally dating. this is very cute.

angus and julia stone - mango tree

sweet, gorgeous, lovely. an old song that never tires.

from her lips i heard her say
can i have you
caught up on what to say
i said you do
i said you do
i said you do.

heavily backwards

I want to tell you what it feels like to stand defiant and small against the wind.

And what it feels like to do too many things and then to stop and awkwardly catch breath but not quite enough so you still feel sort of tight and without.

It's not like in the movies. But then you all know that already.

I want to tell you about the day all the words became cliches.

cross my heart.

i woke up to pixelated words that made me smile
a lot
i am eating toast

water and some other things

unstable and over-thinking, thinking so much i no longer think at all, atop a messy wave, blown to and fro by imaginary winds, wanting quick assurance, doubting you, without need, without cause, without. this without that i negotiate so poorly. having received so much and known so deeply and been filled so full, but feeling so scattered, forgetting the things of five minutes past, unable to pierce a murky view, UP and (down) always, bobbing. breakable. vulnerable. living inside a man-made box that's all misfiring cerebral circuits, and conjured conversations that never were or will be - at least not exactly. and that's the point? the spontaneity? cluttered chaos of spoken movements in the "instance". the thrill of the chase of words across the air and imprisoned on the page...you you you. i'm heeding His word but needing your guarantee. (this makes no sense, and you know it. you do.) x. answer respond reply rejoin react. keeping it courteous and aloof maybe / except i can't do polite and beige. only operating overthetop. in ter act.

atmosphere

yes i've been sick for almost a week
yes i just bought cupcakes for my family because i have a feeling i am in trouble for never being home
yes i had very little sleep last night

but things are really really really good.

attacked by to-do lists

i'm so incredibly moody these days. my smile falls at the smallest thing. it's really quite annoying.

rachael yamagata - be be your love

8am

there was a girl with dyed black hair and a heavy metal festival t-shirt on the train yesterday morning. the bands had names like massive hammer violence and it was all black splashed with red. it was an all ages festival...seemed weird to have such a h.core tee for an event that welcomes twelve-year-olds. she sat down near me and started drawing little emo princesses in a notepad. they were kinda dodgy but she was being really precise and careful, and she'd scribble them out if she didn't like them. and then she put arrows next to them and wrote appropriate, matter-of-fact little labels like 'long black hair'.

bright

take my hand - take me up,
move me above the suburbs,
above the grid-mapped day to day.
higher than winter-tinged clotheslines
and copper-coloured rooftops,
leaving meandering white marks
like a wayward scrawling skywriter in the blue.
we're dreaming above in a vibrant now.
there's you and me and a patch of grass
and the landscape shifts while the sun slips;
we're sitting in the sky.
there's crumbs in our pockets
(and flowers in my hair)
an elevated picnic:
we're parked in mid-air.

some leisurely cafe-penned poetry that stutters and stumbles, trying to tell the tiny things that make this this. small, flat symbols pressed on torn paper, gleaming behind this computer screen - little flighty figments, indentations insufficient to capture thoughts and words and looks. but words are addictive.

landlocked behind rolled up windows. you say good bye a million times but you don't leave.

a today psalm

i wish i had written this.

the historical pursuit.

looking for the source that will - change - everything. that will explain the fullness of the then in the vibrancy of the now. (this is a pipe dream.)

film

i am sitting in my room at my computer writing a music review. lara just came in, i showed her something, she made a cryptic comment, i asked her what she meant, she wouldn't tell me, i asked her again, she wouldn't answer, she went to leave my room. i tried to stop her from leaving by holding onto her arm. but i am sitting in a rolly chair so it wasn't all that effective...i just ended up rolling along behind her on my chair.

we laughed about it for about five minutes.

writing an essay on shakespeare.

hmm my ideas are everywhere. some are in my head and some are written on paper and some are typed in Word but i swear there are some that are floating out the door of my room right now and others that are balancing precariously on my bookshelves, light fixtures, piles of clothes and cds, etc...

everyday rendezvous

so apparently i'm more of a girl than i thought i was. who knew?

// forward

i think that
in every relationship that ends
- with the exclusion of those that close with raised voices, slammed doors, enraged insides -
there is always an uneven distribution of affection.
the boyfriend likes the girlfriend more than the girlfriend likes the boyfriend
or the girlfriend likes the boyfriend more than the boyfriend likes the girlfriend.
one of the
two.
one is more heavily invested, more deeply attached, more fully immersed.
so the aim is
to find a person who likes you as much as you like them: a compatibility not only of faith, values, personality, aspirations
but of intensity.
more accurately, to find a person with whom an equilibrium of romantic feeling can be reached and, most importantly,
sustained
with
out
end; which at some point inevitably involves a shift into the realm of choice - a decision to love with longevity, with a stunning openness, indefiniteness, scope. maybe because of beauty, but definitely through and in (and not simply despite) ugliness.

trying to explain

growing twelve hours older in an empty field. surrounds coloured sepia and some murky swaying trees, in slow motion, in half-light. spinning time with easy words and held hands. sampling an increasing repertoire of memories and in-jokes; keeping the volume low. exactly.

"what are you thinking about?"

at home in a sleeping park with bare feet. tripping toes to a lazy beat across grass punctured with suspicious bindi shapes: a rock? a little white flower?

sight muddied by night but the landscape is surprisingly clear and it's that one a.m. kind of lucid.

"you don't think i planned this?"

ok so

i often write cryptic notes to myself on scraps of paper, post-its, open notepads. invariably i can't decipher them later. i think perhaps i am a genius in those scribbled moments but then i forget how to be a genius all the other times. ok bye.

letting trains go past

all grinning and it's ridiculous.
excited!

Typing Sunday.

Today has not been a particularly enjoyable day, apart from a sneaked spoonful of Nutella and some funny messages from friends, but I am up and yes and full. Jittery. If I were into bad analogies, I would liken it to popcorn with its salty smell of promise. Actually let's be honest, I am into bad analogies.

I am writing an essay explaining how the development of the spa and then the beach-side resort in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reflected changing attitudes to the body and society. It is interesting but remote to me today.

I didn't enjoy church tonight.

together

relieved, surprised, excited, expectant, hopeful, thankful. warm, calm, peaceful. creativity, direction, willingness, readiness. disarming honesty, openness, sincerity, thoughtfulness. upright. earnest. kind. trustworthy.

i am exploding patiently.

new...

i think this is going to be intense.
hopefully in a good way.

beirut - nantes

gosh. this is one of my favourite songs at the moment and this clip is just gorgeous. i am a little bit in love with zach...the skinny trendy mop-haired twenty-year-old musical maverick appeal, with a healthy dash of relaxed eccentricity. gets me every time.

sleepy in the kitchen

feels like everything is tomorrow and the next day and the next and it's nice. days to look in the eye with a smile.

there is pasta cooking and it is making me excited.

despite being lame it is also true.

on the one level it's hard to answer. they're all amazing, godly, wise, mature, intelligent, kind, funny, leaders. easy banter and effortless discussion. in these things i can't split them with him.

but: this thing just happened. it wasn't sought after particularly; it came to be; it was natural and smooth, a development. it was easy, and it made a strange and disarming kind of sense. whereas with them there was friendship and they stepped up because they wanted something new and more. and i really wanted to want it, firstly because they're great and secondly because hurting people is horrible. so i tried to like them in my head, or played with the possibility. turned my persuasive skills (halfheartedly) upon myself.

but:
it was plain and simple and i didn't want it.

here in this space i didn't have to think or try or weigh up or persuade. everyone talks about it in bad pop songs that jade us as we sing along in the car. but, you know, i think cliche doesn't necessarily mean lie. there is a crazy level of attraction that you can't really pinpoint or explain, that refuses to succumb to even the most earnest rationalising.

and it's really quite nice when you don't have to think too much. not propelled by my wishful head - a relief. it's not so much a decision but something that has happened in unexpected movement.

two friends of mine

one who has loved so much that he never wants to love again, who is living holed up in his head so he doesn't have to occupy his heart. escaping the breathless and claustrophobic. and who is writing songs bloated with tired thoughts. i'm watching him pray for emotional fortitude in silence and hearing him make silly, loud jokes so he doesn't have to think about those heavy things in there. he is full of warnings.

another who loves so much that he is haunted with hope. someone who trips more quickly and heavily than the others, and yet with more integrity. who surprises with wisdom and a servant heart on a daily basis, surfs above the crowd with funny voices and one-liners; is a gift. doesn't know it yet but knows more than he should. he sends midnight messages that are simple and longing and kind and that make me want to explode things in the sky for him but i can't.

the first thing i think to do is to send them songs that suit them.

stop

i would like to keep this feeling please.

Five Rules

i have made them and i am going to follow them. the rules are written with an expensive inky pen on a bright green post-it note, watching me from above my laptop screen. as of last weekend i am making myself both pupil and teacher. this is really hard for me, but that is ok. they are good for me and good for you too.

rekindling a love affair

i am extremely tempted to break my self-imposed tetris fast.
this will not be for my own good...

coffee+cake

trusting vertically. calmed horizontally. caught in the slipstream of the two.

take this moment.

a kidnapping of minds from beyond our skies, a realm you refuse to recognise. you don’t know who you are or who you’re supposed to be. the light is out but you’re inside, shadow-dressed behind the curtains.

it’s a vast crowd of the missing and the blind take the lead. but i have inside a bright treasure and an invitation; i have a secret and a revolution. inside this fragile body, a jar of cracking clay. precious contents, an unfading light – the face of Christ.

i’ll take this moment and take your hand, lift the veil and show the truth. lift your eyes to the bright and unseen answers of eternity.

i’m full of exploding words, salty with the smell of promise. a plainly spoken truth for seated children and for adults tall with pride. i’ll hide myself, reveal Him, as conversation leaps to Always and Ever. this is the word of life you are desperate to hear, the secret you keep from yourself.

i'll write it down and affix a stamp, post grace to you in a white envelope. spell out the hope of life and the faith of mercy. and i’ll send some letters to busy strangers, glimpsed on trains and buses in a speedy now. a growing Kingdom through the postal system.

i’ll take this moment and take your hand, lift the veil and show the truth. lift your eyes to the bright and unseen answers of eternity.

glory dropped in a mailbox,
a forever destination.
2 corinthians 4.

ray lamontagne - be here now

one of my favourite songs. it is calm and collected and sombre and tense.

walking to the station

i'm constructing beautiful, careful sentences to convince you. but i'm realising that i don't have the persuasive skills, or more accurately, the necessary range of expression. i'm working within an inadequate medium, because merely horizontal. flat.

speaking across the suburbs

I made a phone call to speed sleep.

Last week in history I learnt about liminality: a doorway, a threshold, an in-between space of both liberty and risk. Travelers are said to absent themselves from normal life; to step outside society and to thrust themselves into this unregulated, uncertain space.

I know that we are still just friends, and I will continue to know this until you tell me otherwise.

Some hand-written speech in my notebook, from around me today. Politely interrupting myself, shelving some errant thoughts in rough alphabetical order. I may borrow them out later.

Time? As slow as we make it, right now. A messy clock, almost marking the dates.

an evening meal

not wanting clarity
because clarity reduces hope
or fills it up like a wayward balloon

heart work

yes great reasons but frustrating, disappointing. more disappointed than i expected to be. that may not be true actually; i expected, in the event, that i would be disappointed. so now i am, and now i need to work out some things inside. because i don't want to be playing a waiting game by myself, without any other players. standing alone in a field, or something.

but not now and maybe later - these are sharp, shaky words. words on the edge of a precipice, threatening to fall: blowing in the wind, sitting and passive and vulnerable, before a gust. maybe is a dangerous, open-ended thing to say, to hear, and to believe in. it is imminent and distant, which means it is indeterminate. too close and too far - that is - both tempting and trivial. and those words don't flatten my feelings just by the saying. his speech does not do the work that i need to do, which begins after, later. now - i need to sink, settle, i need to be ok with this and move away from this. both.

writing is better for thinking and dealing. it is a gift left for me.

p.s.

because others will. and have.

Archive lesson.

A message from a friend and I caught a glimpse of my own worth. If you're not chasing me, it's not enough.

it's just a little thing but

she put on that mascara for him. she forgot some things en-route, traveling, immersing herself impulsively in a temporary baptism. prayer before bed.

on desiring

gosh what was that?

checking the clock, the tv, the phone

I may have got a little ahead of myself, jumped the numbers with uncharacteristic grace. Landed with an unfounded certainty and messy hair; a little pile of bobby pins and some phone call patterns on a stubbornly lined page.

Meeting my imagination, tapping it on the shoulder, and forcibly reattaching it to the daytime.

Back to regular programming and everyday things.

damien rice - volcano

university

I AM WHISPERING BECAUSE I SHOULDN'T SPEAK RIGHT NOW. I WANT SUNNY, LIGHTLY CLOUDED DAYS IN A BLUR, COFFEE AND COMPANY, AND MAYBE MORE SPECIFICALLY YOU. THERE ARE LYRICS COLLECTING IN MY HEAD THAT DON'T QUITE DESCRIBE ME, EXTRICATED FROM SONGS THAT DOCUMENT EMOTIONS THAT WERE PROBABLY IMAGINATIVE IN THE FIRST PLACE. THIS THING WE ALMOST AND PERHAPS AND COULD HAVE IS UNEXPECTED AND QUIET AND NICE.

the city

I am wondering what you are thinking, about this.
I am moulding you in my head, and inserting words into your mouth, and losing perspective.
I will probably do this for a while longer.
This is a window.

yes

"I feel an ardency of soul to be...emptied and annihilated, to lie in the dust and be full of Christ alone, to love him with a holy and pure love, to trust in him, to live on him, and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity."
Jonathan Edwards

heaven in a box.

i liked today. just so you know.

this please

last shift at that horrible retail job today. scrap booking and hang outs to look forward to. and mum made chocolate cheesecake. so basically the best day ever.

island

steps outside well-structured sentences
flirts with ill-placed verbs and inefficient adjectives
wants slender fingers beautiful with acoustic sounds
writes lyrics to nowhere and notes to the world
finds low-slung jeans and a childish smile
watches conversation falling to the floor around them
keeps the window down -
so she can remember herself when he's there
half-hearted, half-speaking half-thoughts, in half-moods.

(i'm sorry i couldn't invite you.)

postcard home

accidental shopping
markets
two for twenty
trendy people with upright hair,
tight jeans,
leather accessories,
open wallets
sun and chocolate
no thanks and yes please
two for ten
star wars leitmotifs in my head

are you up to anything tonight
you know
if you're interested?
if you want

ok

holidays

a long, late night phone conversation with a beloved friend - comfort, disclosure, laughter; half-asleep as i said goodbye. a faulty alarm clock and an ambling, all-stops train to the subdued and melancholy funeral of a friend's brother (a black-and-white picture of a handsome young man with a cheeky half-smile and sad eyes / my friend standing outside the church, the memory of his brother engraved in the shape of his face, and temporarily tracing his cheeks in tears). thinking. crumpled jackets and crushed tees hung on purple coat-hangers, dirty clothes piled, clean clothes pegged under the winter sun. writing and cutting and gluing. a dessert party with like-minded, rugged-up friends, frenzied, light-hearted conversations tracking our little circle, back and forth and across and over, comments received in snippets, comically jumbled.

some notes

- late to the bus
- thai with jess, anthony, alec and rich
- campos with jess, alec and rich
- bought on-special boots because my black flats are swiftly losing their battle against university pavements
- made beautiful invitations to a tea party with jess
- drank creamy earl grey tea
- watched half of clueless
- sat
- made a list

adele - hometown glory

mismatched, misshapen trivia.

saw friends, sipped vietnamese noodle soup and chatty conversation. wandered pink and fluffy asian stores lined with frilly clothes, glittered key-rings, fake handbags.

traveled on-time trains with novel in hands and music in ears.

heard terrible news: empathy tightens lungs, block out related imaginings, feel altogether too much, and far too little.

not about a boy.

i am ok with leaving before the night is over, in bed by one, feet spared dancing. i am going to be ok with your unseeing eyes and noncommittal hellos and goodbyes. i'll sit on the couch in the corner of the dim-lit bar, and i'll pretend to be messaging someone. and soon, by prayer and petition, you will be excavated from me. and that will be ok.

this

i have an empty red leather notebook and a pile of useless words and an expectant heart. ready now.

i think you should fall in love with me immediately.

before bed

"Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations...
Sometimes she collects several blankets and lies under them, enjoying them more for their weight than for the warmth they bring. And when moonlight slides onto the ceiling it wakes her, and she lies in the hammock, her mind skating. She finds rest opposed to sleep the truly pleasurable state. If she were a writer she would collect her pencils and notebooks and favourite cat and write in bed. Strangers and lovers would never get past the locked door."
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient.

while

men should ask women to relaxed restaurants, funny films and road trips.
people in general should use more alliteration in everyday conversation.

1

hello interweb.

this is not something to which i am particularly committed.