escape

Self-indulgent rant alert... you have been warned...

Wanting to write again but not knowing how to begin without succumbing to maudlin depressiveness + self-indulgence. I’m going to wheel out the Drama Queen one more time. It’s been the policy so far + I see no real need to change that. I am – on the whole – feeling maudlin + depressed + self-indulgent.

The last few months have been crap. Revoltingly, mundanely shit. I’ve continued to battle multiple nemeses – depression, disempowerment, feeling stuck. STUCK is the serious one I think. I despise feeling as though I have limited choices or that it’s not within my power to make things better. Largely because my rational mind knows that I have myriad choices + expansive power, even as my emotive mind works desperately to undermine that.

The underlying causes of STUCK are unworthy of detailed exploration. Ongoing difficulties in letting go of the past; friends hurting other friends; people I love experiencing suffering which is outside of my control; things turning utterly shit at work; dissonance brought about by living in a town that I love + loathe at the same time; not enough space or energy for creativity. Boring boring boring. Boredom. That’s a bloody big factor in itself. Once STUCK sets in it’s a long, slow, boring death, and I’ve already spent too much of my young(ish) life dead. Dead to joy, dead to experience, dead to love, dead to myself. I refuse to play dead any longer.

A few weeks ago I had one of those wonderful expansive dreams that takes me away from myself + into new possibilities. It wasn’t big on detail, + I can’t remember much now anyway, but the crux was that I packed up + left, abandoned my reality for a solo trip around Australia. I woke feeling unbelievably liberated + free. That, to me, is a clear case of the subconscious wanting to be heard, expressing a strong desire to come UNSTUCK. And I’ve been daydreaming about it ever since.

big love to little holley

small things

Those little things continue to make the difference. Poetry, music, friendship, good conversation. I’m gradually feeling more at home in my own life again.

Music has gotta be a portent of good. I love it when I’m walking to work and the shuffle spits up something fabulous. This morning it was Daft Punk (always!), A Tribe Called Quest and OutKast. They shifted me straight out of morose tendencies and into a new place entirely. Everything felt suddenly energised and light. I went into one of my fun daydreams about being a super-athlete and traversing the path to work parkour-style, complete with flips and jumps and cartwheels. I’ll never do it but I love dreaming about it.

I felt good. The sun was shining. The tunes were fine. And I reminded myself that I must always shake it like a polaroid picture.

where nothing at all needs saying... but something still does

Sometimes loneliness tugs at the proverbial strings for the strangest of reasons.

I ordered a new book from my favourite poet + it arrived today. I was reading at lunchtime + suddenly thought that it would be lovely to have someone to read aloud to. Queue loneliness. There's no one occupying the read-aloud-to spot in my life. Sigh.

Maybe I'll give the girls an impromptu reading round at Toni's tonight. You gotta create your own romance, after all. If you don't so few other people will.

It is Born
Here I came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather + the sea,
+ the moon swam back,
its rays all silvered,
+ time + again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
+ every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
+ everything is blue again like morning.
Pablo Neruda