These past weeks have been a combination of survival;
Scraping the dregs, lugging my bones;
Dragging, stumbling, rising
Even when I don’t know why anymore
I think I am the sediment
Left of myself. Not the endless optimism I appear
This weekend I am glad of an escape
Crushing; grinding; roaring; black and studded crowds of metal
Timeless meandering in the city.
So many people I pull my music in tight around myself, like a protective hoodie. I always feel so raw in the city. I rub and erode in crowds of people, all striving for anonymity
I always try to meet a few eyes. Bus drivers, shopkeepers, homeless people, fundraisers seem to be most of my lot.
From a bus (I rarely ever catch in the city) I see a cacophony of people, protesting for clean energy. The span of age and people hearten me. This is something many care for. Later, on the train home I see power towers balance on forested ravines and think that while cities gobble excess power, it is our lives in the country encroached upon by barren mines, transformers and tangled wires
As though they cannot understand or bear to leave our fresh-aired freedom
James and his pictures don’t greet me at their usual post. He’s ill he says but as usual refuses help. I feel frustrated but understand. It’s what I would do. I miss his world of pen, realism, intelligence and dark humour.
I’m grateful for a coffee and banter with an ex, now again a friend. We talk life, philosophy, experimental drugs and psychology, study, family and share our dog stories. I mention Joe and he doesn’t flinch, He would be fourteen now. I think of him every day, his shell would be tougher. I still live in hope and we browse books and talk music. We part ways again on good terms.
Lost and walking I see an Italian pirate blowing bubbles in the park and a boy trying to catch them in his fedora. Rain, shelter and so carefully carved yet misunderstood pictures of “Aborigines” and founding federators locked in iron. The doors to the state library. I sit on sandstone and try to read Stephen Fry’s interpretation of Greek mythos
Next, another friend. It’s so complicated, the roles we take on in our groups where everyone knows everyone, but not necessarily everyone’s business. I’d guess she does not understand why I speak so fondly and my understanding has it’s own tinge of ardour. That’s the reality of friends, students, teachers and lovers. Anyone who truly touches our lives closely. It’s only a part that you can choose them- they have to choose you back- lead role or something less, sometimes fondness still follows.
I could feel incomplete about it; pain; malice?
Yet I’ve found a ledge to tread with stoicism and a shelf of safety within my world while I fight to be the asker- or the answer. Perhaps many things between.
We talk so much, my mind is alive. There are so many connections. They have been hard-earned. That’s what I long for most with people. And my loneliness in the city.
I know too that with the spring from my toes and optimism I am often a target of the ridicule and anger so often directed at those who try so hard to keep their head above the waves. I feel full with our speakings as we part. I begin to walk again.
I have no music tonight. Batteries depleted literally and metaphorically
In the tunnel the sandstone is soft though brightly lit and there are people sleeping in bundles, even a man reading a book. I ask to pat a dog
Bundy is his name. He saved a man called Josh from suicide. Josh sits, smoking and the words that fall over each other, my words and the words of Naomi, who sits beside them both. Josh is lost. He has lost his kids and slurs his words. He fears the vindication of his ex. I think of Joe. We talk. I ask if they have enough for tomorrow. Naomi is if not content, complete. Josh says no. I give him what I have crumpled in my purse. I know what Simon would have said about fakers, booze and cigarettes. I wonder what would have been enough for a man so alone his dog barked and whined to stop him gassing himself in his car. Whose voice cracks when he speaks of his family. He only speaks of family. I hope he makes it. Maybe his girls will too. Maybe they’ll find each other
I remember a poem from Zimbabwe about the person you become after living so long under the boots of everyone and Naomi comments on my rose. It’s pretty, but it is my flag and battle-shield all rolled in one. I wish I could share how dark it can be in my world but perhaps they already see. I wish it only to let them know there is a way out. They send blessings and speak of angels, but I am not. I hope the angels do help them though. I say their names over and over as I cross the road near the bus shelters, fearful of forgetting. I think in the city I’m so small that I hope a simple memory from someone can stop me floating off into the abyss. Perhaps they do too. I don’t know that it will.
I walk, and with some trepidation over fast food and past ghosts I step into an Asian restaurant. They look ready to close, but bring a menu of welcome. They fill my drink bottle and though they are not cooking I pick some delicious cold noodles and a Vanilla Coke. Like always that Coke makes me smile. They are patient with my shoddy chopstick skills, eating at a table alongside mine and bring me out another small bowl with egg and tomato, they tell me. I am grateful and enjoy their friendly foreign banter, the chipped purple rose, the rice paddy hats and kindness. I clear both tables before I thank them and go. I feel for a small time a part of something
I run completely out of batteries in my iPod. I am flagging too, but full of words and hope and ideas. Without music they are my soundtrack and buffer against the city. As I walk I note that Oportos is not gone as I thought last night. But if I’d eaten there it would have been with so much more anonymity and that frightens me here
The city at night smells of rain and rose geraniums
The light is on when I get to my sister’s flat but I am still alone. There is so much still to wonder. So few answers. I wonder where the questions left unasked go. And where their answers are. Are they like our conscious energy?
Do they find a place in the world to spread their potential?
Maybe that’s where they all wait, as I feel I am waiting.
I think about what I want to make. My words here are inadequate; my attempts at art laughably imperfect (in my eyes). I guess that’s why I have so many words jumbling and bubbling inside, unsaid. I think again of the protest against coal I saw today
The music shop
The Italian pirate blowing bubbles
The morning quiz with my sister and brother in law (it’s not in the paper, but on Istagram now). There is always so much inside to think about, but I need badly to clear my clutter and keep moving
When I write I’m so fearful of pretentiousness and bullshit. Perhaps to move I just need to be without fear. Either way, I am what I am
Images & words 