- When I stop posting I gain followers. Hello new people :)
- It is far too cold
- I am more addicted to Bones each day
- I love the serene level of peace following the end of a book or film. A period of serenity, of slow appreciation for a great piece of literature. In that period it’s like a heavy silence that cannot be broken, where breaking it shatters the illusion. Knowing this, but being aware of the impossibility of permanent silence, you must carefully introduce sound into the environment. Attempting to slowly infiltrate the silence rather than shatter it. Slow, calming music. Natural sounds of life. Rhythmic breathing. Birds calling overhead. Steady sounds that calm the mind, ease it out of the fictional world and into the live one. A feeling of absolute peace, beautiful.
Do you ever wonder if the thoughts you cast aside are actually incites into your future? The bad feelings that you ignore. The miscellaneous loves, of a place or instrument. A talent you find but ignore. The images in your mind. The people who you take unusual notice of. Do you ever wonder if they are actually, at some point in the future, a prominent figure in your life? I just can’t shake the feeling that the things I’m seeing today, the things I’m noticing as particularly special, one day will be.
I’ve become almost obsessed with life and experiences. Not my own, but rather a reflection of the things themselves.
I have this theory, metaphorically. It’s to do with age and life.
Skin is like parchment. At birth it is perfect, clear, smooth. As we age it’s like a story is being written all over our bodies. A story that we’re not recognising; not as a tale, not as our own. The story of our lives continuously being etched into our skin in minute script. As we get older we discover wrinkles forming, scars accumulating, skin drying out. We wonder why. The tiny words detailing our experiences over time form ridges in the skin, the constant engraving into our parchment forms valleys, like a river cutting it’s way through the earth. The biggest experiences are those that leave a scar. Representative of a moment of weakness, of strength or even joy. We may not know what it represents, it may be a secret to even ourselves. Just like parchment, eventually we wrinkle, tear and fade. We stare in the mirror at our valleys of experience, creases of knowledge, and frown. For we have decided that they are undesirable. We see our scars as nothing but a tear in the skin. I see tiny writing scrawled in haste, trying desperately to write it all that it overlaps itself repeatedly. When we can see it with our eyes, when the writing is so thick… it really means something.
Hair is ignorance, innocence even. We begin our lives with full, luscious, bright heads of hair. As we age it slowly fades to grey. It’s like over time as we experience, learn, grow, the colour slowly seeps out. Each day, each lesson, each heartbreak and moment of euphoria leave behind a splash of colour in our wake. Everything we touch leaves a tiny trace of it, picked up by others perhaps or absorbed into the earth. Sharing our life, knowledge and emotions with the world. Unknowingly. I wonder what I’m giving out, and what I’m picking up.
I know this sounds strange, and maybe it only makes sense to me. I don’t know. To me these things are not ugly, should not be covered up. They represent life.
I just realised that the things I love doing most of all, my creative outlets, are all to do with time and preservation. I love to take pictures, to capture the candid moments that fly by every second. These are hard to acquire, people see the camera and alter their activity. But when achieved, it’s magic.
I edit these photos. I love to bring out the rich, vibrant colours. Or simplify them to black and white, unearthing the true meaning. The raw moment.
And lastly, I draw. Every line and shadow is represented with lead on the page. Dragged carefully across the paper, leaving a residue that somehow depicts the image. It too captures the moment, preserving it in time. I don’t know what my fascination is with moments, memories and fleeting opportunities. They’re so powerful. I hope that I can share these with the world; the wonders that pass by every second, teach people to appreciate the small things, open their eyes and see the magical moments. Every second is an opportunity.
That being said, am I missing the point? Is it me who is missing the moments by trying too hard to preserve them? Should I be lowering the lens and seeing through my own eyes, actually experiencing rather than watching and wondering? How do we strike the balance between capturing the moments, and actually being in them?
You don’t have to quote everyone else. You have a mind of your own, use it. Their words are not better than yours, nor are they as true. Explore your own thoughts, discover their meanings and create your own linguistic masterpieces.
My brother is one of those people who has always avoided family, ignored us whenever possible and acted like a caveman all through my childhood. He becomes sociable outside of home; at work, school, uni. Anywhere away from family. It’s always been strange to see that kind of reverse home comfort, but in a way it’s as if he didn’t have to try at home. He struggles socially I think, he’s more shy than me even. But his ignorant attitude always upset mum. He was the loveliest big brother when he was little, caring for my two older sisters and I as small children. Somewhere along the way it changed.
But sometimes, especially lately, it’s like he’s beginning to change back. Now when he flies home for Christmas he actually participates in conversation, tells jokes, laughs, smiles. He said in conversation the importance and pleasure of spending time with family at Christmas. It’s lovely. Every so often he puts something on facebook that reminds me he still cares. It’s nice to see, it’s really really nice :’)
xx
I love seeing people in their natural environment, how they act when they think no one is watching. The way they move their hands, their facial expressions, the absolute comfort within themselves.
The person who sits in the corner with their iPod, softly slapping their palms against their knees in time with the music, shaking their head absorbing the rhythm.
The person with the sketchpad in their lap, furiously scribing their artwork. You can see the passion exploding from them onto the page. Or the quiet one who draws a line at a time, as if they’re soaking in the magic of their creation.
The person who sings at any opportunity. When you see them tapping their foot and thriving with the music of their lungs, roaring their song. If only as loud as a whisper.
Seeing them in their element, when they’re doing something that makes them happier than any other thing in the world. Taken away from the expectations of life, of conversation, fashion, academia. The raw person. Being who they want to be, lost in the moment.
Magic is created when thoughts are broken.
It’s so strange seeing someone who you used to know, used to share every moment with, know every detail about…suddenly have this new life. Not from a trail of deceit, but perfectly legitimate reasons - moved cities for example.
I look through their page on facebook, I see the photos and it’s so hard to fathom. The idea, reality rather, that they know each and every one of those people. Those buildings. That city. Everything. Because that’s their life now. Not you, not your city, your friends. They have a new life. I’m ok with that, like we’re still friends and all, if for whatever reason I found myself in Gympie we’d probably talk until morning! It’s just strange seeing your old best friend in their new life.
Never has the song ‘somebody that I used to know’ made so much sense.
(Wow, just spelt sense as “snece” haha I should really go to bed :)
Tomorrow is Australia day, and yesterday I was given an Australian flag to hang from the windows of my car. As much as I love a day to celebrate our country, I hate that it is a day of mourning for the Indigenous population. I really wish they’d change the date.
Today, after hours of searching, I finally found an Aboriginal flag.
It is now hanging proudly next to the Australian flag, showing support for the truest Australians of us all ♥
There is a certain kind of beauty that accompanies age. The knowledge, the experiences. Every wrinkle in the skin represents ancient emotions, felt so many times that they actually left impressions in the skin. It’s hard to imagine emotions powerful enough to do that.
It’s hard to imagine because I’m so young. So naive. Just seventeen. Most of my life has been encapsulated in school. Every year equals a grade, a school, a structured lifestyle with planned and predictable events. Now it’s all over, I’ve graduated, I’m free.
That’s 13 years in school. Thirteen years of my life institutionalised with no option of bail. Whether the sentence is wanted or not matters little.
After all this time, being taught right from wrong, yes from no, being educated in every way possible. I ask myself- am I any different at all? How does the little girl in preschool compare to me today? In preschool I didn’t say a word to my classmates or teachers the entire year. So painfully shy, I never spoke. This year I talked, but never to the level that everyone else did. I was never able to strike up a conversation with people I wanted to, but didn’t know as well or was intimidated by. I guess they can’t teach that in school.
I am good at shadowing. I’m good at standing beside someone quietly while they talk, nodding along and smiling, when I eventually realise I haven’t said a word it becomes my focus to do the simplest action- SPEAK! Why is it so difficult? I’ll never know if the class viewed me as shy or stupid.
All this time. So much time. So little. It’s hard to tell.
These years are supposed to be the best in your life. It’s when you’re at your most beautiful, healthy, relaxed… confident. I’m going the other way. Each year I get more confident, less shy, more able to act and feel like a normal person. By the time I’m comfortable enough in my skin, it will be wrinkled, aged and sore. I will have wasted my youth looking at the ground (the view of which changes very little over time). Will I have laughed enough to get the happy wrinkles? Will I have experienced enough to sit my grand-kids down to stories about my life? Will my life have been lived enough to allow me to sit back, with my soft skin and faded hair, knowing that I experienced everything I could? It’s so hard to live your life, not knowing what the future will bring, or what the past has given you. We just have to treasure what we have, and love it all in its entirety. It’s the only way to live a happy life xx
