Kaleidoscope

Change

Sometimes, you just have to.

Clinicism

If only I could see...

This is where I've been living for the past six months. By now, I've been around here long enough to not feel like an intruder. Comfortable? Physically, yes. By now, I know the streets well enough to not be intimidated by them, I've made my peace with the buses and trains that are few and far between, I've learned to not allow my stomach to turn at the sanitised feel of this place, have started to acknowledge, if not even appreciate, its impeccably manicured lawns and parks and the orderly, perfectly worded street signs, have tamed my blood from a raging boil to a muted simmer at the ruthless lines of its skylines and business suits, the cold efficiency with which the CBD functions, with its Red CATs chockful with crisp, ambitious hearts and heels. Heck, at times, I even genuinely chirrup and smile at my soy mocha dispensers. So does this mean I'm giving in? Have I resigned? Have I made my peace with this life?

Not even by a long shot. I walk here supported entirely by a pair of crutches, deprived of which I'm hopelessly handicapped. Joylessly empty. Beloved as she is to the people who call this place home, this city means nothing to me.

Spirit

Let Down

Transport, motorways and tramlines,
Starting and then stopping,
Taking off and landing,
The emptiest of feelings,
Disappointed people, clinging on to bottles,
And when it comes it's so, so, disappointing.

More in yesterday's vein. I finished my book and promptly, predictably, with clockwork precision, (I'd add "almost beautifully", except, well, gloom isn't terrifically beautiful most of the time...) sank like a stone into unshakeable gloom. Spent a sleepless night trying to sort and swim through the mire in my head, to keep from sinking, seeking clarity where none can possibly exist. No matter how desperately I tried, I couldn't for the life of me articulate, dissect, enunciate, untangle even a fraction of the intangibles in my head. Made me wonder what hope there is of creating meaningful bonds and profound connections with other people, when all the million parts of your own mind appear to be entirely incommunicado each other.

I meant to goad my brain into substantial clarity this morning and write so much more today, speak so much more, attempt to begin to explain, at the least, why it is that a book, a certain book, can crush me so, and why it is precisely for that reason that I love it beyond definition, so futilely, and all I can come up with is the completely, appallingly pretentious - It's me. I don't mean that I harbour any ridiculous pretentions of feeling like the book is about me at all. Just that, somehow, the way it makes me feel every single time I read it - that sense of recognition, like meeting an old, most dear friend, colliding headlong with old thoughts, old ideas, old feelings, that are still mine and that I still haven't lost, regardless of the passing of time and of distance and of experience - is what makes this the most precious thing in the world to me. It's my mirror. It defines me.

Right, that is really the best I can do. Do forgive.

 

Catcher

I don't know if it's possible to love a certain favourite book to death forever. Only because 'forever' is a scary as hell word. I have a bunch I love madly, blindly, vehemently, but sometimes, when I reread a much loved and devoured book after some amount of time, ever so heartbreakingly, I realise I feel differently about it now. Not necessarily bad differently, but just, different. The book remains the same, but you change. And I'm not even talking about books you may have read thousands of years ago. Sometimes, even if it's just been a few months since you last read those familiar, comfortable, fluid lines, suddenly, ever so subtly, something has drained away from them. From you. It's the most terrible feeling in the world. Outgrowing things. And people. And music. Worse still, it's completely inevitable.

Page 173

Which is why, sometimes, I need to reread a book as a sort of self-assessment. A reminder. Like an annual medical, to see if I'm still... me. And for now, to my complete, unadulterated, compelling relief, eight years down the line, I still am.

The Gloaming

This near about killed me.

 

Fun Fact of the Day!

*blink*
Here goes...

Fact: Music, ice cream, photographs, and the colour purple make the world a better place.

Really. I really, really mean it. God-promise!

Angel Hair

Both Sides, Now

by Joni Mitchell

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Wet

Perth

Bombay

On A Nerve

I find this whole blogging thing fabulously fascinating. The more I think about it, the more I go "Hmmmm". Millions of people all over the world, all trying to say something, veiled and smothered in layers of superfluity and words and ideas and images, everyone aching to be understood, longing to speak without inhibition, to be brutally honest, dying to come right out and say it, desperate to be really 'seen', weary of lying, yet, terrified of being discovered, naked. And yet, tremulously, secretly, shockingly hoping to be stripped, just a little bit, exposed, just a tad. A leg, perhaps. Shin. Forearm. Neck. Shoulder. Back. Knee.

We blog, and we blog, and blog some more, listen to music some more, share, and hum, and take photographs, and share, and tell stories, and talk, and talk, and play more music, and laugh and discuss, and share, and speak, and listen, and really listen, and discover, and think, and imagine, and daydream, and dream, and sleep, and share. And all the while, anxiously keeping watch over that inherent sense of loneliness that we fight our entire lives to dilute, with no hope or expectation of it ever dissolving away entirely, but looking to see if today, maybe today, it will ebb, even if it's just by a millimetre.

Enough, already

I've made my peace...

Memory is a godawfully treacherous thing. How easily it lets you forget all that was unpleasant, and dried up, and dark, and unsettling, and melancholic, and just… wrong. Like food you remember having made faces at. Beetroot, for example. You give it another shot, years down the line from that fateful day in kindergarten, wondering if you'd feel differently now, but it's "Gahhhhh!" and that nauseous feeling all over again. And how delicately memory preserves all that was wonderful, and beautiful, and harmonious, and perfect. Like gorgeous Bombay rain. Naturally, you've conveniently forgotten the squelchy, fetid post-rain-puddles at Kanjurmarg station. But, hell... I guess the mind does need to work that way. I imagine we’d all kill ourselves if all we could remember were the horrid things. It’s just, sometimes, it's hideously inconvenient. Almost makes you want to wipe it clean. Almost.

 

Reminiscence

I'd be hard pressed to decide what I consider the most brilliant high in the world -- discovering the most heartbreakingly, achingly, gorgeously perfect piece of music and lyrics, or a connection. The beauty of it all is that, for me, neither can ever get old. I could never tire of this variety of intoxication.

*seethe*

I haven't been this furious since 2001. The year I read Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Then, I felt murderous. Incensed, completely, gut-wrenchingly enraged that I had wasted a month (yep, books that excruciating absolutely go on forever) of my life reading a bunch of words that said so little and were so much rubbish. Maddening.

And then, last night. After ploughing (at 600-odd pages, I imagine 'ploughing' is more or less appropriate) through Dan Brown's Angels and Demons for about a week now, I finally had it. Committed sacrilege, I did. Did something I've never done, swore I would never do.

*whisper*

I skimmed.

*shudder*

I swear, I swear, a book has to be that horribly bad for me to skim through it after a week of dedicated ploughing, just to get it over with. Honest! It really, really was. I still can't get over the fact that the man has written 600 pages about one day in a manner so sensationalistic, so hackneyed, so cheap-Hollywood-thriller-type, so... so... arrrghhhhhhhing!

I could really get into the gory details. I'm itching to bitch. There's so much I have to say about this book, so many bones to pick, so many issues I have with so much of it, the plot, the filmy-ness, the characters, the raciness, the crappiness of it all... So much to diss! I really, really am dying to vent heaps more vitriol, except I promised myself last night, as I melted into pacifying sleep, that I'd let it go. Be the bigger person (Yeah, right! Like I have! *grin*) Not allow my blood pressure to shoot up over a book. It is, after all, a book. Words. Sticks and stones, not...

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breatheeee out. Peace. Hush... Zzzzz. Dreams. Calmness. The ocean. Shhh. Escape.

Sigh.

*beam*

Like cows in the city, they never looked so pretty

You're just playing a part

Good moods are completely gorgeous things. Especially those fuelled by an entirely unexpected sense of well-being you sometimes find yourself engulfed in when you wake up in the morning. Or by a certain piece of music. Or the delightfully crisp weather. Or a sudden, mild, irresistible ephiphany. Or a soy mocha.

There's no time, to analyse

A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibility

Sydney continued

This is an attempt to make up for my cowardly escape last night, coz I'd really be gypping Sydney of no little amount of justice by not writing about it all. Not like anyone's checking, but still. Here goes nothing.

We reached Sydney on Sunday night and toppled into this derelict-looking backpackers' joint. Hostel, not spliff. Was a considerable comedown from the luxuries (yes, luxuries) of a marine vessel, but once it registered that there we were, in Sydney, doing the whole backpacking-travelling-being-on-the-road thing, instantly all the grime, and creaking staircases, funny-smelling rooms, and noisy (trust me, there's no better word) beds seemed hugely thrilling. Terribly exciting. We were excited as hell! Yay! *hop hop jump hop and everything!*

The next morning we discovered that we were, in fact, located on a perfectly lovely street, with trees and things. And a great breakfast place where we would end up tucking away utterly scrumptious grub over the next three days. I guess it helped that we sat at the al fresco tables and watched the world (or as much of the 'world' that would go by on a quiet Sydney bylane) go by as we gulped down mouthfuls of the most delectable muesli, fruit bruchettas, and steaming hot mochas and flat whites (I spent my first month in Perth in morbid terror of the word... had absolutely no idea what sort of coffee this 'flat white' thing defined, and, like a frightened puppy, consistently kept asking for lattes. Of course, as all things come to pass, it turns out that flat whites are really what I like most. Strong coffee, with a good amount of milk, but not as much as in lattes. Aahhhhh!)

We headed out soon after breakfast, and discovered, just around the corner, a glimpse of all the promise that lay ahead. Cityscapes, towers, harbours, bridges, yatches, urbanisation at its peak. Very unlike the sights (as my older posts clearly indicate) I usually fancy. And yet, so inexplicably inviting. It never ceases to amaze me, this travelling thing. Just how relentlessly, consistently, reliably exhilarating it always ends up being, whether it's bobbing about in a strait at 5 knots, or gasping in the biting cold of the Himalayas, or gulping at an unabashedly twinkly city at night.

Sydney appears to be one of the few cities (alright, so I'll admit I've only seen three!) in Australia that has some semblance of culture. Culture being, in the most minimal terms (well, my terms... *grin*), spires.

Decidedly cultural, yes. Then, turn your head a few degrees and stare in surpise at Australia's tallest building, which, by itself, isn't entirely awe-inspiring, but the views from the top are definitely impressive.

The 'tiny' arch that you see in the previous picture is something called the Anzac Memorial, which was built as a tribute to all the Aussie and Kiwi soldiers who died in World War I. Alright, so I didn't know that this continent was into the whole World War thing. So sue me. Actually, it is rather embarrassing, I'll admit. My school history teacher must be grimacing... not. I wonder if she knows... *grin* Right, I'm just being bitchy. Ah, but the memorial itself. Nice arch-thing. Except that there was a hideously brash American Express building right behind it, which completely uglified all but one of the pictures I took of the memorial.

I rather liked the pond in front of the memorial heaps more, actually.
*grin*

What followed was one of the best sunsets I've seen in a city in a very, very long time. My frumpy little camera tried and tried, but just couldn't bring its arms around to capture everything I saw that evening, so what follows is the best it could manage. I forgive it. I still am terribly fond of my frumpy Canon, despite its glaring shortcomings, as some people so painstakingly point out *chuckle*. But it does try so hard!

The Opera House itself is a very pretty thing. Closer inspection reveals that it isn't white at all, but is made of self-cleaning, pale yellow tiles. I forget what material. Irrelevant. Anyway, I like the fact that it so crazily shaped. Completely appeals to my idea of potty architecture. I'm aware I could be lynched for that statement, considering the fact that fervent thought had been put into designing the thing, with perfect circles and spheres and orange peels and the like. Really. Yet, to me, it's wonderfully lopsided, and delightfully wild.

Possibly the most surprisingly brilliant part of this breakneck tour of Sydney was a visit to the oddly named Manly Beach. Aussies, I tell you. Anyway, it was the tiniest of beaches, completely unremarkable, except for the fact that somehow, it was just perfect. Sitting there in the most comfortable silence, soaking in the ocean (right, there's something to be said about the fact that none of us thought twice about heading out to a beach, despite having spent 5 weeks on a ship!), not moving a muscle aside those involved in desultory picture-clicking, feeling ridiculously, undeservingly content and at peace, loved... a flawless slice of heaven.

The next day, it was time to move on. Fittingly, the sky exploded for a bit in the morning. Poured. Washed the entire city, and killed me with the achingly sweet scent of wet mud. Made me long for Bombay all over again. But in that moment, Sydney was just as good, which is saying a lot. A whole lot of lot.