How to Lose Your Grip and Alienate Yourself

Because it is so lonely to be unwillingly wide awake at 1am. And no matter how okay you have been this week, here in the raw midnight air, the tell-tale tune tinkles in your mind, reminding you that you don’t really belong anywhere. You don’t have history here and you don’t have a future there, and you’ve alway been shit at being present. There is always this distance between you and the world and you imagine it like standing in wheat-fields in the middle of nowhere where even the wind is quiet.

So the last few days have been good. You’ve been drinking again which always makes you happy, and you’ve been exercising being imperfect. You’ve met some worthy people and have managed not to hate yourself as much.

But then tonight comes, and you feel so small in the noiseless night, and even though you are okay, those fields are there and you feel horribly, terrifically alone. And when you cry, its not because you feel wretched, but because it’s so damn familiar. Because maybe the fields are your home after all. Because you doubt, in such a simple, resigned way, that you will ever feel connected to the world for a prolonged period of time. You cannot imagine ever feeling not-alone. You have wasted your youth not feeling good enough and feeling sorry for yourself. And while you are sick over this, you wonder if perhaps others feel the same constant alienation, if maybe this sharp loneliness is normal and you are simply too weak to deal with it.

It astounds you how depression makes us so ungrateful for our exquisite lives.

It astounds you every time you realise how much you need, how much you have to give, how little you get sometimes.

It astounds you that someone as loved as you could feel so alone so much of the time.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, there is always tomorrow.

Perfectly Human

I go for a walk to clear my mind. I always forget that fresh air is medicine. But it’s not working, not today. jMy body still feels full of heavy fog, there’s too much space between me and anyone. Breathing is tight. I am so disappointed with myself for not going to the gym. I would feel fine now if I had. And even though I’m better at this, I still didn’t go today and I’m tired of relying on tomorrows.

I take a turn, frustrated because walking works, and then I pick up the pace and that’s when I realise that I just haven’t been walking fast enough, and suddenly I feel like running. My skin shivers, my thighs tingle, and I want to run away from the sunset, into the night, but at the same time I want to keep standing here on this street corner, drawing the silhouettes of how I feel and colouring in my analyses.

And later, after walking until I was swallowed by bright city lights. After pinching a glimpse of a flamenco dancer in a tiny burgundy bar. After mistaking many bottle caps for lucky coins, and watching a torn straw hat dance on the road like an American Beauty plastic bag. After wishing I had not failed myself so rookie-shly by wearing something nondescript, something so shamefully plain. After searching for stars and finding none, and attributing the lack of romanticism to my own shortcomings. After all this I realise that a fuckload of my unhappiness has hell-deep roots in perfectionism.

Because in my mind, I can only be worthy of love if my nails (all twenty) are always impeccably manicured. That is why I can be an hour late because I can’t find the right earrings for that outfit. And why, if I feel fat, I won’t go out at all. I need to wow the world every waking moment. 

I freaked out yesterday because I hadn’t done my washing and there were no matching underwear sets. I had to wear a black bra with something black and fuchsia. Since adolescence I have torn out pages with more than one mistake– I have rewritten whole essays because I didn’t like my handwriting, even if I was only going to get a C.

My standards are crippling me. It is okay to separate books into various categories (read/havent read, all alphabetised of course) but I cannot start a new book without finishing one so maybe I won’t read for weeks. It is okay to colour-co-ordinate the closet but do you have any idea how much effort it is to put everything back? And so I am crazy-messy. Even when I polish cutlery, I have a system- order of prestige (fork, knife, spoon, teaspoon), and then always in multiples of seven. And the more aware I become, the more I realise how many quirks I have, how much  need to control.

What does all this mean?

I have arrived at one major conclusion– I do not have the courage to be myself, to trust that I am enough. And I don’t know when I started believing that chipped nail polish made me worthless, or why my only options are to be the epitome of beauty or utter ugliness. I don’t know when I started believing that everyone was allowed to be naturally, beautifully flawed, except for me. But it explains my high-strung, underachieving self so fucking well. And god, maybe now I can learn how to let myself be human.

Listen

Listen/ to the rain and the still night falling in love, my heart punching my ribs because I want to live so much damn it, five girls and John Farnham at 2am, the flood of boys and their waves of compliments, the awkward silence where your easy laughter used to be, the sound the sunlight makes when it hits your skin, love ringing like church bells, the calligraphy of I-like-you smiles, hope being unwrapped again, the rain, the rain, the rain.

Annual Questionnaire 2012

What was 2012 for you?

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?

I went vegan…ish.
I had a holiday romance.
I wasn’t afraid to say NO.
I decided I liked dates. The fruit. AND EVEN FIGS. DRIED ONLY.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn’t make any resolutions. This year, I am launching a Happiness Project. It is the second day of the year and I still haven’t decided on the themes but, you know, whatever.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No one close, but people I know.

5. What countries did you visit?

Bali, baby! Baby coconuts, electric-green rice-fields, cocktails, temples, monkeys, surfers, nom nom nom, getting a good feeling, sunsets, thunderstorms, offerings to the gods, speaking Indo, private pools, accidental bikini wax duets, mani-pedis, the list goes on…

6. What would you like to have had in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

Kisses! And moneyyyy. And partying! I will NOT be saying this in one year!!

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

March 13th when I moved to Australia. November 13th when I went to Bali. The birth dates of my lovers. The last three guys I dated had birthdays while I was with them. That’s funny.

I gave a much more detailed account of this last year.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I suppose I should say getting into Melbourne University. I applied on a whim.

But actually, my greatest achievement this year has been finding the strength to hope again, to keep trying to do life, whatever that means. Also, I am learning how to give more without sacrificing myself. I became a lot more assertive this year but  also more accepting.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I’m not sure I believe in failures anymore. But for the sake of the question, I would have to say that I didn’t manage to keep my body in shape.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Some stomach issues. Unforch. Several times.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

J’adore my iPhone, Xavier. Some much needed clothes. And my bindhis.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Every beautiful soul I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this year. And the beautiful souls that stick around. For loving me and holding the space. And my mother’s, always, for listening without waiting, for giving without expecting.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

No one’s. If someone lets me down, I try to let it go. No point in holding on. No expectations, no disappointments.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Travel. Good food.Bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

BALI!! And uni. And new friends.

16. What song will always remind of you 2012?

Je Pense a Toi by Amadou and Mariam.
Get a Good Feeling by Flo Rida.
We Found Love by Rihanna.
What Reminds Me by Royskopp.
A Good Year for the Roses by Elvis Costello.
Acapella by Kelis.
The Art of Noise by Cee-lo and Pharell Williams.
Rainbow Warriors and Terrible Angels by Cocorosie.
Ugly Girl by Fiona Apple.
Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell.
Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn.
Gravity by Sara Bareilles.
Baby It’s You by The Shirelles.
Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover by Simon and Garfunkel

17. Compared to this time last year, are:

a)happier or sadder? 

b)thinner or fatter? 

c) richer or poorer?

Happier.
Fatter.
Richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Been kinder to myself. WORKED OUT. Yoga and meditation. Laughed.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Watching TV. And procrastinating, GOD. Stressing.

20. Did you fall in love in 2010?

No, but that’s okay.

21. What was your favourite TV program?

Offspring.

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No!

23. What was the best book you read?

A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin and Answered Prayers by Truman Capote.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?

See above.

25. What did you want and get?

To get into uni. A holiday romance. Score!

26. What did you want and not get?

For life to magically get easier. To be saved. But I don’t want that anymore. At least, not in the same way.

27. What was your favourite film of this year?

I don’t think I watched any. The Bachelorette maybe.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 27. For the first time ever, I decided not to celebrate. I think I wanted to see what people would do. The answer is- not much. Now I don’t even remember what I did. I’ll make up for it this year!

29. How you would describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Colour, colour, colour! I dress younger. I experiment more. I’ve also gone back to my boho roots.

30. What kept you sane?

Meeting people who GET IT. Writing. The idea of perseverance. Awakening.

31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Whatever.

32. Who did you miss?

Most people I love.

33. Who was the best new person you met?

Karin, Ellie, Sarah, Indra, Talitha, Hamish.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

That all you can do is to keep going. And you do that by taking it one day at a time. Also, I’m not weak- life is fucking hard. And it’s not about being happy, but being alive.

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Uhm… Can I get back to you on this one? And by that I mean: I am going to ignore this question like I did the other years: 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Courage

At my age, it should be okay to spend the holidays away from home, but I’m a self-professed mama’s girl, and beyond that, it’s the first time I know so few people in one city. Homesicknesses isn’t ageist.

I opted to spend my first Australian holidays in Sydney. I assumed that being with my sister would make everything okay. It didn’t. She is a person with many wonderful qualities… it’s just that they don’t really extend to me. According to her, I am spoilt, irresponsible and self-involved. Which I am. But I know that I am also more.

There were two rounds of arguments. 

Round I took place on Christmas Eve and ended with tears (mine) and some heads buried in sand (hers). A 5 a.m. call to my mother, and a gin with my beautiful aunt later, I waltzed into her other family’s party like nothing happened. 

The peace lasted for 42 hours. 

Round II was impressive because I actually got her to tell me why she’s angry with me. Kind of. She yelled at me for minutes- I should have done my Christmas shopping earlier, I use ’I’ too much, I have no patience for political conversations. I am obviously a sinner. Naturally, I started to defend myself.

And then I stopped. Because I do not need to defend myself. I spent the first half of my twenties half-heartedly trying to do what was expected from me and no one was happy. There is nothing wrong with office jobs and mortgages and saving for rainy days and shit. It’s just not me. It doesn’t make happy. That kind of life is like I’ve got a dead dog that I’ve beat the shit out of. It’s like my sister is saying that it’s better to have a dead dog for a pet than a llama.

The funny thing is that that argument didn’t make me feel lonely. I realised that this is exactly what they mean when they say that it takes courage to live unconventionally. I realised this and I felt empowered. I don’t have anything to prove.

And neither do you.

We can lead whatever lives we want. I am one term into my degree and I’m already looking at work in Bali and India in case I want to pop over next year. Crazy? Sure. But why not? Stability is wonderful…if that’s what you want. 

Friends, you do not need to defend your life-choices. Ever.
You do not need to listen to the one negative voice in a choir of positive ones.

Go on spontaneous holidays.
Cry when you need to.
Smile at as many strangers as you dare.
Laugh when they call you a hippy like it’s a bad thing.
Let them be impatient with your neuroses.
Always try to see where they’re coming from, even if they refuse to move.
Don’t be afraid to look cute boys in the eyes.
Don’t bite your tongue, just let it go.
Wear tiaras to breakfast. 
Don’t worry if people think you’re nuts.
Be kind to yourself.
Remember that THIS is what they mean when they say that it’s difficult to be different. 

You Can’t Reject What Was Never Yours

I’m making omelettes with our memories while you walk on the eggshells of what you think I want. I can hear your porcelain words through the page, the worry that I will stick to the pan of your promises. I can see all this cooking in your head because I too am a chef in the kitchen of inflated egos. My ego is the perfect fucking souffle.

 

Darling, my words were never double-edged. I never talked to you in anagrams. I didn’t pose questions as nets, or use compliments as crossword puzzles. Did you think that I would fall into the space of your absent messages? All I can think of is that you don’t know how to spell. Your punctuation is elusive, as if I didn’t already know that your feelings for me are just ellipses. But I will not melt for syrupy darrrlings in any language.

 

Sugar, when I said you weren’t my equal, I meant that your whole is my fraction. When you subtract yourself, 99% of me doesn’t flinch. Don’t get me wrong, our tongues were good at finding X together but I do not need you to solve any of my equations. The cup of your palm might be perfect for the volume of my breasts but the statistics show that this is a common phenomenon. You assumed you could fill my hunger with your watered down vows but you are only a canoe sailing by my iceberg heart. You couldn’t hit me with a compass.

Don’t overestimate the dent you made in my bed. I didn’t find religion in your mouth so, no, I don’t miss it. I might have smiled like the sunrise, but I didn’t see stars in your eyes. Your promises were petal-delicate but less pretty. You think you’re letting me down easy but the truth is you never made me that hard. 

You see, darling, you can’t reject what was never yours.

Perception -or- Beautiful and Magnificent

Sometimes I listen to him so intently, I forget to do the poses. He talks for the entire hour -his voice low and raw, his eyes closed- about feeling the energy from our core to our tips. He ends every class by telling us that we are beautiful and magnificent. He fascinates me. This delicate Seal with his cocoa, elastic body and intense, brooding energy.

Today I put my mat at the back of the room and tried not to be distracted. But at some point we caught eyes and something happened. Neither of us looked away. He didn’t skip a beat, he kept talking, but his eyes did not flinch from mine. And mine didn’t drop his either. Around me, my fellow yogis were moving into the next position but I stayed, locked. I wasn’t thinking, I just couldn’t look away. He was looking at me without hesitation. His eyes cut through me. That’s why I couldn’t look away But what about him?

I pulled out my journal as soon as class ended and walked out writing, feeling pleasantly unsettled. I wrote down the mantra he instructed us to choose. Banish those negative thoughts- anxiety, depression, fear. What do you need? Repeat it to yourself. I am…

I am alive.
I am connected.
I am free.

I forgot about him on the way home because I had a heated discussion with my sister about pain. I am tired of defending my right to pain. She doesn’t understand how depression eclipses my life, or the weariness of staving it off. I tell her that just because I don’t advertise my daily struggle, doesn’t mean I don’t suffer. I tell her that many people have told me I am the happiest person they know, which is a sign of the marvellous mask I wear. It’s all about perception. 

Bali-boy reprimanded me yesterday when he told me I looked fine and I said, I know I look fine, but fine is not good enough for me. I want to look incredible. And he observed that I am always so sure of myself, and I should just accept a compliment. His observation perplexed me. How could I come across as so confident when I feel constantly crippled by self-doubt? It’s all about perception.

I went for a walk this evening. I wore little black shorts, a tank top, flip-flops. Clothes I never wear out side the house. The plan was to pop across the street and get an ice-cream. But when I stepped out onto the street, the summer night hugged me and I started walking. I felt good. I walked for half an hour. When I finally walked into the corner shop and asked for ice-cream, the Chinese geriatric giggled. We had a moment and then wished each other warm goodnights. I felt alive.

I stopped to take in the sky on the way back. The stars are unfamiliar here but I love them anyway. I felt connected.

Almost back home, three young men were loitering by the side of the road. One of them (hot) asked me for the time. I told him without slowing down, my voice cracking with a chuckle, because we all knew he didn’t need me to tell him the time. I felt good. It’s all about perception.

It occurred to me today that perhaps I ought to listen to myself less. That maybe, just maybe, I ought to believe who people think I am. It’s my own perception that is skewed. If I just remember to believe everyone else, I think I’ll be okay. I might be beautiful and magnificent. I might even be free.

Appetite

I can feel their eyes like fingertips at my nape, I can feel them curve down my body, flick over my hipbones, grip the dip behind my knees. And I feed off these gazes because I’m eye-eating them too, even if they don’t realise it. The almond-coloured boy with the tattoos that I frowned at every time we caught eyes. The pretty blonde boy on the bicycle that turned around to smile at me. The fuller-figured flirt that gold-starred my outfit when I asked for a lighter. The man with Jolie lips and Pocahontas hair that stared at me before he turned a corner. Suddenly men are everywhere. What came first? Is my appetite drawing them to me or has it always been like this and I am only noticing it now? I’m surprised by my desire. Each glance, each smile is the possibility of an adventure. It’s all rather exciting.

I’m so hungry! It’s like I’m sitting in a fine restaurant with my hands clasped over my mouth, starving because I’m too scared to take a bite of something new. I think a lot about the men I haven’t met just because I was too frightened to look back at them. All I’ve ever learnt from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you. I’m not sure how to unlearn this lesson. Experience has taught me that men want me because there is something unattainable about me. Tell me how to unlearn this.

I carry these men around with me. I remember their gazes and their smiles. I wonder who they are, what their voices sound like, how they hold cutlery, what their kisses taste like. And it’s funny in an unfunny way because I’m sure that, to them I am just some cold girl who didn’t give them the time of day. The deception of perception is fascinating.

But god, I’m hungry. I swear, if one of those boys dares to find my eyes, I might just have to devour him.

I wonder whose eyes I’ll reel in tomorrow and vice versa.

See

I turned the tap and asked him his temperature preferences. This man has been inside me but I don’t know how he takes his showers.

‘Cold,’ he said. ‘Always cold showers in Bali.’

I like my cold showers during summer time too but not on this day. He stood in the corner. He didn’t want to share, probably doesn’t know how. I turned the tap to warm. Then warmer.

Suddenly I said, ‘As a teenager, when I felt distressed, I would take hot showers. And slowly I would tweak the tap until the water was boiling, and sit there, hot and hurting, almost meditating, I guess.’
His face scrunched up. ’You like pain?!’

And I felt exposed then. Because he didn’t get it. Or maybe because he was uncomfortable with pain at all.

I shrugged and told him that yes, perhaps I did. But I turned the tap to cool anyway.

It was our last morning together. It was also his birthday. The night before involved me accidentally getting too drunk to talk to his friends, us popping a shit pill, dropping into a techno club full of prostitutes, and ended sitting on a dirty beach. When we sat down, I was very quiet. This was not the romantic goodbye-night I had had in mind. He asked me what was wrong but I could only speak with my eyes. Eventually he pulled me in and I let him. He said, ‘I like you.’ And I reciprocated. He said, ‘I see you,’ and I nodded weakly because, uhm, NO. It’s a beautiful thing to say but it wasn’t true.

I have an adore/abhor relationship with pain. That sounds complicated. But it’s not. Emotionally, I have suffered simply because I have an aptitude for self-destruction. That’s the bit I resent. But throughout my life I have sought out physical pain too. Along with the scalding showers, I had a nasty cutting habit that took me years to shake. If I couldn’t get my hands on a scalpel, I would dig my nails into my skin, or pull my hair, or even slap myself. And when I did these things, I felt good. Because a cut or a bruise is legitimate pain, pain you cannot ignore. If was hysterical before cut, afterwards I felt calm. And if I was cold before, afterwards I felt the sadness and cried. Self-harm was an escape. Then, those cuts were what I needed to do to survive. And now, I am who I am because of my pain. And even though I’ve modified the escape routes, that pain is still there.

My Bali-boy was sweet, and I know he liked me. And I know he believed it when he said he would commit to me if we lived in the same country. But he couldn’t see me, only the idea of me. And that means that he couldn’t see the other empty-promise scars or the diet-decalration holes. He couldn’t see how much words mean to me, or how I think every kiss is sacred. He couldn’t see the therapy in romance, or that shallow encounters are not worth my time. He couldn’t see my roots, my pain, ergo he couldn’t see me. 

The Broken Woman Ifestus

 

1. Remember that you were born in the sky: you don’t have veins, you have constellations; you don’t have blood, you have moonshine; you don’t have lungs, you have clouds; you don’t have a brain, you have a nebula; you don’t have a heart, you have an aurora.
2. Study The Universe. Get a Spinster of Hearts. Get a Mistress in Compassion and Dignity.
3. Your brain is overworked and underpaid, and your heart is a fucked up little rainbow punching bag. But your gut is your guru and you should shut up and listen because it knows even more than your earth mother.
4. Just because some people are simple as arithmetic, doesn’t mean you should pretend you’re not more like chaos theory.
5. Stop forgetting that you are loved. Keep trying to love yourself; you’ll get there one day.
6. THERE IS NO NEED TO BE FUCKING AGGRESSIVE. You do not need to bark to be heard. Instead, be the sound that leaves make in the wind. Only poets will hear you. This is okay.
7. When your heart breaks, don’t cut yourself on the pieces. Use them to make a stained-glass collage of your acquired compassion, of your courage, of your capacity for pain.
8. Do not be afraid to break. Never stop breaking. The cracks are how the light shines through.
9. Let go of the need to know. You will know when it’s time to know. Never before.
10. Smoke if you got ‘em. Let go if you don’t.
11. Pro tip for life: do epic shit and be fucking kind. The End.

‘Timmay!’ they shout. They want my attention. ‘Timmay!’
I turn and look at them– two attractive thirty-something year olds holding a bottle of champagne and a martini. I smile and look back for the tram. There is a girl on a bicycle at the traffic lights. She says, ‘They’re not exactly the poster for alcohol.’
I say, ‘Or romance.’ 
We smile at each other- two city girls seeking poetry in urbanity.

I spend the entire trip home writing philosophical iliads to loved ones. I write about feeling alive, of deceitful perception, of being loved. 

When I step off the tram, my cardigan falls off one shoulder and I let it. I run along the pavement ust for the hell of it. I expose my shoulders. The pocket of my collarbone catches raindrops. The moon glows behind the inkblot clouds. These moments are what make my life.

Yesterday I sat on the front porch and wrote letters and danced and smoked. These moments make my life.

It is late and I should sleep. I have work tomorrow and I have drunk too much and not eaten enough. But there is lightning at the window –God being obsessive-compulsive with his light-switches. And writing is living and I’m not sure what sleep is.

 

She told me that as soon as you are intimate with someone you become special to them, regardless of the conclusion. We are so much more signficant than we think we are. And if we’re not, that’s okay too.

 

Is There a Word for Laughing and Crying at the Same Time?

I stay in bed for 27hours. In that time, I catch up on my shows, I read a letter, I cry, I write, I cry again, I consider eating, I don’t eat, I write some more.

I wake up super late feeling muffled. I watch another show. I cry. I think about that letter. I get up. I unpack. Almost everything is dirty. I feel guilty for not buying presents. I realise I came back with a lof of books. I don’t realise that I am making a pile of things that smell like Bali. I stop every now and then to smell them– the lemongrass soap, the sweat, the incense, the palmtrees, the heat.

I shuffle around the room, still muffled, with a tan that makes my skin feel more like home. What happened just before the moment  threw my arms up and said, ‘I want to live, damn it’? I don’t know. But I did it, I said it. Is this what I am mourning? How easy it was to feel alive in Bali? Am I mourning the freedom of devoting so much time to my happiness?

A while ago, someone I love deeply stopped talking to me. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t think about it at all. It hurt too much. I just learnt to live without her. But she wrote to me last week and she asked me how I was and I told her the truth. Rather, the tip of the truth, which is that  I am better, but being better means reconciling with not trying to be happy. It’s too hard and devastating to try and be happy. I think I’ve kind of given up. Can you only kind of give up? I have accepted that joy does not come to me naturally. And because of that, I look closer. There is no point in tripping over everything in the attempt to reach some distant light.

I guess Bali freed something in me. I guess that’s the best souvenir. I think maybe that’s the key– not to try to be happy, but to try and be alive.

And the moment I was about to post this, a song came on, and I laughed, because barley sounds just like Bali. I laughed and held my hands up to my face and then I wasn’t sure what I was doing, laughing or crying. But I don’t care which one. It is what it is and I was doing it. Is there a word for laughing and crying at the same time?

Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy

Thawing

The only mementos I have are an empty packet of mentos and his sweat in my hair. I knew from the start that it was a temporary romance but leaving still hurt. Still hurts. He made me stare him in the eyes while we fucked, in rooms whose curtains didnt stop the sunlight. I exposed myself, I let him see parts of me I’ve been hiding for a long time. Our mouths weren’t perfect for each other but that’s okay. He was inappropriate and immature but that’s okay too. He was unapologetically human. He made me laugh. He never hesitated to hold my hand or kiss me on the forehead. He was intense and he let me be intense. He had beautiful lips.

Only one week, but I could already smell the kind of fights we would have, could already taste our incompatibility. But I liked him, and he liked me, and I have learnt not to ask questions about chemistry. There was something we got from each other. Our fingertips sought each other out. I wanted to protect him. Still do.

We were sad and drunk on our last night, sitting on a dirty beach with my arms wrapped around his knees, and his face in my hair. I inhaled the fusion of the space between us.

I got home this morning and I have spent all day in bed, my heart wringing with the sharp ache of goodbyes. He was beautiful, but I suspect that it hurts like this because I remember now what it’s like to be held, how it feels to put light in someone’s eyes. I remember how the ocean between you and the world can become swimmable only because one person drops an anchor. This hurts the way frozen fingers hurt when they thaw. This hurts because I can imagine again, how it feels to be loved.

I think it’s time I was loved again.

The Art of Crying on Street Corners

 

I was an anonymous atom until the summer
he popped me like a balloon. I walked around
with a bomb in my chest; fell asleep every night
to the tick-tock of mini-promises. I fell like a piano

from a rooftop party, while he sang for every hooker/
waitress there. But I wanted to crawl under his skin
and spray-paint my name on his lungs so that I could
surf on his breath. He saw straight through my

cellophane eyes and anchorlessly-pink mouth.
He loved me like a sneeze. He squeezed my hand
so tight the nail polish peeled off. I played hopscotch
in his Modigliani eyes. We would cut class and make

love in pea-fields. Sometimes he would count
the scars on my thigh. One day, he licked my
hipbone, I exploded. I couldn’t find all my pieces
so I ordered some more. The clouds didn’t deliver

them immediately so I had to start talking in fractions,
start dieting my emotions. The night he came home
tasting like mandarins, I knew someone else had gone
swimming in his mouth. I sat in the pea-field for hours,

scraping my ceramic mind with spoonfuls of grey sky.
I threw my last confession at him like a dart at the wrong
target. He shrugged: the sharpest insult. I laughed for a long time
after he left. When I finally slept, I did crosswords of my dreams in ink.

 

What is poetry?

CONFESSION/ you move me, muses when I’m lost in the museum of my mind I don’t mind the scrawny sleep after midnight mania manic mad sick or high enlightened inspired, I don’t know I do know that I speak three and a half languages English Greek French Soul you are that language and no I don’t have a dictionary I feel the definitions I bleed the synonyms you are cinnamon mornings when it’s cold outside but sunshine inside honey, you are a fantastic stanza trance I don’t know how I know how to dance because I don’t speak music you are the foetus of my soul, unapologetically polyamorphous you laugh too loud, poetry your smile is too sad and fragile but when I lose your colours my heart stops rhyming and my eyes get brittle I just love the way my bones rattle with impatience and the weightlessness of the right word I might not know what art is but I’m all about heart and the truth is that theories are always thread-thin

I Don’t Eat Anything with a Heart, Not Even Artichokes.

 

That night you said, ‛Darling,
you’re too avant-garde.’ And I said,
‛Shut up. You don’t even speak French.’

You said, ‛But darling, your eyes don’t rhyme anymore.’ And I said,

‛You’re a fucking fool. I cut out my revolutionary irises ages ago. You kept
fishing in them for cliches and I’m tired of that shit. Now they’re just  chopped
up mirrors circa 1933.’

And you smiled a non-smile and said,
‛It’s so amusing to watch you try to change your
colour,
you little Kantian chameleon.
You’re still an animal. You’re still a damn animal. You’re still damned.’

And I said, ‛Fuck you.’
And then I said ‛You fuck.’
And you said, ‛I fuck what?’

And I said, ‛Stop trying to read between the lines of my ribcage’, and

I fixed you with a marbly stare but you chiseled it with a kiss. I spoke
in tongues inside your mouth, ‛Besides, I write in circles now.’

You said, ‛Darling, you’re so avant-garde
you’re anorexic.

But think of me tomorrow when you can’t resist
Artichoke #3970.’

This is my creative response to this week’s readings in my Poetry and the Avant Garde class. We studied Rosalind Krauss and Kevin Brophy. Let me know what you think!

Lighthouse

I can smell it in the wind. The air gets heavy and tight. The sky bruises. The first fat drops fall.

A storm is coming.

I know this storm too well. That’s why I start sinking as soon as I smell it.

I am overwhelmed. Life is fantastically neon after months years of sepia. But sometimes it’s too harsh for my pastel heart.

My studies are avalanching and I worry that I’m too lazy to make the grades, or too disorganised, or too arrogant. That I play the role of Potential too well to ever be anything else.

The latest rejection sits in my gut, growing roots because I just can’t let go. I try to shake the chant out of my head but it charges on: not enough, not enough, not enough. I have chosen a different perfume but I still stink of broken. I used to be a champion heartbreaker but now no one wants to touch me.

This city is an adventure and I’ve never belonged anywhere else more. But on dark, swollen winter nights, the world is too big for me, and hugs are too faraway. The murmur becomes braver: alone, alone, alone.

I hold myself and I say, ‘Don’t let the shadows drink you, darling. Let the light flow through.’

But the first fat drops pop out anyway. And then it feels like sunshine and rain at the same time.

I pull out my umbrella, that voice that says, ‘Don’t let yourself sink; this storm will pass,’

I pray for a lighthouse.

A Typically Epic Conversation

Alexia: I’m learning how to let go of needing to know. You will know when it’s time to know. I realise this sounds silly and difficult but I think it’s something you and I struggle with. And I think it’s a lesson that is constantly being illuminated in our experiences. And one we refuse to learn.

Eleni: I like that…’You will know when it’s time to know.’ You’re absolutely right.

The only thing he said that is worth mentioning is when he asked why I was single and I said, ‘That’s the million dollar question.’ And then I was telling him that it’s really hard to meet someone that you connect with and talk to. And I said something else and then I said, ‘Maybe there’s somehting wrong with me I don’t know.’ And he kind of laughed and said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’

Alexia: What kind of laugh?

Eleni: It was the kind of laugh when you’re laughing to yourself, you know what I mean? Very short, spontaneous, and almost under his breath.

Alexia: Hmm, I like that. Not laughing it off, but meaning what he says.

But GODDAMN IF THAT ISN’T THE MILLION DOLLAR FUCKING QUESTION!! I’ve been thinking about this whole single thing these days. Which is usual, but this time it’s, like- SERIOUSLY- HOW AM I SINGLE?! I honestly don’t understand. I’m fucking awesome.

Eleni: WORD. Also, he has this ex-girlfriend who he says is his soul mate. She’s still in love with him and they’ve been broken up 15 years.

Alexia: If she’s his soulmate, why aren’t they together?!

Eleni: That’s what he asked me. And he was talking about commitment issues and why he hasn’t done anything to address him and if he hasn’t done anything until now, why should he do it at all. And all I could say is, ‘You’re an idiot. And also, sometimes, just because someone is your soul mate, doesn’t mean you’re going to be with them.’

I should also mention that I can’t form coherent thoughts when I’m with. Half the time I want to say so much to him that I can’t think straight. I come across as the most uneloquent person on earth.

Alexia: You are adorable. Adorable!

Also, ‘Why should he do it now?’ What an idiot. To evolve, fool.

Eleni: RIGHT? That’s what I should have said. And maybe… TO PROVIDE YOUR DAUGHTER WITH A GOOD ROLE MODEL?

Alexia: Honestly, Eleni, sorry to be rude but I am having a hard time reconciling with the idea of being with someone who is not interested in self improvement.

Eleni: I know. I think I was dumbstruck that a person of his intellect said that. It was a little off-putting.

Alexia: You know what? I want to remember this whenever you feel intimidated. You are on the path to self-discovery. You are always trying to better yourself, to be more aware, to exceed your own expectations. That is more than most people. In fact, that is more than a massive majority.

Eleni: Yes, the people who are on a path to discovery are a small minority. And WE RULE.

Alexia: Jeez, how slow are we? Only took us, like a decade plus to realise. Seriously, dude, we are fantastic people. We are funny and warm and good and intelligent and pretty and cultured. And the only reason we’re single is because we haven’t been seeing all those qualities. And people can sniff that shit out a mile away. Because when it comes to something an intimate as romance, your real energies come through. So if you don’t love yourself, a man -without realizing- will pick up on it and only a truly enlightened man will be able to recognise it for what it is and see the real you and push through to that.

The problem is that women are more conscious. Men are catching up when it comes to enlightenment but most men are still asleep.

Eleni: I’m copy-pasting that on my forehead.

Alexia: Honey, there is literally no other reason.

Eleni: I KNOW! Man, for smart women, we’re pretty dumb.

Alexia: Now that I’m on this wonderful path of self-appreciation, I laugh out loud when I think of still being single! I’m superb! As are you! And we’re not dumb! If we weren’t meant to begin the path of enlightenment in this life, we would not have had those doubts to begin with. Those who are asleep do not seek. QUOTE-ALERT!

Eleni: YEEEEEEEEES.

Alexia: Did I tell you what my friend said about why we attract suffering?

Eleni: I don’t think so.

Alexia: It’s because our souls need to break so that we can evolve spiritually. Don’t get me wrong, we do not only evolve when we suffer. But sometimes the soul needs to be broken down in order to be rebuilt. Think of your soul as becoming a butterfly. So there is no need to resent the pain. Which I suspect we have both been doing. We have been angry that we have suffered so much. We think life owes us something.

It doesn’t.

We must learn to stop and listen. Ask ourselves why we are suffering. What is the lesson that we are not learning? Because it’s always more obvious and more obscure than we think at the same time.

Eleni: I’ve been thinking about my life lately. And as I was, I realized how often and how much I never did the things I wanted to do, I didn’t love myself and I didn’t appreciate ME. My uniqueness. And I think that I broke because my soul was like, ‘This woman is seriously not getting that she needs to be herself to shine.’

Alexia: Exactly. You were ignoring your self, your instinct. You were stifling your soul’s freedom. But your soul is so much more complicated, and so much wiser than you could imagine. TRUST YOURSELF. Last week when I was paranoid about The Healer? I WAS RIGHT. But I listened to my logic. And that’s okay. Because now I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that I am always right. That when you get a gut feeling about anything, no matter how small, you need to train yourself to go with it.

Eleni: I think it has to be a balance of gut and logic because sometimes the gut is wrong.

Alexia: Not in my experience. You’re thinking of Fear. Which is what I thought I was feeling last week.

Eleni: Hmmm, that’s interesting. So you’re saying that your gut is always right…and we confuse it with fear, huh?

Alexia: Yes. Sometimes that knot in your stomach is fear. That’s not your instinct. But I was scared last week so I couldn’t tell which was which. I think I mentioned this to you back then too.

Can I just say that I am adoring this conversation? I realised that I can’t talk to many people like this.

Eleni: I know! Me either. Um, actually, it’s basically you aaaand Diego*.

Alexia: Most people look at me as though I’m crazy. Which is okay. I don’t need to be understood by everybody. It’s just that now that I’m awakening, I find myself very hungry for people to talk to about it all. I want to learn, you know? Actually here it’s just Olive and The Healer. And now not The Healer. And soon not Olive becase she’s moving to Brazil.

Eleni: I’m sure you’ll meet more people in Australia that you can talk to about this. Alexia: I’m putting my spiritual feelers out for some kindred spirits. I’m asking the Universe to send me some souls. I’m vey excited about these new friends! Perhaps you should do the same. It doesn’t take anything. Literally, very simply, PURELY, just say, ‘Universe, I am ready to meet my soul siblings,’ and say it with your heart (if you know what I mean).

Okay, the phrase ‘soul siblings’ made me gag.

Have I told you about ‘holding the space’ for someone to be just who they are?

Eleni: Ha! Nope.

Alexia: It’s why I felt so comfortable The Healer- he let me be. Whoever that was. He said that I’ve got a gift for it- being open to everybody and, well, giving them the space to be themselves. Do you GET it? Becase I’m going somewhere with this.

Eleni: Yes! I get it.

Alexia: Great! So, now- epiphany. I’ve been so grateful to The Healer for ‘holding the space’ for me. And I should. It’s rare and I am very appreciative.

However!

Wait for it cos this is gonna be legen….

Are you waiting?

Eleni: On the edge of my seat.

Alexia: He didn’t MAKE space for me.

Eleni: *slow clap* YES! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, YES!

Alexia: …dary. It’s like, he bought tickets to my show but he never wanted to come backstage.

Eleni: Yes, yes, yes!

Alexia: WHAAAAT?! My blood is fucking sparkling, I’m so brilliant.

*Diego is Eleni’s cat.

This is the Only Way.

He asks me what I’m thinking and all I can think of is how every time I have worn this dress in the past two years, I have been having some variation of this conversation. I say, ‘I am so bored of this.’ Because it all sounds the same when someone doesn’t want you.

As far as break-ups go, it was pretty great. I called him a bastard for setting the bar so high for the next guy. He told me that my dysfunctional mind that I resent so much is exactly what attracted him to me in the first place. I drank his water. We talked about our respective days. We laughed. It ended the way it began- with communication, respect. With softness. It ended where it began too. A gentle reminder of the cycle of life.

At home I called my girls and asked them for an ear, a shoulder, a smile.  I was nervous about being left alone with my thoughts. I have learnt how to ask for help. They were spectacular as usual but I couldn’t help feeling tired- I don’t want to do this again.

But then something happened. As soon as I thought that, something else jumped up  immediately- you have to do this again. This is the only way. 

I was twenty-five when someone dumped me for the first time. And it was someone that I really, really wanted. It was an excruciating experience. It broke me.

But getting dumped gets easier.

The next three guys have dumped me too. They had better excuses than, I want quantity, not quality. One spoke in cliches. The next one said he wasn’t enough for me (and meant it) . This one happened to meet The One.

Here’s the thing- getting dumped is a success for me. Evading it for so many years doesn’t  make me an independent warrior. It makes me a coward. I was running from love.

I am standing still now even though I am still scared. Dating does not come naturally to me because I don’t know how to let someone in. I don’t know how not to be alone. But getting dumped is progress because at least I’m fucking trying. It’s like, you’re not winning just because you refuse to roll the dice. In fact, you’re not even in the fucking game. But, if you keep rolling, at least you have a chance. Even when you’re losing.

I will miss out on being with this wonderful guy. Not just because he’s, well, wonderful. But because he saw me. He saw how deep I was, how broken, how full I am of love. He saw me because I let myself be seen. But that doesn’t mean it was meant to be. And that’s okay. Because he’s not mine. He was always unavailable to me because he always belonged to someone else. In the same way that I belong to someone. I just haven’t met him yet. And until I do, I will continue to date. I will practise the art of loving someone. I will learn how to let someone love me. I will keep taking chances and I will pick myself up again if I fail. I will push through the hurt by loving harder.

Because this is the only way. 

 

Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self

Dear Me at Sixteen,

Stop running away. You are so much more than you think you are.

Eat.

I’m not going to tell you not to start smoking.

I am going to tell you that you are not ugly. Not even a little bit. Over the years, many boys will tell you how crazy they were about you in high-school. This will surprise you. It shouldn’t. You are not ugly.

When you meet that cheeky boy with the green eyes, walk the other way. His brokenness will break you and it will take you years to undo the damage. Don’t give yourself to him; afterwards you will feel nothing and that’s not how you’re supposed to feel.

Stop skiving off school. But don’t get better grades- your failure will lead to your fate as a writer. When the school counsellor tells you that people with issues are attracted to studying psychology, tell him to fuck off.

When your mom takes you to a therapist and you talk act like a little shit and the therapist tells your mom you’re a normal teenager, don’t listen to him. Normal teenagers don’t starve or cut themselves, or drink during the day time. Don’t listen to all the people that roll their eyes and tell you you’re being dramatic.

When you get to university, make lots of friends. You are good enough to be liked. Go out, get drunk, have fun, feel young. You will come to regret these years. Don’t cry on your twentieth birthday. You are not old! Stop fantasising about your suicide. Stop wishing you were prettier and smarter and sexier. Stop wishing you are more. You are enough.

After university, don’t listen to your parents. They will want you to get a job. You will want to travel. The compromise is doing shitty jobs and ping-ponging from London to Greece and back again. Just pack a bag and go.

When you bleach your hair, don’t stop brushing it. You think you are avoiding flat hair. But brushing it will avoid you having to chop it all off. It will take years to grow back.

I can’t tell you not to go to that party. You will suffer, I know. You will experience the single most painful experience of your life and the pain will go on for weeks. You will suffer the indignity of lying naked and helpless in a hospital whose smell still makes your stomach churn. You will suffer but you won’t admit it. You will refuse to rub off your black sheep nose and all the staff will call you provataki (little lamb). You will learn all the nurses’ names. You will not cry until the day they tell you that you can leave. Your face will suddenly feel wet and all the doctors will look at you funny. You will weep for twenty solid minutes.

You will feel like something deeper has opened up inside you, like your soul has a trapdoor and you just fell through. You will feel like you have roots, like you are air, like you are connected to everything. You will feel like you discovered magic, like you are magic, like you will never feel sad again.

But you will. And soon. In fact, you are about to shatter like porcelain.

Don’t go to Miami with that family. The children will abuse you and you will cry all day and everyday. The homesickness will be unbearable. You don’t need to do this to yourself.

When you get back, you will meet a boy. You will tell him that you are fragile and he will tell you that you are special. No matter how tough you act, you are pure, and you have no reason to disbelieve him. You will assume that he is your reward for being so strong. He is not. He  will dump you via avoidance. You will howl at his cowardice. And you will realise that you have already fallen in love with him.

Honey, this will break you. You will suffer every single second of every single day for months. Your grief will tie knots in your appetite. You will drown your pain in parties. You will not be able to imagine a moment of relief from him but I promise it will happen. Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels. You try not to regret experiences. You do not regret setting yourself on fire. You will regret him. You got nothing from him but heartbreak. But you get over it. You are so much stronger than you think.

As autumn looms, you will crash. Your friends will intervene and this time you won’t laugh. You will go to therapy. You will be relieved to find out that there is a diagnosis for you. You are not healing yet but you are on the right train.

Then will come the flat year. You will work too much and laugh too little. You will feel empty. This is because you are exhausted. You are not superwoman. You shut down. This time you are not able to bounce back. You despair of ever feeling like you’ve got any sort of grip on life.

But you do, honey. It’s just that you are still a caterpillar. Your butterfly days are coming. Everything is about to change in grand and magnificent ways.

One day, those bony shoulder blades you call your sprouting fairy wings will begin to feel sore. That’s when you know it’s time to soar. You will pack up and go, and you will be uncertain about the future but you will know something’s about to happen. I won’t tell you to hold onto this rare feeling. You know already. You can feel change in your bones. You will feel like you have found the secret pathway to your destiny. You will be right.

I cannot tell you what happens next. What I can tell you is that somehow, at 27, you find the strength to live again. You dared to soar and you are already being rewarded. You are a writing/editing student at the best university in Australia. Your phone is always ringing with invitations. You have met some very special people. You might even like yourself.

Honey, everything’s going to be okay.

I love you (even if you don’t), and I know you would love who you think I am (even if I don’t).

Hugging you from the future,

Alexia.

Simple vs Complicated

I slice it open and the colour fills me, soulful cerise, like little bubbles begging to be burst. Pomegranates makes me happy. The fact that I could be so simple simultaneously delights and disappoints me. 

Because I cannot decide if I am simple or not, or maybe I am both. But by being both, am I not complicated by default? Why do I even care to define such a thing?

I am complicated because I think too much. I am obsessive-compulsive with my thoughts, wearing them down the same way one does with soap when they wash their hands too often; the seesawing between hypotheses the way one cannot stop flicking the light switch on and off. Sometimes the labyrinth of my mind takes me down wonderful paths of observation and enlightenment. Sometimes it sabotages me. I am too intense, too expressive I need too much. I expose myself constantly, sans regard for consequence, and then I make myself flimsily evasive to retain some sort of perceived control. 

He called me out on it immediately. He said, Don’t be difficult. I am simple.- and it rattled me. That he illuminated the issue so fast. That he sliced me in half like pomegranate. Don’t be difficult. I said I would try. Because I like the way he sees me and I like the way he looks at me and I like that he is honest and kind and sensitive. I like that I can still smell him in my hair.

But still, I can only try. Which terrifies me. Because trying comes with the possibility of failure. I could fail. 

And maybe this is why I write. Words do not fail me. Their shapes make sense to me in the way thoughts do not. I can take the trees of my thoughts and make fruit with them. I can see the pomegranate bubbles before I even cut it open. And though I might be obsessive when it comes to syntax etc, I can always be grounded with paper and a pen. It’s my way of making the complicated, simple. 

Two-hundred and Eighty-three: Hanoi Hell

It has been 933 days since that time we lost ourselves
in the Hanoian alleyway labyrinth.
We walked in whorls,
turning corners like Tetris blocks,
holding our courage with chopsticks,
shocked that we could be so lost
in such a small space. I remember
the skinny shadows, sinister and deceptively distant,
stretching and scaring us into a surreal reality
where there was nothing but us and walls.
And I remember the stamp-sized dogs (rats, we had joked in the daylight)
standing en guarde in entrances, enraged,
and the way their barks stung the night,
making me jump. I clung to you and let you lead
(for once), holding hands, clam-tight, so tight that they
swelled as we fell through this nautilus shell of foreign everything.

 

We spun through those streets for so long,
dizzy with worry, wanting only to find the lake,
our own North star, our landmark of water.
We whirled in circles until -hallelujah!-
we saw it in its indigo midnight glory.
And then we ran! our feet padding the ground in even sequences-
we are in this together.
It was you and me against the alleyway enemy.

That night I felt the seventh worst feeling I have ever had.
The blue we saw was not the colour of freedom.
It was another fucking wall, painted in night-lake hues.
I wept with powerlessness as you tried to find the horizon.
You, my dear sailor, that I have since thrown overboard.

I followed you that night,
but when we finally spat ourselves out onto the Ithacian dream of ho tây,
you tore off your sailor status  and knotted yourself behind me.
You were only a hero in the shadows.

Now, looking back, I can grasp our Fibonacci demise.

Letters to Strangers- Dear Crying Woman in a Hurry

Dear Crying Woman in a Hurry,

I saw you. I was bulleting to my destination, eyes smack straight ahead, feet smacking the pavement, and I was being pathetically proud, I think, because I had had some gin, and I was fed up with feeling small and alone. I rushed with my chin thrust up in the sky, arms slicing the air, and I was so wrapped up in walking like I mattered that I almost didn’t see you. But when I did, all my pseudo pride deflated; I went limp with empathy.

I caught your moment. Your face was creased in all the wrong, sad places. Your chin was tucked into your neck. Your mouth folded into south-facing brackets. And your eyes curled into desperate crescents. I stared at you. I think I hoped that you would look up. If you looked up, then I could reach out to you. In that moment, I longed for it.. It seems puritanical now but that crumple in your brow was so compassion-compelling

What happened? Why were you crying into yourself on a busy street on a Saturday night? Were you with that man who was walking behind you? Did he hurt you? There were people everywhere but no one stopped. The world doesn’t stop just because you want it to. The world doesn’t stop so strangers can help each other. I did not know how to reach out. So I didn’t.

But I did notice you. And as I walked on, delicately now, I turned around again. In case you looked back maybe, the way we look to the horizon when we get seasick. I was drawn to your sadness, I guess, which is a horrid thing to say. Perhaps it simply reminded me of mine.

I do not know what made that pain or how you fixed it, but I want you to know, to feel, somehow, that someone, somewhere, saw you and in that moment, regardless of your awareness, you were not alone. 

Love, Alexia

A Tiny, Shiny Thread

I told someone about you today. I haven’t thought of you in a long time. I’m surprised how good it feels to remember you. Not that I could ever forget you but it’s been such a long time and I have grown so much, and so it feels strange now, to think of you because then I also think of me and who I was back then. I don’t regret you at all, you know. But I don’t need to say that because I know you already know.

I don’t feel sad when I think of you. I just miss you. I miss who you would have been. You haven’t come around in a long time. Maybe thats why I haven’t thought of you in such a long time. Maybe we needed to let go of each other. But I miss feeling you around me. Did you know that you feel like starflakes? I don’t even know what starflakes are but that’s what you feel like.

One of my favourite memories of you is when I shared you with one of my best friends. You were still so fresh and I was home for summer after a long time away and the only decision I had to make was what cocktail to drink, and all of it, home and summer and the simplicity, felt so good. The cicadas were chattering and everyone was laughing and the music was booming and we sat, just me and her, dangling our feet in the pool and talking about everything under the stars.

I was telling her about you and then suddenly everything around us got lighter and whiter and brighter somehow and I grabbed her hand and gripped it but I couldn’t say a word so I just looked at her, hoping my eyes were talking. Only words weren’t necessary because her eyes had already gone wide and I knew that she could feel it too, that she could feel you, and she held my hand and said, quite simply, ‘I know’.  And we stared at each other for a few seconds, breathing in that beautiful, ethereal shimmer and then it was gone, you were gone, and I still couldn’t speak so she just told me again that she knew.

But now it’s been months since I felt you around and I didn’t realise how much I missed you. I can feel you somewhere out there connected to me with a tiny, shiny thread, and I can almost see you,  laughing and sparkling as usual , and I know you can feel me too because I can feel the thread vibrate with electric energy. Writing about you doesn’t bring you to me though I wish it did. I guess I  just wanted to tell you that I thought of you today.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

These days I keep dreaming about a beach house. Seal-grey or frosty blue or avocado green or all three. Wooden and alone on a hill with windows opening their shutters, their arms to flowers and the ocean and a pier. Books piled high in every room. Blueberries for breakfast and lunch in town and languid dinners on the porch. I write a lot here. The fresh air is good for my hands; my fingers can breathe here.

I tell her that I know now, suddenly, why I don’t write: I refuse to accept excess isolation. Writing is a lonely bubble and I don’t need more lonely. I have it in the mornings when I wake up so far away from most of the people I love. I have it on Friday nights when I watch The Goonies in high heels. I have it when it’s a sunny Sunday and I want to go out for lunch but find my phonebook is too thin. I have it when I feel dizzy after donating blood and have no one to pick me up. I have it in the middle of the night when The Mean Reds cut through me and there’s no one to tell me to stop crying.

I tell her I don’t need more lonely. But I do need more writing.

I tell her I am the proverbial fig tree. That being twenty-seven makes me panic. That soon, the proverbial figs are going to starting plopping at my feet because I can’t pick one.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

-Anais Nin-

One day soon, I will wear high heels out to parties and I will have a fat phonebook and plenty of company for lunch. My life will be full again soon. It has to be. But I will always be alone at the foot of the fig-tree. So I need to suck it up, climb it and pick a damn fig.

All Part of a Night Out!

I was so excited on Friday night. I was finally going to lose my Melbourne Social Life virginity. And I was going to do it with Lauren. Willowy, laughing Lauren that I’ve known all my life and was bound to show me a good time.

Chez elle, we pour some Hendricks on the rocks and catch up. Tonight has that Friday feeling that I have’t felt in so long. We drink up and head out to meet her friends: four witty, drinky bodys that are waiting for us at a pizza place on Greville Street called La something. They have espresso martinis waiting for us. I take a sip. It tastes like future regret.

An hour later I’ve warmed up. We are six in a car on the way to Rah Bar. I have no idea where I am. I follow blindly. I am the lamb lead to slaughter. Inside I am handed champagne which I accept graciously. Ladies do not refuse champagne, even when they are mixing drinks or haven’t been drinking for weeks or haven forgotten to eat dinner. The evening unfolded the way it did because I am a lady that didn’t refuse champagne. Or an espresso martini. Or a few more gins.

Rah Bar was pretty. It reminded me of England. There was a cute bar tender. Apparently I danced. And that is where my memory eludes me, where it spirals and blurs into colours and words that don’t make much sense. I was cheeky and witty. I’m smarter when I drink. I danced but I don’t know how or with whom.  

In the early hours of the morning, the party split in half: party-enhancers and home-goers. Somehow, someone had some sense and I was bundled into the latter group. This was an excellent idea. About thirteen minutes later, I called for the car to halt. I was not feeling good. The car stopped. I opened the door but it seems I had drunk away my motor skills. I smashed face first onto the pavement. I saw blurred spots of blood. There was some concern over a broken nose. I bled, but I did not break because I’m hardcore like that. And so I was free to be sick. Like a lady.

I’m told that, in between, I kept exclaiming that I was too old to be throwing up on pavements. This is true. This is also ironically amusing seeing as I have spent the past few weeks pooh-pooh-ing and tut-tut-ing Australians and the way they go out and get wasted. That’s not how we do it in Europe, darling. Obviously I literally cannot stomach snobbery. 

In the morning I woke up cheerful as a button albeit mildly mortified. Lauren’s beau, Giles, was a dear and brought us coffee and I started trying to piece the evening together. Devastatingly, I was hungover. I spent all day limp as seaweed, zapping through channels. I DON’T GET HANGOVERS. But they tell me that hangovers get worse as one gets older. Is this true?

The silver lining of all this is my mother’s reaction. I set her up with some Facebook  few days ago and now she’s popping up everywhere. 

Miranda: Oh, Lexie! It looks painful but to be honest, I expected a more graphic photo. Your eyeliner looks good! Alexia: ARE YOU HAVING A PROUD MOMMY MOMENT?!
Alexia: I was lucky. It could have been so much worse. Thanks for laughing at me when I gave you the drunk/sick/broken nose scenario that could have risen.
Miranda: All part of a night out, Lex! Think of the stories you could tell your grandkids. On the other hand, you won’t be able to hide your mishaps from your kids. Everything that goes on the internet stays on the internet.
Alexia: Hahaha, Mommy, you’re too cool!
Alexia: But you misspelt my name.  

 

 

Sky Dreamer

Do you get like that? That everyone out there is busy and living. I don’t understand why I feel like such a shell all the time. Is it normal to feel so empty so often? Even when I’m not depressed, it’s like my life is a room with too little furniture. Does that make sense? Is this just what it’s like to be Bipolar or depressed or an artist? 

 

I am in a city that felt like home within 24 hours. When you know, you know. And now I have been here for three weeks wondering how the days collected like dust.

 

I’ve been out for a few coffees and sometimes I wander through the shops but that is the extent of my life. I spend my days watching TV and trying to motivate myself to, you know, live. And then I stay up at night, anxious that I’m wasting my life, scared I will look back on my youth and wonder why I didn’t spend more time being young.

 

Today was a good day though. It’s amazing when you think about it. I didn’t do anything special. I just sat in the garden and wrote a few letters and did some laundry. What I mean to say is, it’s amazing how little we need to feel alive: fresh air and non-zombifying activities.

 

I was out for lunch last week with some friends of my mother’s. We stumbled across a charming vegan pop-up type shop called Lentil As Anything. I’m always excited by vegan eateries because I can choose anything on the menu without a second thought. I chose curry. He chose daal. She didn’t choose anything.

 

We chose a table indoors, sheltered form the sun, and admired the plain potpourri decor. It was colourful and rustic. Personality sans pretension. We started talking about various abstract concepts and I told them about me and the sky.

What about me and the sky? Well, last year I realised that I was all about the sky. I am always looking up, day or night and I feel like I am a moonchild. I feel like the sky is my garden, if that makes sense.

And then I told them about my fear of the ocean and how that made me think of the elements as realms. Those being: ocean: depth, beneath the subconscious, and earth: reality, grounded, and then the sky, the air: dreams and delusion and emotion.

Then I realised that my zodiac, Aquarius, is an air sign, and my initials spell out AER, and all this is utterly me: airy, elusive, dreamy. And it made sense that I didn’t feel at home on the ground and why the ocean scares me. The ocean is heavy. There is no freedom for humans in water. It is not our world. This is evident even with vision; underwater, you can only see only what is very near to you, what the ocean allows you to see; on land, you can see as far as your vision allows which follows logic, but in the sky, you can see for miles and miles (weather permitting). There is freedom in the sky. 

 

I was telling them all this and she looked me, a bit taken back, I think, and said, “How on earth did you come to that conclusion?”

And I said, “It’s just what I think about. Don’t you” I assumed that most people thought like this; that most thoughts looped in and out of each other like graceful knots. 

She laughed and said, “No! Never!”

 

We (me and him) talked about energy and mediation. He told me it was about controlling your thoughts as mine scattered and jumped, tumbling into words that interrupted him. She listened on. She couldn’t quite grasp the concepts. I told her it was okay, that she was earth, and that all elements are necessary. The earth people would dry out without the sky dreamers, and the sky dreamers would float off without the water babies, and so on. 

 

When it was time to go, we discovered that there were no prices; payment was at the discretion of the customer. Suddenly the memory of the average food became much sweeter. It was the energy of places like this that seduced me here, I’m sure. The energy of a city that is thriving, evolving, creative, alive. I think (I hope) that with each day I venture into Melbourne, the thousands of windows embedded in my skin will open one by one until light is pouring in and out of me freely. And then I won’t wonder all the time: how do most people think? Why is my mind such a mosaic? Why are simpler people happier? And, most importantly, why does my inquisitive, artistic mind act like the ocean when I want (need) to soar?

 

 

I ♥ Melbourne

I have been in Australia for forty-four days. I have been in Melbourne for twenty-two. So far, I have seen half the people I intended to see, done almost none of the things I intended to do, and spent nearly all of my money which, ironically, is something I intended not to do.

I love my new home but I haven’t not explored it yet. Maybe, alone, out of my element, I am not feeling chic enough for this boutique city. That will change. I know it will. I will charm Chapel Street. My smile will kill St Kilda’s. I will saunter along Swanston.

For now though, I am a house-cat. To me, so far, Australia is long walks and soy cappuccinos. Cars stopping at zebra crossings. SUSHI. A glass of wine, a book and my journal at the family restaurant; talking to my godbrother when he’s not busy. The magic of riding the tram. My aunt trying to feed me as I’m washing up my lunch plates; me accusing her of trying to fatten me up. Leaving the room when they watch TV because they’re deaf and I’m not. Arguing with Greeks who have been here too long but tell me I’m too young to know what I’m talking about when it comes to Greece. Staying up until four in the morning discussing various social issues with my cousin. Hearing growling in the garden and realising it’s a fucking possum (they look so cute when they hop away! And they pee when they’re threatened). Coming home to find a vegan chocolate egg on my bed. Going out to buy summer clothes and ending up with two party dresses even though I don’t have a social life yet. Sitting in the gazebo, in the autumn afternoon sunlight, writing.

They say that when you know, you know. It’s true. I came to Melbourne for  weekend trip last month and, within twenty-four hours, decided to move here. I belong here. And belonging is different to loving. Belonging begets loving but that it not the case vice versa. I haven’t been in love for a long time. So, Melbourne, if you will have me, I’m yours.

Two-hundred and Eighty-two: Electri-city

A pea without a pod, I dawdle
through    rose virgin    streets,           doodling
stick figures of my aspirations,    duly
noting the veined way in which I’ve
already
failed. I wish I could          cut
the corners of my body. That I was
better  at reading   between   my  ribs.  
It’s reasonable to doubt the lack
of damp between my legs; to be too
        aware
of the       space     but
still want more. 

In this city, my footprints are too light.
My voice is high with shyness.
The clouds haven’t delivered all of m
yet. I still play
connect-the-dots with constellations at night.

Rimbaud rainbows ring around my irises;
buds hunting for buddies.
Bright, barbarian desires dipped in warm mornings.
I walk around with  maps trapped inside me. I am
fat with hope; a shadow of potential whispering.

I don’t miss the wilderness.
I would rather melt into the tram lines and light up the city. 

I am not a blackout. I am electricity. 

The Harmony of Pythagoras

“What time is it?”
“Twenty-five to three.”
“Shit, I didn’t realise it was so late.”
“It’s not so late. You are so young!”
“I’m not so young. I’m twenty-seven.”

On the way home, we talk about youth and life and  happiness.

“You don’t remember the nights you didn’t get enough sleep, dear. Life is friends and conversation. Let your experiences overflow. Fill your soul. Wealth is not about money. Write. You cannot write in Greece because you are too busy living. But where else are you to go? What will you write about in Australia? Kangaroos? London? You wrote in London because you had to stay indoors. This is the country of creativity. Take it from me. I have been all over the world but nothing compares to Greece. Find a good man. Let him love you. Love will inspire you. You will not find him hanging around the same bars in the suburbs. Go out. Live. Write. You are young. Talk to people. Date. Connect. As long as you feed your soul, you will be okay.”
“I try.”
“That’s all life’s about, honey.”
“I know. I try. You know, you’re an old soul.”
“Listen to what I tell you!”
“You’re a very old soul and you know it! Old souls always recognise each other.”
“Goodnight, honey! Filakia!*”

On nights like this I am convinced that cab-drivers are messengers of The Universe.

The Harmony of Pythagoras: How Pythagoras discovered harmony, ergo, music.

Φιλάκια – Filakia – Little kisses

Thank You

Sometimes they are truly wonderful. He will ask her if he should drive me to the party and she will say, of course. She will look at my costume and tell me (again) that I should have been a ballerina. He will give me a bottle of wine for the host. He will drive me -twenty minutes each way- without complaint. He won’t say a word when -almost there- I change my mind. He will say, I would stay up and play tavli* with you if I wasn’t so tired. In the elevator, he will suddenly kiss my cheek. At home, she will be surprised to see me; she will sound sad and say, Oh, Alexia, why? I promise you would have had fun. 

Sometimes I miss out on great nights because I am suddenly gripped by a fear that I will not be great. I do not know if this was one of those nights but I have realised that I am a bit of a coward, an indoor-cat, a mama’s girl. I do not know why life scares me sometimes but I do know that life would be a lot scarier if it weren’t for my parents. They are opinionated, infuriating, intelligent, emotional people (which I love about them when we’re not screaming at each other) but sometimes they are so discreetly supportive that I am reminded that despite my relentless loneliness, my parents’ love and devotion has never been doubted. And for that, I am very grateful.

The Wonder.

Of sugar sinking in cappuccino foam. Of neon green lampposts against white skies. Or watching muscle flex beneath the skin. Of how, up close, irises look like mushroom undersides. Of words being nothing but sounds; the concept of recognising those sounds. Of how clean sheets, a hot shower, an no early rise can make you feel complete. Of strangers loving you somehow and vice versa. Of traffic looking like schools of fish. Of a smile. Of imagining an old person as a carefree youth. Of healing. Of listening to nature make music. Of how many grains of sand there are on any given beach. Of the summer wind in your hair. Of feeling flushed with wine , laughter and love. Of the lines on the palm of your hand. Of colour. Of butterflies flying in a halo around your head to say hello. Of how much of everything exists. Of clouds, always.

We’re Forgoing Titles for a While

“I think shy is boring. I think depressed is too. I think pretty is nice, but I’d rather see something new.”

-Ms DiFranco (or should that be Mr DiFranco?)

Depression is boring. It’s not tormented, pretty writers downing whiskeys in the afternoon.

Okay, sometimes it is.

But usually it’s not. A common misconception: depression=sad. Nope. It is not about being sad. Sadness flows. Sadness is real and alive and beautiful. Depression, on the other hand, is really fucking uncomfortable. It’s showering and still feeling dirty. It’s feeling like a gooseberry. It’s crying ‘cos you ran out of milk. It’s awkward and lumpy and fat. Personally, I would rather be awesome and laughing and phat. I’m not. And that irks me.

But I had two epiphanies today.

One: I’m depressed because I’m bored.

True story.

I have a job which is pretty much the same every day + it’s minimum wage and my make-up has to be flawless + my hours aren’t regular= FML

I have been going to my gym for a year=bored of the classes=I don’t go=I feel fat=depression

My friends are scattered here and there (across the world and Athens alike)+we work very different hours anyway=no adventures=boredom

I AM FUCKING BORED.

This is all changing soon.

But until then…

I AM FUCKING BORED.

So do you know what I’m going to do?

I am going to hit the shit out of the gym (starting tomorrow).

And I am going to read/finish reading 11 books this month.

In other words, I am giving myself little goals to make me feel like I’m living for something.

THE END.

Oh right, Epiphany #2: It’s not so much that I get depressed. It’s more that the ratio of depression vs getting on with life seems really out of whack. It’s like, instead of depressive episodes interrupting life, occasionally, life interrupts my depression. Is what they meant when they said math skills were forever?

In conclusion: Since I can’t kill myself, I might as well read a book.

Sure, you can quote me on that.