Leaving you tomorrow

At the work the other day I was lamenting the fact that my mum’s birthday present is still on back-order and that I wouldn’t be able to send her anything on time, what with Easter being in the way and all. To which I received the reply, “Jen, you’re so unorganised!”

And you know what? It’s true. It’s funny though, I never used to be. I always knew exactly what I was doing, when I needed to do it by and how to go about it. And in certain aspects of my life, I’m still super organised (at work, for example). But when it comes to things like this, my personal life (sending cards, attending events I'd say I'd go to) - I’ve sort of stopped trying. I think a lot of it comes from travelling, of packing it all in and shipping across the world. Somewhere along the way I just decided to take a laissez-faire approach to organising my life. My life is just too transient, uncertain, and, yes, sometimes that really stresses me out. Especially now, with my parents moving to Perth. I mean hell, who knows where I’m going to be in 9 months? Not me.

So, frankly, what’s the point in trying to organise my life? Don’t get me wrong, I make contingency plans, I think about possible outcomes, but I am not particularly fussed on the details, and not particularly good at time frames. Life’s too short to get caught up in the minutia – especially if it’s all just going to change in a couple of weeks anyway. Let the chips fall where they may. Or something.

That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning

Music: Free - Faith No More

Your thoughts in the night

If you must wait,
Wait for them here in my arms as I shake.
If you must weep,
Do it right here in my bed as I sleep.
If you must mourn, my love,
Mourn with the moon and the stars up above.
If you must mourn,
Don't do it alone.
If you must leave,
Leave as though fire burns under your feet.
If you must speak,
Speak every word as though it were unique.
If you must die, sweetheart,
Die knowing your life was my life's best part.
If you must die,
Remember your life.

Music: You - Keaton Henson

Temps perdu

We stand on five minutes and devour centuries. You are the sieve through which my anarchy strains, resolves itself into words. Behind the word is chaos. Each stripe, a bar, but there are not and never will be enough bars to make a mesh.

Spring was definitely in the air today.

Give up the game

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

- e.e. cummings

I know just what to do

I have walked far too much today. After spending most of last night staring into space, unable to sleep, I decided the best cure would be to have a Saturday outing - when I am in one of these self-reflective, self-destructive moods, I find it's better if I'm out and about, rather than sitting at home, digging myself deeper into a mental hole.

So I set off this morning with the intention of visiting the Barbican's Rain Room. I've been meaning to do this for weeks and, as it closes tomorrow, I figured I'd better get my act together. Only I noticed that they had updated their approximate queue time to 6 hours. Still, I was unconcerned. Surely not. I was going to get there early, long before opening time, it would be fine.

This is the problem with London, people actually go out and do stuff. Shows sell out. Gigs sell out. Exhibitions are packed. You can't just idly wander about and act on your whims here, there are just too many people, and they're all out doing stuff. So I really shouldn't have been surprised when I got to the Barbican to find an already massive line. Now as cool as I think the Rain Room sounds, I'm not standing in a line for hours. Nope. Ain't happening. Sorry.

Finding myself so at a loss of something to do, I decided to do what I do best, wander aimlessly. But I wasn't really paying that much attention and so very quickly found myself a liiiiittle bit lost. Not helped by the fact that there is quite a lot of construction work happening, blocking streets and getting me all turned around and confuzzled. But getting lost is part of the fun and I basically refuse to look at a map (because that's cheating), so I wandered north for a bit, then east until I got to Bishopsgate, and then south and west again.

Wandering back and forth, with no clear idea of where I was going, I eventually stumbled out from between some buildings to discover St Paul's looming over me. I've found myself, I thought, and that struck me as kind of ironic, considering it was a church and all. And so, back among the tourist hordes, my time criss-crossing the winding maze of back streets was at an end.

I made my way down Fleet Street, ambling towards Trafalgar Square, and I realised I was having a fantastic day. Which sounds ridiculous, I know, because I wasn't actually doing anything, just...walking, and walking, and walking. But this city is mental and when you're walking through it, you start to really appreciate its idiosyncrasies; the way different pockets of time seem to exists all over the place. And it's like you can see the history of the city, the echoes of everything it was, interwoven with everything it is, and could still be, all around you. I think that's what makes London so intoxicating. That's what I love about it.

It just reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which I just recently re-read (and it was even better, now that I live here.)

'There are little bubbles of old time in London, where things and places stay the same, like bubbles in amber,' she explained. 'There's a lot of time in London, and it has to go somewhere - it doesn't all get used up at once.'

Music: Providence - Foals