treasure: the year that was 31

I wrote this last week, and then I got all caught up in cake and champagne and didn't post it. 

Here it is, with some final edits I couldn't help but add, for that is my way.

It’s the eve of my 32rd birthday. I haven’t written half as much publishable writing as I’d have liked to this year, but I’m a fan of the retrospective of a Year That Was Something, and boy was this one a year just like that. 

I like to take a breath and mark a moment before the next year starts - tomorrow, I will be into my 33rd year on the planet, and that will be another story entirely. Maybe. 

It’s been a real bitch, this 32nd year - and yet. And. Yet.

I’ve pulled myself together to write a Distinction-worthy Masters dissertation in a little short of a month (not counting reading and crying time), fighting those motherfucking Imposter Syndrome whispers all the way to the submit button. I can write! I have actual, honest-to-goodness original ideas. The sweet relief of it - I can’t begin to tell you. I even fell back in love, just a little, with the power of delivering a good strong sentence to a blank page. To let that certainty flow through me and to recognise it, however fleeting - a joyful miracle.

Another gorgeous happening, the strength of which I am only truthfully starting to grasp - the unexpected friendship of two warm, well-dressed (I believe this is fashun, Hamish?) and ridiculously goodlooking men. With open and well-muscled arms, you both pulled me in your separate and special ways out of some spectacularly deep mud, and into a space carefully lit up with avocados, drag queens, memes, wine, whisky and c-bombs, as well as (whether you admit it or not, Dan) good old-fashioned love. In a world that often feels like bits are missing, inexplicably you’ve become those bits. You’re a safe space to yell, nap, scoff mexican food, drink cups of tea. I’m endlessly grateful for it. 

I’ve been let in close to friends in tough places - I’ve shared the chance to chase away the shadows in city concert crowds, I’ve shared bottles of scotch in the height of unspeakable minutes that turn the world upside down. It’s an honour to be close and trusted with every part you’ve chosen to share, and a privilege I have done my best not to take lightly. I wish I could love all of you as much as you deserve to be loved every damn day - I’ve done the best with the love I have to give, and I thank you for letting that be enough.

I get to live in a houseful of flowers with possibly the best woman I know (besides my mum) arranging them into beautiful perfection, appreciating my cooking, encouraging the brand of self care that calls for movies and puppies. You have turned a house into a home, and I do not care how cliched that sounds, because it’s true. You’ve kept our glasses full of wine and are always, always there knowing just how I feel and then occasionally paying for my therapy. I love you, Mikaela Ingvarsdotter.

Each year I seem to get a little closer to knowing something good, and I feel like this year has taught me plenty, although there’s been less good to know than I’d have liked. I’ve been quiet for a while, and it’s because of how sad I’ve been. Bloody goddamn sad. A person I really quite liked stepped out of his story much earlier than any of us were ready for, and it sits with me every day, the way I know it sits with all of us. 

The thing nobody tells you about grief is how quiet it is. It lays itself in your bones so they’re just a little more dense than they were before. It lines the pockets of your clothes; it rests just a little heavy on your tongue. The thing nobody tells you about grief is how you’re alone with it so much of the time, because of the way people forget. The way people forget is sort of important too, to keep the world moving. The thing nobody tells you about grief is how it slaps you in the face; sucks the air from your lungs; drops you from a great height. It’s also nothing shocking - there, tucked underneath other piles of loose papers until the stone weighing it all down is shifted and it’s away.

There’s nothing to do but keep breathing, so on we breathe. 

There’s more, of course. There’s knowing my family are all coming home this month; that my brothers will be nearby for beers whenever I’d like is something so impossibly good I am waiting to be sure it’s really happening before I believe it. They bring with them two pretty great women that I can’t wait to have around. 

I did a lot of thinking, doing and feeling to the accompaniment to a pile of tunes this year - here's 31 I picked for that year that was. Special mentions go to Dan and Hamish for reminding me about Roxette, to Clare Bowditch for inspiring my dissertation and to Kate H for showing me how Bowditch's music was meant to be heard. Thanks to Sampa the Great for getting me through it, to St Vincent for existing (same goes Holly Throsby, Bec Sandridge and Asgeir, all of whom I managed to see live this year). Music is life, and it's the encouragement of Jordan, Elle, Alana and Dylan that put a good pile of these bangers right in front of me this year. Many thank yous, friends.

I start this 33rd year a little tired but a lot hopeful. I think 32 year olds get to have their feet on the ground but their heads still in the clouds, and even if that’s self-proscribed, it’s advice I’m going to take.

secret: new parts, hidden under old parts

4 July 2017

It’s cold today, and dry where I live, on the top of a mountain range. I keep chewing at my dry lips, peeling off their skin with my teeth – there are smooth new lips underneath, I know it, I just have to keep peeling til I get there. 

Once I get there, with my new lips, maybe I will be ready to find someone to kiss. Maybe then I’ll be a smooth-lipped clever-mouthed lover-in-waiting.

Maybe then.

treasure: writing grief

Today, I wore makeup for the first time since I heard you had died. My bare face was intended as a symbol of grief, but nobody has noticed. My mascara was not waterproof, in any case; impractical. I decided to trust myself not to cry unexpectedly; I hoped the majority of tears had been wrung out of me by now. 

There’s not a way to write an ode to you, Daniel. Each word you’re over my shoulder, knowing a better way to make a sentence sing. Your ghost is a literary monster shadow, and the thorough way I resent you for this is what I’d love to capture in words. 

I’ve made you laugh out loud with things I’ve written, your laugh inflating my ego every time. I’ve laughed at and loved your work, right before your eyes (or almost - you hid while I read and returned for the compliments, your cigarette smoked). 

I’m so tired. There’s only one night I can chalk up to sleepless grief, and that’s the night we had the news. Just so you know, I still don’t believe it. It takes the breath out of me and makes me wish to sleep a thousand years. I’m tired of feeling so very out of control - a whole planet, out of orbit. 

Today is a day I’ve been floating through; bumping into small parts sadness and distraction. I don’t know how to miss you. I don’t know what’s right - what you’d think made sense and what you’d scoff at.

Today is a day built on the fragility of our skin and bones. 

I’ve made a point of telling a story of my tears, to admit that most days lately I’ve cried the very tears I’m trying to manipulate into comic effect, somehow. I want to see how far I push this before they stop believing or responding. 

I wanted to tell the short story of us, to frame some of my sorrow in justification - see, we were close, he meant something - but also I mostly want very keenly to keep this close to my heart. I keep trying to take it out to look at it, to build some perspective, but my eyes beg to slide past it to focus on the middle distance. When does it go from being raw to being something to use? I’m trying to use it now, and getting nowhere.

The thing nobody tells you about grief is how quiet it is. It lays itself in your bones so they’re just a little more dense than they were before. It lines the pockets of your clothes; it rests just a little heavy on your tongue.

The thing nobody tells you about grief is how you’re alone with it so much of the time, because of the way people forget. The way people forget is sort of important too, to keep the world moving. 

The thing nobody tells you about grief is how it slaps you in the face; sucks the air from your lungs; drops you from a great height. It’s also nothing shocking - there, tucked underneath other piles of loose papers until the stone weighing it all down is shifted and it’s away.

The thing nobody tells you about grief is how it makes you look. Today, I wore makeup for the first time since I heard you had died. My face has been a mask plenty of other ways since then, but I have allowed space for the tears to fall away.

treasure: Stuart Lind Taylor, 30 year old person

Stu,

I forgot your birthday card, but I hadn't written it yet, so it's ok. This way I get an extended word limit.

Stuart Lind Taylor. It’s your 30th birthday today, and I have known you since before I remember. You (I imagine) were the first person to help me to realise there were other people in the world as important as I was. You burst that only child bubble I lived in, in (most likely) the best possible way, and forced me to grow up and be better, to lead you and boss you into shape, to defend and protect someone else.

I like to imagine once I got over the shock of you, I boasted about you constantly; an extension of me after all, and between the two of us a force to be reckoned with. There’s actual video footage of me not sharing my toys with your curious hands - now, I choose to spin that into a valuable life lesson about pushing hard for what you want, because in the end you did have that one wooden block in your determined grasp. While it’s strange to imagine a world without our third part, Hugh Lind Taylor, that time did exist, and you (probably) taught me some of the most important things about loving someone without wanting anything from them. About good company that comes guaranteed, free of charge.

We’re so glad for Hugh - I'm sure that his arrival taught you the same things you taught me. This short love story I’m telling is almost as much about Hugh and me as is it about you, Stu, because we’re all different bits of the same thing.

We grew up and learned ways to stretch each other’s arms, legs and imaginations - where I bossed you into reading, your bravery forced me onto bikes down hills with no hands, and up trees without thinking about what girls were meant to do. We produced short films and dramatic recreations of Titanic, and you willingly obeyed my direction on countless weekends. You and Hugh were my favourite people to boss.

When I try to remember you as a teenager I honestly mostly draw a blank - that was the time I was facing inwards, and taking for granted you’d appear at the dinner table every night. I’m sure we were both cause for the other’s eye-rolls on more than one occasion, but I’m also sure we co-existed (mostly) pleasantly. With my fiery self, I’m sure this peace was down to you, because it’s the peace we all still find in your company; the peace that holds power, and acceptance, and patience.

Stu Taylor, you sort of amaze me. You’re always there, even when you’re 12 hours deep in night shift, or on the other side of the world on adventures. You’re there with us, talking shit and building the base from which your two (slightly less peaceful) siblings can launch into whichever rant we choose. You let us be exactly who we are, and you love us for exactly that. You allow us to celebrate all the victories you’ve arrived at. We get to hear your stories, to know more and more about you, and it’s treasured knowledge.

I’m biased, but you’re golden, and I won’t be challenged on that point. I keep learning things from you, and when I’m not quite sure about anything, there you are. Setting the earth straight.

Stu Lind Taylor. All three of us share that middle name, the one that used to embarrass me to explain or say out loud. I love that we all have it now - you and Hugh are my best friends and the ones most likely to be held up in the shape of an example by which the rest of the human race are measured.

I really can’t hope for more than for you to know how well loved and admired you are - by me, forever, and by everyone who’s lucky enough to know you. I hope you know, Stu, and feel that love as the world turns to wish you a happy 30th birthday.

If this is what you can do with 30 years, I can’t wait to be there with you for the next 30.

Lots of love for all the days

Helen Lind Taylor

treasure: writing from when I was learning to write

A collection of notebooks left carefully in storage was recently returned to me, including a workbook from a creative writing subject I took in Semester 1, 2006. I thought it would be cringy and pretentious but I actually don't hate Past Helen's work. Thought I'd share.

A self portrait, 7 March 2006

a cactus and prickles
body full of smooth pebbles
head's got two bricks in it keep grating together
in cotton wool (and snot and nausea)
just a little bit like a hidden corner
eyes rolling over each other not working together
marbles make a heavy forehead greasy lips
clunk clunk 2 year old playing piano
the slow drip of glue without a lid on
limbs held together by rubber bands and prayers
edges of the smile flattened down by the weight of tired cheeks
lips full of lies
unpolished eyes

a body and a self almost less than the next self
achy doughy weighted
head out from and observing body
see the way my thighs cling together
for emotional support.

treasure: today is one of those good days

Today is one of those good days they speak about.

I'm writing this here as a souvenir, so when there are the less good days I can remember that there are good days like this. It's a good day in the best way. It's calm and sure with guest appearances of euphoria. I luxuriate in the feeling of being both safe and powerful. Yes thankyou, planet. I'll take it.

I slept, flanked by the warm bodies of small dogs who most days seem to exist just to ply me with love. I watched a beautiful interview between Elisabeth Moss and Riz Ahmed, laying in bed - I woke up to artists I admire speak about their art while my brain put its day together.

I had my milky coffee and my vegemite toast just the way I like, with tofu on top, warm and crispy.

The puppies slept in while I got ready to work - they never sleep in, but today they loved my bed more than anything, and if I hadn't had to work I would have been right there with them. Sleepy kid-dogs watching my get-ready routine with the bemusement of those who know they're going right back to sleep when I've left the house was a small and precious treasure.

I wore the pretty skirt with flowers. I wore a pin that says "Born to Read". I shared my pin to Instagram. I wore new lipstick I bought last night when I got my hair cut. My haircut gave me that 'in control of my destiny' feeling.

I started my drive to work with the 'One Love Manchester' playlist. There was a little Mumford and Sons, then I skipped through Take That and Robbie Williams to Pharrell's 'Happy'. The crowd sang along, and I imagined the feeling of being in Manchester, after everything, and listened to those voices singing, and imagined, and then teared up. Still driving. I switched to my newest love, St. South - I got my shit well and truly together by the time I got to work.

I spoke about a project that's going to be awesome when we pull it off (we talked through the doubts and milestones to meet in the next week, and agreed on things).

I did my first academic speaking gig, and I didn't suck. I spoke more quickly than I wanted to, but I let myself off, because people had suggestions and questions and good things to say afterwards. I ate vegan cake my supervisor baked, and I soaked up the rest of the good ideas. I had emails from people with more ideas! They liked my ideas and suggested things for me to read next!

I helped my boss wrap gifts for upcoming international travel, and we talked on and around about the things I'd just talked about in my seminar. My heart was full of warm thoughts and ideas - the lived reality of research and ideas, all those exciting juicy bits. The world is open and full of possibility.

secret: the feelings we feel when we're not feeling feelings

do not for one second think I am not
collecting, categorising and filing away
each word you say to me.
each second of eye contact sits
in a file
in my heart
for me to feast upon
during extended periods of absence.

do not for one small moment
believe your jokes and slips of the tongue
(see: there; another one)
are not painstakingly checked over
and inspected for tone
do not fool yourself that I do not know
what you're doing, or
what I'm doing
that it goes nowhere
that our truths are different.

do not for one brief instant
allow yourself to entertain the notion
that I am yours. Not any more than
   you are mine, but
somehow you are - your words and looks
and breaths are my private collection
forgotten in 12 months, or never.

secret: a poem for this week, and this heavy weight

suddenly, the world is so small
& it's quiet
   like living alone is quiet
   like being nobody at all
      can get very quiet

when somebody made you
almost with bare hands
when you were clay
& you're shaped in their image
despite absences & gaps?
I cannot imagine. The words
   slow me down,
because I love you & somehow, still
leave absences & gaps of my own
when I wish that this whole time
since we started
I'd been more.
suddenly, now is the time to be more.

secret: on worshipping, idols, and teen girl obsessions

A little more than a year ago, I saw Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House. I wrote about it.

I don’t know what you call it when you’re not a teenage girl anymore, but you see artists you admire, who have made you feel something, somehow, and your heart gets full. what’s that called? because I am 30 years old and I have lived and breathed some years in the world, paying tax and driving to work for 9am starts, I have realised some things about how humans are and how systems work and what parts of these systems can be made to work for me and what parts just suck.

but I can sit 3rd row from the front of a talk at 10:30am, and listen and listen and feel like I’m remembering things I’d forgotten about how I’m meant to live and be and work and make and do, and my heart gets fuller and fuller and I start to know myself for sure again, and I just refuse to call that simple inspiration; I can feel it, I can feel something the same way that dancing and wine and skies full of moon and stars make my heart pound right up to bursting. I can feel like this feeling is falling in love the way I’d thought perhaps I never would (love always seems to be so practical and awful even when it’s lovely) and possibly I never will, not with a human, not quite in the open way I fall in love with everything when I am reminded of myself.

That feeling of all things being not only true but truly possible: that’s the feeling we could aim for when we work with others to pull forth their full potential. I can’t see any harm in wanting to fill rooms of people with excitement over everything they might do with their lives, and everything they might look like. There’s a rush of creating and of making that does not have to be boxed into the arts on their own. It could be about anything, a drive to make people feel that feeling.

It could be about making people laugh. Laughter means a lot of different things. It means happiness and it means amusement and it means relief; it might meant surprise, the shock of a penny dropping where you and me are all ok just the way we are, and we already know we are powerful and have everything to offer.

Being engaged as a member of an audience is a treasure to behold, and it is never really just about being able to recite lessons back or checking a box or a follow-up test. Leading is showing people how to care in a way that moves us along; that helps us to tread the earth in a confident forward motion. Working and not caring seems such a waste.

Imagine being the kind of person who inspired the feeling Miranda July inspired in me in the Sydney Opera House on Sunday morning: I walked out of there knowing that I was right to think I could do better than I have been; that what I have to give, once I roll it out flat and name its parts and sort it out so other people know where to put it or want to roll their own selves out flat alongside, that what I have to give is every bit as good as I already know it is.

poem: black denim

god bless you skinny legged

black denim encased

boys in bands

I imagine you’ve grown your hair long since you were a private school boy

you’ve grown a moustache and you mean it

I’m laughing at your jokes and calling your eyes over

you cannot see me in the crowd through the lights,

but still I’ve made a cosy story for us

let us never speak;

by 24 you’ve read just enough philosophy to be dangerous.

there’s no way I can oversell the fact that

you’re not smiling at me, even through the lights, you’re not smiling for me

and I’m not the one you pursue to take home

girls like me

never girls like me.

god bless you boys in bands and your

skinny black jeans

After the show

I leave suddenly, because

it doesn’t matter how good you look behind a keyboard in those black jeans if you’re a dick.

that’s a lie, because I am powerless before black skinny jeans

the cockiness of youth.

Let us speak, I can teach you something

beyond the music lessons your parents paid for that have you here, fodder for women

as well as girls

as well as me

as well as all of us.

us, we’re 

all scrabbling for 'cool enough’; 

you are unironically wearing a full moustache.

secret: New Year's Eve, 2016 to 2017

Last time there were fireworks it was New Year’s Eve and I was dangerously close to going home with an unfamiliar boy from whom I’d felt an unspoken pull; that draw you get to a beautiful stranger; that tingle of mystery and recognition that can be endlessly romanticised, made all the more tantalising by virtue of the woman he had ignored on my behalf until she chased us down the street some time long after midnight.

I’d sat in the middle of one of the main streets of my hometown at 12 midnight, traffic be damned, with a clear view down the hill to those momentary and momentous bouquets of light and sound that meant something to those of us with resolutions, a year of shit to put behind us, dogs at home quailing at this faked thunder. 

I’d sat with a friend and his wife, our arms around each other by default, wishing each other all the things you’d expect of a New Year’s Eve. I’d steeled myself away from those "be better” promises, but I was pleased to see the back of a year that had dragged me with buckling knees into commitments, right past failed relationships I’d never given more than an “I wish” to. 

There’s a melancholy all of its own to realising you’re not even feeling particularly caught up in the sentiments of ringing in the shape of a new year. I found myself drawn into a long conversation with my friend about the nature of our friendships, which was telling of the year I’d been planning to have, but not of the year our friendship subsequently shaped up to look like. I worked to be heard over acquaintances and strangers singing hits from the 90s; we abandoned our important chat to sense-make snippets of conversation floating by us. 

Being made carefree by the hour of the morning, with the year still so new on my fingertips, I touched the shoulder of this beautiful stranger to launch myself into a back and forth on horoscopes. I laughed right into his face as he made a sparkly-eyed case for us two being an excellent match based upon the months we were born, as though we somehow knew each other quite aside from the basic facts we were missing. He asked my age, I asked his age. He asked if I liked girls or boys or both, and I asked him the same, and we smiled, complicit in our elusive answers and mutual interest.

Last time there were fireworks in my town, the night’s love story ended almost there, with a few small additional details in the shape of his female companion’s heartbreaking chase down the street (and my cluelessnes, or lack of finesse with pickup lines, or both). I am not one to steal someone out of the warmth of someone else’s heart where I can help it (no matter my fantasies). I am not one to wait to be chosen, either. 

There’s a story that goes something along the lines of, the way you spend the first hours of your new year determines the look and feel of the whole year ahead. For me, being wanted, and wanting, and then walking away on my own steam to my own house - that is my year, and perhaps more years to come. This is not a story of a pity party. I chose this, and I have power (that comes with the being wanted) and I listen to my heart (that comes with the wanting), and I reach to take the exact parts I want. 

All this is to say no more than that I remember the last time there were fireworks in this town; I remember the way they made me feel, which is really no more or less real and human than I’d already learned to feel. I remember the colours and the shapes, and the noise they made; I remember they went for longer than I’d expected, and I remember feeling the open space left over when they were done. 

poetry 2017: 8 Jan

it is exhausting to find a place to sit
in my world of one or the other
as though a person can't be
sad but overjoyed
sunburned with a vitamin D deficiency
starving with a full belly.
they forget to balance in the precarious in-between
& they push their forgetting into my hands
expecting me to happily take hold.
I am bored by the broad world
having stumbled into a party uninvited
filled to the brim with people I know.

it's the happiest heartbreak to want both
but to also want neither;
to believe in standing up for your beliefs
while sitting quiet and wordless.
yes - exhausting,
to find a place to sit
in a seatless party
toasting failings; grasping straws
pushing past your handshakes.

secret: 20 thoughts collected from the year I was 30 (or, Some Things I Know To Be True)

1. Social media is not the one way
to my soul, nor the way to make me
pay attention
nor the way to make me love you.
HOWEVER
If you are not there on some sort of
platform
How are we to meet?
How am I to know?
Social media is a tightrope.

2. A person does not have to be a gender.
Sometimes I am tired
Sometimes I am not a woman or a man
Sometimes I am a Helen & that is all.
It follows that there are some people who are perpetually tired in this one way; the Patriarchy is a big nuisance forever
A person does not have to be a man or a woman all the time (nor straight, gay, queer, more).
That is fine with me.

3. There is not much that cannot be soothed by any or all of these things:

• Licks from puppies
• A hot drink you can warm your hands with
• Putting things in the places they go
• A full night of good sleep
• Being in a bookshop or a library
• Days with no plans in them.

4. Love is a mystery
I definitely believe in it, but romantic love mystifies me. It is my way to want to pin it down and have a definition to refer everything to, but it's ridiculous and won't stay still. I don't get it. I don't get how you're all doing it. I'm bewildered.

5. I am pretty fucking great.
I have spent a lot of time rebounding from all the things other people think. I've tried very hard to keep them happy; to mimic their ways, which is almost the best way to give them what they want from me.
I have curbed my instinct and my words and my actions to fit into things. I have felt guilty or fake or like a liar for saying I think one way and knowing that isn't always true. I have chosen not to do things because I will probably do them wrong and then people will have opinions about that and I will need to address the opinions of me like that's my job.
It's not my job and it's none of my fucking business what you think of me. Go for it and leave me out of it.
I am pretty fucking great just like this and I love my mistakes and it's fun when I'm doing things differently from how you'd like me to. Please, when you feel compelled to give me guidance disguised as kindness, know that I sincerely to the very bottom of my heart am just not really listening.

6. I don't owe time or smiles or gratitude.
When you are kind and generous and friendly with me that is just lovely, and thank you.

BUT

I don't have to do things I don't want to do anymore. The best bit is this means that if I'm smiling at you I really mean it and if I'm where you are I want to see you for reals and you don't have to play a guilty game of obligation with me, which leaves you time for more activities.

7. I remember when you let me down. It doesn't mean that our friendship is broken, because I'm an adult that can like you in spite of your flaws. I just didn't forget.
I didn't forget all the times I let you down, either (the ones I know about, anyhow). To err is human, etc.

8. Most motivational quotes are true.
But this doesn't stop me from cringing.

My favourite motivational quote is from Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and it goes
"When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story a all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it to yourself or to someone else."

This is life and this is definitely my life. I guess maybe it's not your average motivational quote, but it sure as fuck motivates me.

9. Sometimes it is easier to spend time with new friends who are right there than to keep up with old ones who are far away.
Once I love you, I really love you, which means that when I can't see you whenever I want, my heart is broken.
I basically need to forget you exist just so I am able to function, unless I'm visiting your neighbourhood.
[I love you faraways so much, and think about you all the damned time]

10. The thing that makes me tough, strong and the actual best:
My brothers - by sheer virtue of their own awesomeness. We reflect this awesomeness in each other ad infinitum. All other relationships of my life are based on a version of this. They have taught me fierce loyalty, the fine art of cutting the shit and saying the truth, the importance of a shot of Campari before any party, and that the power in just knowing that someone has your back helps you to move fucking mountains. People are jealous of us and look, we know it.
What you suspect to be the case is true: even on our bad days, we are actually a little bit better than everyone else. We're not sorry about that. Try asking water not to be wet, or scotch not to be delicious.

11. Look, it is a definite waste of your time to care about how fat you look in your pants, but we all sometimes think about it, even the most kickass feminist of us.
It's ok to have a lapse and think that silly nonsense thought.
I shake away the thought like it's a little spider on my arm and do not beat myself up about fat, pants or thinking thoughts.

12. A lesson for humans:
You can't assume anything about anyone by looking at them.
Don't think a fat person is unhealthy
you are not a doctor
if you are a doctor, you still cannot tell by looking.
Don't think Aboriginal men are bad dads
stow your cartoon drawing pencil
Don't think a trans person has to "pass" as any gender
you can see my earlier thoughts on gender
and probably also fuck off
Don't think a woman deserves sexual, verbal or emotional abuse
for making a mistake
for having an opinion
for running for president
for wearing any particular clothes combination
for not taking your advice
for drinking too much
for making eye contact
I'm bored of this list already

13. Early marks are way better when you're an adult.

14. Sure, drinking is probably a thing I should feel guilty about
but I do not
because

1. alcohol is delicious 
2. soon, you are a bit more funny and charismatic than previously thought
3. you make new friendships that are very important 
4. intolerable people are either a) easier to ignore or b) weirdly tolerable now
5. you can sing and dance better
6. alcohol is still delicious

15. Some times I put things off for ages that turn out to be great, and my favourites:

• learning to drive a manual car
• downloading and listening to podcasts
• buying a house
• becoming vegan

16. There are some people who just remind you of who you are
You wander through many other places and try on other hats
And your paths cross again, and
Of course! There you are! Your self was there the whole damn time!

17. Layers upon layers of blankets
are the only way for me to fall asleep
like a pressure on my heart
will keep it in my chest
and I can rest
safe, without worry.

18. Layers upon layers of paper
are the only way for me to feel at peace
stacks of books and notepads
to ease the aching of my heart
so I can breathe
safe, without worry.

19. Mornings are probably the weirdest
of all the regular struggles of my life,
because when I get up and do things early
My day is better
My outlook is better
My breakfast is better
I have time for 2 coffees.
BUT
Bed is a great and tempestuous love of my life
It is so warm and comfy
and often, after
a whole night of treating me badly
I crawl in
hoping the next time will be different.

20. I don't know a lot about much, but I do know that having a place to belong in is saving my life. My garden grows roses, and I collect them to display in a bowl by my bed like trophies. I am making a good life for myself, and there are roses in it.

treasure: the cat ladies

the cat ladies: they are ladies with cats.

in this situation, maybe the cat lady is simply a metaphor for anybody who is alone. the cat lady is a punchline. the cat lady is, essentially, a character into whom the Simpsons breathed life: a woman, alone but for a collection of animals. the cats have taken over. the cats are the central focus of her life. sometimes she can only afford cat food. sometimes she eats the cat food. sometimes she is the cats. sometimes we are all the motherfucking cats.

the (crazy) cat lady carries with her an unfortunate destiny we are all trying to avoid. taking the feminist implications out of this for a second: being alone with only pet cats means you will end up insane. we all need other humans. is this true? is it? 

i (personally) want to use other humans for the following (not always in this order):

• laughter at my jokes 
• the music they make
• sex
• intelligent conversation
• aesthetic reasons

besides that, what am i using them for? a sounding board, i suppose, to check i'm still on the right track.

cats can't talk or write music or fuck people or reply to questions. so we cannot replace humans with cats. cats do not have opposable thumbs, so cats cannot operate cash registers, so we need humans to sell us our groceries.

monkeys might be able to help with the cash register thing, but not cats.

the crazy cat lady is a little scary. she's the modern day crone, witch, wise woman. she's the one who has decided the rules for herself, and while the rules aren't necessarily illegal or wrong, they're just not the ones the rest of us are operating to. 

the crazy cat lady is a goddamned punchline. boil it down kids, and really she's a punchline because she's not one half of a whole. she's alone; doesn't anyone want her? what's wrong with her? can't she even secure some poor dummy to fake marry her? 

the crazy cat lady scares us because she has at some point chosen cats over being half of a whole. everyone can find someone: as the meme goes, even Honey Boo-Boo's mum has a boyfriend. and while we "let that sink in", let's just stop and think about the clear and obvious male equivalent: oh wait.

i think it's basically this: women, unmarried women, are a scary fucking business. will they start a gang? will they encourage the married women to leave their men and start cat-heavy communes? unchecked, unmarried with cats ... fuck. will a cat be the president? what's next, a cat in space?

in conclusion, women and cats are probably the most dangerous pairing of all time.

#offtogetsomecats #catsforpresident #votecats #catsnottrump

secret: forgetting, and the weight of it

I'm really struggling with the imperfection of the human race at the moment. Y'all are driving me up the fucking wall. I'm realising my idea of appropriate human behaviour is different from most other people's, and mostly that is fine, but there's a few bones I have to pick.

The disclaimer is that I am still working on practicing what I preach, that I'm not addressing anyone in particular, and that I'm really just having a less-than-excellent collection of months at the moment. Which is actually what I want to talk to you about.

I hereby acknowledge that us humans tend to keep our own personal worries at the forefront of most things we do. That it takes extra effort and love to think outside of this, particularly when we have our unique and special collection of things we're dealing with. I know that. Damn it's a fine line.

Out with it: the thing that's really making me crazy is how quickly we all forget about other people's pain, grief and struggles. I'm fairly private about these particular treasures, so if I've told you that my aunt passed away, or that I kept getting dealt these mini-blows at work when I'm working so hard to further my career, or that I broke up with my boyfriend, I'm officially trusting you enough to share my shit with you. I've tried my best to tell people I like and care about these bits of news. Sometimes I've even told people I like but don't particularly care about, or even people I don't care about or even like that much.

People are very good and sometimes great about sympathising appropriately when they initially hear this news, whatever it may be. People are quite good at doing a follow up check-in on things the next time you see them. People, after that point, well, they mostly forget about the bad thing, and wonder what the fuck is wrong with you.

The thing is, the bad thing still happened. Even if it happened months ago and it's old news to you, it's not old news to me. It might come and go, but particularly in the case of losing someone you love, the mother of someone you think of as your sister, this sadness doesn't have an expiration date. This sadness can pop back up for any and all reasons, and maybe it comes with a smile too, but that's what grief is.

Do me and other humans who might be sad a huge favour and be a little gentle about it. Give us a little space - don't assume it needs to be talked about, but don't pretend it's not there, and don't assume I want to be cheered up. I'm here, aren't I? Wearing pants, as is socially acceptable; holding a drink and shooting the shit; I've even laughed at your jokes. I can still laugh, I just might not be staying out so late or drinking so hard. I'd rather be at home with my Swedish wife watching Gilmore Girls. Keep that in mind and appreciate my effort by knowing, even if you don't say it, that I'm doing the best I can.

Actually, I will go one further: if you can possibly bear it, don't call me, I will call you. By this I mean that I far prefer my own company to the company of most others. If I am in touch with you it's because composing and sending a text message is a burden I can bear that day. If you don't hear from me, it means I just can't even. Don't be offended. Don't be offended if I choose group social settings instead of a one-on-one catchup. Don't be offended if I have a one-on-one catchup with someone else but I do not choose to catch up with you. Don't be offended if I don't write back to your text messages. Remind yourself, please, that even if it doesn't look like it to you, this is actually the best I can do. If you have a sad or hard thing of your own you want to talk to someone about, it might not be in your best interests to speak to me about it just now.

I'm not saying I'm just unavailable forever, but I have to be honest with you: the people who have managed to understand this situation are the ones I'll be calling to hang out with, on the cloudy days and on the sunny ones.

I know it is much more convenient to almost everyone to be happy and filled with jokes - to be quick and witty with a pretty dress on is the goal. I know how infinitely preferable that is. Maybe that's because you're suffering from something sad too, and my sadness is not a thing you can bear. I am going to try my very best to keep that in mind.

I'm not saying you ask me "How are you dealing with your family member's death?" or "How's that infinite well of existential sadness today?" or "Is there anything sad and heavy you'd like to talk through at this noisy bar?". I'm saying continue your business and your life as usual, but when you can, remember there's a few things that have dropped me in some mud I have to trudge through, and I will do my best to do the same for you.

secret: Friday dreaming

I just want to drive somewhere with the car windows down and all my favourite songs for driving places to with the windows down playing one after the other in a mix that I’ve crafted intuitively but somehow overnight wearing my favourite and most comfortable sunglasses drinking an iced coffee with almond milk that is cool and refreshing and lasts forever and the icecubes in there never melt.

And the road has no traffic on it but me and there are some nice smooth turns that I can put my heart into and some bits that need swift gear changes so I can rock out my racecar driver moves and there is nobody in the car but me so I can sing along to all my favourite songs for driving places to at the top of my lungs and nail the harmonies.

And I know that once I get to wherever it is I am driving there is a body of water that will be cool and refreshing just like that iced coffee with almond milk that I was drinking while I was driving was and I will dive right in without any hesitation and do somersaults under the water like I did when I was 12 and I loved the water and didn’t care how I looked in my bathers.

And once I am finished swimming I will lay on some grass or some sand or a smooth rock in the shade of a tree or an umbrella and I will alternate between reading my book and napping and my book is filling my brain and my heart up like comfort food but the right sort of comfort food that’s tasty but also nourishing and I will be warm and comfy laying in the shade and I will be drinking something with Campari in it or maybe I will just be drinking Campari on ice but this time the icecubes will be melting.

And then I will head home with the seawater/riverwater dried onto my skin like a secret and I will sing a little more and I will arrive at my home and I will sprawl on my bed made with my favourite patchwork blanket on it and I will cut pictures out of magazines and make a huge collage about my perfect day and I will pause to play songs on my guitar and I will have a delicious snack of cold carrotsticks and hummus I have made myself.

And nobody else is invited and nobody’s feelings are harmed in the making of this fantasy about being alone for a day.

secret: on feminism, feminists and more

As a white middle-class tertiary-educated woman, there are a multitude of claims and descriptors and arguments and rules and pre-conceptions that I trip over myself to avoid while also naming myself a feminist.

Claiming "female success" and the success of feminism elicits two responses. It intimates an end point, a final win. That the work and the goals of feminism and feminists have been met. That we have achieved equality. This seems wrong for countless reasons and listed pages of evidence that I mostly have neither the inclination nor the time and energy to write. The second response is the instinct to urge caution: don’t let the Patriarchy know we are doing well! They will respond by squashing us even smaller than before. They will redouble their attack. The backlash will be swift and unflinching.

There is a third response, which is: heck yes. Be afraid. Feminists/Bitches get stuff done. This one is muffled by the others, but it is there.

Feminism may have succeeded, but it also continues to succeed, and will log more success in the future. There is a real danger coming from those quietly chipping away at our energy by telling us it’s all been done already. Or that we should be happy with the progress we’ve made, as though there is not much more work to do. Or that things could be so much worse, that 'other people have real problems'.  Some of the key offenders and perpetrators of the ‘feminism is over’ story (a definite myth, let’s be honest) are (always) the ones who stand to benefit by way of our progress, motivation, anger and fire being set aside, distracted, placated into uneasy quiet.

I am not in any way interested in talking about post-feminism. I am only just on board with this concept of waves of feminism, because where waves from the ocean are dictated by the moon, so it feels to me that waves of feminism are dictated by historians and patriarchists (I made up a word, you're quite right) – to me this makes feminism a phase, or a collection of inconvenient phases. With all due respect to the suffragettes and the radical women in overalls with sassy signage, marching down city street and stopping traffic, with all respect to each woman who fought for any of the glorious joys I am consuming on a daily basis (the voting, the birth control, the right to the Morning After pill and the right to a safe abortion and the right to lean heavily on the crowd of strong, bossy, insubordinate women who spoke up before me while I speak up too, and loudly) I do not accept feminism in the prescribed phase format. We’ve been doing it for bloody ages and we’re doing it now and we will. Keep. Doing. It.

Long into the future.

There's a bit of outdated academic reading out there where the folk doing the arguing sit back and try to make the point that young women right now are rejecting feminism. That women being aware of and compliant to and complicit with the sex and the pornography and the high heels and the mascara and the hot wax and the prostitution and the red fucking lipstick, that which was rejected so vehemently by the feminists in the 60s and 70s means feminism is being rejected by young women. 

Here we are in 2016, for the next few moments at least. Now, where we are is most definitely not post-feminist. You ask Beyonce. You ask Roxanne Gay or Clementine Ford or Jes Baker or any other person I could name for you with more time and less respect for the apparent need for evidence. Unfortunately we did not buy the story that feminism was over. A backlash to your backlash, motherfuckers. Feminism looks different again, to me at least, or perhaps I’m searching for difference.

I don’t just want to be talking about wage gaps (although being that we live in a capitalist system it seems a pretty blatant oversight to pay women less for the same work – shouldn’t the patriarchy be hiding the evidence, not making a gap so obvious and easily put forward to compare an amount of cents to a dollar?).

I don’t just want to be talking about female reproductive rights (although why a gang of old white men should have so much impact on my ovaries is completely beyond me).

I don’t just want to be talking about the prevalence of rape culture in our media, down to the bare bones of the words that come out of our mouths (although if it’s gotten to the point that young women are carrying mattresses around college campuses in protest, we probably need to sit down for a chat).

I don’t just want to pick a few battles; I want to partake in a constant and evolving dialogue/Tumblrblog about all these things as well as cultural appropriation, discrimination against those not able-bodied, resistance to marriage equality, transphobia, body positivity, racial discrimination, refugees and detention centres, rights of animals. I want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land. I want to listen to people who have voices either rusty from lack of use or hoarse from shouting their stories, either way to listen for truths that are not being heard.

I want to negotiate a way to apologise for the clusterfuck of a national heritage I’ve inherited as 6^th generation white Australian to the people my ancestors killed, displaced and stole. I want to apologise in a way that promises I will do my best to contribute to change.

I want to stand aside and separate from industries that hurt, maim and murder animals, built on a belief that because humans have more means to power over vulnerable little lives we should take them. It should not be so easy to take lives, or to make lives as short and painful as possible. I do not want to participate in a system of oppression over beings that don't have voices with which to defend themselves.

I rant above to illustrate that I am a feminist and that means I care about how everything fits together. Other people do have different problems, but establishing a hierarchy of who's problems are the biggest is a tactic for distraction. Pulling a feminist cause out of any of the above is like trying to pull a loose thread out of a woollen jumper – the whole lot will unravel. It's all my cause. Bless you, patriarchy. I am not distracted. Feminism is not an historical category belonging to a museum, because we’re far from done.

When you tell me feminism is exclusionary, you’re not always wrong. White feminism is most definitely a story written for white women, where white women anniversaries are celebrated and women of any other colour disappear.  I hope I am working towards being the kind of ally I’d like to be. I’ve used some ‘we’ and some ‘us’ and some ‘our’ in this piece but I’ve tried to use plenty of ‘I’ and ‘my’ in this piece as well.  Speaking for myself here I’d like to say if you’re a man and you’re down with what I’m saying, you’re a feminist. Being a man and a feminist is a little tricky for you in the same way being a white woman and a feminist is for me. Do more listening than talking, I think that’s key. Listen, read, ask respectfully. The conversation can be about you, but it is mostly not about you. This is because if you’re chatting with feminists you are chatting with women who are acutely aware that patriarchy has set society up to listen to and cater to you, as a man. You benefit from that in ways you may not have realised yet. Be quiet, listen, and start to realise.

When you tell me you’re not a feminist because you believe in equality, I will dismiss you or dislike you or feel sorry for you or openly ridicule you or calmly explain to you that you need to educate yourself. Patriarchy has done a fantastic job of perpetuating the idea that the Feminists hate Men and are Out to Ruin Everything; that feminists think women are better than men, deserve more than men. This bad press is boring; let us scoff at it and move past it. Let us not pretend that feminism is utopian perfection. Nothing is perfect. Nowhere is utopia. Nobody is flawless, except maybe Beyonce. You know how we deal with that? We let it be imperfect and we keep right on moving forward for better things. We check in with our basic truths constantly, even if only just to reassure ourselves that are motives are sound. Flaws are not ammunition for derailment. No thank you.