sunlight cleanses the soul.

♥

Eating apple and cinnamon porridge in the garden. No wasps and only the occasional distant bee. Serving fish and chips to customers wearing flowery dresses. Reading Keats' poetry in the shower. Distracting my brother from studying, and vice versa, with interesting conversations.

Listening to new music (The Honey Trees). Reading Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman, 1985, very very interesting) for an essay on entertainment and journalism. Getting very encouraging feedback on a short story. Going out for lunch with three lovely friends. Borrowing too many books from the library for my exam next week. Getting distracted by the warm(ish) weather. Chatting to the funny people that live in this white house. Waking up with a tapestry of sun falling on my bed.

Quite a nice couple of days. Nice can be a rather insipid word, and I am trying to cut down in my use of it. But sometimes it is the right word. Not super. Not brilliant. Not absolutely marvelous. Just... nice. 

The next couple of weeks are going to be a bit frenzied I think with the three exams looming, which is a bit daunting. My life is a constant wrestle with worrying, but I'm going to try my hardest not to get too stressed and to enjoy the process of looking over the themes and topics from this year.

We'll see how that goes...

(Pictures of sunlight: sifting through the train-station windows, falling onto my journal, touching the top of the Clyde.)

♥

today is fantastic because...

...of the date: 07.04.11. 'What on earth...?' I hear you ask. Well first of all, that isn't a proper question. And second of all, isn't it obvious:

7 + 4 = 11

I love days like this. Well, love is maybe too strong a word, but they do make me smile (a little bit) when I'm writing the date down.

...anyway! (What was I doing again...? Oh help! The essay!

*vanishes under a pile of books and lined paper*) 

Picture: here.

soaked in the sound.

Before I go make a cup of tea and get back to essay writing, I also found this today and thought I'd share it. I like her voice (and her dress), and the photography is beautiful. Dreamy.

♥

found.

Sometimes I trick myself into believing that I’m doing something incredibly useful, when actually I’m just avoiding work.

Like just there. I spent an hour organising the University Work folder on my computer. It all started because I was looking for a good definition of 'journalism' that I knew I had in a Word document somewhere, and then I realised how jumbled my folders were. And I realised that this was utterly unacceptable. I realised that I absolutely had to fix them right that very minute or – or - the world would probably end or something.

Of course I couldn’t just tidy up the folders. Oh no, that would be madness. I had to read everything in them too. And that’s how I came across this poem.

I wrote it last year for Creative Writing. We were given the task of choosing a well known character and then dropping them inside an unexpected situation to see how they’d react. I hadn't written much poetry before, but I loved it. Trying to capture the music inside words. The poet teaching the class suggested that I break up the structure of my poem to mirror the character’s thoughts. That’s why it looks so fractured.

♥

Cinderella.

march 2010

I’ve lost my slipper, I say to

no one. And no one listens.

I have lost – I have lost –  

lost –

Rain taps

on the window

like a bird; tap,  tap.

I have lost – I have lost my life.

Where has it gone?        It fell off

  after the wedding cake, and the black

umbrellas, and the       heart   ache.

         I have lost my life. Please nurse,

why has it gone?            It sparkles

at the top of the stair.

But I’m half way down,

and I can’t climb up.

If you   looked      you might see it

still,        a twinkle of light

in my eye.  My story is     not    over

yet. But I have  lost –   lost –

    They    come past, now and then, to check

I’m not dead.   Still breathing? Yes.

Heart beating?

Yes.       Still moving? Yes,            

yes.

But is this   living?

You are   old, Cinderella.

With your          snow white

hair, and your    lacy   thin,

skin.                      

      
You are   wallpaper

 ♥

(Pictures from: here)