solitude sometimes is

The weeks have diminished at an alarming rate.  I know my time has been filled with things of value, yet identifying them is almost unthinkable; sitting in parks, drinking, smiling a lot, crying a lot, making, doing and being.  Then it ended.  In place of the mayhem came the lull.  The silent and uncaring type of atmosphere that only leads to too much thinking and speculating.  What becomes of a person when everything suddenly ceases to exist?  Must I crawl under a rock somewhere and decay or flourish and present my rebellion in a cloud of glitter, sporting a sickly inane grin.  Truth is, I can do neither.  If ever there was a no mans land, I believe I have stumbled across it.  The future is confusing and complex and the present, so perplexing. 

What does one do when it suddenly becomes clear, after three decades of life, that you know where you went wrong? 

Being in denial is becoming increasingly difficult, yet it has to be embraced as a coping mechanism.  If no money can buy the thing you need and yet it lies within reach, how do you ever make your peace with the fact that you can't have it?  Just a taste of what you truly want is so painful you might almost wish you had never known.  I take great comfort in knowing; yet the sadness is all consuming when practicalities and truth come into play.

Being me is like living life in a whirlpool.  I consider myself settled and suddenly everything becomes mixed up.  It's something of a shock when the missing piece presents itself, I'll almost certainly never get over it.  However, for the first time I really know who I am, I know what I want and with that I gained the realisation of why all those other things were never right.  Fairy tales are invented, but it seems that once upon a times are an all too real possibility.  I'm so grateful I allowed it :)

The Walls Can Speak

Not a shake of a head
Nor a shoulder to shrug
Can dismiss
The way echoes
Descend from above

In stubborn denial
Refusal to say
Internalised
Mute
Perpetual the day

Recognition refutes
sentimental though still
Like the sun
Like the scars
So haunting until

The blindness of truth
suddenly so upon
Has unbound
Stark in presence
The loneliness gone

Typified

Behind the glass of those eyes that gleam

and stare with the noise of mayhem, serene

Beneath the core of the soul that seeps

Reassurance unbound, from the child that weeps

The barrier that ceased many steps to fall

Dilapidated still the crumbling wall

Stands strong in rejection of countless ails

and narration speaks in clairvoyance tales

a purity found from a tarnished youth

meagre lies never held untruth

for the things that are viewed in the iris of he

makes certain the purpose to let things just be

INCUBATE

A proposal for something rather special.

What happens to the body when it suddenly realises its twin....?

Clock STOP

The weeks have been busy....on another level busy!  Can't recall the last time I had the freedom to sit and write; not about academia or mindless drivel, but about things that really matter - life, love, Art and happenings!  A lot occurred in the time which lapsed between ramblings.  Firstly, there was the big night out; this was the crescendo that built following the final of a competition I entered.  The night largely consisted of me, in a body stocking and wig, nipples taped with crosses....frolicking around Preston with an entourage of drunken fools who carried me on piggy back or any other method whilst someone else carried my 'equipment'.  This was the type of hilarity one might only encounter on a student night out and it was with a sense of pride that I stood talking to a bird at 6am, wearing a strangers dressing gown and clutching a can of cider.  It felt like an achievement at the time.

The most troublesome side effect of such a raucous event was the germs contracted as a result of all the huggy kissy behaviour with friends.  Every single one of us has coughed and spluttered ever since!  Said illness has had a knock on effect for performance fortnight, which I sneezed and shivered my way through. 

The other main event that has taken place recently is that of the visitor in my house.  The visitor with the eyes that change colour and the smile that could melt the sun.  So pretty a visitor could not sit undetected in my house, yet he fitted so perfectly that it was impossible to consider that we only met some three weeks ago.  The everyday tasks that control my life were completed in the same way and yet they felt freer and easier.  So wonderful to have a new feeling about life and to feel nervous in a positive way for once.  Somehow this person reminds me of everything that is right with the world.  For the first time in months I sat and did little else but relax, which is a completely new phenomena in my vocabulary.  I love this.  I love that I seldom have anything negative to say at the moment; it feels so natural and so special.

At the end of last week when the time came to say Goodbye, I stood in a crowded bus station wiping tears away and feeling a sense of emptiness, an emptiness that was cushioned by the knowledge that things were regenerating.  Nothing can break a bond which is true and this is a bond which began in uncertain circumstances and cemented itself for always.

London is very far away, yet not so far that someone can't be close to the heart.  Within a few days the work had been done and the plans were in place.....now the ball is a hundred percent rolling and I hope it never stops.

There you are.

Here I am.

Thank you for restoring my belief in people.

Face

It's in the eyes
of course there's no deceit
In the fact that the sun shines beneath internal smiles
and the twinkling of hope
glitters from the beauty kept inside
Pure and untainted
Never to speak untruths
Only mirror the perfection
Like glass under a blue sky

Lids closing softly
never to hide the intensity of soul
but to bask in the ambience
lightly falling into love
gently binding into blood
and streams of thought
which meld as one
from the darkest days
the bird sings freely
a song of hope

Coming home and waving goodbye

One solitary girl.  A grown up girl, granted, but a girl who feels like a child the majority of the time.

and off I went to the big city.  The prospect of the 8 or 9 hour journey wasn't at all daunting.  With a very modest bag in hand I arrived ludicrously early for the coach.  Somewhere in the pit of my stomach I sensed the churning of nerves but I pushed the fear aside in favour of excitement.  Sitting on what seemed to be a refrigerated seat, I clutched at my phone to update every social networking site known to man....this was little me on a big adventure.  I've made the same journey a great many times you realise, only this time it was different.  Was he going to stand me up and leave me weeping miserably in a packed tube station?  Or would he honour his word and kick start the next chapter of my artistry.  As expected, the journey had its drama, with broken toilets, broken heaters and crying children to contend with but I just sat in my own little bubble of amazement.  I took in every single moment and made sure that every pore absorbed the memory. 

On nearing London, the familiar sights and occurrences presented themselves with welcome zest.  I read the signs....Baker Street, Oxford Street......anything that would fuel my eagerness and reinforce my decision to go.  By the time the coach drew to a halt my heart was racing so fast I thought it might burst through my chest.  This is when the 'strut' occurred.  The 'strut' would be my casual stroll in an effort to prove that I blend in and to dissipate unwanted attention; it fails horrifically.  After circling the same shopping centre three times I realise that the nerves have caused complete disorientation.  By the time I make it to the tube I am boiling hot and flustered and wondering how I will get to Brixton without passing out.

This is when it gets exciting...

Suddenly I am there.  I'm at Brixton.  I'm there - yes I'M AT BRIXTON!  So I pause......I pause, light a cigarette with hands that tremble sporadically and I think.  By thinking, I mean that my internal voice of reason said 'oh fuck oh fuck'.  There was no possible reason for this randomness, only the harsh reality of what I was doing smacked me right in the face.  I gingerly picked up the phone and walked as I talked.

Every step I took I felt like the wind was being pumped out of me, pure adrenalin I assume.

and there he was, smiling.

It's at moments like this I'd love to be able to slap myself round the face.  How do you react when the unreachable is suddenly in reach? He looked exactly as I recalled.  Smiling, friendly, casual, pretty and most importantly, he looked like the sweetheart I had imagined he was.  Now don't get me wrong, it may sound pitifully soppy but that's what you do in a blog or a diary right?  I have to make everything sound fluffy and sugary!  But it is true.  I saw his little face standing nervously and immediately decided that any man who didn't let me down after all this must be worth the journey.  Just writing this I get goose pimples because it's so damn exciting!  The second he put his arms round me and asked me if I was ok I knew the decision was easily justified, this was a friend for life. 

I've said this a lot this weekend but the weird thing is that none of it was weird.

We went to his house and I met his flatmate who was very warm and welcoming.  To my delight, there was a cat (I don't trust people who dislike animals).  We went upstairs and after his many apologies for the 'mess' I sat down on the bed, laid back and closed my eyes.  He did the same.  That's how time stood still a while - odd isn't it?  Lying on strangers' beds!  But it didn't feel anything like strange.

Nights pass too soon and before I knew it my eyes were closing without a definitive plan for what to do next - and I needed this performance to happen so much!  Then I realised exactly what we needed to do.  Then we agreed what we had to do.  Then we got excited about what we are going to do and I just might burst I'm so pleased about it.  Tess James and Rich Kightley are going to collaborate on a beautiful piece of performance art about the merging of souls.  Who'd have thought it?  The trouble with this kind of work is the inevitable emotional connections you make to people.  I'm not in the habit of showing emotions in public, nor am I soppy or romantic or flighty or anything of that sort.  Yet it was me who allowed myself to stand in the coach station sobbing like a baby.  It was me who gazed into those piercing eyes like a fool and clutched onto his jacket for dear life.  It might have looked stupid but it so did not matter.  He cried.  I cried.  There is no possible explanation I can offer for my behaviour.  Goodbyes tear me apart at the best of times but leaving London, especially when I now know that it is home to someone so dear to me, was very hard to take.

I take much comfort in the knowledge that this is an emergence of something fresh and exciting and not at all an end to anything.  I feel so blessed that I had the chance to do this.  Everyday life has rumbled back in, but this time it has more energy bubbling beneath the surface.

Tess is very happy indeed.