An Old friend in London Town

What I’ll remember most about yesterday was the soaring temperature, the dry air and sticky skin, fidgeting and grinning from overwhelming excitement and anticipation and the shear relief of hearing an almost lost voice and having a hug I have missed. The last time I was in London was a little under a year ago and last time I saw Kat was a little over 2 years and 2 weeks ago. I love both immensely, for wildly different reasons but I don’t see either as much as I would like.

Kat was my roommate while I was studying in America, I hadn’t shared a room since I was eight and despised the idea of having no solitary escape. Kat made having a roommate not only bearable but a wonderful part of my experience in America. She made what had been a sparse and gloomy room, home by filling it with trinkets, colour, noise and friendship. When I finally returned to Britain and my own room, I felt like someone had ripped away part of my being, she had been such a big part of my life it was odd to now have a life and a room without her.

I can’t remember ever really doing the tourist thing in London but who could say no to that chance and seeing an old friend?? London has never disappointed me but to look at everything through the eyes of a traveller was incredible. No one cares that it is over crowed, with people rushing or the expense; we were idle and easy going, swapping stories, answering question (seriously who knew I could regurgitate so much crap about the Royals) and filling her in on a whistle stop tour of London and Britain’s culture and quirks.

We started at London Bridge before following the South Bank of the Thames to the Globe. I love it at the Globe there is so much history there and the white round architecture always amuses me. We than went next door to the Tate, which I have to say is an extraordinarily ugly building considering it houses some beautiful art work. Yesterday they also had a BBQ outside, expensive but good. We followed the burger with a walk across the Millennium Bridge (the one that gets destroyed in the Harry Potter films) to S. Pauls on the opposite side of the river. This is a stunning building and the  gardens at the beginning of summer smell fantastic. We strolled up The Mall to Buckingham Palace and down The Mall to Trafalgar Square where we people watched whilst discussing education, politics, art, music and sports just like when we were hiding in our room pretending to work.  We found time to squeeze in a visit to  St. James Park, Piccadilly Circus before it got dark and we arrived in Leicester Square  it got dark and finally we ate at a proper English pub (or at least as proper as it gets in London).

I loved every moment of it even when my camera died, particularly that I was acting like a complete  tourist. When I go to London I go to shop, to the theatre or an exhibition, for work, I don’t see London, it’s just another city. I adored yesterday because I felt like I was seeing bits I had missed and because I was with amazing people. I was with Kat and in a prolonged moment of a day, doing all those things was so much better. So here is the upside to being a bit older, I can afford to go to London and buy my friend dinner. I can spend the day doing nothing and it be a wonderful guilty pleasure because I can drop everything and still go to work the next day. I’m now old enough to have a friend from years ago who lives in a different country and maintain it.   

Where I am the best version of me.

Is there a place where you feel like a different person, or perhaps where you feel like a superior or ultimate version of yourself? Somewhere that brings out your greatest aspects, diminishes you faults, somewhere where you excel. Mine is my old university town. I have yet to find anywhere that can make me feel safe and peaceful; it is where I formed some of great ideas about literature, art, friends and life. Aberystwyth in Wales lives in its own dazzling bubble, with little crime, vice or evil one can quite happy forget there is a big bad world beyond it boarders. It was a place where I could just be, just live and be happy.

I went through a lot of pain there but I never felt isolated or lonely. It wasn’t just the incredible people I met there, the place itself stood by my side, it laughed with me, stood close by me when I cried in the dark and stopped the world to comfort me. I miss it, I miss the people I love so much I cling to them as though I’m afraid they are a wonderful dream that will slip through my fingers. I miss the person I was there, the better, smarter, prettier and happier person. I miss the conversations about politics, books, comics, films, music, love, passion and life. I wondered if it was just me who had a place like this? Or does everyone have a place where they are the person they could be?   

Tumbling Pretties

White dresses and a level up in the game of life.

My friend has moved her wedding forward by a year from September 2013 to September 2012. I’m sorry to say I was first in there with the unoriginal question ‘Are you Pregnant?’ I couldn’t help it. I am vastly ecstatic because they got engaged and then the wedding seemed so far away, now it is the highlight at the end of my summer, let alone theirs. The bride is a wonderful friend from university and her fiancée is fab, I spend a large amount of time in their spare room when I’m visiting friends in trade for a bottle of wine. I have spent many happy hours with them and I can’t wait to see them marry, I plan to cry a sea of tears and drink way too much in their honour. They are a couple that is so established in my world that if they separated I’m sure the universe would rip at the seams.

 

The dresses

I’m not going to be a bridesmaid; however I spent the weekend wedding dress shopping with the bride to be and her mother. Would you believe it, the first dress, in the first shop was just perfect and nothing else after could measure up. This didn’t stop her trying on lots of dresses, I watched her try on white gown after white gown and started to feel, well, a little odd. I have never really wanted to get married, I was always in the train of thought that if you loved someone and wanted to spend your life with them just do it, why do you need a piece of paper to prove that you do or will. It’s not like in today’s society it means a lot, every marriage seems doomed to fail before it has started. Despite my cynicism and my generation’s apparent determination to devalue marriage, I always feel overwhelmingly happy when someone tells me they are going to tie the knot, I think it’s because in that moment that person seems incandescently happy. In the bridal shop, staring at mountains of white, cream, ivory, satin and lace I started to wonder if I wanted a big white dress? I can’t imagine thinking I could spend the rest of my life with anyone, let alone wanting or even choosing someone to do that with. Just because I can’t imagine it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it, it doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t make me content, it just means I have to do some serious revaluation of what makes me happy.

Everyone around me is in long term relationships, engagements and marriage. Me? Well I joined a Facebook group called ‘My friends are getting married, I’m getting drunk’, yes this is probably childish but it feels like I’m playing a game and I just went up a level in difficultly. It feels like I’m getting old and this doesn’t sit well with me, do I have to start checking for glinting gold bands on the left hand every time someone I am remotely attracted to starts talking to me? I am going to start getting sympathy looks every time I say I’m single, watching a small flash of fear in their eye as they panic I’m might burst into tears over my singleton status or even worse they might catch singletonitis? Or heartbreakingly worse am I going to be deserted, left behind by my friends? Is there room in married life for the single girl chasing a Neverland dream? If I fight to keep my friends will they accept me, chasing happiness that’s not like theirs or will we just drift apart on different tides??

Dancing feet

  I definitely have dancing feet and they are the best thing I have. I can talk for hours about getting the perfect line, movement or position but I’m not going to, as much as I may like chasing the perfect performance that’s not why I love dancing. I love dancing for the sense of freedom, the joy, to feel beautiful, to completely lose yourself and be yourself all at once. I believe that life is not about waiting for the tempest to pass it is about learning to dance through the rain.

Dancing is part of my soul, there is nothing better than dancing like no one is watching or dancing a night away until the sunrises and your feet ache. Dancing is everything and it’s all about dreaming. It’s about good music, feeling like you can fly and go on moving forever. I dance to music in my head anywhere any time, I dance in shops and streets as music is pump out. I will always be the first on the floor and the last. I will always allow a rhythm to infect me, I will ask partner after partner until someone will dance with me, I will always chose to get lost spinning with someone special for a moment, than hours sitting together.

Almost every society and culture has dancing; every child knows that the only thing to do when a song comes on is to jump around like a fool. It is sad that as we get older some of us stop and worry what people will think. When I was 16 I saw two elegant elderly widows, wrapped in scarves and coats gracefully dancing to a band in the park, they laughed their way through dances from their youth and flashes of their early days reflected in their faces. I decided then that if I got nothing else from life, I am going to be a woman who dances in the cold, in the open air, achy and weathered to smile and be happy.

Got any good memories about dancing?? When was the last time you danced like no would care??   Tumbling Pretties

It’s good to get lost once in a while

No one likes to get lost, that’s why we have maps, sat navs and 5 year plans. Getting lost is unnerving and frightening; it puts us face to face with the unknown, the unpredictable and unsettles us. Everyone likes to be in control and it is comfortable to always know who and where you are. The thing about getting utterly lost however is that we can learn valuable lessons and occasionally it does us some good. Getting lost can be a wonderful experience.

There are some places where it is good to get lost, the best example of this is Venice. The only way to truly experience this labyrinth is to throw your map into the Grand Canel and go for a wander. Get lost among the ancient street and find all the riches that are hidden in this city. I think to truly know the rhythm of a city you have to get lost in it. Paris will always be a mystery until you found that one cafe tucked away down a forgotten street that you and you alone adore. One of the things that is on that list of things in my head I have to do is get lost in New York just for a little bit and watch the city rush by in all its vivid colour.

There are the times you get lost by accident, lost in listening to music that sings to your heart and in art that speaks to your soul. Everyone at some point has stared into space and meander through thoughts, lost, roaming over hundreds of ideas as the world has just slipped away. You can get lost in your own excitement and interest reminding you what it is like to be truly passionate about something. Then there are moments, moments when the world stops, you become lost in an instant that lasts an age, it fills you up completely and removes you from time and space, and you vanish from the earth.

Getting lost is about gaining a new perspective, strolling off the beaten track and finding your own individual way in the world, to look through your own fresh eyes and not through the used eyes of hundreds of people before you. Getting lost means you can find something new, something unique, it’s how you find that beach with no one on it, that shop with the amazing nik naks, that place with the chef who creates the best food and that view that you don’t need a photo of because it shines brilliantly in your mind.

The really good thing about getting lost is not just losing yourself in something because of your zeal, but just losing yourself completely no matter how terrifying or daunting that is, because losing yourself means you can find yourself. How are you meant to know who you really are until you lose everything you think you are? Sometimes you simply, for the briefest of occasions, have to lose yourself and for a scary time not know who you are, to then find that fantastic thing that is the authentic you.

Maps are great and plans are excellent, the problem is they don’t help us when there is an obstacle in our way. They don’t teach us not to panic when we are lost or come up against the unexpected, that sometimes you have to embrace the unknown, navigate the unpredictable, to throw away agony and just see what is around the corner. Plans and maps don’t change but people do and it is people who have to alter the maps and the plans. If you don’t get lost once in a while how will you ever know where you really want to go?    All things lost on my Tumbling Pretties

Simple Things

You know when a day starts off badly like waking up late and all your supiors at work being in a bad mood. Well that was my day right up until I got paid and jumped in my car. In my car everything massively improved. Here are the reasons why my day rocked.

1. There are daffodils in the world and who can be miserable with those cheerful yellow faces waving in the breeze.
2. I got to chase the clear blue sky and sunset to the west as I drove to Aberystwyth.
3. I am now in Aberystwyth.
4. I have a weekend of drunken debauchery and looking like an idiot ahead of me.

Okay so there aren’t really a lot of reasons why I’m happy, what can I say I’m easily pleased.

There are some things that happen once

There are some things that happen once and that’s it. For example everyone should go outside in the evening just now and look toward the night sky in the west if you are in the Northern hemisphere. You will discover that after the moon, Venus and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the night sky; they are there until at least Saturday side by side in the dark sky. A few weeks ago the Northern Lights were seen in Britain and my sister and I stayed up all night to wait for an opening in the cloud to see them. Okay so this is event is going to happen again and there is a chance I will see them again but it may not, this may only happen once in my life time. I think sometimes people are just too busy to notice the once in a life time things that will happen.

I could continue by telling you that every moment you have in your life will only happen once, and things like ‘you’ll never be as young or as old again as you are right now’ but I think that’s a bit clichéd. I am nevertheless a full believer in living in the moment and never regretting something you do because at some point ……it was exactly what you wanted.

There have been times when I have scarified a good night sleep for a night that was truly inspirational; a night I that will never get back or spent money I didn’t have to do something incredible. And that doesn’t include the time I have had to exert myself twice as hard in order to reconcile the time I spent on the unique experience I just had to have at that moment. I’m not saying working for a future is bad, I just worry that I’ll miss the life now, the moment that is once. There will be a life time of good night’s sleeps, of money saved and days worked hard. There will only be one moment to meet an idol, to watch the sunrise from a mountain to go somewhere you’ll never go again.

There is a possibility my children will never see the Northern Lights but I have stood in the dark and star gazed at the awesome night sky. There may be a possibility it will happen again, but there is a possibility it won’t. So live in the moment once, to live that once in a life time instant…. try it.

The lost art of letters

I still write letters, I can’t help it, they are thrilling and I wish there were more in the world. There is something magical about sitting down with some beautiful stationary that the recipient will really appreciate, and scrawling over pages and pages in well chosen words that illustrate your thoughts perfectly. Deliberately telling your story in an intimate fashion and then folding your pages and addressing you letter carefully to look innocent and undetermined as it hides your secret words.  None of that really compares too receiving a letter diligently addressed to you in pen and opening it to find a tick volume of paper and curling up with a cup of coffee to devour your friend’s adventures.

Letters are a magnificently fulfilling form of long distance communication that has more potential to reflect and exhibit life that there modern counterparts. Quick and instant texts, emails and phone calls have taken over the thought of a letter because of their ease and freedom to communicate with anyone. Letters however are not about the immediate need for information about who is meeting you where that need nothing more than quick and instant words. No letters are for your fear as your child takes their first steps and not knowing where they will lead, the secrets that must never be over heard and indulgent retelling of your life.

There is a lack of sentiment in ‘I Miss You’ cards and catch up messages that is so easily captured in letters. How can a card picked up on the way to buy toilet cleaner measure up to the detail of attentive and personal words chosen by an individual? How can messages of two or three lines written in a moment meet the thoughtfulness of a letter that has painstakingly pieced together?  How when the world has never been smaller, when we can contact so many people not want to write elegant, wonderful letters filled with life.

There is something meaning full in a written letter that someone has bothered to write to you and conscientiously put effort into carefully scribing part of their life to you. A letter is not an instant automatic response; attention and consideration is put into every aspect of a letter that isn’t present with text messages and phone calls. Letters are an enduring reflection not only of the author but of the friendship presented by the letter that is lost in instant messages, emails and phone calls. Letters are kept and cherished to be re-read when they have yellowed and wrinkled like the hands that hold the fragile paper. In an age of instant communication I am sorry for the lost art of letters, I’m sorry that there will no longer be museums full of lost letters of no bodies discussing events and lives lost in time.

An article

 

Letter to self,

All the words I think but don't always tell

15:49pm GMT

In Sister’s Room

Home

Dear me,

I would address this more specifically but we do have a terrible habit of changing our preference of what we go by and what people call us. I am writing a letter to my future self, where ever and whenever I have chosen to read it again. This is as bizarre as the last time I did it, if just a little more familiar. I doubt you even get letters anymore, I know that I’ll be sorry about that, I like letters, they will be an archaic form of communication but nevertheless a lost art form.

I’m not writing to set us a goal or a target for the future I have no doubt that we will achieve whatever we have set you to do.  This is simply a reminder not to run away from life, happiness and what you really want. I know you, I know what you are like, you let fear of upsetting or hurting the people around you stop you; I don’t think you can live a whole life caring for other people’s emotions and neglecting your own. I speak from experience as much as you like living vicariously and sharing others happiness it’s not really your own.

I just want you to remember at an unspecific point in time who you are right now, at this specific moment. I’m lost in the utopia, the no place, stuck in a transition between my youth and adulthood. The things I know is that love is an incredible force, my friends and family are my world and hugs are wonderful. My head is an amazing if complicated place to be. I don’t always like my reflection, sometimes I hate for so many reasons. I have no regrets but I’m not proud of everything I have done. I have never been in love and I don’t believe in it, I’m too pragmatic to believe I would give up everything for someone or that I would open myself up to so much hurt. I don’t even think I could have children I think the pain of love would kill me. I think love for the people around me is killing me. I’m still however at heart the greatest romantic and an optimist masquerading as a pessimist. I lose hours just staring at the beauty in the world, at the splendour of my own little part of it and at the magnificence in the imperfect and small things. I am in utter awe of humanities creativity and its development, especially its ability to communicate ideas and in constant fear of atrocious acts it is capable of. I believe in humanity’s potential. I’m not numb anymore, but I’m not as happy as I used to be, in fact right now I’m terrified, terrified of not becoming the person I am meant to be. I’m terrified but I’m not holding back, I’m not a coward, the path maybe rough but I know deep down I am tough enough for this world. I adore the possibilities I have. And I used to be a dreamer, not so much now.

I hope you have remembered everything you have learnt up till now, things such as you should always believe in something no matter how small. Maintain that brilliant contradiction of always believing but questioning everything. Always know that magic is everywhere in the world if you look for it. I hope you reading too much, always have a camera to photograph everything and always have a jotter handy to write every moment and thought large and small and everything in between. I hope we still live every moment like it will never happen again, that we have travelled, done and experienced as much as we can, grabbing every chance has created some great memories. I hope we don’t wait till we are ready because I fear we will wait forever. Be happy but remember to feel, don’t let yourself be numb again, don’t let your soul die.

I have to wonder where and what I’m doing and who I have become. How do we compare? The person who was, the person now and the person I have become. I can only answer two of those, I hope I have grown and change, my identity still fluid and full of possibilities. I wonder in our quest to reach the stars where did we land? I hope we lost and found ourselves a million times over because that’s the only way to know who we really are. If you are not still a geek, you have betrayed your roots and I hope music, art and literature still makes you giddy and smile. Most of all I hope our pile of good things that has happened in life is bigger than the bad and that neither one has tarnished the other. Everything bad that happens is an experience and everything good is wonderful. I hope that you have learnt from everything that has happened and that everyone who has entered your life did so for a reason and help you grow and be simply you.

I hope you still ramble like this because being in your head most of the time is a pleasure.

Yours lost in utopia at 21.

Age and letters here

Friends are like your favourite artwork: beautiful.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

~ C. S. Lewis

   I honestly believe that if you’re not happy with how people treat you, change the people you know. Friends are allowed to break your heart but only if they rebuild it bigger and better. It doesn’t matter how close you are what matters is that at the end of the day you’ll be there for them and that they will be there for you. What matter is that they will drive cross countries or change their plans (or at least give it serious thought). When you are with a friends you should be happy and at peace and if you aren’t move on and treasure the memories because friends mean something.    

Friends are the people we share our lives with; the people we choose to share our lives with. They have intimate knowledge of our hearts and a unique understanding of our bizarre minds. Friends mean something because they choose to care; they are acquainted with every frustrating and irritable detail about you and yet still choose to be there for you. Friends are people who know your faults and still have time for you; you tell you when you have something stuck in your teeth because they are interested in the little things you do as well as the big. True friends are the foolish individuals who, even after they have advised and helped, stick around to pick up the pieces when you still mess up. Friends are people who have been there for you and if you are careful they will be there in the future, to watch, to be there on your great occasions, to tell your stories to people who don’t know you.

Friends are the people who don’t share in wonderful times but makes times wonderful by their presence. They make seeing the seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time and sharing the sun setting over it the best day of your life. They make leaving everything you know to study somewhere completely different and new the greatest adventure of your life. They make you school days the defining moment of your life. They make you feel that the world is yours, they fill you up with love of life and you know there is nothing better than when you shine together.

Sunset with friends old and new after an adventure field trip out of the city. East Bay, CA | 2012 by everydaydude

Tumbling Pretties