truth seeker, secret keeper

Someone asked me a while back what I was passionate about.  I struggled to find an answer, I couldn't pin-point one thing that I thought: yes this makes my heart beat faster when I think about it! I found that profoundly disturbing.  Today, I think I have the beginnings of an answer.

It's weird to admit, because I consider myself a sort of misanthropist - but I think maybe people are my passion. But hold-up, not all people; 'authentic' people - this is where it begins and ends for me. I am awed by people who are open, honest, vulnerable - the kind of people who say "I don't give a fuck" and really mean it. Maybe these people excite me, because they represent who I want to be? Or perhaps it's because I've had my heart trampled on a few times, or maybe because in this world we're living, I simply see an opening - nay - a positive need for every day brave hearts. I simply love the people who trust me with their truths.

I'm not a talker, I never really have been. I find small talk excruciating, because I'm simply not much good at it, but I am always thrilled when someone reveals pieces of themselves to me. I mine those truths like the precious gemstone they are.

Sometimes I'll meet someone, catch their eye and know they are someone I would like to know more about. I'd like to think the appearance of a wicked set of sleeve tattoos and a manly, yet well groomed beard don't steer me too obviously to this conclusion - but hey, I'm only human. Sometimes the intuition and attraction lines gets a little blurry, I admit.

Anyway....

Sometimes upon meeting someone I just want to get right to it, I want their story, I want their heartache, I want to know what makes them tick.

If I could meet each and every one of you, I would ask you what you day-dream about? What you really want out of life? Where's your joy at? I'd ask you to tell me about your scars. And it's not voyeurism that drives me, I'm not a gossip, I'm not trying to tap you for ideas.  I see it as a gift - the act of listening, of receiving. When you ask someone about themselves, when you engage their heart, there is a palpable soul exchange - you leave marks on one another, like fingerprints. And if you believe in the idea that everyone you meet in your life serves a purpose, regardless of how long they stay, I think these are the exchanges that matter the most.

I hope this doesn't sound like a whole lot of wank. I've fallen out of practice of writing, and it is a vulnerability of my own to declare this, and put it out into the world.

"I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."  (Rainer Maria Rilke)

I'm also passionate about the idea of finding contentment.  My whole adult life, I have been plagued by the idea of finding answers - because surely life must be logical, and I have so many questions and doubts, that there simply must be answers.  I think soul-mining the people I encounter is my way of making peace with these questions, and also serves to remind me that perhaps the answers aren't so important?

she let go?

"She Let Go"

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely,
without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a
book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.
- Rev. Safire Rose

The very idea paints such a wonderful picture. Imagine, just for a moment - letting go of everything you thought - about yourself, about other people, about what you think other people think about you. Letting go of expectations, and should's and might haves and what-if's. I feel like if I could let go of all of these things, I might cease to exist, or perhaps float away on the breeze, like a bubble or a helium balloon.

Letting go... it's an idea that bears thinking about.

the fool

My Dad says to me the other night, "why don't you go and learn something - go and be an expert on something... I'm tired of hearing how unhappy you are at your job.." I suppose he was trying to be helpful, cheers Dad.

Truth is, I have been letting my bad days seed, and like a dandelion in a strong breeze those seeds have spread and settled on everything around me.  I didn't intend to involve other people, but I guess without realising it, I've been raining on their parades too.  I've just been trying to manage from day to day, and I think I've let my attitude slip in the process.

Whenever I take a peek outside my little box, all I seem to find are roadblocks.  I tried to meditate on fearlessness last night... it was challenging because I don't think I've ever felt that way before.

It's easy for me to just "put-up" with the way things are - to think maybe I'm not worthy to expect anything more out of life.  Maybe this is self-punishment, fear or shame?

Shame is being told that your inside 'stuff' is starting to seep out. Realising that it's no longer mine, but that it can be seen from the outside. Who's the fool?

Image by Ryan Learoyd

speaking actions

Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out.
(Italian proverb)

Today I sat in a room full of highly paid, we'll say, mostly intelligent professionals and never have I seen so many people dance around issues. It's utterly disappointing, coupled with a feeling of complete powerlessness.

God, I wish I could change the world.

SB xx

alrighty then

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
- W Somerset Maugham

I resign!

SB xx

imagine

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
- John Lennon

Just imagine how different the world might have been, had he not died.

SB xx

hello sunshine

Photo by me. Location - Nanna's garden.

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

SB xx

enough now

"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."
 – Prayer of St. Theresa

I want 2012 to be different.  I want to grateful and gracious.  I want to forget things of the past that make me sad - I want to look forward, to what ever is ahead for me. I'm not mentally 'there' yet, but I want to be, I hope to be - so, so much.

Here's to letting go, and sometimes, letting (the right one) in... and to knowing the difference.

SB xx

tv truths

"Sometimes, late at night, visited by dread and shame, I lie in bed and think about somebody else's life. I imagine the love that they're getting, and the relief that comes from being really known. The private pleasures they share. The friends they have and the pressures they don't. Their sense of importance. The satisfactions of their work. I imagine how fulfilled they are, how rich their life is. And in these moments, I feel empty and wanting.

Sometimes I think about someone else's life. I imagine all the love they do not have. I see the passion that's missing, the friends they don't know, and the awful pressures that crush them. In those moments, I realize how much I have. And how much I have to give."
— Enlightened, "Someone Else's Life"

I stumbled upon this quote, pulled from a show I have never seen. Something about these words grabbed me, because the first part - about feeling empty, well, that's me a lot of the time. But then, the second part makes me realise that maybe I don't need to have 'everything'... because in actual fact, no one does. And I guess, that makes it ok. And I guess, that makes me feel a little more 'normal' than I felt before.

As is always the case, we can't be sure what lies beneath someones surface - I barely even know my own truths.

SB xx

the making of me

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

SB xx

I'd buy the book

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Thing I like most about Gilbert K. Chesterton: he has a certain "I don't give a rats" air about him.

SB xx

head in heaven, fingers in the mire

Oh boy, I had forgotten what lyrical genius' the boys from U2 were.  You might not like the band or care for its members, but there is simply no denying that the way they can manipulate the tools of our language to make this - is nothing short of magical. They narrate our emotions and paint pictures with our memories. This is another song from the celebrated album, Achtung Baby, called 'so cruel'. Love.

We crossed the line
Who pushed who over
It doesn't matter to you
It matters to me
We're cut adrift
We're still floating
I'm only hanging on
To watch you go down
My love

I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn't what you wanted

The men who love you, you hate the most
They pass through you like a ghost
They look for you but your spirit is in the air
Baby, you're nowhere

Oh...love...you say in love there are no rules
Oh...love...sweetheart...
You're so cruel

Desperation is a tender trap
It gets you every time
You put your lips to her lips
To stop the lie

Her skin is pale like God's only dove
Screams like an angel for your love
Then she makes you watch her from above
And you need her like a drug

Oh...love...you say in love there are no rules
Oh...love...sweetheart...
You're so cruel

She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love...like a screaming flower
Love...dying every hour...love

You don't know if it's fear or desire
Danger the drug that takes you higher
Head in heaven, fingers in the mire
Her heart is racing, you can't keep up
The night is bleeding like a cut
Between the horses of love and lust
We are trampled underfoot

Oh...love...you say in love there are no rules
Oh...love...sweetheart...
You're so cruel

Oh...love...to stay with you I'd be a fool
Sweetheart...you're so cruel

SB xx

the science of things

Good things are worth waiting for.
Great things are worth suffering for.

This comes from a facebook status of all things (I know, spew) so I can't claim it as my own. I'd like to think it's true though. Might come to be a comforting thought someday.

SB xx

the way it is

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.

- Frida Kahlo

This quote breaks my heart - because it reminds me that I am calling out to someone who probably isn't there. I suppose this blog is my way of echoing Frida's words. Strangely, I know little about this woman - yet we are akin.  I too feel strange and flawed - an error yet to be discovered. These posts are my ink in the tattoo of time - except sometimes I wonder, if I'm not brave enough to own up to these feelings, beyond the keyboard, beyond the screen - what will become of me?

I am so, so lonely tonight.  There is no tune in my vast collection to set this feeling to. I search - Feist, Megan Washington, Laura Marling, Alanis Morissette - Christ no, Fleetwood, Gotye, Beyonce.  No, no, no, no.

I wanted to test myself tonight, thought I could handle a dose of reality - some distant facebook research.  Turns out, not so harmless. Turns out, I'm not so ready. Fucking facebook.

Best be off to read some self-help book; or rather somebody-else-help-me-because-I-can't-help-myself, book.

SB xx

Wilde World

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Oscar Wilde 

SB xx

Art Class 1. 0. None

So, tonight was my first art class - kind of a stinking disaster of lead, charcoal and $1 paper, but I'll keep at it.  Turns out I'm not actually an artistic genius after all.  I have this real need for approval in the teacher/student relationship, and when I don't get it - I get frustrated and upset.  I guess essentially, I want to be special - and when I'm not, it hits hard.

Zoning out and not having my mind wander to work and normal life issues was nice though - that is definitely a positive.  I'm going to keep at it and keep practising.  I learnt tonight that I don't like fruit, or flowers as subject matter... but I'm sure I'll find something that inspires me.. more.

It was quite ridiculous actually.  I used an easel for the first time in my life - being right handed, my right hand was busy enough - but I had some difficulty finding occupation for my left hand.  At certain points, I would be seen with my left hand casually in my hoodie pocket, or at other times resting across my chest in a defensive "back off apple" stance, or even sitting atop my hip - angry mumma style. Must have looked quite silly!

I found a lovely quote on the back of a birthday card that I brought today.  May my head hit the pillow with similar sentiments.

Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration.  The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation.

Oh, to be a hummingbird - or better yet, to be a friend of one...

SB xx

gratitude

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

Jacques Maritain (1882 - 1973)

my heart room

In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.

- Antonio Porchia

SB xx

I carry your heart

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
        I fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart


I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

- EE Cummings

words & things

I carry you with me wrapped up in my heart
We are the wonder that keeps the stars apart
The root of the root and the bud of the bud
The deepest of the deepest
The singing in the blood

- Paul Kelly

SB xx