An alley

AS you trace the curvature of the streets, you reach the point where the curve moves and you move for the divot instead. This blog sits just as that divot, a bastion of private in the public, a place to sit outside and be in the world but far from her prying eyes. Here, you can only see. From here, you cannot possibly be seen.

I write with grand vulnerabilities, that weigh down my chin and yet I do my best to hold it up. That weight is constantly pulling and I must constantly resist and they struggle, they all struggle. In a world where the veneer is so fantastically polished, where bragging is no longer necessary as minted lives are laid out for all to see, this struggle is important. It is a way to becoming human once again, to becoming multi-dimensional, once again.

These images, these flashes of sound and light that barrage our consciousness and inspire images of our own and images of fantastical beauty and devastation and invite us to live in them but we cannot inhabit images. A three-D, slow born, slower raised, flawed, deeply deeply flawed and vulnerable being, cannot live in images.

Do we then open ourselves to a more holistic comparison, to a more thorough judgement-I don't know. Do we miss the point, then?
No, seeing people is what we do, in seeing we realise about ourselves and we becomes, ourselves and seeing people, human beings in flesh is not wrong. It is a way to love that more, it is a way to love the flaw, more, it is a way to explore more, deeper, wider, breadth.

This is vulnerability. These are my dimensions
This is the flawed mind that does not think as I want it to. That does not miss when I beg it to, that does not cry when I ask it to, that does not tick over when I need it to. This is the body that I have loved and hated and been so scared of when hair first grew, these are the eyes that I look into and some days they are far too close together and some days they are just beautiful as they need to be.

A painful jealousy and a whole love, a love that is prodded but never tested, that is reshaped but never compromised.

This head that I fight with that reproduces images and thoughts that I disagree with and I am these two thoughts at once and who knows who planted such thoughts in my head. But they grew in the fertile soil of fear and insecurity and I fear to weed them out for thoughts have been weeded out before. And they will never grow again. Warm thoughts of an innocence, thoughts of what I might possibly be --thoughts of a nascent love, a vulnerable interest that could never swim in a sea of 3D images.

I begin by allowing my struggle to move outside of me, so that I might be able to project a more whole union in this alleyway, a few turns from the main curves and we humans leap as it all rushes. The adrenaline moves from our toes to our heads and there is that second where an alternate possibility washes over our thoughts and it is there we must leap. It may and almost certainly will come again but then we are forced to wait, and weigh other decisions and our mind clouds and slows so when it comes along again, we might just miss it once more and so our mind clouds and slows and that rush rushes over until it feels like nothing but a tingle on our skin.

- Laurence, Anyways
A critical love from a compromised self. In that compromise, can we find our way back to wholeness?

Collecting Stories

Collecting remarkable, distressing stories of all the faces of humanity.

Allied Forces Trickery of the Axis in World War Two: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/20/outfoxing_beats_outgunning

Father Dies Shielding His Daughter from a Storm: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/father-dies-sheltering-girl-from-japan-blizzard/4552156

Crosshairs

The freckled girl dreamt of Monroe

In the crosshairs of society

She grew blonde hair from a roux doo

Her lips grew, drooped

And the dots of her face were varnished

But the twins who changed places

Ended up instead as Liz

Orange suited

She stares into the barrel of the camera

That same lens that will see her

Turn and cry, disbelieving

Will see

Mother and daughter

Peroxide hair entangled

Share a kiss

Will see

A Porsche crumpled on a highway

“Has Miss Lohan chosen to accept the people’s offer?”

Certainly she has

Sweet dreams, Lohan

Scaffolding

The red man flashes and the road clears. A few brave or time-pressed scuttle across the street, throwing their hands at the cars that wait - somewhere between an apology and a warding off. I hold back.

She leans back, scowling at him. He must have said something stupid. He takes this as an invitation and leans further in. They move with one another. I think I see a hand feel out her knee, but my vantage point isn’t ideal. I stroll over to the other foot of the scaffolding, look around and lean on a pole, the smug, mapped out routine of an insecure douchebag.

She rolls her eyes almost comically, as he mumbles words at her. He must have a whole arsenal of stupid things to say as it sets off a Ferris wheel of irritation. Then she clicks her lips and its clear that she is ready to respond. He senses this and leans back, his hand slipping from her knee as if to fortify himself against the coming barrage of words.

The white man beckons across the avenue crossing but I know that I am too invested to leave. I sense my place in the scene as the necessary observer. I am the audience goading the players. They are playing for me.

I need not lean in to hear her grievances. She has in fact remarkable projection and maybe even a history of public speaking, or at least fighting. She leans forward from her seat on the scaffolding, while her hands accentuate each accusation. In the flurry of activity, I find myself watching rather than listening. He turns his face away, offering pathetic endearments to try and pacify her, but she is in full flight. At one point she moves to stand up but then self-consciously sits back into the scaffolding, she must know she is in for the long haul.

The red man flashes as she rages. This time, no one sneaks across the street. They all take their places around the scaffolding. A girl comes up next to me and, looking around, pauses her music. The Shins in all their greatness never had the lungs of this woman.

A man steps up to join the cluster of pedestrians and the couple disappears behind him. This image suddenly seems ludicrous as his great hands remove a tissue from his pocket. A soundtrack of expletives accompanies him as he moves the tissue to his nose and blows twice. Its over. Looking up, the man buries the tissue in his pocket and walks. The woman falls silent and tilts her head away.

I push off the pole and without looking back, see his hand feel out her knee. And she waits patiently for her audience to reassemble.