Damn I Love You

I am currently obsessed with the slightly creepy, raw and beautiful sound of Keaton Henson's voice. There's something very goosebump-y about his music which reminds me of Sufjan Stevens (maybe mixed with Lou Barlow? I'm not very good at this)

Here are some still from his haunting (literally, there's a ghost!) video for "Party Song" (note: I wouldn't actully advise playing this at a party, unless you want all your guests to start crying, then leaving to go and sit alone in a dark room writing poetry) (which actually sounds like my kind of party)

The song that actually kills me though is the amazing "Sarah Minor". I think it's youtube hits have doubled since I discovered it :)

"And god you love to argue and you can't play guitar,

But still let me tell you that I love who you are,

But still let me tell you that I love who you are"

Aw.

xx

How To Be Alone

"Lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

Just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

If you have an art that needs practice, stop neglecting it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament."

This amazing video by filmaker Andrea Dorfman, and poet/ singer/ songwriter Tanya Davis pretty much makes me tear up every time I watch it! I'm an only child so I don't need any lessons in being alone... but it reminds me why I still love a bit of "me" time every so often*.. "Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed"

* okay, quite often!

xx

Devastated!

Just got back from Sri Lanka. Which wasn't devastating... in fact it was beautiful, inspiring, amazing and well... as many superlatives you can squish into a run on sentence. I took my new Diana Lomo camera along to record the many wonderful sights I saw and memories I made... which unfortunately was a HUGE mistake... all the photos were ruined due to a light leak. Like, every single one. I'm so disappointed! Luckily I backed many of them up by digital, but there are a few things I lost any record of completely... and who knows when the next time I'm going to have a baby crocodile on my head is going to happen again!

Anyways, as I was walking home (I may or may not have been crying... yeah, okay... I was) I started thinking... and realised maybe losing those photos wasn't such a big deal as in that moment it did seem. After all... they were just images, capturing sight alone. They wouldn't show the prayers that drifted softly through the air from speakers, mingling with the bread truck blaring out "It's a small world" and competing with the tinny sounds of bollywood tunes, or Michael Jackson or, in one case, classical piano coming from the windows of the homes I passed. Or the cheerful greetings of "good morning"(in the case of adults) or "bon bon?" (in the case of children) which followed me wherever I went. Nor would they show the smells of cooking, fire, jungle, tuk-tuk fumes, incense, jasmine intermingling in the air... or the feeling of a tropical morning ripe with the potential of another sunny day... the warmth on my skin, making everything I had ever known seem so far away. Those photos wouldn't have captured the taste of a fresh king coconut, purchased to conquer the heat, and for the novelty of guzzling straight from the husk... or the sensation of the warm afternoon rain clinging to my clothes, the itchy bites, the feeling of the gravel of an unknown lane underneath my feet.

Or the freedom and beauty of feeling in love with a place, and a time in life.

There's a lot looking at those photos wouldn't tell you. But a lot that I could.

And suddenly, I'm not so devastated after all.

xx

This time last year...

... and the year before that, and the year before that (what can I say, I'm obsessed!) I was leaving on a jet plane for my beloved NYC. Bags packed, heart in chest, awaiting that first glimpse of the city from the plane... and the inevitable burst of excitement, love and crazy-can't-stop-smiling happiness that I would experience as Central Park became recognisable beneath me.

For a place I have spent most of my life NOT living in, it sure holds a lot of my most beloved memories... seeing my best friend get married in City Hall, my friend's band play the Bowery Ballroom (!!), my first Brooklyn date; drinking iced coffees and watching the sun sink below the buildings of Manhattan from across the East River (and later, my first NYC heartbreak... rushing to catch the subway as Avenue A was blurred by tears and rain before me, one cold and sad New York night a year after) and many, many days of discovering my new favorite dive bar, cupcake bakery, bagel shop, bodega, coffee shop, thrift store, art gallery, record store, dog park, cheap borscht restaurant... and everything else in-between, as I pounded the streets of the East Village, L.E.S and Brooklyn, over and over again on each lovely New York day.

Anyways, over the years I've learnt you can miss somewhere you aren't, while still loving where you ARE. So on this day I am very, very glad and grateful to be here, in my wonderful Melbs, with all my lovely friends... but also...

New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down!

(Click to view song)

I miss the hell outta you NYC!!! *sniff*

So... who's in for NEW YORK 2010??!!! ;)

xx

What was I thinking?

"What was I thinking?!!" you say to friends, yourself... to make you feel better.

I was thinking how your jaw juts out when you're anxious, to make you look tough, but you really just look twelve years old... I was thinking of nights when I barely knew if I was asleep or awake anymore, somehow both blended into an underwater (undersheet?) ebb and flow of movement and breath... I was thinking how we would walk down the street as if contestants in a three legged race, so much fun it was to be as close as possible whispering in each other's ear... I was thinking of how strangers yelled from cars at us to get a room... before we had even shared our first kiss... I was thinking how you would say "You're so funny" as if unwrapping a giant present on christmas day and being unexpectedly delighted with it's contents... I was thinking of how we couldn't walk five meters without stopping, how we kissed in the middle of the road... I was thinking of how much you made me laugh in the mornings... how seeing your name in my email inbox was itself a small burst in my chest... I was thinking there was no-one else in the world like you, and never would or could be.

That's what I was thinking.