funny shaped buildings and a sky so blue it hurt my eyes
We woke up as the sun set and tried to think what had been real. A man dressed in fur who’s voice came out sideways. A dealer’s Hawaiian shirt shimmering and expanding until the whole bathroom became jungle-like; his smile disembodied from the rest of him. Dancing with Laura, who became a telly tubby and tried to make me one too; thinking that the music was pouring in my ears like water.
I feel fragile but happy; that I have friends who are beautiful even when my mind distorts them and blurs. That stand around me like little stars.
We look so puffy and hazy in these pics from Amsterdam. My memories are oddly coloured, blurry soft from smoking so much and tripping under the shade of willow trees. We lay on the belly of the earth and felt it breathing below us, watched clouds shift and dance like fat babies. I hope i never forget the colours…
I can’t scan the rest of my pics until I get home but I’m putting up these coz it’s crazy I can already have cute n nostalgic memories about a trip I’m still on!! ^__^ these photos are sun-stained from 45 degree days in Portugal + Italy and already fading, fuzzing over in my mind. The last time I saw Laura and Charlie we were catching the 6am train back to our apartment in Bari after dancing all night on a dusty field; too scat to talk and surrounded by quiet Italians heading to work.
I like putting my film pics here too (rather than Twitter or insta) because theyre so rough and mismatched, little fragments of my life that I don’t rly show anyone. I kind of hate my online presence most of the time but no one I know really looks at my blog haha so I can avoid that anxiety. my blog is just me and the things I’m thinking, and the less people who see it the happier I am which is confusing even to me.
I like the concept of online sharing I guess but not the aspect of exhibitionism; the way each of us internalizes this “audience” that we honestly believe to be real and strive to impress. Tbh the real audience is probably more alien and sinister than we can imagine and I don’t like capitalist motives influencing my social interactions w people I love…… Oh well i think i need to just stop using social media so much or just CHILL OUT
This time while i’m away i have been thinking about freedom and how home for me is the place i feel most free. Not in a spiritual sense but physically – I live in a safe bubble surrounded by people i know and trust and can generally wear what i like / say what i like / go to places on the safest paths that i know well. Freedom is knowing how to be safe and knowing i can create my own safety if i need to.
Since leaving two weeks ago i’ve collected little moments of harassment like flecks under my skin. How many men have called to me, how many have grabbed me or pulled my clothes or swore at me, I lost count on the first day. So many that only the darker incidents (quiet footfalls following us and whispering awful things; so many men grabbing us that if not for a passing taxi i don’t want to think – ) stick in my mind.
We talk about it every day, to each other, to girls we meet along the way. They laugh and I laugh too and we wonder together possible ways to make it improve, ways to feel safe. We show each other stories like little scars that after a while blur and settle uncomfortably in the bottom of my stomach.
I think about how many times I’ve tried to explain to (male) friends what it’s like. Among women we talk about it freely, daily. Among men I’m met with blank looks or worried suggestions to “be safe”. I think about the way I always feel slightly guilty, for wearing what I was wearing or just for being there and not somewhere else. For talking about it, as if talking about it created it. As if it only exists in me, when I open my mouth.
I don’t wish for a kind of safety that comes from covering up and being quiet. I don’t long for safety that involves me hiding away or altering the way I am. I want it to be overwhelming and everywhere. I worry sometimes if home is the place I feel most free; a place I have constructed myself and know how to navigate and still I am always wary; maybe nowhere is really free. Maybe there is nowhere.
That Nowhere Feeling 