How to Be Alone: In my Head this is a Country Song

I really wanted to say something beautiful

But I’m thinking of elephants, and horses, and money

Do you really want to hear me talk about how hard it is to cook rice?

What do I do when I’m left with myself?

What do you do in the nothing time between?

How do you go about having a life?

When did you get blood on your hands you offensive fuck?

Where is your mother?

‘How did you get down there?’

You probably don’t remember

But I do.

It wasn’t on the back of a motorbike with a guitar in your hand

(Like you tell people when you’re drunk)

I know that your mother drove you in her Honda Civic

And I know that you cried when she left

That you hated your place

Because you were too poor to get furniture

How did you get the job at the club?

Did you slip him a fifty or just blow him under the bar?

See, I’m already editing

‘What should follow next?’

‘I need to know the next step’

Because I’m fucked if use the word ‘bar’ twice in one line

I cheated

I changed it to ‘club’

There was a time when I didn’t imbue everything I did with half-assery and spite

Who wants to read about my fuck-ups and failings

when there are so many stories inside of me that the longing creates

Alternate realities where I don’t just stay in one place

I imagine I once was talented

Or at least deluded enough to believe that I was

No emotion girly, no fire, take it out

Focus on your legs and your body

I don’t want to see your face and your long, long hair

Cut it off

No one likes it

‘But I don’t even notice you anymore’

Truly, yes truly I want to be sweet

With the cupcakes and obedience

In my head this is a country song

Sung long and slow

In the voice of the woman I sometimes pretend to be

I cheated again

It originally said ‘a’

xoxo

More writing, writing, writing for uni. This came from a free-writing exercise and probably only makes sense in that context.

Snippets and Voices: Of being Open

I want to be Open. I want to warm my hands on a ceramic cup filled with tea and talk about Life and Love. With a friend. With someone who likes vintage, and pretty, and thinks about social constructs. And Art.

I want to Share. I want to share things that are more than snippets. I want to share things that aren't filtered. Things that aren't censored. Things that represent me as I am and not the self I wish to portray (though sometimes they are the same, or at least I think that maybe they can be).

I want to Trust. I want to feel free to talk. With my voice. And my heart.

I want to have a Voice. I want to have a voice that isn't tied to my fingers and black plastic keys.

I want to be Honest. I want to learn to trust again and love a friend again, and maybe on the road to those things is a stop where you learn to be openly honest with yourself. I want to share more completely with whole sentences that don't cut. Off before I get to the point.

I want to be Open. I want to do that here. Because here is where I am right now and I think here seems like an alright place to be.

xoxoxoxo

Every Fog

Low slung cloud lingers

Consumes each crevice until

I am part of it.

xoxoxo

Writing, writing, writing. Haikus for uni.

Nothing speech, Certain paint, Departing light

The smell brought back nothing,

but the swift memory of departing;

words falling short and rattling across the floor - plastic packaging of a futile speech.

We emptied all the cans and made a mural of red and black paint.

Stood back to look at the damage, no longer certain.

Lay under sheets (heavy flat vices now) and stared at the ceiling light.

It is morning. Weak rays. Pale light.

Bodies moving forward, thoughts cast back, present in the nothing.

Keys from the table, "But are you certain?"

"When," not why "is the bus departing?"

"Caution: Wet Paint

on the rails." Off the rails. Convoluted speech.

Fixation. The absurdity of speech.

Red. Green. Orange. It all continues regardless of the light.

Feet covered in paint.

But still there are no footprints. Nothing

left behind. We are constantly departing.

But of arrivals we can never be certain.

"But are you certain?"

Memory rings the bell for four words of speech.

Late. It's already departing.

Urgency of now. Flashing light.

But no noise - just more echoes of the nothing

and that persistent stench of paint.

Acrid. Disgusting. Paint, paint, paint.

Now it seems the only thing of which to be certain.

Nothing else remains. Nothing.

Endless options but I'm floundering. The smell overpowers the speech.

Missed. Yet another light.

Always on the verge of departing.

But errant thoughts of waiting prevent us from finally departing.

Waiting for the smell to go - that memory of paint.

Waiting for an excuse to leave - a steady green light.

Waiting to be certain.

Waiting to unwrap the words of our final speech.

But nothing.

We turn off the light and watch its' glow departing.

Eyes full of nothing - lips of red paint.

At once, not yet certain, it colours our speech.

xoxoxox

Object: Of Objections and Objectivity

You reproach me

'indifference'

'absence of ideals'

You want me

Let juries pass verdicts

my work is only to show them as they are

I have not.

(though I could not refuse myself)

I accused nobody,

Justified Nobody.

xoxoxo

Sins Remembered

How smart a lash,

beautified with plastering art.

O heavy burden!

-To die: - to sleep; -

- 'tis a consummation

Sleep of Death

give us pause!

Scorns of time

Pangs of despis'd love

Native hue

Pale cast

Currents turn awry;

when he himself might his quietus make.

Be all my sins remember'd...

xoxox

Ethnic Identity: This Place that I call Home

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I have always been concerned with the sociological concepts of race and ethnicity - particularly their relevance and relationship in the New Zealand context. I wrote this today in a cafe.

Every few years the government produces mass amounts of paper forms. This is quickly followed by a flurry of bureaucratic action to ensure that every individual in the country receives said papers. We are to list our personal details and answer questions classifying ourselves according to increasingly smaller pigeon-holed titles; married; Christian; Muslim; in good health. We are to tick a box indicating our ethnic heritage; Maori, Indian, Polynesian; Asian; Pakeha of European descent. There is no box for ‘New Zealander.’

As a British colony our nation was built by settlers. Migrants. Foreigners. Even our ‘aboriginal’ Maori originally migrated from ‘Hawaiki.’ For nobody was this truly home.

When a small movement to include the group ‘New Zealander’ in our census arose a few years ago I, as a racially sensitive teen, patriotically wrote the term in the ‘Other’ section of my form. Concerned only with my stubborn affront, I did not pause to consider what the label ‘New Zealander’ really meant to me. What I was indicating by selecting it.

What do those little boxes mean? What is the reason for this obsession with classifying race and ethnicity? These terms are so closely tied but are in fact two separate notions. Our census forms assume that our racial identity necessitates that our ethnic cultural identity correlates, but why the fixation with labelling either? In terms of a New Zealand context I feel that it highlights the fact that we largely base our identities on our culture or the colour of our skin. In a place that ‘is not really home’ our culture is defined by where we or our families came from. Perhaps this tendency is relevant for some more recent migrants such as the more recent Polynesian, Indian, Asian, and African arrivals. Our government tells us to particularly respect the relevancy of Maori culture and identity. But what about the white majority or others who may not tie their ethnic identity to their racial roots? Where is our cultural identity based if this is not really our home?

My own family arrived with the first settlers in 1830 to mine gold. When parts of my family have been here for 180 years does the box ‘Pakeha of European descent’ still apply? Is it really relevant? To whom?

For the first century of European habitation, new and descendents of British settlers continued to refer to England as ‘home’; the motherland. A language; spelling; an individualistic society; the nuclear family; an education model; tea; an assumption of white supremacy. This is the legacy which England imbued in the fledgling nation it assumed as a child.

For a long time and in many ways we continued to imitate the offshore trends of ‘the motherland’. In other ways our isolation, environment, experiences, and exposure began to lead to the deviation of our culture from the traditional British archetype given to us. Our English roots were (and still are) strongly evident but other elements began to influence our culture and identities.

Our environment and our struggles with it built a strong male culture and eroded the centrality of women in the home. Our position as a politically experimental ‘melting pot’ gave white women a political voice and cemented their conservative perspectives through the struggle for it. The initial British assumption of Maori assimilation or annihilation and the Maori wars heightened racial tensions and in some ways cemented the white assumption of superiority. Trade and the occurrence of Maori assimilation in turn began to influence white culture in unforeseen ways.

Modern white New Zealand is superficially affiliated with jandals and gumboots (neither of which I wear), tomato sauce (which I have no particular feelings for), sheep (which I do not see on a daily basis), an agricultural background (which I do not have), buzzy bee toys (which I have never owned), and sports and rugby (which I detest). I suppose on a deeper level our ethnic identity is heavily tied to the land - to the farms, forests, and beaches that we interact with. But I am a city dweller. I am a young white middle class woman living in a relatively urban setting in New Zealand’s largest and most culturally diverse city. I use English terms and spelling, include Maori words in my daily lexicon, consume texts, art, and media heavily influenced by Maori and Polynesian histories and cultures, and eat a mix of cuisine from Europe, Polynesia, Asia, and America.

This internal multi-culturalism is further complicated by our external cultural influences. Even in my short life spanning just two decades I have seen a further shift away from our ‘motherland’. In my childhood our tabloids were filled with English royals and celebrities. I watched the British Top of the Pops and our music charts largely reflected the British ones. I drank tea with my grandmother and we didn’t have a Starbucks. Coronation St earned some of the top television ratings and our American influences were limited largely to sit-coms, boy bands, and Hollywood blockbusters. The American accent still sounded strange, even on television.

In my teens we were inundated with rap music and American television shows. Coffee replaced tea as the drink of choice. Fashion and music trends now took their model from the US. Our Maori and Polynesian youths, historically fiercely ethnically loyal, associated with the culture of the African-Americans as they saw it on television. Rap, hip-hop, break dancing, a new fashion, and a new way of speaking were adopted by our ‘black’ teens. Gang warfare was also emulated with ‘Bloods’ and ‘Crips’ fighting based on the colour of their clothing and family ties rather than over overpopulated ghetto territory. Traditional ethnic identities were in flux and the changes show no sign of slowing. Identity and ethnicity are increasingly fluid notions, influenced by a huge number of factors in an increasingly media saturated and digitally accessible world.

For those with a traditionally strong ethnic identity I see this modern phenomenon as altering the face of those identities – layering various new factors over top a strong core of heritage and ideals. But for those like me who do not associate with a particular culture, it is easy to be caught up in the media tide of the individualistic West. Without a base or strong sense of community or allegiance we are simply products of this media. Some of us choose to affiliate ourselves with a religion, or the land, or a culture that is not our own. Some of us are left wondering what our cultural identity means and if it is even relevant any more.

By ticking the ‘New Zealander’ box, what are we indicating? That we are without an ethnicity and our bond to this land is our only cultural tie? That this is where we were born and think we belong? That we do not feel that our race is an indication of our ethnicity? For me I think it is a combination of all these things. Yes, this place is my home. Though I am not a farmer and do not have any real physical relationship with the land, I feel an affinity for it. For its particular shades of green, for its position in the lower hemisphere, for its unique cultural blend of inhabitants and influences.

Older white New Zealanders often bemoan that this is not “their Auckland” or “their New Zealand” any more. This reaction to changing external influences and an increasingly culturally diverse populous is based on the fact that New Zealand is no longer neatly divided into ‘whites’ and ‘Maoris’. I understand their qualms. These changes mean the destruction of the home they knew as children, of what shaped them, and of what they were comfortable with. But that was never my New Zealand. My New Zealand is diverse. Changing. Modern.

In classifying myself as a New Zealander I am not asserting that I am white and that my family has been here for many years. I am confirming that I am a product of this unique environment. I am confirming that ticking the Pakeha box does not reflect my ethnic identity. I am confirming that being a ‘New Zealander’, to me, means that I am a product of all the cultural influences present in this place that I call home.

xoxox

Things to Feel

Love

Love

Love

Fresh Sheets

Fur

Warmth

Clean

Alive.

xoxox

Winter Light Part Two

Some more of Pippin and Zack from my Winter Light series.

Click on the picture for larger files.

xoxoxo

Winter Light

My lovely little Zack decided to sit in the beautiful winter light during the weekend and I couldn't resist the urge to to take ridiculous numbers of photos of his sweet little face. He's about 6 months old and is small for his age. His older brother Pippin joined us briefly to play with my camera cord and give Zack a little kiss.

I shoot in RAW on my Canon EOS. I sharpened the images before converting to JPEG and resizing. No other editing on my behalf; all beauty belongs to Zack and the winter sun.

xoxoxo

Tell Me

Do you remember being her?

xoxoxo

To be Passionate: Of Art and Creating

To Long.

To Want.

To NEED.

Utterly.

Completely.

Burning.

Constantly.

I've forgotten what it's like.

A vague Hunger for the Fire. To Feed it. To Feel it.

This is what I'm left with.

Echoes of it. Like the smell of smoke.

Still lingering in your senses, long after the dousing.

Or did you grow past it? Learn to live without it? Do you want it?

Do you need it?

(You have to Need it.)

"You're good at this. Honestly." Stay.

Or be honest with yourself.

xoxoxo

Things I Love: Leo Fontan

Leo Fontan was a French artist born in the late 1800s. I believe he did a lot of work creating postcards and theatrical posters.

I adore his treatment of the female form; delicate, provocative, and ethereal. Perfection.

Femininity is something I aim to embrace everyday and these are things I feel most embody the female being.

xoxoxo