stars and rivers

Hello, hello.

Along with all my other lovely presents, this year for Christmas I got a big dose of winter blues.

It's regrettable, but otherwise I had a nice Christmas. I wish I could've come back with a happy post, but I just can't as I am more blue than I've been in a while.

Speaking of blue, in my quest to buy all those albums I've always been meaning to buy, a few weeks ago I bought Blue by Joni Mitchell, which insured that my favourite Christmas song this year was her song 'River'. Not strictly a Christmas song, but it mentions that season several times so it's close enough for me. These lyrics have been the refrain circling my head (helped perhaps by the fact I've learnt the song on the piano) :

I wish I had a river / I could skate away on...

I have not been blogging lately, because I have been busy with work. Ha! I've never been able to say that before. Since the end of November, I've been working long hours. More than I've ever worked before. The work as a cleaner I mentioned last post has morphed into work as an angel of mercy. (Not in the serial killer sense. :P) This is due to the fact my dear employer has fallen and hurt her neck very badly, which I am told she does sporadically.

So along with the regular cleaning and laundry &c., I grocery shop and make food and drive Mrs. D wherever she needs to go, which usually ends in me sitting in the waiting room of some medical building.

I've had the past week off and I'm not exactly sure when I'm going back or how many hours a week I'll be working. It's great to make money, yes, but I am miserable. I enjoy it, but I also find myself hating it and wanting to just go home. I've been forced to have a lot of first-time experiences, such as grocery shopping. Did you know I was afraid of grocery shopping and had never done it by myself? Now I've done it many times. Still don't like it, but it doesn't terrify me. All this has been a good experience, but I'm tired of personal growth for now, thank you.

(The FitzOsbornes At War by Michelle Cooper)

Because I've been working, I haven't felt like writing. My days off from work I just want to laze. I am trying to be better about this. Today I sat in the midst of my family who were playing a game and I wrote. I had on my brother's noise-blocking headphones and I listened to the beautiful album Stars by Janis Ian (pictured at top) and wrote more in a certain story than I have in a while. Which was still a scarily small amount, but it's progress... right?

I'm trying to feel that I will find something in life that I am content doing, but the feeling that I don't want to be living anymore has been haunting me again.

Don't worry about me. I'll be sticking around. If only to listen to the Phineas and Ferb album my mother got my father for Christmas. (Seriously. So far I've listened to it more times than all the rest of my new music.)

I do so hope you, my dear friends, all had happy Christmases! Ta for now.

Rien.

 ----------------------


I seem to have lost the art of communication
somewhere in the time between riding this ghost-ridden carousel
and standing at the top of the Leaning Tower of Me.

And somewhere between the folds of my dirty sheets,
lies my heart, which must have slipped out while I was sleeping.
I keep the window shut, so it can't have gone anywhere else.

Oh, no matter how much you hum to yourself, it can't sate your craving of song.

And no matter how hard you search,
you won't be able to find what I really want to say
between these silly lines.

----------------------

This is lame. But I feel rather lame these days; it's reflecting in these meanderings.

I feel like I've not had a real conversation with anyone in weeks. I've built a wall of chatter around me, and I throw loaves of drivel over it to satisfy those who may want to come in.

I'm tired of talking about my pain, since it just makes me feel worse. I prefer to let myself slip into that familiar emotional monotone. I'm very tired of it all. But even writing this has made me feel bad. Ugh. Let's move on to something happier....


Want to hear me singing a cappella?

Okay, well maybe that's not something happier, but I have all these recordings rotting on my computer, so why not?

This was recorded a few weeks ago, when everyone was out to dinner, but I stayed home, because I had eaten out with them the night before and that was enough for me. Not that I don't love my family, but I'm not a big fan of restaurants. (The grandparents were in town; we don't generally eat out that often. :P)

Here's me singing part of 'Hey, Who Really Cares' by Linda Perhacs.




Me, I am mediocre - but the song is wonderful, as is its writer.

Tonight I feel alright. Content, even? What is the secret to making these feelings last, pray tell?

 (P.S. I have recently come out of the closet to the general public about my real name. It begins with "Beth" and ends with "any". :P I don't care if you call me that, or if you call me Melee. I will continue to write under this dear pseudonym, though.)



{The text at the top was scanned from The Moviegoer by Walker Percy.}

the sky has teeth marks

All complexity gleaming just beyond the panes,

all ache hovering just above the bones.

The sun thudding on the naked ground,

loud as a rainstorm.

Two bleached lips forever coming together,

then coming apart, having forgotten
the moistness of words.

All alone in a cramped casing of flesh: stand.

Stand, stand with an iron taste ravishing the tongue.

Teeth marks bitten around the edges

of the heart, of the sky.

Birdsongs that taste unfamiliar,

yet eerily recall the ghosts of birches once known.

A wasteland. That is what this is called,

I believe. It is the only belief I let stay:
lodged securely in my windpipe.

-------------------------------------------

This poem was written (for the most part) a few months ago whilst I was listening to Patti Smith.  It's the latest in a long series of attempts to write something ugly. Well... not ugly, exactly. I just get fed up sometimes when my words feel too glib and pretty and I want to tear them up and leave them lying around with the sharp edges pointing upwards.

I don't know how I'm feeling, so I canna tell you. I'm still here, though I am still often overcome with the desire to disappear.


I've been uncharacteristically busy, which is actually awful because it puts me in the mindset on my non-busy days that I deserve to laze around and make an inordinate number of GIFs. That's my new hobby, you see. That and scanning things. If you follow me on tumblr, you might have noticed. Not that I've been obnoxious about it, or anything.....

My scanning-obsession all started with me deciding to scan a W.S. Merwin poem. I discovered how easy it was, and how much fun, and since then I've just been scanning anything that catches my fancy in a book.

I don't want to post my GIFs on here, but I will post a few of my favourite scans!

The W.S. Merwin poem that started it all.

Julia Strachey "cogitating".

Dorothy Gish and Elmer Clifton, 1916

Marjorie Hart (author of Summer At Tiffany) and her friend
Marty at the beach in 1945.

The Beatles in Elizabethan Costume, 1964

Ant McPartlin, 9 months

Declan Donnelly, 3 years

 (As you can see I saved best for last - little Ant and Dec, awww.)

(And it is really hard to format pictures with the new blogger, so pardon my wonky spacing. >_<)


This is rather a patchwork post - two unrelated things sewn together. It feels like the old days! This is nice. For me, at least. ;)