Eton mess life

2012-02-03T08:26:00.001+11:00

A new post will be up tomorrow - and it will be a little longer than usual to make up for last week's no-posting!

2012-01-27T12:39:00.002+11:00

Oup! Eton mess running a little late again... feeling a bit all over the place today. I'm hoping to post something over the weekend.

Meanwhile, enjoy the sunshine!

saving the day

2012-01-22T11:36:00.001+11:00

This week I unexpectedly got some temp work in an office. The person whose job I was doing has been going through a difficult time and can’t return to work for awhile. I was working in the office on my own, toiling away at the banked up pile of things to do and organise and arrange, going from novice to go-to person about a bunch of stuff I had only learnt about on the morning of the first day.
It’s been awhile since I’ve worked in an office, having had retail jobs over the past few years and, these days, waitressing. I forgot about the subtle stress induced by one more phone call or e-mail involving a complicated demand or question that needs answering when you’re in the middle of things, and as well the feeling that you’re all alone in this space controlling some seemingly random situation, just like thousands of other people cooped up in an office controlling theirs. An invisible and unknowable solidarity of sorts. With waitressing the stress is more immediate, the demands simplified, the pace relentless, and, I realised, the constant human contact with co-workers and customers is kind of nice.
On the first day I was overwhelmed with what needed to be done, and I finished the day worried that I had barely made any progress. The following day however I realised I had achieved a lot, and finished up all the most urgent things by lunchtime. This was a great relief, and I felt happy because I was saving the day for this someone who can’t come back to work yet, who’s currently having a bad time of it. It feels nice to be the one who saves the day. And I hope that, should I end up in a similar predicament somewhere along the way, there will be someone, a stranger completely unknown to me, who will be able to do the same.

2012-01-20T12:48:00.002+11:00

Today's post is running a bit late. Check back for some mess tomorrow!

romantic streams

2012-01-13T13:24:00.002+11:00

A couple of years ago I was having coffee with a friend when I explained to him that I was only living for my future plans, leaving my present happiness entirely in the hands of things that had not yet eventuated. My plans and ambitions were the only things that made the present any good at all, and I was entirely convinced that that was enough. He looked at me as though I was incredibly peculiar, and I responded by vehemently arguing my position, that merely withstanding the present while not enjoying it at all was totally acceptable. Because of my misled, almost dangerous certainty that the future was going to be so good, the unpalatable present was of little importance. I was convinced. It wasn’t a great period of my life.
At the moment I’m in something of a limbo state of existence. I’m waiting to hear the result of an application I submitted for a job in France, all the while looking for jobs here, and changing my mind daily on what future studies I will undertake… Generally I have a few projects on the go at the one time, so along with conjecturing about my future I’m also trying to learn three languages at once (foolish, but I can’t settle on one!), to continue studying my own way, learn a bit of art history, write a long fiction piece, create scintillating lessons for my new student, and a few other things here and there. To be honest I’m not getting much accomplished because there’s too much going on, but I’m not bothered by this. My projects keep me happy as long as I spend a little bit of time focusing on one or some of them each day, and I’m excited by all of them.
Something that has changed for me recently in a big way is my approach to living, to the everyday, to moments and “me-time”. Because one of my quieter, underlying projects is to enjoy the time that I spend with myself. To cook well for myself, to go wandering about the city by myself for my own amusement, to read a lot, to slowly sip at my tea and enjoy it. Simple things. Somewhere along the way I realised that the present does matter, that it should be enjoyed. Romance exists in the everyday. And the sort of happiness that arrives in a moment doesn’t always require company. I find as well that when I do meet up with people I enjoy it more, I feel like I have more to talk about, and I feel calmer. These days are a lot happier – not because the future is bright, but because the present has a lot to offer and I’m open to it. While my plans for the future continue to motivate and inspire me, my daily plan is to live well.

funny friends

2012-01-06T13:49:00.002+11:00

New Year’s Eve. The one night each year when many people behave as though it’s the last significant night of their life, that they must go to the best party on offer in order to have the best time and, perhaps, somehow magically, fulfil the leftover, unfulfilled hopes of the year that is about to dwindle and die out, falling around their shoulders uncomfortably like an ugly, borrowed scarf, at the stroke of midnight.
Emotions can run high, my own emotions proving no exception. While these days I'm no longer fussed about which NYE party to go to (if I'm going to go to a party at all), I definitely cannot avoid becoming reflective and nostalgic on this eve of eves. This NYE just gone by, I was going to go to the beach with some friends. Escaping the city for the seaside was a blissful idea. The night before leaving though I became overwhelmed by it – many people were going to be there, most of them people I don't know – and I felt the need to stay in the city. I reneged on the trip to the beach and opted for a quiet night at my good friends Sonny and Sophie’s house.
On the train, looking out at the dusky lavender hued sky, I wondered if I was foolish to have chosen the city over the beach. All I was sure of was that I needed to be on solid, familiar ground. I just had to stay put.
The hours were spent easily, with good conversation and a drop or more of wine. We watched the fireworks display put on early for children, from the upstairs window looking out onto the city. Sonny said, “Fireworks are awesome, basically.” I laughed and agreed.
Sophie and her friend Di rumbled into the place at a minute to midnight and we all watched the fireworks together. Sonny cued up FFunny FFrends, a song by Unknown Mortal Orchestra that reminds me of some of the better times of 2011, as we watched the fireworks explode, sparkle, and fade.
More wine and conversation flowed on into the night, with the talk randomly turning to hands, or rather whose hands were softest. Feeling oddly and inexplicably ashamed of my hands, because they were a little bit dry, I gingerly offered them for Di to take. She proclaimed them to be strong hands, “hands that could do anything.” This unexpected affirmation from someone I don’t know all that well was rather sweet. I’ve always thought that my hands are quite like my grandma’s, and they were definitely hands that could do anything.
So the year began, simply, with good people and good fun. And now my strong hands and I are setting about on various summertime projects.

Bonne année!

that's no way to sing hallelujah

2011-12-30T13:11:00.000+11:00

Last week, shortly after awakening from my habitual nap after Christmas day lunch, a strong and fierce storm swept over my parents’ house, as it had done all afternoon throughout Victoria. At first my parents, my sister and I were only mildly surprised to see such big hailstones come down, but then we noticed that the wind was threatening even our largest, strongest trees, we had to yell to hear each other in the house because the commotion outside was so loud, and then finally the power went out. Through the windows we watched a blur of rain, hail, leaves, and other matter hurling by. Hoping that my dog was safe and watching the tangle and blur through the window, I began to feel queasy. It was actually a little frightening.
In the storm the roof off our bungalow was torn away and flung into one of our nearby paddocks. The topmost branches of our weeping willow snapped off and fell, shrouding the side of my car so that the windscreen and boot got cracked and dented. Our garden, so lush until this storm, was devastated by it. Trees were hugely stripped of their leaves, the hydrangea bushes completely and utterly pummelled.
That night we ate by candlelight, and I was content to sleep only when the remainder of the storm had rumbled itself into oblivion.
In the clarity of the next morning it was plain to see what was ravaged, what was misplaced from being strewn about. A light switch flung into a tree, the driveway and the lawn covered in a thick carpet of small branches and leaves.
My Dad said he wouldn’t be able to believe it had happened at all if he hadn’t seen it himself. But me I felt as though I could readily believe it, whether I was there or not.
Why?
Because this year has been like a series of shocks, of earthquakes big and small, of tremors and trips, slides, glides and eventual falls. As a result, it is getting more and more difficult for me to be truly thrown off my guard. Yes, the storm shocked and frightened me, but these days at the end of some disastrous event I tend to think, “So that’s what was next. That’s what happened. Okay.” And then I get on with things.
I feel I have been carrying the turbulence of the storm in my gut for some months now. Just before the storm really broke and got out of hand, when it was only thunder and rain, I was washing up wine glasses beside my Mum, and I told her that storms have punctuated this year for me, that it seems as though one always comes along when I feel stormiest. And they really have; storms have arrived in times of challenge, difficulty, loss and longing throughout the year. These emotions have coloured my existence over the past few months…
So what’s left? What is left after the disaster? Is the destruction beautiful?
It’s certainly powerful. Stirring. I managed to realise a few things, like for instance that I’m comfortable to do something that might be difficult if I can at least stand by my actions and be proud of them…what is and is not truly important… Disasters and destruction force a new beginning. Once they have passed by and the mess is left, the best way to go on is up to you to decide.

The trees will replenish. The hydrangeas will be beautiful again next spring. The weeping willow still weeps, and will recover. That which was displaced will be put back where it ought to go, that which needs to be discarded now will be discarded. The windscreen of my car will get fixed, and the bumps and scratches left behind will provide a story. Our bungalow will have a new roof put on it.
As for me and my storms, well. I’m getting on with things. Some days I feel displaced and desolate, like one of the many leaves I raked up after the storm. The year was tough. One could even say brutal. Yet, although I still often feel stormy, I cannot say I regret anything I did, and that’s something worth holding onto.

The hiatus lasted a lot longer than the initially posited three weeks, unfortunately. But hopefully it’s clear from the above post that there’s been quite a lot going on. Sorry to return on a heavy and somewhat cryptic note. That is just what came out when I decided today would be a good day to start posting again, so there you are. Throughout the summer I will endeavour to make Eton mess life a weekly occurrence once more.

Eton mess on (short! temporary!) hiatus

2011-09-16T20:07:00.003+10:00

They say that when a woman cuts her hair, she is about to change her life.

This week I got a haircut and, unbeknownst to me, certain things were taking place that were going to affect me. I cut my hair because it needed it, not to change my life – hélas, my life was changed for me.

To the few who come here for the readings – it’s been a whirlwind couple of months, and I have quite a bit of catching up to do. My stress level is pretty high (last night I dreamed that I fell out of a plane. While it was flying through the sky. Yeah.) so I’ll be taking a three week hiatus from Eton mess…in order to deal with my mess! Namely uni assignments and my sister’s wedding.

A la prochaine, mes chers.

xo

2011-09-09T19:01:00.003+10:00

After a week of running around and a day spent wrapped in a blanket, there'll be no mess this week - only tea, sleep and some episodes of gossip girl.

xo

2011-09-02T18:20:00.002+10:00

This week I had a lovely conversation with someone, during which the following was said:

"Imagine how boring life would be if we always knew exactly what was going to happen."

So true. Think about that!

that's the living

2011-08-26T12:43:00.002+10:00

Getting away with it. It’s fun to do.

On Monday morning I feared the world and yearned for a pause button. With a groan I slid out of bed, thinking “Must I…?”
During a conversation last week I said to a friend, “When it comes to choosing work or pleasure, I always choose pleasure!” After a birthday weekend filled with excellent food and company, champagne, presents, and spending time with all of my favourite people, I was more than content. Still, though, I managed to delay reality for one more night, closing the door to the universe and putting everything on hold. Never mind why, dear reader, never mind why…
The result was that I got to uni on Monday morning, flummoxed, tired, giddy, and two parts nonchalant to one part stressed. I smoked a cigarette and thought over my weekend.
I was so behind.
But oh it was worth it.
Amazing what happiness can do, though. I rallied (after a good conversation with some peers who helped steer me in the right direction) and actually managed to piece together some homework that I needed to do. Excellent.
Then sunshine permeated everybody’s brain and my second class for the day was held outside. Everyone was cheerful, and it didn’t seem to matter that I was behind. Alright.
It’s nice to test yourself occasionally, to bid the world farewell and do exactly what you want to do knowing that it could result in a lot of trouble. I think it’s called living, non?
Oui.

a Short Message Service dalliance

2011-08-19T15:19:00.003+10:00

I have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time on my iPhone this week. Actually talking to people? A few times, sure. For the most part, though, I’ve been texting, texting, texting. A particular friend of mine and I have had an awful lot to say about our respective situations, and have favoured discussing them by means of essay length text messages.
I was about seventeen years old when I got my first mobile phone, and of course I absolutely loved texting. I had this overly romantic view of transmitting these short messages to people, wherever they happened to be. Yet now, most of the time, it’s something I do automatically, with no degree of specialness to it.
It might seem silly that my friend and I texted our fingers to the point of fatigue. We could’ve called each other instead – so why didn’t we?
Because we were having fun. It’s really easy for us to fall out of contact because we’re busy all the time and we don’t live near each other, so sending and receiving these spontaneous messages – extensive, carefully thought out, humorous, sometimes helpful – has been a really good way of getting back in touch.
I liked, as well, that I could be quite precise in my messages. It even helped me to think through the things that have been going on. And sounding off in the middle of the night, I’m certain, helps me to sleep better. One morning I woke up to a jaw dropping message from her, and it was good to have a giggle before breakfast.

Text someone you haven’t spoken to in awhile. You might risk running up your phone bill if it becomes a week-long textravaganza, but if it helps you reconnect with them, it’s all worth it.

confusion was a'bloom in every little corner

2011-08-12T15:02:00.001+10:00

This week is a conglomeration of two entries, although they will both be short. Last week Eton mess didn’t even get a look in. I could explain but then I would just digress, so let’s get on with it – here’s some mess:

There have been a few moments in the past couple of years where something unexpected has happened, and in one single conversation, in one sentence, an aspect of my world has been torn down.
One such moment occurred last week when I lost my job unexpectedly. I was told this over the phone. At first all I could register was shock, but after a phone call to my mother explaining what had just befallen me a hefty amount of rage settled in. I had classes to attend, so I attended them, but I was only half there. My heart beat faster than usual, and all I could think of was what I wanted to tell my employers. (I won’t go into the reasons for my reaction, you’ll just have to trust that my anger was justified.) This rage produced so much energy. I drove home from uni belting out Frida Hyvönen’s You Never Got Me Right, a song incredibly well suited to the moment. When I got home I knew I had to do something active; too much had built up in me. So I went out for a really long walk, through the streets, in and around a park nearby with winding paths, and eventually around the oval near my house. I had begun to feel tired – and that it was high time I had a glass of wine – so I climbed the stadium steps by the oval, sat down and watched the sun set. The weather was unseasonably warm, the breeze calm and mild. It was one of the nicest sunsets I’ve seen, made more special by the randomly warm weather, and made more remarkable in that such a terrible day could end so wonderfully. I gazed out at the mauve and pink hues for awhile, conscious of the fact that just because one thing goes wildly wrong, it doesn’t mean that everything else is ruined.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I love collaborations. Collaborating is one of the finest things, in my opinion. I even put down “collaborative work” under the religious beliefs section on my olde Facebook profile.

My friend Luke – who is something of a comics creating genius – and I recently collaborated for a comic strip that he is soon to submit. The theme was ‘breaking up’, which was difficult to write about because I was in a very sunny mood when Luke needed the story. In any case, one cold Sunday morning I tapped out a short break-up story; a sort of concatenation of my own break-ups and those that my friends have been through.

This week Luke sent me the draft version of the strip. It’s so satisfying, so invigorating, to send something out into the world and then have somebody translate it into their vision.

When it has reached its final manifestation I’ll put a link up here so that you can see it. Until then – go and collaborate with someone, it’s good for you!

the past inside the present

2011-07-30T18:30:00.002+10:00

This week I went to check out my housemate’s new place (unfortunately, he is soon to be an ex-housemate). Three of us drove out to the apartment in the cold and wet. We carried in some boxes and took a grand tour of the place; blue carpeted, slightly aged, but full of promise. I don’t know why but I was inclined to open every single cupboard door and drawer, and I indulged that whim. The apartment had cute little tweaks to it here and there, like the coat closet right by the door. Which we made a point of using.
I imagine it will be homely.
We wandered down the street, scoping out the neighbourhood, and got some takeaway Thai food. We ate dinner sitting on pillows on the floor, drinking Fanta out of coffee cups. It was a sweet little housewarming.

When we were in the hallway of the building I was hit with a familiar smell that took me back to the residence that I lived in years ago now in Lyon. Amazing, how a smell can take you back to somewhere you’ve been before in an instant. To be honest it wasn’t the most pleasant smell; a warm and lingering concoction of cigarette smoke and a salty, savoury scent coming from all types of dinners. Of a multitude of existences gathered in the same building, of life’s movements. For a second I was so transported by this scent that I wanted to run up the stairs to see one of my good friends, as if she’d be there on the fourth floor, as if I was back at the res. Nostalgia set in, and a type of homesickness, for a time that I’ll never live again. In the midst of celebrating my housemate’s new beginning I was taken back to the past.

We live as though the day something has to end is never going to come, hyper aware that dwelling on that ending will effect the present too much. It’s been like that lately for my housemates and me; with only days before farewelling each other we’re still trying to push it away and ignore it.
When I moved house at the start of this year, though, I realised that an ending is not necessarily so abrupt or final as you might believe. We carry memories and ideas and experiences with us, all the time. The same as we have extraneous amounts of belongings; we transport all of these things, in how we are and who we become, in how we behave. We are continuously augmented by experience. While farewells are difficult, those people or situations we leave certainly make an impression on us, enhancing the way we live our lives.

And sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, you’ll run headlong into the past. But hopefully when it happens, you can smile at the memory.

2011-07-29T12:56:00.000+10:00

The post for this week will be up either by midnight tonight or tomorrow morning.

ça m’est égale

2011-07-22T19:12:00.002+10:00

This week’s post is somewhat linked to last week’s – more musings on the city, or city yearning. And daydreaming! And teen hood! Read on…

Recently I gave my housemate a lot of music from my collection. The other night she was listening through to all of the albums when an old favourite, Cibo Matto’s Viva! La Woman came on. A friend of mine taped it for me during high school, and it’s infused with memories for me. I cherished it. The music video for Sugar Water I watched over and over again with my best friend, and Artichoke still manages to entrance me.
But upon listening to the album for the first time in awhile, White Pepper Ice Cream stood out the most. It’s a delicate, meandering song, filled with ambivalence and ennui, just as I was when I was sixteen years old. Or at least I’d like to think so. Really I suppose I was just confused and angsty.
The subject matter of the song is something simple but baffling, and the lyrics throughout are pensive and playful.

“White pepper ice cream
Sweet or spicy?
White pepper ice cream
Ça m’est égale
Ça m’est égale
Which is the first word ?
Sweet or spicy?
Ça m’est égale
Ça m’est égale
It’s all the same to me”

The song was a window to daydreaming for me – or rather, to nightdreaming (awake nightdreaming). At the house where I grew up there are two bungalows, and one is what we call “the office”, even though it isn’t really. These days it’s filled with clutter, although the computer is still out there. It was my Dad’s office when he had his business, and it’s where I did homework in the evenings…when I wasn’t listening to White Pepper Ice Cream and getting caught up in a myriad of tableaux conjured in my mind from its sounds. The vocals are sort of doubled, an echo effect, that makes Miho sound up close and far away all at once. The repetitive guitar line slices in and out of the song. It has a jazzy feel to it, and natural sounds also pervade it (as throughout the whole album), of keys rustling, traffic, wind rushing, the sound of people moving about a room.
I would sit outside “the office” on the step and imagine my adult life, imagine independent living, people I would meet, things I would do. As well as this impatient speculation, my mind would wander with the song through its potent sounds.
And still when I hear it I wonder, which is the first word? Sweet, or spicy?

traipse: to walk, or go about aimlessly

2011-07-15T18:52:00.000+10:00

I’ve always been a city soul, but I don’t really know why. Sometimes when I’m in the city I can’t stand the bustle; workers and tourists ambling about at different speeds as I rush (usually I’m in a rush) to wherever I’m going. But still, I like being there, in different capacities. I like working there, meeting up there, drinking, reading, laughing there. I like that it’s a central point, a convergence of different people, of buildings devoted to all manner of things, of alleyways, nooks and niches.

It’s really beautiful where I grew up. Recently I took my housemates out to my parents’ house, and as I rolled up and over the hill-like road that leads to my street I told them to look out the window at the city. From this vantage point you can see the skyscrapers, on a day of clear skies and full sun very clearly, on a foggy or smoggy day not so much. Although this particular day was cloudy and wet, you could still see the city looming far off. I explained to them how I used to look out towards the city as a child and feel some vague, undefined, and essentially I suppose unjustified yearning. And how when I was older and had my licence and would go gallivanting around the city and city suburbs I would drive home and look out to the point I had just come from, awed at the far off blinking lights, and somewhat marvelled by the distance I had just travelled.

After a heavy lunch, plentiful with wine and chit chat, my housemates and I traipsed about in the woodland near my house, a walk that I often took as a child with my cousins, aunts and uncles. The fresh air wakes the senses (granted the three of us had a sneaky smoke, taking advantage of being away from my parents for a minute!) We watched the kangaroos hanging out in the rain, eyeing us with curiosity. My housemates took some snaps, and after the kangaroos hopped away we wandered to an old abandoned farm nearby. With each step our shoes became more and more wet until they were soaked through, and the cold air pinched our faces and made our lungs icy. The umbrella I brought with us got mangled by the wind, so I let the rain fall down onto my hair and face, trickling down my chin and neck. I remembered a particularly rainy day not unlike this one many years ago now, walking about this same area with my cousins. My cousin stepped right into a deep puddle, completely submerging her leg into water that was hidden beneath leaves. I can’t quite recall but I think we tricked her into doing it. It still makes me laugh to think about it.
It felt really good to wander and look about, despite getting soaked in the rain. I love the easy beauty of the surroundings near my home.

Perhaps it’s strange, then, that I should like the city so much when I grew up in such an idyllic spot. My appreciation for it has grown though, now that I’m a visitor rather than a resident. It’s like my contrasting tastes for winter and summer. Winter slows me down, forces me to take stock, and I begrudgingly give in to doing relaxing things where I can revel in my solitude and my main aim is to keep warm. In summer, my senses are more alive, and I feel like life’s opportunities are endless. The country, my winter, the city, my summer.
In the city you need to work harder to find beauty, work harder to be heard and recognised.
I guess I like the challenge.

fortes fortuna adiuvat

2011-07-08T18:15:00.003+10:00

Lately at my house we’ve been getting into Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer a fair bit. This week we watched one of my favourite episodes, Hush. Before the super creepy Gentlemen pervaded (so terrifying!), the Virgil quotation “Fortune favours the brave” made an appearance.
A couple of days ago I went through with something I’ve been longing to do for awhile – I got my ears pierced. In fact this month has had the flavour of facing up to difficult but worthwhile things as I also gave blood for the first time, and managed to pull through without hyperventilating. I’ve been equally excited and reticent about getting my ears pierced as I tried – twice! – during my early teens, and both times my ears became so horribly infected that I had to take the earrings out. Nevertheless, I made my way to a place that a friend recommended I go to, where a very chilled out guy pierced my ears. My housemate held my hand for support. (Maybe this makes me only half as brave, but I can live with that.) This time round, all has gone well. It’s day three and they feel fine, and every time I look at my earrings in the mirror I feel reassured, pleased with myself for trying again. It’s difficult to put yourself in a position where things could go awfully wrong, particularly when it has before. On this occasion, a little bit of bravery has been awarded with good fortune.
But the outcome of doing something that requires one to be brave, depending on the circumstances that call for bravery, won’t always be pleasant. It comes down to a choice – would you rather know or wonder? Even if a bold action results in a mistake or something doesn’t go the way you wished, at least the action was taken, an outcome achieved. There’s a maxim I gleaned from Scout Niblett that I live by – “We’re all gonna die.” That might seem grim, but when courage is lacking it’s what I tell myself in order to attempt difficult and scary things. Because for the most part, I’d really rather know than wonder.
I know now that it is possible for me to wear earrings after all.
So next I’m getting my nose pierced.

the way you say 'hello'

2011-07-01T15:44:00.002+10:00

Conversation. Sometimes ill attended between shopkeepers and customers, awkwardly occurring between people at parties, successfully carried out between friends over lunch, shared looks between a parent and a child. It takes all forms. I have sometimes referred to myself as “a crappy conversationalist”, labelling myself so out of the worry that I speak too much about myself, and that I’m longwinded in the telling of anecdotes or the telling of anything. This might be so, but I take pains to include others and ask questions because of this awareness.
Recently at a birthday dinner I was standing in the kitchen trying really hard to catch up with a particular friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time. As we were in the kitchen, though, everyone else kept passing through to get more wine or bread and such, and I was asked at least half a dozen times what I was up to over the course of what became a long and tedious half hour. Repeating and repeating the basic details of my life – studies, work &c. – became exhausting and, honestly, it was a relief to sit down to dinner and let others around me talk because I had become a nervous wreck for trying to fill everyone in about my life in one minute segments.
Maybe it’s because, after all, I am longwinded in the telling. It’s my nature, I suppose. The reason I got flustered was because all of these strands of conversation went unfinished, and I felt like I hadn’t been able to express myself the way I really wanted to. Also, the fact that I had to explain again and again what I was up to left me uneasy because these tiny conversations make you think over what you are doing in your life; they ground you and confront you with the most basic aspects of yourself.
But occasionally, magnificently, an unguarded, unexpected conversation will delight you so much that it completely takes you away from yourself – from your qualms and stresses, from what you study and where you work, from the year and the season, from what time it is. Recently I had one such conversation with a teacher of mine. All I came for was to collect some assignments. We chatted, I suppose somewhat gingerly, on the way to his office, crossing parking lots and taking winding paths. We went over my assignments; I asked some questions and he clarified some things for me. But then it spiralled out, and academic talk was interspersed with random interests, and anecdotes, and laughter. Concerns about ‘holding the floor’, or whether or not too much was revealed, were not apparent. Eventually through his office window the sunlight started to fade, and we both had to go.
Walking back along the winding paths and through the parking lots I realised I was thirsty and tired, that we had been chatting for hours, and recollections of the things we talked about made me smile. The world felt good. That elated feeling you get after a spate of uncontrollable laughter or even a decent sleep descended upon me.
We portray, reinvent, realise ourselves through our words, in our conversations. Even the way we choose to say ‘hello’ expresses something distinct about ourselves. While conversation can be difficult, it can also be a joy, allowing discovery or a letting go, or bonding between people. Discussing your favourite breakfast foods expresses much more about yourself than where you’re at with your assignments or how many days you work. And, for me at least, when I stop worrying about how I’m expressing myself is when the better conversations happen.
Talking’s good. Conversation, paramount.