Things We've Felt

The power of thoughts and the vast expanse that the mind really is kind of terrifies me. It's wonderful, don't get me wrong. But you have to admit, emotions and their paradoxical tangibility are pretty weird.

In no way am I doubting your intelligence, dear reader, but I am also very conscious of roundabout terms that may just mean nothing so I want to explain what I mean by 'paradoxical tangibility.' Essentially, I'm talking about how you wouldn't expect something such as emotions, that happen in the realms of your brain to be so palpable. Such as when you feel so angry you want to punch something, or when you feel so sad you cry. The intangible, arguably ephemeral emotions that translate so well into physical things. Thus it's a paradox because even though at its inception, the emotions are in no way physical 'real' things at all but they hold so much potential in becoming tangible and actions etc. There may well be proper scientific terms for this but I have no clue what they are. 

Sometimes I feel things so big and messy and consuming that I have to go and do something completely exhausting like run or something really rhythmic and prolonged like walk for kilometres on end. For the broader thoughts that aren't so aggressive, I do yoga until my body is settled again. I feel as if my thoughts and emotions surge through my veins. I wonder why God wired my body so dramatically. The complexity is somewhat nice but the high-strung nature of it all is pretty exhausting and very consuming. 

It's not at all impossible or painful to get through though most of the time. The activities I mentioned earlier are generally extremely effective. It just interests me that something like that chemically happens in the first place.

I thought to write about this because I just wanted to sort through some thoughts and feelings of late. The personal details of that will be saved for my journal, however. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a relatively private person when it comes to certain things, but I've just always disliked over sharing, especially on the internet. It's not that there's a lack of trust in the people reading it, but more of a natural tendency for things to be misinterpreted, read out of context, blown out of proportion etc. when more personal things are broadcast on the scary ol' webz. 

Wandermust

I don't particularly enjoy dwelling on negative thoughts. However, there are times when I feel like I may explode if I don't get something off my chest and the terrible thing is that more often than not I just don't say anything. I am a 5 foot something quietly bubbling volcano. So I'm trying something new. Let's talk about something that bothers me and has bothered me for a long time now.

Travel. While I understand that a great deal of the internet's population, primarily females, have gone ahead and slapped a giant 'wanderlust' sticker on their foreheads, that hasn't at all made me exempt from expressing similar desires. I want to travel. I think I was first properly bitten by the travel bug in the depths of the HSC last year, where about 80% of my waking being thought about where or when I could go traveling. That was slowly stamped out by an assortment of plans that kept falling through, a dismal selection of reliable travel companions, and restrictive parenting. All in all, it was fairly depressing and really discouraging - perhaps more upsetting than I really allowed for myself to process because writing that out made me feel like crying. That's also probably attributable to pent up, unsaid frustrations and disappointment. 

I think I've realised particular things that I hold the dearest to my heart when I don't want to really express them in their entirety to anyone else. To stifle bouts of anxiety during the year, I would journal away about all my plans for travelling the world and really seeing places. I would plan short films and photography I would embark upon during my trips. I bought a giant world map several years ago (infant stages of wanting to travel) and I had such big plans and hopes and visions and it makes my heart crumble into so many pieces that I have done so little when I dreamt so big. Travel is a lot like my desire to be in the film industry; sometimes it scares me how much I want to do something so I just talk about it in general, light-hearted terms when in actuality, it's all kind of gut-wrenching. That's a good way to put it, I think. I'm having trouble with conveying how strongly I feel about all of this and how it makes my insides feel but that's a pretty good way to put it.

This post mainly came to being because I felt like I had been pushed into a corner, or to the edge of a cliff, from no active sources at all. Aside from myself. I have been dwelling a lot on all the times I have been let down or I let myself down with endeavouring to fulfil my plans, possibly provoked by a bit too much hope and a bit too much inaction of late. But maybe this time. I'm not going to give up. I just want to be out of Sydney and away for a while. Uni, the internet, people around me are all incredible blessings but just right now I feel so claustrophobic I am desperate to get away, even for a little while. Just for a few breaths. I completely recognise that travel, in the sense that I have regarded it, is quite strongly a 'white privilege' that can be viewed as hedonistic and exploitative but I am careful with my research and purpose. Sometimes mental health is a much stronger, more tangible and affecting entity than people credit it for. 

I don't want to say that this is the time that I will be able to fulfil this desire because I have said it before and things fail to happen and I'm tired of disappointing myself. But here's hoping, right? Watch this space. 

S&S

Both the bustier and skirt are from NastyGal, mess in the background is from my inadequacy to function as an adult. This skirt has steadily become probably my most favourite item in my wardrobe. That's saying quite a lot, I know. Especially since I have a sizeable wardrobe and a tendency to be inconsistent in every area of life. I've worn it probably about a dozen times at home just for fun (that's a really stereotypically teenage female thing to do, isn't it?) and finally out the other day with Isabella to the markets in the pretty, surprisingly warm Autumn weather over the weekend. It just makes me happy. One of those items.

I had been dying to get henna done for the longest time, so when Isa and I stumbled across Earth Mantra at Glebe Markets, I was over the moon (like the beautiful little crescent one I specifically asked for on my index finger). We had the loveliest time chatting with the lady who did the henna art and she even let me be my usual picky self with the design. The top hand belongs to the wonderful flower Isabella who I hadn't been able to spend quality time with in the past few months. It was lovely just to hang out and soak up each others' company.

Baked eggs with roasted mushrooms and garlic bread at Clipper Café on Glebe Pt Rd. SO RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. Quick friendly service, huge portions for the price (this was $12.50 and there was just so much, it was fab), delicious and incredible interior decoration. I can't recommend this place enough. I'm already extremely keen to go back. 

Photo and hand courtesy of the lovely Laura.

After the markets, I was deciding on whether or not to go home or to tag along to a dinner at Ben's house with Isa (plus Kipsy and Laura). Then we got on the bus to see who else but Ben himself so thank you God for making up my mind for me, haha. What an excellent path to take too. It was such a wonderful night of excellent company. 

Some of the highlights are shown in the pictures above and below. Above: I love people's fridges. I just love seeing what people have on them so when I saw that Ben's had a lot of family photo-esque images I grabbed Isa and Laura to take one on my polaroid to surprise him. We were such girls, giggling away in Ben's room with the door shut while the two boys were in the kitchen. After a bit of secrecy and a lot of confusion/suspicion from the boys we scribbled the date on the bottom of the polaroid and stuck it onto his fridge in all its glory. It turned out super cute, if I say so myself. Family photo love. Below: Ben asked if anyone wanted the empty bottle... of course. Resounding yes. Monkeys. Thanks Benjamin, now I can a) pretend I am knowledgeable in the world of alcohol with this in my room and also b) house new flowers. 

The cameras aren't just indie life product placement, by the way. WELL, they are. But they are there also because they're fairly (a month or two, that is) recent purchases from a secondhand store and I have to remember to get film and test them out. Also, segue, all my photos are edited on VSCOcam. So it would be nice to get some authenticity happening with these old beauties. 

Flower Power Fresh Food Palace grocery shopping on Mother's Day. It's been down the road from me ever since I was born but only lately have I really realised how excellent their stock as it's sourced locally or from more independent, unique places overseas than your usual retail giants. It's refreshing and fun.

Running on the compelling idea of a life filled with potential lately (and always). Try it out.

P.S. I'm almost entirely sure that no one will understand the post title. I meant to play on R&R. Like Rest and Recreation. Because it's the weekend. Get it?

Soul ketchup

I have been feeling so inspired lately.

I mean the buzzing, spreads to my fingertips sort of inspired. It's so hard to describe but thinking about it again while writing this makes me slightly giddy. It verges on almost being consuming in the intoxicating sense, where you feel you could just wallow in it forever and be in a state of pure contentment. I say verges because I feel if you were to simply remain in a constant state of being inspired, and never actually did anything with that emotional energy you would be trapped in a strange limbo - which is also a note-to-self.*

I've really been through the mill in terms of using different social media. In my earlier years of high school, I regularly used the following: Tumblr, Twitter, Bebo (the very name sounds funny in my head), MSN, Facebook, Blogger and I dabbled still in several others I'm sure. I was basically a tween connoisseur of existing social media sites and applications, it was ridiculous. These days sometimes I forget to shower, let alone manage such an excessive amount of social networking. While I quite vividly remember the routine of checking every page of Tumblr and blogging my day at school by subject almost every day, I feel so far removed from that commitment nowadays.

However, I once again feel myself strongly involved and 'committed' to a social media thing with dearest Instagram. I started using it regularly as my sole social media thing after I cut ties, deleted, abandoned and did away with every other account under my name roughly two years ago for no other reason than being a changed person who was growing up and away from her past. It might be that I've learnt to be more of a human rather than an internet fungus so my usage is more naturally thought out and productive but I just love it. It's not perfect by any means, the number of accounts I've had to unfollow for one reason or another is numerous but you can really pick and choose what shapes your 'experience' of Instagram. My brother pointed out that he always sees me liking an incredulous amount of photos on there and I realised that it's simply because I love every single account I follow or each one serves a purpose - inspiration, comedy, provoking thought, reminders of good habits.

This whole Instagram-plug is mainly because of a recent example of its benefits: I was recently extremely inspired by alextracey_ and kirahmaddox and their accounts. They're pretty ridiculously great. I wanted to just say I can't describe them in words but if I tried, I probably could. I just don't want to. The whole thing about them is their world, for me at least as a third party appreciator, is framed beautifully simply by short non sequitur-esque captions and incredible images. I stayed up so late the first night I discovered their accounts, I couldn't stop looking and soaking it all in like a sponge. I found this inspiration sprinkled itself all over my photo-taking and even how I dressed, funnily enough.

With starting university and being thrown back into a semi-routine or work and play and rest, I think I was a little low in spirits without realising it. My inspiration-o-meter was blinking red. I stopped watching films incessantly like I had been doing throughout my four month break and this was probably one of the silliest mistakes to do because I chose to study film. I stopped feeling like wearing my tie-dye clothing and all that. While it wasn't like my life turned black and white and sadly geometric, I think I did lose a bit of my mojo. So it's been excellent to be thrown back in apparating style into a swirling world I'm really comfortable in; a world of 'film' photography, fun clothing, good films (watch Grand Budapest Hotel, I implore you. It's very much worth it/the hype) and just being more free and fluid and fun.

I see a lot of blogs who put images in 'just to break up the text' but that doesn't make sense to me, at least not for this post. So here, have some images now instead:

Something For Jess café, a place excellent for food & tea consumption as well as uni sound project recordings.

 My first ever açai bowl at Bondi Wholefoods a few weeks back when my brother, dad, pup and I did the Tamarama to Bondi coastal walk. Constantly drawing my family to the ~dark side~ of more wholesome food. This was delicious and a gigantic serving, which is generally always a bonus.

Fun story time. You see this brick-esque ledge I'm perched on gracefully? It kind of resembles a ledge we have at home, or at least this is the theory my dad employed to make sense of my dog's lunacy. What happened was we walked over to look over the edge and next thing we know Jaydee had DIVED, I mean fully-committed dived, up onto the ledge. He would have kept going too right on over the other side in alignment with Newtown's laws of inertia (I think. I did one solid term of senior physics. I am saddened by my failure to remember), if my brother hadn't had a tight hand hold on the leash and jerked him back. A couple nearby was sitting on the bench facing us and saw it all unfold, front and centre stage, tickets $20. 

I fall more in love with my city each and every day.

*NTS: Keep doing things.