Friday, January 20, 2006

"Does he make you laugh?"...

..."He doesn't make me cry"

It's not late but it's Friday night and I'm sitting downstairs watching 'crazy/beautiful' because my mum is out and I'm looking after my sisters, only they're in bed. So I'm all alone, really. No one online, no one to call, no one round at my house. I don't like it. In fact this a moment when I want anything but to be alone, I'd choose time with my dad over this.
Coincidentally, dad just rang me. Pissed out of his face of course, just ringing to 'tell me that he really, really loves me'. Sure he does, he wasn't saying that the last time I saw him though. He rang in exactly the same manner yesterday, I guess it's, I don't know what it is. The man is mad.
I'm checking a forum at the same time as this and that's about the only company I've got just now, sorry to go on. I don't fare well on my own in this particular mood. I got two letters in the post today, from job applications I did, interviews. I didn't get either of them surprisingly enough. My job at the surf shop is in jeopardy because it's amalgamating with another store and I shall not have a job, the job on the hotel is slowly destroying me - one eight hour shift at a time.
I got all excited about the post, two interesting envelopes and a bank statement - turns out I'd rather not have read any of them. Also when I signed onto the Internet I had 12 new messages - all of them, bar one, were from some stupid advertising company or another. The other one was a survey. There are 70 new messages in my old yahoo account but they're all from freecycle, my gmail is empty. Yeah, sure, you needed to know all that.
Anyone had that coldy/fluy thing yet? I have it currently and it's annoying me now, tissues everywhere.
So my dad's moving to the mainland, not entirely sure where yet but probably Essex, which made me laugh when he told me. He's been on planning on leaving for years now but he's never quite done it, now it seems that he is. Finally. Not that I really mind, we have an amazingly screwed up relationship and I've tried to help him but he just knocks me back. A lot. I don't often give up on people but I feel with him I have no other choice.
I never gave up with my best friend when she was having trouble with her boyfriend, he got help and now he takes his meds and he's fine. I pestered her all the time to come out with me, not to isolate herself. She got through it, like him, and the guy hates me but it doesn't matter because she's ok.
It's easier to help someone else than talk about yourself, have you ever noticed that? Expect someone else to share their problems but when they extend the courtesy to you, it's harder than it looks. Better to smile, make a joke, and walk away.
Old habits are never in the past, sooner or later you pick them up again and you fail everyone who is trying to help you. Maybe you stop another habit but it's in favour of becoming something that you used to be, do things you used to do, and go to place you never wanted to go back to. But it's lighter than where you are right now. Me anyway.
I realise none of this made sense so I'm going to leave you with the opening to a story I'm writing, well I might write it - I'm not sure yet. This is as far as I've got.

"Somewhere in the dimness of the room a girl sat crying, a soft cry that might be mistaken for singing from a distance. She was crying in this way because she believed that she had reached the end, usually when she needed to cry she couldn't and she would sing instead, fill the room with comforting notes that were different every time - notes that couldn't hurt her but never left her. Now she sang as she cried, she thought that perhaps if she sang then the light might come back because she was as yet unsure as to whether the darkness all around her was in her mind or if it was because the light had been turned off. So she sat singing to herself, the tears making her voice sound ever more delicate and if it was at all possible, clearer than it had sounded in a long time. It was an innocent cry that bought back the innocent nature to her voice, it made her sound like she needed protecting and it made her feel that way too. It made her feel that any moment some strong pair of arms would reach down to her and lift her up, wipe away her tears and hold her until it was over. But no one came to her so she carried on singing a song to try to convince herself that she was dreaming, that she had been dreaming for all these years and she had imagined all the hurt. She sang.
Notes, music notes, were always black and white - you never got technicolour notes. Their monotonal nature meant that they could never lose colour like life, they could be flattened and made sharper but you can never drown them out, music is omnipresent. It is in everyone, everything and it is everywhere. It came to be the only thing that she could rely upon to not change and not be drowned out when her thoughts were too loud for her to speak, a good musician doesn't even need light to make a sound. You can improvise in music, like in life, but unlike life you don't need light to do it and you don't need to be in a good frame of mind. "



aloha

3 comments:

Nikita said...

I just thought I'd say, I'm ok now. aloha x

LauraEllen said...

oh good. thats nice to hear. spamming again grrrrr. nice story, would be good to hear the rest of it?

Gordon Strachan said...

Yeah, sorry about an empty internet the other night, I know how it feels when you come online and the one person online is the dude you knew in a class once, but never spoke to since. Tis nasty. I'm having quite erratic times on the net at the mo, but they'll fall back into routine and I'll talk to you more :) Thank you for the email you sent me, that kept me company the other night :)

I hope your dad moving to the mainland works out best in all respects for you, I don't mean because he's moving away, I mean because of there being some significant shift or change in how things will work. Maybe it'll open up new opportunities and experience is the relationship. I realise that's painfully bright optimism really, but I'm sure there will be beneficial consequences. I'm making very little sense. Anyhow, I did enjoy the opening of your story, I'd encourage you to go on - it was very eerie, ghostly in a way. It'd be interesting to see where you take the character, maybe music plays a more integral part of the story than pure description? Hmm, well I'm intrigued...