Hello! It’s Wednesday today, but my internet connection’s being sort of crazy today and so this probably won’t get posted until tomorrow. I could be wrong.
I’ve had a pretty weird few days – partly because of the complete change to my routine, and although I was just eager for anything away from school it was still harder to nestle into than I thought. I’m working at an independent book store, which functions as a café and also sells maps and music (it’s one of the last record stores in my town, and it’s barely even one of those!). One of the weird things is the complete change in the people that I spend almost a third of my waking part of the day with, and I probably consider them new friends.
Things go like this at the moment:
Wake up, dress and things
Cycle into town, then eat breakfast in Costa with Madison
Go to work at the bookstore
Leave for lunch, wander, read travel guides in the library
Work
Finish. Go for coffee with friends, or to a movie, or walk somewhere. Not have to think about what I’ve spent all day doing.
Sleep.
I was starting to feel relaxed and nicely disconnected from the things I do all of the time, even away from my usual methods of escapism, like concerts and the internet.
And then yesterday after I got home, two really crappy things happened within about an hour of each other, and it was like waking up on a lilo and being simultaneously punched in the face from both sides.
I suddenly felt really useless and small. So I went for a bike ride by the lake by myself for a while and took Imogen Heap and Noah and the Whale with me, and instead of moping around ignoring the cause like I usually do I thought about it directly and how sad and angry it was making me and whether or not it was my fault, and that made it better than just lying in bed. And I still kind of have that horrible weight in my chest, but I think that’s probably because I haven’t really talked about it yet, and I’ll probably call up Poppy or Emily sometime soon. There’s just going to be some really tough days in this next week so I apologize in advance if I get ranty on here.
Yesterday I turned off my phone and my computer, so I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your email Beth! And, having said that, anyone else who I’ve been ignoring. It isn’t your fault, I just have grumpy spells.
Sorry for just spending an entire post dropping mysterious hints about my personal life, I know it’s selfish and I’ll write something worthwhile soon because I know I haven’t been doing.
On a positive note, Zoe was fired on The Apprentice! (I guess one person's sadness is another's happiness)
The Hummingbird Bakery are coming to work!
I got a pretty shirt from Etsy today!
It's been sunny outside!
Isn't that worth keeping going?
Also I wanted to leave you something that didn't make reading this a waste of time.
This is "Alpha Shadows" by Laura Marling. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JleuVxIlWaM
It is beauty.
I started listening to her a few months ago, and my love for her is complicated for some of the silliest reasons. I'll probably talk about that soon. But there's no denying Laura Marling's music has had a huge effect on my life in the last month or so.
(sorry that link was at the side. I couldn't make it do anything else, blogger is messed up today).
K. I'll see you next week and sorry for being annoying.
Lizzie
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Milk Bottles and Artificial Flowers
We’re sorry what we’ve done to your dead.
We didn’t mean to let this happen,
And we’ll do something, we promise,
To fix;
The long, browning weeds, whose arms snake around sinking tombstones,
Though their limbs, too, hang weep and limp and without strength,
Like the rotting flesh and bones.
The bluebells, turned brownbells,
The traffic, breaking the hum of silence.
The headstones, eroded and grey.
But,
They’ll come, with knuts and bolts and hammers and nails,
Litter picks and plastic bin-bags,
And the preacher’s son will mow the grass,
Cut down the loose ends and the bedraggle,
And let it rise again, green and bright and full of life,
But for now we’re sorry
What we’ve done to your dead,
And we want you to remember that we apologized, and please tell them that we loved thy neighbour.
We didn’t mean to let this happen,
And we’ll do something, we promise,
To fix;
The long, browning weeds, whose arms snake around sinking tombstones,
Though their limbs, too, hang weep and limp and without strength,
Like the rotting flesh and bones.
The bluebells, turned brownbells,
The traffic, breaking the hum of silence.
The headstones, eroded and grey.
But,
They’ll come, with knuts and bolts and hammers and nails,
Litter picks and plastic bin-bags,
And the preacher’s son will mow the grass,
Cut down the loose ends and the bedraggle,
And let it rise again, green and bright and full of life,
But for now we’re sorry
What we’ve done to your dead,
And we want you to remember that we apologized, and please tell them that we loved thy neighbour.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
On "Choosing To Die"
I watched a documentary yesterday called Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die. If you haven't heard of him, Terry Pratchett is a British fantasy writer: he wrote something called the Discworlds series, but the first of his work I read was a collaboration novel he wrote with Neil Gaiman called "Good Omens".
In 2007, Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And he's still in the early stages of Alzheimer's, but there were little things - he said that he almost always immedietly forgets people's names. He can no longer type, and instead dictates to his assistant when he writes, because Terry Pratchett feels he has to finish the book he's in the middle of writing. As a writer, I can't get my head around how frustrating this must be. Following this, he presented a documentary which aired a few nights ago, on BBC1, about euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The documentary focused on Dignitas, a clinic in Swizerland which helps those with terminal illnesses to die. The film followed a man named Peter Smedley, with motor neurone disease, who travelled to Swizerland with his wife to die in this odd little blue house. It was right in the middle of an industrial estate, because it was the only place it was allowed to be. Amongst all the tall buildings and cars, at the back of the house, was a small zen garden. It was a place of comfort - there were comfortable chairs, a bed, large bowls of chocolate and over fifty different kinds of tea.
The documentary followed both Peter Smedley's choice to die at Dignitas and his death itself, and after first watching him and his wife talking about it in the most impossibly straightforward and businesslike way, I was shocked by how quickly the transfer seemed to be between then and the man's death. Peter drank the mixture that would kill him quickly, then ate some of the chocolates his wife had picked out of the bowl from him after requesting that he didn't want the praline ones. His wife kept very sincere and unemotive, holding his hand as he first struggled to breathe then slipped into sleep, and I think she may just have been one of the bravest women I've ever seen.
Peter Smedley's death was calm and peaceful and just seemed so right - at least for him, then, in that situation. I agree with the idea of Dignitas and what it does for people. The process was thorough in ensuring the person asking to die was in right mind, knew exactly how the process would work and was completley sure.
But what struck me was the fact that the program said something like 21% of the people who die at Dignitas don't have any terminal illness at all. I can't decide how I feel about that, because I don't know if someone vunerable and depressed and scared should have the option to slip away so easily, depite how thorough the doctors at the Dignitas clinic are with ensuring the patient is of sound mind. There is a difference between someone who is scared and wanting an easier suicide, and a terminally ill cancer patient relieving themselves of pain.
Maybe, however, it's up to us. I have a lot of arguments in my head about what I think about suicide - whether it's selfish towards the people who love them, or whether ending our life is a basic human right. I have no idea why but at the back of a notebook I used to use when I was about eleven, I've written "You don't know another person until you've walked a mile in their shoes" and I'm fairly sure it's one of those things my mother used to tell me but it's true.
It would cause far too much controversy to compare mental and physical pain and struggle, whether either one is worse, but they are completley different things. And whilst it's kinder to consider the people around us and who suicide will affect, when being in the world is so much of a struggle, whether that means a strain on the body or the soul, the choice to end it or to stay can only be down to one person. I think that Dignitas dealt with this in a way that was almost beautiful, and although I'm sad about Peter Smedley and I will be sad about Terry Pratchett, and I even spent a few minutes after the documentary quietly weeping in the kitchen, it comforts me knowing that if I ever become terminally ill and am in a lot of pain, depending on the situation ethics, there is a little blue house in the middle of Europe, in the snow, that managed to deal with this is the kindest and most moral and graceful way I think possible.
In 2007, Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And he's still in the early stages of Alzheimer's, but there were little things - he said that he almost always immedietly forgets people's names. He can no longer type, and instead dictates to his assistant when he writes, because Terry Pratchett feels he has to finish the book he's in the middle of writing. As a writer, I can't get my head around how frustrating this must be. Following this, he presented a documentary which aired a few nights ago, on BBC1, about euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The documentary focused on Dignitas, a clinic in Swizerland which helps those with terminal illnesses to die. The film followed a man named Peter Smedley, with motor neurone disease, who travelled to Swizerland with his wife to die in this odd little blue house. It was right in the middle of an industrial estate, because it was the only place it was allowed to be. Amongst all the tall buildings and cars, at the back of the house, was a small zen garden. It was a place of comfort - there were comfortable chairs, a bed, large bowls of chocolate and over fifty different kinds of tea.
The documentary followed both Peter Smedley's choice to die at Dignitas and his death itself, and after first watching him and his wife talking about it in the most impossibly straightforward and businesslike way, I was shocked by how quickly the transfer seemed to be between then and the man's death. Peter drank the mixture that would kill him quickly, then ate some of the chocolates his wife had picked out of the bowl from him after requesting that he didn't want the praline ones. His wife kept very sincere and unemotive, holding his hand as he first struggled to breathe then slipped into sleep, and I think she may just have been one of the bravest women I've ever seen.
Peter Smedley's death was calm and peaceful and just seemed so right - at least for him, then, in that situation. I agree with the idea of Dignitas and what it does for people. The process was thorough in ensuring the person asking to die was in right mind, knew exactly how the process would work and was completley sure.
But what struck me was the fact that the program said something like 21% of the people who die at Dignitas don't have any terminal illness at all. I can't decide how I feel about that, because I don't know if someone vunerable and depressed and scared should have the option to slip away so easily, depite how thorough the doctors at the Dignitas clinic are with ensuring the patient is of sound mind. There is a difference between someone who is scared and wanting an easier suicide, and a terminally ill cancer patient relieving themselves of pain.
Maybe, however, it's up to us. I have a lot of arguments in my head about what I think about suicide - whether it's selfish towards the people who love them, or whether ending our life is a basic human right. I have no idea why but at the back of a notebook I used to use when I was about eleven, I've written "You don't know another person until you've walked a mile in their shoes" and I'm fairly sure it's one of those things my mother used to tell me but it's true.
It would cause far too much controversy to compare mental and physical pain and struggle, whether either one is worse, but they are completley different things. And whilst it's kinder to consider the people around us and who suicide will affect, when being in the world is so much of a struggle, whether that means a strain on the body or the soul, the choice to end it or to stay can only be down to one person. I think that Dignitas dealt with this in a way that was almost beautiful, and although I'm sad about Peter Smedley and I will be sad about Terry Pratchett, and I even spent a few minutes after the documentary quietly weeping in the kitchen, it comforts me knowing that if I ever become terminally ill and am in a lot of pain, depending on the situation ethics, there is a little blue house in the middle of Europe, in the snow, that managed to deal with this is the kindest and most moral and graceful way I think possible.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
FUSIATIFTPQ Part Deux: "When do you feel most like yourself?"
Feeling Uninspired So I Asked The Internet For Thought Provoking Questions: Part Two! (that abbreviation is not catchy :( )
Maybe you can remember that a while ago, I hadn't written anything for a while and I was feeling a bit bleh and so this happened. And... well... it did again.
TODAY'S GOOGLED THOUGHT PROVOKING QUESTION:
When do you feel most like yourself?
I read this and for some reason I thought straight away the answer was being stuffed between sweaty bodies at concerts, singing along and feeling all swept away, other people's spilt beer sticking to my shoes. And then I reconsidered, because although that's my favourite part of myself to be and the one that comes easiest, it's not the one that I am the most of the time.
I came up with a lot of things - when I'm with the group of eight or so of my friends that talk in the cloakroom at school every morning, and then the less tight-knitted group of about twenty I'm with at the bottom of the fields at lunch time. I'm someone else fighting with my parents than around my mother when I tell her about my day, when I listen to music with my dad in the car and we sing along. If I'm alone with someone, I like to think I try to cater to the things they want to talk about as well as myself, but my favourite people have enough in common with me than we don't have to, or I'm comfortable enough with to know that they can listen to me talking about what I care about.
And then I came to the obvious idea that we are "our real selves" when we are completley alone. Maybe that's true. It could be that the second we do, or even just think something we wouldn't necessarily want other people to know about, it stains who we are and becomes a part of us. I think we take it in turns to mask and unveil the bits of us that we need to show or to cover in the situation. Ultimately, I think every conversation we have is because we want to loosely gain something from it, and that could be anything from an information, employment, a sandwich or just to be brought closer to someone and find common grounds. We can pull out different ways of speaking, different interests and overall, entirely different people we want to be.
Although we could probably assume we're most ourselves left alone with nothing to prove to anyone, I don't think that's entirely true. Because the way we are around other people and how we react to things are what forms us. If I the things I do alone were what I did all of the time, all I would do is read and sometimes write, watch videos on the internet, listen to music antisocially outside at night time and occasionally drink heavily and cry. And without just sounding like I'm trying to escape that but I'm glad that isn't my entire personality. Being stupid and lighthearted around my friends and polite around my teachers and generally a mixture of everything/just awful around my parents is what makes me a person.
________________________________________________________________________________
I wrote something for Drabble Day Challenge again and I don't know how I feel about this:
"GARDEN"
The alarm went off at half past twelve.
He opened and closed his eyes once or twice, fighting the magnetic tug between his eyelids and yawned once, reluctantly flicking on the light. His clothes to dress into were where he’d left them, with his good-grip shoes and winter coat.
There’d be other boys when he got to Daisy’s house, out down the street, in the cold , and they’d climbed over the tall fence faster, with less struggle than him.
Then, imagining the winter and the elbows digging into his sides he thought, tomorrow night, and he slid back into the warmth of his bed.
_____________________________________________________________________________
As usual, thank you for coming and I'll see you next week :)
Lizzie
Maybe you can remember that a while ago, I hadn't written anything for a while and I was feeling a bit bleh and so this happened. And... well... it did again.
TODAY'S GOOGLED THOUGHT PROVOKING QUESTION:
When do you feel most like yourself?
I read this and for some reason I thought straight away the answer was being stuffed between sweaty bodies at concerts, singing along and feeling all swept away, other people's spilt beer sticking to my shoes. And then I reconsidered, because although that's my favourite part of myself to be and the one that comes easiest, it's not the one that I am the most of the time.
I came up with a lot of things - when I'm with the group of eight or so of my friends that talk in the cloakroom at school every morning, and then the less tight-knitted group of about twenty I'm with at the bottom of the fields at lunch time. I'm someone else fighting with my parents than around my mother when I tell her about my day, when I listen to music with my dad in the car and we sing along. If I'm alone with someone, I like to think I try to cater to the things they want to talk about as well as myself, but my favourite people have enough in common with me than we don't have to, or I'm comfortable enough with to know that they can listen to me talking about what I care about.
And then I came to the obvious idea that we are "our real selves" when we are completley alone. Maybe that's true. It could be that the second we do, or even just think something we wouldn't necessarily want other people to know about, it stains who we are and becomes a part of us. I think we take it in turns to mask and unveil the bits of us that we need to show or to cover in the situation. Ultimately, I think every conversation we have is because we want to loosely gain something from it, and that could be anything from an information, employment, a sandwich or just to be brought closer to someone and find common grounds. We can pull out different ways of speaking, different interests and overall, entirely different people we want to be.
Although we could probably assume we're most ourselves left alone with nothing to prove to anyone, I don't think that's entirely true. Because the way we are around other people and how we react to things are what forms us. If I the things I do alone were what I did all of the time, all I would do is read and sometimes write, watch videos on the internet, listen to music antisocially outside at night time and occasionally drink heavily and cry. And without just sounding like I'm trying to escape that but I'm glad that isn't my entire personality. Being stupid and lighthearted around my friends and polite around my teachers and generally a mixture of everything/just awful around my parents is what makes me a person.
________________________________________________________________________________
I wrote something for Drabble Day Challenge again and I don't know how I feel about this:
"GARDEN"
The alarm went off at half past twelve.
He opened and closed his eyes once or twice, fighting the magnetic tug between his eyelids and yawned once, reluctantly flicking on the light. His clothes to dress into were where he’d left them, with his good-grip shoes and winter coat.
There’d be other boys when he got to Daisy’s house, out down the street, in the cold , and they’d climbed over the tall fence faster, with less struggle than him.
Then, imagining the winter and the elbows digging into his sides he thought, tomorrow night, and he slid back into the warmth of his bed.
_____________________________________________________________________________
As usual, thank you for coming and I'll see you next week :)
Lizzie
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Shell Island
I went camping with my friends this weekend, to a fairly cheap campsite in North Wales called Shell Island. There were eight of us, and I had a really good time - the weather was ok most of the time, considering it's Britain, and I loved being in a place when I could just leave whenever I wanted. I honestly can't remember the last time I was alone (and awake) for more than thirty minutes, so one afternoon I left my shoes behind and took music with me and walked down the beach for what seemed like much less time than it apparently was.
I've been here a few times since I was about nine, and one of the things I always remember about it is this giant rock that looks a little bit like a dinosaur, then another large one a few yards across from it. I remember as a kid, my cousins and my friends and I separated into groups one night and sat on the two rocks, lay out stones and pebbles and shells and things in front of us and ran between the two, trading the stock from our "shops". At age twelve, two of my friends and I did the creepy "blood sisters" thing, making incisions in the side of our palms and stamping our wounds against the rock to make the vaguest smudge of blood. About a year and a half ago, my dad's drunken best friend fell off of it into the sea.
Another thing we did a lot this camping trip was walk along the tall sand dunes there are there, and I can't really explain how overwhelming it was to walk, pushing your body against the wind and feet through the sand, through the middle of the huge hills. You could tell how overwhelmed we all were, a group of excitable teenagers, because after sticking close together and chattering a lot of the way there everybody just split apart and walked in different directions. For once, everyone just dropped everything and sort of explored.
(all of the photos I used today are Alecia's )
I know this probably isn't the sort of place you write a "travel blog" about (I hope you know that's not what I was aiming for), but I felt like I needed to share Shell Island with you, just because I've revisited it so many times at different stages of my life. We were sat on a rock and Poppy was joking about how in later years, somebody would propose to me sat there. Despite all of the complications there are between us all sometimes, I really liked being with a big group of my friends outside of a school environment and making fires, dancing to "Bohemian Rhapsody" late at night, catching starfish and letting them go.
I've been here a few times since I was about nine, and one of the things I always remember about it is this giant rock that looks a little bit like a dinosaur, then another large one a few yards across from it. I remember as a kid, my cousins and my friends and I separated into groups one night and sat on the two rocks, lay out stones and pebbles and shells and things in front of us and ran between the two, trading the stock from our "shops". At age twelve, two of my friends and I did the creepy "blood sisters" thing, making incisions in the side of our palms and stamping our wounds against the rock to make the vaguest smudge of blood. About a year and a half ago, my dad's drunken best friend fell off of it into the sea.
Another thing we did a lot this camping trip was walk along the tall sand dunes there are there, and I can't really explain how overwhelming it was to walk, pushing your body against the wind and feet through the sand, through the middle of the huge hills. You could tell how overwhelmed we all were, a group of excitable teenagers, because after sticking close together and chattering a lot of the way there everybody just split apart and walked in different directions. For once, everyone just dropped everything and sort of explored.
(all of the photos I used today are Alecia's )
I know this probably isn't the sort of place you write a "travel blog" about (I hope you know that's not what I was aiming for), but I felt like I needed to share Shell Island with you, just because I've revisited it so many times at different stages of my life. We were sat on a rock and Poppy was joking about how in later years, somebody would propose to me sat there. Despite all of the complications there are between us all sometimes, I really liked being with a big group of my friends outside of a school environment and making fires, dancing to "Bohemian Rhapsody" late at night, catching starfish and letting them go.
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