Dive, Little Girl

Up until I was ten I jumped off the high diving board with abandon. The sizzling concrete framing our local outdoor swimming pool didn’t have a chance to burn my feet before I’d scampered back up the ladder to dive off again.

One day, in a mistimed fit of empathy, I wondered what it would be like to be scared of heights.

I let my mind convince my carefree self that there was something to fear in curling my toes over the edge of the diving board. Suddenly, bounce-bounce-bounce-SPRINGing into the air to spiral into the water with graceless abandon became ... terrifying.

In that split second I pictured myself slipping in the bounce before the jump. I imagined hitting the water in a belly flop rather than a pin drop. I amplified the free-fall until my heart was in my mouth.

On cue, my stomach churned. My palms got sweaty and I backed away from the edge, ignoring the jeers of those who’d climbed up the ladder behind me.

I wish I’d just jumped. That I looked my manufactured fear in the face, flipped it the bird, and just jumped. 

Lace

Paris

Book clutches

Femininity

Casual hair

Lipstick

The hint of a bustle

Heels

Eyebrows

L'Ecume Des Jours

I don't speak French, but I do speak whimsy, and this is so delightful. 

Michel Gondry's new film.

Words and No Pictures

Blogging can be a lot of fun. It can also be hella stressful too. I really struggle with feeling stupid, typing out words into the void. I struggle with originality, knowing that my ideas and inspirations are often sourced from things that I've seen elsewhere. I convince myself that what's been done already is probably better than anything I could do, and scurry away from the computer without even trying. But I'm attempting to change that, to grit my teeth and put something together. Perhaps to plan a little more, commit to this.  

I read somewhere that you shouldn't blog to become famous, but to share what you love with like-minded people. Even when I stopped blogging myself, I never quite disconnected from the blogs that I love. Now that I'm getting all introspecty I know it's because I enjoy being part of something (even if just as a silent stalker-like witness) that I love - fashion, photography, motherhood, community - snippets from real life and real conversations. Yet a big part of me hesitates to build my own blog, to share back what I love, out of a fear of being trite and boring and smarmy and lame. I'm not a journalist. I'm not a fashionista. I'm not a writer. Yet I can't kill this damn blog, so I'll build it instead. And try not be afraid. And that means stop comparing my font type to other blogs, for a start. Small steps.

Already I can feel my mind thinking in hyperlinks again. I like it.

A big reason I stopped blogging is because my camera and laptop were stolen when I was in Italy. I'm still not over it. I look at people's photos and physically ache to have my camera back again. I ache to have my folders of photos back. I think that people want pictures of shiny things, pretty things, that I can mould my words around them. Now I just have words.

Boy Style

Unemployment equals poverty equals an empty wallet. I can't remember the last time I bought something, which means two things: if I can't shop, I'll settle for drooling on my keyboard instead, and my siblings' wardrobes become open property.

And the one I've been raiding the most is my 12 year old brother's. 

The sports luxe trend is one I never thought I'd embrace. I hate sports, as anyone who knows me will attest to. Why would you want to run around and get all red in the face and hot? Beats me. Anyway, watching photographer/model/ideal best girl friend/blogger Zanita throw together her tomboy style (especially a few months ago when she was in Europe) really started to pull me around. 

Bomber jackets, caps, cons and sneakers matched with jeans or the odd flippy skater skirt suddenly seemed relaxed, cool, and edgy. These were clothes for the girl that was comfortable in herself. Moving back to Australia from England I've been really struggling with what I want to wear. I find Sydney so much dressier than London, and in rebellion I want to be wearing slouchy jackets, and white converse sneakers with skirts. This from a girl who thinks it's ok to wear heels around the house just because you're bored.

Photo credit: Zanita

Job Hunting Still

It’s the creeping paralysis I hate.

The hovering tears, the sweat-drenched palms.

I’ve developed a twitch in my right eye. It jerks the thin skin of my eyelid as though it is a fish on a hook.

I feel nauseous and awful. Incompetent, stupid and completely inadequate at life.

The day passes, minutes sliding by like oily beads along a string. Too many days expire where I don’t even try. Where I think I will start after breakfast, when I’ve had another coffee. In the afternoon. Sometime soon. Usually I sit with my book, my face salty with tears as I try to hide amongst plots and characters set far away, thinking that I’ll try again tomorrow.

In the evening, as sleep doesn’t come, I bolster my energies, I manufacture some enthusiasm. I plan and plot, and force a conviction that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will see me purposeful and striding.

It is all vapour and air, smothering me into sleep even as I lie awake.

People try to be positive, but their clichés are like napalm on my skin, and it itches and burns at me as I smilingly agree that soon, soon, something must happen soon, before angling for a change of subject.

I feel sick and hungry and angry and hurt and scared and useless and hot and awful. Panic forces me from chair to kettle to bathroom mirror where I try to wash my face and talk sense to myself. When the twitching of my eyelid is remorseless, I rub savagely, wanting control over that, at least. The twitch returns.

I think back to when I was happy. When?

Trying to remember this.

Source: Paul Arden