Winter-halter

London is getting cooler, but gradually. Does life stagnate with the shorter days, the rush to be indoors, the hot chocolates? Winter forces a hibernation of the mind, drawing me to things passive and communal. But it's the opposite I need right now: so much is speeding up I am trying to be up there and catch up. As the weather slowly creeps toward the bitter cold I am turning a blind eye and running toward the light. But because of the slow slip into sultry stagnation I don't notice how my mind is slowing down, my body is fattening up the reserves to survive yet another couple of months of freezing.

While the festivities brew, mulled wine simmers and vacations loom, I need to keep my head out of the clouds and into the world's work. Three different projects, big life changes, and it could go wrong any moment. New year, new goals, new opportunities. Time to get a move on.

Flashback

The lights were blue and your face had shadows even deeper than originally. You skipped ahead in your mid-high heels and knee-length cocktail dress, and seemed to be happy on the outside. Funny how your troubles can be invisible to the universe in the depths of a nightclub playing technological beats that cater to oblivion. I remember what I would have done if I hadn't thought of him. Predatorial glances, the occasional chat-up attempt; my cautious moves to avoid being grabbed by a stranger or the even-worse the candid cock-grind. Who are we all being now. Alcohol-induced forwardness that leads you backwards. Friendly bouncer at the door, why did we want to be here? Smiles and whiles. I used to live for this and now it's all rushing around me.. it exists, it continues to flow and rush and flourish without me. I put my drink down, another empty glass. I swing around for another empty dance. The lights come on, the empty faces face each other in disbelief. Time to go home.

Me

In retrospect, it seems, my identity forms itself. Almost as if soul-searching requires you to step away. How can you get close to who you really are when it requires you to step back from who you really are? I am not who I was two years ago, and now I can objectively look at her. In order to grow I sometimes feel I need to look at myself, understand who people see... but I am too close to myself. It's like being pressed to a mirror, and all you want to do it take a step back to look clearly. So does that mean that I'm really there... if I can't see me?

Golden Age Spanish Vintage

Garcilaso de la Vega

Si para refrenar este deseo
loco, imposible, vano, temeroso,
y guarecer de un mal tan peligroso,
que es darme a entender yo lo que no creo,

no me aprovecha verme cual me veo,
o muy aventurado o muy medroso,
en tanta confusión que nunca oso
fiar el mal de mí que lo poseo,

¿qué me ha de aprovechar ver la pintura
de aquel que con las alas derretidas
cayendo, fama y nombre al mar ha dado,

y la del que su fuego y su locura
llora entre aquellas plantas conocidas,
apenas en el agua resfriado?

Parakalo, Hydra! Σ' αγαπώ ... όχι

"I prefer to do psycho than vulnerable"

Like running on a single engine, you let yourself turn something off. "Defensive" - the word you don't like to hear but that describes that I'm doing exactly. Defenses. Fences. An open wound you'd kill to protect... but the wound is created by what you want to kill... chasing your own tail?
Chronic foot-in-mouth disease. I just read that in an article describing Sarah Palin - however I feel I've got it as well. That single engine seems to make me into a different person. Snappy, insecure. Saying things to try to hold footing, and then you're actually standing on a hole. Insecurity - it's all mental really anyway, however you think that it's something concrete - physical - removable.
It's like a painting by Rothko. No real anchor... just lots and lots of feeling and colour and intensity. What do you hold on to? The frame just acts as a limitation - in reality you should just enjoy the absence of a stronghold. But what are you, really, mauvish pinkish red? Who do you want to be, off white greyish pale? Where do you think you're going, deep blue turqouise ultramarine black? If you were just a solid colour, a red, a black, a white... Mondriaan style... then you'd be sure. The frame would fit around you, and make sense.