Once she would have liked to see a ghost. As if that would have confirmed everything she already knew about the world. Now, watching her son, she no longer needs the corroboration of an unhappy ghost. Life is diaphanous. Being alive is not much different to placing paper on bark and rubbing over it with a lead pencil. These days she feels as if she is surrounded by the scratchings of another world, a world too full of the shapes of things, of knowing and not knowing, where to think is to be certain.

(I love the photo above but I have no idea who took it or where I found it, if you know, please tell me)

one afternoon

fancy.
Under the Ivy (the film clip is kind of gorgeous, especially Kate's smile at the end).

Happy Birthday Lauren!

So I have a room with a view. Such a novelty in this flat capital. A great big room with a great big view. I live in an apartment above a big old shop and on the back of the building is this rather spectacular old sign.


I look out across Melbourne's lichen covered rooftops.


(no lichen on these rooftops, this is from the bathroom)

In this new elevated position a gloomy Melbourne winter takes on a new and rather enjoyable quality. The sky changes. And changes. And I can lie in bed and watch it shift. I think about taking photos only of the sky. Someone described Melbourne's winter skies to me as a bit like living under a tupperware lid. It is true, the sky does seem to be grey and low for much of the year but lately I have been quite taken with its shimmering quality. And the sky, for some reason, it always makes me think of the past. Of what this part of the world was like before Melbourne was here.

Lately, I haven't been sleeping. I tend to spend many hours awake in the middle of the night in what feels like an excruciatingly uncomfortable bed. Sometimes I read and sometimes I just lie there. Sometimes I stare in to the darkness. Sleepless nights are hardly pleasant or enjoyable, as everyone knows, but sometimes I can just let myself go and think. And think. And in its own way this tends to dissolve the small knot of anxiety at the base of my sternum.

I feel a little bit like a snake sloughing off an old skin, discovering how cold and raw you are underneath. A feeling that is both terrible and pleasant all at the same time.

Phew!
I am happy to be back.
In a new house.
With a different kind of life.
On my own.


Sleeping it off in Rapid City

for the love of Guy

The beautiful work of Theo Jansen. I love these creatures, I love the way they move and sound.
You can hear him speak here.

via swissmiss. wonderful.
(Oh wait there's more here. And the screen isn't chopped in half).