CXCIV

Every possession I own 

has become either a before or an after piece

Such a material way 

to chronicle loss.

And I'm not a material person.

But I guess it's the most tangible way I remember 

that you’re gone.

And the most tangible way 

I rebuild my life into something different.

And the most tangible way to know 

I am still a person without you.

[Image: Harpers Bazaar Turkey]

CXCIII

"Religious faith isn’t, at its core, belief in this or that. Perhaps that is the third or fourth generation descendant of this faith. But religious faith is trust in life, trust in that mystery that life is, that goes beyond the beyond."

- David Steindl-Rast

"The spiritual life takes place​ between the difficult and the impossible" 

- Rabbi Shai

[Image: Valerija Kelava for Harpers Bazaar Russia]

CXXXIX

31/8: How do I feel? I feel like the world is caving in. On the 15cm squared of chest above where my heart should be. I don't know that it's there, I can't feel it for the weight of the world caving in upon it. 

[Artwork: Untitled, Ellsworth Kelly]

CXXXIII

Bravery is not the absence of fear but the intimacy with fear.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Life is a good teacher, and a good friend.

- Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

CXXIX

His smell still lingers, for what feels like an eternity, in the room after he has left it. Skin-smell, and hair-smell, and sleep-smell. A sweet fragrance; the sweetest. I pray for it not to dissipate, but the ordinary inevitably takes it's hold, and I can't stop myself from filling up the spaces where he once was. A flash and a dance of splendour and then a long, arduous awaiting. In ardour. In expectation. My own skin can't keep the smell of where he caressed it; can't bottle it up to hold onto. So I wait. And the promise of return tingles every fibre of my being. Will he come again? And when? And how soon? Not for my skin to know. In ardour. In expectation. It awaits.

[Images: Jennifer Stenglein]

CXXVIII

"I love you" is still a startling sound, even after all these years. When it comes from your lips, it is. When your eyes don't leave my face, it is. When your hands won't stop. I love you too. Even when my lungs give out from the weight of it all upon me, I do. I love you still.

CXXVII

You can't buy happiness, and you can't buy time. You can't buy true, authentic relationship, or love. You can't buy hope, you can't buy meaning, you can't buy any of it. The best things in life really are free - in the sense that they cost you no material value. But intrinsically, they are not free. They are hard fought, and won. They are bought with self-sacrifice, bleeding hearts, tired eyes, worn hands. They are broken and then painstakingly mended, time and time again. I should know, I have tasted them all, and all of them have taken as much as they have given to me. It's on you whether they're truly worth the fight.
I know the pursuit of happiness is. I know counting the minutes and making them count is. I know love is, and friendship, no matter what the cost - these things are not truly free. I know hope is worth the fight - I've known it most when hope has left me. I know meaning is worth the search, and the ache, and the candle you hold for it, and the empty place your reserve for it in your heart. Nothing ill-fitting can last in that place, it has to be right. So we wait.
I've been around town, not too many times, but enough times to know that it's never the things that you think will matter that do. Life is the ultimate catch-you-by-surprise, and you'll never see her coming, even when you do.



[Image: Myself Germany, July '17]

CXXII

What does it mean to share a life. Is there enough there to share? Is it worth something to try. What are the inextricable’s; a bed, a house, a home, a monetary sum, a child, a fundamental set of ideals, a hope for the future, an intent. What markers are these? How many must we acquire? Somebody tell me because I do not know.

The courts hold my signature and say my life is won. Is wed. Is yours. Is shared. How simple could it be?

CXVI

Listening to your steady sleeping slowing breath is becoming a favourite thing. Favourite because you're mine and I can hear this every night, if I stayed awake to listen. Favourite because you're peaceful and you're okay and that means I am, too. Favourite because this is what I dreamed of, and now I need to stay awake to listen. Favourite because it's you, and you're next to me, and the whole world is as nought, and your steady sleeping slowing breath is the only thing. My only thing. It's becoming a favourite thing, to visit these dreams of mine in my waking. You are my dream come to life, and I love you for it. You and your steady sleeping slowing breath. I love you. 

CVIII

Word.

CV

There’s a lot to be said for people who make things happen for themselves.

 The ‘get shit done’ kind of people.

I don’t know where it comes from, and I don’t think it's necessarily a learnt art, but there’s something about someone who has the fortitude to go out and do, or turn up and be, or buckle down and make, that truly keeps the world going round in a very literal manner of speaking.

Some are born into unjust circumstances, and pushing boundaries is built into their blood.  Some come through trial or challenge or tumult and emerge resolved to do more, and be more, and make more than they ever did before. Some come from a long line of do-ers and makers and movers and shakers, and it’s in their very DNA.

I have a lot of respect for these people. And I often wonder – could I be one of them?

Not a learnt art, no, but a lived one. By my very living could I become a person who makes things happen for themselves. Everyone faces injustice, everyone experiences challenge, everyone can find a predecessor of the mover and shaker variety. I can build into my own blood, resolve in my own way, trigger my own DNA.

Could I not?

I believe I could.

[Image Jennifer Stenglein]

XCVII

'Love is free and time is fleeting.' 

Maybe that’s why real love is so rare; so fragile. Because imperfect people make imperfect decisions, and in the blink of an eye a person can choose not to love. Not to feel. Not to acknowledge. People make that choice everyday – and lives are changed, homes are broken, walls are put up and lifelines shut down. I do not wish to be one of those people. Love isn’t fleeting in the sense that a breeze is fleeting, or a flash of lightening. It is momentary, in that we make the mistake of loving only momentarily. Love exists. I know that it exists. It exists when I cause it to exist. It exists when I give it life, and action, and voice. It exists when I acknowledge it and when I nurture it. It exists, more so than anything else this world has to offer. Love love, because it is so precious. Make it your flag, and wave it.

[Images via Pinterest]

XCVI

I feel so much more aware right now. Were these things always there?

It’s the slow shift of the seasons. The nights when my feet get cold walking on the beaten hardwood floors. The beauty of the sky at the going down of the sun – not always brilliant reds, but just a clear, captivating blue that deepens and darkens until the streetlights come on and there’s nothing left. The crisp morning air. The gradual strengthening of the sun as the day wears on. And I look up at the sky as it is marked by the passing of time, and I call out, “It’s marking me too!”

Everything is suspended in time and air. That must be how the world feels. Suspended. I get that now.

[Images Jill Sander Fall 1998 by David Sims]

LXXXII

Breath.

That is the contraction of your diaphragm and intercostal muscles to decrease internal air pressure and allow oxygenic air from the outside to rush in, then the releasing of these muscles causing carbon dyoxidic air to be pushed out.

That is you being alive.

That is you doing better than you think you are.

[Image: Rachell Smith]

LXXXI

Lover of my soul.

Even when I don’t know you know. Even when I don’t hear me you hear me. You hear me when I don’t speak and when my heart sings. When my heart beats and my ears ring and my mind's lost and my souls clinging. You hear me. You hear the me in me. You see the you in me. I can't see but you see me and I can't think but your thoughts are of me and I can't breath but you breath into me the best of me and the most of me and the you in me.  You beat in me. Your beat in me is more of me than any else of me or he or she. You're doing a work in me. My heart sees. My heart beats. You're doing a work in me.

[Images: Pinterest]

LXXIX

Write about what you know.
Write about ethnicity, and love, and love of difference.
Write about wrongs and rights and righting wrongs, and the wrongs that are the hardest to make right. Perhaps the ones you can't.
Write about fantasy and make-believe, the things you're scared to think. The things you can't think when you're awake. The things you dream.
Write about what you know so they it can know it you too.

[Image: Rachell Smith for Rhye album cover 'Woman']

LXXIII

Hedi Slimane

Killer lines. Unexpected angles. Black-and-whites. Rock star sensibilities.

[Images via Hedi Slimane Diary]

LIX

Lie to me.

If I told you I was a no regrets kinda gal… that would be a lie. If I said I was pretty happy-go-lucky, also a lie. If I said I was carefree, or didn’t give a damn what other people thought of me, or was perfectly content within myself – all lies. But I do tell you those things. What I wear, the way I smile, my mannerisms around total strangers, the way I dismiss your remarks or ignore your stares. I’m telling you a story about myself that I know not to be true. And its not just me – the world is a liar. Because that’s what we’re taught to do and that’s how we’re taught to be, and somewhere along the way every single one of us just joins in the game of lies that we don’t even know we’re playing anymore. This is what makes the world go round. This is what makes statistics soar – depression, racism, insecurity, suicide, intolerance, repression, abuse, self harm, bullying, hate mail, pain, suffering, neglect, misfortune. Welcome to the world we live in. Welcome to the world you live.

[Images: Unknown, Edward Weston]

XXXII

Scott Schuman's black and white candids part II.

XXXI

LOVING the black and white candid's Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) is doing at the moment.