new.

here i am, in newcastle, new south wales, living in my new house, with my newly-non-long-distance boyfriend.

newcastle is a strange place. i find myself getting frustrated with it, but i think one of the main reasons is its utter non-englishness. now, as an individual who has elected to move here out of choice, this is probably something i need to get over.

it's such a sparse city. as a non-driver, this is pretty dampening...i'm so used to being able to walk or cycle everywhere, or at least being able to cycle or catch a bus to a specific hustly-bustly centre, where everything i need is within easy walking radius. but now, i'm landed in a loosely associated muddle of suburbs, each with different amenities on offer. even though i live in 'central' newcastle, the nearest supermarket is a 15 minute bus ride away. i'm a 5 minute walk from the australian equivalent of the main 'high street', and it's fairly small, and never particularly busy. after spending the summer in london, i thought i would revel at the chance to shop in a quiet atmosphere. but it's just plain odd.

i think, subconsciously, i've grown up feeling that busy places are good places; where the people are is where the life is. if i were to walk to a store or a park and only see about 5 others en route, i would start to doubt whether the place was even open. where is everyone?! it makes me feel very disconnected; paranoid even.

i want to feel proud that this is my home; it's been a lot of work getting here. i know of lots of people who have grown up here and attended uni here, and are happy to seek work here. so there must be something to it. i just don't get it. are people in denial about this city, or am i just missing something? worse still; maybe the only reason this doesn't feel so homely is because it's not england.

i know what there is to love; the beaches, the gorgeous cafes, the bogey hole. but why don't i love it?

touch.

Close my eyes and move backwards from them into myself.

Touch you so intently that I become my fingertips.

I forget where the rest of my body is when it’s not touching you.

I am whispering to you with my fingertips and you are listening with your skin. Intently.

‘Yes’.

I am pushing the affirmation so far forward the words are tripping over themselves in such a rush to be heard by you.

We are so close I can hear your eyelashes disturb the air. I am jealous of it.

heckyeatumblr#9.

http://tumblr.com/xsx1xkgzm5

9. Write about each of the places which you have called 'home'.


Kelso Road, Bury St Edmunds


This is the house where I grew up. I lived here for 11 happy years with my Mum, Dad, sister and number of guinea-pigs and gerbils. It was a smallish house, with a little garden. I remember that every surface was covered in ornamental pigs or pot plants, courtesy of Mum. We had a rubber plant which grew all the way around the living room ceiling. There was at least one cabinet full of the pigs, and they filled the mantelpiece of the fireplace, in front of which sat four very heavy brass crocodiles, which were most definitely not meant to be toys but were always used as such.


There was one bathroom, which was decorated luminous turquoise and black, with some sort of fish in every potential fishy space (ie on top of the toilet, on the window ledge, on the ceiling).


The upstairs hallway, like the rest of the house, was small, but it managed to have room for a huge copy of Steve Pearson's 'Wings of Love', with an overly ornate gold frame.

The Warren

This is the first house my parents ever looked at buying, but as a newly wed couple they couldn't afford it. Fifteen years later the house went back up on the market and they could - so we moved 10 minutes up the road into a beautiful chalet bungalow with a large (for a town-house) garden. We've been here 11 years now, and since then basically re-built the whole thing, as a lot of work was needed. I love this house. It really is like a warren; there's a main hallway with lots of little rooms coming off it, including a hidden staircase which leads to the upstairs, where I live when I come home now. Nice and private since my sister moved out two years ago. Mum and Dad spend all their time in the garden with various odd jobs and gardening, Mum grows heaps of vegetables when the weather lets her, and Dad takes care of all the fruit trees and rhubarb. There's lots of 'stuff' everywhere, but I love all of it, because it's home. Since my grandparents died, we took on some of the ornaments and furniture and paintings. They lived in a really big old country house with high ceilings; their things look COMPLETELY out of place here, but I think that's pretty cool. My great-grandmother was a painter, and we have several of her paintings up, even though they take up half the bloody wall space.


The Ziggurats
 I lived on campus for my first year at university. I had my own little room in a flat for 14 people on the ground floor of the the 'ziggurats', which are listed buildings. Sharing a kitchen with 13 other people was...interesting. And I definitely wouldn't live there again. But I made some really cool friends, and I am glad I spent my first year there.

Bland Road

I have lived here on and off for the past three years, though with different people as registered 'tenants' at each of the addresses, I have more or less lived with the same group of friends, as everyone loiters and we hang out a lot, and cook for each other. I spend a lot of my time being miserable and whining about the state of the house, as it's pretty gross...no-one else really cleans apart from me. To be honest, it's a shame that I have had to live with the friends that I have lived with because if we had never been housemates I think we would all be closer, as I wouldn't be so angry with them a lot of the time. Despite this, I love being able to eat with my friends every evening, and I love that I have met and got to know some of the most interesting, independent, cultured, obscure (?!), honest, loving and passionate people I think I have ever met. As well as this, adventures with aforesaid house mates make for i) some pretty cool anecdotes and ii) some vital life-lessons in patience....

Evatt House

This is where I lived during my year at Newcastle Uni, Australia. I loved it here. There were two 'quads' comprised of 10 blocks in total, each block being two flats of 10. Each flat had their own 'Residential Assistant', and participated in 'blunctions' regularly, which could have been trips to a restaurant, to a movie, dessert night etc...The college had heaps of activities going on all the time, games and nights out....I miss it :( It's also where I met my boyfriend, Sam. He lived just across the hallway from me...we would stay up late talking on facebook chat because we were too shy to go and see each other...sometimes I could hear him typing...Unfortunately keyboards are a major part of our relationship again now, but not for too much longer. I made some really awesome friends here, and even though lots of them have moved on to new cities/ states, I really hope they can come visit/ I have enough money to go and visit them.

Writing all this is making me very sad. So I'll stop now. 

home for easter.

cinematic orchestra.

still burning.

" Now I feel home. We talk about everything, the keyboards have disappeared.  This week has been so intense, we are burning and I’m scared we will burn out.

On Friday we went to the Bar on the Hill and we were a couple. I love being a couple with him."


17/10/09

denial.

vegemite for breakfast.

sushi, wedges and sour cream + sweet chilli for dinner.

cosy.

I'm a victim of effeminate and unnecessary mood swings. They dictate my lifestyle. 

For the most part of the day I was convinced that there was no reason to be anything other than complacent, and so I went about my business in such a manner that I would always see the world through these eyes and with this attachment, and that this perspective is the only perspective.

All it takes is a sudden whim of pride, self acceptance or understanding, and I'm welcomed back Home.

Both of these places hold such a severe and passionate grasping sense of 'belonging'. It's just a battle, over which I have little control.