The Touch of Rain

I am sitting back right now and reeling with surprise. A smile curls at the corners of my mouth. A sweet, cheeky affection scratches at my heart. My skin learns to feel again. Yearning softly returns to my body like a an old friend - curious.

Someone in my life is refreshing and amazing. What a strange boy, what a beautiful mind, what a patient touch, mature focus, respect. A small storm knocks about inside you. At times, I can hear your distant thunder. I can see lightening in your eyes. Your fingers are electric.

What can I do for you? What can I give you?

Happy New Year!

My new years saga has finally come to an end. Today the answer to the questions that have been haunting me came into my head while I was sitting on the balcony.

The questions:

What has been gained? What has been lost? Why has my life gone down this path? What did fate have in mind for me when it lead me away from what I knew and into this new place of living? What consolations? What have I learned?

The answer:

Maturity.

I have gained maturity.

Cold comfort? Maybe. But there is a peace in my self that I never had before. Now that I no longer invest myself wholy in ceremony, in "us", in trying to control the uncontrollable - other people's spirits, other people's paths, happiness, love.

I am wiser, more street-smart, more tolerant, more patient, more repectful and understanding towards others. Pride - my enemy, my inner demon, the bain of my existence - has loosened its grip on me.

I no longer think I can understand everything, let alone control it. And it feels great.

So new years was not some great ceremony, a simple thing to believe in, an affirmation of friends and togetherness and immortality...

New years was in the squeeze of Josh's hand as we walked through Surry Hills, tina'd off chops to Arq on the monday night. In the reality of dropping, and facing an ethical cricis about g - with no easy answers, no simple solution. In the feeling of ecstasy coarsing through me as Ben and I danced to "happy hardcore" on the balcony at Arq, miming the lyrics to Summer Rain. It was in talking to Daniel about everything on the night I got back from Dad's - the scene vrs. clubbing, our desires and anxieties, survival and happiness, quiet times, lonliness and love. Newness and life and celebration was in playing in the park with Rohan and Josh at the sprinkler on the hottest day in Hurstville. In lying on the slippery-dip, smoking a solitary cigarette, comfortable and happy, looking at the tall tree-tops, the clearest blue sky, and feeling free. In supporting Rohan when he sang with unmistakable passion at Stonewall karaoke - pearls amongst swine? Perhaps, but pearls none the less and we were there to appreciate them.

New years was in working hard, helping a friend in need, holding my head up in pride when I was made to cry at work, then letting it all go to dance in campness in the pool at Dan and Kylie's second pool party. Happy, free.

Throwing rubber ducks. Smoking tina. Dancing to trance. Winking at boys. Drinking wild turkey. Crying with relief and exhaustion. Paying off my phone bill (the sms queen is back!). Eating vegetables. Drinking tequila. Touching and holding someone in the dark, falling asleep, excepting what is, not needing to have more. Dancing with Brian at Stonewall. Feeling the sensuality of drugs. Looking up at my old moral high-ground and bidding it a happy goodbye.

What for the new year?

Sex, sensuality, hard work, pride, experience, mistakes, love, disappointment, joy...

Bring it on. Bring it on, bitch.

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Nose to the Stone

Reluctantly I welcome the new year. I am not proud or happy about or even sure of the way last year panned out. It was a rollercoaster of change and loss, with a few strong gains and lessons learnt along the way. I am glad to say I survived the toughest year I have had since 2002, but reluctant to celebrate the birth of 2006, as I no longer hold the confident attitude I always did towards the future. It seems I have learnt that sometimes life does not get better and better with each change, sometimes there is heartbreak and uncertainty and (yes, hear's that word again) loss.

I have been like a new baby; hands reaching out to grab everything, wanting to put everything in my mouth, eyes darting around, following pretty things, mesmerised by new and beloved people - in awe and unable to focus. It is time for me grow up a little. It is time to put my nose to the grindstone. Well, next year will be 'nose to the stone' year, but this year I must begin the process of turning towards the stone. I must begin to court disclipline again, to flirt with ambition, to become intellectually narscissistic - at least enough to get back into my project.

Aims at this point: get new supervisor, write enough by next semester to justify teaching again, apply for casual tutoring in second semester, plan another overseas conference attendence (present paper), write and submit thesis-specific article for publication.

Strategy: needless to say, there are many strategies for getting this done, but the first and most important is this - WED, THURS and FRI of each week are to be uni work days, SAT and SUN are to be Manacle days, MON and TUES days off for socialising/being trashed. In this regime there is room to move if, for example, I decide to go out WED nite and wipe out thursday, that's ok if I catch it up the following tuesday.

So that's the plan. I would also like to keep my party favour expenditure down to a max of $100 per week. I know it seems like a lot, but I have been spending a lot more than that some of these last weeks, and I am being realistic.

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New Year/Old Year

I have decided in retrospect that New Years Eve is as much, if not more, about the death of the old year as it is about the birth of the new. My new years eve (extending over the weekend) this year was like a wake to me. Deep down I felt a sense of death. I was looking back upon 2005 just like an exhausted soldier looks over their wounds. Feeling sorry for myself, feeling fragile, feeling desperate. Trying to "get into the spirit", I was in denial of the black shroud that draped itself over me for new years. As always, I was trying to make everything ok, fretting about details, other people's moods and movements, feeling like I was trying to hold something together, keep something at bay...

I should have just accepted that I was mourning the old, not trying to celebrate the new. I had no energy, no spark of rebirth - I had wounds to uncover and clean, losses to count, strengths to re-gather, and a gypsy's caravan of memories to burn, making way for the new.

What next? I am breathing. I am sleeping. There is music - quiet now. Soon, there will be dancing.

I want to feel two things again this year, more than anything:

CLARITY and PASSION.

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