Night Film

“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?” 

― Marisha Pessl, Night Film

I felt my life was mostly the live action epitome of existentialism - existentialism incarnate - with fragmented bursts of normalcy. My reality a single extended exhalation. I felt frustrated, angry, anxious, confused, but mostly, sad.

After a fitful night spent thrashing around between the suffocating sheets unable to embrace the solace of sleep, I finally managed to fall into a disturbed and restless slumber long after the sun had risen. 

I awoke less than an hour later, unsettled, an aching sense of discontent lingering like stale smoke around my shoulders and collar bones. These nightmares are frequent and unyielding.

Love & light,

M xx

there will be no trace that one was once two after I fade into you

I was once told that I am a tragic romantic, to which I protested with the utmost vehemence, utterly and inherently adverse to any and all articulations of myself as any version of an amorous fool. Yet, perhaps, as I twirl through the violent wind at that time of the night when a blanket of deathly silence covers the earth during the depth of a balmy and unrelenting summer, imploring him to follow me, chase me, consume me, I cannot help but wonder if the aforementioned description of me is entirely untrue.

The whiskey has muddled my mind and all I remember is uttering "Until we meet again" as I pull the door closed behind me, upholding the promise we made to never say "goodbye". Sitting alone in the uninhabitable dark after he has delivered me at home, the warmth of the golden liquid coursing through my veins, I am haunted by the feeling of his lips pressing against mine. The cool concrete of the long-forgotten basketball court against my skin, the faded graffiti etching itself into my back. Desperate caresses stolen under a cloak of inquisitive stars. The culmination of months of forbidden longing and illicit fantasies. The inevitable air of uncertainty looming ominously over our heads like a cartoon storm cloud, because we both know that our time together will be both tumultuous and fleeting.

"Have we inadvertently become the cliche we both detest with such loathing?" He asks me as we spin around on the aging, maudlin Round-a-Bout, the only reminder that this overgrown patch of grass was ever a play park. Presently it is haunted by the echoes of forgotten promises and sticky ice-cream stained fingers on a tranquil summer afternoon. The shrill cries of the laughter of children are nothing more than a faint residual memory filtering through the too-long blades of grass. We had spent the night flirting despairingly with a warm bottle of Jack Daniels he had secreted away in a hidden compartment in the dashboard of his car, expressing our malaise and unbridled abhorrence toward those prosaic and mediocre people who are shackled by the most banal characteristics of the platitudinous commercialized ideas of romantic love, vowing never to resemble them.  

I jump off the still moving Round-a-Bout and seize the cool metal with both hands to draw the ride to a halt as soon as he was close enough to face me. I remember the way the wind whipped through my hair as I held his face in my hands, afraid to let go, terrified at the thought of holding on. I tell him that it doesn't matter because in that moment we are limitless, cosmic, paraphrasing a line I had once read in a novel. All at once, in a most fortuitous and prodigious manner, I have the distinct impression that I am a character passing through an airport terminal and meeting eyes with a devastatingly alluring stranger in a Tolstoy novel. It feels a lot like serendipity. When I tell him this much he simply smiles and, cradling my face in his hands, kisses me. And suddenly, I am afraid that all we have left is borrowed time and stolen embraces. 

I told him that one day I would write about him, and now I suppose I have. 

Love & light, 

M xx 

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

 

 

"And I feel like I'm dippin' and divin'. 
My sky shoes are spiked with lead heels. 
I'm lost in this star car I'm drivin'. 
But my air sole keeps pushin' big wheels. 
My world is a constant confusion.
My mind is prepared to attack.
My past, a persuasive illusion.
I'm watchin' the future it's black.
What do you know? 
You know just what you perceive.
What can you show?
Nothing of what you believe.
And as you grow, each thread of life that you leave
Will spin around your deeds and dictate your needs
As you sell your soul and you sow your seeds
And you wound yourself and your loved ones bleed
And your habits grow, and your conscience feeds
On all that you thought you should be
I never thought this could happen to me." 

- Don McLean, Dreidel 

An imperceptible sigh. That is how I categorize my existence now. The slow and steady release of breath symbolizing my inability to hold on to the will to live. My perpetual decent into the various circles of hell. Dante's Inferno beckons me, with whispers that feel like thistles on my eardrums, blood trickling down the side of my face, the metallic aroma prickling my nostrils. I always thought of myself as a writer, yet I am barely grasping my ability to formulate the narrative, the lyrical dialogue, the intro, body and conclusion, as it were. I have lost the plot, a thoroughly post-modern dilemma, some might say. Is it ethical to call myself a writer if I am hardly wont to label myself human? Are the two really indissociable? My perception is warped, not unlike fun-house mirrors, distorting reality, drawing one into what lies beyond the twisted glass. A world of fear, loathing and disillusionment.

Love & light,
M xx 

Happiness Is...

The relative guilt I feel for abandoning my blog for such an extended period of time is increasingly overshadowed by my adoration for what can only be described as the most gorgeous creature ever to exist. My love for animals and my unrelenting persistence in begging my father for a puppy finally paid off. Despite my previous disdain for those people who Tweet, Facebook and Instagram countless pictures of their animals with silly captions, I have unwittingly become one of them, and the amount of fucks I give is less than none. Pepper is undoubtedly the most beautiful thing that has ever walked the earth. And our love for one another is unconditional. 

So I apologize for my abandonment of all of you two-legged followers out there, I have been rather consumed with the four-legged enigma who has stolen my heart. 

Love & light, 

M xx 

P.S. Stay tuned, more fashion-related and pseudo-intellectual (i.e. me being pretentious with my extensive vocabulary) posts to follow. 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously the image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera is one of my 'all-time' favorite authors. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious sycophant claiming to be enlightened by the power of literature, I can honestly say that reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being altered my very essence. Please do not mistake my intellectual epiphany for some frivolous Eat, Pray, Love-type journey of so-called self-discovery, which is actually little more than a thinly veiled romance novel masquerading as a proclamation of empowerment. No. Reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being was not that kind of experience. The war-torn political wasteland of the 1968 Prague Spring seemed to serve as a metaphor for my eternal neurosis. Yet, what has haunted me most since opening the cover and absorbing the words for the first time, is the unshakable realization that I am, and probably will always be, a heavy person. Despite my constant efforts to let lightness into my life, I am continually weighed down by my perpetual anxiety. I am beginning to accept that I will always be more like Tereza than Sabina - endlessly heavy, freed only fleetingly by a chance encounter with a bowler hat and the unconditional love of a dog named Karenin. 

Love & light, 

M ♥ xx 

A Portrait of a Woman as a Young Girl

Last night I dreamed that I was running through a forest. I looked down and realized that I was naked. I was confused by the serenity of my surroundings because my heart was pounding with fear. I had the feeling I was being chased. I glanced behind me and noticed an ominous shadow in my wake. I ran until I reached the bank of a rapidly flowing river. I spun around to face my shadowy opponent but I was only surrounded by trees and flowers and the soothing sound of the animated water below me. The distinctive aroma of cherry blossom suddenly occupied my olfactory senses. I looked across the river and saw a tall, pregnant woman staring back at me. "Am I dead?" I screamed, but the words caught in my throat and I was acutely aware that I could no longer speak. The woman smiled at me and dived into the water. I awoke expecting to find her beside me but I was alone. 

Love & light, 

M xx 

I Lost Myself on a Cool Damp Night

Sometimes I feel like my life is nothing more than a vague imitation of a badly written postmodern novel. Disjointed. Fragmented. Unfinished. I am floating around in a sea of grey, waiting for the epilogue that never comes. Some cliched indie film about a young ingenue suffering through an existential crisis. The not-so-enigmatic anti-heroine. A supporting character in her own narrative. A tragic victim of my neurosis. A thinly veiled portrayal of my poorly disguised desperation for a happy ending that is as tangible as a wisp of smoke.

Long hours spent on the dance floor tying to re-live my misspent youth. Is this what passes for music nowadays? Or is my repulsion just an indication that I have become jaded? These people are like the undead, wafting past one another, looking but not really seeing, speaking but not really listening, silently judging as they repeat their carefully constructed swaying ad nauseum. I have the gnawing suspicion that I should feel excited to be here but I am incapable of summoning the appropriate level of joie de vivre. I surrender and let the chaotic amalgam encircle me. I close my eyes and let the vibrations carry me.

The morning after the night before. Smudged mascara and the stench of stale cigarette smoke linger on my hair and under my fingernails. Re-watching old reruns of That 70's Show and pretending I don't exist. The canned laughter is my own. Stolen embraces in deserted stairwells. Juvenile wishes made under touching tree branches. I am anxious that all I will leave behind when I'm gone is the vague scent of Very Cherry lip balm and regret.

Love & light,
M xx

Jumping Jack Flash

There are a lot of really crappy things that come with being an insomniac - the long hours spent angry and frustrated, tired but unable to sleep, and defeat - finally giving up and watching crappy late night TV - like a zombie, not really taking anything in. But there is one thing that, I, as a sleep-deprived neurotic, am privy to that most (well-rested) people aren't. 4am is the best time of the day. Just before the sun rises, when the world is still asleep and everything is completely still. There is a sort of eerie calm that washes over the world at this hour. It is almost like being suspended in a perfect moment in time that is completely unaware of past, future or even itself. And then you get to watch and hear the world wake up - which in the moment feels so magical that you almost can't believe it happens every 24 hours. First, the birds start to chirp, stretch their wings and shake their feathers. Second, the sky starts to lighten, so slowly at first that, unless you are really paying attention, you don't even notice it happening. Then begins the gentle hum of traffic in the distance, front doors swinging open and the voices of people starting their day. And just like that, it is as if that perfect moment of solitude never existed. That's why 4am is my favorite time of the day.

Love & light,
M xx

P.S.: Lovely photographs courtesy of my lovely dad :)