the remedy is the experience

Ahahah. So we just found our old gameboys, and Sam’s now sitting outside my room waiting for his batteries to charge and gloating over how terrible my Sapphire team are. Which isn’t true, but he’s biased against flying types. What does he know. “You’re a… water type. Okay. Chancey used double team. The chance of it hitting is like… oh. It hit. [moments later] …I think you fainted.”

Think we’re pretty much done now, trying to think of anything I may have missed. Cleaned the fish, which was the main thing to do today. Pajamas, books, Joburg clothes, gamepark clothes. Emailed Sharl, Jane and Fern. Got my ticket.

Back on the 5th September. Taking mobile with, so if you feel like contacting feel free to try your luck. Rough guide - Joburg til Thursday, Pilanesberg for three days, Madikwe for three, Joburg for the rest. See you all soon.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Edit: in the spirit of friends close enemies closer, I’m taking the mintcake with me.

hey hey hey, it’s a crying shame

Well… packing is sortof-slightly done. I’ve got a list, anyway. (Does that get your approval, Paul?) And I emailed two people I’d been really meaning to, which is always good. And I had the bright idea of putting some Eddie Izzard I never listened to properly onto my mp3 player… anything to make 2am on a plane when you can’t sleep a bit more bearable. I hate hate hate those flights.

One of the emails I just sent involved catching up on two weeks of stuff, so it was fairly long. Another one of those exhales, I suppose, as it’s the first time I’ve had to explain about everything that’s been going on, and consider it altogether. I guess I feel better for it. I just listened to Sæglópur without skipping, so something’s getting better.

I’ve eaten roughly one square of Chris’s mint cake so far - damn sugary minty thing that it is. Undecided whether to take it with or leave it here for when I get back. I know if I leave it in my hand luggage I’ll eat it all on the plane and my chances of any sleep at all will be kaput.

So yes, most of today was packing. Chris walked up the large evil hill of Measham Road to give me mint cake and a book, and I walked back with him and then into town, accosted by an elderly lady on my way in who took me aside and told me that lots of marriages weren’t for the right reasons these days, and asked me whether I was courting, and told me to be very careful.

Need to be up for church. Nighty night.

• find shoes
• pajamas
• books
• Definite Article?
• tidy room, desk
• schoolwork - music, Greek reading
• general notebook
• email Sharl
• email Fern
• email Jane
• toiletries
• clean fish

when the truth is…

Coldplay - Warning Sign

I’d start out by saying “I know everybody already has this song but” - but. Ev so doesn’t, because her music library is something brought back from the stone ages, with a brief unfortunate timewarp period spent in Rocky Horror and Joseph land. And anyway. I wanted to share. I haven’t listened to it since… the 4th July. (Tuesday.)

The thing I think Coldplay do best is the… ground-from-under-feet maneouvre. My two favourites, Green Eyes and Warning Sign, they’re beautiful because of the way they start and the way they… swoop, from there. Like in this one, where the first two verses are full of such cold, practical reality, and then at the chorus all the walls break down and the only thing left is the way it feels, the way it hurts. What Coldplay do so well is making their sound reflect their words, and encapsulating the way that moment is, when you finally let go and react to something with your heart.

Not really talking about the funeral, because I’m not going to forget it and it can be easily imagined. It’s a funeral, qed. The beautiful, humbling thing was that when it was over, we all helped each other up again. I think that says something about the human spirit - we didn’t cheer up because of denial, or show, but because somehow sharing that grief and being able to involve yourself in it completely for a while, it’s like an exhale. People can find hope anywhere.

Or perhaps I’m just talking crap because, wah, Burke, and wah, Izzy, and wah, hurry the fuck up, Channel 5, because I need to see the finale. Somehow I’ve come to love Addison so, so much. How do I compete with that. And Cristina. If she doesn’t get her happy ending, I might just lose faith in humanity entirely.

So, yeah. I just ran out of escapism.

i can almost believe that i’m almost enough

So, results. I’m happy. Particularly when if you percentigify my total mark for Greek, I got 98% - disregarding the assthingy (sorry Ed) aggregating and all. A few marks less on Latin, a few marks less again on Music, and a few again on Eng Lit - that was still 272/300 though, so all were still in the As. And I think all round, most are happy.

Came home… slept for a few hours. Having been sleeping so good lately. Got up and watched Castle of Cagliostro with Sam, which is an awesomely lovely film. <3 Miyazaki. Good to do something with Sam too, since I figured he’d be feeling fairly down today. Mum and Dad mentioned that they’d be talking as little as possible about today’s results, seeing as it’d probably make him feel bad. Clearing the snooker table yesterday, I found a bit of broken dish that we missed at the time.

Something sad, this morning, and perhaps partly the reason I’ve been down most of the day. A reminder of what’s gone… I’ve liked being liked by them. But on the other hand, blessed that I had that chance at all.

I asked about a guitar. Guess we’ll see what happens when I get home again.

like nightfall followed dawn

Didn’t do very much today. Went into Burton with Mum, baked some chocolate thing, cleared the snooker table. Results tomorrow. That’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking today. Going into school for around 9, and Mrs B said she’d be around in our room as well, so hopefully we’ll get to talk to her a little about Bryanston.

I’ll sort my camera for tomorrow, and take a few photos of Lou and me. I have one on my desktop of the way we looked last year, when we’d just got our GCSEs. The sun’s shining, and I look happy, and hardly at all like I’d crawled out of a waterlogged tent at 6am to get back from Soul Survivor. Surely that wasn’t only a year ago. Surely.

I also wonder what I’d have done differently, this year, if I’d known what I know now. I wonder if I might not have pushed myself into denial so blindly, or - no, actually… that often seems to be my problem. I wonder if I might have been more patient, or - I think two mentioned it, which I found interesting and worrying at the time - more content to just ‘be’. Perhaps I should have been more stubborn, or more willing to be persuaded. Or perhaps I would never have done anything else.

But perhaps I wouldn’t have skived so many English lessons. I’ll see if I still mean that tomorrow. Chaucer, how I despised you. Verily. (Teehee, quod Alisoun!)

in my hurting, in my healing.

The two songs that have kept me going after dark. Because that’s nearly always the worst time, whatever’s happened during the day. That’s just how it goes.

Tim Hughes - Everything (live)

Recorded during Soul Survivor last year, which means I was probably there in the place you can hear, and almost definitely crying at the time. It’s a powerful song.

Switchfoot - Shadow Proves the Sunshine

This has always been my favourite of the new Switchfoot, and I remember it even from last year, when Ellie and Ev were both in Sussex without me and I was missing them so much and needed something to comfort me.

So yeah. They’re both like chicken soup. Only music.

symphony of sound

I think I only just got up.

Uhm… got out of bed at about 2:30, was taken downstairs by Mum and given something to eat, then put on the sofa with my duvet. Mm, duvet. Watched the Cowboy Bebop movie, because I’d been waiting to watch it with someone for so long that I’d forgotten about it. It was good.

Oh, and Nausicaa’s on FilmFour, so I’m recording that too.

Currently sitting at computer, still in pajamas, listening to music through my mp3 player that’s just been soldered for the second time - need to see if it’ll stay in place this time, or whether I need to sort out something else to take to South Africa. But it might be far better to leave my music behind, if I really want to escape. I’ll have to think on that.

the grasp of dusk and summer

There is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say hello. [8]

You are Jeff - Richard Siken

Anyone who has never read poetry like this before, and that’s most, go try it now.

We ended up at the place next to the McDonalds. A fairly good restaurant on Flagstaff Island, on the Tesco roundabout, but we always called it Fantasy Island because Dad called it that once by accident. Phone’s been ringing all day with doctor people and funeral people. Brian came round to talk about readings and hymns and things.

Didn’t do the snooker table or get into the air-raid shelter, but I did bake a cake. After a few difficulties with the butter part of the recipe, and being forced into listening to Chasing Cars since it was on the radio just as Sam and I were doing emergency butter-adding. But hey, it’s good cake.

http://www.bryanston2006.co.uk/

Just look at that. Isn’t it beautiful? The video is really, really fantastic, and makes me everso homesick for it. It feels like an eternity since I’ve been home. Love at Peter’s random narration bits. And all the little introducing bits, and the small clips of Agamemnon. And the music. And the tiny peek into the infamous toilet tower. <3

Iliad 2… too many simile clusters, too much cataloguing. But still good.

petals on the floor

“We could go anywhere from McDonalds to… that place next to McDonalds”

So yeah, Mum’s home all week and we’re finding things to keep ourselves busy again. My plans for the afternoon are… clear out the landing, because the snooker table’s been hidden under all that stuff for the last year… see what can be done about the air raid shelter… bake that cake… and walk to town to get some dark chocolate, if I am indeed going to Lou’s tomorrow. And I have nine poetry tabs open too.

Feeling okay. I know half of this is denial, because I find myself thinking some things and then stopping them on purpose becuase my heart clenches, and there are far more beautiful, meaningful songs on my playlist being skipped than is normal. But everything in time. Even Sæglópur.

Flights for SA have been changed to Sunday evening, and the airline say that if Mum sends them a copy of the death certificate, they’ll waive the cancellation fee. We’ll be spending a few more days in Joburg rather than in Plett as we had planned, then off to the Pilanesberg for a bit of driving ourselves round and then a bit of being driven round by clever people. Then back to Joburg, then home. It’s still about two weeks.