One rainy afternoon, when I was no more than five years old, I curled up on the stairs leading to my parents' third-floor bedroom. Afraid of my own breathing, I listened to, and speculated upon, their row.
I do not remember the precise words that were spat out, or even the cause of their joint anger. What I have no difficulty in recalling, however, is the tone of my parents' voices, the snide-y, sneer-y, jeer-y-ness of their words, and the way their vocal expressions conveyed a sort of hatred.
I prayed (to myself? to God? - I'm undecided)...
'Please don't let Mummy and Daddy hate each other. Please don't let them be Divorced'.
As a child, 'divorce' struck so much fear into my heart that it seemed almost worse than that other dreaded D-word. As an adult, divorce seems a preferable state of affairs in comparison to a joyless marriage.
So fifteen years on, I sit on the rug by the fire, absorbing Damien Rice or Ryan Adams whilst the endless sky just rains on and on. And I listen to those words all over again.
How can two people whose lives are so profoundly entwined utter those most hurtful and hateful of sentiments to each other?
It is my belief that it is the people to whom you are closest who are most capable of issuing that mortal wound.
Now that's what you call ironic.
Friday 5 January 2007
Thursday 4 January 2007
FRUIT SALAD
I didn't really think before the creation of this blog.
Inspired by the brilliant musings of Petite Anglaise, I just lunged into it. Now, after receiving the first comment for my first post, I feel somewhat paralysed by the idea that someone, somewhere may stumble across sentences and paragraphs of my own composition, and actually read them. It fills me with a terrible sense of self-consciousness.
Who am I writing for?
One unknown, invisible reader?
One hundred unknown, invisible readers?
The infinite abyss that is 'the Internet'?
Or maybe, just myself. After a year where nothing of much significance happened directly to me, where instead, I merely observed the births, lives and deaths of others, and of others' others; perhaps I should endeavour to live purely for myself.
And thus follows my resolution for 2007: I shall attempt to live life, to be of it; rather than just watch it cascade past me in slow motion.
On another note entirely, after an intimate late night coffee-in-a-cafe session with my best friend, we concluded that the most interesting question one can ever enquire of a new acquaintance is:
What kind of fruit are you?
I know what I am: pomegranate
And I know what I need//want: orange
Happy New Year Reader - if indeed, you are there.
Inspired by the brilliant musings of Petite Anglaise, I just lunged into it. Now, after receiving the first comment for my first post, I feel somewhat paralysed by the idea that someone, somewhere may stumble across sentences and paragraphs of my own composition, and actually read them. It fills me with a terrible sense of self-consciousness.
Who am I writing for?
One unknown, invisible reader?
One hundred unknown, invisible readers?
The infinite abyss that is 'the Internet'?
Or maybe, just myself. After a year where nothing of much significance happened directly to me, where instead, I merely observed the births, lives and deaths of others, and of others' others; perhaps I should endeavour to live purely for myself.
And thus follows my resolution for 2007: I shall attempt to live life, to be of it; rather than just watch it cascade past me in slow motion.
On another note entirely, after an intimate late night coffee-in-a-cafe session with my best friend, we concluded that the most interesting question one can ever enquire of a new acquaintance is:
What kind of fruit are you?
I know what I am: pomegranate
And I know what I need//want: orange
Happy New Year Reader - if indeed, you are there.
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