Outlast

Everyone has them. Dark places that haunt you like relentless shadows, refusing to be banished, no matter how bright the sunshine you choose to walk in. Dark thoughts that simmer in the back of your mind and roll around the pit of your stomach like lazy and poisonous butterflies. And sometimes they take shape. They solidify to the point at which you must hurry down the street in daylight to avoid their audacious outstretched fingers and fetid breath. They threaten to boil over like bubbles of water that you can hear hissing on the stove.

When you feel them close to you and when you feel afraid, turn and face them. Watch the water boil dry. See the shadows driven behind you. Everyone has them. Do not fear them. They will not be the end of you.

mike B

"At daybreak I climbed down from my hiding-place. My first thought was to throw myself into the sea and thus end a life which had already endured more than its share of hardships and ordeals. But when I was on the point of putting my resolve into execution, my courage failed me; for life is very precious."

- The Voyages of Sindbad

Sweetness

Prepare for a vapid post of superficial niceties. Necessary every once in a while.

Fabric scraps for a fiver. I've got plans.



credit unknown

I'm in the city for another five days until my daddy comes to take me home. Until then, I will be reliving my childhood by reading Malory Towers, counting out my piggy bank, doing a lot of washing and tidying, and completing the four more days of my compulsory Easter Archaeology course. Today was fascinating; we studied animal bones.

No one needs telling this, it's not new information; cupcakes are so cool, they've done a 360 to smoking hot. It was a double flatmate pre-birthday celebration last week before everyone went home for Easter; Angelica made art out of cupcakes and I brought the house down with french fancies. But ideally, we would have feasted on Lily Vanilli's
culinary delights as well as our cider and Doritos. Her cakes are more like edible cocktail rings or something else both stylish and saliva-inspiring. Lula loves her, and you will too - get down to Swanfield Market in London to sample some sweet stuff.
picture from Lula Magazine, found here


Click the image for the rest of the shoot, which is utterly fantastic and reminded me of advice that I should offer. Let your ears loose on the album Visiter by The Dodos; they will thank you for it and any previous issues between you and the pair of them, such as unfortunate waxy build-up or too much popping, will be instantly resolved.

An Insight

"With as much creativity as you can muster, show your heart in: 1 picture, 1 poem, 1 song or piece of music, 1 phrase or quote, 1 item of clothing, 1 place (and just for fun) 1 disney princess."

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This picture is of the "prehistoric Romeo and Juliet". They are believed to be a man and a woman, young as their teeth are intact, and were found just south of Verona - they are between 5000 and 6000 years old, dating to the Neolithic period. I never forget this picture because even if the reality of their death was not what we believe it to be, the idea of it and what it brings to people is so beautiful that it trandescends everything else. That is what love is.

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Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

- Words, Wide Night by Carol Ann Duffy

Christina Rossetti's He and She reminds me of one of my best friends because it's her favourite, and I also love Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, but I think to call it the thing solely representative of your heart would be sad and sore.

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The more this dress is loved and the more battered it gets, the more beautiful it is. That is a good philosophy for hearts. It is my sister's, secondhand. I always feel beautiful in this dress and it has seen me through some momentous times.

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There could never be a song that summed me up, heart and soul, but I do love this song, and this one, and everything you write. There will always be a new song that finds your ear and catches like a fish-hook in the heart.

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Home is where the heart is - wherever they are, I am, and that is my favourite place to be. There are so many people I love, and being with them is being home.
I wonder though, until you have been everywhere, could you ever know that one place was perfect for you? I want to travel, because everyone sometimes needs to be far away from everything you know, to learn new things and to be alone and anonymous, and free.

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"You must know that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand, and will not let you fall." - Rainer Maria Rilke

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Without a doubt.

Mercredi, C'est Soir

Just running around in pyjamas and peace signs paired with Docs and French plaits - high on post-essay excitement, getting giddy thrills from watching The Skeleton Key and eating Chinese food and bunny-wrapped biscuit treats, then settling down to sleep, soothed by The Bridges of Madison County.

"I am the highway and a peregrine and all the sails that ever went to sea..."

- Robert James Waller

Girl On The Wing

I always wished to fly. I thought of nothing better than spreading my wings and taking flight. Now I have done so - flown the nest like a young starling and ridden the wind away. And I continue to do so, further and further from where I first learnt to fly.

I'm going to Cyprus for five weeks this summer, on an archaeology expedition. Flying even further afield to warm winds and awaiting adventure. There's a still, sure kind of excitement coursing through me - the kind of delicious, uncertain clarity that, I somehow know, is how it would feel to really fly.

Velocerapture

What do philosophers eat their dinner off?

A Plato!

Where The Heart Is

I'd like go home, just for a little while.

I'd like to drink tea at 24 Cranleigh, and eat hotcrossed buns with brie and apricot chutney, and sit in the conservatory and see all the green of the garden.

I'd like to sleep between soft old blue flannel sheets with my cat curled in the crook of my arm, purring in his dreams.

I love this city. But country roads, please take me home, just for a little while.

The Wolves (Act I&II) - Bon Iver

Sœur

We are flowers from the same flower patch.

top and socks - handmedowns, skirt - carboot sale, belt - college clothes swap, bag - charity shop, boots - Dr Martens

The State I Am In

I had a dream
That I kissed you goodbye -
Took your face in my hands,
Closed your eyes…
Your mouth resisting
The finale in a kiss,
And I was persisting
Because we owe each other this.
The shoe on the other foot;
You were scared to let me in -
Knowing once I left your lips
I’d never come back again.
But I wore you down like always
And once more I made you cry.
And today I woke up missing you,
Wanting a kiss goodbye.

Attaboy

This was made by my friend, who is super and who I miss very much.
Love you boy, making me proud!

Mirage

Slow Club - Come On Youth


The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Everything With You


Marine Girls - A Place in the Sun


Girls - Morning Light

I can't wait for my hair to grow long and for the insects to sing, to be barefoot in the grass and to sip savoury cocktails from dirty glasses, to go to the park and the beach and backgarden barbeques, to be sunsoaked and thirsty and blissfully tired; to exalt in all that it is to be young in the summertime. This one might not be so, but there are many more to come, stretching out before me in a heat-hazed daydream.

credit unknown - it's Erin Wasson, for Vogue a few years ago I think...

Flower Frolicks

When walking past the park between lectures yesterday, I took pictures of the beautiful brave crocuses that have made their way skyward this week, and the care-free girls playing amongst them. That last picture makes me feel like Spring has truly sprung, regardless of the cold winds echoing around Edinburgh.
Hello, sunshine, I'd forgotten the feeling...




For M.

The next few weeks are so busy, starting today; I have a total of 6500 words to write by the 25th, birthday presents to buy, a few extra-curricular lectures to attend, lots of letters to post, a family visit and much going on in the social scene. I've also got something really important and exciting to sort out...a secret something.

Mind Your Skis and Queues

A few weeks ago, I went up north to Aviemore and met my family for a day of skiing; my sister finally sent me some photos. Aviemore is the same little town that we've gone to since I was about seven and we all tried skiing for the first time. We still hire our gear from the couple we always have. It was the nicest thing in the world to go back for a day and I am so, so lucky. Listen to the soundtrack to our holiday here.

Bêtes de mode