I had a bad run of a few months and then a string of pretty okay weeks, but this week has been the one where I finally get my shit together. Nothing’s really changed but my ability to keep it all together, it’s like balancing plates without the constant fear that they’ll all come crashing down.
Working hard and keeping sane. Especially Friday: spent the entire day talking to academics in between classes, pulling apart knotty thoughts and laying them out neatly. People talking about Sydney and life overseas, and perspectives and expectations, and I realised I’m suddenly okay with a lot of things, I’m bigger than petty concerns. Spent so much time saying it but think I actually mean it.
Wandered around the city at twilight thinking about beauty in the everyday, overturned trolleycarts and gutted firetrucks spilling water in the street, water streaming down to pool around my feet where I’m staring at old buildings. Have these always been here? How can I have spent my entire life not noticing the details of this city? It’s like an extended metaphor for something. Felt like I needed to write something down, and I did, it’s never going to be perfect but even those scratchings will remind me of this day, and maybe six months down the track I might be able to finish it.
And I was able to write, even if it meant ignoring friends who knew enough to leave me to it. The dinner we then had was lovely in that it was unremarkable, happy and uncomplicated. No one felt they had anything to prove, and we were able to go our separate ways to various plans. I was feeling relaxed from the soju and Sapporo, inclined to singing down streets and then, in the car, screaming along to Kanye for old time’s sake. Matt Robinson texted asking to hang out, which I appreciate because I’m tired of friendships with unequal levels of input. Picked up Mia from Grove, which was the first time I’d stepped in there for months, and felt a wash of affection for the memories steeped in the place. Dragged her from Buffy watching sessions Buffy with Ed, and she ate bread on the way to the warehouse party.
Which we couldn’t find, initially, until we realised it wasn’t behind the bakery but rather next to it. Girls at the door dressed as zombies from Alice in Wonderland, and inside a green sprawl of bodies on couches, smoking hookahs and taking in the light display and the bands. Clare looking beautiful and clouds of weedsmoke, men dressed in bunny suits dancing under green lights. I curled up on Chantelle and sank into an absinthe glow, feeling so incredibly at ease amongst people whose eccentricity weren’t coloured with the self-consciousness of the pretentious. Wished I’d brought my camera but the dude in the stripy shirt next to us, who leaped around taking pictures of people without permission, made me glad I hadn’t. Played with my phone instead, and Alex’s camera, noticed how people recoiled slightly when I pointed it in their direction. Put it away and focussed on being happy.
The music plays, drinks flow, worries fade. Feeling loose. As we left the venue I noticed the bakery’s still open, shuttling loaves of bread onto open racks left unattended. I grabbed one, stuffed it in my bag, ran to the car as the others followed laughing. Broke it open and shared it with everyone, still steaming. Bread is delicious, I said around mouthfuls. Why is it so good? At Chantelle’s house we watched Buffy before falling asleep. Xander accidentally summons a musical demon because he wants everyone to be happy, but of course it all goes wrong. I could have told him that: sometimes things just work out the way they do, and you have to roll with it.
