bristol to bath

i watched him tie his tie on the train. he sat and wound the silky strips together, a few times actually, the knot shifting and tugging. getting dressed right there in this seat.

and then she sat staring at her laptop. her brow furrowed and she kept shaking her head, as if this tiny computer was doing something just terrible to her. she looked so upset i wanted to ask, but i didn't, i mean i wouldn't really.

this is what we do on the train now.

ghost moon

slipping between the clouds, it's only 6pm and the moon is strong and high. churning down the road, houses on my left, brown river on my right, and the sky is slowly turning purple, my eyes are tired, tired of looking and i kind of hate that purple sky. i look again, and the moon has gone translucent. i'm thrown forward at my stop, lurching, and i swear.
fuck i hate riding the bus.

this tuesday at the cottage

I cried while making the grilled cheese. But by the time we sat down for our meal, I was fine. This cabin, filled with smokey heat and cider we brought in big bottles, it is white and calming and temporary.
I'm trying to sleep this week. This morning though, the rain came down like soft hooves, and I had to get up and make a pot of tea. I sat at the table, after I had opened the curtains. The hillside was filling with fog. I crawled back up the stairs to you, lost in the sheets. Everything was white, and just the hint of warmth left from last nights fire.
We hiked in the afternoon, missing the turn so we had to double back across the valley. Up past the still standing ponies, then back down and over the river. The valley was a field of wild grasses, red and wet from all the night rain. And so their stalks were bent over, eat bush folded neatly in half. The thin tree branches covered in lichen and moss, and just dripping with water, the ivy is what makes these bare hills green.
The mud was long, slipping and slowly us down. Kissing gates and then the river turned, sending us up the hill along the stone walls, covered with lime. I got so hot marching up the rocks, we marched right past Meg's Folly and then that nice wide farm on the left.

Just to catch the sun on the hills across the valley, the field turned yellow under the glow. A few minutes later it passes, only to hit another bluff , and then we are right back where we started.
That red wine won't drink itself, we go inside.

last year

On Christmas Eve we went to the art gallery.
A dusty room, I walked inside and got lost. This was Karla Black's installation. She says (in that lush Scottish accent), not meaning but consequence is what the viewer must ask, what happens in this room?

Her sculpture Doesn't Care In Words creates a dense space, the way fog grabs light then disappears as you reach out. But this was warmer and while eluding to landscapes, there is nothing quite natural about it, with candyfloss hues and fragile plastic walls. Large peaks formed with paper covered with sifted powders, and I thought later someone would just brush it all up.
More Of The Day, one single puff of cloud hangs in the corner, with a pastel light somehow glowing from within. A dream, I feel, awkward and not quite right yet comforting and airy and you don't really want to leave. The room disappears and you are forced to maneuver this pile up, investigate each crack.

Turner Prize Installation view

Turner Prize Installation view

Photos via ArtSlant New York

new day

Happy Twenty Twelve

Pass around the dishes, spicy moroccan, and three types of dessert. Midnight hour and we've had so much red wine, stomaches full up.
I'm pouring (spilling) in the kitchen, and handing out bubbles. I forget everyones name and wonder how loud I am while not really caring. My lips are too red.
There he is. Kissing and dancing and then we're done and it's today.

take a look around

quick stepping home last night after work with a bottle of vino in my purse, i had a realization. past an open door, and i smelled the distinct stale scent of a pub - ale and men. it wafted out onto the street, and i liked it.
nine months in, and somehow i feel a sense of place, here in england. so i went home, and we drank the wine and ate ice cream.

souvenir space

high hopes for a couch, a sofa. a place to laze and to sit and to feel comfort. to look out the window, above all the heads, soft swift cars darting past. peering at who's parking, and who's holding her up along the walk, and who's cycling home and away.
this seat that we look for, we want different things. it's just a place for our bodies, a place to spill wine and get crumbs, and i want it near the window so i can read in the daylight. and you want it by the wall, maybe, because where will the table go? this seat, just a place within a place, within a city. it's hard to come by, i think.

no nostalgia

rue magazine featuring bash, please 'workstead'

oh that grey couch, and so many jars! i'm collecting bottles and jars now, i'm collecting each day.

so close to our new home, and so far away. other-side-of-the-country away.

we keep buying, bits and pieces, a sieve from the market, old maps. i'm not sure, what it all means. it will mean something someday.

meal plans and pink tulips at 8 am, the way you keep looking at me, gooey-eyes.

somehow i end up above it all, above the trees and above the blooms and blossoms.

i remember i do, but it's also slipping. remember that morning, with the light? and we we're sweating on the bus, sweating on the pier. where does it all go, the yester-years. the wakings up and the things we never said. or i never said.

it's always the light.

falling asleep with the light on

the sun, like razers slicing through my tiny hangover. he suddenly yanks down the blinds, but it's too late.

the sun, that fucking sun, the best of me and the worst and these sounds on this particuclar morning here remind me of college street in the spring. trucks and streetcars, rumbling past my stupid, gigantic bay window, but then i didn't have blinds. just wispy white curtains meant to soften my days as i wake, instead i am punched in the face with the recycling truck, and then portugese women yelling two floors down. i'm lazy and unsure.

i'm still unsure.

water baby

the form comes back to me, it always does. alone in my lane, my eyes catch the bubbles as they stream from my fingertips with each stroke. i find my breath. my lungs are full. i'm cutting through the water, each pull with purpose and maybe even with grace. i remember somehow, counting from the flags for back. always counting.

jill greenberg via todayandtomorrow

friday to sunday

bundled up in freezing white spaces, how did we all end up here. his hands with hints of grey paint, her soft words self depricating and that scruffy scarf. two girls so keen, so shiny and right, but just babes really. and i liked her eyes, and how they caught me from across the room, and later her parka, like mine, with bell sleeves, and i thought, simply, we might be friends. it's cold though, inside and out, my hands are wrapped tight around my tea, but i'm telling my story. this story of mine, the words drop from my lips. i'm in england, i think as i push through tunnels on the way home, each overpass darkening the empty car for a second. pacing further forward, i'm forgetting my stop.
then home with you, tomato pizza and shiraz, i'm licking my fingers, i'm licking your fingers. this bottle is finished.

in the morning, after coffee, we go hunting for junk. poking though sopping skips, slowing down past crooked alleyways, and then, sighing over typewriters and alarm clocks and tin kitchenware, adoring the rounded edges crafted over and over in teak. i almost forget what we are building, this imagined future. but we keep searching and choosing, and somehow it's unfolding without certainty and without even walls or rooms or doors.

later, the fog rolled in slowly as the sun set, and the strip was crisp, the sky like paper and the waves never pausing not even for a minute. i'm smiling and running and laughing at dogs, and finding your hand in my pocket.


i'm waking you up, and it's early. red plums and soy milk, then we head out for the bridge. nobody shows, wrong day, i'm really not sure.
'we seem to have bad luck with these things', 'no never. we are the luckiest', but how can that be? so inseatd tea at the piano and a bite of your salted caramel, and a familiar face across the cafe. finally a familiar face.

helplessness blues

a dead fox lay by the side of the road, as i walked home i stood by it. i wanted to touch its dewy red fur.

i didn't, and a man came around, looking down with me.
why did you stop, he said. why did you, i said.

true stories

both our hair had grown, slouchy sweaters being propped and pulled.
she dates investment bankers, and asks me to come outside so she can have a smoke. ' my competition is models and all the good looking men are gay.'
i talk about santorini and istanbul. onto northern england, learning to bake bread and trying to surf in whales.

and then it's morning, and im peering out from under covers, the snow has all melted and it's new year's eve day. where did the snow go, in the night?