Well dudes, I shot myself in the foot. Multiple gun shot wounds.
I called this blog 101 bad dates, and I only made it to three, well five if you count the two that came before findsomeone.
I only made it to three findsomeone dates before I found a man that made me want to stop dating other people. A BIG call I know. But my name is Clare and I rush into things. Especially exciting, nice things. The words 'reckless abandon' are ringing in my ears...
Apparently two things. Apparently I am irresistible. Lol. Apparently no sooner do I start to date than I find a suitable, compliant applicant, and we begin to have a velcroe effect on each other, the closer you are, the stronger you stick, the longer you're stuck, the harder to pull apart. He is going to read this and laugh. He is going to tell me he laughed and I am going to try and hide my embarassment.
As an aside, don't you just love how it is legitimate to call two things that are meant to fit together 'male' and 'female'. Like plugs and sockets? Like the two sides of velcroe?
I do.
I love that in the collective subconscious of all people, men and women really are supposed to fit together and it is a wholly right and holy thing to do.
I have been debating what to write. Could I just ignore the blog title and write my internal musings on the world around us anyway? Would you have it? Would you buy it for a dollar?
This is how I shot myself twice. I started this blog in the spirit of honesty and candour, and hey, in the spirit of self effacing humour. So after pondering my dilemma for the last few weeks I decided that in keeping with the theme I would tell you the truth (as I see it, for there is no truth and feelings are not facts). So here it is:
Apparently, in relationships, I am crazy.
I had completely forgotten. No, more than that, I had always paired with people who stood on equally shaky mental wellness ground, so that it was never clear just exactly WHO was the truely crazy one. (Despite what we yelled at each other).
Unfortunately, this time, though said male has certain notable flaws, they are the normal, mainly harmless, decent type of flaws like: stubbornness. He is stubborn, it's the nature of his mind, hard like six feet of soil, not completely unresistant, not concrete, but hard earth, and I don't want a go with the spade thanks!! He will come around, once something has sunken in, in his own time. My dear Taurus's (and I have a few who are very dear to me) you're all the same - can't be told.
He is also brutally frank, and he has NO idea. And either he is winding me up, or he has a wit so dry that it takes off the first layer of my skin, cold like alcohol, before I can consider it's humour. It's kinda like god sent me someone who's natural inclinations all rub my natural weaknesses the wrong way. More like dentention than school really.
But these are all flaws that sit tidily alongside blonde hair, blue eyes, a preference for thai and good at chess. People are people after all. Pobody's nerfect. Those type of flaws that don't detract from a persons overall attractiveness, of which to me, he has ample. These are just those flaws that give you something to forgive a person for. Something that makes them seem falleable and endearing. A flaw in them that allows you to be a bigger person by letting it slide.
I, on the other hand, am apparently not just irresistible, but also potentially insufferable.
Any relationship that I have that breeches depths beyond 'neighbour' or 'courier' for me, is TUMULTUOUS. And tumultuous has a kind of onematopoeiac truth to it. It is like the turning of mulch, the airing of compost, the turfing up of what has lain beneath the surface for so long, breeding inhabitants and creating great, sulphorous heat.
And this is a painful and uncomfortable realisation for me. A moment of silence, absent of jocularity please, for how initially overwhelming, drop the floor and cry this realisation is. Goddammit. And Goddamit again.
the words 'sucks to be you' now ringing in my ears.
You don't want evidence, no, no, please dont' ask, you don't want hard facts, trust me. It's all too much to share really. Say the words SPAZ in your head and what do you see? Now give it a gnarly mouth of teeth and an aggressive hiss, a tongue as sharp as a chef's knife, it's blade hones to an edge so fine, sharp and thin that it could cut through from this world to another. Chuck in some blood, and saliva. Something shiny that flickers and catches your eye, something underneath that cuts, watch your feet. Imagine it is as fast as a snake in the grass.
I want to interject on this diatribe to say this: I am also good. And and Both. Not One or The Other. The reason I go so ape shit is because I am so tender, the center of my heart goes to the centre of the earth.
I am both crazy and also good.
Kind, generous and warm. I agonise over how to help other people, how to cheer people up. I stay up late thinking of little things that someone would like.
I agonise about being a 'good person'. I try to care for everyone, people who pass me on the street. I can't watch the news because I cry for the whole world.
I try my best.
I'll make you laugh. I'll write you a funny song and sing it in a stupid voice to see you smile. I'll bring around three flagons of cider and sit on your porch with you til you are laughing and your tears all dried on your face. I'll make you warm food when you have a cold, sad heart. I'll remember your birthday and make you a card.
Testimony to the wealth of my person, is the incredible wealth of people to be found in my nearest and dearest. My friends and family. A cast of true royalty when it comes to people. They are the triumph of my life. Knowing them, and them loving me, that is the triumph, and testimony to the fact that I am not all bad.
Part of me is pollyanna. Part of me is a warm cats tummy in the sun. Part of me is an angel. Part elf. Part magic. Part siren. Part mermaid. But yes, part of me is that bad, fast snake.
So on realising this, fully. See this monster staring back at me in the reflection of me in his face, made me want to change. Really, really, change.
I'm going to be 32 in two months. What kind of age is that to be carrying around a small, pissed off, hurt and shitty child on your back and letting her tell you what to think, how to feel and how to react and making you throw great big epic wobbly's at the exact people you are supposed to be an ally to?
Fuck her. I've had enough of being a sympathiser. It's exhausting. It is truely exhausting being me. Trapped in a suspended cage with this snakebeast for all my life, never knowing up from down, right from wrong, never knowing the truth. Only hearing the rumours whispered in my ears like madness. I want out.
So on the great advice of my friend and colleague (again...hmm, quite the angel this one) I have become interested in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Stop. The. Madness.
The basic premis of CBT is that there is A) the event, B)your beliefs and then C)your actions or emotions (the outcome). And realising that it is the beliefs you have that stand between the event and your feelings. And you can choose, you can change those thoughts and beleifs becuase hey, you're really just basing them on past experiences and the incorrect interpretation you made of past circumstances. And things have changed, it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. So you can choose what to believe about the event, and therefore, how to feel and react.
It is a world of sane.
To begin with it explains a whole bunch of ways of thinking that are really unhelpful, for example: 'crystal balling' are you trying to predict the future and envisioning the worst possible outcome? YES! yes I AM! all the f**king time!
Okay so how about letting the future unfold without trying to guess how it's going to turn out and worrying about it in advance.
It might sound simple, but it's beautiful. It brings great relief.
Oh that thing hasn't actually HAPPENED, and in all likelihood may n ever happen, how bout i stop stressing to the max about it, i can stress later, if it happens.
Here's a good one girls: Mind reading. So you think you know what other's are thinking do you? ANd of course they are thinking NEGATIVE things about you and have negative intentions!!
You never know what someone is thinking, generate an alternative reason for what you see, consider that you migth be wrong (who, me?!), get more information if you need it.
Bring the sanity.
Oh and another sample: feelings are not facts. HA! feelings are not facts. How is it that it's taken this long for information of that gravity to come to light?
However late, it is a liberation.
I could never possibly do a reasonable job of paraphrasing this model of therapy. It's so good at identifying how bad things can be in the mind, that it makes me smile, and it picks my air balloon up and blows a puff of air into it. Not saying it will be easy, or even that I will succeed this time around. But as my colleague and angel friend said to me, you've got nothing to lose, this can only improve your life.
It feels like an oar, and I adrift on an immense ocean in a rickety wooden boat.
I know where to go, i know which direction, I know where I want to end up, safe on the mainland with date one. I just didn't have an oar. One oar, that's all I need.
I may have a propensity for crazy, I may be sometimes insufferable, but goddamit I'm still my parents daughter: smart, strong and brave.
'Gonna find a way to the shore.
All I needed was one oar.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
What do you look for in a man?
When you are about 5 or 6, the quality you look for in a man, well, boy, is that he notices you. Boys are noisy, and terrifying, they climb trees and jump off tall things and come back from playtime muddy. You can climb trees and jump off tall things and you just want them to notice you. To let you in. You write him a note on a very small square of refil, cut painfully carefully symmetrical, it says: Dwayne, why won't you notice me, we were meant to be together. You don't even know what this means.
When you are 8 or 9, you look for the quality of 'difference'. By now, you have divided the world, there are: good people, normal people (some are good), weird, dangerous people (some are still good) and bad people. You like him because he is the weird, dangerous good type. He comes from a bad gang family, the wrong side of the tracks (the state housing up the road), but he has intelligent eyes and you see more in him. You sit together in the classroom at story time so close that your whole thigh is touching. You think that one day you might kiss. But you don't, because a pretty girl moves to your school from out of town, and she kisses him in the cloak bay. You move on.
When you are ten or 11, you are interested in a boy who is 'older'. Older is sophisticated. You are desperate to grow up. You are in intermediate and the world (that matters) is divided into two groups: form one, and form two. You are form one and you aspire for greatness, recognition, coolness. So naturally, you want a boy just out of your reach, a form two boy. Mostly, you choose him because your very best friend loves his very best friend, it has nice symmetry to it.
The grapevine at school 'arranges' for you to meet behind room 12 one day after school to pash. You can't do it, you don't show. He 'dumps' you (via the grapevine). You find yourself that Christmas Eve staring at fuzzy rainbow coloured fairy lights through your tears, as you cry softly, because he doesn't 'love you back'. At this tender age you have a rich sense of what it means to be 'unrequited'. You fake your little, broken heart out.
When you are 13 you have you first friend who is a boy. Actually you have two of them. They are great fun. They get into terrible trouble. They smoke cigarettes, holding them with the lited end cupped in their hand like men at war. You try to smoke cigarettes. It makes you sick. You like this boy because you can be yourself around him, well, more yourself than ever before. He loves you first. So you go out with him. You wag school one day and he spends hours and hours giving you hiki's trying to get one to look like the batman signal. You start to think it might not work out because he is a foot and a half shorter than you. Height becomes an issue.
When you are 15 you look for the quality of 'coolness'. He is very cool, he is a skateboarder, he is really good looking, with curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. He is a cunt to you. But you can't really do anything about it because you have no idea where your personal power is located. He cheats on you with your friends friend, the same night that your one of your oldest, best male friends confesses his undying, never ending, all inclusive, overwhelming, eternal love for you.
You switch boys.
You love this new one. The quality that you love most is that 'he loves you'... 'to death'. He is the first boy to ask you to marry him. Drunk. You 'sort of' accept. And break up with him a few months later because he drinks too much and has no ambition. You decide 'love' as a quality cannot replace 'ambition'. Because lets face it, ambition is hot.
When you are 17 or 18 you are, tragically, still looking for a guy who is 'cool' but with something more, unique hobbies, rare talents.
You hang out with your friends older brothers, at the pub, underage, playing pool, trying to seem cool, taking drugs, going to parties, trying to seem cool, feeling painfully insecure and unsure about everything, working overtime to appear cool. You like him because he's older, cool, and he's the closest thing to a professional musician you have ever met, he plays in a band. He's a twin. He just needs a good scrub. You could be really good for him. You score him at a party one night. You realise he is kind of a loser. It starts to dawn on you that YOU might actually BE cool.
When you are 19/20 you want a guy who 'treats you right'. No more mongrels. No more lending them money for hot chips/cigarettes/vodka/the bus and not getting it back. You want a suave guy. A guy who owns a suit. A guy with good manners who you can take to meet your parents. A guy with a good car. You move into a house with him (as flatmates) and get to know each other pissed on the upside down couch at the front of the house playing guitar singing elvis songs. He treats you right, he is suave, he owns a suit, he's a DJ and he loves rat pack music. You've never had it so good. You fall madly in love. You work at the same bar. When your shifts finish you get drunk, be beautiful together and ball room dance to Frank Sinatra. You feel envied. A drunk comedian writes a love poem about how beautiful you are together and gives it to you. When he leaves and goes to London. You feel sure that you will die.
When you are 22, 23, you want to turn the tables, you want a guy who you can do more with than drink and party, you want a fit guy who is 'into things' outside of a nightlife. You find him, he is into mountain biking, kayaking, camping and snow boarding. Outdoorsy. You start going to the gym and running and you quit smoking (for the first of many times) because you like hanging out with this healthy guy. When he comes to stay he brings his 5kg tub of protein powder, he can't leave home without it. he is a cancerian, you have your first expreience of having a truely deep, emotional connection with a person of the opposite sex. He moves to Wanaka and you break up over the phone.
When you are 24/25 you look for guys who 'have their shit together'. You want a grown up man. You want to stop being their stepping stone on the way to emotional maturity (snort). You find one. He's six years older than you and he is a teacher. He's from South Africa and so has an incredibly fascinating past/accent. He's not like kiwi guys, he CHASES you for over a year. As an excuse to see you he takes you to lots of concerts always paying for everything, just like a grown up man would. He's really got his act together and he is totally crazy about you. It drives you (good) crazy that he's so crazy about you. But also, for all his charm, he is a bossy know it all and you are hard headed and emotional labil. It flounders. Funny how he could seem so grown up, but when you look back you can see he was just a young man.
When you are 27 you date a guy who falls into your lap. The quality he has is that you are mutually infatuated with each other. As if your love rings at exactly the same note and tone. You see yourself in each other. And you are inseparable and pyschotic about being together. I mean, you guys are angelina jolie, blood in a vial around your neck, tattoo your name on my arm, i don't need another single person in the world, mad, crazy, scary infatuated with each other. Its the best feeling you've ever had. Together, you have the best time of your whole life, and equally the worst. The passion spills into your disagreements. You are plate throwers. The good times and bad times are rolled together like sugar and cinnamon in a cinammon roll, but eventually, there sweetness is all lost.
When you are in your early thirties you look for a guy who is: the right age, has a good job, wants to get married and have kids, treats you with respect and wants to love you. He finds you. You let yourself get swept away on a fairy tale. The fairy tale is fuelled by alcohol as you have an equally matched propensity for drinking too much too often. After a few months you here yourself tell your best friends that you have nothing to talk about, and that every declaration of love and forever has been made under the influence. When you are on the precipice of sacrificing your entire life for him he ends it. Was it just the long distance? Him breaking up with you, in hindsight, appears to be the greatest act of real love of the whole affair.
And then... you get a little bit older, and you think to yourself that after all this looking, all these boys and men, these heart surges and heart breaks, these electric shocks and discoveries... you must know SOMETHING about what you really need, something about what you should be looking for in a man... you MUST be able to pick (find, identify, attract and keep) the right guy.
You start falling for a guy because he has this quality: he makes you feel calm, unselfconscious, happy and relaxed. It suddenly seems so obvious.
When you are 8 or 9, you look for the quality of 'difference'. By now, you have divided the world, there are: good people, normal people (some are good), weird, dangerous people (some are still good) and bad people. You like him because he is the weird, dangerous good type. He comes from a bad gang family, the wrong side of the tracks (the state housing up the road), but he has intelligent eyes and you see more in him. You sit together in the classroom at story time so close that your whole thigh is touching. You think that one day you might kiss. But you don't, because a pretty girl moves to your school from out of town, and she kisses him in the cloak bay. You move on.
When you are ten or 11, you are interested in a boy who is 'older'. Older is sophisticated. You are desperate to grow up. You are in intermediate and the world (that matters) is divided into two groups: form one, and form two. You are form one and you aspire for greatness, recognition, coolness. So naturally, you want a boy just out of your reach, a form two boy. Mostly, you choose him because your very best friend loves his very best friend, it has nice symmetry to it.
The grapevine at school 'arranges' for you to meet behind room 12 one day after school to pash. You can't do it, you don't show. He 'dumps' you (via the grapevine). You find yourself that Christmas Eve staring at fuzzy rainbow coloured fairy lights through your tears, as you cry softly, because he doesn't 'love you back'. At this tender age you have a rich sense of what it means to be 'unrequited'. You fake your little, broken heart out.
When you are 13 you have you first friend who is a boy. Actually you have two of them. They are great fun. They get into terrible trouble. They smoke cigarettes, holding them with the lited end cupped in their hand like men at war. You try to smoke cigarettes. It makes you sick. You like this boy because you can be yourself around him, well, more yourself than ever before. He loves you first. So you go out with him. You wag school one day and he spends hours and hours giving you hiki's trying to get one to look like the batman signal. You start to think it might not work out because he is a foot and a half shorter than you. Height becomes an issue.
When you are 15 you look for the quality of 'coolness'. He is very cool, he is a skateboarder, he is really good looking, with curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. He is a cunt to you. But you can't really do anything about it because you have no idea where your personal power is located. He cheats on you with your friends friend, the same night that your one of your oldest, best male friends confesses his undying, never ending, all inclusive, overwhelming, eternal love for you.
You switch boys.
You love this new one. The quality that you love most is that 'he loves you'... 'to death'. He is the first boy to ask you to marry him. Drunk. You 'sort of' accept. And break up with him a few months later because he drinks too much and has no ambition. You decide 'love' as a quality cannot replace 'ambition'. Because lets face it, ambition is hot.
When you are 17 or 18 you are, tragically, still looking for a guy who is 'cool' but with something more, unique hobbies, rare talents.
You hang out with your friends older brothers, at the pub, underage, playing pool, trying to seem cool, taking drugs, going to parties, trying to seem cool, feeling painfully insecure and unsure about everything, working overtime to appear cool. You like him because he's older, cool, and he's the closest thing to a professional musician you have ever met, he plays in a band. He's a twin. He just needs a good scrub. You could be really good for him. You score him at a party one night. You realise he is kind of a loser. It starts to dawn on you that YOU might actually BE cool.
When you are 19/20 you want a guy who 'treats you right'. No more mongrels. No more lending them money for hot chips/cigarettes/vodka/the bus and not getting it back. You want a suave guy. A guy who owns a suit. A guy with good manners who you can take to meet your parents. A guy with a good car. You move into a house with him (as flatmates) and get to know each other pissed on the upside down couch at the front of the house playing guitar singing elvis songs. He treats you right, he is suave, he owns a suit, he's a DJ and he loves rat pack music. You've never had it so good. You fall madly in love. You work at the same bar. When your shifts finish you get drunk, be beautiful together and ball room dance to Frank Sinatra. You feel envied. A drunk comedian writes a love poem about how beautiful you are together and gives it to you. When he leaves and goes to London. You feel sure that you will die.
When you are 22, 23, you want to turn the tables, you want a guy who you can do more with than drink and party, you want a fit guy who is 'into things' outside of a nightlife. You find him, he is into mountain biking, kayaking, camping and snow boarding. Outdoorsy. You start going to the gym and running and you quit smoking (for the first of many times) because you like hanging out with this healthy guy. When he comes to stay he brings his 5kg tub of protein powder, he can't leave home without it. he is a cancerian, you have your first expreience of having a truely deep, emotional connection with a person of the opposite sex. He moves to Wanaka and you break up over the phone.
When you are 24/25 you look for guys who 'have their shit together'. You want a grown up man. You want to stop being their stepping stone on the way to emotional maturity (snort). You find one. He's six years older than you and he is a teacher. He's from South Africa and so has an incredibly fascinating past/accent. He's not like kiwi guys, he CHASES you for over a year. As an excuse to see you he takes you to lots of concerts always paying for everything, just like a grown up man would. He's really got his act together and he is totally crazy about you. It drives you (good) crazy that he's so crazy about you. But also, for all his charm, he is a bossy know it all and you are hard headed and emotional labil. It flounders. Funny how he could seem so grown up, but when you look back you can see he was just a young man.
When you are 27 you date a guy who falls into your lap. The quality he has is that you are mutually infatuated with each other. As if your love rings at exactly the same note and tone. You see yourself in each other. And you are inseparable and pyschotic about being together. I mean, you guys are angelina jolie, blood in a vial around your neck, tattoo your name on my arm, i don't need another single person in the world, mad, crazy, scary infatuated with each other. Its the best feeling you've ever had. Together, you have the best time of your whole life, and equally the worst. The passion spills into your disagreements. You are plate throwers. The good times and bad times are rolled together like sugar and cinnamon in a cinammon roll, but eventually, there sweetness is all lost.
When you are in your early thirties you look for a guy who is: the right age, has a good job, wants to get married and have kids, treats you with respect and wants to love you. He finds you. You let yourself get swept away on a fairy tale. The fairy tale is fuelled by alcohol as you have an equally matched propensity for drinking too much too often. After a few months you here yourself tell your best friends that you have nothing to talk about, and that every declaration of love and forever has been made under the influence. When you are on the precipice of sacrificing your entire life for him he ends it. Was it just the long distance? Him breaking up with you, in hindsight, appears to be the greatest act of real love of the whole affair.
And then... you get a little bit older, and you think to yourself that after all this looking, all these boys and men, these heart surges and heart breaks, these electric shocks and discoveries... you must know SOMETHING about what you really need, something about what you should be looking for in a man... you MUST be able to pick (find, identify, attract and keep) the right guy.
You start falling for a guy because he has this quality: he makes you feel calm, unselfconscious, happy and relaxed. It suddenly seems so obvious.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Near Death and Dates 3, 4, 5, and 6
If you are going to crash your car and nearly die taking five people with you, this is how to do it.
Last Saturday I picked up my 'musical brothers' friends Tom - wonderful soulman blues lead guitarist, Marlon - funk man soul brother bassist, and Jamie - producer extraordinaire all round cool and lovely cat, and we drove out to Avondale.
It was the weekend of recording my demo. Yes my demo!!! Oh my goodness, dreams maybe can come true.
Because I am as lucky as bees are happy making honey, Jamie has a friend who lets us use his barn converted into a studio for recording purposes.
When we get there it is just One Of Those Days. It's been cold for so long and this day is really warm. The sky opens up it's blue arms. We are down a road and down a drive way and the bush and native trees crackle as they warm up and there's a river which trinkles, it's all good.
Jamie sets up the electronic stuff, wires and mike stands and boards of wood and carpet etc. dem boys so clever with stuff. And becase i haven't got two technical brain cells to rub together, and they boys don't know i've got muscles, (even when they do know they don't like to see a girl liftin things) I get to mostly sit out in the sun on the porch. We've brought up some cold ones and I have a cider. Marlon and i reminisce about old school days.
So we get in the studio and we do our first song. First take is good but I'm a little rushed. second take is better, a few tiny mistakes. Third take is damn near perfect. There is a feeling that happens between you and other people when you play music together. It is akin to being with a best, best friend, who you know inside out and are 110% yourself around, and you talk to each other and what you have is a conversation.
Usually, people talk, and they talk from the inside of themselves out, like they're talking from a well, and they can't see where the words go, and they can only hear themselves, and they don't much care. Then the other person replies from up at the top of the well, yelling down, but by the time the sound reaches well person, it's faint, and the intonation has been lost, and the meaning with it. This is how people talk to each other, all over the world. But with this best, best friend, your conversation is like a song, and you both sing parts. Your words and their words are like ingredients in a soup, distinguishable, but irrevocably mixed, more delicious together.
Playing music with people is a bit like that. You are getting lost in your part but you are floating along on their part, your spirits are rising and falling together. No I am not on drugs. I have been in the past, but not right now.
I love to look over and see Tom bending the blues out of his guitar, to my songs, I mean, they're our songs now, but they're about my love, found and lost, so it's even more, muchness. I love to glance right and see Marlon, his whole body making the bassline, anyone could get lost in his basslines. I really love these two guys you know. And here they are making a song I wrote jump up off the floor, grab you by the shirt collar and kiss you til your lip bleeds.
After that, we decide it's time to go get a pie. We pile into my car. I think: I don't really want to drive. But my car is blocking Jamies so it makes sense. We get in the car. I am driving, Tom to my left. Marlon is behind me. Jamie is in the back seat passenger side. We drive up BlackBridge Road. It's a typical bright and shiny new zealand day. As we drive we laugh and talk. I check the speedo and stay below 60. I am not trying to drive fast. We come to a one lane bridge. When I see it that ad flashes in my head. That ad where teh drunk guy hits teh one lane bridge and flips his car and kills his mates. And in my head a voice says without words: look after your mates. I slow down to go over the bridge. The road undulates, up and down, up and down, the trees on the side of the road cast dappled and shifting shadows on the road. I am here, I think that I am aware, I think that I am driving and therefore, I know whats going on around me.
When I play this back in my head, I hear Jamie say, you're going to want to turn up here. But at the time, I was drifting in my thoughts and don't compute it. Shortly following that Jamie says STOP. and then by the time Jamie is saying STOP STOP STOP I am passing over the double yellow lines at 60km an hour.
60km an hour does not seem fast when you're driving down an empty road in the middle of the day. But when you are travelling 60kmph over a stop sign into your unknown and uncertain future, it is faster than a speeding train.
Within the split seconds that you can react in emergencies, I percieve to my right: is there a car coming from this direction? No, I carry on straight, still the safer option than to break hard going 60km. I percieve to the left, is there a... yes, there is. A car is coming around the bend and we are on course to meet it at this intersection.
I break hard and pull the wheel hard to the right.
There is a moment of complete silence and suspension before we hit th other car, all the world is empty, time is nothing. The noise it makes hitting the other car, us going 60km and them 100km an hour, is big, but it is not bigger than the FEELING of hitting the other car, which is quite earth shattering. Like a giant mallet the size of a ... well, car... hitting you with all it's force, as though the blow is meant to silence you as well.
Due to whatever law of physics we are acting under, this blow shunts us into a clockwise 360 spin.
As we spin I am fully conscious and what I feel is my body being thrown by incredible gravitational force up into the left hand corner of the car, my body straining against the seat belt, my head plastered against the passenger seat, the force through my neck is incredible.
As we spin I am fully conscious, the day is warm and sunny, it is warm inside the car, my body is warm, my body is in one piece, my body is beautiful and alive and it works fine and all I have to do is keep it that way.
As we spin I am fully conscious and I see the car that I hit flipping through the air exactly like in an action movie. It flips sideways, it flys up into the air abot a meter and it flips, flips again, and crashes into a corrugated iron bus stop. Flattening the busstop.
As we spin i am fully conscious and I push my will out into the universe, as strong as i can make it, and my will says this: EVERYONE SURVIVES.
We come to a stop. Myself and one other person are yelling is everyone alright? is everyone alright? marlon and jamie say yes. in hindsight tom does not say yes but he gets out of the car. I put the car in park and get out of the car. Everyone can move. There is no blood. Immediately following this realisation I run to the other car ten meters away, it is lying on it's side next to the bus stop.
My legs are goverened by two forces, one propels me forward, wanting to get there as quickly as possible to help them as quickly as possible, the other is holding my legs back like glue with the sickening dread at what i might find...
I reach their car, i can see them through the skylight, they are screaming.
Are you alright? i scream at them. They say the are. The driver screams "don't let me die in here" she is trying to get out through the skylight, i try to pull it, i have no strength, my hands are feeble tools. I say to her, you are NOT going to die in there, you are fine, we're going to get you out. But I don't know how.
A man turns up, actually he's off tele, he's on that 'manage your money' show, the army guy. In a very, loud, stern, and soothingly authoritative voice he says: my name is ... (can't remember now, john?) and i am a first aider, are there any other first aiders?
I say yes, but so meekly, because i feel as if i have done enough damage and how can they trust me, to help people, me, who just nearly killed them.
They get out of them car, they are so relieved to get out of that car. They are two young girls, maybe 16 nd 14. They are not bleeding or broken. They are shocked, teary, but as I apologise over and over, they say to me, it's okay, it's okay. This is my first taste of the bottomless depth of humans ability to be compassionate. It is then that I think to myself, tom? tom was very quiet. and i sprint back to see that tom is cradling his right arm and a big lump is sticking up out of his collarbone, it looks broken. He rapidly turns whitey green and needs to sit down.
Medics are turning their attention to him.
The emergency services turn up within the blink of an eye, cops, ambulance guys, fire fighters, about 15 of them. And you know what they each do? They ask who was in each vehicle, and once asking if we are okay, can breath, no pain, they look totally inredulous and say 'everyones alright'. They each do this. 'everyones alright??'
I won't go into every detail. It is a long time we are standing on the side of the road. My car is a 'total loss' for sure. Do you know even writing this i LOVE that car, and i know it contributed to saving our lives, you know why? because it CRUMPLED. Only a week earlier i had been saying how they can't handle knocks and they just crumple (after hitting somones towbar). Well yes, they do crumple, that is how they save your life. It is sad to see that car demolished. I am drowing in realisations and feelings. This really happened. It was my fault. I nearly killed everyone of these people. This is not something I can hide from. I look into their faces and say i'm so sorry i'm so sorry, but i am also keenly aware that i don't even deserve their compassion, how dare i put them in the position of having to say 'it's okay'. Have them comfort me. No, they should be allowed to be mad, and to feel that it is not okay. So I am caught between apologising, and not wanting to seem that I am trying to elicit their forgiveness. Everyone is so shaken. Jamie has his arm around me numerous times, rubbing my back, and i think, i want someone to hug me, to say it is alright, but i don't deserve it. I can't believe he can smile at me. The mother of the two girls gives me rescue remedy, she sees the contorted look on my face and she hugs me and rubs my arms and tells me it's alright, it's only cars, it's alright. and i cannot believe her generosity. I nearly killed both of her children. How can people be so... good.
I am not good. I am careless. I am in trouble with the law. My car is gone. I will have to tell my dad. This is always the worst part of every mistake i have ever made, telling dad. Dad who is so sensible and practical and who TOLD me to drive carefully and pay attention, but then who doesn't say i told you so when you don't heed his advice and you screw something up. Dad who gives me everything, and helps me fix up my each and every mistake. Oh dad. I'm sorry. I've done it again. Your stupid daughter, it's not your fault, you taught me everything right, but i just don't listen.
The cop is lovely, he is calm, and while he has that stern cop thing going on, he's a person too, and he doesn't pull that one on me like: you are a bad citizen who broke the law. I think he sympathises. He's lovely. He takes my statement. I'm sure he writes it in a way to try and make me seem like a good person who truely did have a very bad accident.
The cop tells me I am very lucky, that when he heard what they radio'd through he fully expected to find bodies. I know I am very lucky. I just don't know why.
The mother of the kids in the other car had said, buy a lotto ticket tonight and i thought, no, you buy a lotto ticket, you deserve it, i've had all the lucky i feel it is fair to take.
Tom goes in the ambulance because he has a shoulder injury. We go back to the barn. the boys pack up. i give my statement. We drive to the hospital. everything at the hospital takes forever. we are there til 8. miracle upon miracle, tom hasn't broken his collarbone, but he has torn his ac joint, not good, coudl be worse.
dad comes to pick me up out of my mess and take us home.
My body is starting to hurt, a hurt i haven't felt before. Funnily enough, a hurt that feels like I have been hit hard by several 2 by 4's from several angles.
I want to be a sick cat and crawl into a hole. I want to be a sick bird and hide in my nest.
Guilt and gratitude. Guilt and gratitude. I am overwhelmed by both.
Why me god? why did you save me?
Well the date part is that when it happens i text the guy from date one. I text him and tell him what's happened because... because i want someone to be on my side and to care, but i can't bring myself to tell my family yet, to worry them, to put them out. And he texts back and we text to and fro from the time of the crash, around 1.30pm, til 8pm that night. He's understanding, he says tell me what i can do, he asks if i've had dinner, he could make some for me, he says things to cheer me up, stupid, aweful things, wrong things that shouldn't be said, and they make me smile just like they're meant to. What a good guy. He comes over to see me afterwards too, i'm exhausted and wired and i can't be alone, i need to be distracted. Date one (wll think of a better alias soon!) comes and distracts me, he picks me up, we go to his house and watch the rugby half heartedly, we sit on the couch and he puts his arm around me and kisses my cheek and takes my mind off the crash and he doesn't think i'm an evil, careless person who nearly killed their friends, and his believing that of me is holding me together.
So that is date 3, and half of date 4. Then on sunday without any complaint he drives me to the supermarket to get food for tom, then drives me to see tom, and he sits and talks with tom who he has never met, while i do things in the kitchen, then he drives us home again, then to my dads, meets my dad (no big deal people!), so i can pick up dads spare car, follows me home, comes in and we lie on my bed and talk til bedtime. This is date 5 and 6.
Which would probably make you ask if this guy is hammering the nail in the coffin of this blog. I don't know kids, watch this space.
Last Saturday I picked up my 'musical brothers' friends Tom - wonderful soulman blues lead guitarist, Marlon - funk man soul brother bassist, and Jamie - producer extraordinaire all round cool and lovely cat, and we drove out to Avondale.
It was the weekend of recording my demo. Yes my demo!!! Oh my goodness, dreams maybe can come true.
Because I am as lucky as bees are happy making honey, Jamie has a friend who lets us use his barn converted into a studio for recording purposes.
When we get there it is just One Of Those Days. It's been cold for so long and this day is really warm. The sky opens up it's blue arms. We are down a road and down a drive way and the bush and native trees crackle as they warm up and there's a river which trinkles, it's all good.
Jamie sets up the electronic stuff, wires and mike stands and boards of wood and carpet etc. dem boys so clever with stuff. And becase i haven't got two technical brain cells to rub together, and they boys don't know i've got muscles, (even when they do know they don't like to see a girl liftin things) I get to mostly sit out in the sun on the porch. We've brought up some cold ones and I have a cider. Marlon and i reminisce about old school days.
So we get in the studio and we do our first song. First take is good but I'm a little rushed. second take is better, a few tiny mistakes. Third take is damn near perfect. There is a feeling that happens between you and other people when you play music together. It is akin to being with a best, best friend, who you know inside out and are 110% yourself around, and you talk to each other and what you have is a conversation.
Usually, people talk, and they talk from the inside of themselves out, like they're talking from a well, and they can't see where the words go, and they can only hear themselves, and they don't much care. Then the other person replies from up at the top of the well, yelling down, but by the time the sound reaches well person, it's faint, and the intonation has been lost, and the meaning with it. This is how people talk to each other, all over the world. But with this best, best friend, your conversation is like a song, and you both sing parts. Your words and their words are like ingredients in a soup, distinguishable, but irrevocably mixed, more delicious together.
Playing music with people is a bit like that. You are getting lost in your part but you are floating along on their part, your spirits are rising and falling together. No I am not on drugs. I have been in the past, but not right now.
I love to look over and see Tom bending the blues out of his guitar, to my songs, I mean, they're our songs now, but they're about my love, found and lost, so it's even more, muchness. I love to glance right and see Marlon, his whole body making the bassline, anyone could get lost in his basslines. I really love these two guys you know. And here they are making a song I wrote jump up off the floor, grab you by the shirt collar and kiss you til your lip bleeds.
After that, we decide it's time to go get a pie. We pile into my car. I think: I don't really want to drive. But my car is blocking Jamies so it makes sense. We get in the car. I am driving, Tom to my left. Marlon is behind me. Jamie is in the back seat passenger side. We drive up BlackBridge Road. It's a typical bright and shiny new zealand day. As we drive we laugh and talk. I check the speedo and stay below 60. I am not trying to drive fast. We come to a one lane bridge. When I see it that ad flashes in my head. That ad where teh drunk guy hits teh one lane bridge and flips his car and kills his mates. And in my head a voice says without words: look after your mates. I slow down to go over the bridge. The road undulates, up and down, up and down, the trees on the side of the road cast dappled and shifting shadows on the road. I am here, I think that I am aware, I think that I am driving and therefore, I know whats going on around me.
When I play this back in my head, I hear Jamie say, you're going to want to turn up here. But at the time, I was drifting in my thoughts and don't compute it. Shortly following that Jamie says STOP. and then by the time Jamie is saying STOP STOP STOP I am passing over the double yellow lines at 60km an hour.
60km an hour does not seem fast when you're driving down an empty road in the middle of the day. But when you are travelling 60kmph over a stop sign into your unknown and uncertain future, it is faster than a speeding train.
Within the split seconds that you can react in emergencies, I percieve to my right: is there a car coming from this direction? No, I carry on straight, still the safer option than to break hard going 60km. I percieve to the left, is there a... yes, there is. A car is coming around the bend and we are on course to meet it at this intersection.
I break hard and pull the wheel hard to the right.
There is a moment of complete silence and suspension before we hit th other car, all the world is empty, time is nothing. The noise it makes hitting the other car, us going 60km and them 100km an hour, is big, but it is not bigger than the FEELING of hitting the other car, which is quite earth shattering. Like a giant mallet the size of a ... well, car... hitting you with all it's force, as though the blow is meant to silence you as well.
Due to whatever law of physics we are acting under, this blow shunts us into a clockwise 360 spin.
As we spin I am fully conscious and what I feel is my body being thrown by incredible gravitational force up into the left hand corner of the car, my body straining against the seat belt, my head plastered against the passenger seat, the force through my neck is incredible.
As we spin I am fully conscious, the day is warm and sunny, it is warm inside the car, my body is warm, my body is in one piece, my body is beautiful and alive and it works fine and all I have to do is keep it that way.
As we spin I am fully conscious and I see the car that I hit flipping through the air exactly like in an action movie. It flips sideways, it flys up into the air abot a meter and it flips, flips again, and crashes into a corrugated iron bus stop. Flattening the busstop.
As we spin i am fully conscious and I push my will out into the universe, as strong as i can make it, and my will says this: EVERYONE SURVIVES.
We come to a stop. Myself and one other person are yelling is everyone alright? is everyone alright? marlon and jamie say yes. in hindsight tom does not say yes but he gets out of the car. I put the car in park and get out of the car. Everyone can move. There is no blood. Immediately following this realisation I run to the other car ten meters away, it is lying on it's side next to the bus stop.
My legs are goverened by two forces, one propels me forward, wanting to get there as quickly as possible to help them as quickly as possible, the other is holding my legs back like glue with the sickening dread at what i might find...
I reach their car, i can see them through the skylight, they are screaming.
Are you alright? i scream at them. They say the are. The driver screams "don't let me die in here" she is trying to get out through the skylight, i try to pull it, i have no strength, my hands are feeble tools. I say to her, you are NOT going to die in there, you are fine, we're going to get you out. But I don't know how.
A man turns up, actually he's off tele, he's on that 'manage your money' show, the army guy. In a very, loud, stern, and soothingly authoritative voice he says: my name is ... (can't remember now, john?) and i am a first aider, are there any other first aiders?
I say yes, but so meekly, because i feel as if i have done enough damage and how can they trust me, to help people, me, who just nearly killed them.
They get out of them car, they are so relieved to get out of that car. They are two young girls, maybe 16 nd 14. They are not bleeding or broken. They are shocked, teary, but as I apologise over and over, they say to me, it's okay, it's okay. This is my first taste of the bottomless depth of humans ability to be compassionate. It is then that I think to myself, tom? tom was very quiet. and i sprint back to see that tom is cradling his right arm and a big lump is sticking up out of his collarbone, it looks broken. He rapidly turns whitey green and needs to sit down.
Medics are turning their attention to him.
The emergency services turn up within the blink of an eye, cops, ambulance guys, fire fighters, about 15 of them. And you know what they each do? They ask who was in each vehicle, and once asking if we are okay, can breath, no pain, they look totally inredulous and say 'everyones alright'. They each do this. 'everyones alright??'
I won't go into every detail. It is a long time we are standing on the side of the road. My car is a 'total loss' for sure. Do you know even writing this i LOVE that car, and i know it contributed to saving our lives, you know why? because it CRUMPLED. Only a week earlier i had been saying how they can't handle knocks and they just crumple (after hitting somones towbar). Well yes, they do crumple, that is how they save your life. It is sad to see that car demolished. I am drowing in realisations and feelings. This really happened. It was my fault. I nearly killed everyone of these people. This is not something I can hide from. I look into their faces and say i'm so sorry i'm so sorry, but i am also keenly aware that i don't even deserve their compassion, how dare i put them in the position of having to say 'it's okay'. Have them comfort me. No, they should be allowed to be mad, and to feel that it is not okay. So I am caught between apologising, and not wanting to seem that I am trying to elicit their forgiveness. Everyone is so shaken. Jamie has his arm around me numerous times, rubbing my back, and i think, i want someone to hug me, to say it is alright, but i don't deserve it. I can't believe he can smile at me. The mother of the two girls gives me rescue remedy, she sees the contorted look on my face and she hugs me and rubs my arms and tells me it's alright, it's only cars, it's alright. and i cannot believe her generosity. I nearly killed both of her children. How can people be so... good.
I am not good. I am careless. I am in trouble with the law. My car is gone. I will have to tell my dad. This is always the worst part of every mistake i have ever made, telling dad. Dad who is so sensible and practical and who TOLD me to drive carefully and pay attention, but then who doesn't say i told you so when you don't heed his advice and you screw something up. Dad who gives me everything, and helps me fix up my each and every mistake. Oh dad. I'm sorry. I've done it again. Your stupid daughter, it's not your fault, you taught me everything right, but i just don't listen.
The cop is lovely, he is calm, and while he has that stern cop thing going on, he's a person too, and he doesn't pull that one on me like: you are a bad citizen who broke the law. I think he sympathises. He's lovely. He takes my statement. I'm sure he writes it in a way to try and make me seem like a good person who truely did have a very bad accident.
The cop tells me I am very lucky, that when he heard what they radio'd through he fully expected to find bodies. I know I am very lucky. I just don't know why.
The mother of the kids in the other car had said, buy a lotto ticket tonight and i thought, no, you buy a lotto ticket, you deserve it, i've had all the lucky i feel it is fair to take.
Tom goes in the ambulance because he has a shoulder injury. We go back to the barn. the boys pack up. i give my statement. We drive to the hospital. everything at the hospital takes forever. we are there til 8. miracle upon miracle, tom hasn't broken his collarbone, but he has torn his ac joint, not good, coudl be worse.
dad comes to pick me up out of my mess and take us home.
My body is starting to hurt, a hurt i haven't felt before. Funnily enough, a hurt that feels like I have been hit hard by several 2 by 4's from several angles.
I want to be a sick cat and crawl into a hole. I want to be a sick bird and hide in my nest.
Guilt and gratitude. Guilt and gratitude. I am overwhelmed by both.
Why me god? why did you save me?
Well the date part is that when it happens i text the guy from date one. I text him and tell him what's happened because... because i want someone to be on my side and to care, but i can't bring myself to tell my family yet, to worry them, to put them out. And he texts back and we text to and fro from the time of the crash, around 1.30pm, til 8pm that night. He's understanding, he says tell me what i can do, he asks if i've had dinner, he could make some for me, he says things to cheer me up, stupid, aweful things, wrong things that shouldn't be said, and they make me smile just like they're meant to. What a good guy. He comes over to see me afterwards too, i'm exhausted and wired and i can't be alone, i need to be distracted. Date one (wll think of a better alias soon!) comes and distracts me, he picks me up, we go to his house and watch the rugby half heartedly, we sit on the couch and he puts his arm around me and kisses my cheek and takes my mind off the crash and he doesn't think i'm an evil, careless person who nearly killed their friends, and his believing that of me is holding me together.
So that is date 3, and half of date 4. Then on sunday without any complaint he drives me to the supermarket to get food for tom, then drives me to see tom, and he sits and talks with tom who he has never met, while i do things in the kitchen, then he drives us home again, then to my dads, meets my dad (no big deal people!), so i can pick up dads spare car, follows me home, comes in and we lie on my bed and talk til bedtime. This is date 5 and 6.
Which would probably make you ask if this guy is hammering the nail in the coffin of this blog. I don't know kids, watch this space.
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