Never Forget

So today I was going to write a bit of a rant about perth (you know to show the 4 people who read my blog how witty I am and such) However as I was going through my diary I found that I had written something much more important on this date last year... So my rant is just going to have to wait.

29/3/09
On a Day such as today I cannot help but stop. Take a moment and remember. force my subconscious to soak up every moment pent within this care facility. I refuse to let myself forget a thing. The way my grandma looked laying in that bed, her hair reduced to but a wisp, her body lacking not only mass but also energy. In a word she is beautiful. Not in the way the world describes beauty, but an effortless beauty that is not given by genetics but earned by a lifetime lived in sacrifice for others.
It is not the big things I fear I will forget, it is the little things, the seemingly insignificant moments. This seemingly insignificant moment. I fear that i will forget the way she held me around my neck, this dying frail womens iron grip that squeezed me tight. Taking with it my ability to stay in control. I fear I will forget the words that came from her mouth, The way she told me I was beautiful, she missed me, she will always love me. Never forget me she said, as every eye in the room ran with tears of stolen years. I fer I will forget the way her hand held mine as her fingers dug into her palm and arms pushed down in nervous movements and strained attempts to cover the pain. I fear I will forget the way I felt as though I would give my life to make hers worth living.
I will never be able to describe the deep sorrow that hit my stomach like a punch to the gut. The woman that lays before me taught me how to sew, taught me how to knit, taught me how to create. She encouraged my dreams without a hint of doubt and sat with me for hours playing make believe. We would ride the titanic, dress up in her clothes and jewelery, have tea with the fine china and sell play dough cakes to our customers of soft toys. And as make believe became real life and toys became boys she would always have time to sit, talk and make me feel like the only person in the whole wide world. Today as she lays before me, a fraction of the woman of her youth, I cannot help but feel the need to remember and promise myself I will never forget because soon it will be only memories that remain.

5 days after I wrote this Joyce Bracegirdle, my Grandma, confidante and friend died.


And I haven't Forgot

Exibitionalism

I have found that my generation is prone to the dramatic. Everyone is a model, A photographer, a fashion designer or in a band. Everyones looking for their niche' everyones on myspace and facebook, everyones photos are photo shoped. Everyones faces caked with makeup, everyones angles just right.
Whats the latest fad? Quick follow it. Who's the latest band? Quick buy their ep. Whats the latest fashion? Quick be the first to have it. Everybodys asking the same question, Do you see me? When did looking happy become more important then beig happy? Im not judging, I play the game too, I am in no way superior, I am mearly observant. When did we decide to see someones value based on some elusive points system? When did we belittle friendship to being about music taste or clothing style or general appearance? When did we forget what matters most and choose instead to focus on the minors in life?
Even as I write this I am thinking of my audience, deciding what I should or shouldn't say based on who may read it. Wanting it to sound relevant and edgy. I want to be the kind of person who cares about people. Who always has time for them. Somebody without an agenda. Somebody real and approachable. Somebody who stops everything to help someone who can do nothing back for me. Somebody who doesn't care about all the lies and the popularity contest. Somebody who never values MY image over YOUR happiness.

Smile often
Beth

Just a thought, or 3..

Music
"Music isnt my life, I dont know much about it. But without music I wouldn't know much about my life." These rather profound words poped up on my phone as I opened a message from my close friend Dave. A rather beautiful moment of insight from a 21 year old mechanic.
The truth is he put words to something I had felt for a very long time. Music is powerful. It moves people, it seeps beneath the surface and touches the soul. It doesn't matter the genre, what Eminem does for some, slipknot may do for others. Its tells a story, my story, your story, our story. It doesn't wait to resolve, it just tells it like it is. It paints a picture of our lives, weaving lyric and melody together to say what we struggle to put words to. Going counter cultural and talking about the things society chooses to dance around. It doesn't judge, It doesn't try to fix anything. It asks questions even when it doesn't have any answers. It speaks of hurt even before the healing. It makes no judgment it just 'is'. Music doesn't choose its audience, it plays for whoever will listen. Music is just broken people speaking on behalf of broken people and letting us know where not alone in all of this. Music is present in the time of tears, in the time of celebration and almost everything in between. Music is the hug nobody else will give, the friend you always wanted and the voice you never had. "Music isn't my life, I don't know much about it but without it I wouldn't know much about my life."

Words
Whoever said words are just words was, for lack of a better word, a complete Jackass.
One only has to enter the room of any anorexic girl who was called fat in middle school, Speak to the woman who shot her husband after he called her a slut one to many times or look behind the counter at McDonald's where a boy stands who never went to college because his mum told him he would never amount to anything, to realize the power of words.
"Cancer" streaming from the lips of a doctor.
"I do" declared by a bride on her wedding day.
"Fight" chanted by a crowd of kids in a school yard.
All these words have power, Meaning, A voice, Placed to mark a moment. Words enable cults, start wars, change laws, create leaders. Words are the driving force behind almost everything. Words are never "Just words." This is why words are my chosen weapon. Words backed with actions, words backed with truth. Words of hope, rescue and healing. Words to go to war with shame, words to challenge insecurity, words to tell a story that just may be their story. Words that understand and when they don't understand, words to comfort. Words like im sorry, I see you, I care, I love you, What happened to you was wrong.
Words like your beautiful, your worth every minute, your smart, your ok just the way you are.
Words spoken at 3am, words spoken in gutters, words written in books, words published to tell the story of a generation that knows all to well how to use words and all to little about the lasting effect of everything we say.

Pictures.
Pictures speak what we cannot say. They don't bother with engaging our intellect, they go straight to the heart. Engaging our emotions and causing us to respond almost instantly.
Artists, photographers and advertisers have know this forever. We respond to images in a completely different way. Tears come quicker, hope rises, beauty screams out and truth engages.
When we hear of the atrocities of war we feel for them, we know its bad, know its sad, but when we see images suddenly it becomes real, suddenly we engage, suddenly we cannot not feel.
Images dont need a book, they tell you everythig you need to know in a moment, like a punch of letters straight to the face. Images make us ask questions, daring us to seek more. Images are powerful. o this day everybody still wonders what the Mona Lisa's coy smile was really all about. Images surpass history, the art from as early as cave drawings is still spoken about and recognizable today. Images tell us what we cannot say in words. Images complete the picture, pardon the pun.
What if we were to give the pen back to people? Bringing out the beauty in each of them and displaying it for the whole world to see. Telling them that the faces to their stories are powerful. That without them the picture would be incomplete.
Their images would serve as a diverse portrait of the landscape of current society. The most different of people that are still so very much the same. Showing the world the beauty that comes in every shape, size and colour. Skin clear or adorned with metal and ink. Hair flowing naturally or stolen from chemo. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Essentially this is the backbone of dreams.. Dreams that these things may one day be tools to rebuild, revamp and recreate the ideas of normal.

Dont get it? You will...

Smile often
Beth x

Bandwagons, Deadlines and Highwaisted skirts.

Though I do realise I’m merely stating the obvious, I must inform you that it has come to my attention that blogging is no longer the way of the future, but a way of the present, and at the speed that life seems to rage along these days, I’m sure it will soon be the way of the past.

So with that, much in the same way that I gave in to high waisted skirts and spent my parents hard earned money on a Mac, I have fought the trend for long enough and have finally decided to take my spot on the blogging bandwagon.

And so she wrote…

Because I am a Journalist major and creative writing student I suppose this will be a place in which I can write without a code of ethics, without the fear of correct referencing and without the deadlines that can often make me wonder how creative a piece can be when forced into a box of 1200 words and due in week 7 (A hypothetical I swear) A diary of sorts, not to tell a story but to ask questions, comment on quirks and express views. Which are no more or less valid then anybody else'.

Smile Often

Beth