I like creativity

My good friend John wrote this on my facebook, and I appreciated it for its sheer beauty.

"Sonya J (last name), we need to talk some time when I am not under the influence of alcohol or sleep or caffeine or time or stress or pressure or freedom or love. I feel all of those things at the moment, so I have gagged myself with these constraints. Craziness and dreamtime-sleep-stupor rule a world of chaos, and town is nothing but pacman for grown-up-children with the sleep pattern of a stoned owl. Pluralise everything, I want to add s's to every word but will resisit while I can.
How pretentious I am to even express my free-thought makes me hate this for its existence."

I have already half-analysed this like it is a poem. The juxtaposition of pressure and freedom.. The pressure of freedom.. yes..I love thinking.


Chelsea Hotel no. 2 - Leonard Cohen. Listening to this song reminds me of John also, 'cause sometime in the middle of the night we were posting back and forth and then I heard Leonard Cohen sing about getting head on an unmade bed and it became hilarious in my tiredness which I shared with him. It's funny how songs are moments.


I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

I bought fifty tea-light candles and put 43 of them on my windowsill.

 

I love this girl.

Some of my lovely lady friends. (and bartender)

I was just thinking how we were all dressed so modestly.

The lipstick on the mirror reads: "For a poor to adequate good time call (number)"

The Naked and Famous - Young Blood

We're only young and naive still
We require certain skills
The mood it changes like the wind
Hard to control when it begins


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah


Can't help myself but count the flaws
Claw my way out through these walls
One temporary escape
Feel it start to permeate


We lie beneath the stars at night
Our hands gripping each other tight
You keep my secrets hope to die
Promises, swear them to the sky


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah


As it withers
Brittle it shakes
Can you whisper
As it crumbles and breaks
As you shiver
Count up all your mistakes
Pair of forgivers
Let go before it's too late
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Taylor has informed me I am crazy.

Right now I am alone, in the middle of Auckland city, on a Saturday night. My friends are not coming for another two hours. I spent an hour in Borders, then got fed up and my head was full of poetry and frustration so I left.


I discovered that the worst place to look for the meaning of life is the poetry section in a bookstore. I had the most epic explanation for it at the time.
Sometimes I hate bookstores
I don't know what to read
I don't know what is bad and good
or what is worth picking up
I don't know where to start


Then I went searching for a moleskin. I feel like a retard just saying that, because it sounds like I'm trying to be some wannabe Hemingway or something. Na they just feel nice and are slim and I had nothing to write on. But Mag Nation was closed and I don't know who else sells them.


I always forget to carry a notebook. Then I end up buying 1B4s.


I then got kissed by an old fat man wearing a white chef's coat and a billboard and some green goggly? glasses. He then tried to dance with me in a convenience store.


This was a most pleasant experience.


He had directed me (his billboard had) to the White Lady which is a giant bus-thing that sells burgers. He even escorted me there 'cause there were some dodgy sorts around.


It is raining. What excites me is that my feet are not wet. I can see the raindrops sitting on top of my black leather slippers. This is because I own BEESWAX which is BEAUTIFUL and makes my shoes soft and rainPROOOF


Friendship has been bothering me. I know my life is going to be nomadic. Already I feel like my life is in limbo, living in a city that is not my home, and leaving for a place that is not my home, and leaving and leaving and leaving


Is that all I do? Leave? Never stay? I was always the wandering one. And how does that work with friendship? I enjoy people. When I meet people who I can talk to, who get me, it is amazing.


It is a good thing I enjoy my own company. I do spend a lot of time wandering Auckland city by myself and I
enjoy bus rides


Today in the bookstore
a man and a women
were talking about how they were worried their son
would ONLY KNOW THE LETTER D


Who is Sonya?

Dear friends

Dear.
Dear.
Dear friends.

This evening

I try to have hot baths to calm my head but then I get anxious calls of murders and sad families. One can't think of peace and sleep while one sits shivering watching candles die quietly and the pressing urge to pray, pray.

Would you go to war for me?

Sitting by the journals of Buried History head dancing with musty words, musty pages eyes asking brain to close brain refusing request Sometimes I wish I had a real bed after all

Creative Insomnia and Bizarre Words on a page

Hello. My name is Sonya Jasmine. I have a last name too. Anyway. I can't sleep. Why not, you ask? Ask sleep. Ask God. It is a problem. Taylor also doesn't sleep too flash so I asked him and he mentioned blogging. Good idea, I thought. Normally writing screeds of odd poetry gets me in a more sleepy state but I wrote four pages of very very odd summer reflections and forward-reflections (HUH SONYA WHATT) and it didn't help. So here I am. Sitting by the fire too by the way. Normally when I can't sleep I pray. Prayer is good. It's good to keep up conversation with God, continually. It's part of the whole relationship stuff. And listening to God is important too. But sometimes I find that its been hours and it ends up being 3am and non sleeping becomes almost painful and I'm just crying AT God to let me rest. So tonight I didn't pray about sleeping. I thought, as Taylor recommended also, that I should probably embrace this bizarre creativity in me that comes out in the night, and in states of tiredness, and how my brain thinks and goes all over the place when my body tells me to sleep. I have several theories as to why I can't sleep. A) I write much better poetry/stuuuff when I am exhausted. So it's my brain forcing me to use my.. gift? Awful word that. I always complain (to myself) that my poetry is far too literal. Well, when I am tired it takes on the appearance that I am on drugs. It is imaginative. It says teacups are long grass and that long grass is the meaning of chasing an old man around a yard. That kind of stuff. Which tends to work well in this postmodern world. Ah! I said it. Postmodern. Haha. I was reading some writing journal's guidelines for your writing bio and it was very vague but it was like OH. AND DO NOT USE THE WORD POSTMODERN TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF. I found this quite amusing. In my essay tonight I used the word.. premodern. Microsoft Word did not recognise this as a word. MS Word must be pomo then. Too much for its own good. Oh shut up Miss S.J.Clark b) As some may know I do not use a bed. I sleep on a mattress on the floor. Because I have rearranged my room in a stupid way that does not utilise space well, this mattress takes up most of the room. Therefore, when I am in 'bed' I am often reading intense theological texts like 'ChurchMorph' my current 'bedside reading . Research and you and I all know that doing study in bed is awful for sleeping as your brain connects bed with thinking and not sleeping - that unconscious state which is definitely not full thinking. c) I don't know. d) I don't overthink life. I don't analyse relationships crazy but I do lie in bed randomly planning ahead or pondering Like I wrote some crappy poem just before, just thinking like How will life be different this summer? My close school friends will return home from all around NZ and we all will have changed. Shani will not return - her family have relocated south, where she is studying. I will especially miss Shani. Will we rave like we used to? I have deleted a lot of my crappy pop music and now immerse myself in folk. We never used to drink much - will things change now they have been at uni in a more saturated drinking culture? And at the end of summer, when I pack up my life all over again, and my brother packs his up for the first time, and I move... again.. from the biggest city in NZ to a smalltown then to the capital city.. how will life change again? How will people, I, my brother change? How will my parents relationship change with no children at home? Change is good. And I embrace it. But I feel this summer will be different. I already feel way more grown up/adult than a lot of my uni friends even. Like in Pastoral Care class we're doing development of adolescents and adults bla bla and there's jibes thrown around the room about being an adult is paying your bills etc.. well I do pay my bills.. and us intermissioners are used as the adolescent example of not being like that.. but I dunno. I love being young and free to choose and not settle, to be transient. That is amazing. So I'll embrace that adolescent part, sure. But I don't like being boxed as immature and irresponsible just because I'm eighteen. My parents have sent me a grand total of twenty five dollars since I left home three months ago. Not that that constitutes grown up but I think I'm on a good path. And at the end of the day what? what Sonya? What happens at the end of the day? One is meant to sleep. It doesn't really happen. Man I am hungry. I keep gnawing my tongue, accidentally of course. I have learnt not to walk at night, in these parts. In these parts in these parts I am Sonya. Sonya is an interesting word Kids have mocked my name in younger days I am looking forward to being in Wellington once again. I know my paper is called Reflective CROSS CULTURAL Field Education MF602 but really I feel like I'm coming home

I am Sonya, hear me roar?

Sometimes I think about my name. When I read it, sometimes it does not feel like my name, even though I know it is my name. Other days I know it is my name. Absolutely. Completely sure. It fits me. Sonya means wisdom. Did you know? Sometimes I think my name is odd because I never hear it used in regards to anyone else, just me. That is because, while it not a rare name, it is not a common name either. At intermediate school, a blonde girl told me I had an ugly name. In front of everyone. Now I quite like my name. Today it is raining. Therefore, I am not going to walk to Carey early and study. I had the worst nights sleep last night. I'm convinced I didn't sleep. I kept waking and thinking and it was like my mind did not know how to sleep. This was bad. My hands are shaking so I better stop. Did I tell you? My wrists and fingers have been painful. This is a bad bad thing for an eighteen year old amateur poet and student.

My Current Most Played List on ITunes

Quite an accurate list of my current listening as I reset my library not too long ago. I am a great believer of different music for different purposes. I could choose to be embarrassed by my inclusion of crappy hip hop, but I won't. It has its function in my life. Hear Me Out - Frou Frou Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas A Sunday Smile - Beirut The Upper Peninsula - Sufjan Stevens For The Windows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti - Sufjan Stevens Nantes - Beirut Lux Aeterna - Requiem for a Dream soundtrack Lua - Bright Eyes Marching Bands of Manhattan - Death Cab for Cutie Replay - Sean Kingston Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez Your Hand In Mine - Explosions In The Sky After The Storm - Mumford and Sons Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens River - Akron/Family I Know It’s Over - The Smiths Skinny Love - Bon Iver Forever - Chris Brown Just Don’t Care - Dane Rumble Need You Now - Lady Antebellum Winter Winds - Mumford and Sons Guyamas Sonora - Beirut How He Loves Us - David Crowder Band (cover) Psychobabble - Frou Frou

Rainy Blog

Today I got a lovely dailybooth message from someone who said they liked my blog. I liked that, and it prompted me to.. blog. I rarely blog these days, as dailybooth is like a short blog. Today it is bucketing down from grey Auckland skies. My flatmate is home sick. We are both sitting by the fire in our pyjamas and the candles are lit and it is almost noon. I CHOPPED MY HAIR YESTERDAY Kind of actually hacked random bits off Now I realise I probably shouldn't have. It is very dark today. I have a lot of work to do.

Door Knocking is definitely not my favourite activity.

Listening to the music of my earlier raging years

I have almost lived here three months. Seems crazy. What have I done? -moved out of home, into a flat with complete strangers, to a city completely foreign and unknown to me. =D -went to my first Northern Easter Camp. -A+'d my first paper. -settled into Roskill Baptist. -went to 'town'. Almost got hit by a couple of cars. -sat in a few cosy bars with a nice drink and a good friend. -cried over homelessness. -got free furniture off the side of the road. -spent a lot of money on postcards xD -been a photography model a wee bit for arty friends. -Handsewed my first hem without a pro sewer watching over me! -sat in Mt. Eden crater as the rain fell, with Elysia. -read poetry at the Aotea Centre, to a weird audience. -ferried to Devonport. -bussed a lot. -drunk a bit of tea. -received money when I needed it, anonymously, radically. -I now have a chiropractor. -Got rid of my bed. Now sleep on the floor on a mattress. -LEARNT TO COOK!! -been dumpster diving. -acquired a lot of folk music. -worked at Women's Refuges etc :) -been to the Auckland markets. -Had some epic Skype conversations with some new good friends -READ On the Road, The Little Prince, Man Alone.. and others, I think. -went to a party with a completely purple painted face. -spooned. -been freaked out at crazy Auckland stuff.. now I realise I find it so normal. -watched New Moon and almost died bleerrgggh -sat on a beach/bay late at night and toasted marshmallows over a fire -been to Bethells and Muriwai Beach -decided what I'm doing next year - Wellington -won a large scholarship, randomly. -realised I don't like talking as much as I thought. -realised so much about how my upbringing has shaped me -realised its not bad to have money -realised its not bad to have ambitions -realised I am content -realised I am whole so I can help others -realised writing is in every cell of my being -realised God is hard to understand, but that's okay

Pain

Physically, I have been in a lot of pain lately. It has been quite hard. Then I fell down the stairs. But while I am in pain I am remembering that God is with me. He does not will my pain, He does not cause it. Yet he cares and he helps us endure.