"Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words than burn"

- Thomas Gray

Typical

A short story by me.

He rolled over in an attempt to eradicate the flaming red glow of the midday sun that was penetrating his eyelids. Eventually the strong colors faded to black, but as he opened his eyes, that darkness was quickly replaced with the warm chestnuts and fuschias radiating from his half finished oil painting across the room. It wasn’t nearly as good as he’d thought it was late the night before.

His head span into a frenzy as he heaved himself up and off the ratty old mattress that he’d slept in undisturbed until this weekend. With a stained glass and two empty bottles of vodka in his hands, he pulled his socks on, successfully tiptoed around the contents of his bombshell of a bedroom, and crossed the hall.

There was a loud clunk as the bottles hit the bottom of the bin. It had been emptied. Confused, he looked around at the rest of his immaculate kitchen. And then it clicked. It was that weekend. The weekend Eva was due to bring her stuff from her parent’s house. Trust him to forget something as important that. Typical.

He’d been doing relatively ok since his mother kicked him out of home.  Luckily his boss at the café downtown was nice enough to keep him there for the past three years. Since his decision to study art, however, his life wasn’t going to be so balanced. So he reluctantly decided to find himself a housemate.

Walking out of the kitchen, he spied her in the previously empty lounge. She was settled on the floor, leaning against a sea of neatly stacked boxes. By her feet was the 200-piece jigsaw puzzle he’d left there. It was almost complete, with 3 pieces missing. But she wasn’t concentrating on that; her eyes were fixed on her notebook. He watched as her delicate hands moved the charcoal across the paper, creating a beautifully detailed sketch that he could only dream of creating.

She must’ve felt him staring at her, but she still didn’t look up from her notebook. “God, took your time getting up.”

“I was up late painting. You’ll get used to it. How long have you been here?”

“A couple of hours, dad drove me here at about nine.”

“Man, that’s ages. Guess I should’ve been more prepared.”

“It doesn’t matter, I entertained myself, see?”

She put her notebook down, and waved at the jigsaw. He was impressed.

“I can’t believe you did that. I worked on that jigsaw for months, and get nowhere, and then you do it in one morning. Typical.”

“It’s not complete though, technically. I mean you lost three pieces.”

He laughed, but it was true. Everything he had, there were pieces missing. There was never the full set. He thought about the things in his house, his mismatched crockery, and his jumbled bedroom. Eva was the opposite of him. Everything in her life fit into place. All the pieces were there. She had two loving, caring parents that would do anything for her. He, on the other hand, never even knew his father. He practically didn’t have a mother anymore, since their lack of communication after she made him leave. Wrongly or not, he blamed a lot of the problems in his life on his parents. He believed he was born with an alcohol problem, after he found out his mother didn’t stop drinking through her entire pregnancy. The support and guidance just hadn’t been there, life Eva’s had. He was never taught the importance of organization, or of getting things done. He couldn’t even finish a jigsaw, for god’s sake.

Eva noticed that his eyes had glazed over. She stood up and announced that she would start unpacking her stuff. As she walked out of the room, he watched her bleached socks glide across the old floorboards. He looked down at his own. One was green, and one blue. Typical.

Loneliness is worse

"How can  I ask anyone to love me, when all I do is beg to be left alone?"

 

Fiona Apple - Left Alone, Directed by Salar Bill.

 

 

That line has been on my mind a lot lately. There's a delicate balance between interaction and being alone, and often pulling yourself away from people leads to them thinking you don't care about them anymore, when often that's not the case at all. Distancing yourself leads to all sorts of troubles and confusion. People start to wonder if there's something wrong with you. If you're depressed, or insane, or just troubled.  Loneliness is looked at so negatively, but it is really such a horrible thing? So many people are obsessed with being sociable and making connections. 'Oh, I'm so lonely' you hear them cry, like it's the end of the world, like the only way they can be happy is to have someone there with them. When you think about it though, all you have is yourself. You're the only person that you can completely count on and control to do exactly what you want to do, everyone else has themselves for that. It's said that the people around you mould you into who you are, and I think that can be very true. People are curious, so being around others can be quite a wonderful and stimulating thing, but I think being alone is often underrepresented.

When you're left alone, you aren't washed over by other people's words. You are left with only yourself to talk to, whether internally or out loud. You have to think for yourself, entertain yourself. Often that means creating new ideas and things. It can drive you mad too. It's amazing how emotional people get when they are alone, how the power of just simply thinking for yourself can have such a strong impact. The best music, writing, inventions, and the most beautiful artwork often comes from loneliness. Letting yourself be completely separated from others is a wonderful thing. Basically, I just think people need to appreciate alone time a little more. Hopefully this post has helped you re-think things a little bit. Now go, turn off your phone. Be lonely. Take a walk on the wild side.



 

 

Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed.

 

 

 

RIP Lou. xx

Off-Beat

First of all, welcome to Disquiette. I have to say, it is much harder than one might think trying to pick a name for a blog. It's like naming a band, or a baby. Some say that names aren't important, and that what makes up the person, thing, or blog, is what matters. I suppose I'm hoping that will turn out to be true as this blog progresses. On the subject of names though, you should probably know mine. I'm Casey. Apparently it's an old Irish name, originally meaning brave, or vigilant. Whether I live up to those qualities is a matter of opinion, however I was super premature as a baby, and so my parents liked the idea of naming me something to do with braveness. As far as I know that's all there was to it.

Disquiette has a much more interesting back story; I first saw the word Disquiet when I was researching Giorgio De Chirico, an Italian artist from the late 1800's who did a lot of work with the surrealists, and founded the Metaphysical art movement. I was writing an essay on him as a part of the application process when applying for an art school early this year. A particular artwork of his caught my eye. The piece was called The Disquieting Muses. It's flawlessly beautiful, but strange, and quite unsettling:

When I looked at it, it seemed like there was something brooding, as though something terrible was about to happen. The statues could come alive, they could suddenly start walking, or turn into other things entirely. Goodness knows what might happen. The shadows, the overly harsh lighting and color scheme made it extra unsettling, but without the cliche dense reds and blacks of horror movie covers. More so in a way that a circus is terrifying - full of bright colors and exciting new things, but also clowns, and large animals, and people that seem as though they're from another planet. When I decided to start this blog, I was feeling a similar way. I still am, really. Not in danger, but as if everything is rumbling under the surface, changing bit by bit until suddenly I'll find myself high up on the trapeze and falling into something that could either be the worst or the best change of my life. One of those changes is the very reason I was looking at the painting in the first place - art school. I start early next year. New opportunities, new lifestyle, new friends. I have just four weeks left of regular high school, and as much as I hate the freezing classrooms, pointless work, ridiculous teachers and ugly uniforms, there's a small part of me that doesn't want to let go of all that stuff. When I leave I will most likely never see most of the people I hang out with ever again. I won't have to attend another maths class, or fix up my hair to fit the uniform rules, or listen to my best friend complain about teachers. I don't know if I want that. Not seeing my school friends everyday will force me to decide who my real friends are. It will force them to decide if I'm theirs. And for eight weeks between regular school and art school, I'll be completely free to be myself. That's another thing that has been bothering me recently - with all the changes, it feels like I've been changing a lot more than I expected myself to, and I guess I'm just a little confused about myself, and everything really. A little anxious. You could say disquieted even. And viola, that's where the blog name comes from. The extra t and e at the end make it a little prettier.

I decided to make a playlist full of songs that fit my recent disquieting moods and since this blog seems to have the same vibes, I guess it's the place for it to go. Plus, they're awesome songs! So clearly they should be shared with as many people as possible:

 I'll leave you with a poem that just so happens to also be called The Disquieting Muses. It's written by one of the most wonderful writers of all time, Sylvia Plath. It was never actually published in any of her collections, however there is a recording of her reading it which you can listen to here. Otherwise, enjoy reading it yourself:

Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied inLike bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!
'But those ladies broke the panes.

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like firefliesAnd singing the glowworm song,
I couldNot lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.

I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother,mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.