From The One You Left Behind

I should have known it probably wasn't love a long time ago, well at least not the everlasting, Disney-filled type of love I had always thought I wanted.

I think the first time I knew was a Friday morning a few years ago when I was woken up from the irritable ringing of my mobile alarm and I knew that meant that I had to get up for work and leave the comfort of his bed and his body. I looked at him with his dark eyes and ruffled bed hair and I knew that I couldn't leave today- that when I looked back at my life this one day was not going to be spent working, but instead with his arms wrapped around me and the world stopping for a few more hours.

I called in a sick day and crept back beneath the covers of our secret lover's lair.

But then a few more hours passed and this time it was the sound of his digital alarm ringing that woke us from slumber and I knew this time we had to leave our nest- the world was awake now and so were we.

So we made our way to the train station- I was going home and he was going to work. And as we arrived across the station, we saw the train coming in the distance, so we ran to make it, at first holding hands and then we parted and I yelled "Just run for it, I'll get the next one". So he ran for the ticket machine and made the train just in time. I stepped onto the platform just as the train doors closed and I watched it pull away while he waved goodbye.

It was that exact moment that I knew that I probably loved him more then he could ever love me. And I sat on the platform alone and waited for the next train.

Cold Mornings Wrapped In Sheets

She: In my dreams last night there was blood, I was bleeding, leaving a trail of blood behind me wherever I would walk and people around me looked scared and disgusted by me, like this bleeding some how upset their lives more then it did my own

Him: Where were you bleeding?

She: It was coming from under my skirt; thick clean lines of blood covered my legs entirely

Him: So maybe it wa-

She: It wasn’t that, it was coming from somewhere else, like I was slowly emptying from the inside, being drained, but I wasn’t scared about it and when I woke up I thought I could feel it, the blood that is, I swear I could feel it soaking the sheets, but it was just my head playing tricks on me, I was fine

Him: What did you do then?

She: I fell back to sleep and had no more dreams of blood

My Ruby Tuesday

This morning I was listening to a song which sparked a memory for me of being a little girl and being in the car with my mother driving and I would fall to sleep, sometimes for real and sometimes pretending, and when we pulled up home my mum (Leisa) would carry me inside like a baby- It use to make me feel like a kitten being carried by its mother into a nest of safety. Until one day when I started getting too big to be carried and instead I would have to find my own way to the nest, but my mum would still be next to me making sure that I did.

I remember this one Christmas time when me and my sister Emmily were whining about 'wanting to do something christmasy' but we couldn't think of anything, so my mum lit some candles around the living room, played an old Christmas carol record, made us some egg flip milkshakes and said "We'll pretend this is the olden days, it is snowing outside and we are listening to a gramophone whilst drinking egg nog on a Christmas eve "- Mum was always creative and imaginative with things like that.

One of the harder things of being away from home has definitely been not being able to get a nice big bear hug from my mum whenever I need one. When I was in Vancouver I had a vial of her perfume that she wears and I used to sprinkle it on my pillow so that I could smell her as I fell asleep- but alas my sister took that vial when she left for New Zealand, so now all I have is a coat she gave me when I was back in Perth this Christmas, that I'm scared to wear too often in case the air steals her scent away from it.

Oh mum, how I miss thee!

Ahhh sweet mother bird

At the BB King Lounge in Vegas

After falling like a bird from the sky

Me & my mumsy- ain't she a swell gal'

Here's Looking At You Kid

So as we are all well aware, yesterday was Saint Valentines Day, and how does a young girl in a foreign country spend her time on Valentines Day you might ask? Why she goes to the Bloor Street Theatre with her best friend to watch a Classic Romantic film of course! In this case, said romance being Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

So I know I am about seventy years late to jump on the bandwagon of Casablanca fans, but gee whiz what a film it really is! Somehow I had gone along my whole life without seeing this spectacle of cinema at its very finest and seeing it on the big screen just made it all that more wonderful.

Ahhh what a way to spend an evening...

Running with Day Dreams

I want European Springs and Summers, I want beautiful people taking photos of ugly things, I want black and white dreams that run like silent movies, I want love affairs with poets and painters, I want to live in picturesque towns that make walking down the streets feel like poetry, I want to be woken up to sweet kisses everyday, I want to drink tea on balconies whilst talking to cats and birds, I want to lay in the sun and read books all day, I want to watch romantic films at theatres with red velvet curtains, I want to travel by trains across countries that look like photographs, I want to listen to music on record players while bathing in milk , I want to be sent flowers and mixed tapes from secret admirers, I want to go to dinner parties where people drink wine and discuss charming and provocative subjects, I want to write stories that read like a symphony, I want to take photo's that look like day dreams, I want to receive letters that were written by hand, I want undying love and fleeting romances, I want to not be limited by hindrances like money or work, I want everyday to be a romantic splendour of life.

From the mind of an over imaginative girl, this is what I want.

They Sure Make a Lovely Couple Don't They

Home Is Wherever I'm With You

When I was Nineteen

Only three short years go I was nineteen years old.

I lived with my sister in our first apartment away from home in Mount Lawley, Perth.

My older sister and her girlfriend at the time lived next door and we would all spend most nights during the week together, hanging out and watching bad TV shows.

Most weekends I would go to Amplifier Bar, scatter my brain with various substances, smoke too many cigarettes and dance with my friends until the lights went on and the sun was rising.

I had been with the guy of my dreams for 2 years, we would have sleep overs, rent movies and make out until our lips were blood red.

I worked for Xpress Magazine as a receptionist and it was the coolest job I had ever had.

I would have extended email conversations with my best friend all day at work and we would talk about anything and everything under the sun.

I dyed my hair blonde for the first time in seven years.

I would spend hours downloading music from obscure indie bands, just to have it on my ipod.

I read a lot of cult books because it made me feel cool and mature when people would ask what I was reading.

My mum would take me on driving lessons once a week, alas- I still don't have my license.

I joined a gym with my sisters and we promised to keep each other motivated, but after a few weeks we stopped going.

I wanted to a famous photographer one day.

I dreamed of travelling the world and more then anywhere dreamed of going to Paris someday.

It was the last year of my teens and life was perfect.

Goodbyes

Sometimes in this one life of ours you have to say Good Bye to people. Some you do not want to say good bye to, some you are kind of happy you are and then there are the good byes that break your heart to do it, but you know you have to.

It's a sad thing when something in your life that you were so sure of, something that made you so happy once upon a time suddenly changes. And then when you look back you realise that it wasn't so sudden, that it had been creeping up on you both for a long time but you just didn't see it. You didn't want to see it. And you wonder how you can still love somebody so damn much and still want to be with them all the time, but know that it is not right for either of you.

And you cry because you don't understand how this happened- how you allowed it to happen, you get angry and shake because everything just seems out of your control, you sleep and sleep so you can pretend for a few hours that it's not real, you go out and drink and met people- but nobody seems as good them and so you cry some more and convince yourself that you will never be happy again.

And then there is that final moment when you know everything will change after this and you hug and you kiss and you wonder how something that feels so right just isn't. And you walk onto a raining street and you hope that the rain will mask your tears. And you wish you could fast forward time to a place where everythings good again. And it will be. Eventually. Because it has to be.

Morning's With You Are Christmas Eve

The Favourite Game

When I moved into my new apartment in Toronto, there was a fully stocked book shelve waiting for me to search through and find some hidden gems. That is where I came across 'The Favourite Game' by Leonard Cohen. From the first page I could tell I was reading something pretty special.

The story follows Lawrence Breaveman, a Jewish-Canadian, through his youth growing up in Montreal to his early manhood when he eventually flee's to New York and meets Shell. It reads almost like a Memoir/ Coming of age/ Love Story, yet it really isn't any of those.

The Favourite Game is by far one of the most beautiful books I have read in the longest time.

5 Things I Love About You

Today I felt like writing about 5 things I love about my sweet sweet sister Emmily....

She makes everything seem beautiful...

She'll go for longs walks with me when the sun is rising, even if she's tired...


She has wonderful hair...

She let's me dress her up and take photo's whenever I want...

She's one of the funniest people I know!

Je t'aime

Oh, you are the roots...

His room

Today has been one week since Bryan left for Europe, although it feels more like 1 year. Getting use to him not being around has been different then I thought it would be, no better or worse, just different. Perth seems like a different place without him around, a sadder place where everywhere I go a memory with Bryan surfaces until I manage to push it from my mind and focus on something else. It’s kind of been working too. But not today.

Today I’ve been thinking a lot about his room, one of my favourite places to be in this world. I’ve moved house 3 times in the last 4 years and that whole time Bryan’s room has remained the same (Except for the ever-growing amount of wonderful trinkets). His room has been one of the only constants in my life for a long time, a place where I can feel safe and happy. A place where we have had many nights of renting videos together, talking together, sleeping together, waking up with each other, eating, drawing, building lego, getting drunk, arguing, listening to music together… And now it feels like it’s gone, even though I know it’s still exactly the same as it was when I saw it last week.