My Wishes

Exams and school have drawn to a close, what now stretches ahead of me is a long summer of indecisiveness and bittersweet last events. If all goes to plan, this September I’ll be living in a strange city, for better or for worst. If all doesn’t go to plan, then I have some more planning to do.
Here are a few of the things I wish to do with my summer months.

1. Finish the Count of Monte Cristo
2. Practice the Clarinet
3. Take more photographs
4. Have more picnics
5. Paint
6. Write more
7. Re-read Harry Potter 1-7
8. Do some sewing
9. Find my University reading list
10. Cycle some more

72% Water

I saw this a while ago and had to draw my own response. 72%'s nothing, we can work through it.

My Cave.

This is my favourite place in the world. This cave is on a secluded beach in Wales with paintings on the rocks, when I go there, I lose myself. This cave is a cathedral of eternity, the eternal dripping of water, the eternally cool sand, I lean my head on the rust coloured rocks and I can hear forever echoing in the walls. It feels strong, like it hasn’t changed in millennia and never will, it doesn’t go back very far and yet I imagine endless tunnels beyond. When you leave, you renter the world of sun and sea and shouting, but my cave is always there, a bubble of soft living silence.

White Paint

This week I had an art exam. Whilst I worked one of the art technicians was preparing old canvasses for repainting, whitewashing over whatever was pictured on them before so that they could be recycled. It was quite a melancholy sight, each painting seemed to reflect the years each student had put into studying art: the stress, the relief, the feelings and emotions, quickly and mechanically erased. I wondered how many layers of paintings lay on those canvasses, how far they stretched back and how many dreams and disappointments had already been painted over. After my exam had finished, I piled up my own paintings and wondered how long it would be before they would disappear to make room for a new student’s work, only to be covered again in white emulsion.

Abandoned (my)spaces.

Recently, whilst browsing the internet late at night, I came across my old bebo account. It was an unpleasant surprise, rather like opening a bag only to discover that sandwich from six months ago. I looked back into my past, I stared at my fourteen year old self’s profile with a crippling feeling of self loathing. Was I really like that? As I’ve gotten older, I looked back on my past self with endearment, I was young, but I was still mature for my age and not too much of a social mess. But here was my entire awkward teenage-hood plastered on my computer screen, and not only that, but anyone in the world could see my obsession with text speak, capital letters in the middle of words and cringe-worthy inside jokes that defined those years. I stared with a mixture of horror and surprise at the persona I had projected on the world. What’s worse is that I know that was what I was actually like.

I cautiously explored the rest of my page, and came across all the abandoned profiles of friends. Some of them I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years, and yet here remained the shadows of five years ago, fragments of their teenage selves. The conversations we had are still on the comments wall, questions unanswered. It feels unsettlingly like climbing aboard a virtual Mary Celeste, there was a similar eeriness as I browsed the profiles people had hastily left in exchange for MySpace or Facebook. I noticed all the different types of profile people had, there were the emo profiles, full of melancholy posts and icons saying things like ‘don’t try to fix me, I’m not broken’, the vanity profiles filled entirely with pictures of said person and the profiles that act as shrines to a significant other. At first I explored with interest, but I soon felt drawn to leave, maybe it was the overtiredness but it all started to feel a little eerie.

I considered briefly deleting the old profile, but I decided against it and left it as a tiny monument to the past.

For the Birthday Bard

Happy early Birthday Shakespere. Here's your present. I drew this after a conversation which concluded that to make Shakespere more appealing to the youth, he should have an obsession with extreme sport. I would have liked to put skis in but didn't have enough room.

Happy Birthday from a fan who loves you whether or not you liked to rock climb.

90p for 100g

There is nothing quite like buying sweets from my favourite sweetshop. It stands like a beacon on a busy road, its windows filled with those big jars containing every sweet conceivable. I step inside, and suddenly I am eight years old again, excitedly trying to read as many of the labels on the jars, struggling to choose before I get to the front of the queue.

There is brief inner battle over whether I should get something new and unusual or stick to an old favourite, and inevitably my nostalgic side takes over and I select 100g of strawberry bonbons. The big jar comes down and they rattle onto the old silver scales, sending up little clouds of pink dust into the sweet, musty air. I scoop out the change from my purse and hand it over in exchange for the little paper bag, the man at the counter smiles as if he understands the child-like excitement that has infused me. I open the door, letting the little bell ring.

I’m barely a few steps out of the shop before I pop the first bonbon into my mouth, the taste is sweet, sharp and full of nostalgia. It is the best bonbon I’ve ever had. I walk down the road, too happy to care about my ‘sucking on a sweet’ face.