Let me not

Let me not live in oblivion or ever see so much pain and hurt that I become immune to it, let me be affected and shattered only to be moved enough to keep fighting for what I believe to be good and real. Let me never become hardened by the injustice but let it fuel my love and passion for teaching the next generation in such a way that their lives may be altered in some small way as to change our world.

Let me not live a life that leaves pain and hurt in my wake but one that exemplies my belief in love over fear even when that is a difficult thing to ensure. Let me not become complacent when it comes to actively loving my friends and family and neighbors, let me not descriminate with whom I show kindness to, or forget to be grateful for all that I have lest I spend too long focused on what I don't have.

Let me not be too scared of loving deeply and unconditionally, or too self indulgent that I lose sight of myself and all that I strive to be. Let me not assume that something that needs to be said or done will be done by someone else, let me not put off till tomorrow what I can do today. Let me not forgot all the reasons I became a teacher in the first place, let me not forgot that I know the system fails our students but that doesn't mean I have to.

Instead, let me make art and pour my soul onto paper, let me spread kindness and empathy wherever I go, let me love boldly and bravely, let me be raw and honest and true in my actions, intentions and decisions. Let me never hold a grudge or forget the importance of forgiveness. Let me believe in myself and my own capacities to look at life in such a way that I smile with joy in my heart in the face of tribulations and know that come what may I will be okay. Let me do what I can do show how deeply I care and love those in my life knowing that actions speak louder than words. Let me hug knowing it heals and never miss an opportunity to risk it all for love.

Thoughts on a Sunday

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"

When we awake in the morning, the sun streaming through the window and gently kissing our face let us make sure to take time for ourselves and start the day off right. It's easier said than done but I'm learning the importance of living in a such a way that I do not worry about that which I have no control. Sometimes people live like life is guaranteed. It can end any minute, so we need to slow down, and breathe, and most importantly love. I am taking time to contemplate life. To learn and explore magnificent truths. I believe if you truly seek with your heart answers and truths, you will find it. It might not be as you expected, or as you had hoped, but you will find what it is your searching for, that road though can be scary. Finding time to seek peace and solitude is vital, but that also means confronting ourself, our thoughts and hearts. Which isn't easy, but nothing worth persuing ever is. I am aiming to stand firm in what I want and need, growing and developing my sense of self and will and using awareness to not allow other energies and negativities to affect me. 

I believe there are only two true human emotions; Love and Fear. And I choose love over fear, always. Every decision and action comes from these emotions, we respond to this world with love and fear. And it's always a choice. It is one thing to be scared, it's another to not act, to not choose, to live frozen for the fear of the choice. That's not living. Do not let fear swindle your mind and leave you consumed, forgetting to live and be in awe of the mystery and beauty still left in this place. Open yourself up to experience life in all that it is offering you. Do not be seduced however by the illusion on offer that you'll miss out if you take a risk on what's in front of you, for in doing so you'll risk losing what is already here. 

Take care of yourself, feed your body well, and your mind with books that challenge and enrich you. Surround yourself with people who are true, and evolving, who love you and confront you, who make you think and feel and laugh. Hold out for a love that it friendship set on fire, and don't be affraid to jump in, there will never be a moment where you are 100 percent ready and sure. Life is too delicate and unsure to wait for the perfect time to take a risk, it won't ever come and if it did, it wouldn't be a risk. But wow, oh wow the power and freedom that comes with vulnerability and the hope of something real when you let go in the hopes of flying. 

Let us not become lost in our phones and screens, and let life pass on by. There is so much fakeness in this world, fake relationships, and fake faces, that are covered in plastered paints and make up, put forward in the hopes of covering up our humanity and flaws. I want rawness because I find there is something profoundly beautiful in someone being unapologetically them-self, aware of the messiness of life and the parts of themselves they don't like and the parts they do, with rawness comes honesty and vulnerability but  an attitude that says I don't give a shit, I am not going to apologise for what and who I am, and what and who I am not.

Let us leave behind us a legacy of love, of rawness and wisdom. Let us breath in deep, jump and take risks. Let us try the things that scare us and choose love over fear. Always. Life is too precious and short to live in such a way that reveals a heart that is too affraid of the what ifs, fight for what you want till there is nothing left to fight for. Hold your head up high and do not let anyone treat you as if you are not worthy of joy and love. Do not let the people in your life walk away without having explored the uncharted territories of friendship and deep encompassing love that comes only when we throw our fear to the side and hope that the risk of bearing our souls will be worth it. If you find that it's not, don't let it make you cold and bitter, be grateful for the courage to have tried and know then that you'll not have to look back in regret for having given love a fighting chance. 

Hug your friends and family, tell them you love them, and love yourself. 

Enjoy your Sunday.

du fehlst mir

It’s been a while since I have put my thoughts coherently down on paper, or in this case the key board, but it’s been brought to my attention that I’ve not posted or even in fact written a blog or any piece of writing other than school reports and to do lists since I wrote my final words to Catherine. Not for lack of things to say, or antidotes to document but mostly because being an adult is tiresome work sometimes and I struggled to justify spending hours writing when there was still 3 loads of washing to do. However, this evening, my heart was too full, too sad, too angry, too happy, too excited, too grateful and too hurt to not. So here I am, snuggled up in bed on a Friday night, sipping tea and spilling out words that my heart and soul cannot hold in anymore through bleary eyes and a runny nose.

It has been 365 days that this world has spun madly on without our Catherine here to spin right along with it. It seems incomprehensible to me, that life has changed and evolved, that I have changed and evolved, and these things have happened without regard for the fact that Catherine wasn’t here to be part of that. She should have been here, I should have heard about all the things she had done, made, said, been, all the things that pissed her off, made her laugh, cry, smile, hurt and love. But sometimes life is cruel, and makes you mad, I have such inexpressible respect and admiration for Catherine’s family, particularly her mum, Kez who despite loss and hardship, pain and grief, smiles and gives and loves with such grace that I am left in awe.

 I, however in this moment am struggling to piece together and accept that this really isn’t some cruel joke, or that Catherine just took a hiatus and went walkabout for a year only to bound back through the door and into our lives the way she would into my room every day in our tiny little flat way back when. I see her photo every day and most days I looked at her smiling face and my heart swells with love for a friend who never once made me question my value or place in her life, grateful that I got her for a short time. I still get mad though, that she was taken from us, though I guess she never really belonged to us anyway, just borrowed to make life all the more…insert positive adjective here… She always made one feel like they were her best friend, that she was their biggest fan, and she didn’t make just one person feel like that, she made every person that was in her life feel like that, and I was one of those lucky people who somehow managed to find a way into that beautiful, giving and loving heart.

I have come to know and understand that you can decorate absence and fill in the empty spaces left by someone who has since physically left this place, you can busy yourself and get on with the doing and the being that is life, but you’re still going to feel what’s missing, you can’t eliminate that with busyness and things. I am well acquainted with the missing, I have said goodbye to a lot of hearts and faces that hold such a dear place in my heart, but there has always been a comfort knowing that these hearts and souls are still here in this place, just somewhere else. However, coming to terms with the fact that I am left with nothing but memories, with no chance of creating more, pains my heart greatly. I am in this moment smiling through tears knowing that the memories Catherine has left me with will stretch into forever and that she gave me enough that I’ll never be short of memories of moments and smiles and hugs and tears shared over hottie C’s or a viewing of any number of ridiculously awesome chick flicks. But that doesn’t stop the pain creeping in, the overwhelming grief that strikes unexpectedly and then again not so unexpectedly in moments like this. I miss her dearly, I see something that reminds me of her, or that I think she would like, or appreciate, or even just someone wearing purple and I find myself pulling out the phone to message her…even still. In german there is a phrase, “du fehlst mir” which translates roughly to “you are missing from me” – I love this, I feel like it communicates far better what my heart feels than simply “I miss you”.

I have found myself at times overcome by a searing pain that thankfully never lasts long but leaves me breathless and broken, my heart strewn across the floor. I cry, and then remember that I am not alone in this, there are so many other people in this world whose lives were altered and changed for the better for having known someone as selfless and beautiful as Catherine. It makes the world a little less scary and the grief a little more bearable.

At lot has changed in this past year since Catherine left this gaping hole in this place, and I just need to take a moment to write a few things down, things I would have shared with her, wanted to share with her, intended too until reality shook me back reminding me that no one is going to pick up the phone if I call. So…

My darling!

How are you? Tell me what’s been going on? How’s your life? How is your heart? Full and happy I hope. A lot has changed this past year, so much has happened, and yet it seems to me that it was only yesterday we were sitting on your bed, you in a pair of pj’s 3 sizes to big sharing stories of boys, and work and life. I cannot believe it has been a year! Oh how the time flies and makes me feel incredibly old to have lived long enough to say things like “oh how the time flies”. Work is good these days, better than that actually, I love it, I love my job, it’s kept me insanely busy and stolen all of my terrible tv time (which is in fact not a bad thing at all).

I have started a new extension art program at school, working with a beautiful group of students who are so passionate and vibrant, there is one that reminds me of you actually. She looks at the world in a way that I seldom see in anyone else. I had to propose this idea initially to the principal, and then to the director! Big deal I know! I was most concerned about saying fuck out of excitement and enthusiasm than I was anything else, but thankfully managed to contain myself long enough to present my idea and have the director share in my enthusiasm and vision! Oh you would love our plans! I cannot wait till “Arts in the park” to see what wonders these students create. I would have loved for you to come and do a tutorial with them; we will be using your silk screens this term. I am apprehensive, but my students know that your mum gave them to me and therefore how important they are to me. I think they are actually rather chuffed that I trust them enough to let them use them, your creative legacy is living on through these students.

I am living in Concord now, half a kilometre from the bay, its beautiful! I’ve just recently discovered that now that my bed is by the window I can climb out and onto the roof to watch the sunset. I did struggle the other day though, climbing out was fine, but it seems skinny jeans significantly reduce flexibility and movement when one must climb back through a window while avoiding falling from a second story building. It would have indeed been quite the sight to see my butt and feet dangling out the window as I face planted the bed. But other than that I love this place, oh oh oh and the walk in robe! You’d love it, and I am sure, have much to say about all my unhemmed jeans!

The other significant happening in my life since you’ve been gone is that I fell in love. Actually in all fairness, you kinda called this long before I realised what was happening. Which of course was a natural talent of yours, making claims and accusations about those whom I had “crushes” on well and truly before I caught up. But here it is, that boy I talked your ear off about, the one I told you had shaken everything up, the one I sat gushing over like a 16 year old school girl on your bed a week before you left us here, well, that boy, he captured my heart, and I love him and guess what…he loves me back! It took a while for me to realise as most things of this nature usually do, we can all be a bit daft when it comes to love. It took him leaving, the goodbye and the thought of him with someone else and several failed attempts at dating for me to really understand that all along my heart had in fact been his. It is strange and wonderful thing, terrifying and freeing and I really miss being able to share all the ridiculously cheesy lovey dovey shit that comes with that (that often makes me vomit a little in my mouth at times) with you. You’d like him, he is vibrant and loud, passionate and kind, intelligent and thoughtful, I can just imagine you too getting into heated arguments about films using big words that average folk have never heard before, he is one of the only people I know that could probably challenge you in your vocabulary (despite English being his second language) and knowledge of all types of movies. I've also taken to referring to him as turd, that word - turd - holds such endearment because of you Catherine. He drives me crazy at times, but in a way that makes me miss him.

He is still far away; in fact it has been almost a year since I have seen him as well. Though unlike you, I get to see his face again soon, very soon in fact. I am getting on a plane and flying to LA in the school holidays. It’s not always been easy, but as you and I would often discuss, it’s not the things we do that we regret the most but the things we don’t, the things we are too scared to do, too sacred to say…and once I realised that I loved him, I knew that if I didn’t somehow work out a way to see him again, then I would forever look back on this and wonder. What. If. On their own, those words do not scare me at all, but together, the thought would haunt me, and I don’t want to be asking myself that in 20 year’s time. And so, I am throwing caution to the wind, without fear of the future or the unknown, I have no idea what is to come and I am ok with that.  I am learning to live in the moment, enjoying this time and refusing to worry about what is to come, what obstacles I may encounter,  consciously choosing to focus on this, the right here, the right now, this life.

 I am so happy and excited my love, life is full and more than I could have imagined right now, but there is and always will be a Catherine shaped hole in my life. Thankfully the space you occupied in my heart is still filled to the brim, in fact overflowing with memories and love for all that you were, stood for and will forever remain. I miss you my dear friend, say Hi to your dad for me, I’ll be sure to hunt down Banksy works in LA for you.

Love Lori.