mind you
  • on the mind
  • About

4/11/2022

On the shelf

Read Now
 
Picture

​The young couple walking ahead to baggage claim looked about twenty-three. He perambulated with a buoyant swagger and flexuous honeyed Hugh Grant hair; wearing a slim-fit suede suit jacket over a navy shirt with the buttons open down his chest and black straight jeans that stopped just above his platformed leather brogues. The sort of self-aware command of a public space befitting of a University band boy circa 2018. A warm and insouciant looking girl bounced alongside him, flirting in a language that was apparently only to be interpreted by them. Her oversized brown coat slinking off one shoulder, forced to join her sneaker-bearing feet by the gravitational pull of a full and slouchy canvas bag. He reached out a hand and ruffled the back of her head in affection as they walked. I observed them for a while. Then, as if by access to some outer-body vantage point, felt confronted by my own banality. I felt simultaneously critical of their casually flaunted naivety and wildly covetous that it was one no longer belonging to me these five years later…The years when you had so much spare energy to put into outwardly projecting your creativity and hipness. When synchronising your recent op-shop finds was front of mind, and having a nebulous and detached life schedule was an attribution of success. The scope of my worldview feels as though it’s been shrunk in the wash like a wooly sock, and my comprehension of that blissfully simplistic form of youth etiolated by excel spreadsheets and automated meeting requests.


I often can’t find the right box in my head to file the plaguing questions of adult life at the moment. I’ve been learning to live inside the push-pull of the common narrative that says “it’s good to have financial security in these times”, which fuels the drive to buckle in to a flight path you don’t feel particularly fulfilled by - Yet, knowing that the things in your life you usually rely upon to feel secure are seemingly harder to find now. Knowing that people out there have but a sliver of it, and would literally die for the anaesthetising monotony of a steady routine.

A few weeks ago I unnecessarily deleted a priceless piece of personal time-travel audio, all for the sake of having a swift and efficiently manageable email recycle bin.
I had found an 8 minute voice memo, recorded on the fourth of January 2020, before the world changed and navigating Covid was the prevailing thought / concern / contingency plan. It was me rattling off a ‘list’ for myself, in total candour and innocence and idealism. Plans for my career, the years ahead, where to take my ambitions and interests. Who people in the current frame of reference could possibly be to me: Maybe I will go back to Greece with Consider journal this year? Were my various mentors right, should I go back to study? But then I might just come out with a piece of paper and be another aspiring writer amongst the masses trying to make it... Maybe I should just publish a little book of my own?
One thing I kept coming back to was this constant press to write scripts. To get more into literature as a craft, not just writing my usual long-winded and subjective monologues for cafe tables. To be more intentional and research based….To transcribe! Everyday dialogue. Witty remarks. Polished come-backs. “People are just so fascinating to me.”
It was so light, unimpeded and full of possible energy. Now I have similar thoughts and plans but they will never again be rendered through such a naive pre-pandemic tone. Oh to hear my own voice speaking of my very own reality in a time that was more credulous than this current one. Before I vetted everything I said, buffered it to not sound too certain or idealistic, knowing we are now living inside history and perhaps some future generation will pick it up to gather some accurate truth about how it was to live in 2020/21/22. This switch I can’t flick off. The haunting weight of overthinking and auditing every inkling to make sure it doesn't land me embarrassed or disappointed if it doesn’t pan out.





Share


Comments are closed.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • on the mind
  • About