Ever rediscover something you loved or habitually did or liked many years ago suddenly out of nowhere? And then realise you love it just the same and forget any time passed between you leaving or stopping your hobby or liking or whatever your fancy was and you fall right back into a kind of nostalgic obsession?
I've got the way about YouTube lately, or I should say, someone I used to always watch and listen too on there. She is a early 30s, conservative, anti-feminist home maker and she has a lot of forth-right alternative opinions, I see her as a kind of tonic to the liberal la la land I feel I'm living in at the moment. Anyway, I used to always watch her in-between everyday life, she never posted much and had very little videos when I first found her channel but I hadn't searched for anything from her for years until yesterday. I don't know why, she just popped right up into my memory and I had to see if she was still on there and low and behold, she now has a pretty huge following and plenty of videos so I just had to watch as many as I could in-between ironing and B napping. Addicted. It sounds sad doesn't it but, listening to her makes me feel a little bit less alone in my kind of, way I chose to live my life and the way I think. I know no one where I live or where I have lived that think like myself or my husband. I sometimes wish I had a female friend like her. Someone I really connected too on a deep level of mutual understanding. I'm not saying we have to be the same or like the same things but, the core principles of us and the energy with which we attack life, it would be nice I guess, to share in that with another woman. I find it in plenty of men but never women. Not round here, anyway.
Sometimes when I'm drifting off to sleep at night I imagine this idealised version of small town America in the deep south. Somewhere quiet and quaint and friendly, full of old passed down traditions. Never really changing. Letting the modern, rushed world happen somewhere "out there" and letting it all be of no concern or thought to this little piece of prairie America. Women creating a community while the men go off to work, children running freely between houses, playing in the woods, going in and out of neighbours houses. Women popping in for coffee and pie in each others kitchenettes. Women wearing cooking aprons during the day, everyone busy but there's a beautifully slow pace to everything. Dive bars lit up at night. Men wearing cowboy hats. Jeans. House dresses. It sends me off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Women are too busy working their fingers to the bone climbing the corporate ladder to form town and street communities now. I feel it's part of a breakdown in modern society. They used to be the ones doing the bake sales, organising Halloween walks through the park, cutting the grass out the front and saying good morning to everyone passing by. They used to be involved in their children's school, the yard sales, the charity events, street Christmas gatherings hosted in a different house each year, etc. Now, nothing. Streets are like ghost streets, you never see anyone come or go. The only light on a night to be seen in peoples living rooms is the bright, white flickering of their TVs. Depressing.
In this house, in my house; out there, it might be 2018, but in here, it's 1954, and there's no TV in this house, and I have jazz quietly playing in the lounge and it drifts out up echoing all around the hall, it bounces off the wooden flooring. Even on a rainy day, people can be rushing by, but there is a heavenly calm in this house. A calm and history of this being a home again and again and again you only get after these bricks, mortar, detailed ceilings, have been through 150 years. All the knowledge wrapped up inside this house. If these walls could talk? That's what I often think about as well. This house has an atmosphere. It's more than a home. The air is even different in here. You'd know what I'd mean if you could be here, it makes no sense written down, words can't explain it, but no one ever wants to leave once they come in.
Which brings me back to my YouTube maiden of tradition gone - and something that stood out to me, it was if I were her and she was speaking as me! She said the exact same thing I would say. One of her videos was, someone had sent in a question and asked her who her favourite female fiction character was and she said, "Mortisha Adams". Now, I couldn't agree more. She is mine! But it's not just she admires the same character as me, it was her reason behind choosing her, which is exxxxxaaactly the same reason as mine. Which was - this lady couldn't give a fig what anyone else thinks of them. They live life exactly how they want to live it. They're different from everyone else around them. They're weird, kooky. She's gothically beautiful, timelessly elegant, always put together. She is a fantastic mother, she is a mother her own way. She is a fantastic wife. And most of all, her and Gomez are a complete team. A passionate, heady team and they love each other more than anything. What a combination. Everything I admire.
Not that I am this gothic ethereal thing, HA! But, The Adams Family remind me of, well, me and my husband. Big old house, kooky, modern world out there, it's a different time zone inside, our house is full of antiques and, everyone kind of thinks we're crazy! But we do things our own way and have our own opinions. And we are truly a family now, with our little son.
It's strange, I'm not religious at all, I don't even know if I would class myself as "spiritual" or whatever but, I don't believe in signs from the divine or anything like that but lately, everything seems to be pointing towards one thing.
Lately, we've been struggling a smidge with finances.
I'm not about to get out the violin or anything, things are overall fine - it's a cash flow problem. We are asset rich but, we have a cash flow problem. I realise how pretentious that sounds, it sounds like a rich persons problem of basically saying they're maybe temporarily a bit broke. It's true though.
I look young for my age. I'm 28. Everyone thinks I'm younger. I have rosy cheeks, I'm flat chested, I just look young, and I drive a car worth more than some peoples house. This is a fairly new thing. I always dreamed secretly of driving a really nice car. So you say, my dreams have come true, how does it feel?
Well, when you're driving this car and you're also worrying about budgeting, you feel like an a*****e, you really do. And on top of that, everyone looks at you in it. Then, everyone looks at you when you get OUT of it. And everyone especially looks at you when you get out of it because you look young and they expect an old man to be getting out of it I guess. Oh yeah, BOO HOO, woe is me it's terrible, but I'm saying that it's a weird thing. I thought I would enjoy it more but frankly, I'm just always painfully embarrassed.
I park it way, way away. I love driving at night because no one can see me. I feel like I should be apologising constantly for having it, for driving it. I never mention it to anyone I know. I never say what we drive, I never discuss cars, nothing. I'd rather no one knew. It makes me feel like a d**k. It's not a high performance sports car or anything, we have a baby but, y'know, I've realised I don't like a certain type of attention. I'll never be ostentatious. Now I realise that. If you have the luxury to be ostentatious, if really does say a lot to me whether you choose to be that way or not. It's not a bad or a good thing in my opinion but, lets just say I know that is not what I am.
And I am part French I found out. Explains having no . No , boyish way about me, gap between my two front teeth, likes a neck scarf, likes a crisp shirt, never gets too overdressed for an occasion, always wears lipstick but never much other make-up, skinny, hates long nails. I am ticking the French boxes here. But I hate wine! HA! My Grandma explained to me it's her side of the family. They have a French surname I should've known but I never thought about it. It's strange because the first time I met D, one of the first things he said to me is, "You look French." And when I worked at the cocktail bar I met him at, all my colleges used to call me "Frenchie"! Ha! Is that an insult or a compliment, I really don't know. But back to the other train of thought... I'm all over.
All over, and yes. Pointing towards.
Pointing towards... my husband loves boxing. We watched the Tyson Fury fight last week. We both love the boxing. He used to box. Anyway, what a lesson, what a lesson in... getting up. Just get up. That's what everything has been pointing towards lately. Just get up. Lo, you've been feeling down. Money issues. Tired. You want another baby. You feel greedy and guilty for wanting another. You've been in a bit of a lull, mentally. I've felt alone. On an island inside my head. No one understands me but D. I'll never have a real friend. But, just get up. Look around you.
This guy was knocked down for the second time, 12th round. He got back up like it was nothing. Was sparked out cold. No one facing Wilder has ever got up from one of his punches. This is the Irish for you. Hard as nails. What a lesson for life. Get your ass up, stand straight and fight again. Get up and fight. Don't let anyone knock you down.
I love the natural world. I caught myself watching this programme, David Attenborough's "Dynasties". This group of chimps, the alpha male. Wow. It makes you realise. The alpha, he's not just strong and tough as f**k, this guy is smart. I mean smart. He plays them, politically, all of them. And he gets turned on and beat up badly, nearly dead, they thought he was dead, it's ruthless. They leave him for dead, he bides his time, he eats, gets strong, and then pretends he's as strong as ever. He bluffs them all. He wins. He's back in, running the group and then he shows those back stabbers who is boss again but ultimately lets them live, forgives them but doesn't forget. What a story. What a life story. Again, get up, get back up.
You must get back up. It's what separates people going somewhere and doing something. Get up and stop being concealed by your worries.
When I sometimes get a little down, or get a little negative, I have to look around at what I've got and pinch myself. I look in my son's eyes and I feel an amount of love that is, physically, painful to me. He hurts me. His love makes my heart ache with joy. Sometimes, I feel like crying tears of happiness. How can anything be truly wrong when you can look at someone and feel that. To have D in bed with me on a night and my son sleeping in his nursery is heaven on earth. It's heaven on this earth.
And no matter what car I drive, if I drove one at all, no matter this house, in all its old, elegant, timeless glory. I don't care. Because I am not living for myself anymore.
The moment I said "I do", the moment he was in my arms, not a couple of seconds old, I stopped living for me. Life is sometimes hard, but also life is sometimes profoundly, unspeakably beautiful, and I know before I die, whenever that may be, I will not have a second of regret, because I experienced true love.
My father loves Nat King Cole. There is something about Nat King Cole that will always remind me of him.
One of my favourite songs, because of his influence and love for the singer, is also one of the most beautiful and wise lyrically to me. If you've ever heard it, I defy you not to feel like you have been transported to another heavenly plane. When I was young, I felt I understood it. Now in my late 20s, I feel I am only just starting to really understand.
'Nature Boy'
There was a boy
A very strange, enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far, over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he
And then one day
One magic day he passed my way
While we spoke of many things
Fools and Kings
This he said to me:
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
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