demolition

Jesus, when do I finish?

Since Friday I've started drinking again, had several heart to hearts, discovered two beautiful new songs, realised what I want to do with my life, had two adventures in Founders, found intellectual motivation for the first time in months, slept, not slept, sat an exam, completely and utterly lost my faith and then found it again.

I'll work through it.

Giving up Lent and giving up Christianity happened pretty much simultaneously. Friday was not a great day, I was pissed off about the insignificant things so did what I usually do and folded myself into bed with some sad music on. Somehow or other, my WMP playlists were irrevocably fucked up when I downloaded Napster and so I'm never entirely sure what's gonna come on.

In bed, on comes Obsession by Delirious. This is one of my favourite songs, hands down. Aside from being a simply awesome song, it's been the soundtrack to many a defining spiritual moment for me. Including this one. The lights are off, it's nice and dark. I'm in a shit place. Delirious are playing. Perhaps I'll pray?

Jesus. There's no one listening.

What?

I give up, and it's a poetic moment. I take the cross down from above my bed, and pour myself a gin because I'm a drama girl at heart and I love that kind of symbolism.

Talk about formative statements, 'I bequeath you', 'I bet you', 'I name this ship'... Things that don't just say, they do. I say, I'm not gonna do this anymore, and suddenly the whole thing is over. What to do but run off to Founders with the marra and drink some gin under the stairs? What else can you do?

One day I'll explain it properly, exactly why I thought I'd jack it in, exactly why I decided not to. I had to leave church on Sunday, singing worship songs was like the first time you hear 'your song' on the radio after a breakup. I walked out, then ran, and kept going til I didn't know where I was. I stopped for a while, then turned around and walked back the way I came, down the footpaths and back into church.

I'm starting to realise that God is like heroin. There will never be a last hit for me, and sometimes it pisses me off. Actually a lot of the time it pisses me off. I'm strong enough to walk out of church, to say fuck it and run away, but I'm not stupid enough to forget that that's giving up the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm not strong enough to stay away. I don't care.


*****

Heart to hearts then, under the statue of Victoria on the North quad, at opposite ends of my kitchen table, over the phone and on the floor of church. A high-five, an understanding that left my palms sore, a JD and Coke to melt your eyeballs.

Beautiful new songs then: a cover of Wonderwall by Ryan Adams and First Day of my Life by Bright Eyes. Mmm.

The rest of my life then, investigative journalism and filmmaking. I want to write, will always write, I want a camera, I want to shout louder. Someone says, why don't you take time to report the good things in the world instead of the bad? Because the bad things we think we know aren't really the worst. Should I devote myself to making the West feel better?

Adventures in Founders, discovering some of its secrets, namely: the beercan mountain, the secret library ghostmaker, monument to Fat Barry, mysterious windows into the dining hall and the quickest way to get to the Nice Green Carpet.

Intellectual motivation. Reading books and liking them, wanting to immerse myself in something, wanting to find something. Wanting a PhD and to know what I'm chatting about. Wanting to chat about stuff that matters.

And an exam, in what's apparently one of the finest drama departments in the country, in which we don't have desks and I end up writing on a piece of plastic balanced on my knee and I see someone else with her paper flattened on her lap.

Sigh.

They also demolished the majority of Cameron hall this weekend, and cut off the internet to our block this weekend, meaning that finally, finally the view from my window is something other than deserted halls and I haven't been able to blog about any of this.

The most reassuring thing about a demolition site in a university campus, even when the rubble's hitting the floor so loudly that your bed's shaking, is to know that someone, somewhere is writing a poem or acrostic about destruction.

Down goes Cameron
Erudite and
Strong...

I won't pretend I haven't noticed the poetry in Cameron falling and me being able to see the sky from my bedroom again. I just haven't gotten around to writing a haiku or limeric about it yet.

Pictures of the fun as soon as I can get them. Something that makes sense as soon as I can write it.