Autumn 2024, Falling in love with the world around me

January 22, 2025

Autumn 2024, Falling in love with the world around me

Welcome welcome, ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)

This is the Autumn wrap-up,

My second autumn of the year was as beautiful as the first, the colours of red and orange permeating my journey out and home have brought a sense of fun.

highlights

- get outside you rat !

- Disclaimer - I have become obnoxious and started writing poems

- Balance and the never-ending chase

- I have formed a new philosphy for myself on life love and god

September

Wow wow wow my friends are all so smart and cool

Blue marble

Some of the beautiful residents in Leeds have taken it upon themselves to learn how to compost. As part of our dearly devolved democracy city, counsellors have been awarded the power to decide what happens to our waste. Landfill, recycling, compost. Growing up in Cambridgeshire with her Black general waste, blue recycling and green compost bins granted me the naiveté that when waste left my sight it was being used in the next stage of its life. What a big fat lie. My new home of West Yorkshire boasts no such claims of 'reduce, reuse and recycle'. An adage, I incorrectly thought was universal within this island. We have a recycling bin that is occasionally emptied and generally misused by the neighbours and NO GREEN WASTE BIN.

The people of Blue Marble have taken it upon themselves to learn how to compost (which is the difference between food waste being of use to plants and going mouldy), and teach their friends about it.

This has started a new routine in my house, of filling trundle (the name of out counter top bin) and putting her into mamma trundle, adding some inoculated bran. Repeating until mamma trundle and then let her brew for 2 weeks before her journey to the outside world, of the outdoor compost bin.

A New friend made through a sticker

Those reading may have used the iphone sticker feature, and like myself, spineless in their consumerism of big Mr. Apple. In which, one holds down an image within the Camera roll and using the phone's powers of deduction, the image of a person is outlined as a wee sticker. Which can then be migrated to one's text threads a reaction in place of a gif or meme.

Now that we are all caught up. You can also utilise this technique after maximising the exposure and contrast and sucking out any image the phone is able to find.

Dinner in my house is something to be shared, with each other and with new and old friends. Anna had invited her friend Callum. Together we enjoyed and manipulation of different shapes and patterns and in their isolation, this allowed for the creation of some of the images that lay before you…

As a first interaction goes, sending digital stickers is maybe not the most common.

Words, that people in my life said

In my birthday car my Dad wrote “Relax, stay fit and enjoy the journey.” it makes it all sound pretty simple from this perspective. Health gives us freedom.

When talking about much of the music that soundtracked much of my college (end of high school) listening, Kofi Stone's It's Ok to Cry ft Loyle Carner came on. My friend Cas said “It's ok to cry, great tune listened to it many times, relatable in some ways as I'm a man who was socialised in the society we live in”. For those curious to what 17yr old Zanna listened to - lausse the cat, loyel carner, Amalia, joria smith, 2nd exit, verb t - to name a few.

When looking at the sun set with rose they said "I honestly think, the reason we are here is just to be in awe of the world around us". There is so much beauty around us, how can we possibly forget.

Zanna is not in Kansas anymore, in Leeds, one has to lock the door

Dead cells and the power they hold

A little thing we call our own.

Part of us but also not part of us,

Alive with movement - but also dead,

The one that grows on our head,

A symbol of power.

A symbol of fertility.

of femineity?

A part of one's identity perhaps?

What if I were to remove your curls,

to pull them straight and prevent their wiggles,

that wouldn't be very you, would it?

'Perfect-body, blue-eyed, blondie',

bleach and an Aryan beauty standard.

No longer do I lighten my locks -

And yet, in the halt of these ghastly chemicals,

From the very utmost top, front and centre,

little white hairs have begun to sprout,

A vision of my mother in myself, who went grey at 25

Though still in my brunette years,

I look forward to what the grey ones will hold.

Something I routinely remove,

An internal change is being brought to the surface as an external one.

An actualisation of the inner to the outer,

through the shedding, the removal of dead cells.

Snip snip here and cut cut there.

"hmmmmmm that wasn't even… maybe just a little off the other side,

Maybe a little more"

And hopefully the back looks okay…

A moment of meditative control,

Of concentration and expectation.

Surrounded by darkness, just the kitchen light, and my reflection -

Except -

eyes. a camera.

They punish the door for their exclusion.

My ritual interrupted and stolen by a stranger,

An attempted humiliation of body,

Skin and bra flecked with a scatter of newly departed hair,

Do you get off on that big boy?

Hair holds memory,

Emotion,

Identity.

Does mine hold this memory of you?

I sit, and wait, for length to grow,

Shedding, removal, it will be mine again,

until then I hold this sensation, of your desire to steal from me.

"It's time" I'll say,

No longer in the kitchen,

No longer in the dark,

I'll sit in the yard, scissors in hand, facing the open street.

October

Food highlights

- Allotment apple crumble

- Veganism is worming her back in a big way in my wee life, or maybe Freeganism as I am now someone who eats food from supermarket bins #thankyouwaitrose #foodwaste

music

- I saw people in a Mosh pit at a jazz gig

- Visualising how music can be like bobbing on a wave, your toes touching the shore, sometimes you can rise with the flow of movement and other times you succumb to it, for better or for worse

- I used to walk home from uni through the park listening to music, however, now as a cyclist I am too fearful of the crazy drivers to trust them without my hearing. I really miss my routine on the way home.

Album rec

- the Olympians by the Olympians

- The head hurts but the heart knows the truth by Headache and Vegyn

- Go forward in the courage of your love by Alabaster Deplume

Song rec

- my guitar is too loud by black sea dahl

My most wonderful and funny Silvi in Leeds and Yorkshire

On the wagon

‘Off the wagon’. Where does this expression come from? Has someone fallen, was the wagon in motion? I argue that by expressing one can be ‘off the wagon’ the statement presents a new state of being. ‘Off’ implies there is an ‘on the wagon’. This therefore positions the previous state of ‘on the wagon’ as the norm. But is it?

In my wee reading it seems, during the American temperance movement men would climb upon water wagons and publicly dispel their previous flirtations with alcohol. Therefore, proudly claiming their reformation in sobriety, with the newfound discovery of the deliciousness of water. To be ‘on the wagon’ was to be sober, and ‘off’ was to be in consumption. Therefore, colloquially ‘off the wagon’ was to drink again after a period of abstinence (Augst, 2007; Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2024).

Therefore, to be ‘off the wagon’ one must have had a previous relationship with alcohol, a break up and then a getting back together again. One who has never touched a drop cannot presumably be ‘on the wagon’, having never had to give it up.

All this being said, as someone who has definitely touched a drop, I am currently ‘on the wagon’.

As some of you may know, twice in my adult life, I have not drank alcohol for the month of October. These experiences have been grounding, hard, cleansing, communicative and enriching. One of the biggest (and smallest) things I have learnt is having a beverage in your hand allows you to feel a part of the social setting, and relieves others of the desire to get you a drink. Rejecting a friends outstretched-beer-holding-hand, and responding ‘no thanks, I'm not drinking’, has always left me feeling a bit funny. But why? Is it shameful to not want alcohol in any given moment? Do I have the desperate desire to be approved of by every person offering me a bev, smashing off the cap, downing the thing and asking for another, to be seen as one of the lads? Perhaps not.

I enjoy knowing other people whom live differently from myself and challenge my own beliefs and world view. So why would I fear a friend seeing me as different from themselves? I think my hesitation, comes not from a shame of my own experiences and desires, but a want for connection. We give another an offering and hope it shall be accepted. The breaking of bread, the sharing of a beer - are to some degree one and the same. This prevention of connection I feel most at miss with, the hospitable offer being rejected. Solution, have a drink in hand, juice, 0% Guinness, ginger beer, coke - no one bats an eye. Unashamed, included and hydrated.

This September, my 23rd birthday came. For one of my celebrations, I had a dinner party in my new place in Leeds. Beautiful friends came with gifts, food and drink. Beer, bubbles and fermented grape juice were enjoyed. And, in all honesty, not enjoyed. The fuzzy tingly feeling I had so often possessed, the fluidity and flow, the reverb and slow, the lucidity of the body. Was instead met with the funk, the confusion, the disconnect between mind and mouth, the wishy-washy-sloshy feeling of 'what was I just saying?'. This did not make a guy feel good. At the end of the day, it's a god damn depressant for a reason. Birthdays are unsurprisingly an emotional time - the open secret of crying on your birthday. Maybe this played a roll in the disillusion of my feelings towards alcohol. The next day and then the next couple of days, I didn't feel like drinking. Disinterest for the drink but this time without a deadline. First dates, dinners, seeing old friends, pub trips, parties and post-climb pints - none of these parts of my everyday life have I felt so inclined. This is so, so different from my past Octobers when I had a constant mental countdown. There was always a date of my supposed freedom. It's strange, or new, or not strange at all ? Many, many people have started and stopped and started and stopped and started and stopped drinking in the past. Am I adding any new knowledge and wisdom to this conversation, most likely not. However, it is something seemingly improving my daily life. Knowing, I could drink tomorrow, but not feeling a desire to is crazy fucking freeing.

‘Off the wagon’, ‘off’ implies there is an ‘on the wagon’. By expressing the new state of being ‘off’, ‘on’ is positioned as the norm. Though I am ‘on the wagon’, in Uk student culture it is most definitely not the norm.

Augst, T. 2007. Temperance, Mass Culture, and the Romance of Experience. American Literary History, 19(2), pp.297-323.

Online Etymology Dictionary. [Online]. 2001–2024. s.v. Wagon. [Accessed 2 November 2024]. Available from https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=on+the+wagon

Thinking about how much time social media has sucked up from our generation in response to this quote.

"it costs you virtually nothing to continue consuming content. Just your 20s, just your young adult life."

If you can't work out what they are selling you're the product.

November

Finally, and most importantly, in November, I went on what can only be described as a spiritual bender. Thank you to my wisest friend Rose whose lexicon has helped me define this period.

I spoke to a woman called Hilary at the Cambridge Quaker meeting house after worship. We spoke about how God is love and love is god and she recommended me the following poem. On the bus back up to Leeds I listened to this album and the writing on the cover said 'Go forward in the courage of your love' - alabaster deplume, gold album. I believe in love and so maybe I do believe in god. Not a being, not definable, not conscious, not a big man sitting in the sky who watches me on the toilet. But this force within us holding the universe in alignment.

Love (III) By George Herbert

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

Something I wrote about Love and death and learning how to breathe, maybe for the first time.

god is love and love is god and love is in me

God is love, love is god. Is that what fills me? This glow, this bubble, fizz, air, water, fire, life, light? Is that the energy that sits within me? Or rather runs within me - because god knows she's not sitting still. There is no stillness within, hard as I try I cannot wrangle her into rest. Cannot or will not, I don’t know. It can be a beautiful thing to let the butterfly wings flutter. Or maybe it's not a flutter but a swarm. Moving about my body, indescribable, big and strong and hard to hold. Will you help me hold it? Does it need to be held? Do I need to be held? It all feels ready to flood out of me, or at least it's trying to. It's on the surface, in the rosy of my cheeks, and the tip of my nose, and the taste on my lips. Overwhelmed, filled and overflowing. The ocean too is beautiful but also so strong, too strong? Is this feeling too strong. Is it god that fills me? I've never felt this before. I didn't feel anything for a while. Too deep below the surface. Numb. Awake and needing to be awoken. Alive and not living - as they say. I was in shadow for so long, too long, too unbearably long. But now the dawn has broken and it's so damn hot and bright. I'm still learning - can I sit in all this light? How do I not get burnt?

‘Life gave me love and I made life out of it,

my head hurts but my heart knows the truth,

I’ve remembered how to laugh again’

I wonder if there is only so much one can know. Have I reached my limit? If I learn more about love will I forget my 4 times tables? I want to read some bell hooks, I think I need to. That’s what they'd say, "Have you read any? I think you'd find something useful." I feel as though I fall in love all the time, and never at all. How can two opposite things be true, or maybe because I feel them both it makes them true. I should listen to ‘Help me’ by Joni Mitchell again. I cannot be the first person to feel this way, the poets must have thought of this. Do they discuss me, my words, my thoughts, my feelings? A transformation occurs, when all that is inside suddenly becomes something new. A song, a painting, a poem - this process of translation. This process of making the internal, the external. How can this exist without something being lost in the process? Am I losing something in this process? What have I lost?

This glowing energy has retreated below the surface. Melancholic. Has she disappeared or is she being held by all those around me? Has she photosynthesised, living inside those organic beings I surround myself with? Love is not carbon. Her release is fruitful, beautiful, desired, and not destructive. Though, how can loves’ power not leave some lost in her wake? The force of love is without question. I can feel her and I cannot understand her. She is life, she is light, she is mine and I am hers. She is too much, too much to send, too much to share. Love is god and god is love. She is god, god is her. How do I contain all of her, or how does she contain all of me? Does she fill me, does she fill all of me?

Her pulse inside me, her rhythm, her life force. My life force. That word again 'force', I know not what else to use. She does not force me, she is a force within me. She is overpowering and overwhelming, she is raw and complicated. I can feel her and I cannot understand her. Though I think that she might feel me. Do those around me feel her, do you feel love inside of me? Does my love overwhelm you too? Are you scared? I'm scared. She's just too big and strong, can I be brave? Can I be brave again and again? Radical. Radical honesty, radical self-reliance - radical courage? Can I be brave with my heart? She's only just begun to open. The album art tells me to "Go forward in the courage of your love". How can I hold all this energy, this glow, this power? It's so agile, it's ever-changing. Too big, too strong, can I be big and strong, and brave?

Can I be loved, love and fall. Does one always have to fall? I feel as though I'm rising. Her power, on my surface, pulling me up and outward.

Once, I felt myself standing, on the edge of a cliff by the sea. The edge of a white cliff by the sea, Dover or perhaps somewhere less iconographic. There was wind and gulls about me, pulling me to the edge. I felt myself standing, ready to fall. I knew I had to step off. Fly or fall. I knew I would fall. Sink not swim, into the water, it was never cold. I was numb to it all. Some things happen around you rather than to you. Deep, down in the depths, back on the bed and looking up at life continue on the surface. Numb. Drowning, dreaming again and again of drowning. Of nothingness. All consumed, unable to breathe.

Instead, I waited. Instead, falling remained a fantasy and I waited. I waited out the storm. Time stretched and I forgot the taste of that edge. Or I chose to forget, to hide the cliff away in some small corner - out of sight. Into the darkness and I grew accustomed to the light. I chose to live, I choose over and over again, to live.

‘Somebody wondering whether or not to jump,

decides, at last,

that the only thing left to do is dance.’

Maybe now, with love pulsing through me, with god's life force, I am rising not falling. Waving not drowning. Maybe with love as my guide - I can learn to fly.

I sent these words to a friend and here are some snippets of beauty that she responded with

- "in a metaphysical sense love can be described as a attraction, gravity is love, the push and pull of atoms that constitute our body is love, our entire solar system is hold together by attraction, by love. in the end love is energy."

- " you speak of dancing because this attraction, this energy makes the world vibrate to a frequency, we often say that the universe sings, constantly, so it only makes sense to dance to the music of the universe that ultimately is sung by love, by attraction, by this force."

- "In order to be at peace with the overwhelming aspect of love, I think we need to accept that it is everywhere and that we can only practice noticing it more."