Smile And The World Smiles With You

You know when you're in one of those "lets experiment with the world and people" moods (no? okay .. just me then that gets that haha). Well I was today, it hits me mostly when I'm going somewhere and will be spending a significant amount of time waiting around or on public transport.

Now I know my appearance in itself often generates a reaction when I go out - I'll either be pointed and laughed at or someone will very kindly let me know how I look nice; so those reactions are interesting in themselves when reading people but I like to push the button a little further in sometimes.

I love getting on trains even if it is to bloody Nelson to see my dietician to be lectured about milk decomposition for the 4 millionth time (...rant off). The journey is about an hour long on account of the fact the route is a stopping route calling at every station along the line but rather than be irritated by the lack of fluidity to the journey I like these changes - as it refreshes the calibre of persons to observe nice and frequently. On each ride I like that there are the "regulars"; always students wearing hoodies and thier iPod on texting away, the suits having what appear to be important phone calls and sat with on leg on the opposite knee revealing Simpsons socks that you so know some relative bought him for Christmas, the young harrassed mother with a toddler in a pram with a chocolate smeared mouth and another youngster playing hell running up and down the carriage and then the mixtures.

I have been in a positive mood all day so today's testing of people came very simply in the form of smiling a big warm smile at the people who's eye I managed to catch. I like to connect with people that do look a bit wrapped up in their own worlds or I'm sensing stressed or worried vibes from to see if they react to my bit of warmth. And it does tend to be a very split reaction - people either look away awkwardly like "okay.. I'll just avoid this manic looking ginger chick" *shuffle shuffle* or they do smile back - and that gives me a lovely inner glow. I actually said to one girl at one point (as she had been rather aggressive looking so I felt the need to reinforce that I wasn't some weirdo and therefore she didn't smash my face in) that it was so nice when someone smiled back and after that for the remainder of her time on the train she carried a little half smile and smiled at me fully when we looked at each other.

I also happen to be a fan of knitting on the train and a dear friend of mine and I have a little giggle about me being Nana Ruby, beady eyed watching over people over her knitting haha - and I can't deny it's true. Like I do at work with customers when I am on the checkout I like to make up little stories about them, their names, occupations, where they're going and then try to tune strongly into their auric field to see about their energies and weigh them up generally. I suppose this could be classed as being a bit stalkerish but they never know and I find that it is rather enriching soul food absorbing people.

Implosion

It's been a day of life organising - well it was after 11:30am after I'd spent about 45 minutes deciding which hat to wear just to drop some forms off at the estate agents.

Today has been dedicated to the art of packing - and a bloody art form it is too. I am now currently lead in bed in a room that is absolutely littered with bits of shit and overflowing boxes - the job still is only half done. My half of the flat in my head suddenly merged from being a wonderful fashionista paradise into a giant over clothed jigsaw. Trying to fit the explosion of millions of bits of my life paraphernalia into just a few boxes was a rather more arduous task than I had first anticipated. Still, I got into the swing of things and rather amused myself thinking that not many people when they move house would have an entire box just labelled "hats and feather boas".

The strangest thing now though is going to bed and looking at my empty walls. I do have rather a fetish for postcards and images cut out from everywhere and every bedroom I've had since I was 15 have been covered in this way and my walls now just look naked. I'll go to sleep without the eyes of Vivienne Westwood looking down on me, my pregnant ladies are sleeping, feather boas, fairy lights and baby birds are now stuffed into boxes having been removed from my mirror. Instead I shall drift off tonight surrounded by drawing pin holes and remaining blu-tak stains (the landlord is going to love that...). The room has been stripped void of my personality and it really doesn't feel anything like my home anymore.

I'm enjoying this transition of packing in some ways though because it's making the move feel closer and closer. I've moved many times in the past few years and so it's been difficult to feel settled anywhere but I have good feelings about my new residence and I think I will finally feel at home there so that's made this packing process much less painful (though my joints disagree). I'm so excited about it all, the vibes in the new house are just so wonderful (as I said in my previous blog and as I'm packing the memories of this place up and looking forward to getting the bits of me out of these boxes again and having them dress a much lovelier space.

Sylvia Says:

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but chosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one... by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet". -Sylvia Plath

Solitaire Revisited

I don't know whether you would call it chance, co-incidence or possibly even fate but I was reading through my old journals and things earlier and just so happened to come across my Solitaire poem. I have it written on my wall anyway but it was just nice to see it sitting there loosely scrawled in my diary from when I was just 17 and then I noticed date it was written - 24/1/06 - four years ago exactly today.

The ideology of cards and the associated games and gambling symbolise a lot to me. I take their forms as a representation about many of my beliefs in and about life, which is why I had the suits tattooed down my spine. I feel that life is a game and we're all dealt a hand - it's how we choose to play it that determines our destiny. It's all about chance but with a touch of skill.

The Solitaire poem was very much about the internal battle in my head - specifically relating to my relationship with anorexia but I've held on to it because it's true of many of the internal dialogues in my head that have been less than harmonious...

Solitaire from 24/01/06:

Your cards all lie in taunting piles,
So you strike a deal with the joker,
But she only wants to steal your diamonds,
Whilst she claims to teach you poker.
Her magic tricks deceive you,
She knows every rule and cheat,
Her hand will play inside your heart,
But she's the queen - she can't be beat,
She'll take your dreams and shuffle them,
And drive spades into your skin,
So you'll raise your bet and gamble harder,
But it's too late - you'll never win.
She'll bruise and break you with her club,
Then convince you that it's fair,
You can beg and plead for game over,
But you were always playing Solitaire.

Beacon

Then every so often I'll hear of something that completely catches my breath, stuns and silences me. Such tragedy that it penetrates right through me, all the way through.
Sometimes life can be so cruel. Naturally I feel we all as human beings are affected more by tales that we can to some extent empathise with - it taps into something very deep. There will always be certain topics that will touch a raw nerve with me and as we all know I am no stranger to that vicious, manipulative disease that is anorexia nervosa.

I didn't even know the girl, I don't even know her name but I was reading mooching around Facebook today of a person a friend of mine knew of who had died of her anorexia. It's such a fucking god awful illness, only profanities seem fit to describe it. It leaves me feeling a real seething burning hatred right to my core when I think about what it steals from young lives.

I feel I lost enough of myself to my own experience, it sapped the life out of a sizable chunk of my teenage years, and I consider myself to be a lucky one - relatively I got off pretty lightly (save a tad of this and that damage) and (regardless of whether I "should") I never spent time in an inpatient unit.

It just eats it's victims from the inside outwards - quite literally, a parasitic leech. It makes me want to weep, I've seen too many truly beautiful people being chewed up by it, watch their soul erode, see once bright eyes fall beyond dull - to just lifeless black pits. Vivacious, gregarious young women become just shadows of their former selves.

I know how it feels to live within it's brutal claws. How impossible it seems to ever get out of it's seemingly impenetrable bubble. Nothing matters but the pursuit of impossible levels of thinness, it makes you believe that your only purpose for living is to starve yourself to absolute nothingness. Such a sickening irony - living to die. I understand how hollowing and harrowing it is to live that way- just being so desperate to be good enough, to be acceptable, to conform a standard - but such standards are impossible - it's a level of delirious perfection that is simply unattainable. You live feeling nothing but worthless. And beneath that deep seated self hatred, at the epicentre of it all is fear - a terrifying fear of being alone, not being loved or being rejected. An immense childlike insecurity, a longing an ache – a need to be loved and looked after.

I was fortunate to find a sense of love and strength from somewhere, I found a light, I had an epiphany and have been able to fight through a build a new life for myself - which isn't to say I don't have off periods but reading today about this poor young person's death just brought everything home to me again - you HAVE to keep fighting, being strong and surviving as a beacon for those lost to this terrible disease. I'm standing tall with my beacon and sharing with you all my fellow fighters and survivors, a light of hope, a light of remembrance and symbolic of a true determination and will to move forward. We can't bring back those who have been lost - but I know I walk and fight everyday to show that to some extent their death hasn't been completely in vain - we live on in their memory - living and breathing where they no longer do - showing that for us the fight wasn't for nothing and we survive carrying their spirit along with us.

I am getting too old for this 5.30am midweek partying business...

Red or Dead

Being a red head really is such an essential part of who I am - I really do feel that if I wasn't of the carroty variety I would be a completely different woman.
This blog has rather been inspired by the fact that I have just dyed my hair - although naturally a shade of red - this time a deep crimson.

I love being a ginger ninja even if it does mean that I end up being told I look like just about every red haired celebrity in the media, including Florence Welch, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Princess Beatrice, Isla Fisher and most frequently Paloma Faith - all of these women look nothing a like and nothing like me - except that we are all red heads. Though I do share a similar style love with Paloma ... though as I like to point out - I am not like Paloma, Paloma is like me and I was doing Paloma before Paloma was doing Paloma honey.



I am not a vain person, yes I am victim to spending hours in front of the mirror but I think I can owe that to insecurity (being a teenager in the twenty first century and more than several years with an eating disorder can be thanked for that), but I am very proud of my ginger roots *ber-bum-ching*. I really like my natural colour but being an ever evolving creature I do get bored from time to time - I like to experiment and play with styles frequently and naturally my hair adapts too - but always a shade of red. It gave me my nickname - Ruby - I can't ask for much more than that.

It surprises me really just how many red heads hate their hair - I suppose endless childhood teasing would account for some of that and every chav down the high street shouting "ginger *insert relevant expletive*" (observant creatures that they are) helps much either. But we are a minority and I feel we should all stick together and be ginger and proud within our predominately gingerist society. This is not my paranoia either might I be quick to point out - ginger support groups actually exist and there's even websites selling ginger merch - as if we need to reaffirm our greatness with naff paraphernalia (says she owning a "Red Heads Rule" t-shirt). Pfft. It rather winds me up that you can't buy proper ginger hair dye (I have looked endlessly) and with the exception of larger stores it's very difficult to come across red head specific hair products where there are rack and racks of blonde and brunettes items.

There is a flipside too though - red head fetishes are not uncommon and obviously you look at some of the great art movements inspired by we luscious locked beauties - what would the Rubens and Pre-Raphs be without us eh? We are, however a dying breed, so I feel that you all should do your bit for society and sleep with a ging - we need to reproduce our population. *goes off to make "Do you bit - sleep with a ginger" banners but feels this may not be helping matters*...