Sunday 27 March 2016

Philip Lynott at Ni-ni-nineteen - From the Vaults 2005

I wrote this in 2005, on the nineteenth anniversary of Philip Lynott's death. At the time, I was hugely, almost entirely consumed by the music of his band, Thin Lizzy, and of the work he had given us. This is what I felt and thought then.

Re-reading now, I miss the apparent simplicity of my feelings then. I've edited a little for clarity and length, but otherwise, this is as it appeared on my LJ (aw, bless) in January 2005.

We have now been thirty years without our Philo, but that's a post for another day.

~wavy timey-wimey lines~

Saturday 26 March 2016

No more. More.

I used to blog nearly every day. Nothing particularly good or interesting... that was the old days of Livejournal, after all. Lots of Harry Potter or whining, as I recall.

I haven't said much new for a while, except trying to fold the truth of Bowie's death into my reality. I keep thinking of things to blog about, but they don't seem to stick.

I think I stopped believing my thoughts have any particular use to the world. Not when our civilisation seems hell bent on destroying itself. My thoughts are as nothing to the world, not compared to some of the truly tremendous bloggers out there, the brave and smart women and men who are shining bright lights into the manifold ways in which society works to keep so many people oppressed in one way or another, and often more than one.

I, I, I... maybe I got sick of the absolute self-absorption that characterises the way I blog.

Nah, that can't be it.

Maybe I ran out of things to say. I can only declare and express my love for various dead musicians in so many ways, after all. I can only wallow in the stagnant puddle of self-pity a little while without people abandoning me entirely.

*

Fear keeps my voice still, too. Fear what our government is doing and what it means for me and the people I love. Fear that I really won't amount to much or get my dreams to come true. Fear that I will become the worst of myself after all. Fear that I will try and try and nothing will come of it.

Fear that everything that matters to me will be taken away. Fear that every nice, good, fun, happy moment must be followed by six more of unhappiness, pain, miz-uh-ree and whatever else it is that keeps me in the dark cage of my own devising.

I tried, after all. I did everything I was supposed to do. I finished my novel - and it's good - and I sent it out into the world. I got healthy at last, I rewired my brain, I did my very best.

I tried and... nothing. I did all the things I thought I was supposed to do and... nothing. More of the same. More waiting for my life to start, more moments of hollow, howling despair.

That's the petulant brat in my head who thinks she's entitled to everything just because she asked nicely and isn't a horrible human being.

That's the brain weasels talking, of course. That's the writer's block talking.

No more of that. Maybe there's still more to say about those dead musicians, maybe there's more for me to observe about the world as it crumbles... nobody else sees the world as I do, after all.