Some days

Another of my moon stories, because like perhaps I've said before, its better to shock than to bore your audience.

Transcription from a piece of paper dated Wednesday 17/18th August 2009.

I'm not completely sure about the date because I can't see. I can't see a calendar or my phone. Everything is blurry but my vision has improved since last night and the hallucinations are almost gone.

Yesterday, out of boredom and feeling lame and in the need of something different, I decided to use a present I received a couple of years ago. Two flowers. They were meant to be used in a tea. My handwriting is massive, I know, but my vision is so cloudy and... that thing was crazy. I got the flowers as a good bye present from friend that recently survived cancer. In Ecuadorian slang they're called Dormideras (sleepy flowers), after some research I found out that they are called 'Floripondio'. I also found out that they're used to develop a drug used to steal and rob people, the drug makes them loose their capabilities, will and memory.

My vision is weird. I want it back. After I made myself the tea and drank it all alone (I thought they weren't going to do anything other than calm me down) The tea started to kick in and it was weird. First my pupils grew and covered my whole iris. I saw the process in front of a mirror and it was fascinatingly scary. I saw many things that weren't there but mainly, I was unable to communicate. Talking to a friend in Skype was the weirdest thing ever. He was blurry and my little image in the corner was, well, red and had no eyes. I was home. My mom was there and we were supposed to eat dinner together. How on Earth? I couldn't hide and let the effect wither off. I wanted to through up but I couldn't walk to the bathroom.

When my step dad arrived I was tripping harder than ever. The random weird acts started. I was talking in Spanish to my British step dad and in English to my Ecuadorian mom. I tried to clean the toilet with my naked hands. I wanted to take pictures of everything. To be honest, I don't have many memories of that period of time. My step dad got so worried, I think they phoned all my friends and my boyfriend, then they phoned the Hospital. They wouldn't believe me that it was only 'a flower tea' that had done 'that' to me.

I was crazy. I still am a bit. Then, I was forced to through up but all I wanted to was to clean my sick or clean my teeth. So they took me to Hospital. I made myself sick another couple of times, loads of times. I didn't want my stomach washed. My mom had to dress me, it was embarrassing. They asked me what had happened, then the date, then the year, the month etc.. I couldn't answer to any of the questions. I was lost. Being in that state at Hospital is one scary experience. I felt better after puking, so I could answer questions like 'what month are we in?' they kept asking me those question, to keep me focused and awake and to know if my brain was fucking working. I'm so scared. My pupils were gigantic, they still are and that's what is making my vision so bad.

A bit of the effect was gone, so they started the tests. They took blood samples, my pressure, measured my heartbeat and whatever. I had like a million things plugged to my chest and fingers. They kept us there till almost 4:30 am. The results finally came and they found out that indeed, I just have had a 'flower tea' I was intoxicated and I'm anemic, they found out. They brought an old lady to the cubicle right in front of mine. She was stubbornly refusing to have a bag of fluid plugged to her arm. She was so obstinate, she said straight to the nurse's face 'I refuse'. They also brought some people from a car crash, all covered in blood. One of them was screaming constantly, rhythmically. I was suffering from dehydration and short term memory loss so I couldn't follow threads of conversation, my doctors were patient, and talked to me slowly and took notes I think. I was so mad at myself. They kept asking the same basic questions over and over. Whats the date today? Month? Year? Who is our Prime Minister? I knew the answers, someone laughed, I said something witty I guess...

My eyes had a life of their own, which looked scary to other people and was annoying for me because I was looking for water. So, they phoned the department of toxicology at the Guy Hospital in London. I was scared and feeling so bad for my parents, I've never seen them so scared. I don't remember where I left my watch, I couldn't see the letters on my Ipod thus I couldn't listen to music since I begun tripping, I couldn't see my phone's screen thus I couldn't phone or text anyone. I asked my step dad to text my boyfriend and tell him I'm OK. I wanted to leave, they wanted to leave... we were waiting for even more results. The doctor finally came in again and said 'we found... nothing more! besides the fact that she's anemic, but you already knew that.' I'm a vegetarian, what did you expect?. My two main doctors were female, the first one was specially pretty and kept saying 'OK, Alright' in a patronizing-I'm getting nothing out of this-but I'm sweet way. A black fat guy started dancing in front of my bed (which in all fairness, was a corridor and his mom was having an operation very near to where we were). They doctor gave me two yellowish pills in one of those tiny plastic glasses, that plus the weird robe (which I affirmed several times that my grandma would have liked) made me feel like a mental patient. Insane.

So we left. I couldn't stop crying, I was like so depressed. I still am. I feel the worst for my step dad and mom. They were so nice. After we got home, they said 'Let's pretend this never happened, just tell us when you get your vision back'. I just didn't think that thing was going to be so potent. I can't remember much but I do know that I wasn't in control at all. I only want to feel good again. Have normal eyes again and feel less insane.

New light makes... new people?

People change, that's a given. I think I change faster than most people though. Its kind of worrying me. Things that I wouldn't do yesterday, I probably would do tomorrow. My morals are riding this really fast and curvy roller coaster. It is that simple sometimes. I like to think of it as my 'evolution process'. As if I was mutating into something greater that this, that I am at the moment. I'm realizing the mistakes I make, by the minute. My ratio is quite high, but my ratio of realizing the crappy stuff I used to do before, under the light of new minute enlightenment period is higher.(its not that I don't like myself, I do, it has a lot of potential it just needs to... evolve) This sometimes happens by the minute. After finding out a new piece of information, my whole outlook is modified, let me explain. Today I read this whole blog about "unattractive celebrities" that this guy found attractive, like the ugly best friend of the main character or ageing actresses or breakfast TV presenters. After reading what seemed like the secret thoughts of a ten year old, I have a new way of seeing people. Of finding people charming and somehow, I now know, that everyone has some sort of tick to them.

http://idontcareifyouwouldntiwould.blogspot.com/?zx=2cd92b331cab8294

Most people who work in the celebrity business though, will discard a whole person if the shape of their ears made them less attractive. Unless you have personality to compensate or you just can't be ugly. This people will also build a temple of solid gold for anyone who crossed the line of average. That fucks up the beauty concepts and conduct of normal people, the majority of the population that has TV and rights, do care about celebrities in a weird almost religious way (i.e. build their lives trying to imitate that of the famous). I personally, don't know much if anything about celebrities... I prefer simple, anonymous people who will care about my feelings too. It is this people, whom I'll be seeing under a new light. Its kind of exciting. I might find some charm in myself too, you never know. Its sad, but one can judge people too quick too easily too harshly and this happens too often. I want to stop that. I want to find the mojo of people you would consider boring. I want Mr. boring to be my best friend. I think I haven't got much more to add except 'never judge a book by its cover' blah blah and sometimes, don't judge a book by its reviews either. Read it yourself.
your constantly evolving (hopefully...) friend,

x
azile

Actually

Pure actuality is to me, the hardest thing to achieve. Artists of all kinds and informants (journalists, etc) yearn it. Try to trap it or capture it, there's no use. Actuality escapes, slides away at its fastest speed, when you're trying your hardest to grab it and hold it. Seconds run past so quick that we loose count and start counting minutes, till minutes flow past so fast that we have to count hours and so on. obvious, yes. but what is actuality then? is it the lame little thing you're doing right this second? is actuality reading this words? is that your actual present (ie whatever is going on currently in your life in long term terms 'work' 'study' 'holiday')? or is actuality the historical context? the 2009 moment-era. this time period with all its characteristics (Obama, global warming, facebook why not, blogs, skinny people)wait! because this zeitgeist will be gone in yes, no time. because presidents of rich countries change (not as fast as presidents of poorer ones, check out Ecuador's presidential record) and the weather changes... it has been happening for thousands of years, what makes you think that it has to stay like this? The surface might change to give place to a better-more efficient- newer actual race of beings. With technology, the changes are even faster... I can see something overpowering facebook coming from the same people who brought you the ipod and iphone and ibook and the i cantbefunnyenough to invent something, soon.
So, I can say that I lived in time when skinny people were regarded as beautiful but the obesity rates were at their highest. That was my actual time. this is actuality then? when is music actual? When does it become obsolete? When is 'its' time to come back again? who creates the guidelines?
Who is this wizard that decides what is 'actually'? I might just be craving answers to questions that are relative to age/occupation/place where you're residing but have not definite answer, whatsoever. The sun not only shines for the cool. Different peoples persive things differently. Things are actual for a longer time for the old. A business man calculates time in paying checks that come and go, a runner in split seconds, a quantum scientists in another even smaller denomination, a bass player in tempos. So actually, only defines what is true in the exact moment when you formulate the words, for others, for yourself, once its said, its gone.
Just like that amazing holiday that is not actual anymore. but hey! after the actual come the memories. and the next actual moment, and then the memories again and then its all retro. etc. x

FIRE!!!!

I walked out to my roof like every night... This time, it was different. There was a fire in the distance. A real high-flamed fire. With smoke and spirits and more flames. I knew, I knew my body was weak that day and I felt dizzy with the first puff. Vomity. I shacked, my leg did, out of control. I went out for a second time, this time with my camera. It only captured red shadows and night. Stupid amateur quality camera. I re-entered my room and light a candle. My Yankee candle reminds me of my step-grandparents step-love and it's smell... it's smell. London's burning in the distance I thought. Like the song. No, it was not London. It must have been an empty field, London is further away. I thought of the other two times when I've seen fires, one of them was in London, Camden was burning mercilessly. People gathered in the nearby park to watch, so did my friends and I, we even got to talk to some of the firemen. Some guy was smoking inside his flat, he fell asleep, they said. Everything is close and near in London, a fire like that could have consumed the whole borough.

The other fire I've seen was longer ago, before Camden, even before England. It happened in my little forest house in a valley back in Ecuador. I had a happy day that day, it was so happy that I fell asleep with excited exhaustion, holding his photograph with one hand and covering my eyes from the 3 o'clock Equatorial sun with the other. When I woke up, my house was flooded with dense smoke. I went outside and saw our four trees burning in a hellish fire. Fiercely. One of them fell over the wall that separated our house from the abandoned property next door. We had no hose. Only tiny useless buckets. I ran down the road and borrowed a hose from the neighbours and called the emergency number, then a fire engine. There was no access, from anywhere, to that bit of the forest, I've always lived in the edge between a town and a forest, I don't know why, it just happens. Forests come with a lot of spirits and stories.

I was incharged of the borrowed hose and of checking on the firemen that had to get to the fire through our garden. The more water they sprayed, the bigger the flames, the bigger the fire. My brother took the car and went to buy a bigger hose. I swear it took him what it felt like forever. I cannot also remember how long it took the firemen to put down the fire... maybe four hours... but I do remember that late that night, my brother, my friend Taya and I sat high up in the leftovers of the wall that once was (the one that the tree fell on), which by then had cooled down a little and was pleasant to sit on (not for extended periods of time though). We ended up that night putting down burnings ashes, little fires as we smoked cigarettes on the wall, trying to be one with the fire and taking turns with the brand-new-long-green hose.

It was a clear night besides the pink smokey cluds that we were creating, we could see the stars. The smell of burnt forrest that we liked so much at first began to make us sick. No on knew what will happen on the next day. One thing we did know, and that was that we did not have our four extremely tall trees anymore. That made my grandma happy, she thinks fire is Always a good thing and that those trees were threatening with falling on top of the actual house (which would have been completely crushed by even just one of them). We used to have five, one of them fell on another wall. It was such a mess. I don't remember having seen my mother at all that day, later on she told me how she she thought someone had started that fire on purpose and that she knew who it was. Someone who didn't like her and had access to that bit of the forrest, it made sense. Then we feared. She feared for Kanito our dog, who hungs out in the garden most of the time. She is always worrying about the dogs.

The candle has stolen all the air in my room. My body feels all weak again. I really need some sleep. I really do. Good night.

Failed Success

People are by nature, creatures in search of freedom. Choices make us. We choose, we decide and when we are constrained, we complain. Easy.
It stroke me when everything turned into the intense colour of reality. I walked past St. John's Square, to my interview... in the headquarters office, still wrapped in the bubble of hope. I looked at my watch, 3:15, late. I got slightly lost in the way there and asked one or too people for directions, both of them were builders taking a break, having a smoke, incredibly polite as they spoke knowingly of the roads of London. I got there, the clean office, one lonely guard, I know... I was late. He said he couldn't let me in, that's when it stroke me, reality. He told me to arrange another meeting and I left, he and a lady that had entered the building soon after I did, looked at me with sad eyes, as if they cared... I felt awful. I entered the room as a worthy human being in search of being productive, I left the building as a tourist, or even worst, a shopper, a consumer. I was too late to be one of those business people, and too early to be a Londoner, which I'm not, I'm a tourist. I walked away trying to get lost, I took the most random roads, crossed the streets when I shouldn't have had I did all the wrongs turnings, still, I ended up in the freaking tube stop.
In the way, there were several interesting views and characters. An office composed by a series of tiny white cubicles with a sign saying 'we provide space for individuality', more like 'boxes for individuality' I'll say... ha. Business people smoking outside they're offices, mums with babies, five colourful women in saris exchanging laughs, a smartly dressed lady walking really fast and drinking a beer, really fast, a girl all dressed in pink with an almost shaved head and a scary look in her eyes... some boys all dressed in black with a different kind of scary look in their eyes. Old people, young people. Everyone.
There's no use, I can't get lost. I reluctantly entered the station, a pretty girl handed me a flayer, it distracted me and I fell, a pretty boy lifted me up, up till that moment, besides the disappointment, everything felt somehow pretty, the sun was shinning. The sun is my friend, the rain is too, summer and winter are my home.
Down at the platform, out of boredom I started reading the posters on the walls, one advertised a book titled 'What would humanity do if God existed?' I thought about it for a minute, the thought was unpleasant, if God existed then someone, or a group of people would have to be right... the Christians, the Muslims, the Deists... someone. God lays in the human confusion, in the human heart. End of the discussion for me today.
There was a curly haired guy chatting up girls with stories about his trip to Mexico City, the girls looked at him with an unimpressed stare, but then looked at each other and giggled, girls...
My own train of thought got interrupted by a 'Costumers Announcement', a female voice announced that: delays in the service are due to a person under a train in Hammer Smiths. Suddenly, everyone thought about death. You could tell. Suicide. Others worried about being late, the news will get them later. The curly haired guy didn't quite get it and when the girls explained him what happened, he said: 'once in Mexico City...' basically, the same thing.
I struggled to enter the train, twas extremely overcrowded... I wasn't even sure where I was going... after all, the purpose of my whole being there was the interview.
The train took me to Piccadilly Circus, yeah, why not.
I walked up the escalators even though I had no rush... a song came to my head 'no body knows where you are... just how near or how far... shine on you craaazy diamond...'. No one knows anyone in London. I wore my sun glasses and hid behind purple frames. Perfect, I wanted to be the observer. As I walked out of the Station, the first thing I saw was a guy standing on a step, a megaphone in his one hand, a fist with the other. As I walked, trying to follow the busy-fast flow of Piccadilly Circus, I tried to read his t-shirt, it said: 'no matter how much you jog, you are still going to die'. There was a crowd around him, he said something about people rushing to Mc Donald's... Was he stopping them? encouraging them? why does he care anyways, he is going to die too. Does it really matter? What matters? The present. The present matters. The future does too, and the past does.
Places like this are usually good spots for people-watching, although you run the risk of getting people-sick. I was up for some people watching, but I didn't want people to watch me.
There were two hobos right in front of me. Under different circumstances, they would have never been friends... but their un-kept beards, hobo coats and unlucky circumstances have made them friends... one of them smoked, the other one smiled... I wondered, what do they talk about? their loyal little dogs, alcohol? their life stories... they made each other less lonely. I kept walking, I knew where I could go, I had a gift card for this shop in Carnaby Street. I got it almost a year ago... Would it still work?
The walk was the same that I had already had started, good. I almost collided with this kid, he was around twelve but tall as a lamp post, he was surrounded by a bubble of money and parental care, he held a Hamleys bag in his hand. But he didn't smile, he had that cocky expression that rich people wear when they go out. A Friend of mine would have called him a phony, all of them: PHONIES, he would have said. People passed, I met them for a fraction of a second, a fraction of a smile sometimes... A little girl dressed like her mum stopped and took a picture of a street-sweeper and a post box, they do make a good photo. The scene kept me smiling for a good five minutes. I remembered little primary school secrets: when someone touches his hair, he wants to talk to you, when a person looks away, he doesn't, when people have their hands in their pockets, they're hiding something. Who makes those things up? They are like an ear bug in my head sometimes...
I was reaching Carnaby Street, I could smell the stylish owners of the garmetes of the week and the tourists, of course. What? was that music that I was hearing? Of course, the Carnaby Krishna lovers approached me with their singing pace, bells, drums, saris, I hoped they didn't talk to me. I wanted to tell them that Krishna won't come... but hey, he might do, I don't really know. After all, what would humanity do if God existed?
They walked past, too into their chants to notice the world around. One of them, a woman, had stopped in a book shop and with the new book in her hands, she accelerated her pace to reach her rhythmic colleagues.
There I was, Carnaby, oh, wait, one more... a guy with big grey eyes (part of the strategy, this charity people do know what they're doing!) stopped me. He asked 'May I ask you where arefrom and how old are you? If I'm not too forward' Yes, I was surprised. I haven't had spoken to anyone since I spoke to the guard in the building of my failed interview, did I still remember words? I did. I told him my age, he looked disappointed and said that he's charity that looks after hobos is only interested in over-twenty-ones. That was OK. I wasn't up for charity-ing anyway. He still asked where I am from, 'Its a long story' I said, 'I'm English but I speak weird' then I walked away. He said 'take care'. A couple of extremely orange guys repeated 'take care' after him and laughed. I Didn't look back, I could tell the way they looked by their voices, they looked gay.
The place looked somehow familiar... yes, I knew why... it was were Phorm is. Phorm, form, phorm, shape, phorm, form. The word danced in my head. Suddenly, the city looked even more lonely. An invisible needle ached. I miss someone from Phorm I met... A gypsy that is now in California. How I miss him, how i miss that gypsy.
I could see the shop where my gift card belonged to from there. Carnaby will still feed and shatter egos, and make you feel as if you had it all, until you look at a shop window.

x
Azile

Today...

Today the wind blows so strong in England that it seems that its going to break all the windows and blow all the trees away... I think spirits use strong winds like this to travel around. The wind transports their invisible beings and then both transparent friends carry stories along the long distances of time, through the ears and skins of whoever happens to pass by.

Today the wind blows so strong, that it makes you feel small, fragile, helpless, cold, alive. Your hair rushes to your face and there is nothing you can do to stop it and to stop the wind. The wind always carries news. Birds, flowers, pollen and news. I got a phone call from the wind. You can worry as much as you want, but at the end of the day, the unexpected will be worse (or better) than any of the things you imagined or worried about.

Today the wind blows and brings and takes and feels like a curtain of invisible ice.
Today the wind rushes you to look for shelter. run, hide, seek, dance.

Where will you end up if you go just to where the wind blows?

Theneverendinglifecycle

Its been long since I've written poetry,
but at the same time,
I've never stopped.

No one ever stops.
A night of sleep doesn't mean you're stopping, a holiday doesn't either.
You never stop being,
you never stop poetry.

Life is a continuous cycle of mornings, nights, twilight and dawns
of creating yourself, again and again
a restless struggle with time
of adjusting your dreams to meeting deadlines.

luckily, not always.

Luckily you'll find some time,
to look at the moon
some time to wonder
some time to feel,
and some time to sleep without thinking of today or tomorrow.

Perhaps you'll find yourself doing
something you love and enjoy so much
that it wont mean any effort at all.

and perhaps this life cycle of never ending moons and suns
will not consume you
and you will stop racing and start looking at the things
that you walked past before
because you were in a rush.

and perhaps,
the fire that chases you from behind your feet
will cool off
and let you rest
and let you sleep
and let you be.

azile
x