Sunday 17 April 2011

xvii Dreamless

Homeless, Homeless, Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake…

I’m dreamless. It’s a painful, frustrating, soul-rending realisation to make. And yet… is it true? I’m going to talk my way through this as rationally as I can, because that’s the only way I’ll end up with any resolution. It’s probably too big a project for just one post, actually, so I’ll start small.

And I’ll intersperse it with beautiful photographs.

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Part 1: Occupations I dreamt of

What did I use to dream of? Well, if we’re talking profession or occupation, I had my fair share of typical dreams. From the age of 9 to probably about 15, I hoped to be a novelist. I wanted to write books like Philip Pullman, or JRR Tolkien, my two literary heroes, with characters like JK Rowling’s. And I did enjoy writing. I have started dozens of stories, made countless character plans and utilised devices like no man’s business. But somehow I never quite made it past the first 2,000 words, and by the time I finished my obligatory education that dream had petered out. In part due to the realisation that I wasn’t, at least at this point in my life, someone with the perseverance to write more than vignettes. I still enjoy imagining and storytelling, but don’t have many people around me* who are interested in free-reign storytelling.

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Partly, however, the dissipation of my storytelling was due to the rise of another dream: music. Not so different to storytelling! At 13 I fell in love with punk (a love that persists to this day) and though my passion shifted from punk, to heartland rock, to electro-pop, to electro-goth, to folk, to exclusively 60s and 70s music to what I currently see as a relatively happy medium I was always writing songs. From my first, rather embarrassing “Girl Called Skye”, written when I was 12 with two and a half chords, to my most recent “Chrysanthemums”, an ambitious alternatively-tuned heart-wrenching melody which overreaches itself in emotional scope music has been a wonderful outlet. I have to make myself stop talking about music now because I could fill a short story with the relationship between myself and my guitar(s).

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I had other dreams too: I wanted at various stages to be a psychiatrist (spoken by a truly unbearably precious 11-year-old to her unassuming and rather baffled teacher), a music journalist, an editor, a professor, a travel writer, a cartoonist, a sailor and a tour guide. Some of those have stuck, some not, but the main dreams were and in a way still are writer, musician and most recently a meld of the two: poet.

Well, that’s it for dreams of occupation. Next time I’ll talk about images, emotions, situations and things I dreamed of.

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Bloquiry

What did you want to be when you were ‘little’?

*You’ll find, if you’re new to my blog, that this is a theme: I don’t have friends, is the crux of it. Sometimes I disagree with myself on this topic, but a footnote isn’t the place to go into it at length.

P.S. This was really hard for me to write. I’m living within large, thick walls and I’m trying to get them down. I’m a cliche on toes. I find it hard to trust and so hard to be open; finding this out surprised me immensely. More on this at a later date when I’m a bit less frightened.

God, this is so weird. Why am I so scared? But I am. SO scared. There have been very few people I have ever been able to speak to about this. And most of them are gone – or rather now that I think about it perhaps I subconsciously picked them because I knew they wouldn’t be there a week later.

1zf0xuc

3 comments:

  1. I always wanted to be an architect when i was small. Then i realised architects needed to be good at art and maths, neither of which i had any aptitude for.

    Since then I've entertained all sorts of ideas, from being a teacher to moving to Iceland and becoming a volcanologist (how can you watch anything with Iain Stewart in and not want to dig up rocks for a living?)! Then once you think you've found a reasonably straight path to follow you go and read a book which makes you question everything you thought you had decided upon and wonder why you aren't writing instead.

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  2. Love you! <3 May sound cheesy but am ALWAYS here for you. Need to see you soon! xxx

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  3. Hi. I stumbled upon your blog through one of the other blogs I subscribe to and I just wanted to say it's really good! Well done :) I had the same writerly aspirations from about 6 to 15. I also had a brief period of wanting to be a marine biologist, but I only liked the cute animals - fish freaked me out a bit. I really don't know what I want to do now...

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