New Blog, Who Dis?

I don’t know how many times I’ve been here, sitting down, staring at the screen, trying to write this post. But,um, hey there!

You might be thinking that you never subscribed to a blog with this name, but actually, you have. In a not-surprising plot twist, it’s the blog that has actually undergone a name change. Why, you ask? Because the previous name was a little cringy. Just a bit. So, yeah, Of All Things Beautiful has turned into Young Adult,Old Soul. Is the new name slightly less cringe-worthy? Maybe. Maybe not. Crossing my fingers here.

But just letting you know that the blog has changed names and that it will be active once more 🙂

I hope you keep enjoying the blog.

Anonymously yours,
A.

When Writing Becomes Jarring (The Art Block)

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things that can happen to a writer or artist, aside from being told that Art is nice but, is the art block. Even worse, it is the art block that happens from having an idea without the expertise to bring it to this world. Because the words will not pour from my pen. Make no mistake, the pen is brimming with dark ink, but it is my mind that is dry, bare. My mind stutters. I know the words, I know what I want to say but—

How do I express myself when I do not know how? Lately, I have been experiencing a version of Life that is greater than my current skill will allow to recount. The colour of this emotion, my pen cannot hold—only now is my heart even grasping at its edges. The feeling eludes me. It feels like trying to catch sand from the seabed with your bare hands. At first it feels full and promising in your palm, but when your hand comes back up, it clutches onto nothing. The sand has been washed away by the current. I keep trying to maraud the ocean but I lack the skill to go after what is right in front of me.

Writing is jarring. It is not always cathartic. It is not always bleeding at a typewriter. Ironically, writing may even become the very thing that makes you seek catharsis. But I am a fool, always have been. I continue to go down the train of thoughts that lead to nowhere. I explore the convoluted maps of my imagination, this meshwork of thoughts and words, knowing it will all end in no particular way at all. I turn a masochist almost, seeking the thing that will surely antagonise me most.

But I have learned that—well, if writing is a skill, then surely, I can get better at it. I can learn. So, on days when I cannot write, I read. I still write, and I know it will not be what I expect it to be, but I go on.

All of Life is made of successes and failures, why then should Art be any different?

 

Boring Sundays and Warm Loneliness

“Sundays are boring.” my sister complains like she does every other Sunday of the year.

It could be true though. We, as a collective, as a family, rarely leave the house on Sundays. But as someone who has been known to enjoy laziness and quiet moments of introversion, Sundays such as those suit me just fine. Even if they are tinged with loneliness, it is a loneliness specific to Sundays, something I have known all my life. So, in its own twisted way, it is a comforting ache.

This warm kind of loneliness, I feel it especially now that I have yet to be taken by another engrossing project that does not let me sleep the dark circles away. I have time now, I guess. With the stress gone, I see more clearly what life is. I am not charging ahead, heart bursting, breathless and with eyes on the prize and nothing else. Now, the prize, the purpose is gone and I instead take walks that ease me back into slow movements and quieter states of mind.

When your eyes are not on the prize, when there is no prize, you suddenly find yourself in possession of a peripheral vision and of the empathy that comes with it too. Working for your dreams can be a horribly self-absorbed thing sometimes, I realise.

Eyes on the prize. And nothing else.

So now, I notice that the neighbour’s kids have grown. They have a dog, too. The thyme in the garden has flourished, the daisies are blooming a radiant orange and with a tinge I notice the joy is fading a little from my Mother’s eyes.

At noon, I reach the point of hazy, unsettling loneliness and think Sundays are boring. Before, there was no room for boredom. Only space for: “I am soul-deep tired. I want to stop.” But now that there is nothing to do, my mind seeks out dreams covered in dust, like old diaries.

‘If I can’t create a new feeling,’ my mind reasons, ‘why not visit an old one?’

‘You used to fly kites, remember?’ goes the memory ‘You’d gaze at the cheap thing, all fluttering plastic and frail sticks tied with some piece of string you found in the garage, feeling so proud. But then your gaze would be lost somewhere between the clouds, in the valley between the green mountains and you’d think: “I wonder if someone else is flying a kite somewhere in the world?”

‘Greece,’ you thought, unknowing, uncaring of time-zones or geography. ‘Yes, Greece, with its statues and fables — mythology, actually— someone must be flying a kite there. Or China: dragons and great walls, emperors and dynasties. They must have beautiful kites there: large, red and gold in the shape of a dragon or a swan spanning grand wings in the sky, a crimson dot in the open world. 

It’s evening when, like the kites I used to fly, I am reeled back to Earth. Back to this feeling of Sunday boredom, this dull loneliness punctuated by music coming in from the neighbours, the drifting clouds, the obvious wanderlust, the soft orange skies of sunset and the smell of chicken in the stove.

Yeah, all that, that’s the fragrance: Eau de Boring Sunday.

And yet, I won’t make plans for next Sunday, just like I don’t for many, many Sundays of the year.

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I am a boring person, y’all.

This blog is not dead (A lesson in apologies and doing the right thing)

I don’t usually do posts like these, speaking as myself (?) It feels like breaking the fourth wall. But I’ve recently discovered that you must do the right thing, even if no one cares. You must do the right thing, even if it’s a little embarrassing. This blog hasn’t been very active these past weeks (past month?) and I’m sorry for that.

It happened like many things do in Life, you don’t expect something to happen or to last very long, but when you look back, you realise it has already become a part of your life, a thing. Sometimes, you wake up and you’re 60 and you realise you’ve spent your whole life doing that job you swore you hated and pushing aside the dreams your little heart once held. But I’m lucky enough that I didn’t wake up to be 60, with a lifetime of regret. Sure, I’m a little old(er?) now (Although, define old) but if my ability to dramatise is still intact, I can safely say that all is not lost. It might be a little silly, going to these lengths for something like that. But this blog has become somewhat important to me, and it’s not silly to care about the things that are important to you, whether the thing in question is a broken old toy, an inside joke between you and your best friend or even someone.

So, this blog is back. And I hope you’ll continue to enjoy it.
Until the next time Life happens.

Anonymously yours,
Of All Things Beautiful.