Ooh, the 28th of August. Where has the time gone, eh? I can't be entirely sure (without standing up and checking our journal) but I think this time a year ago I was on a plane travelling home from Delhi. My memory of this is based purely on the fact that I think that we read a Saturday paper on the train travelling back to my Mum's house. A year ago. Mental. That was a busy time. If my memory serves me correctly then we landed on the Saturday, went back to mine, slept, woke up on the Sunday and washed clothes and ate and stuff and then moved into Parklife on the Monday and started Contact on the Tuesday. (On the Wednesday we went kayaking and on the Thursday we did a First Aid course. I can't work out what I did on the Friday but as it's 356 days ago maybe you will forgive me.) This is possibly why I am finding these few weeks off so stange, the last time when my day to day wasn't prescribed by a contract or diary or travel guide kind of belongs to a part of my life which I don't remember so well. It's only been a year since I was a student but the separation I feel from the time Before is quite amazing. It's funny that I share the same city as Student Fran, the same church and a lot of the same friends, but everything is very different. Student Fran was a visitor to this fair corner of the world. She was falling in love with it at quite a rate, but she was a temporal part of it nonetheless. Real Fran has her home here. She might not know which night it's cool to go to Arena or what the owner of Mega Kebab is called, but this town is her town. (Well there's probably a few members of Day for Retired who are seventeenth generation Devonian who might disagree, but for the fact that I pay my Council Tax to Exeter City Council I think I count!).
I think this is only going to be a brief post partly because a) I want to carry on reading Red Moon Rising and b) I have to pack to go to my friend Cat's hen party in Birmingham this weekend. But also maybe it will be brief because I'm in quite a thinkative mood at the moment and want my thoughts to be a little bit more collected before I spread them too ill-advisedly over t'internet. I wish I journalled better. I am very aware that quite a significant twelve months of my life has just passed and I think an equally significant twelve months are about to begin. I feel like this is a good time to look back on what God might have been/still be teaching me and work out what I should be taking forward with me, and possibly what I might need to let go of. I think this is a good thing to, however I'm also aware of the difference between reflection and dwelling. The latter isn't always terribly positive for me! We'll see though.
Right, much more banter promised for next time. I'm going out in public in a tutu for goodness sake. Watch out West Midlands.
Friday 28 August 2009
Sunday 16 August 2009
Communiloving
I am just coming to the end of three days home alone. It's been strange.
When I arrived back from the Lake District on Thursday (lovely, thank you very much) I was a little bit excited about having the house to myself. Now I should say, as one of my readership of two is my housemate, that I wasn't excited because I don't like my housemates. They're wonderful. And when you're alone, no matter how long you wait, spaghetti bolognese never magically appears in front of you. But the concept of some alone time seemed quite attractive. A good chance to sit and be and think and reflect and go to the loo with the door open seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I think I thought I would come out of the experience a bigger person. Maybe even a better one.
To be fair I enjoyed it for a bit. Not having to queue to use the laptop/toilet/shower/washing machine/straightners/mirror/stairs/hoover (I joke on the last one) was good novelty value. Choosing to live in mess is quite liberating, tidying things away and them staying away is nothing short of brilliant. And coming and going and not telling anyone where you are makes you feel a little bit Destiny's Child (without being black or having sold 40 million records worldwide). But...it's also a little bit dull.
It's quite a nice thing to appreciate afresh that you really enjoy living with the people that you are contractually obliged to live with. Whilst I have an irrational annoyance towards anyone who might dares turn on the bathroom extractor fan before I'm awake, and I can see anyone who tries to make conversation with me in the morning as setting out to ruin my day/life, and generally no one else will ever match up to the golden standards I set in all other areas of my life, it turns out that for Party Cat to live up to her partying* reputation she needs other people to bounce off of, have jokes, occassionally irritate and generally share life with.
So I'm a little bit scared that this is just the impact of Orange's advertising campaign that I'm just realising I am who I am because of everyone else. I would prefer to think I am much deeper than this. I tried to engage Esther in a conversation earlier which likened my experience of living alone to the age old A Level Philosophy dilemma of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in an empty forest. She didn't give it much time of day, and, to be fair, even apart from my three contemporaries I probably am still real and do exist, but I think I have realised the life part of Parklife is in the community that exists between these walls. Parkexistance is probably a more appropriate description of this weekend. Anyway, everyone (plus an extra) is coming home this evening and I imagine at 7.55 in the morning I will be mentally cursing whichever of them has the weakest bladder, but, right now, I praise God for having placed us all here.
Community is something I could (and do) bang on about for ages, but I think it's how we were created to exist. Not necesarily in the shape that this one does (humanity would die out fairly quickly!), but in various forms of interdependent existance. It just works. I might never be able to wire a plug, drive a car, play a piano or speak Russian, but I'm glad I know people who can.
*Drinking tea and playing Scrabble.
When I arrived back from the Lake District on Thursday (lovely, thank you very much) I was a little bit excited about having the house to myself. Now I should say, as one of my readership of two is my housemate, that I wasn't excited because I don't like my housemates. They're wonderful. And when you're alone, no matter how long you wait, spaghetti bolognese never magically appears in front of you. But the concept of some alone time seemed quite attractive. A good chance to sit and be and think and reflect and go to the loo with the door open seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I think I thought I would come out of the experience a bigger person. Maybe even a better one.
To be fair I enjoyed it for a bit. Not having to queue to use the laptop/toilet/shower/washing machine/straightners/mirror/stairs/hoover (I joke on the last one) was good novelty value. Choosing to live in mess is quite liberating, tidying things away and them staying away is nothing short of brilliant. And coming and going and not telling anyone where you are makes you feel a little bit Destiny's Child (without being black or having sold 40 million records worldwide). But...it's also a little bit dull.
It's quite a nice thing to appreciate afresh that you really enjoy living with the people that you are contractually obliged to live with. Whilst I have an irrational annoyance towards anyone who might dares turn on the bathroom extractor fan before I'm awake, and I can see anyone who tries to make conversation with me in the morning as setting out to ruin my day/life, and generally no one else will ever match up to the golden standards I set in all other areas of my life, it turns out that for Party Cat to live up to her partying* reputation she needs other people to bounce off of, have jokes, occassionally irritate and generally share life with.
So I'm a little bit scared that this is just the impact of Orange's advertising campaign that I'm just realising I am who I am because of everyone else. I would prefer to think I am much deeper than this. I tried to engage Esther in a conversation earlier which likened my experience of living alone to the age old A Level Philosophy dilemma of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in an empty forest. She didn't give it much time of day, and, to be fair, even apart from my three contemporaries I probably am still real and do exist, but I think I have realised the life part of Parklife is in the community that exists between these walls. Parkexistance is probably a more appropriate description of this weekend. Anyway, everyone (plus an extra) is coming home this evening and I imagine at 7.55 in the morning I will be mentally cursing whichever of them has the weakest bladder, but, right now, I praise God for having placed us all here.
Community is something I could (and do) bang on about for ages, but I think it's how we were created to exist. Not necesarily in the shape that this one does (humanity would die out fairly quickly!), but in various forms of interdependent existance. It just works. I might never be able to wire a plug, drive a car, play a piano or speak Russian, but I'm glad I know people who can.
*Drinking tea and playing Scrabble.
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