afterglow

Writing this on my typewriter somehow seemed to back up everything that I mentioned in this piece because I love the process of using a typewriter as it takes me back to the basics.

I also ran out of ink halfway through and stained my fingers black with ink whilst changing the ribbon and it made me smile.

Expectations

Can we just take a moment to appreciate what a babe Hayley Kiyoko is and what a sheer masterpiece her album Expectations is. I discovered her after gifs from What I Need featuring Kehlani circled round Tumblr, so after that I was straight onto her Youtube channel and that is where my Hayley Kiyoko journey began (although I now realise that I had been reblogging pictures of her for months without even knowing).

After a day of listening to the same four songs for six hours I knew that I couldn't let another minute pass without buying her album and let me just tell you, it is the best album I have bought in YEARS. She says that she wants it to be listened to in order from beginning to end as intended and honestly, if you only do that for this album, do it because the flow from one track to another is insane. Every time I listen another song becomes my favourite until I realise that every song is actually my favourite and I'm listening to it for the fourth time in a day. When I first listened to it I thought that some of the songs sounded familiar even though I hadn't heard any of them before and I think that is the mark of a truly great artist. It feels like the music that my soul has been waiting for.

It's a therapeutic, sexy, memorable album that has not left me the same. I've always been of the opinion that lyrics are way more important than melody but that's only because I had never come across an artist that blends the two so seamlessly that the lyrics speak for the melody and vice versa. Her lyrics don't just make it raw and exposed and energetic and sexy, her voice does and she writes the kind of lyrics that you want to tattoo all over your body. She's called lesbian Jesus for a reason.

I genuinely cannot do Expectations enough justice by writing about it because no words will sum up how FREAKING AMAZING this album is. Also each of her videos are like an individual film, you've got to watch those. And her dancing is where it's at and she's so cool and funny and I want her to be my wife....ok finishing this up now.

I'm Fine...And Other Lies

I have been a fan of Whitney Cummings for a long time now (Whitney was one of the best shows to ever air, I will forever stand BY THAT) so when I heard that she was releasing a book I got on that quicker than you would know.

It's labelled as a "self-help" book but this is not the patronising and frumpy kind of book that springs to mind; it is the type of self help book that you would imagine her to write because it is everything and so much more. She ends the introduction with the statement 'I straight-up want this book to change your life' and I gotta say, it actually kinda did.

To read stories from Whitney's life that have impacted her and to then get an insight into the way her brain works, not only makes you think, hey I can kinda relate to that but also, no matter the person, everybody has a thing about themselves that isn't so great. It totally normalises everything, I mean she is a kick-ass comedian, actress, co-creator of shows and now a director and yet she struggles with all the things that we normal folk do.

She talks about the way that she has rewired her brain to prevent herself being attracted to toxic men, spotting red flags in people and not ignoring them and realising that crying is ok and actually helps to heal. Reading this made me think that I could benefit from doing that. Rewiring my brain to think about things differently could hugely benefit me.

For example, one of the things that really stuck out was when she said that (and I thought I was the only person that does this due to monumental overthinking so to know that I have a comrade in this is comforting) she will agree to a plan and then immediately think I don't want to actually do that, why did I say yes and then worry about it for the next week. Now, I have an annoying habit of doing that a lot but Whitney reassured me that it is totally ok to decline at the time, for which she even provides a few coverall phrases and you don't have to feel bad about it because there is no reason to. I mean, if 'turns out it's kind of my dream to be left out of doing things I don't want to do' isn't relatable I don't know what is. This changed the way I think about things.

The other big thing that I'm working on getting those little neural wires to think differently about is toxic people. This is quite difficult from the get go because I genuinely seem to attract girls that treat me badly and mess me around because I'm 'too nice' (sidenote: since when is being too nice a bad thing, think I missed the memo on that one). I am now spotting red flags and saying no thanks, I can do without this is my life before I find myself with a girl that doesn't actually appreciate me or quite frankly respect me. I would often gloss over red flags and make excuses for people (as Whitney did, hey look we've got some stuff in common) rather than actually being like hey your behaviour is the exception to every other person, what are you doing?
And yes Whitney, I now realise that getting a phonecall from your partner for a chat is what should happen in a relationship and is not a point of praise because it is NORMAL. Thanks for bringing that up because I would always say look isn't she nice, she called me until I realised that I shouldn't have to congratulate them for this.

So it is pretty safe to say that I absolutely ate up this book and everything in it (I mean I read it in four days). To get a relatable point of view on things from somebody like Whitney who has written about them in such a chatty and personal way made me want to rewire my brain even more because she just felt like a comforting and positive friend saying 'hey, let's do this together'.

Whitney, I think your book did actually change my life.

It's Not A Lot But It Is Everything

In a reply the other day, my sister said, "well I'm not feeling incredible" and that got me thinking about the last time that I felt incredible. I can pin point it. Although it is not a specific moment in time, but more, multiple moments.
The last time that I felt truly incredible was a stretch of time. My semester in California left me waking up every morning thinking, let's do this. I have, of course, had times of incredible since then. The Lady Antebellum concert got me up there, or when I skated with a bunch of rad girls at the skatepark and did my first bottom turn when I was surfing and when I went rollerskating with my friends. But my time in America was a time when I felt incredible for a very long stretch of time.

I was going to school and for most people, that's enough to conjure up feelings of anxiety. I didn't have much but that was all I needed. Put simply, I was going to class and doing stuff in my free time, but to me it was so much more. It was everything. To me it was a life that I had not experienced before.
It was going to Chipotle on a Wednesday night and having the car bass pounding on the way back, it was last minute plans to go and watch a movie every Friday and skipping class to go paddleboarding and going to get pie at 9AM somewhere an hour away just because, with a stop at the beach on the way back and camping on the weekends and two baseball games within a week of eachother and gathering with a cup of tea on a Wednesday night at 11 to watch American Horror Story.

I found happiness in spontaneous trips to Jack in the Box and Starbucks and Target and the garage to get tires rotated and wearing a cap to class and sunsets and the chill of the evening air when coming out of the gym and watching the fog roll up the street.

I was truly content and the happiest that I could fathom. That was two years ago and since then, I have been chasing that feeling. I have been chasing the feeling of being in love with my life. Don't get me wrong, I am happy now but I still want the feeling that I had back then of,
"...You will go from standing in the shower thinking "God what if this is for the rest of my life" to "God, I hope this is for the rest of my life."" (niasvn).

The Malibu Sessions

I've always been a huge fan of Colbie Caillat and the way that her music fits any mood, any scenario, any time. Don't know what you feel like listening to? Stick some Colbie on, trust me. I also love her for the fact that as a Californian she represents everything I love about the state and her music projects that, in fact, her newest album, The Malibu Sessions, epitomises it.  My mum even calls her 'the Malibu girl', clearly she has that association too.

As somebody who finally got to go to Malibu last year, all I can say is that I wish she had released the album a few months earlier so that I could have burnt a hole in everybody's ears from my incessant playing of it whilst driving down the PCH. 

It really does have the whole Cali beach vibe going on and it's clear that she loves her life and the man in it and it has been the soundtrack to my life since its release last October. I have genuinely played it nearly every day since then and if that doesn't say something about the album then I don't know what does.

Gypsy Heart is the album opener and one of my faves; my foot is always tapping before I even realise what is happening. It is such an infectious song and makes you want to run down a beach in slow motion with your loved one, sun on your face, your mouth wide as you think 'how did it get this good?'. One of those songs, you know. 

Cruisin' has definitely been a grower for me. For months it was a song that I was indifferent to until I actually listened to the lyrics and now it is easily one of my favourites on the album. Her voice is absolute perfection and it just sounds so stripped down and simple. I can't believe that it took me so long to love and appreciate this song because now I can't rave about it enough.

Next on my faves list is Only You. I knew that I was going to love it simply from the first line:

'I'm kind of obsessed with how you're obsessed with making me feel like nobody else cause nobody makes me feel like you do', but it's not just the lyrics, it's the way that she sings it with an awestruck tone, as if she can't believe that she has ended up with this person and it's quite frankly adorable.

Also the line,

'you drink me up, you take me with no salt or lime' is genius and one of the best metaphors to probably exist (also as a bartender it helps me to decide what to serve with tequila because the lemon or lime controversy is apparently very much alive).

Ok, last one here we go. Cancel out all noises around you, lie on your bed, stare at the ceiling and listen to Never Got Away all the way through once and I really hope you love it like I do. As track eight it's not one that you hear regularly but when you do you're just like yes this is an awesome song. It's a traditional Colbie ballad that she always plants as one of the final songs on her albums and it does not disappoint. 

Definitely one of my favourite ever albums and it will be accompanying me on many roadtrips to come, even if that's not through Malibu. 

What About the Landing?

Lady Antebellum say it quite well with the line, 'scared of love but scared of life alone'. Nothing has ever been so relatable to be honest. I am stuck in this limbo and think I have been for quite a while now.

I'm a hopeless romantic and I want the fairytale, but I think this is where my problem stems from. I want the fairytale so much that the thought of entering into anything strikes fear into me, incase it doesn't match my daydreams. It seems to be getting worse. I just can't cross that line and actually start anything.
I have been hurt in the past and that definitely has something to do with it too. You see, it's harder to be hurt by yourself and easier to forgive, whereas it's easier to be hurt by someone else and harder to forgive. I am happy on my own; I have always enjoyed my own company and am at the point where I don't need anybody to make me happy because I can do it myself. I am very aware of this fact, sometimes too aware, because it is part of my reasoning for staying single. I have always been a guarded and private person and am selective as to who I let in. I keep myself protected and this is the main reason for staying single - self protection.

I am happy being on my own but am becoming tired of it. That seems like an oxymoron and it totally is. What I'm trying to say is that I can keep myself happy and strong but it would be nice to not always have to be so strong; to be vulnerable and put that power into somebody else's hands. It's been almost a year now and I think I'd like that to change sometime soon. But I guess in order to do that, I have to let go, leave it be and let myself feel things. I guess sometimes you just have to fall and see where you land.

The Exquisite Pain

Carrie Bradshaw once said, "was I addicted to the exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable?"

I think the answer for Carrie was a definite yes and the answer for me is also a yes. It is something for which there is no control over and perhaps that is where the pain is. We have absolutely no control over it, even though we know it is useless to feel the way that we do. But something keeps us there because there is something kind of powerful in wanting somebody that is not yours and may not be. It makes you feel desperate. It is the silence when your friends ask you if there is anybody. Only the somebody that they all see as just that, a friend, but who you see as the person that you would like to fall asleep next to at night.

For me, things have always eventually worked out when it comes to people. So it leaves me feeling hopeless knowing that there is little chance that it will work out. Perhaps that's the pain and the definition of the unattainable.
She has a girlfriend, little does she know that I liked her long before her girlfriend was even on the cards. Now that is hopeless.

But what, at times, makes me believe that perhaps there is a little glimmer of possibility? The fact that she acts as if she likes me back. She does more than a friend would do. She rests her arm on my leg as she reaches across me, she puts her hand on my chest when she talks to me, she tells me she loves me, she puts her arm around me. She makes herself reachable then draws herself back in.

The exquisite pain of the days that follow, knowing that if she would let herself stay within reach, I could treat her better and care for her more than she would ever guess.

A Fifties Love

Last week I watched Carol. I had heard good things so thought it would be worth a watch and sat with my noodles at lunchtime ready to experience something. As the credits rolled, I was engrossed in twirling my noodles around my fork, rather indifferent to the largely typed words rhythmically appearing and disappearing on the screen. However, ten minutes later, my indifference had run away completely.

What ensued was a powerful 120 minutes of block colours, trapped feelings and restrain so deeply associated with the fifties. The portrayed fifties New York was so glamorous and authentic that I wished (and still do) that I was around to see and feel it. Something about fifties America has always charmed me, but I did not think it possible for a single film to ever do so. I was so moved that I spent the entirety of the film on the edge of tears and could not stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.

For me, the era speaks romance, more so than anything else ever could. As a major romantic, Carol encapsulated all that consumes my ideas about the period. Every whispered and delicately pronounced word, every conversation masking a real feeling, every gentle graze of fingertips on a shoulder, every stolen glance and every phone call is what I consider to be romance. Everything is heightened, with emotions mounting slowly as the relationship progresses. Romance is in the slow way that the relationship gains ground, steadily seducing the people involved. It seems almost suffocating and at times, unbearable in its intensity, leaving the characters and myself gasping for air when all was concluded. It felt so raw and palpable, leaving me wanting to experience a fifties love of my own. But maybe my fifties love was my own feeling of seduction from every word uttered.

I watched it again the next day.
My heart pounded and and my stomach dropped as I cracked the spine and turned to the first page of the book.

Two Headlights

This time twenty four hours ago you asked me to go for a drive. I knew what it was about and needed to tell you about it, I had to. You took me to the beach because you wanted me to feel the sand and you left me to watch it rise and fall against the shore, you left me to enjoy my happy place. You watched from a far off rock and after a while I came and sat down next to you. You were wearing the smallest shorts which was well planned for a late night drive to the beach. We talked about things that are important to us, like we always do and you finally said what I had been waiting to hear. You said “I bet you’re wondering why I bought you here” and you didn’t even need to explain because I knew exactly the words that were going to leave your mouth and when they did, they honestly sounded glorious. “I don’t know whether I should say this or not but I have feelings for you and you have no idea what you have done for me this semester, you honestly have no idea. I’ve really struggled this semester and I was talking to my sisters about it and the only person that makes me happy and feel alive is you. I haven’t felt like this in two years. During all of our chats, especially in LA, you sat and listened me out and gave me such good advice and I have never been able to talk to anyone like that. I wouldn’t change anything about this or about how I feel. I would not change a thing. Besides, you can’t help how you feel, emotions just come and you can’t help it” and I wasn’t going to sit there and lie to you because I felt exactly the same. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and then it was out. It was out and the months of trying to be close to you without showing it were out and in that moment you no longer had to question it because you knew everything. I spoke with a broken voice and tears that clouded my eyes. 

But the next words tore me apart and all I could feel was the lump in my throat that threatened to remove me of my words and my fiercely burning eyes. “I think I need a week to not see you to get used to it and accept the fact that you’re leaving in two weeks. I’ll have winter break to come to terms with it and hopefully not go into the new semester feeling as if I’ve just lost a best friend” and it felt as if everything was crashing down around me. I wanted to stand up and scream no because that was the last thing that I wanted, I don’t know that I can do a week without you. It’s like a drug, I have to see you and I have to at least be in the same room as you because I feel a bit lost without that. Last week you were away for five days and I struggled, I almost couldn’t be without you. I would look out for your car and see that it wasn’t there. I told you and you replied with “I really struggled and I had to do everything to try and get you off my mind” and I had to do everything to get you off mine. That was when it clicked. Three days in LA was what it took to make me realise what I had actually been feeling all along and those days weren’t long enough. We joked and talked and you rested your hand on my leg and you woke me up by hitting me with pillows and you rubbed my hands whilst surfing and said “you’ve got to keep them warm baby”, it kickstarted my brain into realising what it was, this isn’t just friends. Can you call me baby again?

Nearly two weeks later I caught myself thinking about kissing you.

We sat in your car and sat in a silence that spoke enough for how we were both feeling. “So we both feel mutually but probably won’t act on it”. We both feel mutually. You thought that it was fate that we met because the smallest coincidence bought us together. We spoke about our families and childhood and laughed in a dark car. We were there for nearly three hours just talking and it was the kind of conversation that resonates with you as a person and somehow roots itself in your bones because it was so pure and innocent. We drove back, trying to make good of the timed situation that we have on our hands. Two headlights shine through the sleepless night. The song came on that we always sing so loud to and the relevance of the words were so clear. We were singing words that somehow added up to everything that we had just spoken. So much so that you reached across and took my hand in yours and I thought my heart was going to escape from my chest with the rate that it was pounding. You took my hand in yours with the line of the song that said “say you’ll remember me standing in a white dress staring at the sunset” and that line will never be quite the same again.

I saw you smile. I remember the weight of your arm on top of mine and the way that it felt when you stroked my fingers with your thumb. I felt so happy, I did. I didn’t want to let go and had been waiting for that. I had wanted to hold your hand without an excuse. Without an excuse of seeing how clammy they are, how cold they are, without squeezing it for support on a ride. You let it go at the last moment. I thought how much it is going to hurt to leave. We both got in and cried. Cried at how unfair it is that time can remove you of things that feel good and of things that feel as if they shouldn’t end yet. How can this be fair?

Our friend told me that you said how hard LA was going to be and how we would be in the same bed and it would be just us for three days. You said that you felt something from the first week that you met me and that you remember that first day. I was always intrigued by you.
Our friend told you that I’m not ok with what is happening, that I haven’t been sleeping but how can I when I replay you at 3AM?

My mum said that this a lovely thing that we should be happy about but what about the time that we will both have to watch eachother leave? She said that you never know what will happen in the future and what happens if I always think “what if?” I think a part of me will. I get so happy about it but then I remember that we are stuck in a situation in which we will never have what we want and I am stuck yearning for a girl that I won’t have.

Taken from eachother when nothing has happened but we feel as if something has. 

Pageant Material

Following on from my thoughts on Kacey Musgraves' Same Trailer Different Park album, I thought I'd do the same for her second album Pageant Material. There was a lot of excitement in the country world about her new release and in my world to be honest. After coming across her in 2012 I've always rooted for her and her music and hell she knows how to write a good song, so we were all waiting with baited breath.

Upon first listening, I clicked the CD out of its case with such excitement and simply laid and listened to it and it was an awesome 45 minutes well spent. This one is a lot more laid back and best enjoyed late at night, in the bath before bed. Her Southern words wash over you and are therapeutic as they fit so well over every guitar note. The album feels crafted. It is so well done that it feels as if it has been worked on until it has reached a certain level of perfection.
She still has the same quirky and sassy phrases that question how this world and her home of Southern America are not everything that they're built up to be and I often find myself chuckling at her beautifully constructed digs about what is seen to be 'important'. It also emphasises the importance of 'doing you' and how this gains so much more weight in a superficial world. Get drunk if you want to, cause hell and of course, she still remembers to light up a joint. Biscuits is sheer class and was the first song that I heard off of this album and it sure did stick in my mind.

One thing that is dramatically different about her first and second albums is the fact that she has found love and sings about it with such a joy and comfort that everybody would want to strive for and for this, it gives it such a different feel and makes it more of an album that could accompany any situation. Late to the Party and Fine are my absolute favourites and I cannot get enough of these songs. Upon first listening to Late to the Party I thought that I could guarantee what it would be about, but what I heard really surprised me in the best way as it turned out to be a lowkey song about enjoying sitting in a car with her love way more than any party. Fine tugs at my heart strings every time and I love listening to it whilst sitting on the floor: stripped back, keeping it real. It is such a vulnerable song and I'm not sure that she has ever presented much of this side of herself before and it is the kind of song that would make you miss every person that you've ever had some kind of connection with. HOW CAN A SONG MAKE YOU FEEL THAT.

The Search

'Will you take me as I am?
 Will you?'

This morning I was reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed and at the beginning of one of the chapters, there was a quote from a song called California by Joni Mitchell. I have never heard the song nor listened to any Joni Mitchell, but the words stuck with me. I laid thinking about my time in California and thought about how it really has taken me as I am. I feel more at home here than I do in my home country simply because California and the people in it, get me. Never before have I been quite so understood and all I can say is that it has been the best time of my life. For the first time I am not the girl that nobody really knows what to think of. No, for once I am the girl that people don't have to question because I fit in so well here.

Upon arriving in California, it did not feel wrong or disjointed. The fact that I was leaving behind my life and starting another one did not feel strange, instead it felt right, it felt oh so right. I had wanted to live in America for so many years and upon arrival, I felt as if I had been destined to do it.
Throwing myself into my life here has given me a great one and when the day comes in which I will have to leave, I will do it with great sadness. The friends that I have here are some of the best that I have ever had and the thought of having to say goodbye to them leaves me slightly speechless. I haven't had long enough with them. I have ignited something within myself that I want to explore more and I cannot get enough of the feeling. Maybe it is the desire to travel, maybe it is the desire to challenge myself, maybe it is the desire to live a life that is something other than ordinary. An extraordinary life.

Whatever it is, I want to keep searching for it.

Is There A Right or Wrong Here?

Long distance relationships are tough. I knew that it would never be easy but they really do live up to their reputation.
I had a decision to make today and although it won't sound like a big one, it threw everything off and left us both feeling a little worse for wear. I was planning to Skype my girlfriend in the early afternoon but shortly before, a few of my friends came round and told myself and my flatmate about the completely spontaneous road trip that they were leaving for. I am all for spontaneity so this got me excited. Although I had a decision to make.
Do I go, not Skype my girlfriend and lose all internet connection or do I not go and Skype my girlfriend?
My girlfriend is always my first choice, always, but having to make that decision left me feeling as if I couldn't really win either way. Of course I was desperate to speak to her, but equally I have to make a life here. I didn't want to cancel on her. The distance has left us both fragile, I didn't know that we could both be so fragile, but it takes its toll sometimes. I knew that telling her that we couldn't speak today would be something that she would take with a head on struggle and when all her messages buzzed through with the returning wifi, all I could feel was that I had been the mean one. I had a great time out seeing pretty landscapes and driving down winding roads but her sadness centered itself in my brain.
I had made the right decision hadn't I?

We've Got This

You move away from home and find yourself 7000 miles away, it's not actually as hard as you think. You find a strength in yourself that you didn't know you had and its light can't be burnt out but 43 days in, it hits you. It hits you like a train that won't stop. It keeps heading towards you, steam escaping from its wheels, horn blowing and lights glaring. You try your best to stop it before it hits you but your ribs ache and you return to the bathroom floor; an old familiar habit that you thought you had seen the last of. Anything but this. You sigh as you feel its coldness against your skin.

The habits show themselves again, taking the opportunity to kick you when you're weak. The bathroom floor, the constant craving to sleep, that one song that was the soundtrack last time, the anger, the numbness, the desperation, the desire to be alone, losing enjoyment in the things that make you feel real, the calls to my sister late at night as she stays on the phone with me until I can breathe again.

It all comes back as if it had been waiting for the moment, as if the past year without it hasn't existed. You slip into a pattern of familiarity that you wish you didn't recognise. It welcomes you in too easily without much of a say. This can't become a pattern. It can't define the last of this year. Hell is a place that we all know but it can't become home. I won't let it.

I look down at the ring that reminds me of how far I've come and I realise that that defines me more than what could become of me if I accept familiarity. Sometimes its so exhausting to be strong but somebody has to be that for me and that is me, It shines brighter than everything else. I realise that I do refuse to sink.

Aren't We All Like This in a Car

Something to make you smile today.

In Your Room

It takes a bare room, stripped of everything, to understand what it contained. Rooms are not just containers but they are containers to live in. They hold you as you experience each day differently and even as everything changes, they remain the same. They remain something that you can return to and maybe part of the charm of these four walls is just that; the fact that they are a constant and a familiarity.

I remember the first time that you let me in your room. It was mid week and had no real remarkable features about it until that late afternoon. Upon entering, I knew that the things in that room were not shared with just anybody, that you have a way of filtering yourself down for others. Nothing about that room was filtered and neither were you. It reflected quirks and intimacies and was an environment conducive to truth.
That was four months ago and that room only ever encouraged truth, or maybe we both did, something did.

A lot happened in that room and seeing it removed of all personality, stripped of everything that we had become accustomed to was, in a way, heartbreaking. It is the people that make a room but it felt as if the bareness of the room, ready for the next person, somehow took away the power of those events when in reality the furniture had nothing to do with any of it.
Those four walls held powerful words that had been spoken, kept us safe when we didn't feel like leaving our world, saw the beginning of us and saw a change in us that would put on hold the way that we had come to know, it saw us both grow into ourselves and each other, but most of all, it let us be who we wanted to be and in that fully furnished room, we were stripped of all reserves.

Creatures Such As We

"For small creatures such as we
  the vastness is bearable only through love"

 - Carl Sagan

Stephanie in the Water

Stephanie in the Water follows the six times female ASP (Association of Surfing Professionals) world tour winner, Stephanie Gilmore in her attempt to reclaim her world title after losing it to Carissa Moore in 2012, a year that began with a personal attack in her home. Directed by Ava Warbrick, Stephanie in the Water is a documentary that demonstrates Gilmore’s constant struggle between being respected as a female surfer and the problems that arise by being such a huge part of a male dominated industry.

Although a documentation of Steph Gilmore and her efforts in 2012 to regain her world title, Stephanie in the Water also plays very much to the issues surrounding women in surfing, both overtly and subtly. The choice to have a female team of documentary makers was definitely a good one, with New York visual artist and filmmaker Ava Warbrick making her directorial debut. The film definitely has artistic elements engrained within it from the start and makes for an extremely enjoyable watch, both visually and in charting Gilmore’s journey.
It seems as if the choice to use a female director was a conscious one, put in place to avoid the inevitable elements of masculinity that are a dominating feature of the surfing world, but this documentary luckily manages to avoid most of them. There are however, some scenes that demonstrate just how sexualised women in the industry are, with scenes of the surfers having their makeup done and walking the red carpet at the Surfer Poll Awards, in which the scene seemed somewhat disjointed with the message that the film was trying to portray. It becomes obvious that Warbrick is presenting Gilmore as the champion that she is, whilst mainly avoiding the obvious gender issues that surround Gilmore, because no matter how many times the world tour trophy is etched with her name, her status as a woman in surfing will always be the driving force behind everything that she does and the female world champion being a part of that. It is undeniable that Gilmore is the reason that surfing has come so far from the even more oppressive society that it used to be.

However, as the most powerful woman in surfing, one would think that Gilmore has managed to escape the gender related comments and this is, for the most part, true. Although the surfing society respects her as a woman and understands the immensity of her talent, comments still filter through the documentary that demonstrate the effect to which women are still being compared to male surfers on a regular basis. This becomes evident from the very beginning of the documentary with Gilmore being interviewed on an Australian news show and on which the female presenter comments that Steph performs a lot of “blokes moves”, when in reality, as Gilmore goes on to correct her, is just being aggressive and powerful in the water whilst trying to remain feminine. It is comments such as these that split the surfers from the outsiders and it seems absurd for a woman to compare the six times female champion to a male surfer, when the two styles of surfing could not be more different. Perhaps Warbrick chose to open the film with a statement such as this to create a dialogue between the successes that women’s surfing has seen whilst simultaneously battling against gender issues.

I think it is fair to say that Warbrick presents the world of women’s surfing in a very realistic way. Sexualised images of women are present even in Stephanie in the Water, which is odd, considering it is working to humanise Gilmore in a way that separates her and her teammates from their bikini clad magazine alter-ego’s, but the contradiction actually works in demonstrating the parallels of female surfing in a visual way throughout. 

Gilmore is granted her sixty minutes of screen time in which she tries to fight the ever-present female surfer stereotype, but slow motion images of her legs and behind as she elegantly surfs a wave and a topless shot of her changing in her garage will blatantly receive attention for the wrong reasons.
As the best female surfer she notes how a question that she hears too much is, “what’s next? What’s more?” and it is important to indicate that world title male surfers are not being asked the same question, suggesting that the standard of female surfing is always being compared to the male standard.
Saying this, a statement that carries a particular poignancy comes from Gilmore’s board shaper, Darren Handley. Knowing many of the top male and female surfers, he says how Steph is “…not like Kelly [Slater, eleven times ASP male world tour winner], she doesn’t go there to have fun or get a bit of prize money. She goes to win” and it is a comment such as this that is potentially the first of its kind, giving a female surfer the dominance over a male surfer and emphasising her desire to win and progress which is often overlooked for women. It is Handley’s observation that truly shows the strength of women’s surfing in a time where it is all about the men.

It can be said that in creating Stephanie in the Water, Warbrick has exposed the world of female underdogs to the mainstream media and along with her heartfelt and powerful representations of Gilmore both in and out of the water, not only have she and Steph made an attempt at revolutionising the female surfing world, but she has also unconsciously demonstrated, with images and phrases that constantly trickle through the hour, just how difficult it is to avoid women’s sexualisation in surfing no matter how brilliant the surfing talent is.

2014

Being two weeks into 2015, I feel that I've had enough time to reflect on the year that has just passed and its status as a peak in my life has really sunk in. It was by no means an easy or continually upbeat year. If any, it was the opposite.

I fought and cried and breathed and laughed and learnt how to live on my own and bought a skateboard and met 11 famous people and went to concerts and bought aeroplane and train tickets and took taxi's and translated French and discovered things that would make me question the one thing that I thought I was sure of.
I bought magazines and books and hats, inked my skin with two tattoos, I put drunk people to bed, got concussion and nearly broke my leg and met people who are more similar to me than I thought and I changed jobs and learnt what loyalty really is. I lost myself but then I returned and I fell in love with myself. I put up posters and panicked that my passport wouldn't arrive in time for holiday and finished a night with mascara on my shirt and bought lipstick and shirts and a scooter.

I have a feeling that in a couple of years when I look back, that 2014 will always stand out as the year that started the making of me.

I have a good feeling about 2015 too, hopefully I will be able to repeat the sentence above when this year draws to a close.

Change Your Own Game

The last four months have been a game changer for me. They have been genuinely fantastic.
As somebody who spent a year being so unhappy, I can't tell you how important it is to make yourself happy. If you don't like the way that something is, change it and you will feel like a weight has been lifted. I have learnt that taking control of my own life is what leads to happiness and that way, you will learn to not only value yourself but also that it is the only way forward. Once you get a taste of it, you won't put up with anything toxic again and that is the way that it should be. Create the life that you want and make it so good that it keeps you awake at night, because you're too damn happy to sleep.

I have surrounded myself with people that only lift me up and as a single pringle, I am enjoying it. Sure I get days when it gets me a bit down and I know how nice it would be to have somebody, but I have come to realise that I don't need anybody to complete me. I complete me. Somebody should make you better. You shouldn't become reliant on somebody to complete you because you are all you need, you are completed, somebody else is just there to make things that bit better.

I'm enjoying being by myself and when the time is right, somebody will come along. You can't force love, love happens on its own and when *huge cliche coming up* you least expect it (it sounds stupid, but that's really how it works). All of the good relationships happen organically (whether that's friendship or romance) and if you have to force it, then it ain't right. When it's the right person they will text you back, they will make an effort to see you and most of all, you won't have to guess where you stand with them because you will know, so don't force anything and don't make yourself unhappy trying to find it, because it will find you. 

So for now, enjoy being by yourself and if you have somebody, then lucky you, congrats, nice one, keep going! But if you don't then just love yourself. That's not an easy ask and that takes time, but that too, will happen, so for the meantime, work on

loving yourself like you're not waiting for somebody else to do it

and

instead of looking for the light, become it instead.

It's Not Just Another One

It may just be Monday but it's not just another Monday. It's a day that has never been lived by you or by anybody else and it will be what you decide it will be. Possibilities and chances are waiting for you to take them and whether that is the chance of starting an essay a day earlier than you were planning or texting an old friend or trying a new sport or finding a new song that you love or relaxing in that bubble bath that you've been craving for the last week, it doesn't matter what it is and it doesn't matter how tiny it is, but you can take on this day like there's nothing stopping you. If you only do one little thing that makes today a bit different, nice one.

So if you've already done Monday or you're partly through it or you're just waking up to it, maybe it won't be so bad afterall.