Sinister: get out of the sunshine, and into the city

[Retro^Sec]

Somewhere in my mind, I have this one little day
dream, that seems to help me through the daily grind
and toil of work.

It's one of those daydreams that you have kept stored
in your head, and it gets you through. Becuase when
things start to get too much, you can retreat there,
and think "well, this can be hell now, but I'll get
what I really deserve soon". Its rather soothing. My
daydreams can be wonderful places to live, although
occasionally they get too carried away, and I have to
remember that I am not really an anonymous eccentric
millionaire who gives to the needy, and is secretly
hoarding away millions of pounds and could easily jack
the job in - and I'm not doing it just to give me
something to do. Alas, I'm not there yet. Sometimes,
my dreams are tragic, and I'll end up in tears at my
own imaginary life. But it gets me through the day. 

The days have indeed been getting longer, since
autumn. They drag on, and I'm not particularly
enjoying them at the moment. 

In a way, it reminds me of those skipping rope games
at school. I was inevitably, shit at them. The one
where two people hold the rope and whip it round and
you have to jump into the middle. I could only do
arcs, not full circles. I would wait too long, moving
in rythmn to the rope whipping the playground tarmac,
before hestitating and then stumbling into the middle.
Inevitably, the rope would get caught around a stray
ankle of mine. 

I feel like that now. I'm waiting for the rythmn of
the rope, I'm waiting to get the timing right, and
again, I'm trying to avoid getting tangled up in a
mess because I rushed in at the wrong moment becuase I
felt I had to.

My friend was telling me the other day, about a summer
in Spain. She would sleep on the beach, or somewhere
in the woods under the stars, and occasionally stop at
a campsite to freshen up. The perfect idylic bohemian
summer. 

That sort of thing never appealed to me particularly.
Maybe when I was 15, it appealed, partly spurred on by
reading too much Just 17 about getting a sunkissed
beach babe look without make up. But back then, in m
imagination, there were no bitey insects, or bad hair
days, my thighs were thin (thinner than they were even
at 15) and I had a warm sunkissed make up beach babe
glow. And Johnny Depp was on the beach with me. The
truth is, I still look like I've appeared from a
sleepness night in the morgue. I did then, and I do
now. 

The sort of thing that appealed to me in later years,
was the idea of cosmopolitian cities, those gorgeous
street cafes in France with cobbles and flowers
dripping from every window and terrace and balcony.
And cafes, with chocolate cakes, that were decorated
with intricate laces of chocolate, and sprinkles of
icing sugar and drizzles of raspberry syrup. Wandering
around streets in towns and cities. 

But when my friend told me about her holiday, I became
aware that was something I quite liked the idea of.
Bitey insects and everything. Getting so filthy, so
disgustingly dirty, having greasy knotted hair, and
the scent of sea water, suntan lotion and sweat stuck
to my skin. My clothes hanging off me in only the way
that crumpled lazy cotton t shirts can, rather than
crisp white shirts with collars and cuffs. The idea of
getting disgustingly dirty, and yet not giving a damn
about it. And then going for a shower, and feeling
every drop of water like it is the very first. The
sheer feeling of cleanliness after days of filth. I
felt like that once, a few years ago. I'd returned
from a hot sticky weekend at T In The Park. I hadn't
washed for days, I'd tucked my wild hair under a
headscarf, wiped my face with baby wipes and applied
deodorant as liberally as possible every morning. And
Mark and I went home to his house, the car windows
rolled down along the motorway to try and get some air
into the oven of the car. And his mum had run a bath
for me. Sinking into that bath was one of the best
baths I'd ever had. It was certainly the most
relaxing, the most refreshing, and the most peaceful. 

Now with my nine-to-five, sitting in the office,
getting hot when the sun shines on my back, and my
eyes getting lazy and tired from the glare of the
computer monitor and the cold persistant blaze of the
electric strip of light above me -trying to overpower
the light of the sun- and I'm sitting there typing in
stupid meaningless words into a screen. I'm sitting
there, and I realise how much of the world is ruled by
numbers and digits - time; currency; files; size;
everything is determined, somehow, by a meaningless
series of digits. And words, words that won't mean
anything to anyone in 100 years time. Yet I sit there
doing this to make things run efficiently. 

It doesn't make me feel as good as it used to. I don't
feel as appreciated as I was. I feel that something
has slipped, and all the time, its pulling me along
with it. 

There was a cartoon strip in the Metro newspaper a few
weeks ago. It had all of these people wandering
towards the grey concrete city, and one guy turning
round saying "hey! we're going the wrong way!". In the
other direction, there was sunshine, and trees, and
flowers and parks. And that is how I feel. I keep
walking away from the sunshine. I keep walking towards
the merciless world, every morning. Maybe for a day or
two, I could walk away, towards the sunshine. But I
doubt it would last long. Those numbers, that little
issue of money, would come back sooner or later, and
I'd have to do something about it. I'd have to earn
some again, so I could buy food and gain accomodation,
and travel, and generally live. 

I'm taking a few days off soon, and I'm going off to
see my boyfriend, down south. And I am looking forward
to it, not only to see him, but to indulge in a few
days of escapism. It might not be a beach in Spain, or
an exotic beach, but it is just far away enough from
the world I see every day. 

And thats why I keep dreaming about the effortless
millions, where I can do what I like becuase I have
that luxury. 

Yours dreamily,

idleberry
x




=====
<a href="http://retrosec.blogspot.com/">http://retrosec.blogspot.com/</a> thoughts

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