Sinister: You're as pretty as pink lemonade

[Dimitra Daisy]

Dear Sinister,

Time is a funny thing. It doesn't wash everything away as some people say it 
does, no - but the amount of things it does wash away never ceases to amaze 
me. Somedays my life feels like a beach after the tide was been and gone, 
but in a brilliant way: I picture stretches of brownish, wet, slightly 
sparkly sand bathing in the sunset light - there's even a wooden pier with 
something red and and blue on it (I'm better at imagining colours and I am 
at shapes, with which I am actually rather hopeless) and the sea is far 
away, a grey shade of blue. It is appropriately windy and as I walk along 
the sea with my hands in my pockets and the new Pipas' song in my ears and 
the world at my feet.

There was a time when I swore I would never forget my first love. Sure 
enough, I haven't - but anything sad concerning him has long ago vanished 
from my life. There was a time when I admitted to myself -crying in bed at 
five am- that I don't think I'll ever get over The Boy. It took a very long 
time, but these days I forget about him more than I remember him. There was 
a day last October, when I arrived to London having stayed up all night and 
waited in Prague airport for six hours, and I remember everything about like 
it was yesterday: the green of the grass underneath the London Eye, the blue 
skies, the way me & David sat next to each other on the platform in Dorking 
and started talking as if we had last done it the day before. The way he 
smoked. The biscuits his mum wanted to feed me. The way we made love for the 
first time as the sky turned grey. And even though in a way it feels like 
yesterday, in another it's miles away.

And the time we first started Friends of the Heroes - remember how new and 
innocent we were, and how excited? We thought it was the best thing ever. 
These days I need to remind myself to think this way. Things change so much. 
I once sat at the steps that lead to the river in Inverness - on a 
not-all-that-cold winter evening, on a moment so beautiful it changed my 
world to something better. It was a bit like Heaven. Today, Heaven looks 
more like a clubnight in my head. But would it be if Mark hadn't had 
Tigermilking on my birthday? Would it be if Ken hadn't made me dance? 
There's a beach somewhere in England that sometimes features in my dreams (I 
once dreamed there was a Sarah Records festival taking place on it); and it 
is yet another place I would never have known had it not been for Sinister 
(and for me being a little crazy, too).

And that night train - from Paris to Bordeaux, I think it was - do you 
remember the lights of suburban Paris blurring by while we talked about The 
List? I do. And I remember the thrill of it all. And that spring, four and a 
half years ago, when I first took Belle and Sebastian home: how they warmed 
my heart and made the world a brighter place and life more poetic. And how 
months went by, even years, and they still seemed the best thing ever: I 
thought it would never end. Sinister was a close second: do you remember the 
time you first discovered you're not alone, because there are loads of other 
people like you out there? I do - and I remember a September two years ago 
when Sinister was what made my world go round.

But things change. Life puts too much stuff between where you were and were 
you are now. Where you were loses significance to where you are because were 
you are is always more, just because it's the present. I call this force 
metaphorical gravity and I find it quite an uplifting thing, really: when 
everything goes wrong and it seems impossible that things will ever get 
better you can trust that they will change with time.

Listening to The Band on KCRW the other day, I found myself almost getting 
bored. I mean, sure, they can play, and Scooby Driver is such a brilliant 
song, and I love it so much when Stuart and Stevie sing together - but 
that's not the sort of music that will break my heart and change my life 
anymore. I sat there making a list of all the albums I'm looking forward 
more that Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and I found there were at least three, 
maybe four, or maybe even five of them. And I forget to look into my 
'Sinister' folder half the time. Whenever I think of Sinister I invariably 
think of something Ally Cook had said -on the only ILE thread I've ever 
read; it was along the lines of "I don't seem to have much time for it 
lately, but it's only because of the other directions it has sent me off in" 
and it sums my feelings up perfectly.

But don't worry. Belle and Sebastian might not be the band that breaks my 
heart into a million beautiful pieces and then glues it back together in a 
better way anymore, but there are new bands to do it. They might not be as 
good but they are just as wonderful. My life might not revolve around 
Sinister anymore, and it is better this way, too. But a post by Ally Cook or 
the Pinefox, or Anders for that matter, has never failed to make smile and 
as the KCRW set was closing to an end and Stuart launched into 'The State I 
An In' my heart jumped and tears came to my eyes. Some things never age. 
Life washes away most everything but good things never fade away. Indeed I 
think they stay with you forever and keep you company through gloomy winters 
and dark nights.

All I'm trying to say is I'm happy and I have you to thank for it, mostly.

No, seriously.

Shine on,
Dimitra Daisy
xxx



~~~~~
Getting this happy takes practice - the world would be duller without us

  http://www.friendsoftheheroes.co.uk/

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