the tenant of wildfell hall
It was a wet and windy day when I visited Anne Brontë's final resting place in St Mary's churchyard in Scarborough in June 2017.
The weather felt appropriate, as did the wilted flowers against the headstone.
untitled #238
CW: eating disorders, body dysmorphia, body-shaming, fat-shaming
This piece also includes language some may find offensive.
I have an unhealthy relationship with my body.
It started just as I was becoming a woman. At least, as much as I recall, though maybe there were other signs before I can remember. I would be surprised if there weren't.
But the first instances that come to mind of my unhealthy relationship with my body were around 11 years old. Definitely by the time I finished primary school.
It started with a combination of examples set out for me, some from family, some from glossy magazines. You know, the way most of us learn and internalise these things from a young age. Not all are intentionally put there to harm us, but others are seemingly as old as time.
I first remember discussing healthy weight ranges with my Mum. I don't know how it came up. I don't even remember weighing myself much at that age. I had to go into my parents' ensuite to do so. I don't recall a scale in the main bathroom when my brothers and I were kids. At some point, maybe I asked my Mum how much I should weigh. Perhaps she looked it up to see what was healthy for my height and age.
I wasn't overweight; I was slim. I was active in the school playground. I played sports: netball, Newcomb ball and softball. And I was one of the few girls in my grade five and six classes who would go in to catch the ball when we played Kanga cricket. I usually tried out for various athletic events for interschool sports: the 100m, 400m and 800m races, relays and, hilariously, looking back, high jump. At the time, I was around the second or third tallest girl in my year, though I never grew any taller after I turned eleven.
But I remember my Mum taking a magazine out of the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet to show me a graph. I was near the bottom of the healthy weight range for my height.
I never asked my Mum why she kept her Slimming magazines tucked away where she did. It was the kind of place someone might hide away pornographic magazines, not health magazines. So, to this day, I don't know if she kept them there because it was handy for her to read the articles.
Or if she was ashamed of buying them and reading them because she felt shamed by her weight issues.
Or if she kept them there to avoid setting an example of body-shaming to her daughter. Maybe she didn't want me to be obsessed with weight loss and body shapes and sizes and fixate on such things as an impressionable pre-teen.
If it was the latter, unfortunately, it didn't work.
I didn't become obsessive about weighing myself straight away. I still don't recall weighing myself every day at that point.
But I know I regularly went to her drawer to pull out that magazine to check where I fit on the graph whenever my weight wavered. I checked and re-checked it to reassure myself. Eventually, all I needed to remember was to stay as close to eight stone as possible. Then all would be okay.
My discovery of that graph would have coincided with a friend introducing me to Dolly magazine.
Though we were only about 11 and 12, her sister was a couple of years older and already deep in the world of glossy teen and fashion magazines.
I was still crushing on teen heartthrobs in the pages of Smash Hits, Bop and The Big Bopper and reading magazines that were supposedly more healthy for young women, like Girlfriend.
My friend introduced me to Dolly, Teen Vogue, I think, and other magazines handed down from her sister. Magazines to ease young girls into the constant mixed messages they would become accustomed to as they grew older. Glossy pages full of articles about loving yourself whilst simultaneously working out which parts (physical, emotional and mental) of yourself to hate this week/month/year and what the best ways of covering up those shortcomings were: makeup, creams, tablets, fashion.
Like most teenage girls, I internalised all of these expectations pretty quickly. And what the magazines taught me was rapidly reinforced in the halls of my high school.
In year eight, when a boy I fancied told me I had a "fat arse" as I walked up the stairs into the building in front of him, it played over and over in my mind. For most of the following three years, I wore oversize t-shirts over my jeans to cover my "fat arse". I don't know what I weighed then, but it was unlikely to be much over 55kg, but likely less.
At 16 or 17 years old - the earliest I would have been allowed to use a public gym - my younger brother and I signed up at a gym in the small town where we had moved.
By the time I was in year 12 and allowed to wear casual clothing to school every day, I realised I had a flat stomach. And my arse wasn't fat. So I finally gained the confidence to wear midriff tops and my jeans down on my hips.
dance dance dance
For the three years I was at college, I spent almost as many hours per week dancing in nightclubs as in the classroom. I spent three to five hours a night, three to five nights a week, dancing to indie, alternative, retro and disco hits with friends.
When I finished college, I managed to get a much-reduced price on a gym membership. I got back into exercising regularly there as well as on the dancefloor.
By the time I was 18, I had internalised an image of how women should look. So much so that I didn't flinch when a guy I regularly went out dancing with would point at and ridicule other women around me for having "cunt-pots". All I thought at the time was how good it was that I didn't have one.
Another friend put up "pool rules" for his inflatable pool bought with his redundancy payment. The first rule was "No fat chicks", and the last rule was "Definitely no fat chicks". I still didn't flinch. I wasn't a "fat chick". Why should I?
When a guy I slept with bragged about how he'd never had a girl in his bed who weighed over 60kg, I was once again proud I didn't weigh over 60kg.
It was only later, when I got together with a woman I met through the last guy, that I thought about how fucked up his thinking was when she pointed out that she had been in his bed and she weighed over 60kg. She was taller than me, far from overweight and gorgeous. There was a shared sense of victory in her breaking his rule without him having a clue.
blue
It wasn't until about 1998 that I realised how much interest I'd lost in food. Up until about 14 years old - with some exceptions - I enjoyed most food. My parents always served up hearty, delicious meals or took us to quality restaurants to sample a variety of world cuisines.
Sometime in my early teens, I switched to ordering entrees instead of main meals most of the time when we ate out. That may have given me space for desserts on some occasions, but, equally, I may have declined dessert. I claimed it was because my stomach wasn't that big. An entree-sized meal filled me up. And, arguably, it did. But it was ingrained in my mind to eat less; stay slim.
When my parents started running a motel and restaurant in country Victoria when I was in year 10, I lost more interest in food.
Most of what we ate the chefs prepared in the kitchen at the restaurant. By November 1993, I had become vegetarian. There were usually one or two vegetarian dishes on the menu at any one time, or the chefs would knock me up a quick and easy pasta. Or I'd have a bowl of fries. Or microwaved veggie burgers, sans bread or fillings.
If you have a limited range to choose from, even the most delicious meal becomes boring and repetitive. I loved snow peas until we lived there, then I just found them uninspiring. The only element I never tired of was Hasselback scalloped potatoes.
When I was at college and in my first year of working, I spent more time drinking Coke and cider and dancing than preparing food. I wasn't unhealthy. I still ate, but it was purely functional.
I rarely ate much before I went out for a night of dancing or before a session in the gym. I still won't on the occasions I do those things. Dancing or working out on a full stomach has always disagreed with me.
But between college, then work, and dancing and sleeping, there wasn't much time left for eating. At the time, I didn't see this as a problem.
However, while I completed a 365 Days project (a self-portrait a day for a year) in 2007, I looked back on a short video I made for college in 1996.
In retrospect, I think it's safe to say I was verging on anorexic. The video consisted of repeated loops of footage: me in the corner of my bedroom in a huddled position, the refrigerator door opening on an empty fridge, and the soundtrack of In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song) from David Lynch's film, Eraserhead.
Add a mild case of alcohol poisoning on a near-monthly basis, and I obviously wasn't in a good place at the time.
in heaven everything is fine
When I incorporated a still from the footage in my 365 Days project, I was reaching back across time to try to reassure my younger self; to attempt to help her. It took me those 10 to 11 years to see her as she was then.
Until I was about 22, I had never weighed over 53kg. And then he started feeding me.
In 1998, I started dating a partner who loved cooking. Who loved food. He'd had and has continued to have battles with food and his body, but he rekindled my taste for food after about six years. If I found a meal I enjoyed out and about, he'd figure out how to make it for us. He'd always make far more than we could eat, but somehow we would eat it all. He would make it in the belief any leftovers would be eaten the next day, but they never stayed in the dish that long.
We were both working and saving to move to the UK within six months of officially becoming a couple. We also spent three months housesitting for his parents on the outskirts of Melbourne. So our activity levels dropped dramatically. We hibernated a lot during the Australian winter, and we spent a lot of time in front of the television.
My weight went up, though not drastically so. I was simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable with that. I still didn't go above the upper ranges of the healthy weight range I'd memorised from my early teens throughout our relationship.
Between 2002 and 2007, various factors came into play that contributed to my weight gain. Depression, excess alcohol consumption, sedentary work, far less physical activity (only on rare occasions out dancing by the time I was 30), not enough sleep.
adrift
Sometime in 2007, I reached 72kg for the first time. By June 2008, I dropped again to 61kg. By November that year, I was within about 5kg of my ideal weight. By March 2010, I managed to regain all I'd lost plus some to reach my new heaviest weight thus far of 74kg, in time for a road trip from Melbourne to Brisbane with my friend Phil. Somehow I still managed to take self-portraits during that trip that I don't hate, and some are arguably my best work.
Soon after my return from the road trip, I joined a gym again, and by the time I departed for the UK in January 2011, I'd managed to drop to 67kg. I somehow lost another 2kg in transit to arrive in London, weighing 65kg. I steadily whittled that weight back down to 53kg, one kilo above my ideal weight, by February 2012.
Late in 2010, I'd met a partner when I weighed about 68kg. We decided to try out a long-distance relationship when I moved back to London.
He had been on a weight loss journey before we met, with much more baggage to shake.
We both continued to lose more weight between January 2011, when I left Australia, and February 2012, when we reunited in person for the first time in London.
can’t stand up for falling down
Although he was proud of my achievements, that visit left me perplexed. I had reached within 1kg of my ideal weight, which had made me happier about my body, and yet, somehow, he seemed less attracted to the new "tiny" me. Although there were other factors at play, I'm not going to lie that his reduced attraction to me didn't play at least some small part in my regaining weight.
Meanwhile, to drop to that weight and maintain it (or near enough), I realised my mind had had to shift a lot. Some of it was a healthy shift. But some of it was seriously unhealthy. Not the same type of 'unhealthy' as during my late teens and early twenties, but still not healthy.
I was obsessively counting calories and weighing myself. I spent at least five hours in the gym every week in 2011. In 2012, and until I sustained a foot injury that curtailed my gym-going for a while, I often spent over seven hours in the gym per week, taking part in lots of Les Mills classes and caning myself on a stationary bike.
Whilst seven hours per week in a gym isn't unhealthy in and of itself, the internal dialogue I was having with myself was anything but healthy. The time I was in the gym was penance or payment for poor choices made in my eating and drinking habits or my lack of activity in my daily life.
When I wasn't overtly punishing myself, I was trading calories out for calories I would subsequently be able to take in. If I burned 600 calories on the bike and 450 calories in a Body Pump class, I could eat that pizza or drink that cider, and everything would be okay.
Whilst reducing my weight to my ideal in 2011/2012, even the MyFitnessPal app ceased telling me how much I could expect to lose in five weeks "if every day were like today". I was regularly achieving a deficit in calories in/calories out that was deemed unhealthy. I consumed fewer than 1,200 calories and often burned more than 1,000 calories. Even fitness apps have a conscience.
By January 2013, I'd developed what a GP believed to be Morton's neuroma in my left foot. It was subsequently successfully treated as rheumatoid arthritis in one of the toe joints. The pain in my toe was so severe that it forced me to cut down and then stop exercising entirely.
After cortisone injections, I was discouraged from any impact exercise - running, jogging, jumping - for a while, at least, but possibly permanently. I was also warned not to wear high heels - even low ones - for any period. They would place more pressure on the ball of my foot and potentially rekindle the issue.
With my exercise options and time at the gym somewhat limited, I still spent a lot of time on the stationary bike. I was still keeping my weight within a reasonable range, but it crept up again over time, much of it caused by a lack of exercise and an excess of alcohol. But also through continuing to consume large quantities of food. That quantity of food was acceptable while I was exercising to excess. But, without the exercise to trade the "calories out" against the "calories in", there was a gradual weight increase.
Mixed in there, though not directly related to my weight, my relationship broke down. That contributed to more poor decisions on eating, drinking and exercise as well as depression, anxiety and poor sleep.
Since then, I've hit new highs and had lows again, though not as low as 53kg.
I've tried to be kinder to myself. More gentle.
I've tried to see myself the way I see other women now. Not the way I used to see other women, which was in an internalised misogynistic fat-shaming way. I see other women in a way where I don't think, "She would be beautiful if she lost some weight". I think "She is beautiful". And her weight - whichever end of the spectrum it is, or in the middle - doesn't influence why I see her that way.
It takes a lot of work. I can more easily see others as beautiful irrespective of their weight than I can look at myself in the mirror. Or look at photos others have taken of me when I'm overweight. Or that I'd taken of myself years ago when I was 70kg+.
It's still hard. I still have to re-train myself every time I look at photos of myself. It contributes heavily to why I don't take self-portraits anymore, though I want to.
But, even without being overweight, when I weighed in the low to mid-50s, I could pick apart every inch of my body to tell you what still needed work. What still made me "less than".
I've also grown up in a culture where to be desired is everything, even when I can see past a relationship being a measure of my worth. If I'm 100% honest, desire is still something I use to measure my self-worth. Lack of desire within a relationship is probably an even harder pill for me to swallow.
And it's so easy - when a former lover admits they find me less attractive due to my weight gain - to fall back into unhealthy behaviours, to punish myself. Because maybe my weight gain led to me being less desirable and to our break-up. But that doesn't fix anything that wasn't already broken. And it won't help me be who I want and need to be going forward.
Depending on the day of the week or the hour of the day. How many hours since my last meal and how much or how little I ate the day before. I weigh about 10kg less than I weighed at the new heaviest weight I reached a year ago.
I'm not "happy" with my current weight. I'm not "happy" with how I look, how my clothes fit me and how I look naked. And I know I have a lot of unhealthy habits.
But I also know many of my previous tactics that kept me at or helped me back to around 52kg aren't healthy.
I have to regularly remind myself that those who've never had an issue with weight will rarely understand or empathise. Whether blessed with a fast metabolism or never experienced an eating disorder, addiction or mental health issue.
I need to find a healthier way to get back to being strong and fit and resolve issues I have with my lower back strength. Not to mention regaining strength and confidence with my left ankle after the fracture I sustained in October 2019.
I need to continue to seek a healthier relationship with my body. I've been trying for so long. You would think it would become easier over time, but it doesn't.
metropolis
Here's a miniature city I found in the churchyard of the Parish Church of St Cuthbert in Edinburgh during a visit in 2011.
The theme of this week appears to have been communication and reconnection.
Not to be outdone by Anna and Penny, my friend Feih gave me a call on Tuesday that ran for 5 hours and 42 minutes. A long but enjoyable catch-up for the first time since early January.
On Wednesday, a much shorter call with Phil, but we still clocked up about 2.5 hours. And then a fairly standard length - two hours - video call via Skype with my Dad in the wee hours of this morning.
On Wednesday, I woke to some good news, finally. More information from my landlord meant my stress levels about finances have dropped somewhat.
On Tuesday evening, I'd found out the contract work I've been doing was expected to increase for a bit. But then, to counteract the good news on Wednesday, we were updated late this afternoon that there won't be any more work from Monday. At this stage, it's not clear if it's a brief hiatus or the end of the projects we've been working on.
I hope you've had a good week and connected or reconnected with people who make you feel special and loved xx
leader of the free world [szabadság tér, lipótváros, budapest, hungary, 2012]
When visiting Budapest with my parents in May 2012, I was a little surprised to find Ronald Reagan memorialised in Szabadság tér and, obviously, had to capture him.
I didn't realise until recently that he'd been in the square for less than a year when I visited. In fact, his likeness was unveiled on this day ten years ago.
The neo-Gothic Országház (translated: House of the Nation, otherwise known as the Hungarian Parliament Building) can be seen in the background.
windmills of your mind
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
- Marilyn Bergman / Michel Legrand / Alan Bergman
Original recording by Noel Harrison
A more irreverent version from The Muppet Show. This was probably where I first heard the song and why I always think it speeds up when the original doesn't.
of hearts and flowers
Another long overdue catch-up with another lovely friend today. One who's also recently gone through a break-up.
Victoria invited me to Paris to stay with her almost ten years ago. She wandered through Pere Lachaise Cemetery with me as I took the images from my stained glass series.
So good to message with her today, despite the circumstances that brought us together this time around.
van life [eight mile plains, brisbane, queensland, australia, 2009]
A random selection from my collection of older work that I hadn't previously edited.
This was taken on an abandoned property in Eight Mile Plains, Brisbane, all the way back in 2009. Exploring with the talented photographer, Mel Brackstone, after a spot of charity shopping for outfits to model in.
The house itself was the setting for two of my interior/exterior self-portraits, le moribund, and the walls keep saying your name.
I still have quite a lot of photographs that don't include me to edit from that day.
Today has been one of lengthy phone conversations with good friends back in Australia.
Talented artist Anna Maria Drutzel and I talked for about 3.5 hours in the wee hours of my morning. Discussing life, love, art. And wherein Anna tried to persuade me (unsuccessfully) to return to Australia.
A couple of hours after I woke again, Penny and I spoke for the first time in about 20 years. For four hours! Possibly the first real conversation we'd ever had, and definitely the first time we'd talked whilst I was sober (Penny, not so much). Despite having known each other for 26 years, most of our time together in the late 90s was spent dancing drunkenly and behaving badly with other regulars at various indie clubs across Melbourne. Not exactly the place for deep and meaningful conversations.
Both were pleasant distractions and yet another reminder of the generous and supportive people I'm blessed to have in my life.
untitled #26 [royal botanic gardens, melbourne, victoria, australia, 2007]
So, I've known this was coming since December last year, but it took longer than expected.
Subsequently, it's landed at arguably the worst possible moment for me: my flatmate has given notice tonight that he's moving out at the end of next month.
untitled #25 [parkland walk, highgate, london, england, 2018]
I've decided it's about time my collection of fungi images were brought out of the dark and into the light more regularly.
So welcome to a new curated series I'll share with you going forward on #FungiFriday: the fungus among us.
This fellow was perched on the side of a tree on the side of the path on Parkland Walk.
untitled #51 [wapping, london, england, 2019]
wrecked [wonthaggi, victoria, australia, 2019]
So, yesterday was a bit tiring but mostly good.
After a day consumed by client work, I was about to settle in for an evening of photo editing. Before I did, I took a moment to catch up on social and clicked on an Instagram story from a friend.
To be honest, I rarely click on the stories of friends or accounts I follow. Not because I'm not interested in what they're sharing. But because they've often shared it to their feed as well. Or it's content they're sharing from others, which may or may not interest me.
Also, I generally have to be in the right mood for stories or reels, even IG video. And then there are the soundtracks people choose to accompany them, but that's a discussion for another time...
So, I was in for a bit of a shock when clicking on her stories yesterday evening.
Her bruised and swollen face looked back at me, and my first thought was that someone had beaten the hell out of her.
I held my thumb on the story to stop it from moving forward and took in the text and hashtags on the post to register what I was looking at. I let the next story play, and then I messaged.
She had been in a terrible car accident and, if not for people coming to her rescue, she could have died. I'm so thankful she didn't.
We met about 2005 via MySpace and became fast friends. We've shared so much in the intervening 16 years - especially in the first few years of our friendship (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) - despite spending so many of those years miles apart.
She's been a muse to me. One of the most easygoing models I've worked with.
She's given me access to inspiring natural and manmade environments in which to take self-portraits almost every time I've been able to visit her. Both in Australia and the UK.
She also managed to get my photography (and my cleavage) on the telly for the first time a few years back.
We don't chat enough these days, but when we do - as with many of my best friends - it's like picking up a conversation from two weeks ago instead of two years (or more) ago.
Despite having to undergo facial surgery to repair her broken jaw (hopefully today, Australian time), she hasn't lost her dark sense of humour.
I don't have any photos from my D700 from the last day we met up in Coolangatta on the final full day of my visit to Australia in late 2019. All those I took with my iPhone have already been shared.
That's why I decided to edit and share this photo from earlier in the road trip from Melbourne to Brisbane. I thought it might appeal to her dark sense of humour at this time.
So I'm relieved but still catching my breath a little with this news right now. And sending my love and the gentlest hugs across the time zones to her.
toni’s ices [king’s parade, cambridge, cambridgeshire, england, 2017]
I'm looking forward to the prospect of day trips out of the city with friends this summer.
The last one with friends as a collective in the UK was to visit Cambridge in 2018.
I took this photograph in Cambridge, but it was during a road trip with Mum and Dad on their last visit to the UK in 2017.
It was definitely my Mum's last international trip but, hopefully, Dad can come back to the UK sometime soon.
That trip was stressful and emotional as it was the first time the development of Mum's dementia was unmistakable. Previous travels with my parents had been stressful and emotional, but for other reasons.
But it was still enjoyable for the places I could visit or revisit and the time spent with my parents in the calmer moments. And, obviously, the photographic opportunities.
Where are you looking forward to spending your days out this summer? Answers on a postcard ;)
untitled #41 [st andrew’s church, totteridge village, barnet, london, england, 2021]
A simple, calm photograph for you today.
Nice light on those pine cones.
The past couple of days have also been calm. Productive. Focussed. Things I don't feel like I've felt for months now, though I'm sure there were some days in there that fit that description.
Sleep Cycle tells me I had 100% sleep quality on Saturday night/Sunday morning. That is unheard of for me. Even when I went to New Zealand in 2018, my first high-quality sleep wasn't that high.
But last night/this morning was full of stressful dreams and arguments in my sleep with a former lover from years ago, leaving me emotionally exhausted upon waking.
Tonight, I spent the evening working on photos for my Love Letters to London series while listening to one of my homemade Spotify playlists, Better Together.
I have plans made with a friend or two to catch up in person this weekend. A phone call with a friend back in Australia scheduled for the wee hours of Friday morning. Maybe a call with Dad in a little while.
Plans tentatively made for a London photo walk in August with a friend; plans years in the making. A plan to meet the same friend for a long weekend in Chichester in late September, presuming we're not back in lockdown again then.
And - if the weather is as forecast and I'm not feeling too lazy - I'll see how far I can make it along the New River Path (the London stretch). One day this week, when it's closer to 20 than 25 degrees and the rain has paused.
I hope your week is off to a good start x
‘til death do us part
She wondered to herself - not for the first time - how many other's parents had set the bar for romantic relationships so high. So high that their children's expectations for their own relationships seemed a pipe dream. That anything less than what their parents had was a pale imitation. Anything else left them feeling wanting.
Her parents had shared everything. They had no secrets from each other. They trusted each other implicitly and loved each other unconditionally.
They supported and encouraged each other. Cared for each other and lost sleep worrying about each other.
They talked about everything, and they made decisions as a couple, as a partnership. All the way through their marriage until her mother's dementia meant she couldn't make decisions or talk about things in the same way.
Neither of them dictated anything to the other or made the other feel bad for asking questions. Indeed, most questions were answered before needing to be asked. Their relationship was one of open dialogue and transparency. Always.
There were never any power games. Never the sense that one made the other feel they were being given or denied a treat by being able to see the other more or less. When, how and where they met was a mutual decision. They wanted to see each other equally and showed no restraint from either side.
Her mother became part of her father's family and vice versa. She came from a very affectionate family into one less so. But her mother gradually coaxed her husband's family into the habit of hugs rather than handshakes. Growing up with an aunt whose catch-cry was "kissy-up, kissy-up" on arrival and on leaving her home encouraged her mother to engender that level of affection in her father's family. Though she saved kisses on the lips for her husband alone.
She grew up with the example of intimate and affectionate parents. Even as they grew older, she watched them reach for each other's hands as she walked along the streets of London with them. Instinctive and natural.
Their friends were their friends. Not her mother or her father's. The friendships may originally have been made or found through one. But they became mutual friends her parents spent time with, both together and apart.
There was never any compartmentalisation in their relationship, their relationships with others and their lives. They even worked together side-by-side for about 10 years.
Their weight gains and losses were irrelevant. They were the same people beneath the flesh and bones, so what did weight matter?
As her mother's dementia took hold, she saw how it broke her father's heart. His best friend, lover, partner and confidante of almost fifty years changed. Her mother saw him as a stranger, and he recognised the real her only in glimpses of lucidness. But he has never stopped loving her.
In her own life, she felt she'd never truly experienced what they had. What they have.
Others might argue that what she sought was a romantic fantasy. But she'd witnessed it growing up, so she knew it wasn't just in her imagination.
Sure, she knew their marriage wasn't perfect. Their relationship wasn't perfect. None are. But they worked through anything that might have created an issue. And came out stronger together on the other side.
But what she witnessed of their relationship over more than forty years of her life was always one of love, trust, openness, communication, honesty, affection, adoration and longevity. Damn near perfection, in her eyes.
And so far, she'd only had glimpses of pieces of what they had in her own life. Samples. Tasters. But nothing that stood up to the same tests. Nothing that lasted long enough or brought as much happiness as that she'd witnessed watching her parents as she grew from a child to a teenager, a teenager to an adult.
Everything she had experienced felt like a shadow of what she'd witnessed.
When it came to her own relationships, she viewed the possibility of something even three-quarters as good as what they'd had as a chimaera. Something she hoped for but felt she would never achieve or realise. The stuff of dreams. A fantasy.
Except she knew it could be real.
So she kept seeking it out. Hoping against hope. Believing that maybe, just maybe…
But again and again, she returned to the thought that maybe her parents had set the bar too high. Raised her expectations of what love and "forever" might be to something only achievable for a select few; for people of previous generations, perhaps. But not for her.
She thought, not for the first time: maybe she should just let go of all expectations. And forget 'til death do us part, even if it didn't involve any formal declaration or ceremony. Clearly, it wasn't meant to be.
a gentle reminder
A second long, emotionally exhausting call today. The final clarification. Confirmation of the closing of a chapter.
I got some answers. I got an answer I expected, but that still stung and disappointed me.
At the end of it all, I still feel there are puzzle pieces forever lost down the back of the couch. But the jigsaw was thrown out months ago, so does it really matter anymore?
After the call and freshening up, I ventured outside into an overcast day.
And there, in our garden, just by the path across the front of the building, I saw a poppy.
I've never seen them in our garden in all of the five years I've lived here. But there are also some - yet to flower - along the main path. I noticed them on my return from the supermarket.
I took some photos with my phone on the way out but took my D700 down to take some more once I had returned and put away my purchases.
Seeing this delicate beauty in my yard - seemingly having appeared out of nowhere - was a gentle reminder to me on a day like today. When everything feels like it's gone to shite, that even in darkness, there is beauty.
There are new beginnings to be discovered and embraced. Unexpected but treasured.
The past two years have been difficult and stressful for me for so many reasons, and the past six months feels like it has reached a fever pitch.
Maybe this final gut-punch is what I need to move forward and find my focus again. Focus that's been gone for too long. But particularly so in the past year.
I value genuine lovers, close relationships, loyalty, honesty and openness. But I've never defined myself by my romantic relationships.
I've never needed a relationship to prove my self-worth, and sometimes they actually serve to make me lose sight of my own self-worth and direction.
To lose focus by creating a distraction and additional problems to solve, instead of solving the most important things I should be focussing on.
And, at times like these, I'm reminded that I crave new beginnings. New seasons of self. And the blossoming of new ideas and opportunities.
Here's to new beginnings.
catford centre [catford, london, england, 2018]
I don't know about you, but I needed something visually irreverent today.
I captured this fella while out shopping for furnishings with Sophie in August 2018.
I discovered some charity shop gems that day like these chairs and Manchester City Mary. But my current furnished abode is already overstuffed with furniture and prints, so I settled for capturing them with my iPhone rather than purchasing them.
Having had dogs as family pets from about four years old, I've always been a dog person rather than a cat person. I used to really dislike cats.
There are still some aspects that make me question if I could ever live with one full time.
And I still love dogs and squee every time I see a "Quincy" (miniature schnauzer) or an "Elvie" (wire-haired fox terrier) when out and about.
But I grew to appreciate cats more over the past couple of years.
I think, in the end, I've come to understand that I'm an "animal person". I'm not exclusively a "dog person", and I'm no longer "absolutely not" a "cat person".
I just wish relationships with other humans were as uncomplicated and unconditional as with pets.
I miss having a dog companion to sense your sadness and push it away with their cold, wet nose, silly wagging tail and sloppy kisses.
A canine friend to share your excitement and happiness. To dance on hind legs with you.
A snuggly pup who can curl into your body on the couch or on the bed, and you know all they want is to love and be loved in return. And maybe some belly scratches.
And as long as you can give them that (and food and exercise), you're good enough. You're their everything. No matter how complicated or messy that everything might be.
I'm still not sure felines have that down pat yet.
untitled [tacheles, berlin, germany, 2001]
So, a mere ten days ago, I wrote about feeling like my heart had been torn out of my chest. It turns out he didn't get it all the first time, and today I learned that the hard way.
Yesterday was hard. I was tender and tired and anxious but simultaneously hopeful and cautiously optimistic.
Clearly, I had no idea what today would bring.
I thought the worst would be less time between drinks. I didn't know last drinks had already been called while I was away powdering my nose.
And today, all the fight has gone out of me.
untitled [tacheles, berlin, germany, 2001]
I didn't get to post a photograph from my travels before I had to take some time out last night, so I'm sharing these 35mm film photos of Tacheles in Berlin that I took in 2000 tonight.
Memories from 20 years ago that might have been revisited with another. But apparently, that's not to be.
Tacheles, as it was in 2000, feels like such an appropriate metaphor for how I feel right now: half-demolished, half-derelict, yet full of art and creativity, and somehow still standing despite everything. Somehow. It also had a beer garden.
I scanned these today from glossy black and white prints with the Photomyne app on my iPhone. For me, it's no substitute for scanning negatives with a proper flatbed scanner. While it may be worthwhile for some, I think I'll save my money to put toward an actual negative and photo scanner so I can share my older work with you from time to time.
Also, after a long week or so of sunshine and warm weather, today is closing with rain as it was ten days ago. I believe a thunderstorm is coming our way.
The rain and The Cure are intermingling to alternately calm me and punctuate my sorrow.
moss yew like crazy [st andrew’s church, totteridge village, barnet, london, england, 2021]
Sometimes obsessively checking in on Swarm pays off.
A couple of weeks ago, wandering around the churchyard at St Andrew's in Totteridge with my camera, I checked in on Swarm. As my check-in was recorded, I was tipped off that I was within metres of possibly the oldest tree in London.
A tree that, to be honest, I would likely have overlooked otherwise. But I was so pleased I didn't, as it was so much more interesting (and photogenic) than I realised until I got closer to it.
The yew tree in the churchyard is believed to be 2,000 years old. If true, that would make it the oldest tree in London. It is considered one of the Great Trees of London either way.
Though inclined to tree-climbing as a child, it's been a long time since I've felt the urge or the confidence to attempt such things. This tree and its boughs felt somehow tempting and welcoming, though I resisted the urge to climb into its arms.
Instead, I settled for capturing some abstract details of the trunk, the moss upon its surface, and the whorled and distorted shapes it presented to my lens.
Its shapes and colours reminded me of an oil slick. A terrain map. An aerial view of another planet.
father [balmoral cemetery, morningside, queensland, australia, 2007]
love you all x [hertford, hertfordshire, england, 2021]
In the wee hours of Friday morning, I got caught up in discussions with a friend and a lover (two different people). Two random conversations about oscilloscopes, dating and relationships, Black Box Recorder, Sarah Nixey (if you look closely, you can see me in this video), and The Jesus & Mary Chain. Subsequently, I didn't get back to photo editing.
On Friday afternoon, I caught up with one of those people and three other friends for our first proper reunion since well before the lockdown started in March 2020.
Of the four friends I met with, I'd only seen Sophie in the interim, and even then, on three occasions months apart.
It was a lovely afternoon and evening which lasted longer than I had expected but still felt all too short.
Here's to things getting back to normal over the coming months and us being able to catch up more regularly again.
Love you all x