Help me, Cosmia

To be a moth, a butterfly, in a gale

down by the river

The wind outside is whirring and the golden corpses that have fallen from the trees are caught on the gusts and the waves. I am sitting, lying rather, inside, nestled in my bed sheets, Josh’s warm presence beside me. There is a sense of peace inside these walls, right now. Here. It is a welcome stillness.

I’ve been but a fallen leaf catching the waves of the wind these past couple of weeks. In plainer, less pretentious speak: I am now employed. In the theme of my second substack (Put me in a movie) I’m training to be a shift manager at my local independent cinema and café. It’s not quite the ‘working with movies’ that I yearn for, but we all have to start somewhere. I’m trying to see this new twenty-eight to thirty-seven hour working week as less of a trap, less of a thief that’s robbing me of my social and creative life, and more of a bridge towards them. The thing is, you ask for something, you get it, and then you don’t want it anymore. It’s not what you thought. Or maybe, you just weren’t really thinking properly. These are the pitfalls of a romantic mind. 

If anything, this job has pushed me to get the cogs whirring on the things I actually want to do in life. I had this epiphany whilst I was unceremoniously unclogging an obscenely blocked toilet at the start of my evening shift. I adored Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, but this kind of life was not meant for me. The illusive, fluttering visions of the life that I want have felt closer to me than before, and this time, my attempts to grasp it have become more furious. Now is the time to be strategic. Now is always the time, really. We must live within the gift of each of our twenty-four hours, and try not to look too far forward or behind. 

I’m both building and traversing bridges; I’ve been working on my French for the past five weeks, I’ve finally finished half, if not two thirds of my album, I’ve begun applications for Acting postgrads, and am getting together materials for auditions. These bridges, these threads– perhaps for a more aesthetically palatable image– that I am weaving are my extensions and offerings out into a world that I have begun to step foot in. 

The trouble is, the world feels more and more broken by the day. How are we meant to invest in our future when these raging infantile male leaders seem set on taking it away from us, wiping out civilizations and destroying our planet, our home? There is so much constant grief for us to confront and inherit, delivered to us in high definition and graphic detail through our phones. 

Life is a gift, and we don’t want to see it destroyed. 

‘I need soothing. 

My lips aren’t moving. 

My God is brooding.’

I’ve been listening to Joanna Newsom this week, namely her masterpiece, Ys. Rarely can an album transport me somewhere completely different. When I listen, I am wrapped up in the tapestry of her verse, her eclectic harp and the adrenaline rush of her strings. It is often sombre, melancholic, grief-stricken, but other times nostalgic, joyous and wild. The nature of almost every song surpassing the ten minute mark makes each one feel like you're being gently lifted, or sometimes roughly thrown, into a whimsical world where folk tale, anthropomorphism, nature and art contain the depths and truths of our contemporary lives and realities. 

Some of her lyrics have transposed themselves onto my life at the moment, as lyrics in general often do. 

‘And all those lonely nights down by the river

Brought me bread and water, water in

But though I tried so hard my little darling

I couldn't keep the night from coming in’

I’ve felt quite detached from my own personal world, that of my friendships and my life beyond the bounding fields of Kent. Work has meant days off have become sparse and I’m usually too tired to do anything else when I get home. 

But time moves, the night always falls and a new day always breaks. The pain you feel one day is temporary, everything shifts. You will eat, you will drink, you will walk and you will run and you will dance. 

My bread and water is my music, 

is my friends and my man,

is my family, my dog and my cat, 

is my books and my guitar, 

is my walks and my fresh air. 

What are these broken days but to remind us of the better ones past, and those to come? Kindness to oneself, and each other and our environment is the only way forward. 

Protect your precious heart, and cherish each pang of pain and joy you feel. 

All of it, 

each minute, each beat, 

is a gift.