The Library & The Case of The Stroking Elbow.

A harried, subjective treatise on The Library. More for catharsis than seeking to allot any substantial contribution to the discourse.

I shake my head. It was never going to work. We knew it from the beginning. Back in the day when the common green was where you’d meet ol’ mate Harry. Steed parking getting tight on a Friday night, even with etiquette established and trumpeted, someone would always let their horse deposit all over the show.

Day x98a4io8x9990000 of my captivity:

Grumpily I glance at my neighbour, peripheral vision perfectly practiced. I induce an Attenborough- esque voice to champion my inner dialogue; Humanity struggles, colossally, with common spaces. We protest at length, touting the many virtues of collaboration, harmony, patience and reason that we have developed through the steady march of time. Enlightenment. Progress. Growth. Our fog horns blare through the din. Yet what meets the eye upon examining our perplexing species is at times, contrary to what is professed within coiffed communal conferences. Join me on a journey into the shadowy world of shared space. On the surface ordered calm, every tangible object in its appropriate sphere. However upon closer examination, it is a new world that unfurls, one of chaos, anarchy and frantic discord. Where every slight shift in the seat is a motion of war, every eye dart the bite of a thousand daggers, hurling the colossal magnitude of bitter wrong. A sigh conveys the languish of soul from whence light has irrevocably departed, an eyelash twitch the only sign of billowing dark clouds of murderous rage. In this the first phase of our investigation we find ourselves in a library computer lab. Let’s see what undertones of subliminal mania strike at the heart of this environment.

To Darkly Muse:

I darkly muse. I am thick in the common space of desperation, deadlines and (no) deodorant. I allow myself some moments of snug self pity. Thoughts thump, stumble and bumble around in the shadowy corridors, the light switch seems to be cackling in the corner just out of reach. My neighbour’s elbow lightly strokes mine. I simply stare at the two objects. Elbows. I am almost removed from the situation. I turn my gaping, afflicted eyes to their face. Seeking what I wonder. Recognition? Acknowledgement? I would never hope to see over apology, but something to signal the grievous miscarriage of personal space, a nod to the shrunken but resolute band of brother etiquette.

I wish to entreat my neighbour, to bring him into the discussion; There have been times, oh fellow man, when it seems best that a dictate from above should issue forth demanding regimented individual bubbles or naughty corner time, allowing for prolonged self introspection and assessment. Living with your own thoughts for a prolonged amount of time is an established mechanism of punishment, I guess done in the effort to induce a change of behaviour. How do you think this reflects on your own life and elbow?

Erggh.

I have done all I could. I have expended it all. The music still soars in my ears, my face, eyes, nose, enveloping my person, intermittently lifting my perspective to grandest, terrible heights. The strings mercilessly take me to Frodo and Sam limping, stumbling step after stumbling step, bludgeoned souls. I begin letting myself slowly, incredulously transcend that which is around me, desperation, the struggle, the air dense with aspiration. Yet the animal prowls; Deadline creeps around the room. Sniffing at us all in time. You see backs arch, shoulders shrug, faces manipulated and pulled. The only stick more words, just more words on the page.

Elbow.

To the left of Elbow, Bobby and Gerald are having a yack about their finance report. Elbow’s elbow is brushing mine. Again. I nearly gag. I breathe in short, sharp breathes. Is nothing sacred? Oh good grief. Reason chips in; It is an elbow, desist your fright. I stare at my elbow, weighing its past, its choices. It has never sought communion with another. It has never sought to entertain. It has toed the line, submitted to orthodoxies, made not one joke, invaded no ones computer personal space fortress, never once, caressed.

Your Soundtrack.

Headphones having been discarded in disgust is rewarded by Bobby and Gerald’s tete- a- tete starting to get interesting. I now commission a 5 minute break to pointedly focus on ‘but seriously this is what went down’. ‘What went down’ having been, with ease, overshadowing the symphony that had been on full volume. It is important to know when you are beaten. Your soundtrack has been chosen. Now listen. It’s all art from here on in, more human condition. I threw the towel in and settled back to hear the dramatic oratory of neighbour Bo, Ger and Elbow (Not real names, I don’t know their names, just intimate personal details about their lives). I started to become invested. Wanting to contribute. I started to open my mouth. Oh calamitous venture of a fool. What swift wings of salvation flew majestically in to stay the utterance of sound I will never fathom nor ever fully appropriately appreciate. What escaped was a small mangled gasp of confused shame.

I hurriedly ram the headphones back into my ears. Hours must pass, the sky gradually darkens, only to be broken by the consistent slamming of the door, the oxygen slowly being drained and I’m sure more scandalous revelations from ‘What Went Down’. As time came, tarried and went in that place, eyes glistened and glazed. Deadline crept. Chairs and hearts creaked and quaked under the weight of it all. The rustlings of papers and dreams rose and fell. Hope stayed for a moment only to rack off to Bondi around 4pm.

The varying creatures seemed to lilt and buckle, strive and stumble in their own distinctive ways. Panting and gnawing at productive outcomes. My lows were characterised by a slow, drawly mumble, at the safe pitch, just under my breath, talking to the sky, who just knew how to be above it all. Others left with Hope. Some slept. Others staved off what they must do by talking loudly, passionately about what they must do, so they could not do it.

Fellow Man.

Peeking around at all the others that hadn’t yet cracked; who were my fellows? Did I know them at all? What type of men and women were they? Did they go for a little ‘break’ returning two hours later smelling of thai or grass? Did they stroke elbows? Did they swivel and swivel and swivel, swotting at inertia? Physical spurts leaking the tumult of inner angst. I felt obliged to check on Elbow, he was looking grim, I had perceived the Elbow’s advances had become more erratic and listless. There is a season for all things.

I left the El Lib around 7pm. My elbow tingled as I walked home, wondering where one could buy a small hammer.

A

I hope you enjoyed whatever the above turned into! I’d love to hear your stories of hilarious incidents when sharing common spaces with others, feel free to email me here: butforthisbriefreprieve@gmail.com

Woeful Wednesdays + A Lord and Lady & Enya

Life imitates art. Art imitates life. Everyone applauds. And then suddenly we have to get through another Wednesday.

It is an average Wednesday morning. I had initiated the zany self -talk of soul and mind as I approached the great and terrible task of providing the hand that feeds with surplus labour. Holding back the gnashing teeth so as not to bite it in vehemence.

My nose in close proximity to the stone of grind, face set in the appropriately hyper zealous professional outlook. Yet sporadically vacant. As if by mahgic (phonetic spelling thanks), the mind had wandered off at the whiff of future foibles. I was frantically managing the eccentric flair that had a habit of eking and crackling out of the crinkles by my eyes, and serving you beauteous rabble, the beloved public. Concurrently managing this eclectic spasmodic series of tasks and calls upon my mind. I was sufficiently absorbed.

It was then that I spied them. Conveniently placed directly in front of my finite geographical field of perception.  Right off the cuff, I nearly wept. What I perceived brought on visceral palpitations. They, the superb they, were an elderly couple. Or frankly, just two peeps, in a relationship, hanging out. Classic, normative standard for a relationship, but they were able to achieve that which Genny-Y is el desperado to achieve, they stood out. And, irony of ironies they did not want to stand out, trying to retreat out of the hurried way of George and Nancy fiendishly getting to their 2 o’clock conference call.

What alerted me to the magnitude of the moment was that I immediately sensed Enya would have written their soundtrack. Her and Zimmer could have us all on our knees beating our breasts in affirmation, turmoil and joy at the sheer catastrophic smallness- bigness of this moment. Their aura that made my mind come scuttling post haste back to lodge in this place. The man was helping the lady fold a jumper – meticulously. It was that simple, small. Just that. But I stopped directing myself in the lead role of the next dystopian Australian biopic to hit limited release near you, for this moment.

The gentlemen was softly and lovingly folding the jumper so she could put it in her bag. It was if I was watching art. This was the stuff of life. Taking a few precious moments to complete a mundane task, for someone whose hands could not work as they used to. She, the Lady, had her hands folded, gazing into I know not what era of humanity, to the darkest or happiest of hours. I felt suspended in that moment, mesmerised. Such a far, still moment from the cacophonous joke that was my morning routine.

It seemed no words were shared. He just slowly folded. Aligning the shoulders together, straightening out the symmetry. Buses like huffing, puffing mammoths roared around them. The great din of the general populace going about their goals and aspirations, dominating the soundscape. And yet it was this scene that entranced. In its quietness and repose there was such unprepossessing dignity. I felt compelled me to seek its order, its rhythm. I want to be that great. In stillness and quiet, He and She spoke with the gravity of what looked like decades of relationship. Through even more years of being on this earth. Seeing what humanity is capable of achieving in its heights and foul depths. Moving a Gen Y’s harried, absorbed and filtered mind. What bloody legends.

Only Time by Enya floods the scene and my heart. I was in no position to serve any of the general public. I needed time and the setting sun to bathe me in the appropriate ambiance, to move through and forward. To mull this contribution to my ponderings on the human condition. With increasing alarm I realised at any moment a Brit could invade my quiet and ask to go to Bondi. To which I might have swiftly, fiendishly replied:

“No, we don’t do that anymore. Bondi is not a thing anymore. I’m Sorry”

Thus crushing a thousand hopes and instilling great sorrow. I suppose if you’ve come from ubiquitous pebbles, there may be a greater tendency to allot a foolish amount of dream reserve on shifting sands. I get it. Sand is a big deal. I was in a quandary.

Sir and Madam completed their task. The jumper folded and placed preciously, precisely, in Lady’s bag, They looked at each other. I let out an audible gasp/ sob. And then they merely glided out of my life. Aghast I railed against my cage. The clouds had arrived. The sun banished from view. There  was only the huffing, brutish buses in my view. Nihilism was rife. I glowered at the seagulls. Much was hateful to me. This was my tumult. They, the couple of peace and beauty were masters of their own retirement and it seemed life. I was condemned to surplus labour for the next 45 years of mine and the starting maturity depth of a gnat. A dark hour.

Then lunch.

And I recovered. Somewhat.

A.

A Ukulele This Way Comes.

The other day I was lightly fuming.

Fuming for I perceived I did not have the peppy bright zany joy that all my classmates seemed to exude. Mad that I wasn’t endowed with an incessant positive boppy optimism that seemed to leak with oozing self assurance from all the job descriptions I was frowning over. Mad that I had not paid the utmost bright eyed attention to the lecture, having just had the gift to geographically be present in it.

Where had my youthful bird song fled? Yes, shooed by the little rambunctious self pity who never gets distracted for long. But, I thought I had saved a squawk for these bleak emotional landscapes. Alas, my lark rise seemed, most despondently, to have descended.

An aside. I would love to make an honest and humbling admission. Whilst I type, Mozart’s Requiem is heralding forth all the magnificent glorious transcendent indulgent gloom that I do not yet have the genius to wield at whim.

It is appropriate when wallowing, to comfort oneself with but a mite pinch of Gen-Y superiority. I appreciate classical music for its lyrical nuances. I am not conscripted/ addicted to the new age. I naturally cacoon myself away from the maddening crowd, to write, I am a writer, I look deep into the soul…BAM…My eyes fiendishly dart…Greedily expecting names, words, entreaties…My phone, Oh vehicle of the community that seeks me…What do you offer up this moment? That sound lightly echoing. Why it definitely sounded akin to a text vibration. Where is my text. Gimme.

No. Wrong. Most incorrect Madam. We have no invitation here from the Bloomsbury circle. There was no text. It had been a light trumpet in the Requiem. I held a sad prolonged memorial for the fledgling hubris, however brief, that had graced my self- indulgence.  

I was indignantly trudging along the banks of the pond. Begrudging the sun its rays. Despising the ducks for their aquatic bliss and miniscule emotional spectrums. Happy, Sad, Food, Bath, Cat. A comprehensive landscape.

I walked a lonely road, not quite the only one I had ever known, wading darkly in my youthful oppression when, SUDDENLY, shockingly quiet, but jarring to my pathos, a strum.

Yes, a strum. Someone was strumming. I swivelled my head to the left, violently, seeking the source of imposing positivity, and, but 2 metres from my left elbow, a man was strumming, a ukulele.

A Ukulele.

A man happily strolled, mind gallivanting in the clouds, a light smile touching his lips, eyes shining, strumming a ukulele. Next to my tempestuous, albeit non-physical, billowing storm of student sorrow.

Startled from my tragic reverie I grappled with the situation. How was I to feel that the embodiment of chipper positivity now lightly capered by my side.

I think I openly gaped at the man for a substantial 30 paces of so, at first engaging the flight response. Curiosity reigned in my furtive stomping hooves and I slowed. He was by my elbow again, I gently turned this time and said, “You sir, have got a Ukelele”.

We cannot control when sober insight strikes, just manage the aftermath of its critical appraisal.

He turned quite amicably to me and simply said, “Yes, it’s a superb instrument, it’s fancy brother is at home, this is the street one”.

I blinked. From painting the surrounding vista with the colour palate of murky greys, and self- righteous noir. I was now engaged in a conversation with a stranger about his pet ukuleles.

I decided to take it in my stride and accept that the power Above had cut short my languishing (I would squirrel away time at a later date).

Ukulele man turned out to be a performer. For a living. I did not have the mental fortitude to delve into that enigma. I asked him about the weirdest gigs he had been ushered into. Akin to groundhog day he replied, once at the opera house, he and a performing troupe had to, on repeat for hours, perform a sketch for students of production and lighting. The students could learn and develop, whilst wavering the reality receptors of the actors.

Blessed bloody students. I concurred.

Virtuosa

He lyrically wove the tale of the Virtuosa (emphasis on the “a”, I keenly felt the strong acknowledgement to gender and power, I nodded appropriately). She and the violin were one. This moment silence, the next 45 minutes one of Mozart’s sonatas. A callous had formed on her neck due to the frequent hours that she had approached the humbling fountain of learning, practice, to weave the greatest escape, performance.

I sneak a peek at my fingers, fairly soft, of average hue and shape, no defining marks or blemishes and my heart sank. Obviously I have not yet sacrificed much for my craft or ascended to brilliant heights of genius vision, nor racked to and fro my the tempests of perfection. I huffed a sobering sigh. Not yet a Virtuosa. I rally for, at least, a small callous on a finger, typing should induce it some enough.

Curly

We exchanged names. I’m Curly said he, I’m going shopping for a hair product. I was honest in saying I knew nothing of hair products bar shampoo. His bold step did not falter. He had it covered. We had just about reached the store, both going to see an isle about a product. He for stay in conditioner and myself for a mandarin. As he sauntered further in, he turned, ukulele flailing, ‘hey girl, keep it cool’ and disappeared amidst the soccer mums, an athlete and Dorothy getting her shopping done.

They are ten minutes suspended in time, fortunate in letting the sunshine in, unfortunate for now I must never disappoint Curly.

It was so important for me to get out of my head. I had the opportunity to shrug off this strange serendipitous moment, full of Ukulele, but in being human, taking a chance, wielding a smile, saying hi, I was able to be reminded that, for every dark day I have, Curly is probably strumming the streets with his Ukulele.

I wish to be another person’s Ukulele moment. Albeit my task is harder, concerning the ‘sans’, but nonetheless, I will try. Let us take a bat at it.

Let’s all try and be the Ukulele we were born to be.

A.

Humiliatus Maximatus. A good dose.

I have rarely, if ever, been as agog at a gap in my knowledge as I was at the finite point in time. At least it was a private perturbed paralysis of the mind. Well, until now. Write what you got handy I ‘spose. 

Many tout the institution at which I study as excellent. Perhaps subconsciously this elicits an expectation, substantially fuelled by my own deep reservoirs of thought, that my mind, at the ripe age of 23 is to be crisp, agile and straining at the bit for grand ol’ learning, knowledge and progress.

That’s right you old chums. Progress. Not regress. Hateful, spiteful word. Don’t let it touch, taint or maim you. Be on the upper! Keep on, keepin’ on. Like a crazed but adorable puppy to be let loose in the meadow to frolic, sniff at every crevice and nook, because it must know everything, it must explore, it must discover. And then to be rewarded by a D (dog bone/ distinction). And then to snooze in bliss.

Whilst I seek to have a mind that is sharp, well fed by nosing about in all directions, frolicking amongst the juggernauts of ages past as they gloomily stare at me from their pages. Well, I can hold it to be an idol. Something that defined but did not build up. A beacon of success. A cloak to fit in with the expected institutional wardrobe. Justification. Validation.

Learning

Hear me plainly. I adore learning. It is important to be engaged, open, privy and desirous of knowledge, of the eccentricities, developments and needs of this world. The following is only a joyous self- deprecating admission on when I was humbled to accept and chuckle merrily (after the panic had subsided) at the gaps in my own knowledge base. To mend the fraying fabric of the cloak that I was not wearing well and frankly was a little muddied.

What Went Down

Allow me some dribble, my defence lies in an exhausted brain. I was recovering. I was acclimatising to being post European law exam. At the time I could still fumble through, coupled with melodramatic pomposity, a delicate fusion of authentic words and frilly fillers, draw you into the regulations that oversee European divorce, maintenance obligations and enforcing contractual obligations. I was prattling happily away to an assortment of chums when:

FOR A SICKENING MOMENT I FORGET WHERE SUGAR CAME FROM 

        HERE FOLLOWS THE BLOW BY BLOW MAYHEM OF MY CEREBRAL

I purse my lips and shake my head. My shame and chagrin weigh heavily upon my faintly crinkled brow. It IS a brief but hung moment of blinding ignorance, I surreptitiously retreat into my cognitive realm. I frantically scour the recesses of my brain

1) Clumsily, dramatically maneuvering past the bulky, established, secure knowledge caveats of brushing teeth, sleeping, eating and burping, the semi- seconds squelch on.

2) My search takes on a more harried hue. I leap over the smaller but brightly coloured awareness domes of where to find the best kebab shops open past midnight, the cheapest vending machine chockers full of ‘matured’ snickers bars and bashed up coke cans. I startle to see chains holding down the information. The mind protects what the mind protects.

3) My search veers left, being momentarily lured into craving chocolate that with every mouthful makes vegetables wail in pathos. One makes choices. I careen back, bumbling on in my desperate search to ascertain the source of sugar. I spy, in a corner, oozing with self satisfied charm and assurance, Mr. Lazy. Mr. Lazy is not knowledge. He is. He has not moved. He will not move. Topic closed.

4) I’m pivoting on the spot, akin to quaking at the bladder. I need my relief. Dammit. Where has the genesis of sugar gone? I launch into a new area of the brain, bulky items being surmounted, temptation domes of kebab and chocolate transcended.

5) I move into the murky waters of 1^st year university subjects. So zealously planted. Less zealously watered. Now neglected. Dried branches snag and hinder my progress, I bat away political economy 101, sociology of Gen Y (buzz phrase: ironic archetypes of fluid subjectivity?). They cling so pathetically for my attention. Fools.

6) Scratched and torn I strive to the early days knowledge rooms, cobwebs etching a pleasantly nostalgic welcoming committee. I was never much for ‘comprehensive’ cleaner of my rooms, the light dust is comforting. Things are as they ought. 15 years of napping on the job has dulled the crafts of cognition, the drawings of discernment and the see-saw of scholarship. No sugar genesis. Exasperated I turn on my heel, at present, disgruntled with my years 0- 8.

7) My panting frantic mind- self is looking banshee-esque. The mop of hair, usually so pragmatically held up in a bun is fraying. My cerebral cohesion and collective is fraying. My resolve is flagging, morose. My eyes glaze over. I am weakening. I perceive that my head house, usually looked at from afar, is somewhat smaller upon closer examination.

8) I don’t know where sugar comes from and this is so incredibly unfortunate, for my entire image, identity and heady saunter through Newtown (Insert trendy/ hipster enclave/ village where one seeks out lattes at atrocious prices and bohemian wiles that dissipate every time you step into McDonalds) may be compromised and tainted by my naiveté of where bloomin’ sugar comes from.

And then, piping up, infiltrating the abstracted frenzy that has been my mind search over the past 5.9 seconds, an acquaintance pipes up about sugar cane.

I know sugar cane.
Shuddup, really I did.
I really do.
 It was just behind the crib of comprehension I swear.
I’m from Africa.
That makes it worse.

I know sugar cane.
Really.

I just forgot myself for a moment. That’s all.

The whole ordeal compelled me to engage in some light introspective mulling. The existential epistemological crisis, whilst endogenously unnerving, was still necessary. I am not God. I am not Kanye. I am me.

I am, at moments, ridiculous. How freeing and delightful to know that I can and will have gaps in my knowledge. To strive for deeper understanding and have the impetus to listen to others. Truly listen. Even if it takes time, even if they’re older or younger, have polarised world views, differing ideologies, have a different shade of skin, hark from a different culture or liltingly speak th language- for they’ve perhaps got the down-low on our gaps.

Gimme some sugar,
A