Frost on the rooftops this morning.

Makes me want to head straight to the high street sales and get a fabulous new pair of gloves.

Hyperbole.

Having fancied Herself a maharani in all matters amourous, and kicked many a hapless suitor down the stairs and straight to hell, She now finds herself in the throes of the most callous n'er do well in all the land. He sleeps - sleeps!! - and peacefully at that!! - as she tadpaos herself to a shrivel, and only has to raise one sleepy, Scottish eyelid and look at her to confuse all her thoughts, scramble her soul and set forth a tremor through every cell.

What a wretched, devilish nuisance, she thinks to herself. I should go away! I should abandon him to his peaceful pillows and his football and his.... his... silky cheekbones. I should break them before I go!! Not for nothing was She once called the Queen of Sheba. And here she is now: from princess to puppy in one flash of a kiss. Shee.

But then he opens one eye and looks at her typing and shifts lazily amongst the pillows and says, almost inaudibly, awwwww... stop that racket and c'mere.
Mummee.

Bah. Grownups. Men. Princes. Whatever his affliction, I once had it. Calm, controlled, no trace of mad urgent rushing desire. And here she is now; she's had palpitations for 2 years while he sleeps all through the night. Peacefully. And chuckles after kisses instead of falling gloriously to pieces alongside her. Boff. Why can't he fall apart at the seams like me?! Why do I want to make him?!

Merry Christmas

First Christmas at home with The Man, the last two having been spent making tearful long distance phone calls and vowing, next year, next year.

We trudged home with a black Christmas tree. Shiny black papery leaves. He sits now in the drawing room, full of black and gold baubles. On the stairs there are golden twinkly lights and burnished gold tinsel. Inside a golden box at the base of the tree, amidst the wreathes and wreathes of black and gold tinsel, there is a huge amount of chocolate, and a fat, black, glossy tree-book. For the rose-cheeked bookworm-prince who loves having tree-books and creature-books and star-books and all manner of other books. In the kitchen, a bottle of Schnapps and a bottle of wine.

Quiet day at home, full of firsts.

Betrayals in war are childlike compared with betrayals in peace. New lovers are nervous and tender but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire.

Micheal Ondaatje.
The English Patient.

Italy in the russet sunset, burnished gold tipped with dusty pink and faded green, like the spine of an ancient leather hardback. We stand at the edge of a stone balcony overlooking... what.. that pinkgold emptiness, all the way to the mauve horizon, where the moon is bringing her tide of silver. There is a statue of David behind me. Not at the Academia, this one is a bronze replica and he stands in the empty golden aura above Florence, echoing that same faded green in the muscles of his back, his legs. Spires and cathedrals and hillsides on the horizon peeping in the spaces between his limbs.

There is a dinner party later and I am wearing a red skirt and there is a rose behind my ear. I still haven't outgrown this: for dinner parties, a skirt and golden shoes and a red rose. The essential evening outfit. I meet a brown eyed Egyptian tonight who the Americans in my party giggle over. I get nudged in his direction, we kiss outside the tent. My parents inside, laughing over some forgetable hillarity floating their way through the party. We have half an hour together. We spend it kissing and looking at Florence twinkling in the darkness.
Five years later we meet again and I we have two days which we spend in my tiny university room.
I should have left it to the lily pond, to the twinkling lights, and never looked back.
I will never see him again.

The first night in Italy I stand at the hotel balcony and look at a midnight blue sky with the sillhouettes of olive trees and a molten crescent silvering a wedge of sky. The hotel wallpaper is velvet blue. Faded. Satin to the touch. Roses everywhere, on every table, as if someone has stepped from a burning desert into an English garden and become deranged with the delicacy of the pink there. Every table in the lobby, along the corridors, in the restaurant, in every bathroom, by the telephone. When it is dark I slip out of a long sleep and find myself walking these corridors alone, feeling, strangely, as if my grandmother was nearby, her heart tripping just as mine is - nay, because mine is - at the pink, the blue, the moon, the olives, the roses roses everywhere and with their honey scent. The scent sticks to everything and I cannot remember Rome without also recalling roses - climbing roses, tea roses, old roses, every shape and size, pink, deep pink, rose. Everywhere except the jasmine garden behind the hotel, which is tapestry, wrought in blossoms, of the night sky. Deep stone walls with wave upon wave of star shaped flowers, coloured like the moonlight.

Even now, I just have to turn over in my sleep or fall into a daydream or shut my eyes and I tumble back into Italy.

I will always remember this.

Collage OR: More bloody bleeding heartedness.

My body's on fire, my heart is on fire, My body's on fire, now my heart is on fire, and I'm losing my sanity, Be mine, be mine, My body's on fire, now my heart is on fire, My body's on fire, now my heart is on fire, My body's on fire, nown my heart is on fire, and I'm losing my sanity, Be mine, be mine.

From David Gray's Be Mine.

Uh huh.

*****************************

Mar mitna hai, hamme,
Ishq mein.
Versus
Grow the fuck up.

******************************


Honestly there is something so damn childish about my angst, it barely befits the word.

Possible PhD Proposal

Calculate, on a scale of 1 to 10, Tara's mood on any given day,
where:
1 is Dark, abyssal despair and
10 is cinnamon scented bliss,
using an as-yet-unknown function between
x = The amount of time, in minutes, spent doing her hair
y = The amount of time spent in impulse visits to the High Street
and
z = The amount of time spent staring vacantly at Blogger, Facebook, the Independent, or out the window, in the hope that something will happen, writing will magically appear or the PhD will fucking finish without my having to analyse my own data that I spent months collecting but can't fucking face.

Musing

If my grandaunt were still alive, she'd scorn at me for being an overly sentimental fool.
If my grandmother knew what I love, she'd laugh with me and cry with me and angst with me and touch my cheek the way she always did.
**************************************************

From The Far Pavillions:
The whisper of dry grass and casurina fronds stirring in the breeze. The hoot of an owl and the scutter of some small nocturnal animal foraging around a clump of pampas. The chirr of a cricket and the flitter of a bat's wing and from somewhere very far away, the sound that is the night song of all India - the howl of a jackal's pack.
p. 309

Read it!!
*******************************

Middle Name

Angst:
[engk-stuh]
A feeling of dread, anxiety or anguish.
1944, from Ger. Angst "neurotic fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse" from O.H.G. angust, from the root of
anger.

Round Number I've-lost-count.

I know I've said this before, but let me say it again, since hardly anyone is listening anyway.

Desire is the root of all evil

Versus

Me.

Theme Song.

Que sera, sera;
If it happens, I will come to India.
And if it doesn't,
We'll part ways;
I'll stay here,
You'll go far.
Que sera, sera.

Up at six, having slept 15 hours straight (only waking once to turn over, kiss him deeply and long and then drift back into the stars). She feels rested and can smell the air outside even through the closed window. It's fresh. But too cold to stand in, even with warm pyjamas. The birds are wide awake and there's a riot of them outside.
She walks through the house, switching on lamps, opening the front door to get a whiff of that freshness. She makes toast with cheese - a childhood ritual breakfast, unshakable. And a mug of tea. Tea, not coffee. There is no lemongrass, alas. But there is still freshness in the air and birdsong. Even, for a brief second in the darkened parking lot outside, a prowling cat for company.

What is different:
Not much, even halfway across the world. The essential elements have been brought within me: the morning air, the mug of tea, a cat's quiet company, birdsong.
This, I now realize, is how I make myself at home; it has very little to do with the exact point on any map. Collecting the impressions of a morning, I'm oriented. Hello Earth, I'm home.