The desires of our heart.

This week I've learnt that if you want something enough then it won't arrive when you want it to. The meaning of trust is more real now than ever before, and all this springs out of an affirmation of the word love. Such a simple throwaway verb to some, used as lightly as a common noun but such a crucial and devestatingly concept to others.

Nothing you desire with all your heart will be served upon a silver platter with a side salad of anything worth your time. I am discovering that real life is hard work, out of the student bubble and facing a life that I didn't imagine or expect. Maintaining relationships is hard work, juggling emotions is hard work, facing disappointment and having your expectations challenged is hard work. All things that are worth waiting for require a dedication to the cause.

Within a time of longing where you strive for a moment to finally arrive or find yourself sitting in a pool of uncertainty - remember that it's not good things that come to those who wait. Let's redifine those thoughts and believe that it is amazing things that will come and distill a negative and blurred vision of need.

I'm trying. I'm trying to believe that hope and trust and above all, love, will reap many rewards.

i don't own my clothes but i own my mind
it's not what you've lost it's what you find

The Best Thing About Today #25

What a better The Best Thing About Today than The Maccabees. Less today though, and more yesterday.

image from www.myspace.com/themaccabees

Last night I went to see The Maccabees in London's Brixton Academy. A wonderful, beautiful venue. I saw Brand New there a couple of years ago and was truly mesmerized by such a stunning place, full of haunting atmosphere and wonderfully captivating open space. This space was widened upon my second visit, as at the previous event I had been front center stage, taking in the wonder of the show whilst sharing in hundreds of others sweat pouring out from every crevice. This was suitably welcomed however, as being in the upper circle was a lovely if entirely different experience. My friend Vicky and I did some of the best seat dancing I've ever done in my life and risked life and limb (it's steep okay!?) by dancing stood up at some of the best points. In fact they were all best points. It was a wonderfully put together show, void of light displays, clever banter or any other gimmicks other than simply great tunes played by a bunch of humble and grateful men. These character traits were the best things about the gig, and me and thousands of others realised just how grateful the band were for the opportunity to play at such a venue. Latchmere was a particular highlight, and Can You Give It and of course the fine slab of indie brilliance that is First Love which was of course the encore.

If you ever get the chance to see The Maccabees, you won't be disappointed. I don't know that I've felt the urge to dance at a gig quite as much as I did last night, and I've seen The Spice Girls live. Twice. Yeah that's right, you heard me.

So to sum up, The Maccabees live experience: more dance-worthy than The Spice Girls.

Your Future Is Mine.

Reading or writing on another train platform.

Looking up at neon train times, contemplating life and creation - usually finding myself whimsically looking up to the sky wondering how clouds work or why that part is that colour or why that part is moving and that part is not.

It's either really hot or really cold, and whatever the weather, I am inappropriately dressed.

Now, what to do. Get coffee? Is there time? Will I have to run for the train coffee cup in hand and do the embarrassing thing of slowing down to edge my way to a doorway that's not crammed full of angry commuters or buggys? Which pocket is my phone in? How much battery is there left on my iPod? Will it last the journey? Will I last the journey is more the point.

There is usually an underlying sense of guilt attached to my contemplative waits on endless platforms. It has increased over the course of the last year, each time bringing with it more questions, more times of deep reflection, more times when I've simply had to shake myself out of thinking about it for fear of delving deeper into my narcissistic hours of thought and motion. This guilt comes from spending money, from alcohol, from boys, from ignorance. Mainly from ignorance. Mainly from not listening. The list is truly endless like no other list. Defying a plan, leading me to endless train stations, and feeling like I'm running from something.

Now this contemplative knot tightens, symbolizing uncertainty.

'Your future is Mine' a voice whispers.

The voice swims through me, exciting, unnerving, supernatural and wild. It rips through me daily, seeking me out and challenging me and all of a sudden it's a minute until the train I'm due to board arrives and I'm always grateful to get moving again so that the voice can reign supreme.

Your future is mine. It is louder now, and as quick as I am reassured, the knot in my stomach is gone.

Imogen Heap!

image from www.myspace.com/imogenheap

If any of you know me personally you will know that my favourite woman in music and possibly one of my favourite women ever is Imogen Heap! Perhaps you have heard her name about, and you might be familiar with her music, or you might be a big fan, or you might not see what the big deal is. (NB: if you hold that last option, then you are misguided and should seek professional help.) Whatever your affiliation with her or her music, allow me to be annoyingly excited about her new album!

The second solo album entitled Ellipse is ready for release on the 24th of August and Imogen has posted a link where you can listen to the first track from it, First Train Home. It's really great. Trust me.

FIRST TRAIN HOME

30.06.2009

Hi, I'm Emmah and today I am 23.

New beginnings.

If you know me, you will know that I am terrified of the thought of having children. Not because I don't like children, in actual fact, I love them. I work with lots of babies every day, and I'm a trained teacher! I have 2 beautiful, wonderful nieces and I adore every fibre of their being. I have the best conversations with children, sprinkled with innocence and also a certain level of straight down the line intellect that gets shrouded and corrupted as you get older and pumped with information. So, this Baby Fear doesn't come from a dislike of children at all.

In fact, I'm not sure where it comes from. I often think it's a sense of responsibility that seems far greater than me, something out of control massive, something so monumental that it sort of deserves the fear that I've attached to it.

I work in a place where families can get support for all kinds of reasons, and we see a lot of different families and children come through our doors. Similarly, I've worked in varying school settings where all manner of children are all sat down on one bit of carpet, and are taught the same curriculum. The title of this post is new beginnings, because essentially that is what children are, it's a new life, and a new beginning. But I was looking around me in the baby room at work the other day and just having a moment of distinct realisation about these new beginnings.

There is a song by a band called MuteMath which is called We All Break The Same. It's true, we do. We all begin somewhere that everyone begins. The words to that MuteMath song go 'all the tears we cry tell us we're made the same'. We all start life in the physical sense the same way that everyone starts. We are all born of our mother, and we all begin life with that first scream, drawing our first breath of this world in the same way that everyone else does. But then, that's it. It's as if the 6 billion people on the planet have the same starting point which then breaks off into 6 billion tiny little paths, weaving upwards and onwards onto something different. There are of course moments where we will all go through similar events, but everything before or after these events will shape us, mould us and cause us to react to these events in different ways. But the fact remains, we all come from somewhere.

We all have a new beginning.

So, I feel I may have buried my point here amid all this talk of babies and contemplating the population of our planet, but while I was looking around the room at these tiny little lives, some barely crawling, walking or talking I was amazed. That we all start at the same place, yet any one of those children could in ten years be in a completely different place than another. And also that a new beginning can happen at any point in those fragile little lives, leaving something behind and moving onwards towards a brand new adventure.

Life is really exciting.

Great Things About Life This Week #1

New feature! Great things about life this week. Because life is great?

• Grace. This is the best thing about life every week, but this week it is just apparent to me even more so. Buy this book - What's So Amazing About Grace? but make sure it's the visual edition. It's just wicked.
• New music: Lots of people have been recommending me lots of good music this week, and this means there are lots of new artists/bands to get excited about. Foy Vance still ultimatley owns my heart, and I have been telling anyone and everyone about that, but there are lots of other exciting people I need to write about in the next few installments of Massively Great Bands. (Love the fact that it's called bands yet all the people I talk about are solo.)
• The massive rainbow storm that's just happened outside. Massive rain drops, mental showers and then the sunshine just appears and makes everything okay. Somewhat of a (albeit slightly lame) metaphor for some stuff going on in life at the moment. Reminds me of Lord of The Rings when Sam gives his amazing speech at the end of Two Towers when he says 'And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.' Oh, Sam. You chubby bundle of joy.
• People. Specifically new, great, lovely people. Getting to know people is exciting.
• Yesterday. My friend Massimo came to visit me and we walked up this really massive hill just out of the town where I live. We stopped at the bottom and chatted for ages and then got a bit lost trying to get up the other side. My niece called him Mandy and my mum gave him a wicked haircut. Him and my dad even had a long conversation about how we are becoming a nanny state. Intense stuff. I mainly just moaned a lot, but it was a really great day.
  
• Brownies. I made Nigella Lawson's brownies on Saturday for a family party and they were so lush, I have stuck to Jamie Olivers recipe in previous brownie-making escapades, but Nigella ftw now.I have gone on and on about them this weekend but they really were the best batch ever: Exhibit A:

LUSH TIMES.

Anyway, that's it. Hope the 11 people who read this are really well and happy.

Who am I?

Isn't the population of the world 6 billion or something close to that? And every day, close to 6 billion people will wake up, get up, live their day, then go back to some form of sleeping place. 6 billion places that people are sleeping, 6 billion places that people are walking, working, eating, 6 billion people talking, 6 billion people sitting, crying, thinking, laughing, fighting. That's an awful lot of people. And to think that within those 6 billion people there are millions, probably billions of divides. Physical ones, emotional ones, spritual ones. Divides between people, landmarks, places, minds. Sometimes I will get days when I feel like I'm taking a step back and looking inwardly upon this world that we reside in and just find myself thinking 'woah'. Do you ever have those days?

You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Who am I that You are mindful of me?

the typical

I hope when I'm older that I am:

- enlightened
- still loved
- giving everything
- experiencing peace of mind
- experiencing peace in general
- part of something amazing
- breaking the spell of the typical

Sick. And not in the 'sick mate' way.

I feel like I have been punched in the stomach hundreds of times. Food poisoning is not a fun thing to have. Especially when you have emptied your stomach by being sick, but yet are still being sick. So now I've actually stopped being sick, my stomach muscles have well and truly failed and my back is still in 'bent over the toilet' mode. Good things however are my mum being wonderful, Jonathan Ross being back on the BBC and OH YEAH NEW LOST WHICH I'M ABOUT TO WATCH IN HD.

image from google images