Thursday 23 May 2019

Ambience, a vibe, whatever you want to call it


I guess the reason I haven't posted in a while is because I'm often inspired to write when I'm feeling somewhat... beautiful... emotional... 'edgy' if you want to be ironic about it.  My head must be a jumble of existentialism, superiority and sadness.  I'll feel like that girl wearing a satin white slip dress by the pool, who writes poetry and somehow always looks soft and perfect.  Or I could be that girl in a grey cardigan sitting in her childhood home, at the cluttered glass table with a mug of coffee and sun streaming through the blinds.  Instead I've got a headache in a dirty college room under surgical lighting, wearing an oversized t-shirt and adidas track pants, with bare feet.

And this is what I mean.

This is how my life is while I'm here in this version of home - if you can even call it that. 'home'

I've come to realise that this room has been treated like my summer camp cabin, a stopping place for me to come in and out of.  Sure, there's photos and a clutter of books, tissues and soap on the shelves, but it's not mine.  My neighbours have fairy lights, decorative pillows, scents, plants, characteristic couches -- all distinctly them, all creating a certain ambience, a vibe, whatever you want to call it.

(In the last week, with most people gone, I've been spending more time in this room.  It's given me a sense of routine, a sense of how my life was before this whole experience -- a sense of being in my own space.)

And with all my own time, I've come to realise that my person is much like my room.  My self has no ambience.  I do not smell of rose oil, or moisturise my face lavishly, or wear cute skirts while writing in my diary.  I am like a summer camp cabin who has been thrown together for the moment -- a transitional, thoughtless, self-limiting phase.

(ugh.  I feel like my vibe is the sound my poor-energy-rating fridge intermittently constantly makes in my room -- dirty and unnecessary with a lack of aesthetic)

My friend who is currently obsessed with documentaries about Roman Emperors and Michael Angelo, who wore a pearl headband to class yesterday, who somehow wears makeup without looking like she's wearing makeup, she said she's been obsessed with Lana Del Rey since she was 13.  I guess that's almost life-long cultivation of a vibe.  I feel like that takes a large amount of self-assurance from a young age.
And yet, she captioned a video "and no, I don't have a personality"

Either, or... Self love is actually having a self, and not just being influenced in all different directions. Creating ambience must be being cultured, by your own version of art or pop culture in your own way.  These things can only be discovered alone and on the internet, or through real real feelings.  Self love is looking and feeling like Kylie Jenner in her KylieSkin ads -- clean.  It's perhaps covering your pimples and not wearing pyjamas in public.  It's perhaps buying perfume and wearing it every day.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's emulating Dorian Grey's 'life is art'.

All I've got is a headache and a straight-laced analytic mind.  She says the same thing every day.

My friend was one minute in Sydney, the next in Mexico in a cop car, tequila tasting in tequila, covered in foam.  It's not what I need, but I thought I'd mention it.  I'll want that vibe later.

Cartia Mallan was beach hopping during sunset in an oversized band t-shirt, with her tanned boyfriend, with blankets and pillows in the boot.

Bubbles sits in the corner, watery blue eyes and blonde pigtails, saying "I am not a chubby crybaby".  I love that for some reason.  I'm not a sad girl though.  That's not self love.

My current dream is in a hotel room, with white crisp sheets, a view, and a complementary buffet breakfast on silver platters in the morning.

Love,
M