Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

The books I never read because I thought I had all the time in the world. The empty wardrobe, hangers clanging together like a skeleton. The imprinted pillow. The birthday cards I kept. The phone that never rings. The two last coffee mugs on the dish stand. The un-played guitar. The whisky bottles. A calendar event that will never arrive. The shoes in the hallway. The towel in the bathroom. The posh coffee. The starless sky. The dying alarm clock. The knitted character. A pile of bedtime books. A cork-board of memories. Echoes of laughter. Quiet. Things I'll always regret.

I'll never leave this

The happiest night of my life wasn't particularly special. Nothing happened, and it wasn't life-changing. Just an ordinary night out in London, an indiepop club run by friends, in the very first days of summer just like this one.

The previous night, I had been handed a 7 inch single - the very first record released by my band - and taken it home to study carefully. I thought about how this was way beyond my wildest ambitions, and I remembered that one of the things on my mental list of things to do before I die was to audition for a band. I could never have dreamed that I would go through with that, let alone be accepted into a band, and then another, and play some gigs, and release a record on an actual record label. These were all things that other people did, people I kept pictures and articles of and would never dare speak to in real life. It was hard to take in.

That night at the club, I rambled on for yonks to my friend Stuart who seemed to laugh a lot. That's what I remember most about that night - everyone was smiling or laughing. Faces were beaming and red and sweaty from dancing and drinking. We sang our hearts out and there wasn't a single person in that room that I didn't love so much that I could have cried a million tears over them. Outside afterwards, in the middle of the sticky dirty west end, nobody wanted to go home. It was warm and still and people were buzzing and flirting around those boys from Finland. Records were exchanged and plans were made and the future suddenly looked bright and clear as crystal. I realised at that moment that nothing - not a single thing - was wrong, and I almost threw up at the thought, because it felt terrifying somehow. Instead I just for a moment stood and looked at the scene so I could remember it always. I thought about how I wanted these people to be my friends for the rest of my life, and to be able to do this for the rest of my life. 

On days like this, early summer days in London with the hum of the traffic and distant sirens and warm air and Cats On Fire playing through my speakers, the memory of that night makes me feel sick with nostalgia, and although I'm unsure I'll ever get that feeling again; that nothing is wrong, I'm grateful that it happened to me at all.

Party times

An art deco pub on a cold night, accessed by cobbled lanes of an area of London I know little of. I would have found and explored this by now if I'd still had my bike. Having tap-danced excitedly on the parquet in my new shoes before leaving the house, my nerves start to get the better of me on the journey out and, although I see lots of people I want to talk to, I keep to myself and sup pints until I'm drunk enough to chat. I love the cosy red-lit room and the general hint of Spiral Scratch to this new night, and I adore the preserved decor of the pub and the Christmassy party feeling going around, but I'm surprised to find that it's in the bathroom where I suddenly feel a wave of nostalgia for something I have never known but always imagined, away from the music and chatter and laughter that now comes alive in my head instead and seems to slow to a stop, like a moment frozen in time to a grainy film still or captured in a brown and peeled photograph that somehow feels familiar, like I'm inside it. I am picking up the frequency of a time gone by, a party that happened here in another era. Ghosts of bright beautiful young things laughing and chinking glasses, never stopping to think that this won't always be their time. I hear a group of people singing in the bar, and at first this is part of the hallucination. Then it stops, echoes for a moment around my head and these walls, and real sounds kick in while I remember where I am. I try to imagine what the people of that time would make of ours, and it dawns heavily on me that this won't last forever either, so I go to dance and appreciate the scene and this room filled with the the laughter of people I hope I will know forever.

Hopes, dreams and the names of the trees

Leaving the house on Friday morning was a bit like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. As I stepped down the stairs, a bright pink Angel Delight sky lit up the acid yellow leaves on the tree in my front yard, drifting down around me like confetti. At one time I would have been astonished by this sort of thing, the stuff that happens in nature, everything that's supposed to be grey drenched in colour, but I was sad that all it made me feel was nostalgia, but for what I wasn't quite sure.

Maybe it was the memory of collecting autumn leaves as a kid, pinning them up on the classroom cork board and arranging them next to the correct tree names, and stretching my tiny hand out next to them, quarter of the size, wishing to be big and grown-up. Back then the future was exciting and far away and unknown, and I didn't yet have memories but only hopes and dreams. And the names of the trees.

So maybe I've come to a point in my life where there are more memories than hopes and dreams, and I've kind of become 'stuck' in them and it suddenly feels vital to me to keep making new ones, to appreciate pretty things and laughter and nice words, and to tell people things they need to know. And also, memories fade and disappear and I don't want to fade and disappear with them.

A leaf was amazing to my five year old self, but the old man upstairs sweeps them up and puts them in a bin bag.

You make my head spin

It's always weird when you stumble across something written by someone you're really close to, and you are surprised because you never hear them say stuff like that in real life. It's a strange mix of feeling like there's part of them you don't know, and loving them a little bit more.

Born on a blue day

I was leaning out of my window once, smoking a cigarette with an old friend, around 1996 or so. Jay was the sort of bloke who knew everything about everything. The conversation somehow turned to the development of language and the alphabet, and I wondered aloud why it was that letters and numbers had certain colours which were never really acknowledged in the 'real world', and in fact were represented incorrectly most of the time. I wasn't sure whether or not this was a daft thing to say, nor whether it made any sense, but Jay seemed interested and probed me more on the subject.

"That's called synaesthesia" he said, finally.

I didn't have the internet in those days, so I had to take his word for it. However, I soon realised that not everyone had colours for letters, or shapes, tastes and textures for sounds, or that the days of the week had different 'personalities'. Just me then. Through a later conversation about it with a friend, he discovered that not everyone thinks and dreams in black and white as he does. Revelations all round.

So having found out all I could about synaesthesia and learning that we don't all follow the same pattern but do have other traits in common (difficulty with numbers being my favourite one - I had always been frustratingly bad at maths but never knew why), I suddenly felt all unique and special and I wanted to tell people about it.

The first person I remember telling was my dad, who had struggled with me for many years on the maths thing - he himself was a bit of a maths boffin so couldn't understand why my grasp of it was so weak. He appeared to be listening, but then may as well have said "that's nice dear" for all he actually was. I stopped talking, and was left feeling like a bit of a tit. Every time I've tried to talk about it since then it's been pretty much the same. People basically think I'm bonkers, making it up, talking rubbish, or just aren't that interested. I am used to keeping things to myself though - not least because the words I want to say are not the same words I need to use to be understood.

But it doesn't stop me thinking it's a fantastic thing, or researching it, or even sometimes using it to my (I like to think) advantage. Once, I went for a job interview and decided to wear the colour of the name of the company. I felt comfortable, like I fitted in, and it was the best interview I ever gave - I got the job. I've successfully repeated this tactic since. I get annoyed when I see advertisements and companies using the 'wrong' colours on their logos or fonts. But it makes me so happy to see a 'right' one. Channel4 have been getting it right since day one. I love how the W of Wednesday is the pivot on which the rest of the week rests like a see-saw, and how Tuesday and Thursday either side of it are paler shades of its own colour. I like how my boyfriend's first name is the same as the strip of his football team. I could tell everyone which team they should support based on the colour of their name (which would mean Everton or Leicester for me, hmm).

Music is another thing entirely. Voices conjure glass or stones or water, instruments can bring sparkly lights against darkness, or metallic forms, or things shattering, or even a sort of trajectory through empty space, like it's the only thing that exists. The sound of a flute brings sweet-tasting pastel coloured puffs of air. Some music fills every available space like smoke in a room. Trying to learn songs that other people have written is a challenge though, as I find myself wanting to do the 'right' thing, and having to train myself to do as the writer intended. I like this challenge though, and when a song all pulls together the wrongs sort of right themselves and it takes on a new form. Writing songs is easy until I try and involve other musicians and find I can't explain in musical terms what it is I want them to do.

I think a lot of TV food critics might be synesthetes from the way they often describe flavours.

All this that I now know and acknowledge, I took completely for granted until my friend first mentioned synaesthesia. I'm more aware of it all going on now and love looking at the art of synesthetes like Kandinsky and David Hockney and thinking about where they might have been coming from. I would find it immensely hard to put these things into art or music so I admire these artists above all others.

Sometimes it seems strange to me that nobody knows, or that nobody ever celebrates it, or that people like me are reluctant to because it seems so daft. But if everyone thinks like me then how do synesthetes find each other?

I'm one, are you?

September

You and me, rain and sun making quick rainbows against stormy grey. Occasional bursts of blue refusing to give way to white winter skies, crunchy leaves and dry sticks. An everyday task in a new home, looking for something in a drawer, and the first fireworks pop and crackle somewhere in the distance and I get goosebumps. He hears them too but he doesn't know what it does for me, that I'm trembling as I feel myself cross from summer to autumn and I'm both scared and excited. A little ache in my chest of things past, each year at this time, but it feels okay to keep these things to myself. Songs I can barely listen to and others I can't get through the day without, all more important and beautiful and heartbreaking than the endless sickly summer soundtrack. Things I've put off 'til tomorrow all year - tomorrow's here now. Decisions to be made and faced, and items to be ticked off lists torn from notebooks and scattered around the flat in places they're most likely to be seen and actioned. The urgent need for plans, things to fill the days scribbled on calendars, the threatening chasm a decision might leave in my life, but nothing lasts forever and sometimes you just have to let things go and watch them take on new shapes. My head filled with all these things I want to do and the still-new excitement of sharing them with someone, then with the worry that I don't have enough time, why didn't I think of this when I was young and bored? What if my time comes early and I haven't finished what I'm supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? Maybe I don't want to know really.

We dance and snake around each other and hold hands and you tease and let go but you catch me, and you lead me safely over the season edge and plonk me down somewhere new, and with a cheeky wink and a nod in the right direction you're gone again and it's cold and crisp and all a little too clear. And for the rest of the winter, every time I smell a bonfire or hear a firework or see a bright star or a pink sunrise, or the wind blows the leaves around my ankles, I like to think of you and everything feels okay.

Timewarp

Coffee in a brilliant little café in a new part of London for me, where an inquisitive cat sat at our table and ate the flowers from the vase and jazz played in the background. Then treasure chests and racks and racks full of the clothes of our dreams and oh the hats hats hats! Like two big kids, playing dress-up in the 1930s. I wish it was another time.

Time flies

This weekend in Bristol was ace, and there were moments when I remember trying to work out when last I laughed that much. It helps if you're with people who make situations funny and memorable, instead of moaning when things go against them. It was nice to unexpectedly bump into friends from other towns. It rained, but it made the Sunday afternoon pub crawl even more cosy. Bristol is the deadest place on earth on a Sunday and we were hard pressed to even find a shop open let alone a pub, but when you have a warm hand to hold on to and someone's stories to listen to and exciting plans to make, it really doesn't matter how far you have to walk in the cold to find signs of life.

On the train, halfway back to London, I said something along the lines of enjoying this journey and wanting to prolong it. It was nice just to have so many things to talk about, and it seemed a shame to get off the train and go home. Minutes later the train stopped and didn't move for another two hours while they cleared the suicide off the track (sorry). Despite the gloomy reason for the delay, it was the most entertaining train journey ever. Somehow it still didn't seem that long a journey, even when I fell into bed at 2am knowing I had to get up again in four hours. And instead of sleeping, I had another laughing fit.

She called me Betty

I made a new friend recently. She came into my life like a whirlwind, sat at the desk next to mine, and seemed to know exactly what I was thinking at all times. It's nice to have such an easy friendship where you don't have to explain or apologise for anything. We were going through all the same stuff at the time, and it's like she was sent to me. Suddenly I started looking forward to going to work. It was lovely, and we made fun of the bad times.

Then one morning she announced she'd got a job in Argentina and was leaving at the end of the week. We went out for dinner twice and the day she left I took the afternoon off so I didn't have to say goodbye. The following Monday I came in and her desk was cleared, but she'd left flowers on my desk with a post-it note that read "For Betty". I had a lump in my throat.

It's funny how you can know someone years and never really know them, but meet another person for a few weeks and totally get each other.

I miss that girl.

Journeys and destinations

It's funny how you can forget a whole evening out but remember one important moment from it, something someone said and the way it made you feel, a telling look in someone's eye, a secret shared, a great plan that was formulated and the music that was playing at the time. The brain edits out all the unimportant stuff about how you got to that point and what happened afterwards. It decides which bits will become your memories, the bits you would stick in a photo album, the bits that guide you and move you to the next place in your life.

But it's the journeys from place to place where you (or I, anyway) do a lot of thinking and processing and decision-making. These are the times when your feet are carrying you along and they know where to take you, so your mind is free to wander. I guess that must be why I've been walking everywhere lately - there's been a lot to think about. I've been underestimating the power of walking and cold air and being alone with my thoughts. When you try to work things through by talking to people, they often get warped by questions and watering down of information and wrong advice, and some of the time the people you talk to are only trying to extract gossip.

Thinking while walking puts things right into perspective. Once you've made a decision on your own and you have the confidence to go with it and you don't listen to anyone else, you can make anything happen. It's been that sort of week. And today I breezed into town and walked myself into a few places I would never have gone until recently, but I needn't have worried at all, and my life is much better off for it.

Never mind therapy, just follow your feet.

Remember this feeling

You've thought about it for ages, and it's niggled at you, and you have times when you feel lucky just to have someone nice, and others when you feel like you're just kidding yourself. You convince yourself that you just need to make more effort and try harder, but pretty soon you realise you're lying to yourself, them, and everyone around you, and finally you make a decision. Then you worry that you're not strong enough to go through with it, so you tell a friend and seek their support and once you've poured your heart out and your friend tells you you're doing the right thing, you've forced yourself into it and can't go back, because they would know you were living a lie. You tell your friend your plans, and they offer a sofa should you need one.

You know you still love them, but you know it's not that kind of love. You never want to hurt the people you love though, so this is the hardest thing of all to get your head around.

The day comes, and you still haven't worked out what to say, so you just wait for a moment together and come straight out with it. It could go two ways - they're really upset, or they've been thinking the same thing and you've beat them to it, but that doesn't make any difference to how you'll feel later.

The first few days you will laugh and cry and reminisce and joke about dividing up your stuff. You tell your friends and relatives, and you get messages from people you haven't spoken to for years. You assure everyone you're OK because you think you are, and you don't want to bother them.

You start wanting to go out and see people and start your new life before you've even moved out, so you go out with people you really shouldn't be with, to places you wouldn't normally go, because you want to get out of the house and forget and show everyone how okay you are. But most of all, you want to be the one who is moving on the quickest. But then, all you'll want to do is go and tell them about it, because they've now become your best friend, but you can't because it's too weird. Your friends tell you to get someone to fuck as soon as possible. 

You drink. A lot. You stop eating, and when you do eat you can't swallow and you feel sick. You lose weight and people comment and you like it because it's one positive thing to come out of it all. You're drinking on an empty stomach and you can't get anything practical done because you're always pissed. You're useless at work. You say stupid things to people and act like a right twat, all the time thinking you're fooling people that you're fine. But they've been there too.

You move out. The new place is empty and quiet and smells funny and you don't know where the strange noises are coming from. You weren't ready for being alone tonight. You sack off unpacking and go out for a walk. You buy wine and take it home and head straight for facebook to tell everyone how ace everything is. You avoid your bed because it's not yours, and it's empty. You feel excited one minute and think about the possibilities now ahead of you, and the next minute you have your head in your hands. All the songs that come on are sad ones and they ALL apply to you. The Field Mice are a fucking nightmare. You go out for another walk and wish you could bump into someone you know. You have places you could go but you look and feel a mess. You wish you weren't alone. You wish you could feel something, anything, but this. You put up posters to make the place your own, but it still feels like an intrusion on someone else's property. It seems like EVERYONE is out tonight having fun and you are going to be forgotten. It's Saturday night, and you are desperate to find someone else who is at home on a computer, but there's nobody.

You know you've done this to yourself. You're responsible for all of it. It won't sink in. You have gone. You're on your own now. You want a hug and to cry in someone's arms, but you also know you have to do this on your own. And you don't feel like you deserve it anyway because you are the one who finished it. Then the tears come, and they won't stop and it feels like you'll cry forever. You can't breathe and you're shaking and you want to run away but where? You catch sight of your reflection and you look like Kiss and it makes you laugh and then you cry even more because you have nobody to laugh with. You are terrified of nobody ever wanting you. You want to know you can make someone feel good, but not just anyone.

You're on your own now, and it feels most horrible late at night.

Just click send.

Sometimes you have to put an end to stuff before you get in too deep. I guess I realised what felt right for me in the moment isn't right for the people I care about, and some things you have to let go. Or maybe it's just a case of right place, wrong time. Well, whatever, it's done now.

The London nobody knows

I went to a dark place last night. It was Bronze, and it was Lost Highway, it was a bad neighbourhood of LA and the dirty depths of London, it was filthy jazz and seedy surf, it was flickers of light and strobes and moments here and moments there and silhouettes and secrets. It was warm and sticky and abstract and anything could happen and anything probably did happen and time didn't matter, so much so that I forgot to check it and went home late. It felt like a dream, but this place exists alright.

Back here in the normal world, where work must be done, my colleague and I counsel each other through our extreme tiredness and explode into tears of laughter over absolutely nothing.

Maybe things really come in threes

There's nothing more nerve-wracking than waiting for news. This morning, having been told that my potential new flatmate had a few people still to see before making a decision, I had gmail open permanently, my heart doing a little skip every time an email came through. I think I've reported more spam today than ever before.

An hour before I left work, the email came through with the words that I wanted to hear. This kind of luck doesn't usually happen to me. I did a little squeal and made my colleagues jump.

In a couple of weeks I move in to my new flat with a piano and a balcony and a big bed and desk, and out of my four year dust-fest. A fresh new start.

The list is shrinking. But there are still more things to tick off, starting tomorrow when I will say some careless words and hope for the best. Eek!