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Your ragged edge is your point of growth, the outer limits of your comfort zone, where the stuff you know drops off into the stuff you don’t. It’s an unsettling place to be. You will have to experiment. You will fall down, and fail, and make mistakes, and flounder around, and live with the kind of ambiguity and uncertainty that comes with dealing with the unknown.

(Source: tribalwriter.com)

Dreams (Taken with instagram) View high resolution

Dreams (Taken with instagram)

The Cultural and Political Power of the Personal Memoir

Memoir is an inherently transgressive form, and memoir by women especially so. The culture we live in is constantly telling us the stories of our lives as they should be. We’re told, by television and movies and celebrity interviews and “lifestyle trend” pieces and our grandmothers, that we are supposed to look a certain way, drive a certain car, marry by a certain age, have a certain number of children, pursue a certain career. It doesn’t matter how successful we are; there will always be someone waiting to tell us how we’re failing. If we are career women, someone will judge us for not devoting ourselves fully to our children. If we stay at home with the kids, someone will sneer at us for not having a job.

Writing a memoir, writing honestly and deeply about life as we see it, is perhaps the most basic way to counter that toxic, restrictive force. By putting down on paper the words that describe how we move through the world, we act in opposition to the cultural forces that attempt to define our lives for us. We claim the role of expert on our own experience and overrule the chorus of voices coming at us from all sides, telling us who and what we should be. For women, for queers, for minorities of any kind, simply telling the truth about the way we live is powerfully subversive.

(Source: The Atlantic)

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My brittle bones that threatened to splinter without you now ache and sigh knowing your touch will come with the night.
[My small stone]

Did you know: The Mile High Club?

We’ve all heard about the mile high club. If not, it’s … erm … when people get amorous while they are on a plane somewhere, usually 30,000 feet in the air. Oscar-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes famously joined the mile high club on a Qantas flight from Australia to India a few years ago. 

Well, the origin of the term goes way back before then. An American aviator called Lawrence Sperry invented an early version of the autopilot function. In 1916, he was flying a biplane with a Mrs Waldo Polk when they decided to test out the autopilotfunction and indulge in some … non-flying activities. The plane crashed into a bay and duck hunters subsequently found the pair, minus their clothes. Their excuse: the crash shook their clothes off! 

Believe it or not, some newspapers actually reported this although one newspaper ran with the cheeky headline: “Aerial Petting - Ends in Wetting”!

From Sydney Writers Centre Newsletter

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Each of us is blessed with the opportunity to toss pebbles into the pond of collective consciousness, and every ripple of kindness reverberates forever. Whatever your experience, every blog, every tweet, every status update has the potential power to shine light or bring darkness into the world of another. While you may never know the full extent of your reach, never underestimate the power to (hurt or) heal that sharing your joys, your setbacks, your triumphs and your failures, might inspire.

(Source: fuckinginbrooklyn)

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All great artists, be they great musicians, painters or great lovers all have this in common, and it’s not technical proficiency: it’s how they make you feel.

(Source: elephantjournal.com)

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The ticking clock, the hum of the laptop, car tyres on the wet road outside, creaks and groans of the walls shifting as the air is cooled by the rain — all seem loud in the silence created by your absence.
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Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
— Chinese Proverb

(Source: kindovermatter.com)