You Can't Hold Me Down, 'Cause I Belong To The Hurricane

I've been trying to work out whether it is perhaps a phobia or the complete opposite, but for as long as I can remember, I've possessed an acute, crippling awareness of the passing of time.

In my first ever blog post on Scarphelia three years ago, I wrote: 

'What if I continue to procrastinate and then one day realise that never will I ever now be able to do the things which I could have easily have done when I was younger?'

'Don't Grow Up, It's a Trap'

Yesterday began as a bit of a downer.

Consulting our finances delighted to inform us that we were closer to flat broke than ever before, even with the penpal project, as each new purchase only seemed to just about cover of the previous package.

We spent the majority of the day cooped up inside drawing and writing, too broke to go to our regular coffee shop and soak up the inspiring atmosphere whilst working on our pieces.

By late afternoon we had as well as succumbed to cabin fever, and realised we needed to get out.

But you know, walking down the block and seeing the Empire State Building surrounded by it's glittering counterparts making up the Manhattan skyline right before your eyes, has a funny way of brightening even the worst moods.

Downtown Barfly Prophecy

The smoky air of semi-drunken musicians mingle into the warmth of the summer night sky. 

"So what brings you to New York?" 

The girl in the hat next to me turns and asks, the brim casting a shadow across her face. She cocks her head almost imperceptibly to the right and her left eye escapes the shade. Her gaze twinkles with curiosity. 

"What doesn't," I laugh, unwilling to get into the whole bombastically long-winded tale of how these two British kids ended up in the basement bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn at that precise moment in time which allowed us to meet.

The Young & The Penniless: How To Make Everything from Nothing

I'm sat on the floor of our apartment in Brooklyn, an open Kilner jar in front of me.

With a tinkling crash I upend the contents of the jar onto the varnish wood floorboards and begin slowly and meticulously sifting through it into separate jars for quarters, dimes & nickels, and pennies. 

With the change sorted I move on to counting out those little green notes into corresponding piles, before coming to our final total.

W A K E

I'm standing inside the Hayden Planetarium in The American Museum of Natural History inside Central Park. The lights dim inside the giant dome, soft music begins to swell and beneath me, I watch as slowly our world falls away beneath our feet. 

It becomes a dinner plate, a tennis ball, a penny, before disappearing completely, and constellations and galaxies tear past us at the speed of light. One hundred thousand, one million, one billion light years in the blink of an eye.

The Archive of Human Adventure

On the 20th March 2015, I found myself stood upon a glacier in the Icelandic wilderness, miles from civilisation, watching the universe align in the sky above.

I never blogged about my trip to Iceland, which was a simultaneous regret and a confident choice. I always struggle to write about holidays or fantastical experiences after I've returned from them. Like Kim Gordon wrote in her memoir:

 'It's hard to write a love story with a broken heart.' 

The Second Chapter: The Bushwick Days

Well, dang. We actually gosh darn did it.

Three nights before Greg's arrival, I left the boat for good. After a week of seemingly never-ending hell from Victoria and torturous misery aboard the boat, I packed my bags and escaped in the middle of the night to hold up at my safehouse in Manhattan, Chloe's apartment, where I spent the rest of the week gratefully on her sofa. 

The Ballad of The Misplaced Man

It's a fact I have proclaimed from the rooftops since I first came to be here;

Nothing has been a greater surprise, delight and inspiration to me during my adventure in New York City, than the completely unexpected kindness and friendliness of strangers.

15 Minutes After 5 Years

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