The Return To New York City

Despite the noise, there was a silence in me as the A train finally rattled into view, the surprisingly pure and chilly air pinching my cheeks.

People clamoured around us as we sat, still, suitcases between our knees, plunging into darkness and light, darkness, light as unmemorable stations came and passed in a blur. After changing to the F train and finally rising from our subterranean corridor, it was as though a ringing in my ears echoed through my entire body, even when we surfaced and inadvertently stepped right into an elaborate and incredibly expensive-looking movie shoot, having to awkwardly weave between lighting rigs, camera tracks, and frustrated techies yammering into headsets. My surprise and joy at that only seemed to tickle a shallow part of me.

The End of the Beginning

As it was always going to be, the turn of September meant two things. A handful of the most frustrating days of my life, and the beginning of the end. 

After leaving our beautiful home in Bushwick and one hell of a subway journey with an accumulation of 6 months worth of stuff, for the past few days we have been up in our last American refuge - an air b'n'b in Far Rockaway, the lovely little beachside neighbourhood right by JFK airport. 

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.

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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BLOODBEAT

The train rattles through the tunnels beneath the midnight city. I sit in the center of the carriage, body rocking gently with the motion. I close my eyes as the rumbling, metallic thunder slowly begins to fade into the very periphery of my awareness.

And with each soothing breath which permits me deeper and deeper, in it's place, I tune in and I hear it. 

A Safehouse in the Wild City

What I love so ardently about 'The Bean' is that everyone in it could be elsewhere.

Looking around, everyone has either a laptop, a book, a newspaper, pens, paper, highlighters - any and every kind of tool to get well and truly lost. The only taskless ones are those who come and go, that momentary pause to perhaps wonder just what conspiracy lay beneath the surface of this establishment that it's deemed an absolute necessity that people must come here to do their business.

The Great Escape

It's taken almost two thirds of my trip, but I think I've figured out what frustrates me so much about being here.

Being on this boat does not feel like I am in New York City. 

It's a completely independent and self-sufficient universe on board here, and sometimes it feels as though the glittering skyline just beyond the harbour is almost mocking, saying 'yeah this is what you could be having' and here I am, trapped aboard this albeit beautiful boat, succumbing to quite literal cabin fever.

Midnight in Manhattan

I don't wanna brag, but... I'm pretty damn good at feeling sorry for myself.

I mean hey, with the amount of practise I've had over the years, I'm pretty sure I could be classed as an expert. 

What I'm not very good at, however, is getting myself out of it. 

Big City Blues

A slanted, cylindrical beam of golden light streams in through the porthole window of my cabin, an infinity of gravity-defying dust motes dancing and swirling within it. 

I lay on my back, body facing the empty bunk above, and slowly raise an arm, fingertips gently grazing the untouchable gold.

The only sounds which punctuate the silence are the periodical creaks of ancient wood and the soft rattle of the fan upon the writing desk. I roll over on the bed to face the porthole, and watch as the reflections of the water streak silver across the ceiling.

The 4th of July in New York City

Have you ever had one of those moments, 

A moment that interrupts your perception of the pace of reality quite suddenly -

Perhaps you witness an accident, bump into a familiar friend in an unexpected place, or hear announcement of some shocking news which all of a sudden makes you forget what you were doing and why - and you suddenly achieve this deep-rooted awareness to a molecular level about exactly who you are, what you're doing and what is happening?

I'm not sure if there's a proper name for it, but I like to call it 'Hyper Presence' - a moment in which you are suddenly torn from your familiar pace and comfortable, consistent method of processing the world and pasted into a completely new context of awareness, which finds you stunned, disorientated, and more than a little bit dazed.

Maybe it was the beer, perhaps it was the company, or even the place in which we stood, but gazing up into the indigo sky on the 4th July, it suddenly hit me hard, and gazing over at my best friend I realised the hyperpresence had suddenly gripped him too.

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade - on 35mm

As is no secret, there's nothing I've grown to love more these past few months than analogue photography. So as Hannah & Toni were in the city, we bustled our way through subway cars full of metallic painted mermaids, sea creatures, pirates and er some zombies and stuff which was a pretty niche take on the concept, down to the seaside theme park of New York City, Coney Island with our film cameras for the 34th Annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

It turned out to be perhaps the most bizarre day of my entire life, concluding in epic fashion with a profusely-bleeding man screaming through the crowds claiming everyone was going to die and punching random citizens in the face, before being taken down by approximately 450 NYPD cops, which almost got us busted when we audibly protested at the excessive use of force.

Ahh, nothing like a joyful day at the seaside.

But we drowned our sorrows in shitty sangria, theme park rides and incredible vegan pizza and all was well with the world again.

So enjoy this little snapshot of madness captured on 35mm film - although unlike my usual blogging style, I'm going to be doing a series of photodiaries, as I have tons of photos already from this trip I can't wait to share with y'all, but don't always have the time to write along with them all.

So bombard you I shall!

Much love,

Upon The Discovery of Discipline

I sit hunched forward on the rusting fire escape, my scraped elbows resting against the supports of my bloody knees, violet and indigo bruises painted like watercolours beneath the ever-bronzing skin of my calves.

The warm Brooklyn breeze stirs the paint-flecked wisps of flyaway hair that dance around my sweaty, grime-smeared cheeks and as I inhale deeply, I systematically feel every iota of my body submit a creaking roll call in response.

I know then that this is the hardest I have ever worked for anything in my life.