dark night on a long road 220 minutes still to go spacing out time on odometer with all our stories running through my head
if we stretched out all the spaces we had nothing much to say we’d be further than it seems right now we’d still not be ok we’re farther than we started we’re still more than far away
if i opened up the wreckage of this life you’d see sparks fly from my insides and the flames burn higher for the silence my spark wants you to stay, for the road home
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you take me piece at a time with no patience for my spirit weak tired. you take me apart.
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oh my dear sad heart on far shore you proclaim the strength of days the hope of past mistakes restored i am only ever waiting on a star to fall from outer reaches of the dark, fragrant spaces.
oh the dearest, the best save all the letters and re-scatter them, make new beds we lie in every Saturday and new songs rewritten in each small perfection a confection of the melancholy perfect symphony of catastrophe.
laid upon disaster oh the vanishes of deep blue skies and conflicting pinstripes call nothing left on wasting time floating on the current of the day with light accompanying you to heaven with a violent twist, an aching kiss.
Beyond that, you’ll have to be patient with me. I’m writing eulogies of a life I wasn’t finished with yet.
Thanks to Madonna and Vanity Fair, May 2008.
“Ultimately everything’s good,” she told me. “Even bad is good, because bad is there to help you resist it. You need to have that resistance to be good, and, let’s face it, the worst things that happen are always the best things that happen. If you look back at your life and say, Well, what did you learn? What happened that changed your life, that made you strong, that made you grow, it’s always things you perceived as bad. So is there bad?”
“You have to get to a point where you care as little about getting smoke blown up your ass as you do when you become a whipping boy in the press, because ultimately they both add up to shit. You just have to keep doing your work, and hope and pray somebody’s dialing into your frequency. If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you’re always going to be disappointed.”
We are about to be leaping into bright horizons and future growth stuff. Exciting, terrifying times. Eastercamp is into full swing, Parachute is next week. I’ve still got 13 kilos to lose in 9 weeks. I’ve been on diet holiday for a few weeks but all that is over now, it’s time to finish this Esther year.
Tonight driving home, all of a sudden I came across a line of road cones blocking the road. Someone’s idea of a funny joke, which was entertaining.
Tonight prior to driving home, I was at music practice. There is a sense to which I love and hate being a volunteer. I’m glad that I have a lot of life left, so that maybe one day, I will have enough hours to do all the things I feel like I want to.
It’s hard work playing for the morning team, because they all work like individuals. There’s no team, no making of music together, just a collection of parts. It’s not really music, just a sound generator.
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.