Claire's Blog...Stuff that came into me hed.
Claire is feeling 
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About me: I'm 23 years old, female, and I live in Sydney (yes, in Australia.)
You can see the rest of my page here, but there's not much at the moment.
Write to me at unwittyname@hotmail.com
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Sunday, February 16, 2003
So much weed, man...
Yesterday, the weather was really hot and I wanted nothing other than to get in the water, so I went to Collaroy. My b/f had been trying to convince me to go to Collaroy for some time, because he had been to a pie shop there and wanted to return (incidentally, the pies were excellent). We sat on the grass at Fisherman's Beach for a couple of hours, enjoying the breeze - actually it was more like a gale, and I ended up feeling cold and goosebumpy, and taking shelter under a towel! After the day's UV peak had passed, we went to go swimming, only discover that all the beaches in the area were choked with seaweed, presumably because of a recent storm. On Collaroy beach, as the waves broke you could see nothing but seaweed. We went back around the beach to a sheltered spot past the baths, and frolicked happily in the water...for about five minutes, until something stung me. As we had seen numerous bluebottles on the shore, we decided not to take any chances with this, so we headed out of the water. All in all, a disappointing experience. We then set about digging a pool on the beach for the water to collect in, something I hadn't done in earnest since I was quite young, and it never really works but it was fun anyway.
Remembering the dead.I went to a funeral last week, for a friend's mother. Going to funerals makes me feel that I have frighteningly little understanding of death for a person who aspires to counsel others. I just can't get past how very final death is; obviously, being a christian, I don't believe that death is really final, but the idea that you could be talking and sharing life with someone one day, and them be completely lost to you the next, is beyond my understanding. I have been really fortunate not to have lost very many people close to me (except my lovely great aunt two years ago, and my grandmother when I was seven, and maybe you can count my grandfather, who died when I was only about 18 months old) and the idea of losing a partner, a parent or a sibling frightens me very much. The pain on the faces of the family members is too raw, I can't look.
Maybe, in the end, the most frightening thing is that love doesn't let go. I have seen an a man in his 70's burst into open tears when thinking about how much he missed his wife, who died nearly 14 years previously. And recently, I walked past the Cenotaph in Martin Place, and saw a bunch of flowers with a note attached, indicating they were for the rememberance of a soldier who died in battle - in 1943. The idea that a person can feel the absence of a lost loved one in their life for 60 years is bewildering to me. As, I guess, is the knowledge that death is so omnipresent as to eventually swallow everything that ever lived, but at the same time, it never seems to belong. Ultimately, since love and death cannot co-exist, death is always a trespasser, and anyone who still has life resists and recoils.
9:21 AM
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Tee hee
I'm an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!
See how compatible you are with me!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
8:32 AM
Monday, February 03, 2003
Great Vengeance and Furious Anger
I'm getting a wee bit sick of George Dubya Bush quoting the bible. I read about the Columbia crash in the paper this morning, and I was filled with sadness, but when I turned the page and read the President's quote from Isaiah, I just turned away in disgust, and I felt this huge anger. I'm not a very political person, and when I come to think about it, although I am a Christian I don't think I'm easily shocked by people perverting my faith. But in particular, I imagine what non-christians would think when they hear GWB broadly describing people who disagree with him as evil, or striving for revenge in the most blatant way, and I know that although the "war on terror" and the demonisation of Iraq might be winning votes for Mr. Bush, they're not winning any followers for Christianity. Hasn't Mr. President read the bit where they talk about turning the other cheek?
9:25 PM
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