Katy Bettany

Gulls

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:01:48 -0500

Why are you forever here, and I forever there?

My feet rest on the solid ground,

The rest of me far away,

In a place made of salt and sky and silent sound.

Didn’t the pirate ask for a distant shore?

And don’t the gulls fly free?

I ask only for a familiar place,

Where you are just you, and where I’m only me.

Life

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:35:55 -0400

‘The thing is, I’m just bad at…’ I pause. ‘Well, life’.

I don’t mean this in an over-dramatic way. I’m not saying I’m a fail at everything, and that everything I touch turns to disaster. I’m saying that I’m bad at doing the things that keep us ticking over. Like laundry. And food shopping. And paying my bills.

More Lines

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:28:27 -0400

This is a tower of voices,

Every light another heart,

The same hands that draw lines,

Also connect us, tiny spark,

That kindles life from silent dark.

And our resting places from this point,

Fan out in time and all that space.

This is a tower of voices,

Of rude life of peace and wars,

Stop me from drawing lines, tightlipped,

All their geometry and logic unzipped,

I offer you my hands, my voice and lack of reason,

Keep still the pen, let my hands hold yours.

Character

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:16:38 -0400

I’m not very good at saying what I think. Or making decisions. Or anything that really requires me to come down from my fence. This annoys the crap out of some people (usually people who have no trouble in voicing their opinions - oddly, the kind of person I seem to get on best with).

I’ve never seen it as a bad thing before - at 20 years old, I am ill-equipped with knowledge and experience, and deciding something, something important, when you’re travelling light in both the aforementioned things, can be a little foolhardy. I don’t say what I think, partly through cowardice that nobody will agree with me and that I will be shunned (lol), but mostly because I don’t know what I think yet. In a trial, there is evidence, witnesses, months of deliberation - there isn’t just a judge throwing out decisions and thoughts like confetti at a wedding. If someone asks me what I think about xyz, I’d like to hear about all of the other letters first, to make sure what I say is really what I mean. Of course, there is always gut reaction, first impressions, blah blah blah, but I’d rather not have to keep changing my mind as time goes by.

Part of my inability to voice opinion, of course, is part of a deep rooted fear of offending anybody. Whether this is pathetic or not is debatable. Of course, wanting to avoid hurting others is a good thing, and something to be strived for. But someone (whose opinion I respect very much) reminded me this week that by always sitting on the fence, I prevent people from getting to know me. And doing that not only hurts myself, but hurts my friends too, who would occasionally like to hear some honesty, no doubt.

And decision making. Oh dear. Big things that I feel justified in spending weeks deliberating with myself. No problem. Trivial things like what to eat for dinner. Nightmare. I think it all comes down to the fact that I would rather please the people I’m with than get my own way. But as someone pointed out to me, if the other wants me to decide for a change, neither party gets what they want.

So here it is, the best honesty I can offer you. I have ideas and a few opinions, but I have more questions. Don’t expect me to decide on the big stuff, and I will occasionally decide what to eat for dinner. I can’t always give you my opinion, but I promise to let you into my inner narrative. But the truth remains that I like my fence. It allows me to see both sides of the argument.

The Light

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:31:19 -0400

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood. John, 1:5.

This phrase from John’s Gospel has been of incomparable help to me for many years now. There is much confusion within the modern Church - be it over the eligibility of homosexual clergy, the rights of women, contraception, or even something like the existence of hell. Argument over these issues, have always seemed to me a little futile. Human existence is open to error - we misinterpret and convolute the ideas and thoughts of one another, let alone the ideas of God. What we know is a closed system - God may appear to us individually, and touch our hearts, but God’s wisdom ultimately transcends the imagination of the human. To try and play advocate to God is almost insulting - what human could ever truly understand Him?

So this confusion, then, is the dark. We are the dark - and we shut out the lights every time we choose to fight with one another; or judge one another; or put forward a personal view as the one of God. To me, the Bible isn’t a wholly reliable source of truth either - man has corrupted it so. In addition, the decision to observe the Old Testament is something which bothers me: Jesus was the Light - the new covenant, sent to dispel the darkness of the Old Testament. But those who cling to the Bible in its entirety, in my opinion, cling to the darkness.

Christianity is simple - the clue is in the name. Christ is the one true Light: the one concept we must let into our lives. We distract ourselves with arguing about the Way, and forget the things which Jesus taught us. To love each other without question, to refrain from judging from one another, and to love the one true God: these are the things that matter. Let God judge the rest: to pretend that we can give a valuable insight into the wisdom of God is something very arrogant. And,at this point, I would like to remind any die hard Doctrinarians that Pride is a deadly sin.

Sunday

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:32:40 -0400

Driving away from the city,

Where the drink heats my brain,

And the smoke stains my lungs,

Breathing through a fug of cigarettes,

And an unsettled stomach.

I went back home,

Where the air carries only salt,

Where I can walk only with myself,

Where I can see things without design,

And hear things, or not.

Salt Skin

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:43:00 -0500

Low sun, golden leaves,

Flies that burnt sunlight,

Our salt skin,

Our grazed knees and feet,

And our bikes.

The summer closing in,

Its balm drawing us close,

The children leave the parks,

And we race each other home.

We spend a whole summer,

Running wild and swimming,

In the river we grew up on.

Icarus

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:55:00 -0500

You insisted on using fuel for the fire,

You built a frame of steel and filled it

With fire liquid, cooled solid and strange.

You stagger towards the burning heat,

You set your course by the flare,

With wit and hubris and calor.

You wondered why, oh dripping torture,

Your waxen wings did scream and melt,

And twisted stricken, Icarus you did fall.

Scaffolding

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:57:49 -0500

Words to create images in gaps

between the neurons - ugly, cellular structures,

Like scaffolding wrapped ‘round cathedrals.

Theory more beautiful that art,

And course more of design than scene,

Yet you, more lovely than the bones

Under your skin and sinew,

Because the cathedrals in your skull,

Host the images they do.

More thoughts

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:00:27 -0500

I was thinking about bereavement today - trying to find a way to describe it without sounding patronizing or irritating. I came up with the following analogy.

Grief is like getting a shard of glass trapped in your heart. It’s painful all the time to begin with, but then, little by little, the constant stream of blood wears the shard down into a smooth, milky pebble (like on a beach), which just sits heavily in your heart. You carry it around with you for the rest of your life - sometimes you feel a dull ache, other times nothing at all.

Skylines

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:30:00 -0500

I draw a line, you draw a bird,

Me thinking ahead, you never saying a word.

I end up only with geometry,

You end up in a silent sky.

We grew up in a city, ‘mongst crooked spires.

You let your hair grow too long, inspired

By a New York dreamer,

Who you read in translation.

Could we meet in a place where

Geometric shapes and sky quietly pair?

A London skyline

Casts shadows at our feet.

A place to start - thoughts

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 15:50:00 -0500

The first step is always the hardest - or so the saying goes. I’m not too sure - I’m plenty of steps into my degree and I’m only finding that things get harder as things go on. There are only so many drugs you can learn before you want to gouge out your own eyes. And I value my sight.

Priorities are important. People who allow themselves to be swallowed up in office politics annoy me - to see the bigger picture is an admirable quality. Sometimes I get involved, hear myself, and then berate myself internally for being so god-damn irritating. If stuff isn’t going to matter to you in ten years time, why let it matter to you at all? There is (unfortunately) plenty of stuff that you really should be worrying about. And, like Baz Luhrmann so elegantly put it, ‘the real troubles in your life are apt to be the things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on an idle Tuesday’.

This week I found something inside me that I didn’t know I had. This was the ability to crush the opposition. I found something I cared enough about to want to literally (of course I mean metaphorically, but bear with me) crush anyone that gets in my way. I’m usually fairly relaxed about competition: the person who is best for the job should win, etc. etc. But with this particular thing, I found a drive I didn’t know I had.

The air smells like rain and holidays in the back of nowhere.

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 08:11:22 -0500

The air smells like rain and holidays in the back of nowhere.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:36:57 -0500

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

-Dr Seuss

Movement lends itself to thought. As a student who lives out...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:03:33 -0500

Movement lends itself to thought. As a student who lives out (and has a busy social life and extracurricular schedule), I invariably have a lot to think about. I like my own company, and the only way to be alone in London is to walk. Whether it’s a journey from A to B, or just around the block at night, I find that walking clears my mind and allows me to think. I live in Hammersmith, not five minutes from the Thames. I walk along the Thames Path - when the busy congested day is over and quiet descends over the river. It is only then I can feel the wind on my face, and think of it as one unbroken line from the North Sea to me. The salt air calms me down, and helps me remember that I am but an individual in a world teeming with life.

This is home.

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:31:11 -0500

This is home.

Probably should sleep soon, but the house just got so quiet.

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:04:20 -0500

Probably should sleep soon, but the house just got so quiet.

I have green eyes and a crooked smile. And if you can buy me a...

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:44:00 -0500

I have green eyes and a crooked smile. And if you can buy me a ring that fits my disproportionally fat fingers I will love you forever.