Back again

This is a picture I took on my last night in Sydney. Warm night, close air. I walked to the very edge of the wharf (where Russell Crowe is popularly known to have an apartment) and dangled my legs as far out as I could above the water. I could have fallen in then and the moon would've caught me in her reflection. (Failing that, Russell would've come out and saved me) I whispered some incredibly private promises and desires to the sea, which assured me that it would always be there.

The new year is pressing on and I'm mulling over secret plans, promises, commitments. The back of the house needs doing up. There's talk of a fountain of some kind but I've pooh-poohed it. Gotta bring down that recliner chair for dad. Recycling junk center comes round this weekend, so our spring clean has got to meet that deadline. Poop has promised a bottle of Chanel perfume when she gets back from France. Art meets, greets. Less pressure now, much less pressure. I'm borderline with the smokes. A drag or two still causes sweet ecstacy in my veins. I plan to remain quit this year, with a little help from friends (you know who you are). Sydney reaffirmed that I'm happiest in a palette of black, white, grey and navy blue, with allowances for the occasional colorful tight dress. Short hair will stay. Yoga everyday. More cooking, especially after watching and falling in love with Jacques Pepin on telly! This is a money-making year for Betta. According to the stars the sun is out for yet another year, and I'll have to make hay while it lasts. Can't say yet what it is I'll do, but I promise you this: it won't be what you expect.

Welcome 2008 at last. x.

On being tattooed

First off, I will not say, it was not painful. It was painful. This experience, all 2 and a half hours of it, was exquisitely painful. So much so that one has the dreadful privilege of meditating upon the nature of pain; the subject of it, the very manifestation of it, evidenced in that moment of the buzzing machine, the knowledge that where the sound touches your skin, there will be pain.

All my prepared fortitude went flying out the window. The Buddhist chants that put me to sleep without fail, began in my mind clearly, but ended up a jumbled mess. Today I learned of my own pain threshold -- the pathetic level at which the body fails the mind, regardless of preparation! I'm humbled. I have a long way to go.

But I endured, dear reader! And I remember musing half-heartedly about all the difficulties I had been through; how, just like that very moment of physical pain, the time would pass, one would emerge refreshed and reborn, with a glorious artistic scar/outcome to show for it.

Tattoos are a dime a dozen. But your own is always special. I can only describe it as something as deep as the blood in your veins, which at a certain moment, crystallizes into the image you have prepared yourself for. And it appears on your skin! It's the outward manifestation of an inward resolution. It's entirely appropriate that one has to suffer a little for it.

Sort of exhausted, but can't wait to show you. It's so, so beautiful.

x,
betta.

The bridging of selves

Utterly inebriated, I passed out a few hours ago at the foot of God, exorcised of demons, a contented smile on my face. Possibly finding me a hindrance, God has nudged me with God's ineffable big toe and I'm wide awake, staring back at the face of the moon outside my window. The past has caught up with the present and the future is strolling along at a comfortable pace. It seems everything is holding hands with everything. I'm bound by some compulsion to draw the shape of this container, although I know this means disturbing the sweetness of the condition. It can't last long anyway, I might as well chase it with words.

"Never in action had I known the chilling satisfaction of words; never in words had I experienced the hot darkness of action" - Yukio Mishima

The rest of that quote comes back to me in snatches and it's a great quote; so sublime, but I know it ends with Death, and for Mishima, in Death.

I realize now that the night is so full and peaceful. We've never been great friends, because I sleep uneasily and am shamefully afraid of shadows. Right now it is really quite satisfying to tap into the dark; the glow of my screen has become the face of the moon; Oh Sharon, I mean Betta... I'm sure that analogy (simile? metaphor?) has never been used before...

This word: isthmus. Land bridge. It's a great word, one of my favorites. For so long, I've thought it the ideal condition. A place that is able to relate two land masses to each other is very special. It's just so cool! But I wonder now if souls or bodies are meant to remain in transit, or in my case, to revel in it. Isthmuses come and go with the tides. I begin to suspect that my fascination is a symptom of a certain malaise, one that is not life-affirming. I've yet to explore this further.

Mishima was searching for the unifying principle. From memory: "Floating ten thousand feet above the ground, the silver phallus of the fuselage glinted in naked sunlight..." The rest I can't say for certain. But he saw a great circle coiled around the earth, one that united man and woman, art and action.

The isthmus is my unifying principle and I know it is a false one. It's the position of one who wants to savour all the chaos of life, but only at a distance. Mishima's unifying principle was Death. He was right.

If I'm becoming unclear it's only because I don't know what I mean. And that's the worse condition to be writing in.

Good night.

High on life

Warning: anyone easily sickened please look away now.

I just feel so happy right now. My body feels like shit of course, I think I still have some alcohol swishing around inside me. Being here, I just get to be Betta. I get to meet people and talk to them as Betta who happens to make art in Kuala Lumpur, not Betta the Malaysian artist. Soon, I'm getting my tatt done, and the best part is that I'm so sure of what I want it to be. I've waited a long time for that certainty. It's finally here.

x and kisses.

Fall from grace

NEWER UPDATE: I started to do it and then I got distracted by the thought of avocado on toast with butter and cheese (that's three layers of fat on some carbs - mmmm). Hahahah. Facebook I have escaped your clutches once again.

UPDATE: I realize now it is actually because I am sexually frustrated.

I am weak. Weeeeeaak.

I woke up this morning and knew that I must join facebook.

I cannot say what it was that did it. It could have been all that drink-mixing last night (beer (1pm), martini (5pm), white wine (6 - 9pm), beer (9 - 10pm) REALLY BAD champagne (10pm onwards)) or it could have been the huge pie I ate (as well as smeared on my white top) after.

I am a broken woman.

See you on there, bitches! Hope you're happy now. Grrrowl. Purrrr.

Azure

This is a post to displace the melancholy one below, if anything else.

I finally went to Bondi Beach the other day with fellow resident artist B. Stepping off the bus we were greated by the most amazing blue azure sea I have ever seen. It was magnificent. The water from the shore to the farthest horizon looked like a sheet of silk dyed blue by God. And on the horizon line, a single oil tanker was cruising on the edge of the world where it meets the sky. Over excited, I dragged B. from one end of the beach to the other, skipping like a monkey. He humoured me, bless him.

In the two weeks since I have been here, now and again I feel a wholly gratuitous sense of happiness and independence. Soon I'll start making work again.

Message in a bottle

Landed a week ago on the shores surrounded by water. The air cold and dessicate, so my skin is shedding like a snake.

I live in a room with a paint-splattered cork floor. The view outside is of the harbour with the navy's battleships berthed there. Don't tell anyone but I sneakily smoke cigarettes by leaning outside the window.

I've walked more than I have in my entire life, I think. The other day I had blisters and thought maybe I was overdoing it but I have purchased some in-soles and these will allow me to trek even further.

I miss rice, yesterday some of us went in search of it and we found it! We had dinner together, that was nice.

My favorite thing is the Observatory at the top of the hill. A big fat man who looks like he can control the cosmic railways let me look into a very expensive telescope. I saw the sun, but the image was 8 minutes old - the time it took to reach the lens and into my eye. I also saw Jupiter and Mercury. As you can imagine I was thrilled beyond anything. Anything. On October 20 there is Astronomy Night at some far away location and I am going to go and be a nerd. Apparently there will be 20 telescopes there. I might burst with happiness.

The other day I went to the Maritime Museum and I looked at ships old and new. There were original anchors bigger than you can imagine, looking very much stranded on their platforms when they really belong at the bottom of the great ocean. There was a figure head of Lord Nelson, with his one eye and his one arm. I paid silent homage as I have wanted to do that for the longest time.

I bought maps to put on my wall.

I am missing home a little of course, but there so much here to see and do. On Wednesday a local will take me around to some openings.

No computer yet, which is terrible! Hopefully it comes soon and I'll post some pictures in the privacy of my own room.

For now, my abode is:

43 - 51, Cowper Wharf Road
Woolloomooloo
2011 NSW
Sydney
Australia

And my life-line is

+61410256858

Salty kisses,
Betta in Sydney

PS. I will not open facebook I will not open facebook I will not open facebook (according to everyone I know it's inevitable and resistance is futile)