Monday, 26 October 2015 / , , , ,

Morphologies


October... the most transitional of months. Home to Halloween, Samhain, whatever you choose to call it, and the beginning of cold, cold, cold. We begin to contemplate the blustery winter, and the new year and what it may bring. We switch out our camisoles for acrylic sweaters and fleece-lined tights. The leaves are dying, falling, and leaving their bare trees behind like skeletal hands, but we think it's beautiful. I love this time of year. It's just that little bit... spookier.



After spending the year trying to grasp onto, prolong, or reclaim our youth and vitality, we proceed to take a month to indulge in all that is lost or is to become lost. Celebrate death and the macabre, decorate our homes with pseudo souvenirs of all we deem unredeemable. Purge the unholy.



We say goodbye to our contour kits, hair glosses and Spanx and make our faces up to look pale and scarred. We no longer want to look youthful, but as close to death and beyond as we can. Those whom we once burned at stake, we pay to be in pounds and pennies. That which we fear becomes a welcome reality and we imitate it, and we invite a little bit of it into our homes.


We take down our comfortable fairy lights and family photos, and replace them with gauzy cobwebs and witch hats and severed hands.We strip ourselves of our polished identities, our manners, our fear of offending. No longer aiming to please, we aim to terrify. What a strange holiday this is.

Wren.


dress: missguided
necklace: topshop
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Thursday, 15 October 2015 / ,

Thunder and Lightning



I love a dark and spooky night. We were treated to one this week. The wind picked up in a way I'm not used to, at least this far inland. The silver birch trees in front of the house waved their arms in a sinister way, like the haunted forest in Snow White. Then came the rain. Lots of it. Within minutes, the thunder and lightning appeared. We haven't had a thunderstorm here in years, not since I was a pre-teen. It was a particularly spectacular display. I pondered the fascination with electrical storms. I think the answer lies somewhere in the meeting of the danger, the beauty, the infrequency, and the naturalness.

In unrelated news, the number of passers-by who pause in front of my house for a good stare seems only to increase. People go out of their way to cross the road and spend a good five minutes in front of my wall, watching and pointing unabashedly. It's not limited to pedestrians; just as many drivers slow down or stop entirely to have a good gander. Before we got electric gates, we had people knock on the door to ask if they could come in and look around. On one occasion, when we first moved in, we found a group of people literally walking around inside the house, doing just that.

My mom finds the staring rude, but it merely piques my curiosity. Why is my house such a spectacle? I'm beginning to fear something strange and notorious has happened here. Is my house a well-known murder house? My psychic friend tells me she gets 'vibes' here. It seems unlikely - in such a small English city - that we wouldn't know about it. Or are we the victims? Did my whole family die here in suspicious circumstances, and our house is now famously haunted? That, too, seems unlikely.

One of the previous occupants was a doctor, and what is now my kitchen was once his surgery. Incidentally, the kitchen is the place most people feel 'uncomfortable' in my house. Doesn't that sound like the basis for a trashy horror movie? The rational part of my mind argues that these spectators may be former patients, and their interest is more along the lines of 'hey, remember when we used to see the doctor here as kids?' But a long time has passed since then, and my gut tells me most of them are far too young to have ever been treated here. I sort of hope I never find out...

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