potentially anywhere-but-here

I'm nostalgic about things I've never experienced. Is that even possible?

I miss times I didn't exist in, and places I've never been to.

I know that it sounds like I just want to be anywhere but here, but it's not a want. Really. It feels like I've been there and then, and I want to go back. I mean it.

For example, France. I've never really harboured any desire to go there - I guess it's just so mainstream. Despite studying the language throughout high school, it was never really a passion. You guys, if you've been here a while, know how I feel about that class. But listening to Zaz has made me long to be there. Not just France in the here and now, but France... France in that time. Right after the end of WWII. Which I think was only building on the feeling Rose Under Fire left me with.

But more than France, South Africa calls me. You know one of my favourite books. Well, I read it again. And I want to go there again. Apartheid Africa. That's sort of sick, isn't it? But I long to be there, again, just to experience it, support the people who need it. I'd go to Africa now, of course, but I miss another time.

I also want to specifically go back to their childhood - Sarah and Emily's childhood. I miss childhoods. I miss mine, but also, the kind of childhood you see in old movies, you know, My Girl and Now and Then. The kinds that seem to be stuck in a perpetual summer, where the neighbourhood kids roam the vicinity, explore the woods or some kind of wild that always seems to be in the background. It's a small world, but a big one too. They grow up dramatically, but in a kind of innocent way. Not a phone or computer in sight. Even To Kill A Mockingbird has that feel.

I miss it. I don't just want it - I want to go back. It sounds the same, but it's not. But it is. But it isn't,

And I miss a certain kind of weather too. A summer tropical storm. There were just a few words in The Lovely Bones about it. Just one fleeting part, and I think I've experienced it, it's really vivid in my head. And I want it again.

Does this make sense?

Maybe it is a kind of 'anywhere-but-here' syndrome. But life doesn't feel so bad at the moment. I'm floating on top of it. Sometimes, I guess, I feel like I'm  not quite here. But not in a bad way. Just... I don't know. Do you sort of maybe get it?

Peace in,
Laila

'the man shot dead'

I know this guy. 

I use 'know' very loosely here. He went to my school. We've been in the same class. He walked the same halls as me. Talked to people I knew. I've spoken to him.

He's my age.

It's just so close to home. I don't know what to do.

It doesn't feel real.

Just how. What. What.

I have to admit, I had a reaction I'm not proud of. I mean, after the initial shock, I was just... Like... I wasn't angry or contemptuous, but I just initially accepted he was in the wrong. It's so mean, right?

I just didn't have the best impression of him, personally, in my goody-two-shoes way. He was a bit obnoxious in my French class. He used to always argue with this girl - she was provocative too - but the thing is, they would shout and swear, and that just makes me nervous.

But I've been thinking about it... All day... And there are just so many dimensions and I'm so confused and frustrated and absolutely very completely ... Listless. It's just bizarre. 

Like... I'm not sure what I can say here, because I don't know if people can find this stuff and so... I can't spill secrets, I don't want to compromise other people or be involved... But I really... I feel like I'm going to explode.

It's just that I don't know what to believe and I don't know what to think but I don't think I need to find a stance like it's not really my place to find a stance on this but then how do you not have a stance and I knew him and how is someone the class clown one day and compelled to stab policemen another day and then just dead and what if the police are lying what if the media are lying what if we're all just lying and was it a malicious act was it just stupidity was he scared or was he angry was he really so threatening and did the police really have to shoot or was it just like an instinctive reaction or were they hateful and how does this happen and how skeptical are we allowed to be about things how can you believe everything you hear but then how can you not just believe everything I mean I

JUST

DON'T

KNOW.

What I do know.

He's not an 18 year old man, terror suspect. He's a boy. Maybe he was into stupid things, but he had time to change and grow up.

Peace in,
Laila