She stands
On the parapet
Of the bridge
Staring down
At the sparkling blue
Of the water below
Her body slices
Through the stillness
Of the pale morning
At one with the air
Shimmering
And translucent
She descends,
Greeting the dawn
She is ethereal
She is a ghost
Who slips through the cracks
In your consciousness
She bids you farewell
She no longer needs you
She exists now
Only in dreams
And in fragments
Of memory
And in the stories
You whisper to your children
On long, dark winter nights
My New Toy
I have recently acquired a new toy. I first saw it in the Certified Refurbished section of the online Apple Store and immediately fell in love with it. I knew I simply had to have it. My latest prized possession is a refurbished MacBook 10-inch Dual-core Intel Core M entry level model in gold; the 2015 model. I would have preferred rose-gold but that wasn’t introduced until 2016. Other colours available are silver and space grey. The price had been reduced to seventy five percent of the original.
History
My Mac history is convoluted. I purchased my first mac, a G4, back in 2006. https://rielouise.wordpress.com/2006/03/14/finally-opened/
After that I worked my way through a white MacBook and two MacBook Pros. I still use my 2012 model, the last one to sport an optical drive, as a desktop. My gateway product was the first generation iPod. That was when I became obsessed with Apple. That was when I became one of those infuriating Fan Girls who would defend the Cupertino-based company at all costs. I have matured slightly since then and I now look upon Apple (and everything else) with a more jaundiced eye.
Initial Impressions
Fast forward to last Friday: I snatched the MacBook from the hands of the delivery man and unboxed it; an almost surgical process. It is the Kate Moss of MacBooks: sleek, svelte and compact. It worked straight out of the box. Setting it up was a seamless process. It slotted neatly into my apartment’s Apple eco system. It hasn’t been out of my hands since delivery. It is cleaved to me, like an extra limb. I have hardly touched my iPad Air and barely glanced at my 2012 MacBook Pro. The latter looks ugly and chunky next to my slender new machine.
Impressive Features
It is widely acknowledged, even by the MacBook’s harshest critics, that its most impressive feature is its ultra portability. It weighs just two pounds. It feels like nothing in my backpack. So much so that I’ll pause and panic; momentarily afraid that I have lost it. It is a pleasure to carry around and I must confess I rather enjoy the admiring glances it attracts when I am typing away in the corner of some coffee shop.
There are many other features that make the MacBook a joy to use. Of course there is OSX itself (the main reason I would find it hard to go back to using a windows machine: it would feel like stepping back into another era.) I am heavily invested in the ‘Apple eco system’. I use iTunes Match, the iCloud, along with an iPhone and an iPad Air 2. Then there is its crisp, clear Retina display. Watching videos on this machine is an impressive experience, enhanced by the speakers – the best I have ever encountered on a laptop. It is also good for photo editing; my main activity on this machine. And I would imagine it would be beneficial for video editors too. And, last but not least, there is the new touch force trackpad.
Some Regrets
This is not a trivial purchase for me and I recognise that I have made some compromises. So some buyer’s remorse is inevitable. The single port caused the greatest fuss in the technology community. I am not in the habit of using peripherals so this isn’t such a big deal for me. For others though purchasing this model would be a one way ticket to Dongle Ville. I feel that Apple could have ameliorated this by including an adapter in the box, as they did with the iPhone 7. Another big issue for many is the keyboard. I am slowly getting used to it. No one denies though that the build quality is superb but is it a matter of form over function? Have I been sucked in to the Apple Reality Distortion Field? Who knows.
So would I recommend it? Not to everyone. If portability isn’t your thing, go for the MacBook Pro.
Sunset
Evening and the sunset’s compress
Soothes our inflamed flesh
And I am stunned
By its sudden incandescent flare
The mud, the silt stretches for miles
Encompassing everything.
We watch the ocean rebound
Its sounds, its historic hiss
Slaughter all other sounds around
Injuring the air and to verify your existence
I grasp your hand. And above the elements
Bicker with one another and the sky
Is turning into a shade of sluttish red
Our cheeks are pinked by the wind.
And the watery colours
Bleed into one another. Diffusion –
A catalyst for confusion, for fear.
And the wind, once a gentle exhalation,
Huffs and puffs with all its might,
Grabbing hold of our hair, hauling us in.
And visions emerge from beneath the waves
Where a ship ran aground,
Where demented sailors drowned
It rises up. It bellows. A black cat shrieking,
Competing with our own blood pumping.
The gulls flee from it and fly, fly, fly into nothingness.
Myself: A Case Study:
This will be the bleakest blog entry for a while and for that I apologise. The breadcrumbs have been devoured by the birds and there is no way back. I have to create a new future for myself. This is a kind of SOS.
This is actually about me but I am writing about myself in the third person. What shall I call myself today: Susan perhaps.
My diagnosis was, until recently schizoaffective disorder but the powers that be have chosen to change it to ‘schizophrenia’. Schizophrenia is a cruel disease. It attacks every aspect of your being and even after a successful medication regime has been established there are problems that may seem unsurmountable but they must be faced up to and overcome. At the moment I am experiencing residual symptoms of my disorder: loneliness, social isolation, suicidal thoughts, panic and anxiety. However, my greatest enemy is poverty of expectation in myself and in others. I find myself longing to give into the temptation to curl up into a ball and lie there forever, to succumb to a dreamless sleep.
Right now I am terrified of the future. I have a tendency to catastrophise. I am finding the world almost impossible to navigate. I am nothing, I am passive, a mere observer. I am characterless, A tabla rasa. My self esteem has been ravaged. I feel socially disenfranchised, as if I have no place in the world. I am living on the edge of darkness, huddled down deep inside myself, wondering whether I will find myself again. “it is my portion to die out and disappear.”
I need to bear constantly in mind that there is a solution to every problem. Something as simple as making a list of problems and solutions can be immensely helpful as it helps to put them into some kind of perspective. I have got to this stage and the darkest hour is just before the dawn. I will not let this illness win. I must triumph over this nameless dread. A life lived in perennial fear is no life at all. Time propels you forward. There is no turning back.
So Sick of Drowning 