I figured I'd post this here as it is about Neil as well in a way. Warning; Rambling with a personal twist coming up.

I've read some of the remarks Tori and Neil made about each other, I've read their words, writings, musings, I'm just starting still really, because I knew Tori, before I knew Neil's work and both have been referred to me by the same friend (Meidi). The kind of friend whom I feel a great connection with, who hopskips after having seen a movie, just like I twirl around a lantern, because sometimes movies can make you feel that good, as if anything is possible really. But books are better. Imagination is one of the greatest goods...

And I just found myself wondering, why aren't there more people around like Tori and Neil? Like my friend Meidi, whom I just don't see often enough, because she's a starting illustrator and needs to get her feet firmly rooted in that world to make some money and she has her mum and a boyfriend and her own place and work and I see her maybe once in the two months, but that's ok, because it gives energy for a very long time indeed.

Friends don't always need to see each other constantly to feel a deep connection. Like my friend Vanos in Greece. I've only seen him twice or so and we used to chat daily, but now we just text each other every few months and maybe call twice a year, but nothing's changed really. Some friendships can make you feel all warm and fuzzy just by knowing they're out there, somewhere in the world.

It's hard to explain to people how you can be so overcome at times by people's Beauty, how it can almost suffocate you, but in a good way, how they can stimulate you, inspire you and how you feel like cherishing them for their sheer existence. It's a feeling of Love that can be so overwhelming that at times you just don't know what to do with yourself anymore. Sit, stand, lie down, walk, sing, write, paint, where to go where to go, what to do with that beaming light that has penetrated your soul?

And way too often I feel like a little girl in this place here, like Alice having been tossed out after having seen all of those wonderous things and I just can't get used to the real world out there. Or at least what 'they' want us to believe is the real world. They just don't seem to understand me. And I have trouble understanding them too. They think I am sweet, cute, intelligent, talented even, but a little bit weird. Ok, some say alot weird. Maybe it's because I try to connect to everything on a deeper level, that it stands out in a superficial world. Or at least, not the world, but where the people tend to live on a more superficial level.

Because honestly, most of these girls, boys, women and men look the same to me. And when I look at a program like 'Extreme Make-Over' where they just completely rebuild people, I shiver. Surely they don't always look as pretty, but everybody has something beautiful and if you have beauty inside and let it radiate to the outside you can be the ugliest person in the world visually, but the beauty from within will outshine that any day. They form people and they look pretty from a distance and then when the camera gets closer I just can't help but feel that shiver. They just don't look real anymore. So all of these girls who follow fashion and all look the same and ask me if my shoes are second-hand or just very old and fall into complete shock when I tell them I waited 27 years to decide that yes I did indeed want to shave my legs (I just needed that long too decide that it was MY choice, because I thought it looked nicer and not because society demanded it from me being a woman), who think it's weird I don't go out and 'pick up' a guy and 'just have fun', who frown when I talk about spiritual levels when it comes to intimacy and look down on me because I don't act 'normal'; I just don't understand them. Because for the life of me, I wouldn't have a clue how to live like that.

But life is not always easy this way. It's hard to find friends or people who understand, or a partner. A man who doesn't run away when you say; "Ok, so I have issues with sex, because I believe it's just not spiritual enough anymore these days and I need that, I get times when I need to stop participating in the world and I just need to observe for a while, so please make yourself scarce then, I can stare at my screen for hours to create websites or dash about with a camera to take pictures, lots, I paint, oh yeah I sing alot during the day, I write, I read, I listen to, no make that I need, I crave music and lots of it too, I like dressing up for the Elf Fair once a year, I devote myself alot to others and go to the UK at least once a year to organise the Nick Drake gathering and to visit friends, oh yeah you've got to like him 'cos no bad word about him or you're out, I love to philosophise, I am not sure about what I believe just yet, except that I believe in Guardians, Spirits, Angels and Faeries and that I talk to them too and I leave food out for the latter at the Pagan holidays, yes I even share some of my precious Mead with them and chocolate, if you're kind I'll share it with you as well and and..." That doesn't even include my preferences, like non-smoking etc. I feel that finding a partner seems rather impossible. But then Meidi has succeeded, so I guess Hope has not gone just yet.

I should add to the above that I suffer from depression too, or actually Dysthymia, a chronic light depression, with deeper spells of it at times. I already had help, but I just winged that really and went to it, but thought once a week was ok enough until in 2005, yes I think it was then, I felt so down and out of things that I remembered the date to the Tori concert wrongly and I missed it. I MISSED IT!!! And I had won front row update tickets to my already paid for ticket on the site too. Which I kept in my wallet, not to loose it. I just never looked at it again to confirm the date. Two days off... Two days too late... I felt absolutely crushed. My mum had to come over to my place and it was the first time in many many many years again that I cried in front of her. I cried my eyes out. Part for missing the concert, but also part for the fact I realised something just there and then. Because if I missed something THAT important to me (Tori, the music, the Muse, Inspiration, the I in RAINN, the recognition, the understanding from afar, the emotions, that little bit of Hope (because if she can prevail maybe so can I) and oh such deep deep feelings, the piano sounds that can make you die and then come back to life again in a mere few seconds, because that's what a piano can do you know; dig deep in and grasp at those hidden bits in you), how far had I gone down then? How lost must I have become? What happened to me? Where had I gone? Somewhere along the line I had misplaced myself and just left 'me' standing by the side of the road and just stumbled on aimlessly and now I had to double back and find myself again. So I asked for intensified help. Because something like that was never allowed to happen to me again...

And at these moments you can pick out your true understanding friends too. They are not the ones who say 'Oh well, it's not the end of the world, just go to the next concert' (even though it may take years!), but they are the ones who keep silent standing next to you or just give you a hug, offer you a nice cup of tea, because most words would fail anyway and just listen to you yapping away about this horrendous moment in your life. These are the kind of friends who understand to an extent that that moment of realisation felt like a slap in my face and as if somebody was holding the wound wide open so I could stare right in. And it was deep. And how I stared into it trying to see if I could make out anything, any little part of 'me' in there so that I could yank it back into existence. But it seemed to have gone. It was time to go in and start picking up the broken pieces, the invisible crumbs I had left behind. Sprinkle them with faery dust and watch them take shape again, so that I could start picking them up again as well...

Anyway, sorry for the ramble, it was just this feeling that came over me reading about Tori and Neil's friendship and their kind and imaginative words about each other. And I had to write it down. Because reading about it gave me this tingly happy feeling inside, because knowing it exists, it means there must be more of it out there and if there's more of it out there, I could find it too... There's still Hope. And that's always a good feeling.

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