Ink Layers

Getting a tattoo is weird. It's a deeply personal and permanent decision, so naturally we entrust it to... some rando with good reviews on Google. I kept wanting to find someone I knew, or even just a good referral from someone I trust. Alas, the one person that might've filled the criteria lives in a different province and is raising horses now. Go figure.

I'd come around the idea of getting a tattoo about a year ago, and it took a good 3-4 months to figure out what I wanted. And when it clicked, it clicked. I knew it was the right answer. And yet it took a while to build up the courage to act on it. It is, after all, still a thing of permanence. Maybe there's some lingering YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE rhetoric pinging around my subconscious.

But last week I did indeed pull the trigger. It was uncomfortable at times, but generally tolerable and over quicker than I thought it'd be. Now I get to obsess over the aftercare and stress over the permanent being permanently ruined if I don't keep it adequately covered. A corner of the second skin has peeled about 5mm and now I'm paranoid, even though it has to travel another 35 to reach the artwork itself.

Speaking of which: I wanted to choose something with adequate layers of interpretation. I was afraid of doing something that could be boiled down to I like cars so I got a car tattoo. I didn't always like cars and I don't know if I always will like cars either. The same thing applies to most of the things that've crossed through my life. That whole Favourite Thing paradigm is too temporal for an obsessive and restless mindset. But I remember the instant the right idea came along, and I never really had any doubts about it.

On the surface it represents the fundamental elements of design. It's also a geeky nod to my formative years behind a computer monitor. It represents a long journey that culminates in a destination permanently locked behind a gate. It is frustration and mystery, it's entropy's gravestone. It's something's absence. It's a joke that no one wants at their expense, and reminder that what you go looking for may not always be found. It's the postcard and the destination. Just as much a placeholder as the real deal, and a reckoning of the two. When combined with my professional aspirations, which I've dedicated so much of my life to with debatable outcomes, it's kind of a cruel reminder that you are not your job. Or perhaps you are not anything for long. Life is short, after all.

Anyways, here it is:

My grandmother passed away a couple weeks ago. I don't know if she would've approved of a tattoo or if she would've even understood what it depicted in the first place. But I know she still would've accepted me all the same. And her passing was part of the secret sauce to push me over the edge and get the tattoo done. So maybe it's also a reminder of the things you loved that are no more but you carry still.

It is nothing that can be everything. It's a perfect dichotomy that I can reinterpret ad nauseum and even hide behind. It's every hope and anxiety and existential angst forever. And, maybe, it's also a bit of acceptance. An empty glass is still a glass, after all. So, cheers.

-Cril

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Jenny & Tyler feat. Sara Groves - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Shutterspeed 1/2

 Hey Reg. I did it, I got new batteries - all three of them. Yeah, the main ones were toast, but when I charged and put them in, things still weren't working. I thought maybe the camera had bricked entirely until I found a reference to a small coin-cell battery. Lo and behold, that was what I was missing. The camera went with me to Nova Scotia and performed its duties admirably.

I thought I'd post the photos on Flickr for old time's sake, but my account had long since filled up beyond its limits. I don't regret cancelling my Pro subscription a few years ago - looking at the site now, it's evident that nothing has changed recently. I think it's a dying platform.

Anyways, here are some photos. Consider them Creative Commons with Attribution, if there's anyone out there that still cares for such things.

I had a few more edited photos that I'm not going to post because they just don't quite warrant it. And way more photos I didn't even bother touching up that'll never see the light of day. Them's the breaks, I suppose - I'm not a photographer. But that doesn't mean I can enjoy the process, and it got me to look a bit closer at the world for a while. For that reason, the camera served its purpose even after lugging it around for a couple weeks.

We ended up staying in an old caboose at a decommissioned train station in Tatamagouche. It was really cool, and the original station was still there and used as the office/gift shop/cafe. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't find a good photo anywhere for me to take. Hopefully you don't hold it against me. Still, I think you would've loved it.

I wonder if you'd ever visited the east coast. I bet you would've loved it. Oh well, the only answer to that question is long lost to time. At least your camera helped me stop time for myself in a few different spots.

-Cril

Shutterspeed

Hey Reg, it appears the camera batteries have died. By the time one has finished charging, the other (despite coming off the charger hours ago) is now flat. I can't win, they've properly given up the ghost.

It's not surprising, I guess. I bought the Canon 40D (and batteries and lenses) from you back in 2012, and I think you'd already owned and used the whole setup for a few years prior. To find that date I had to go back into my old spending records and was able to even confirm I paid you $1300 for it. I don't know why, but I correctly remembered that price all these years later. Apparently a similar setup, minus the lenses, now goes for about $150 if you're lucky. Like you mentioned, though, the glass still holds the real value.

The question is why you decided to sell me the camera in the first place. I remember you saying that your arms and wrists just couldn't take the weight any more. I think you first asked for $2000 from me, and the best I could do as a poor student was $1300. You agreed for some reason that escapes me; you knew other people in the local photography community that you could've unloaded it to for a better price. I also knew you weren't rolling in the cash at the time, and were having a hell of a time keeping that Mistubishi van of yours on the road.

Either way, you ended up selling it to me. I made three payments of $500, $400, and $400 over two months. Probably once per paycheck. You used the money to buy a little Leica, if memory serves.

I hate to admit it, but I haven't used the camera in years. I think it was last for a trip to Nova Scotia in 2018. I never really developed a 'specialty' or 'style' of photography, mostly just taking shots of opportunity where I find them. Most are unremarkable, I'm sure, but what I liked is how carrying that bulky camera bag around forced me to look at the world in a different way. To continually scan for the beauty. I never really captured it effectively, but I kept trying.

It's been difficult to lately to get back up on that horse. Over the last three or so years, doing creative tasks seems like more of a sisyphusian task. I push, push, push, and when I take a step back to look at my progress, I'm instantaneously further down the slope than where I started. I'm even having a hard time sketching. My drive seems to be withering away. After dominating so much of my life, like how I was back in 2012, it feels like I'm walking around with an empty room in my soul. Maybe there's a single picture on the wall of the young man you knew me as.

That could be why you sold the 40D to me at such a discount; you saw my drive to create just for the sake of it. Skill and reception be damned.

Do you remember our autumn drive in 2014? You loaded a coworker and I up into your van, and you took us of a tour to the south west of the city to 'appreciate the fall colours'. Man, what tall order for Alberta; that's not something it ever really excelled at. But you found us a remote dirt road in the fog, a waterfall, lonely fields, and yes, even patches of colour. You didn't take any photos yourself, but I think that trip was a bit of a passing of the torch. Or maybe you just wanted to make sure your camera went to capable hands. Hopefully it did.

But how do you explain the record player? How on earth did I end up with that? And the shells your father brought back from the Second World War. I moved a couple years ago, but I still found a place for those to be on display. As for the large format printer, well, I did my damnedest to get it to work but everything came out looking a bit green. I blew through a lot of the (rather expensive) toner reserves trying to clean and calibrate the thing, too. That might be a lost cause in my hands, so I'm considering passing it on down the line. I hope you don't hold it against me.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve some of those gifts, and I wish I could've asked why. I helped you buy and setup a new mattress once, was that it? You knew your time was coming and made sure to move your precious possessions went to people who would appreciate it. I imagine that must've been a bittersweet process. I hope I'll do the same some day, and be able to give new lives to the things I'd loved.

Anyways, this weekend I made plans with my wife to go for a day trip around Southern Alberta, much like we did those years ago. The camera tickled the back of my brain from its place on the shelf. "Yeah, but it's heavy," I told myself, "and it's not charged, and the memory cards are full of who knows what, I'll need to process whatever shots I take, and my new phone probably shoots better anyways."

But I figured I'd take out your camera anyways for this trip. Maybe because the weight and bulk and single purpose imbues a sense of responsibility. If you're lugging something like that around, you better use it. Until the batteries give out for good, at least. It was a rude awakening to realize that they were done, and how long it'd been since I last used the camera, and how long it'd been since we shared brunch at a Denny's together. It kinda makes me feel bad, like I haven't kept my end of the deal on the purchase.

I ended up bringing my smartphone and took some 'images', as you used to call them. Despite the superior technological quality, none of them really turned out well. Flawed from the get-go, I think, because I wasn't moving through and observing the world with the same intent that the big 40D bastard demands. It was a good day out nonetheless, and at one point I stopped in at a small town apothecary and picked out an old vinyl record to bring home. The player, you'll be happy to hear, is still operating just fine.

There are some new batteries available online, two for $27. I'm hesitant to buy them, because if I do, that means I'll have to use the camera and confront my lack of creativity. Maybe that's all the more reason to do it.

I miss you, Reg. I hope things are going well on the other side of wherever you are. 

And I got ahold of your old license plate from the Kia. The plan is to hang it up in the garage once I get the insulation and drywall done.

-Cril

Glenn Miller - Rhapsody in Blue

I Think I Hate the Internet Now

A friend and I were lamenting the effects of social media, so we started a little challenge to cut out all use of it for July. For me, the big hurdle was Reddit, but I've expanded the scope a bit to include anything that's algorithmically driven. Site and app blockers have been downloaded and installed to great effect.

Except for the Android news feed. If you swipe to the left of the home screen, you get a selection of recommended stories. It's never been a huge draw for me, but I like having one tiny little window open to the rest of the world. On the plus side, it doesn't have infinite scrolling, so once I get to the end I know it's time to put it away.

Some time this week I stole a quick glance at this feed and was greeted with the headline, "Interstellar 2 TRAILER starring Cillian Murphey". The thumnail featured the actor in a space helmet. I immediately wrote it off as clickbait/content slop and went about my day without even opening the link.

The problem is that Interstellar is one of my favourite movies. So it got me wondering that, just maybe, I should check to see what's going on, just in case. Determined not to give that initial fake trailer a click, I plugged "interstellar 2" into Google. The top row featured a series of recommended YouTube results: Interstellar 2, starring Matthew McConaughey! Interstellar 2, starring Cillian Murphey! Interstellar 2, starring George Clooney! And several more, each with a different leading man. Below were a bunch of enticing articles that clearly lacked any real news.

Okay, that's a dead end. But the other problem is that Christopher Nolan is one of my favourite directors (slowly being replaced by Denis Villeneuve, but that's another post). I haven't head anything about him since Oppenheimer, so, maybe I should check to see if anything is announced. I changed my search to "christopher nolan new film." The title of first result proclaimed, "Christopher Nolan's Newest Film Could be His Most Exciting Yet!" Okay, I know that modern SEO dictates that actual details are to be left out of the title to encourage clickthroughs. I'll bite.

The article had a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown (with that remote stink of AI) of the director's filmography, summarizing each title in chronological order. Once you scroll down through Nolan's history, down, right to the bottom of the article in the last paragraph, it posits, "Some think Nolan should be tapped for the next James Bond movie. It could really be one of his most exciting movies yet!"

wat

I did all that searching and scrolling to find out nothing. Well, maybe I learned that his next project (probably) hasn't been announced yet, by process of elimination after wading through useless results only meant to capitalize on my clicks rather than answer my query. It was in that moment that I realized, holy shit, the internet really is turning into garbage. A perfect storm of AI, SEO abuse, enshitification, content slop, and all those other fabulous trends.

Excuse me a moment while I don some suspenders, let my glasses rest precariously on the edge of my nose, and teeter back and forth in a rocking chair. You see, back in my day, the internet was kind of an amazing thing. It was clunky, sure. But it was driven by people sharing their passions via message boards, horrible GeoCities sites, and an army of generic blogs (like this one). People made stuff and went through hoops to get it online just for the sake of the love of their hobby. They just wanted to share what they cared about and find other people that did too. It was beautiful, if naive.

I divide the internet into two parts. One is for infrastructure: connecting banks, delivering weather data, allowing your smart plugs to co-ordinate, and integrating giant networks around the world. Boring if not functional, it's what most of society silently runs on in the background, and can never be unwoven. The second half of the internet is the "front end"; websites and apps and social media that your average user interacts with daily.

Many moons ago, before the word 'meme' made the transition to digital, there was a song called "The Internet is For Porn". I first saw set to Star Wars footage, but this World of Warcraft example is the earliest I could find, circa 2006. Basically, the premise is all in the title, but set to music. Many yuks were had, because "porn" was a dirty word and it was fun to say it out loud. So edgy.

Now my perceptions have changed. I think that a modern interpretation would be titled, "The Internet is for Bullshit", especially when it comes to that second, public-facing side of the internet.

Social media is full of people pretending to be successful in order to be influencers. Search results are full of garbage vying for your clicks. Sites are constructed for ads before users. Content doesn't matter so much as content marketing. Yes, my friends, we've evolved past an internet merely for monetization to being geared for maximum profit. We seemed to have optimized humanity right out of the equation. We've gone from using the internet to connect people to using the internet to part those same people from their wallets.

Sure, a lot of that great, useful, uncorrupted content is out there, but it's either slowly disappearing or is being drowned out by the vast waves of other stuff. And this other stuff, which seems to be dictating the way information is stored and transmitted, is primarily comprised of varying shades of bullshit. Some of it outright lies, most of it reworked for sensationalism, all of it made to maximize the dopamine drip-feed our little lizard brains crave.

I feel like we're watching a great library rot from the inside out. And when I approach the front door I need to steel myself with the mantra, "It's all just bullshit," before stepping in. It stinks in there, but some nuggets of wisdom can still be had once sifted out from the mountains of garbage.

I'm frustrated that this is what we value now, and sad to see something that was once so pure become commodified. Maybe that's a bit over dramatic and a roaring example of nostalgia bias, but I think the sentiment holds some truth.

One thing I do know is that I'll be extending my social media/algorithm cleanse through to the end of August; the further I get from Reddit, the easier it becomes. I'm not sure what other benefits there are, but perhaps they'll take a bit longer to become obvious. I could very well keep this going indefinitely.

Which kinda sucks, because I just got a new phone and smart watch and I've barely been using them. And if/when Christopher Nolan does release a real trailer for his next real film, please let me know.

-Cril

I wanna publish 'zines
And rage against machines
I wanna pierce my tongue
It doesn't hurt, it feels fine

The trivial sublime
I'd like to turn off time
And kill my mind
You kill my mind, mind

Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles, digging holes
Hear the voices in my head
I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored, then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me

I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot 'cause I'm in Hell
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin to live this well

Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta

Fruit of the White Tree

So everyone's up in arms about this latest iPad commercial, which features a grand smooshing of stuff for reasons. I can see the intentions behind it: Look, all your favourite things combined into one slick (and thin) device! Amazing! Technology is the best! You should buy it! Twice, preferably.

It seems to be interpreted by the internet as: Screw all that boring physical creative stuff, why even bother?

I think the latter is a bit of a stretch. If I had to guess, it's more a ploy at fake outrage to stimulate controversy-driven engagement. It doesn't seem like a reaction proportional to a decent ad. A lot of people are lacking in media literacy if they honestly believe Apple is against physical and traditional creative endeavors. They have a long history of positioning themselves as the essential digital extension of those who make art. Empowerment, even. Have you ever even set foot in an art school? Because those folks WORSHIP at the Tree of The Clean White Fruit.

No, I refuse to believe that Apple's underlying message is they want to destroy instruments of creation. I also refuse to believe that anyone with half a brain really believes that's what Apple is insinuating. We cannot be so stupid. Sure, maybe Apple was a bit misguided in their concept, but it isn't a grand statement against the arts.

And yet.

It really struck a chord, hasn't it? This outrage, however misguided or artificial as it started, spread so quickly for a reason. There's something there. Come with me for a moment:

Let's say Tim Cook went out into a cemetery of Silicon Valley and dug up the monkey paw-shaped hand of Steve Jobs. Make a wish, it beaconed. In the cool night breeze, Tim could already feel the warm embrace of an ethereal black turtle neck. 

"I wish to... QUADRUPLE iPad sales!" he spits out between symmetrical teeth of perfect lustre. The clouds part and his silver hair catches the moonlight. A smear of horse blood lingers on his cheek. The decayed finger curls in on itself as if possessed by amateur claymation, and Cook's teeth open wider. He pauses with flared nostrils. Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen. He goes home and waters the single plastic plant. He goes to bed.

In the morning, he's approached by a wide-eyed executive. "Mr. Cook, you need to come the Warehouse 7A. It's amazing!!" They don perfect white helmets and rush over on their secret Segway-like prototypes, probably called the iMove or something stupid. Upon entering the warehouse, Tim's eyes grow wide at the implication: neatly stacked before him are every single musical instrument, paint brush, fountain pen, radio, sketchbook, and stick of charcoal in the entire world. Just sitting there. They're weighed down by the impenetrable shadow of a large, cold, and inevitable hydraulic press. A dispassionate red button waits on the wall.

Tim reaches for the switch while his select staff gawk in horror. He laughs as the giant plate begins it's slow decent. The world's last instruments play a final terrible concert, and art supplies explode in a seizure of bleeding colour. The staff follow the cue of their leader and begin to laugh in unison. Perhaps they will get an extra 5% on their performance bonuses this year.

---

My point is this: if Apple magically had all those creative tools in the world at their disposal and knew destroying them would guarantee an astronomical rise in sales, I think we all know what they'd do. Four to six quarters of parabolic growth? A guitar and journal wouldn't stand a chance.

They'd never admit to it, naturally. But if they could do it, they would. Thank god they can't.

Are they seriously setting out to undermine the tools of artistic expression? Of course not, it was just an ad. But they would seize that darker opportunity in a weathered, leathered heartbeat if it ever came their way. All hail the AAPL, our new overlord and singular arbiter of creativity.

I think that underlying desire is a good chunk of what we're reacting to. And engagement for clicks, of course. Lots of that.

-Cril

How could you know, how could you know?
That those were my eyes
Peepin' through the floor, it's like they know
It's like they know I'm looking from the outside
And creeping to the door, it's like they know

And now they coming, yeah, now they coming
Out from the shadows
To take me to the club because they know
That I shut this down, 'cause they been watching all my windows
They gathered up the wall and listening
You understand, they got a plan for us
I bet you didn't know that I was dangerous
It must be fate, I found a place for us
I bet you didn't know someone could love you this much

Big Data - Dangerous

Heat Death of a Hypothetical Porsche

It's been a solid ten years, perhaps longer, since I've spent significant time in my home town on my own terms. Last week changed that; I stayed at the family home and indulged in a meandering dictated by uneven deja vu. I went for a lot of walks around town, just like a young man I knew well used to do every night.

I almost felt like a detective, trying to uncover invisible secrets on the damp pavement. Eventually I'd find one by aligning the same person in the same solitude at the same physical location, separated only by 20 years. The membrane of time stretched so tight that it was borderline transparent. I swear that if I could just stretch out my arm with imperceptible motion and enough grace, I could almost pass through it and gently tug on the collar of my younger self. 

To strip out the prose, it was pretty weird. I used to walk those streets at night every night as a teenager, so it was almost overpoweringly surreal to do so again. I guess that's what happens when you reopen a chapter on a life you had closed and put on the bookshelf long ago.

The reason for the trip was for a family reunion in three parts. Part One: a dinner just for the siblings. Part Two: a loud and chaotic party at a rec center with every partner, niece, nephew, parent, and grandparent. Part Three: one-on-one visits with each sibling and parent.

I covered a lot of ground in the week I was there, and apparently they've all covered a lot of their own ground in my absence. In a moment of alarming weakness I asked my brother how work was going. You know, as if he were a polite acquaintance that wasn't my best friend for the majority of my youth. He provided an equally low effort response to my question. Seems like we'd become strangers separated by decades of diverging interests and priorities. Standing two feet apart just highlighted how we are further away than ever.

But whatever the gap between me and my family, it seemed to echo a bigger one between me and my own humanity. For the last couple years I've been hollow, reduced to an unmoored corporeal vessel without a captain or heading. So when my family asked me how I was doing, and I'd repeat a familiar line: although I've been saving for it in some form or another since I was 16, it was becoming readily clear that I would not get to buy a brand new Porsche.

I'd get a semi-sympathetic chuckle in reply to my vehicular lament, surely accompanied by an internal "...this fucking guy..." I don't blame them, they have families, health problems, soaring grocery bills, and have to listen to a schmuck without kids whinge about a luxury sports car dream that was pulling away from him.

That stupid Porsche: a 2024 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 with a manual transmission. White with green stripes, I think. Black accents on the outside. The white leather package really makes the interior look spacious. Maybe I'd spring for the carbon ceramic brakes so that I could track it. New Porsches can be picked up in Germany with a factory tour and driver training, and then you can cruise around Europe before dropping off the car to be shipped home to you. Who wouldn't go for that?

Alas, 2024 is the last year the 718 is in production before they go electric. Funnily enough, even if I could scrounge the cash to buy one, I wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, let alone maintenance. It was a flawed dream to start with. Here's the thing: it really isn't about the car. Even a little bit.

It was dream seeded in teenage soil, and still had that whiff of naïve optimism about it. Something like that helps you look up and away from the ground, you know? But the tree of life is large and grows big sticks to beat the joy right out of you.

After a while I realized why I kept bringing it up: the unfortunate truth is that it was the last solid 'dream' I had in my corner. I'm even running low on ordinary milestones to look forward to. What is there, turning 40/50/60? Honestly, who cares. Retirement? That's becoming less plausible each year. Even if do I get there, what then?

All I really have is working a career that doesn't particularly fulfill me and watching my life as a disillusioned spectator. Maybe I'll change from one sucky job to another to spice things up. I'll get home in the evenings to try and fix a portfolio I'm incapable of feeling good about and then use games as a tattered tarp to cover up my discontent. It's difficult to find relaxation when the rain is still dripping through onto your head.

It turns out that being an adult is much more tedious than I was led to believe. It is, after all, where youth goes to die. Right now I'm really struggling to find purpose or desire, and it's tainting my ability to find enjoyment even in small things. Big things, I'm finally internalizing, are improbable. Medium things just seem to be the mediocre extension of what a person should be doing. You know, travel abroad, get a new TV, seeing that concert, etc.

When I lamented my ex-Porsche to my family, I was actually fishing for some sympathy or maybe even a path to hope. Not having dreams or milestones is kind of debilitating. Never mind just enjoying life; right now I'm without the ability to even want things. 

It makes me feel sad for that kid walking his small town streets in the damp darkness. I wish I could've done better for you, man. You delayed every possible gratification in pursuit of unlocking, nay, earning something better. Only now it's really difficult to just find things I'd want to unlock. At least I have plenty of things I should be doing. What's worse is when those two intersect in a twisted way. I should do this thing, it's supposed to make me feel good. And then it doesn't. Oof.

A plot twist occurred on my trip when, the night before flying home home, I finally met with my brother for some Indian food and a walk. We covered a lot of material. Turns out that there's still plenty of common ground, even though there isn't really an evident way to bridge the gap between locations and circumstances. Perhaps not all that once was, no longer is. It just drifts farther away.

I really want to end this with a positive note, like "So maybe I need to make a conscious effort to float back towards the things that are most important, etc etc." But there's a famous quote that comes to mind by one of my all time inspirational figures, Dumpo L. Depression, who declared, "Screw you and the optimism you rode in on."

I'm still adrift as ever, and going 'back home' just confirmed it. Maybe I was hoping to rediscover a lost landmark that would help me get my bearings. Alas, such things are internal and I fear even more navel-gazing isn't the answer. It lies somewhere in the act of doing. Certainly that's something I'm decent at, even though it's hard to feel like I've been actually getting anywhere despite all the thrashing about. Any movement is a sign of life, though, so there's nothing else to be done. All that's left is to pick a direction and attempt to travel with intent.

I just wish I could look forward to a destination. Or anything, really.

---

I struggled with writing and publishing this post. Obviously it's a mess of ideas and themes, but I managed to pull them together in a way that makes sense to me. Worse, though, I really hate that it all boils down to whining about how sad I am. There's little love for the people I encounter who complain about everything but don't try to do anything to change it.

I'm trying, honest. 

-Cril

She can't see the landscape anymore
It's all painted in her grief
All of her history etched out at her feet
Now all of the landscape, it's just an empty place
Acres of longing, mountains of tenderness

'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me

She wants the silence, but fears the solitude
She wants to be alone and together with you
So she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
She saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea

'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me

I want to give you back the open sky
Give you back the open sea
Open up the ages, darling, for you to see

You put the gun into your mouth to bite
The bullet and spit it out
Because it's running in the family
All the rituals between you and me

'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me

Florence & The Machine - Landscape - Demo