Billy Night

During my travels, I met many people who raised their hands to read my work when it was ready. I cannot recall you all (I lost the file which kept the records of individuals) but the thoughts of you never left me. I’ve carried those offers, and the warmth that accompanied them, with me as I’ve continued my work.

With that in mind, for the first time in three years, I am opening my art to the eyes of others. If you have been following me in my writing journey, or are simply curious, you are welcome to express your interest in reading what I have. I will be sending out a portion of my book (~57752 words) which I feel is powerful enough to speak for itself, though not for the entire work in progress. It’s a beautiful snippet, one that I’m very proud of, and that I’ve worked immensely hard on. So if anyone would like to give their thoughts, I will be open to these too, although they are not required for you to get your hands on this piece 🙂

My book is not done. It could be, but this is an ambitious project and I feel there is more to tell. In the meantime, it’s time to put a little bit of my art out there into the world, if not to be published yet, to be seen, to be felt, to be free beyond my fingertips so that I know it exists outside of my heart and mind.

Flick me a comment or a message if you want to be sent this exert! I’m happy for anyone to put forward their interest 😊 I might not gift it to everyone, but nonetheless I’ll be very honoured by anyone who is eager.

This photo is from earlier this year. I had just finished a 5 week trip around the north island in my grandmothers van. It was wonderful to get out and experience the air again 🍃✨

Much love! Ta ta!

A little delayed to the new years party, but as you can see I’m a connoisseur of being fashionably late.

There are a lot of hopes that I have for 2023. I’d like to cry more and force smiles less. I’d like to watch the sky and not put my shoes on. I want to think to a lesser extent – I spend so much time thinking and it gets in the way of being. Overthinking is a little boring, and I don’t want to be boring. I want to take time to taste food and I want to dance at whim. I want to hold hands - my new years was filled with a lot of hand holding, which was lovely. More of that please.

2022 was a very difficult year for me. I felt like an animal and not in the nice way. I was very small and very afraid and it wasn’t very fun. It’s not really who I am. I’m a big thing that lives in the stars, not a little thing that raises it's hackles in a hole. Luckily, the transition into the new year brought with it a lot of fresh energy. I did a lot of frolicking, and the good sort of thinking, and I’m much more in touch with myself, and I have so many plans.

I think we have all spent a lot of time building walls between each other and being miserable, and I don’t need to go into the details of why that is. We all have been here living through it all. I’d like 2023 to be a time of reconnecting with each other. I have some ideas in mind of how I want to do my part for that, and when I’m settled in Wellington again (I’m going back up north to be silly) I’m going to go about taking risks and making it happen. Perhaps if you like, I’d love for you to be open about experiencing some new things, so maybe keep an ear tilted.

My writing is still important, but I’ve been taking a break. Five years is a long time to pour your soul into something, especially when the fruit is so slow to grow. I’m dabbling in other art projects here and there, and it’s refreshing. The stakes don’t feel as high, and it’s a world of nice.

I hope that you all make bold decisions for your own year to come. Sometimes the decisions have to be bold, because we never know when it’s going to end. All it takes is a moment, and p**f! We become memories, and those memories become forgotten, and those forgets become new things, and it all goes round and round. That’s the beauty though. Ultimately, there’s a measure of not-mattering, so there’s lot’s of potential, isn’t there?

Maybe have a think about what dust you want to leave behind.

I wish you all magic for the year to come, much love, from me ❤️🍂🌱✨

It’s done, my journey is over, I finally have a home again.

I moved into my new place earlier this week. Yip, I’m back in Wellington. Two years on the road and for the past few nights I’ve slept in a bed—a bed! Not a couch!—which belonged to me. It’s funny, because it’s all the small things which are hitting me hard. I was holding some miscellaneous object yesterday and I wanted to put it down to deal with later, and so I placed it onto a desk in my room—plop—then I blinked, and then smiled because I realized that I could now do that. For two years, every time I wanted to put something down, I had to almost exclusively store it back into its rightful place within my backpack, because to do otherwise was to litter someone else’s space.

But now I have my own space.

Cue the messening.

As wondrous as my travels were, they were equally, if not more so, heartbreaking. I haven't told a lot of people this, but I left my home out of necessity. My housing situation changed (on friendly terms), but being unable to afford the rising costs of rent and living, I made the best out of a difficult situation, and went out into the world instead, travelling and relying on the kindness of others to host me, whilst also taking the opportunity to further myself and my art. There were a lot of times where I was alone. Sick only when I had the luxury to be, unsure where I was going to stay next, always putting on a happy face so that I didn’t bother my hosts. In the end things mostly fell into place—which most travelers will tell you happens—but the uncertainty was waist high and as thick as porridge.

I made it through though. Even when life is at its most vicious, the next day comes, and I find myself opening my eyes and breathing.

The joy’s I had will be remembered until I close my eyelids for the last time. How I grinned, how I ran, how I jumped and spun and cried and screamed and sought to see how far I could push this silly little meat suit until nothing was left but the feeling of grass underneath me, the sound of a breeze as faint as my breath brushing past my ears, a sunlit sky as lazy as my glazed over eyes, a heartbeat in my chest which murmured with the earth.

Here's to new things. I’ll be seeking new experiences and new people here in Welly, as well as looking to connect with old friends. Most of all, I’ll be establishing a routine and waking up in my own bed—bliss. During the day, and let's be honest the night, there will be a lot of art to be done. Yes, I know, "Billy you've been writing for almost five years now when is it going to be done?", but trust. I know what I'm doing. Every day I get closer.

Thanks for listening to my life update 🙂

Arohanui.

I recently sat in the caves at Waipu. It was night. After marvelling at cave weta and making friends with spiders, I crawled a little deeper, and sat next to a stream. There were glow worms above me. I arched my chin and looked at them, and then after listening to the sound of nothing for a few minutes, I decided to speak aloud to the earth and tell it my story. I began with where my wounds were at their greatest, and ended with where my hope was at its fullest.

A few days after sharing with the cave, I was leaning my head against the window of a van and watching the world as it went by, and I thought about how much I've changed in yet another year past. Looking back on my life, and especially my childhood, I feel like I came into this world knowing quite astutely who I was. Then life happened, my ego was challenged, and I lost myself along the way, as it all tends to go. I'm beginning to welcome myself home again, but now I have the addition of all these life lessons.

I think, to be human is to be undone. The result is that I feel both small and endless. Like I could die tomorrow, but the memory of my smile would go on forever. Perhaps I would exist in the sky; an arch of the chin and there I am, lingering forever in the constellations. The picture you see with these words is not a picture of me deep within the earth or high above the world. It's me in a room, taken because I wanted to see myself as I feel on the inside. Framed in light and dark. Reckless wounds and audacious hope.

I think there are worse things to change into.

A story of every shade, something to look back on once the end comes, a precious tale that the earth would be proud to hear.

The world is a little topsy turvy at the moment. We are all feeling it. Each day that passes seems to be a little more abrasive and bizarre than the one before it. I’ve been talking to friends, and one thing I’ve noticed lots of people doing, is re-honing—or developing for the first time—the skill of finding magic in small things.

This is a picture of me on new years. I suppose that the sky is a big thing, but to stop and look at it, to raise your hands and remember that you are a collection of stardust, I think that’s a small thing. It takes a moment. There and then gone.

If you collect enough of these moments in your day—smiling at the scent of coffee, wriggling your toes in new socks, telling a friend that you’re proud of them—they turn into big feelings. And the next time you scroll down and see the newest horror of the day, or watch the set of your boss’s brow as they tell you that you need to work harder, or wake up in the morning and wish that your limbs could turn to lead so you’d never have to leave your bed again, you can close your eyes, remember those little magic moments that you have collected, take them out, and hold them close to the divot of your collarbones.

Though the world won’t be any less topsy turvy, you’ll feel less lost. Your lips might even curl at the corners. Half an inch upright is agreeable. I think in times like these, where it feels like we control so very little, it can be empowering to have some say in where we can find joy 🙂

I took this photo at 4am. I’m staying in a little nook at a circus hub in Dargaville, and when I closed my laptop after an intense writing session, I stared at my hands for half a minute, exhaled deeply, and decided that before I slept I needed to step away for a moment. I got my camera—I do this in moments of vulnerability because I like to—went downstairs, and when I walked into the circus space I blinked, feeling the overwhelming urge to start spinning in the dark. Five minutes into it I lightly pressed the back of my hands against my cheeks, smiled, and kept spinning. My tears eventually dried and then I sat on the floor and closed my eyes. I breathed. I thought of how hard I’ve worked so far and how much longer I have to go. When I was ready I opened my eyes, retrieved my camera, held it out in front of me, and took this photo.

Writing is a waltz between the art and the artist. Sometimes I forget that I exist outside of the dance of own words, and in those moments, I take myself away and dance for myself. Air moves in and out of me. My tippy toes push me up and experiment with my weight pressing into the ground. I touch whatever is nearest to me and speak its name out loud.

Sometimes I simply go spinning in the dark.

I’m going to make my new years post now because I’ll be out of reception when the night comes.

I tried to write something coherent that encapsulated the immense journey that I’ve taken over the past year as an independent travelling artist, but when I sat down and put my fingers to my keyboard, I started to type, and instead of something coherent I was given words out of place. At first I was upset and frustrated because I wanted to share my feelings about my journey, but in the end I decided that maybe there are no words, put in any sort of order, that can capture what I am feeling right now.

So for anyone who has read this far, here are my thoughts coming into the soon to be new year.

Being alive is confusing. It’s spinning in circles because it’s fun, but then you get dizzy, and the world exists in fleeting blurs, and suddenly you’re older and you’re forced to orient yourself as to who you are, but colour is bombarding you and its brighter than before and you’re starting to lose your balance and it feels like you’re spinning faster and faster and you’re not sure whether it would hurt more to keep going or suddenly stop.

I think for a lot of people, moving through the world means waking up every day to find some way to go to sleep. Yes, people fall in love and dance when they shouldn’t. They sing in showers and cook meals that render a dining table silent save for delightful sounds in the throat and the clinking of utensils. But I can’t deny the violence that’s also there. Some people are very clever at tricking themselves that abrasion exists only in our minds, and some people are lucky enough not to see or experience it anywhere at all, but for most of us, we discover a new way that we can bruise every day.

I think there are two kinds of death in the world. One that is physical when our hearts stop, and another that is spiritual when our eyes lose their light. A friend can look at you, they can breath and move their lips and now sound is entering your ears and words are swirling in your mind, but you can look at their iris’s, absorb their texture and their hue and the way the pupils inside of them move, and all of a sudden, you aren’t sure if anyone is there.

People can become a collection of behaviours. They can become coffee drunk in the morning and despair sat on the bus in the evening. They can become the sum of little numbers that float in the air. These numbers are rarely seen but they exist as surely as a pinch to the wrist, and they are collected—and sometimes hoarded—by people who make their bodies and brains do things, often for a repeating amount of hours a day, during a period of labour that most people wish didn’t have to be lived through.

I do not blame people for saving themselves by letting the light in their eyes fall deep into the earth. I blame a world which forces people to kill off parts of themselves so that whatever’s left can live.

There’s a line in my book. It’s spoken by a nurse at a bloodbank, sitting next to her patient. The nurse’s name is Maryanne Caprice, and after taking her patient’s blood, Maryanne picks up her clipboard, sits in silence, and then begins to talk to air. She speaks for a time upon different topics—how to build a terrarium and why she likes to cry at the annual fireworks—but she ends her talk with this.

“Don’t be afraid of dying,” she says. “Death is the one truth that’s infallible. Be afraid of living whilst dead inside.”

As I’ve travelled the land this past year, the most voluminous thing I’ve found to fill the hollow spaces inside of me, carved out from a year of introspection as well as extroversion, is to know that life is lived and then it is not. For the next year to come, I will do something intrinsically human, and I will treat each fleeting blur of colour—as dizzying and ruinous as it is—as if it might be my last.

I will breathe as if there is a candle behind my eyes, desperate for air, so that anyone who looks through the rings of my iris’s, can see nothing but light.

Hello morning. Your sky is quiet, your temperature crisp but friendly, and I’m not sure how you did it, but your breeze herded fairies into the teeny spaces between my ears. They are waltzing in my sinuses and sleeping inbetween my brain folds. I’ll savour the feeling while I wait for the big metal box to come pick me up. I’m going to sit at the back of it, curl up against the window, close my eyes, disappear for a while, and then when I open my eyes again, I’ll be somewhere different 🚌🌅🌿🧚‍♀️

People told me, before I went off and ran out into the world, that travel would change me. I smiled politely in response, listening to what they said but not really hearing it. “I’m sure it will! Lots of things change people in lots of different ways!”

They crinkled their eyes fondly at my words. I think they knew more than I did.

It’s been almost a year now since I left home. If I was to pass by my old self in the street I don’t think that I would recognize them. My backpack has gotten fatter. My eyes brighter but deeper. I think it’s the perspective that shifts the most—the change in worldview doesn’t occur because of what you experience and who you meet. It happens because of what you feel inside. I’ve talked to other travellers about this and they give me a look as old as the earth as they nod in agreement.

A journey isn’t a time, place, or the relationship between them. It’s a state of being. An attention to the immediacy of being alive.

One of the developments that I’m most proud of is my writing. I watch it grow, guide it towards where it needs to be, hold its hand as it takes on a life of its own. The process is exhausting but what act of love isn’t? There’s still a long way to go in order to complete my book—a truth that’s hard to fathom since it’s already been four years—but I trust the process. That’s something that life has taught me while I have been out here doing what I’m doing. Trust the process and it will see you through.

I will continue to be sparse when it comes to my activity on social media. I might pop on here and there to share a photo or a thought, but I’m not very compelled to make my presence known. My goals are strict and gratifying and I spend the vast majority of my time working towards achieving them. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you all or think of you often—I do—but I need to get this done. Life is fleeting and ripe with entropy, and it's all sorts of fun and despair, and I’m making the most of it while I have it.

Feel free to message me if you want to chat or ask when I’ll next be in your neck of the woods if you want to hang out 😊 Consider this status my wee check in to let you all know that I’m still out here thriving and falling and moving through all these hills and valleys. I love you lots, as always. You are all living breathing beautiful collections of stardust.

Be well and be you.

Billy 🌙✨🌌