Darcies Blog

The Cosmic Sandwich Theory

My friend and I came up with a theory a little while ago, while getting to know each other through 37 intimate and provoking questions, questions that will supposedly make you fall in love. For the most part, the answers we gave were things that we already knew about one another, and it required very little digging and even less thought to converse effortlessly while cracking several jokes in between each “deep dive.” Somewhere throughout the process, maybe at question 16 or 17, I can’t quite remember, I went off on a tangent, a beer-induced and entirely unserious tangent about how people shouldn’t dwell on trivial issues or get so worked up, due to the fact that we are all existing on a giant, delicious-looking sandwich which is being picked up and eaten by a famished giant. I went into great detail about how the sandwich was full of lettuce, cheese, ham, pickles, and wet, oozing tomato. When things fell apart in life, you could attribute it to the giant’s careless attitude. You losing your job could therefore be a direct result of the clumsy giant dropping an olive, which would float out into the universe and burst into stars as if it had never existed. If the giant squeezed too hard in his enthusiasm, maybe a pandemic like COVID would corrupt the world as we know it, or maybe your cat would get hit by a car. As we spoke, we became increasingly animated in our shared delirium, and nodded in agreement when extra layers were added to the ridiculous idea. It was stupid, but we were full of girlish giggles and alcohol, and the idea really stuck with me. We continued referencing it in conversation in the following months. We eagerly used the idea as a lubricant to fuel our ambitious, challenging, or often foolish endeavors. “You don’t want to go out tonight because you’re feeling ill? Dude… Cosmic Sandwich.” “You’re afraid to tell that person you think they’re cute? We are on a sandwich flying through space! Grow a pair!” I suppose the theory stems from our mutual philosophical view… ‘It’s not that deep.’ I think that’s a part of the reason we get on so well. Because we agree that things are never that serious. The theory isn’t that serious. But it allows things to feel less consequential, it means that problems don’t have to redefine our views on ourselves or the world, things don’t have to be so scarily definitive. The idea of us being on a sandwich, floating through space, means that we can do what makes us smile and jump and play, before we are digested. If you want to get drunk with your friends and imagine yourself, ant-sized, on a vast and mystical piece of smoked meat (or eggplant for the vegans reading), you can. That’s the beauty in the cosmic sandwich; it’s liberating. I invite you all to keep the cosmic sandwich in the back of your mind. Take comfort in the sandwich, enjoy the world as it is, love who you want, and be who you choose, before, inevitably, we are swallowed up by a beautiful and super hungry giant.

Living as An ‘Extreme Sport’

I’ve always been a bit of a self-acclaimed ‘go-getter’. I don’t necessarily mean I aim to climb Mt. Everest or have plans of kick-starting my own business. I simply mean, I chase gut-feelings. I chase what feels right. As a kid, this meant, running after the boys I liked in the school yard. Singing for anyone who would listen. Pushing my boundaries with my parents by swearing at a young age and hitting my older brother. I was always the one going a bit too hard at the blue light disco. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be the first to do things. I wanted to do the naughty, rebellious things. I wanted to get a laugh. I wanted to be seen and heard and commended for my hunger and ambition. Now that I am 20, I’ve noticed that this habit has presented itself in what I like to call “Extreme-living”. I move in extreme and change my attitudes at an extreme rate. I’ll go from being at the club dancing with strangers I just met and feeling way too comfortable not knowing where my phone… or shoes are. The next day I’ll wake up and feel the need to read the newspaper or knit. I can be ready to flee the country at 10:00am and clinging to my mum at 3:00pm, exclaiming, “I’m just a baby and this world is too big for me!” I’ll wear long black nails and then bite them off to play guitar. I’ll laugh so hard that snot comes out of my nose before revealing that I’m feeling really depressed. I’ll go from wanting to be famous, rolling in money like a dog in cow shit and then get the inclination that a small cabin in the forest would do me quite nicely. These extremes often make me feel like I’m on a whirring rollercoaster or in some sort of tacky haunted house at a carnival. Just when you think it’s smooth sailing a zombie pops out with a cheesy grin, holding back laughter, and I am probably laughing with him. I don’t know why I change my mind so much. It’s like a possession. Some inspiration strikes and I am getting a tattoo now? It’s fun. It’s young. It’s exciting. It’s also not for the faint of heart. Viewing your life like an extreme sport also makes time manouver itself in a very strange way. Sometimes days pass without me having done anything but snack on grapes and watch Blended for the 14th time. And those days drag on like a 40 second ad break on a good youtube video. Other times, a whole month can fly by in a day because I was intoxicated every second day and spinning around on dancefloors or in backyards with my friends and typing on my computer in sporatic frenzies and comforting myself and getting back up and turning up the music and driving way too fast to another location and swimming and singing and dating and dying. Just to be revived because there is a gig on at 7 and it’s 6 already and we would have to leave now to make it in time. Broo, where is my wallet? Okay, I’m ready, wait do you have gum? Yes. Okay, let’s go. I think I’ve become an expert in the perpetual state of motion which takes me from saying, “Yep, this feels stable and healthy” to “What the fuck happened last night?” in a weeks time. Maybe this a universal experience. Maybe I am just actually a normal 20 year old person and the world is moving really fast and it’s not just me that feels confused. It’s moving around us and oppurtunities are popping up all the time and maybe I’m just grabbing the ones that take me as far away from the place I am standing as possible. Maybe I like the sensation of being picked up and tossed across situations like a frisbee. I don’t know. I think that’s all for now.

The Birth of a Million Small Universes

With your body laid prostrate on the hard wood floor (original timber), you start to see this place in its honesty and candor. Although your state of mind ensues simplicity, there is an artfullness to the grime stuck between floorboards, the dust gathering that gently moves under the breath of your central heating like a tumbleweed through The Mojave. You touch the mass of dirt and lint, hand of God reaching into the minute and private world of the inanimate and begin to worry about your sense of wonder. How many of these universes have died because you forgot to awaken them with imaginative vigour and mythologies. You roll the product in the palm of your hand as if it is a precious gemstone, you contemplate it’s genesis and qualities. You look closely as if you will somehow see the dead flesh particles of every soul who has found their way into your bedroom, your own private universe. Your mind wanders to unimportant lovers and necessary friends – the private universes in their minds and the chemical compound beneath chipped nail polish or embedded in a rope anklet picked up at a market in Thailand 10 or so years ago, never to be truly washed. You can see the tar, a rich amber colour, stagnant in the lungs of smokers, like a living breathing beast growing stronger as smoke sneaks toward the ozone and melts with the night. You can imagine the feeling of calloused feet , skin piling on top of itself, turning leathery due to barefoot beach days when the ashpalt was hot enough to fry an egg. All of this decay and truth swirls around your mind, and amidst the chaos, gives birth to a sedating state of consciousness and clarity. Your body stills and you allow your shoulders to sink deeply into the floor, and deeper again towards the centre of the spinning earth. You breath into her, and whisper a sanctimonious apology. The humming tune of a million small worlds, in various states of becoming, is the last thing you hear before letting sleep conquer you entirely.