Little Sovereign
LOOKS
Dress // For Love & Lemons • Boots // Alexander Wang • Necklace // ShopDixi
“She spun herself a crown of gold, thrones of bones and citadels.
To the deaf stars she screamed: make me queen or I’ll make you bleed.”
It is not every day that I get to feel like a queen, but I remember this day and I felt like fucking royalty.
This trip meant a lot to me even though I remember that during this time it was painful. I was abroad with two of my best friends and although we were miles away from home we had hoped that we could have a blissful little escape but I knew all three of us were dealing with our shadow selves internally. 2015 was so disheartening and unpleasant in various ways and I know many who can attest to the bitter taste it left in our mouths. But even though my heart was awfully heavy , this day will always burn a swell golden memory. Mo had left us to return home and so Nigel and I stayed an extra week in Paris. Everyone talks about Versailles, a must see tourist attraction with all it’s detailed extravagance. It has always been a dream of mine to visit this place in all its splendour and golden gilded walls and I finally got to experience it in the flesh.
Most days (if I admit it), I find it hard to feel confident. It’s a perplexing thing isn’t it to love oneself? Parts of me feel like I can conquer it all. Armour dipped in gallantry. Lionhearted, they say. But this is not always the case. I think more often then I should I am easily enveloped in incertitude and a crippling anxiety. An unnerving uncertainty that lies awake beneath the surface. A pernicious energy that I find difficult to dismantle. With previous encounters dealing with the notoriety of the girl upstairs I used to believe her perjuries. My armour then was much more delicate then I had imagined, or so I thought.
It is strange looking back at these images and writing about it now how nearly half a year ago everything was much more fragmented and harrowing. For whatever reason, this day in my memory paints a certain significance because despite my immense feelings of inadequacy and undeniable fragility in my structure perhaps this particular excursion to Versailles restored pieces of my tenacity.
Once we had reached the entrance of the chateau and made our way through the gates I could feel its grandiosity with all its golden glory. We had fun walking through each room, relishing in the experience of such splendour and seeing all the famous rooms the chateau had to offer. I remember being utterly ecstatic observing the multitude of details that were put into each section. From everything to the chapel and it’s renowned Hall of Mirrors with its dozen of chandeliers that weaved it’s way across the ceilings, to its marvelous and extensive gardens that were so well tended to it was as opulent and magical as you could’ve imagined. I remember we walked all the way to Marie Antoinette’s estate instead of taking the tram that travelled across the gardens to get there and undoubtedly singing Lana songs on the way there. I was filled with such jubilance that day I was basically prancing around all the hallways and in each room twirling in my best dress and feeling like a motherfucking princess. But honestly who wouldn’t?
It’s true when they say “you are your own worst critic” and I am infamous in that regard. I know sometimes my armour may be feeble and the war inside my head may be thundering and at times extremely convincing. And fear is one hell of an adversary and a queen may draw blood from her sword but her strength lies in her mystifying perseverance even in the wake of suffering. And so she will reign.
xx
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