Posts Tagged ‘i may or may not be losing it’

guest house and alakazaam

August 30, 2010

as i attempt to transfer, update, and redesign things here in these messy internets, the websites will likely be performing grand and gruesome acts of disappearance and dismemberment. and i will likely be screaming and throwing things. and also kicking.

but here, have yourself one last rumi until the alakazaam.

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

(Rumi)

whale song

August 3, 2010

 A fish swims through the sea,
while the sea is in a certain sense
contained within the fish!
Ah, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans ink?

(mewithoutYou, the dryness and the rain) 

 

i haven’t been dreaming for weeks.  dammit, i always dream.  but i woke the other day with a faint memory of an image that was the ocean.  then there was a quote (a couple, actually) on twitter about the ocean that moved me, and a link to a song that referenced the ocean.  then i put my ipod in and heard a song that i hadn’t yet listened to, which ended up being about the ocean.  and the public tv show i sat down to watch with shortcake, while listening to the song about the ocean, was . . . about the ocean.  i’m a little bit annoyed with the whole sign thing, and i fought with my ego regarding the agenda here (trip to tahiti, anyone?), but i thought, ok ok fine.  got it.  ocean.  fine.

then a package arrived in the mail.  a gift from pixie, torch-bearer-sister-parachute-medicine-woman-extraordinaire, beautifully crafted by lauren: a necklace, called “whale song,” with an abalone shell pendant.  lauren listed the beads and explained their unique properties, all extremely relevant to me right now.  and the abalone shell, of course: “intimately connected to the sea . . . harmony . . . tides of emotion . . . trust in intuition.”  she also made a sachet of herbs and crystals for me that contained the same wonderful things as her dream pillows.

so, you know, i cried.  a lot.

in colorado, i bought a turquoise necklace from a native american woman parked at a mountain pass.  i let it absorb the energy of the mountains, the peaks and valleys, and knew that it would always remind me of the awe i felt there, the connection to Creation, to the earth’s natural power and beauty.  so now, apparently, i am collecting the elements, because this talisman is ocean.  and it is washing over me, through me:  the tides, the currents, the refracted light, the jagged teeth of the sharks, the whale songs, the warm salt water, the remnants of a sunken ship.  

i took this picture for pixie and lauren, planning to just crop out the face.  yyyyes.  i am aware of the puffy eyes and dark circles.  they were well earned.  (as were the unplucked eyebrows!  and also that notch on my nose.  and also the poor exposure.)  but there is something so raw and honest about how wrecked i am in this photo, and the strength i feel regardless, that i’m showing you all.

(wrecked)
(wrecked)

pixie also led me to this poem.  and so i’m paying it forward.

The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

The Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad?
[Alice checks Hatter's temperature]
Alice Kingsley: I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

 

god, do i hope this is rock bottom.  have you noticed?  i mean, obviously.  i might as well admit it.  yeah.  i’m kind of going through a thing, worst ever.   and no, actually, i’m not ok.  not at all.  thanks for asking

i tend to get these “signs” of comfort or of direction when i am low or confused.  i get to a place (and it is predictable, but i always forget) where i am so lost and/or incapable of functioning that i reach out, beg really, for some sign that will tell me what to do.  these signs have been abundant, and mind-boggling, as they always are when i am in touch with my truth.  but where they have led me has pissed me off, in an ignorance is bliss (though bliss is definitely not the word.  more a flat affect stupor) sort of way.  so on a recent bike ride, i had a conversation with myself.  or, Myself, or whoever it is that gives me these signs.  i said something like so what’s that about then?  the fucking signs?  could you just stop with the fucking signs?  or could you just stop pretending that you’re seeing signs? (that’s another self-talk voice.  apparently there are many.)  ooh!  ooh!  i know!  i know!  i need a sign about signs!  a sign to tell me that i am actually seeing signs!  and that they matter!  and then i went crazy.  absolutely lost it.  i was angry at myself for being such an idiot, for having such outrageous self-talk discussions, for actually asking for such a thing.  a sign about SIGNS?!?!  my eyes were blurred with tears, so i had to steer my bike off of the road (and almost collided with a truck in the process).  i stopped at an abandoned house and threw my bike onto the overgrown grass and wildflowers.  i saw a shed, and thought it would be a lovely place to have a breakdown.

when i stood in front of the open shed, this is what i saw:

TAF_4028x

i’ll give you a sign about signs.  how about a fucking shed full.

TAF_4034x

TAF_4039x

and i cracked up.  out loud.  i mean, not that that is any less confusing.  but it does validate the whole . . . sign . . . thing.  i retrieved my bike, wanting to go home for my camera, and there was another very specific sign in front of my face.  but i won’t tell you about that one.  maybe eventually.

also, when i returned with my camera, i considered breaking into the house.  this was on the door, after all.  but i didn’t.  next time?

TAF_4060x

muchless?

July 24, 2010

I am in an elementary school parking lot. I’ve been driving for an hour, past closed coffee shops and locked libraries, busy parks and missed highway signs. I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m parked in a parking lot, surrounded by the shapes of suburbia, and crying. There is a kid skateboarding who will probably go home and tell his mom about the freak outside the school, and they will call the cops. I will plead insanity for my crime of trespassing, and then sit in a hospital bed on suicide watch at the mental institution and refuse meds and cry indefinitely.

I’ve just rolled down the windows so I can turn off the ignition (and the air conditioning). The flag pole is clanging and dogs are barking and people stand on their front lawns and talk about the pointless things that interest them. Comma? I’m supposed to be writing. I want to be writing, this story that has come to me, this culmination of stories. I even have the title.  But this is what I’m writing instead. Just a big rambling whine. I don’t ever finish anything, anyway. It doesn’t matter whether I start a new story or not.

How do I get out of here? I have to get out of here. Not this parking lot, not this sadness, but this place. This place where sidewalks matter; this place where baby tree trunks, all uniformly planted, are protected by corrugated plastic tubes; this place where someone will cut all the queen anne’s lace down with a weed-wacker. This place where somebody actually named something “weed-wacker.” How the hell do I get out of here? Why can I not find the exit? There must be one. There’s got to be one.

I feel like the only one awake at a slumber party at 2:26 AM. I feel like the only one not possessed by zombies in a horror flick. I feel like the designated driver that’s just dropped her keys down the gutter. The buzz kill, the scapegoat, the bastard heir, the mad hatter, selectively unforgiven and unheard and misunderstood and lonely and insane but insisting that I’m NOT! to a sea of blank stares.

This would be a good thing, I think, if I could identify with a blaspheming Jesus, or a stuttering Moses, or some other legendary hero down on his luck before the grand triumphant finale, destined to make some grand contribution to the world. But shit. Though I have descended to the underworld, I’ve returned without a talisman. I’ve spun my cocoon, slept in it, but emerged prematurely, my wings yet unformed. I’ve gained insight, but I don’t know how to implement it here. I’ve touched enlightenment beside the river, but upon returning to the village, I’ve forgotten it all. Or, not necessarily forgotten, but what was once this roaring fire of intuition, seems only like a faint glimmer in the darkness of this nonsensical weed-wacking reality. When I open my mouth to share, I stand there drooling and mute in the spotlight. My hands begin to shake, and heavy tears threaten the back of my wide, crazed eyes.

It’s all gibberish, anyway, isn’t it? I know there is something, something in it all—it’s like when I dig in my disastrous purse for the keys I can hear jangling, I know they’re in there, I swear. . . . But I just can’t find them. Maybe it’s only lost change. Maybe it’s a figment of my imagination.

I want to quote the “wrong” Alice (I just watched the movie the other night, while the grown-ups played Trivial Pursuit) and say, “Lost my muchness, have I?” and then proceed to kill the dragon while a cheering everyone bears witness to said muchness. But, lost my muchness? I don’t know. Maybe I have.

tweeting and driving

July 6, 2010
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. (Martin Buber)
dimples, holga, tri-x, kettle moraine

dimples, holga, tri-x, kettle moraine

someone once said that the definition of insanity is taking four children on a cross-country road trip.  i think maybe that someone was me, precisely one year ago, when we did such a thing.  but then i forgot, because now we are doing it again.  this one will be shorter than last year’s trip, only 22 hours of driving each way.  last year i spent the entire time in the passenger seat puting newborn dreadlocks into my hair.  this year, i plan to spend the entire time tweeting.  so, follow me through the thrills of iowa and nebraska, through the joys of altitude sickness in colorado.  it’ll be fun.  i promise.  if i can figure it out, i’ll upload an occasional shot of my journals (watercolor, ink, writing, i’m feeling ambitious).  we leave tomorrow morning.  i wonder if i should consider packing?

shed

July 2, 2010

TAF_2714x

 

this is the blog where i just sort of stand here and scream loud and long because i have too many thoughts and too may words and too many feelings and too much wisdom and too much fear and all these things are running into one another and causing explosions everywhere like fireworks and like thunder and like expanding alveoli and like the dead sunburned skin that floated from my back when i changed my shirt this morning and a field of wildflowers ignited by the sun and then there are bad metaphors and unshed tears and everythingnothingeverythingnothing and as soon as i can i will punctuate and capitalize and organize into complete thoughts and spellcheck i will do so and this is not an apology

lomography metaphor

June 4, 2010
shortcake, holga, tri-x 400 film in t-max dev

shortcake, holga, tri-x 400 film in t-max dev

An unintended theme in my life lately has been a loss of control.  (Maybe “unintended” is a given, since intention is a form of control?)  Or, more specifically, the theme is a fucking obliteration of any semblance of control.  Control is dying a painful and twitching death here, and I’ve taken the job of holding the pillow over its face.  I’m tired of sharing its air.  I can’t really give you any insight here, because there is not any hindsight to speak of. 

But it has me feeling kindred with the ol’ holga.  I’ve got no control with the holga, which sort of kills a woman whose religion is the Church of the Light Meter.  The aperture and shutter speed simply are what they are, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  Even those settings are relatively uncertain.  All I can do is open the plastic shutter and let the light in, to fall on the film as it will.  The focus will be off, some frames will be overexposed, and some will be underexposed.  There are unintended shadows everywhere and places where the sun burns the negative completely black.  But a couple of the frames are, with ironic consistency (or is it pure statistics?), absolutely gorgeous.  Alternatively, I could leave camera at home; or worse, I could let a computer set the controls for me. 

But I think the illusion of control can be deceiving.  The only constant  is this beautiful inconsistency.  I think.  I’m not sure.  I’ll get back to you.  (But don’t count on it.)

tri-x in mamiya c330 tlr

tri-x in mamiya c330 tlr

today, i sever the connection to my inner Wisdom with my own hands. 
the Places She leads me, i cannot go because i am weak. 
the Light She shows me, i cannot embody, because i am weak.
the River She floods, i cannot swim, because i am weak.
the Truth She sings, i cannot hear, because i am weak.
the Fruit She offers me, i cannot taste, because i am weak.

this threshold of Knowing is crossed, and so perhaps when i return, the door will be propped open.
but i know i will not return.  i will search my whole life for that elusive gateway, and will not find it.
today i gather scraps of shed skin, and paste them to my face, because i am stupid.
because i am weak.

today i think of Orpheus, and plant seeds in my garden—let them be the Brave ones,
now that the frost has passed.
(but even Orpheus looked back.)

today i recognize that a bird in my backyard has called out,
(as i write this, shortcake says, “look, mama!  a bird!”)
like a reminder of Morning,
and that i chose sleep, as did you, because we are weak.
(did you?)

this is not Bravery.  this is not receptive Stillness.  this is not bold Foolishness.
this is not silent Power.
this is smallness.  because i am weak.
(does anyone have any chocolate?)

 

i’ll add a few inspiring, though not “pretty” links now, to completely contradict everything i just said:

a poem about dancing.  yeow

i’ve always wanted to photograph people in the shower.  check out this series.  yeow.

in case you missed this on my facebook, yeeeow again:

what he said.

May 13, 2010
shortcake + black marker lipstick.  (i don't even wear lipstick.  where did this compulsion come from?)  digital (d200).

shortcake + black marker lipstick. (i don't even wear lipstick. where did this compulsion come from?) digital (d200).

 

 

 

 

  
 . . . it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.
-Salvador Dali

number one!

April 28, 2010

 

 Make yourself necessary to someone.  Emerson

I hate quotations.  Tell me what you know.  Emerson

Actually, if this were paper, I’d be furiously scribbling all over that first quote until the ink made holes in the paper.  Then I would tear the paper into a thousand tiny pieces and then I would burn it.  And then I would dig a hole in some remote wilderness with my bare hands and bury the ashes.  That’s how much I hate that quote.

Someone posted it on facebook the other day, and I tried not to look at it.  Unfortunately, it lodged itself into my memory and I’ve been dwelling on it.  This morning, my will faltered at the strength of my curiosity, and I searched for the author.  It was like a knife in my heart (only a mild exaggeration).  EMERSON!?  My dearly beloved?  Say it ain’t so, Ralph Waldo!  Say it ain’t so!  Alas, it was him.  I am betrayed.

navel-gazing holga screw up.  'cause i SUCK!

navel-gazing holga screw up. 'cause i SUCK!

The thing is, I’ve just stubbed my toe on this little pebble of self-doubt, which made me fall and scrape my knee on a sidewalk of self-pity, and when I tried to stand, I sprained my ankle in a rut of self-loathing.  How embarrassing.  I throw my hands up in the air now, make my hands into signs of number one!* and say “I’m good!  It’s alright!  I’m all good!”  But still I feel like an idiot; it’s always worse when there’s nobody to laugh at with you.  And I walk it off, walk it off, but it still hurts a little, to tell you the truth.  All sorts of ridiculous, but honest, emotions that equate to I’m not enough.

And then Emerson tells me to make myself fucking necessary.  Which I just can’t even believe is possible.  How does one become necessary to someone else?  Especially someone who is so acutely feeling her not-enough-ness?  I mean, necessary?  This is when I’ve been necessary to someone else:  as a uterus and a birth canal.  There are a lot of uterus/birth canal combinations walking around, if you hadn’t noticed.  So even my sole case of necessary-ness is questionable.

How’s that for pathetic?  Is this working for you?  Great!  I know it’s making me feel a lot better!  I’m so awesome!  Yaaaaay me!

[stomps on a ziploc bag full of pretzels]

[pops a chocolate covered espresso bean]

Today I was shopping for sunglasses.  The muzak chick was singing something like “does anybody need you?”  I was like, the fuck?  What’s wrong with you people!

The sun was shining, though.  I took a walk in the woods with girliefriends and smelled the pines and touched the clear water and discovered some crazy mushroom thing.  Everything is fine, just fine.  Just.  Fine.  So don’t worry.  Empty flattery will earn you a middle finger, anyway.  But if you just so happened to want to give me a hug, to come up with something deep and edifying to say, and to maybe also make out with me, I’d probably be OK with that.

[curtsy]

 

* “number one!” is a great story from my sister (that you really have to see her tell), in which a drunk guy stumbled out of a club, fell head-first into a garbage can, then jumped back out with his arms raised, signaling and shouting “NUMBER ONE!”