these texts are an archive of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area from march 2007 - march 2015. it stands as a record of close to a decade of my life, charting the struggles i faced as an artist, daughter, and lover. messy and chaotic at times, eloquent and poetic at others, these texts are an index i am proud of. it was here in this electric box that i learned how to be honest about my experiences and the person i needed to become. it was here that i first learned the truism that words make the world and how to trust such a beautiful, rife, hard fact.

thank you for meeting me here in such tall grass.


my artist website is here.

Jun 4, 2010

art (life)

the weather has been odd for months. and so too, maybe, the weather in me.

i see it in other people too. the link between emotion and environment.

i said "it seems like such an odd time in life, lately." to my neighbor and he said "i'm glad i'm not the only one who's noticed that. it is very odd."

the fog is thick and low. on our jog we were covered in mist. everything green and grey and white.

we're all just trying to make sense of the world.

and meaning within our own lives.

what helps and what doesn't seems to be largely contingent on where a person happens to be standing at any given point in time. preference... maybe even necessity... ruled by vantage point. this accounts for all the different art in the world. all the different modes and forms too. it cancels out notions of Good and Bad, replacing those terms with words that are more compassionate: useful, not useful. beneficial, not beneficial. purposeful, not purposeful. and that definition of "purposeful" is malleable. changing and fluid. and maybe it relates to joy and sadness... the pleasure principle... the death of certain expectations. expectations, especially, titled as 'hope' and 'belief'. their death is a hard and painful and frightening thing. but so is forcing something to live that is only suffering.

let it go.

let a new hope show itself. the children's maps no longer work.

there is a fragile green shooting up through the toppled steeple and broken houses. there is a warmth running below the fear- an underground stream.

everything is an act of mining, maybe. everything is excavation.

and if memory originates in the brain, why this pressure in my chest? let's unearth the thing and see. let's brush the dust off. and if we must, let's pin it down by the wings and take a closer look at the mechanism of the thing.

i want to use the tools equally. analysis and emotion, married.

the brain is a body part just like the heart.

8 comments:

Elisabeth said...

I love these last two lines, Angela:i want to use the tools equally. analysis and emotion, married.

the brain is a body part just like the heart.

To me that is the essence of our work as human brings, to integrate the thinking and the feeling, to feel and to make some cognitive sense of how, what and why we feel. You can't do one without the other and you need a body and mind on contact with others to enable it.

Hannah Stephenson said...

It is an odd time. There is electricity in the air... are you feeling it as well?

Crackle, crackle :).

Radish King said...

I think this is an absolute,
everything is an act of mining, maybe. everything is excavation.


love,
Rebecca

angela simione said...

elisabeth, i always always enjoy your insights. and also, the support you offer. :) the work of being a "human being" has slid in to the top slot in my life and it is a hard, slow thing- this joining of heart and mind. i am so appreciative of your encouragement and experience. absolutely! thank you!

angela simione said...

hannah, yes!!!! crackle crackle all day long. ha! and it isn't negative... just strange. a time of re-evaluation and re-building. re re re. it's amazing that we're all tuning in to it. i think it means there are a wealth of wonderful things on the horizon. :)

angela simione said...

rebecca, thank you. :)

your statement here reminds me that pain will be a part of it. and that pain should not be something i am afraid of. that the act of mining requires endurance and belief. hard things... but there is also a joyful reward. and an unimaginable depth that comes from this work. it is a love act. total love. and love has hard corners. your work and friendship build up in me such an enormous resolve to DIG DEEP in to that love.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Mining, then interpretation. Has soothsayer always been one of the skills required to navigate life? I find these to be times when the land may liquify at any moment; yet is that a bad thing? What a delight to have found your writing.

angela simione said...

hello marylinn! so glad to meet you! you are a wonderful writer! thanks so much for commenting so that i could land in your lovely blog!!!! :)

"I find these to be times when the land may liquify at any moment; yet is that a bad thing?"

gorgeous. and i have high hopes that it is not bad and that my mind and heart are both wide enough to embrace strange changes. i am lucky (and thankful) for your reminder. :)