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. 
8 comments:
oh oh angela. how wonderful from the gut. you have this so in your and it's spinning out that braid choking golden umbilical.
kate, thank you!!!!
(blushing and squirming)
:)
Yes, Kate knows and she's right.
xox
rebecca!!!! ((((BIG HUG))))
<3
By giving it air, may it breathe and you with it. I sense there is not time to waste on anything other than uncomfortable topics. Squirm, squirm, avoid, return. To have arrived here while the work was still visible was, I'm sure, no accident. Courage is contagious.
"I sense there is not time to waste on anything other than uncomfortable topics."
that statement makes me smile, makes me want to be brave. braver than i have ever been.
i'm so glad you came by while it's up in the air here. thank you, marylinn.
Hi Angela
This is inspirational. I'll respond by including my efforts at something similar:
I tried this as a short story. It's never quite worked but as you know, you and I know something about these things from our lived experience, however different it might be.
I value the opportunity of 'reading between your lines'. Your work is powerful and haunting.
I may need to break this post into sections as it will be too long for one comment space. Thanks, Angela.
Breasts
The girl tugs at the collar of her school dress and fidgets with the waist. It’s tight. Sweat prickles her underarms. The walls and high ceiling of the assembly hall are stuccoed with tiny pebbles and remind her of the scene from a movie where the hero is trapped in a bare room with walls that move inwards to squash him flat. There’s no escape. She’s surrounded by row upon row of girls, also in uniform. They jostle against her, restless and shift from foot to foot, while the headmistress peers down over her lectern.
“Men and boys cannot control their passions. But you girls must. Pray to Jesus. He’ll help to keep you pure.”
The dark-haired boy stands near the gate. Tomato plants fill his front yard, their yellow leaves falling down from posts, stiff like soldiers at attention.
“Come over here. Come on. Come say hello.” His voice echoes through the empty street, but the girl, hurrying home, will not look.
She would like to look. She would like to stop and say hello. But she’s torn between the thrill of recognition and the thought such desires are wrong. She walks on, her head bent, her face burning.
It’s still the warm end of summer and too hot for heavy clothes but the house inside with its thick walls and dark spaces is chilly even on the hottest days. The girl parts her long hair to one side and leaves it untied Veronica Lake style. She’s furtive, quiet and takes small steps, scuffling through the rooms. She wears her sister’s cast off green jumper, the one that shrunk in the wash and smiles a secret smile at her profile in the hallway mirror. The jumper hugs her close and shows off every inch of new growth.
The girl sits on the edge of the bath with the door firmly closed and pores over her father’s latest copy of How to Take Great Photos. Breasts on every page, round like moons or long and drooping, tapered by heavy-set nipples. A footfall in the corridor outside and she tucks the magazine back under her jumper ready to run.
The girl’s mother suggests they fit a lock to the bathroom door “for when we have visitors.” But her father is enraged.
“There are to be no locks on the doors in my house.” He must have access at all times, he says, in case of fire or flood. But the girl knows otherwise.
She stands under the shower. Water streams down her back, splashes over her shoulders and gushes through her hair. The warmth of the water blends with the sensations within. She could stand here forever, in the comfort and rush of water but she keeps an eye on the door. At any minute, he might walk in. She has her ears open, listening for his footfall, the rattle at the handle. Her heart is thumping. At any moment, he might walk in and then what? She has a sister four years older who knows all about the father. “If he touches you, scream.”
That night in bed, she hears her father prowl through the house and remembers the Headmistress’ words. Then turning her face to the wall, she lets her mind wander back to the dark-haired boy up the road who notices her breasts and whistles whenever she walks past.
elisabeth, thank you so much! for your encouragement and also for the work you've posted here. it is a hug and a push to keep going, keep trying. i love how what *isn't* said carries a heavy presence. allusions, hints. relying on the twists in the reader's imagination to complete the story- fill in the scary gaps. and as always, i am impressed and appreciative of your drive to talk about the messiness of life within your work, the unpleasant things, the sticky things, the things Good Daughters aren't supposed to talk about, the stories that are supposed to be ignored to death.
thank you so much!!!! and it's so generous that you posted this piece here!
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