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.

Jul 24, 2011

writing and life and my writing-life

funny... now that i'm not tucked away in the countryside and spend most days at work in san francisco, i am a bit more aware of this space, this blog. i log in to my account and stare at the white rectangle where i am supposed to type, the space i've laid down so many words before, so much yearning and confusion, so many attempts at self-knowledge, and feel such a heavy ambivalence. key-stroke after key-stroke, in the hope of unearthing even the smallest clue as to what direction i should be moving in, some sort of clarity, some sort of assurance, and now this... this streak of days where i just stare stare stare at the white or, worse, fill it up with text and then log out without posting it when i like having the document of my struggle. i like that that's pretty much what this blog is all about now. it's just weird, i guess... by moving back to a more populated place where i run in to friends and acquaintances, both personal and professional, on a regular basis my blog actually comes up in conversation. it's sort of weird. like my alter-ego just had her "true" identity exposed. very much like looking under batman's mask (not that i'm performing any sort of heroism here), ripping away the warm black shield of relative anonymity. it's been interesting. i mentioned it to my friend freya (who reads my blog and we discuss it's contents sometimes and i feel really thankful for that and the massive presence of art/lit/meaning in our friendship) and told her that in some very deep , very serious ways i feel like the people who read my blog know me infinitely better than people who don't. there are people in my flesh-based reality who can't stand the blog. they do not read it. they've tried and it either makes them uncomfortable or sad or they simply don't want to see this side of me. i am reminded of another anais nin quote right now as i am typing this:

The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.

i haven't made up my mind how i feel about that statement yet but something about it caught my attention in a very forceful way. maybe i feel that i am also guilty of this? maybe i feel there are people around me who are guilty of this and it hurts me? and also, getting to know someone in a meaningful way takes time... and sometimes i wonder if/fear that this blog might do a disservice to that meandering road of friendship; the nebulous curiosity and intrigue that is so much fun and integral to a relationship of substance. but then another Nin quote comes to mind:

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

in so many ways, this blog lays a lot of my cards out on the table. i've chosen to live that way. i've chosen to be this honest. but maybe providing "knowledge" only increases my "mystery", as it were?

i'm being a big fraidy cat, i know. and i'm letting my fear of saying too much or saying the wrong thing hold too much sway lately. i've been writing like crazy in my journal. every day, every day, every day. and i still magically find that inner zone of devilish trance-like fluidity where poetry becomes possible and i am able to bang out a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs, and write with the full comfort of no one standing over my shoulder.

i read this late last night (thanks for the link, rebecca!) and it calmed me so much. i read it and i thought: just work. fuck it.

if i end up embarrassing myself here it definitely won't be because i expressed myself badly. or suppose did? so what? i'd rather risk saying too much than never enough. "never enough" is not where art lives, not where meaning lives, not where passion lives and those 3 things are the 3 most important things in my current world-view. i'd rather be here and give you this crazy shit to read. you honor me by spending time with all these words. feel free to mention this blog when you run in to me if you feel like it. this world and the other are not separate. i'd like to see them gel.

4 comments:

Hannah Stephenson said...

I am so in agreement that overlap is wonderful and healthy (and scary). A few years ago, I felt like all the pieces of me were very separate, I was a poet over here, a teacher over there, an editor/writer here and there....

I feel stronger now in that I'm the same me in every facet of life now (when I teach, I often talk about writing poetry, and I have gotten editing work through my work as a poet).

I think a good question to ask ourselves is---what are we scared of, exactly. Here, you mention "embarrassment"--it might be worth looking at that. For me, I get worried others will think I am selfish (that's the word that comes to mind, over and over). Identifying these fears is important, I think (not because they go away, but because we can recognize them more easily).

angela simione said...

"the same me in every facet of life"

i admire this and this is what i am chasing. the hard part is learning exactly who "me" is and how to honor that... especially while in the midst of such extreme change. your question stalls me in my tracks and i realize that for however much i think about fear, i haven't answered this question in a concrete way yet. what do i truly fear? that's a doosie. even answering such a question is a huge exposure, one that circles back around on itself to *more* fear like an ouroborus. i'm going to be thinking about your comment for days, hannah. thank you. it is so helpful and extremely well timed. <3

Anonymous said...

I like what you wrote here. I like to say that the only kind of drawing I do not like is: not drawing. So yes, I think it is better to risk saying to much- which I think is a feeling about something else and not something that will really happen anyway. And I like what you wrote at the end- about wanting the worlds to gel. It was kind of difficult but good when I stopped blogging anonymously and started writing with my real name- it had felt like multiple realities and that did not feel good at all.
I love your art.
Jenny

angela simione said...

jenny, thank you so much! and i completely agree about the not-drawing. :D

yeah... this blog has always been connected to my real name but it hasn't aslways been about such personal subject matter. way back in the beginning i was really only using it as a place to upload pictures of new work (which is nice for little walks down memory lane), nothing so decidedly serious as what tends to be written here now. but you are right in what you say about the fear of saying too much... that it's really a fear of something else. i am aware that, shortly after my mom was diagnosed, extended family members began reading here from time to time. i haven't let that fact censor me at all but i've definitely had to battle through certain fears at times in order to post what i've written. it is a good practice. and hard. thank you for the encouragement. your words here are a good and sturdy gold. :)