click to enlarge
Mar 31, 2011
Mar 29, 2011
one thousand
with half my life packed into bags and boxes, and the other (more important) half packed into notebooks, i wake to a busy day of study and apartment hunting. there is an open-house later this afternoon i must attend before heading off to work, and previous to that i MUST spend an hour or two in the language lab at school in preparation for a huge test tomorrow morning. but the biggest necessity of the day has already been obeyed and satisfied. i woke early, made english breakfast tea, and got back in bed with my notebook and stayed there scribbling for almost two hours.
i am no where near as prolific or eloquent as anais nin was with her diary but i think it is honorable and humble to aspire to her level of commitment to the form. i am so inspired by her dedication, her craft, her marriage of nuance to passionate explosion, her absolute artistry of The Diary. i think of her more and more while i'm writing... all her questions, so similar to my own but so much better expressed, endlessly more beautiful, so beautifully articulated (my notebook is overflowing with slang and crass expressions of speech)... what is it to be a woman speaking? what is it to be a woman and an artist? what is a "diary" after all?
reading hers, a diary is nothing short of a life's work. her collection is astounding and i've only yet made my way through a tiny portion. already i am in love and enamoured of her. already i feel such a close kinship, such a tight affection for her and her work. a dead woman. i love a dead woman. but that is not at all uncommon for me these days:
i cannot tell you what my life is guided by at the moment if not by my love for dead women.
the body i once lived in while i was growing in her belly is gone. the body we once shared is gone. dead and burned up. incinerated. her body: ash in a locket.
i do not wear the tiny silver heart for fear of it falling from its chain. she is packed away with her blue copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, pictures of us when i was a baby, of my two siblings when they were babies, pieces of stitchery, a jar of pearly buttons, a marriage certificate, scraps of lace...
this is the diary she made. this is the diary i keep and cherish. stored in a antique cardboard suitcase.
a few days ago, a cd of her singing arrived in the mail. a gift from my uncle, her youngest brother, made from a tape of her singing when she was 18 or 19 years old. my mother's voice before she was my mother. i have not listened to it yet and i probably won't for a very long time. her voice is so strong within me already. too strong to be coupled with song. it would undo me in ways i cannot afford at present but i am thankful to have the songs nevertheless. the day will come when it will be a guide in my life (thank you, uncle mark). for now, it is added to the suitcase: the diary she built and i keep.
this blog is part of the diary i keep. my diary lives in so many places and takes so many forms. this place, my beloved Blackland, is altogether different from the paper diary i keep. and both of those are entirely different from the visual diary that is my practice... all these portraits strung together, all these images and phrases, all these words words words... letters sent and letters received, postcards and valentines and Notes to Self... and this is my 1000th blog post. it's so weird to me and so amazing too. i thought i might give the blog up when i reached this point but the idea of that, now, feels wrong. it's only right to push forward, to keep the record of this search, to make the portrait again and again and again...
to establish and re-establish a mirror.
i must learn how to be this new thing that i am. i must learn its textures and depths. now: no mother, no father, just me. who is that?
do you know that words make the world?
i am no where near as prolific or eloquent as anais nin was with her diary but i think it is honorable and humble to aspire to her level of commitment to the form. i am so inspired by her dedication, her craft, her marriage of nuance to passionate explosion, her absolute artistry of The Diary. i think of her more and more while i'm writing... all her questions, so similar to my own but so much better expressed, endlessly more beautiful, so beautifully articulated (my notebook is overflowing with slang and crass expressions of speech)... what is it to be a woman speaking? what is it to be a woman and an artist? what is a "diary" after all?
reading hers, a diary is nothing short of a life's work. her collection is astounding and i've only yet made my way through a tiny portion. already i am in love and enamoured of her. already i feel such a close kinship, such a tight affection for her and her work. a dead woman. i love a dead woman. but that is not at all uncommon for me these days:
i cannot tell you what my life is guided by at the moment if not by my love for dead women.
the body i once lived in while i was growing in her belly is gone. the body we once shared is gone. dead and burned up. incinerated. her body: ash in a locket.
i do not wear the tiny silver heart for fear of it falling from its chain. she is packed away with her blue copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, pictures of us when i was a baby, of my two siblings when they were babies, pieces of stitchery, a jar of pearly buttons, a marriage certificate, scraps of lace...
this is the diary she made. this is the diary i keep and cherish. stored in a antique cardboard suitcase.
a few days ago, a cd of her singing arrived in the mail. a gift from my uncle, her youngest brother, made from a tape of her singing when she was 18 or 19 years old. my mother's voice before she was my mother. i have not listened to it yet and i probably won't for a very long time. her voice is so strong within me already. too strong to be coupled with song. it would undo me in ways i cannot afford at present but i am thankful to have the songs nevertheless. the day will come when it will be a guide in my life (thank you, uncle mark). for now, it is added to the suitcase: the diary she built and i keep.
this blog is part of the diary i keep. my diary lives in so many places and takes so many forms. this place, my beloved Blackland, is altogether different from the paper diary i keep. and both of those are entirely different from the visual diary that is my practice... all these portraits strung together, all these images and phrases, all these words words words... letters sent and letters received, postcards and valentines and Notes to Self... and this is my 1000th blog post. it's so weird to me and so amazing too. i thought i might give the blog up when i reached this point but the idea of that, now, feels wrong. it's only right to push forward, to keep the record of this search, to make the portrait again and again and again...
to establish and re-establish a mirror.
i must learn how to be this new thing that i am. i must learn its textures and depths. now: no mother, no father, just me. who is that?
do you know that words make the world?
Mar 28, 2011
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 24, 2011
me thinks the sweater makes the lass look a wee bit busty.
.
this is not necessarily a complaint.
i just can't seem to stop making sweaters. there's just something about it that suits my moment. they make me feel safe(r) somehow. it's reassuring and empowering that i can actually satisfy a basic need (clothing) with my own two hands.
this is not necessarily a complaint.
i just can't seem to stop making sweaters. there's just something about it that suits my moment. they make me feel safe(r) somehow. it's reassuring and empowering that i can actually satisfy a basic need (clothing) with my own two hands.
Mar 22, 2011
lebensecht
.
this morning in the sun as i woke slowly - that state of half-sleep - i imagined holding you.
i held you tight. i held you close to me.
.
this morning in the sun as i woke slowly - that state of half-sleep - i imagined holding you.
i held you tight. i held you close to me.
.
Mar 18, 2011
recent fascination: skulls
.
human
10" x 10"
oil on canvas, 2011
(first oil painting of 2011)
sweater* and 5 foot tall human skull painting** (in progress)
*the sweater might look pretty familiar to the crocheters in the room. my first run at one of the projects in debbie stoller's The Happy Hooker. i'm working on my 2nd attempt now. amending the design, personalizing the fit, working out a prototype of my own. :) also, this is one of my New Year's Resolutions that has been satisfied: make a sweater. and i must say i am addicted. it's very happy-making even if the sweater is sorta screwy.
**that's my refrigerator it's leaning against just to give you a sense of scale. pretty big. pretty nice. one layer of paint so far but it's already a beauty.
human
10" x 10"
oil on canvas, 2011
(first oil painting of 2011)
sweater* and 5 foot tall human skull painting** (in progress)
*the sweater might look pretty familiar to the crocheters in the room. my first run at one of the projects in debbie stoller's The Happy Hooker. i'm working on my 2nd attempt now. amending the design, personalizing the fit, working out a prototype of my own. :) also, this is one of my New Year's Resolutions that has been satisfied: make a sweater. and i must say i am addicted. it's very happy-making even if the sweater is sorta screwy.
**that's my refrigerator it's leaning against just to give you a sense of scale. pretty big. pretty nice. one layer of paint so far but it's already a beauty.
Mar 17, 2011
a small return to Self
this morning, under a grey sky, i cracked the nut that holds the distributor in place on my 1973 super beetle (bright yellow, thank you very much), moved it ever so slightly to the right, cranked the ignition and she fired right up. this is the first time i've heard her gorgeous rumble in a year. i was thinking i might sell her but not now. nope. no way. i love this little car and i feel like such a jerk for not driving her this passed year. this passed year that was so full of hard transitions, hard lessons, constant learning, a strange flux. and life is still that way. it will probably continue to be that way for a while longer too. 2011 has not been very kind thus far.
elisabeth is right. her comment on the post below is so accurate and true. so helpful. it offered a much needed clarity and gentleness. i haven't factored it in enough... the hard hit of my mother's death and how this has impacted who i am... how it will continue to impact my life and personality for years to come. it is a rough road i'm on but it is not without Goodness and Love and all varieties of Hope, big and small.
and then, in the rain, i washed a years worth of dust off her. my Bumble Bug (that's her nic-name).
this is a powerful symbol. very.
elisabeth is right. her comment on the post below is so accurate and true. so helpful. it offered a much needed clarity and gentleness. i haven't factored it in enough... the hard hit of my mother's death and how this has impacted who i am... how it will continue to impact my life and personality for years to come. it is a rough road i'm on but it is not without Goodness and Love and all varieties of Hope, big and small.
and then, in the rain, i washed a years worth of dust off her. my Bumble Bug (that's her nic-name).
this is a powerful symbol. very.
Mar 15, 2011
i am something that i cannot describe. my heart is Chicken Little.
es regnet.
der himmel ist grau und ich bin sehr traurig.
my phone rang last night at 8:30 and the screen of my cell-phone had my step-father's name lit across it. i thought of the time difference between california and tennessee. i answered the call. my voice went small. i've recently stumbled in to a string of bad days. i hit the 2 month mark of life without my mother a few days ago. the 12th. and viewing shitty apartments drenched in cat piss has not been much of a help.
he asked how i was doing and i said "okay" just like a little kid. so small, voice quavering. "you don't sound like you're okay" he said and that's all it took to break my ridiculous dam. FLOOD WATERS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS. i cried and yelled and hit the wall. these actions are completely out of character for me but having a dead mother is pretty out of character for me too so...
i cried hard and woke today with swollen eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed about having exposed the particulars, the details, the swing and shift of my life that boggles my mind sometimes... everything is so up in the air. i have no clue what to do. i have no idea what i'm doing. when i said "i just don't know what i'm doing anymore", he said "yes you do. yes you do." and when it comes to this, this pounding out of words, this creation of images, this land where i writhe in the grass, not roll - writhe! - yes, i know what i am doing... it is everything else that is such a huge and horrible question mark. such a looming fearful confusion. it's normal, the data says. the stages of grief and all that. but in a way, it is so much more. i am mourning so many things at once.
this morning, i ignored my alarm clock and finally woke up at 11am. as soon as i saw the time, i thought "yep... i'm depressed."
of course i am. i think that makes me absolutely normal.
kate zambreno let loose a small portion of her work book of mutter on her blog this morning. what a gift to receive after a night like last night. i needed to feel this kind of connection and the permission it extends.
i have spent the majority of my life feeling so alone but nothing like this. the depth of this aloneness is astounding. it shocks even me. i was once a baby. i was once inside her body, growing there, warm, safe, in the right place. that was a long time ago. it's been a very long time since i have felt those things and i feel so far from the possibility of feeling those things again. but i know they exist and that i must somehow manage to be tough, to be practical, to put one foot in front of the other and make the hard calls, the uncomfortable choices.
i've missed one day of school this semester. one day. not bad. and i haven't missed a day of work other than going to say good-bye and be present for the funeral. i have not called off. i have not spent an entire day in bed. i've stayed committed to exercise and am still a non-smoker. it's been 5 months now since i quit. i am not in a dangerous place, i'm just on the horrible roller coaster, i guess.
reading kate's excerpt lets me know that i am not as alone as i feel. not nearly. this strange club we find ourselves in... girls and women without mothers. writers and artists without mothers. children who lost their mother way too early. it is a strange club indeed but i'm glad it exists. this lineage we build, the lines we draw back and forth to one another, the words that make the bridge, the words that burn the bridge, the words that re-make (re-mark) the Self, the words that define a person and a family and a world... we make a new site for ourselves in text. we find each other there. here. in paragraphs and pages and diaries and novels and even computer screens.
i am absolutely grateful for this. i am so grateful to have a place to be. writing/art has saved my life so many times. so so so many times. it will not fail me this time either. it is my mode. it is how i live.
kate writes, "i cannot mute my violence." this is a pain beyond compare and the fuel that moves the pen.
i dream lately of becoming a creature akin to jean genet. i dream of getting rid of all my possessions save for books and notebooks and art. i dream of moving in to my car and being a haphazard vagabond. i go to class and i learn a new language and the rest of the hours of the day feel like half-truths. on campus and in my notebook are the only places i feel like i am being myself.
chicken little...
the sky is falling.
yes it did.
yes it is.
yes it is.
yes it is.
der himmel ist grau und ich bin sehr traurig.
my phone rang last night at 8:30 and the screen of my cell-phone had my step-father's name lit across it. i thought of the time difference between california and tennessee. i answered the call. my voice went small. i've recently stumbled in to a string of bad days. i hit the 2 month mark of life without my mother a few days ago. the 12th. and viewing shitty apartments drenched in cat piss has not been much of a help.
he asked how i was doing and i said "okay" just like a little kid. so small, voice quavering. "you don't sound like you're okay" he said and that's all it took to break my ridiculous dam. FLOOD WATERS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS. i cried and yelled and hit the wall. these actions are completely out of character for me but having a dead mother is pretty out of character for me too so...
i cried hard and woke today with swollen eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed about having exposed the particulars, the details, the swing and shift of my life that boggles my mind sometimes... everything is so up in the air. i have no clue what to do. i have no idea what i'm doing. when i said "i just don't know what i'm doing anymore", he said "yes you do. yes you do." and when it comes to this, this pounding out of words, this creation of images, this land where i writhe in the grass, not roll - writhe! - yes, i know what i am doing... it is everything else that is such a huge and horrible question mark. such a looming fearful confusion. it's normal, the data says. the stages of grief and all that. but in a way, it is so much more. i am mourning so many things at once.
this morning, i ignored my alarm clock and finally woke up at 11am. as soon as i saw the time, i thought "yep... i'm depressed."
of course i am. i think that makes me absolutely normal.
kate zambreno let loose a small portion of her work book of mutter on her blog this morning. what a gift to receive after a night like last night. i needed to feel this kind of connection and the permission it extends.
i have spent the majority of my life feeling so alone but nothing like this. the depth of this aloneness is astounding. it shocks even me. i was once a baby. i was once inside her body, growing there, warm, safe, in the right place. that was a long time ago. it's been a very long time since i have felt those things and i feel so far from the possibility of feeling those things again. but i know they exist and that i must somehow manage to be tough, to be practical, to put one foot in front of the other and make the hard calls, the uncomfortable choices.
i've missed one day of school this semester. one day. not bad. and i haven't missed a day of work other than going to say good-bye and be present for the funeral. i have not called off. i have not spent an entire day in bed. i've stayed committed to exercise and am still a non-smoker. it's been 5 months now since i quit. i am not in a dangerous place, i'm just on the horrible roller coaster, i guess.
reading kate's excerpt lets me know that i am not as alone as i feel. not nearly. this strange club we find ourselves in... girls and women without mothers. writers and artists without mothers. children who lost their mother way too early. it is a strange club indeed but i'm glad it exists. this lineage we build, the lines we draw back and forth to one another, the words that make the bridge, the words that burn the bridge, the words that re-make (re-mark) the Self, the words that define a person and a family and a world... we make a new site for ourselves in text. we find each other there. here. in paragraphs and pages and diaries and novels and even computer screens.
i am absolutely grateful for this. i am so grateful to have a place to be. writing/art has saved my life so many times. so so so many times. it will not fail me this time either. it is my mode. it is how i live.
kate writes, "i cannot mute my violence." this is a pain beyond compare and the fuel that moves the pen.
i dream lately of becoming a creature akin to jean genet. i dream of getting rid of all my possessions save for books and notebooks and art. i dream of moving in to my car and being a haphazard vagabond. i go to class and i learn a new language and the rest of the hours of the day feel like half-truths. on campus and in my notebook are the only places i feel like i am being myself.
chicken little...
the sky is falling.
yes it did.
yes it is.
yes it is.
yes it is.
Mar 11, 2011
also:
at the opening of our last show, lea said to me "your work is so devotional". she meant it as a very high compliment. this made me feel understood in a way that was unexpected. even to me. i didn't know i needed to be understood in that context until i was. at dinner the other night, she held my hand and kissed my face. it was such a wonderful moment of connection. later, i asked my sweetheart if he got a kiss from lea too and he said "yes. she's absolutely wonderful!"
excerpt:
i think the diary is the most compelling form of writing there is... and that it can be harnessed to make a document of such astounding pain and beauty. i am so taken in by it, so ensnared. its value to me is immeasurable, indescribable. it is, itself, a reckoning.
i've been trying to find a way to take passages of my own diary and twist them in to something else. an alter ego? an alter ego that is somehow more real, more true, more honest that i am? or just me... myself, without all the shit in the way? my precious manners and readiness to please.
Worry Over Me.
A bare bulb flickering against a dark ceiling. I feel it almost all the time.
I curl. I turn. A line of smoke. The world closes. The ceiling descends.
It is 11 o’clock. The water is boiling. The man is asleep. No birds. No cars. The door is locked. No one will knock. Go wash the face. Go brush the teeth. Make everything clean. It is almost time to get the zipper down.
I’ve been yelling a lot at the man. It isn’t fair. Or it is more than fair. It is hard to know for sure. It is so hard to care about right and wrong now. I become my opposite. I slide against myself, eager to rub away my actuality. Give me the bad and dirty dream. Give me a bed to lie in. to Lie in. Lie to myself with everything I’ve got because all I am is In Pain and all I want is more pain. I must crack in half. It is the only way to alleviate this. No one seems to understand my needs.
The odd tempo, returning returning.
The odd tempo: brain beating
against hot bed sheets, the horrible echo,
horrible mouths...
Der Herrgott gibt.
Der Herrgott nimmt.
The heavy white descends. The ceiling drops and I spin. I spin in the Hot and Filth. The horrible mouth. The slammed doors. The yelling. The names. I called my mother HYPOCRITE. She grabbed me by the throat. I held her bony hand. Body polluted by tumors. Face distorted. Nameless Figure. Tuneless Fugue. This horror, grafted to her bones, pressed itself against her brain. Words ripped away. She could not speak to me. I held her bony hand. I watched her full lips falling from her face. I laid my head on her empty stomach when she died. I laid her dead hand on my face.
Twist my face. Twist it away.
My hair makes a nice strong rope. Twist it round your big fist. Twisted lips, such a sweet smile. My wide welcome. Hot husk of deer. Scent rising. Batch of Gardenia. Crush the white. Grind the petal. Pull. Pull. Twist. Take yourself a gift.
Dive without regard to me. Dive and do not stop. Do not think of me, just watch. Brim with resentment and make me a coward. A good long roll in my bad parts. The heated grimace. Polish the worst of me. Shape the edges to a point. Bore. Bore. Bore and dive. Enough of this and we’ll stop caring about everything. We’ll be pleased with the stretch and snag. Smug and crass.
I turn.
Twist the rope in your hand. Twist it round your fist. Turn my face to the ceiling. Turn my face to the floor. Close the world. Drop the ceiling. I want to be flattened out by morning.
There must have been something before now. a space, a time, a road before the white drowned everything out. Before she was stalled and made spare. Before her mother’s blue eye fell out, rolled in to her palm, made her sick, made her spare and thin, made her lay in bed all day with her legs aimed at heaven. There was a time before all this when her mother was still yawning, stretching in the morning, smiling over coffee with cream. There was a time when the girl wore her hair in a ponytail. when the girl was a daughter not a whore. Had a father. Had a mother.
Descending, descending, the ceiling wants to crash. Her blue eye. Her blue eye. Sick in the palm of my hand.
I want to tell you about my mother’s death so you can know what it has done to me. I need someone else to hear me when I cry and when I say her last word. When I repeat her last word. When I gasp on it. When I cringe on it. When I roll the word over my tongue and it catches in my throat like a fist. When I choke on it. The word spirals and snags, barbed now in my mouth. She opened her eyes. She looked straight ahead. She did not look at me. The blue of her eyes seemed milky. A wet scab. She sounded like a little girl. She cleared her throat. She opened her mouth and the word came out.
...
i've been trying to find a way to take passages of my own diary and twist them in to something else. an alter ego? an alter ego that is somehow more real, more true, more honest that i am? or just me... myself, without all the shit in the way? my precious manners and readiness to please.
Worry Over Me.
A bare bulb flickering against a dark ceiling. I feel it almost all the time.
I curl. I turn. A line of smoke. The world closes. The ceiling descends.
It is 11 o’clock. The water is boiling. The man is asleep. No birds. No cars. The door is locked. No one will knock. Go wash the face. Go brush the teeth. Make everything clean. It is almost time to get the zipper down.
I’ve been yelling a lot at the man. It isn’t fair. Or it is more than fair. It is hard to know for sure. It is so hard to care about right and wrong now. I become my opposite. I slide against myself, eager to rub away my actuality. Give me the bad and dirty dream. Give me a bed to lie in. to Lie in. Lie to myself with everything I’ve got because all I am is In Pain and all I want is more pain. I must crack in half. It is the only way to alleviate this. No one seems to understand my needs.
The odd tempo, returning returning.
The odd tempo: brain beating
against hot bed sheets, the horrible echo,
horrible mouths...
Der Herrgott gibt.
Der Herrgott nimmt.
The heavy white descends. The ceiling drops and I spin. I spin in the Hot and Filth. The horrible mouth. The slammed doors. The yelling. The names. I called my mother HYPOCRITE. She grabbed me by the throat. I held her bony hand. Body polluted by tumors. Face distorted. Nameless Figure. Tuneless Fugue. This horror, grafted to her bones, pressed itself against her brain. Words ripped away. She could not speak to me. I held her bony hand. I watched her full lips falling from her face. I laid my head on her empty stomach when she died. I laid her dead hand on my face.
Twist my face. Twist it away.
My hair makes a nice strong rope. Twist it round your big fist. Twisted lips, such a sweet smile. My wide welcome. Hot husk of deer. Scent rising. Batch of Gardenia. Crush the white. Grind the petal. Pull. Pull. Twist. Take yourself a gift.
Dive without regard to me. Dive and do not stop. Do not think of me, just watch. Brim with resentment and make me a coward. A good long roll in my bad parts. The heated grimace. Polish the worst of me. Shape the edges to a point. Bore. Bore. Bore and dive. Enough of this and we’ll stop caring about everything. We’ll be pleased with the stretch and snag. Smug and crass.
I turn.
Twist the rope in your hand. Twist it round your fist. Turn my face to the ceiling. Turn my face to the floor. Close the world. Drop the ceiling. I want to be flattened out by morning.
There must have been something before now. a space, a time, a road before the white drowned everything out. Before she was stalled and made spare. Before her mother’s blue eye fell out, rolled in to her palm, made her sick, made her spare and thin, made her lay in bed all day with her legs aimed at heaven. There was a time before all this when her mother was still yawning, stretching in the morning, smiling over coffee with cream. There was a time when the girl wore her hair in a ponytail. when the girl was a daughter not a whore. Had a father. Had a mother.
Descending, descending, the ceiling wants to crash. Her blue eye. Her blue eye. Sick in the palm of my hand.
I want to tell you about my mother’s death so you can know what it has done to me. I need someone else to hear me when I cry and when I say her last word. When I repeat her last word. When I gasp on it. When I cringe on it. When I roll the word over my tongue and it catches in my throat like a fist. When I choke on it. The word spirals and snags, barbed now in my mouth. She opened her eyes. She looked straight ahead. She did not look at me. The blue of her eyes seemed milky. A wet scab. She sounded like a little girl. She cleared her throat. She opened her mouth and the word came out.
...
Mar 10, 2011
i am spending all my free time apartment hunting and it has not been much fun
so here is a song.
boxes everywhere. bags of clothes for the goodwill. a meeting later today about an art show and an apartment to go check out too. time is burning. i feel like homeboy's coat.
it will all be worth it in a few short weeks.
boxes everywhere. bags of clothes for the goodwill. a meeting later today about an art show and an apartment to go check out too. time is burning. i feel like homeboy's coat.
it will all be worth it in a few short weeks.
Mar 3, 2011
beauty
it is a grey and drizzly morning here but i will not be stopped. soon, i will head off to the city and open the doors of the gallery. freya managed to wrangle one last magical week for us. do come by if you're able. it's been such an amazing, unexpected, joyful experience and the more people i can share it with, the better. besides, the space itself is just so gorgeous. it's been awesome to have a room of our own this way. the white cube is a crazy, wonderful place. to have had one extended to us so generously is a gift beyond compare. i know that it has saved me these passed few months. it really has. and i know that one day when i look back on this moment, i will see just how well-timed it all was. if not for this... who knows where i might have slid off to. i'm glad to have had such a beautiful anchor. or crutch. or stilt. or cathedral.
(when i'm alone in the space, i sing. the acoustics are fantastic. it makes me sound beautiful. i can't describe the massive wave of happy pain that finds me. is it Exaltation? or Honesty? either way, a gorgeous sensation. tears in my eyes. maybe it's just good ol' Freedom.)
today i'll be there from 2-6pm, crocheting another sweater and studying my German and reading Bataille like a good girl. ha! and sunday will be our last day. there will be cheese and wine and ME and freya and launa. come by and collect some hugs.
(when i'm alone in the space, i sing. the acoustics are fantastic. it makes me sound beautiful. i can't describe the massive wave of happy pain that finds me. is it Exaltation? or Honesty? either way, a gorgeous sensation. tears in my eyes. maybe it's just good ol' Freedom.)
today i'll be there from 2-6pm, crocheting another sweater and studying my German and reading Bataille like a good girl. ha! and sunday will be our last day. there will be cheese and wine and ME and freya and launa. come by and collect some hugs.
Mar 1, 2011
dear kate
originally a comment left here.
i wrote of you the other day on my blog. like rebecca, i read here every day too. i miss you on days you don't post. like a junkie. entirely selfish for my fix. that is the way i miss your writing.
but i am blasted apart lately. shrapnel in the air. that is what i am. that is why it is so hard for me to leave comments on other people's blogs for the passed few months. that is why it is so hard for me to fall in to a rhythm here on my own blog. i am shrapnel. or space junk. colliding. not falling. nothing has fallen back down to earth yet. everything is suspended and staring and sharp-edged. i don't know what this means for me except massive change. i know the change, eventually, will be Good. i know you know this road.
so many things seem unreal. in the Baudrillard sense of the word. the fucking Matrix. all a farce.
real things: nail polish (i'm sort of sorry i keep talking about the stuff but not really. there is something life-affirming, not to mention Girl-Affirming, about it and i need that right now.), wild hair, art, books, cool shoes, music, poems, diaries. and the need to be alone long enough to stake some sort of claim to myself. that's been big on the list lately. i've been spending so much time off on my own, involved in my notebook and studying and making things... it is a hunt for identity maybe. or a way to find the new dings and cracks. or a way to establish a new identity. this new self. this status of Non-Daughter. or is it Anti-Daughter? i have an entire rant about this in my notebook which might end up in public soon.
sometimes i worry about what i share here. sometimes i am embarrassed and worry myself sick that i have said too much.
i've had those same humiliating discussions about jobs and money. they are so horrible and so damaging. they have reduced me to a tearful mess on so many occasions. so few family members will ever understand the sacrifice of Life Style for the chance to be an artist. keep writing as much as you can. and i love the image i have of you writing and reading in those "train wreck" dresses. that sentence of yours: I've decided lately I want to have the personal aesthetic of a train wreck. ah, i know this and i love it and it made me smile so damn wide when i read it. it made me feel proud of you. there is bravery in it. bravery is always worth more than fearlessness. so much more. and always will be.
i've been working on dressing like a gothy patti smith. patti smith back in the days of being a kid with mappelthorpe and Fuck The Clock and all that bit. white t-shirt, black pants, cool dirty shoes. but i'm also working on being brave enough to wear insanely bright red lipstick. i'm trying to become the sort of girl who can do that and not feel self-conscious. i'm trying to go from a naked mouth to a painfully red one. it's pretty jarring. i wear it around the house and my sweetie does a double-take and says "that's really bright". i respond "that means it's cool" and leave the conversation there.
i have a valentine for you. i am horribly late this year, i know. but it is here in an envelope and i promise to get it to the post-office today. i'm such a fucking jerk sometimes. sometimes it's hard to get much done. sometimes the simplest task - going to the post-office - presents itself as such a huge, daunting, unbelievably high hurdle. it's ridiculous. this is sadness and the related selfishness, i guess. i hate it.
my fingernails are silver. gold at your tips makes me smile and feel close to you. i keep buying books you've recommended so that i can be a smarter, better, more connected, more sensitive artist... a better human being.
the other day as i was walking across campus i saw the huge banner stretched across the library that read WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH! i thought... do we still need a month dedicated to us like this? and then i looked at the swarms of 19 and 20 year old boys i was trying to make my way through, a sea of boners, and sadly realized that yes, we still do.
when you're doing readings for Green Girl i hope you can come to san francisco. i want to see you in your dresses and go to the SFMOMA with you.
and then you said this:
I am also realizing in terms of my communication of the self here, and in private, in public and in private, all in an attempt to have a community, I do not really articulate the nature of my depression, my apartness, my solitude, and I still even though I have formed friendships of a sort through this do not understand the texture of anyone else's suffering. Because when we see each other or write each other we always speak around it. So how do I really reveal myself at all? I have one friend who I write my depression to, and she writes hers back to me. Like sliding notes underneath the door.
tis a call to action that i take very seriously. i'm trying to do better. to be more willing to risk everything in order to reveal the texture, as you say. i want to be able to do it. and i need to.
to echo rebecca again... i learn so much from you.
<3
i wrote of you the other day on my blog. like rebecca, i read here every day too. i miss you on days you don't post. like a junkie. entirely selfish for my fix. that is the way i miss your writing.
but i am blasted apart lately. shrapnel in the air. that is what i am. that is why it is so hard for me to leave comments on other people's blogs for the passed few months. that is why it is so hard for me to fall in to a rhythm here on my own blog. i am shrapnel. or space junk. colliding. not falling. nothing has fallen back down to earth yet. everything is suspended and staring and sharp-edged. i don't know what this means for me except massive change. i know the change, eventually, will be Good. i know you know this road.
so many things seem unreal. in the Baudrillard sense of the word. the fucking Matrix. all a farce.
real things: nail polish (i'm sort of sorry i keep talking about the stuff but not really. there is something life-affirming, not to mention Girl-Affirming, about it and i need that right now.), wild hair, art, books, cool shoes, music, poems, diaries. and the need to be alone long enough to stake some sort of claim to myself. that's been big on the list lately. i've been spending so much time off on my own, involved in my notebook and studying and making things... it is a hunt for identity maybe. or a way to find the new dings and cracks. or a way to establish a new identity. this new self. this status of Non-Daughter. or is it Anti-Daughter? i have an entire rant about this in my notebook which might end up in public soon.
sometimes i worry about what i share here. sometimes i am embarrassed and worry myself sick that i have said too much.
i've had those same humiliating discussions about jobs and money. they are so horrible and so damaging. they have reduced me to a tearful mess on so many occasions. so few family members will ever understand the sacrifice of Life Style for the chance to be an artist. keep writing as much as you can. and i love the image i have of you writing and reading in those "train wreck" dresses. that sentence of yours: I've decided lately I want to have the personal aesthetic of a train wreck. ah, i know this and i love it and it made me smile so damn wide when i read it. it made me feel proud of you. there is bravery in it. bravery is always worth more than fearlessness. so much more. and always will be.
i've been working on dressing like a gothy patti smith. patti smith back in the days of being a kid with mappelthorpe and Fuck The Clock and all that bit. white t-shirt, black pants, cool dirty shoes. but i'm also working on being brave enough to wear insanely bright red lipstick. i'm trying to become the sort of girl who can do that and not feel self-conscious. i'm trying to go from a naked mouth to a painfully red one. it's pretty jarring. i wear it around the house and my sweetie does a double-take and says "that's really bright". i respond "that means it's cool" and leave the conversation there.
i have a valentine for you. i am horribly late this year, i know. but it is here in an envelope and i promise to get it to the post-office today. i'm such a fucking jerk sometimes. sometimes it's hard to get much done. sometimes the simplest task - going to the post-office - presents itself as such a huge, daunting, unbelievably high hurdle. it's ridiculous. this is sadness and the related selfishness, i guess. i hate it.
my fingernails are silver. gold at your tips makes me smile and feel close to you. i keep buying books you've recommended so that i can be a smarter, better, more connected, more sensitive artist... a better human being.
the other day as i was walking across campus i saw the huge banner stretched across the library that read WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH! i thought... do we still need a month dedicated to us like this? and then i looked at the swarms of 19 and 20 year old boys i was trying to make my way through, a sea of boners, and sadly realized that yes, we still do.
when you're doing readings for Green Girl i hope you can come to san francisco. i want to see you in your dresses and go to the SFMOMA with you.
and then you said this:
I am also realizing in terms of my communication of the self here, and in private, in public and in private, all in an attempt to have a community, I do not really articulate the nature of my depression, my apartness, my solitude, and I still even though I have formed friendships of a sort through this do not understand the texture of anyone else's suffering. Because when we see each other or write each other we always speak around it. So how do I really reveal myself at all? I have one friend who I write my depression to, and she writes hers back to me. Like sliding notes underneath the door.
tis a call to action that i take very seriously. i'm trying to do better. to be more willing to risk everything in order to reveal the texture, as you say. i want to be able to do it. and i need to.
to echo rebecca again... i learn so much from you.
<3
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