keep a diary

i started reading my January diary from last year.  it is such an odd experience.  i've been meaning to go back for awhile and read what life used to be like but i somehow couldn't stomach actually doing it until now.  there are no real horrors there (none that i remember anyway), simply a need to stay put in the present.  but ever since the calender changed and a new year sat down coolly on the edge of the bed i've felt a need to return to those ink-flooded pages and get an idea of how much life has truly changed during the last 12 months.  and can i just say: holy shit!

looking at words that are most definitely written in my script but espousing beliefs and attractions i no longer hold is straight up fucking weird.  and it isn't that i've changed so drastically so much as i've flowered.  i've become more myself; a deeper, more honest version of myself.  still, i have a great deal in common with the girl i was a year ago. it is painful to read about the dreams i held then and the massive effort it took to keep them alive inside such a degrading, sterile environment.  it's hard to read about the collapse of a friend's marriage but then be reminded of how that event awoke the strength in me to leave a situation that wasn't right for me.  the people i've met since that time all stare at me wide-eyed when i say i've only been single for a year.  "you've come such a long way!" my roommate tells me and i can't help but think i have so much further to go.  for however far i've come, there is a great distance in front of me.  as i leaf through last year's diary, i am struck by the fact that my primary goals at that time were applying to residencies and undertaking ever bolder art practices.  i was thinking of performance, as spurred on by the creation of the Sweaters of Death, and ways to enact my artistic interests on the street.  i was enamoured of Francesca Woodman and David Wojnarowicz.  i began writing on abandoned couches.  i wrote on stickers and put them on the street.  i'd go home and be lectured about my behavior: a clear sign i was in the wrong place. 

it's funny to think that i've looped back around to certain interests and concerns after a year of living and exploring.  writing on the street, installing pieces outside where they might be enjoyed or sabotaged or taken by other people; how fashion operates on the sidewalk, how words inhabit (and create) a/the world.  but more importantly, exploration itself and discovery itself, adventure and bravery were the big goals of mine then.  i wanted passion in my life.  i wanted to be enveloped by it, ensnared in it, covered in its sweat and saliva.  i am glad that i have allowed myself more than one so-called indiscretion during this time.  i am glad to have spent so many nights dancing and drinking.  i am glad to have met new people and followed them down the street.  i have made some very good friends this year whom i absolutely adore.  i am thankful to have actually, finally lived this passed year.  i have no apologies to make and i'm not embarrassed of anything i've done.  if anything, i feel adorned by the experiences i've had.  i feel more alive and more beautiful now than i did without them.  i feel wiser now and that is a spectacular thing for someone who has often been accused of being naive to feel. 

in some ways, i'm doing it all for the photograph that results.  in some ways, i'm doing it all for the poetry that comes flooding out in to my diary.  in most ways, i'm doing it because i can't help it.  but just like last year, i have no clue what is in store for me next, only that i feel such a deep hunger to find the place i truly belong and to do the bold work i long to do.