of death and shame

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i write about my mother a lot here.  i suppose it's one of the only places where i feel i can.  i don't feel guilty for bringing it up here, the subject of her death and death in general.  i don't feel ashamed of my big emotions here.  i can have them, loud and unruly behind the ineffectual whiteness of the screen.  no one knows if i am crying or not.  everyone can imagine whatever face they prefer for me to wear.  or they can look away.  many people have and i don't begrudge them for that.  it's been 4 years. eventually, people want to hear about something else. 

.

i just re-read that paragraph and feel that it is a half-truth.  i often feel guilty about how much i write about my mother's death.  the last several posts here are specifically about that and i'm sure the majority of posts i've made during the last 4 years since her death are about it too or at least reference it in someway.  i look at my blog sometimes and back away from it because i don't want to be that girl who's droning on and on about her dead mama, about her broken heart, about the tragic twists of her life.  but why not?  why am i ashamed?  this shame is, perhaps, the thing that has made blogging so hard in recent years.  for awhile there i seemed to only manage the courage for it when i was drunk and disgusted with the world, drunk and disgusted with myself.  and for a moment, even i was afraid of those outbursts.  i started wondering if i'd fallen it to that weird literary alcoholism where one believes they can only write if they've had a few drinks.  i'd read back over my posts the next afternoon and feel the knife of shame in my gut but i wouldn't erase any of it.  i wanted to let it stand.  i wanted to be brave enough to endure my shame.  also (dangerously), i was attracted to being a bit of a mess, repulsive.  i was at odds with so many things and i wanted to force the issue of my pain, my disappointment, my revulsion.  i also thought the writing was simply that damn good.  i was willing to scare relatives and friends and the mothers of friends that i was in the midst of a total breakdown.  it wasn't the intention of the writing.  not at all.  but if it was the result, so be it.  i was trying to say something true.

and maybe i was unravelling a bit too.

of course i was.


2008, graduated from college.
2008, decided to end my relationship with my father.
2008, moved to Calistoga and absolutely hated it.
2008 - 2009, explored the possibility that maybe i was bipolar simply due to the fact that i could not get along in my new surroundings. this was encouraged by my partner at the time.
2009, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
2010, her cancer metastasized.
2011, my mother died.  i was 30 years old.
2011, left Calistoga and moved back to Oakland.
2012, left a 7 year relationship that had been sexless for the last 3.



there's a lot in there to fall apart about.  of all those things, my mother's death is the only thing i've really written about.  at first, her death just made everything else seem so small and irrelevant.  it was the biggest, most obvious horror.  maybe it was also the most acceptable thing to write about, despite the overwhelming public discomfort surrounding death.  no one really writes about the trauma of sexual neglect.  at least not in the first person.  not that i've seen.  and not from the female perspective of being denied touch and how wounding that is.  i'd be very interested in reading a text about that if anyone knows of something.  and i'm still afraid to write about certain things, despite just sharing that secret.  i'm afraid i'm going to make some sort of horrible, unforgivable transgression if i write about a past relationship, if i write about my father, if i tell the truth of what really happened, if i tell the whole truth about my mother, her marriages, our family, our undoing, our pain.  despite my bravery, i still sometimes feel stopped.  i censor myself.  i don't want to dump lemon juice on the wounds of others.  one of my biggest fears is hurting other people- a fear that has derailed the lives and selves of so many people.

thankfully, the only member of my family that reads here with any regularity is my sister.  at least that i'm aware of.  all my relatives on my mother's side, curious about my life as an artist, stopped reading here once the drunken 3am posts took over as the norm.  long gone are the days of beautiful paragraphs about running with my dog down highway 128, through orange and red leaves, squirrels lobbing acorns at us from the tall trees, the scent of the vineyard crush filling the air.  so idyllic.  at least if that's all anyone knows, and that was all anyone knew for a very long time about my daily life in calistoga.  i never let on about what a tortured, ignored, untouched "housewife" i'd become.  i was so ashamed of myself and the deterioration i'd allowed to happen to my own life, my own dreams.  i was ashamed of finding myself in a scenario that so horribly resembled my mother's 2nd marriage: man on the couch watching tv, woman reading a book in the other room.  i remember so clearly the night i drunkenly confessed the sin of my sexlessness to my friend, Anne, while puking in the toilet at a mutual friend's house after having gone out and had one too many greyhounds.  at that point, i'd been single about 7 months and no longer felt a responsibility to shield my ex from judgement.  the reality of what my previous life and relationship had been burned within me, an awful dirty secret.  in that moment, my shame burst forth along with all the booze i'd consumed and whatever i'd eaten that day.  unstoppable.  the next afternoon, hungover and dazed by the night's events, i felt embarrassed but also free.  someone knew.  someone knew my dirty secret and they didn't sneer at me.  she sympathized and rubbed my back.  i looked at the crust of vomit on my sequin jacket, called myself "a mess", and went home and wrote about it in my diary.

.



there were more deaths than just my mother's.



there are more deaths than just the physical.


perhaps i did "act out".
perhaps i still act out.
i won't allow another death to occur where there should be only one.
i won't be another girl burning her papers on the back porch, afraid of their power to incriminate.


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it isn't vanity

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a deeply held belief i adopted during childhood:

i am singular and will go through life that way.

i am trying to uproot it and it is very difficult.

scary as fuck.

the only place i feel entirely safe is within myself.

but that is a nebulous world.

mutable and full of anxious longing.

i take pictures of myself to prove that i exist.

not to prove it to you, to prove it to ME.

these shapes and angles and senses.

i take pictures of myself so that i can look and see and believe that i am

here, real,

walking and breathing along with the rest of you.

an attempt, maybe, to unhinge this belief in my own singularity;

to disrupt my distrust and make a window

in to (or out of) my own nebulous world.


.

always david

.

he is almost an instinct of mine.  in my alcohol-fueled lethargy, i began to quiz myself over the relevance of art...  what it means, what my art means and whether or not it even matters.  this is an aggravating little game artists play with themselves, it seems, but in the moment it really hurts.  it hurts to ask yourself, "is art meaningless?"  it's so close to asking whether or not life is meaningless.

and maybe it is.  maybe life is meaningless.  maybe art's role is to provide the meaning we're all searching for?  or at least an avenue to it.  i don't know.  i just suddenly found myself wondering this evening whether or not i'm defeated...  whether or not i still contain the requisite amount of FIGHT.  despite recent encouragements, i suddenly felt worn out.  

i got out of bed and went to my book case.  i needed another artist.  i needed a mentor.  i needed someone to tell me that everything is okay and to pull my shoulders back and fuck what the rest of the world thinks.  my eyes flowed across my collection of art books.  so many volumes of kiki smith's work, louise bourgeois, keith haring, andy warhol.  i paused at francesca woodman.  i paused again at terrence koh.  then i came across a book i forgot i had.  a book i hadn't even read yet.  i pulled it from the shelf.  david wojnarowicz's 7 MILES A SECOND. 

the moment i start reading his work i come face to face with the truth that art is a way of life.  i don't need to torture myself with the question of whether or not my work "matters".  what does that even mean?  i don't need to make myself cry about the accomplishments i've not yet made.  art is a path.  or better yet, art is a language.  it is how i speak.

i read his texts and i want to cry.  not only because of the sadness his work so often describes but because of his fearlessness in telling his story, his bravery in regard to confronting the twists of the heart and mind.  his love of humanity was so unapologetic, so humbling...  and so i want to cry when i am confronted with his work:  i am humbled.  i realize, in the face of david wojnarowicz's work, to ask, "does my art matter?" is a waste of time and effort.  just do the work.  just speak.  and even if it's just to speak about something as aggravating as my struggles with my own artistic temperament, that's alright.  i silence myself too quickly sometimes.  i mean, we all need to complain to each other every now and then.  it does us good to know we're not total freaks in this regard.  we all fear our work is total crap...  that how we are choosing to spend our lives is an act of  futility.  david's work reminds me that this is absolutely not the case.  the point is to care enough about the brevity of life to use what time you have to connect the way you want to connect with other human beings.  the point is to breathe as deeply as you can breathe, so deeply it hurts and then to tell the truth about yourself...  the truth that hurts.  the truth that nags and won't stop tossing and turning until you finally acknowledge it exists and needs a space in which to be seen, to be dealt with, to be wrestled with and contended with.

.

breathing

.


there's a man asking questions of me.

he wants to know if i still believe in fairy tales.

i can tell he wants me to.

he pours a glass of wine and smiles and says, "you're guarded".

and he's absolutely right. 



tonight at work, i looked out the window and thought i saw X sitting across the street, yelling and ranting, and the core of me turned to ice.  i peered at his form through the window, careful not to get too close to the front of the restaurant, afraid to be seen, afraid to be noticed, afraid to provoke...  the deepest fear one can feel...  that old hook rusted into my heart since childhood...

can i give it a name?

can i write a person's name rather than an X?

not yet.

it wasn't him.  when i realized my eyes had deceived me, the most wonderfully warm sense of relief flooded my entire being and i could be myself again.  i no longer had to hide.

and then there are the emails i've ignored.  the letters from ex-boyfriends that will always flap in the wind like an inadequate, threadbare flag.  i remain silent because the tiniest squeak will be misinterpreted.  i do not want certain people to ever think of me in any other way than absolutely cold.  i am frozen through.  at least when it comes to you, you, and you.

i look up and am stunned that it's already May.  the new job is keeping me busy.  the new job and these new questions from a new man.  i scratch my head and i twirl my hair.  i buy shoes.  i paint my nails.  i fall into a rhythm of self-pleasure and contemplation.  i've never known such a wide-open, hot and hopeful pleasure as this; my ability to spend money without explanation, without guilt, no boyfriend or father to make explanations to, nobody sneering at me and rolling their eyes.  these days i go to work and get high-fives from the other girls in regard to the new boots on my feet.  and can i say, it feels fucking good.  it feels fucking good to be entirely self sufficient and free.  it feels good to revel in this independence.  to know that every penny in my pocket is a penny i earned.  to know i have a right to spend it however i choose and that i owe nothing to anyone.  no debt of sniveling gratitude.  i am beholden to no one.

and so i guard it.

i guard it because i prize it.  this freedom, this life devoid of expectation and obligation, all the horrors i inflicted upon myself trying to make others proud, trying to make others satisfied. i pour myself a glass of wine.

but i don't know where the line is between being independent and being an island.

see, it's a double-edged thing learning that a broken heart won't kill you.  it's a double-edged thing learning how to live without love, in general.   i have no father and i have no mother.  i know how to stand on my own.  i know that i will not crumble.  i know how to take the next breath.  and the next.  and the next. 



still, i find myself smiling at the budding of that old schoolgirl hope.

inexplicable.


inborn?


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in bed with kate and all my memories of When...

.

 

recovering today with kate.  my back hurts.  i am spending the day in bed.

it's good to finally be reading this book.  i've been a bad friend in that regard...  we artists are supposed to stick together.  but i've been a bad artist lately too.  i bounce in and out of enthusiasm, in and out of my once-unshakable integrity and devotion.  maybe i've just needed a bit of a break?  maybe i am, once more, in the wool-gathering time...

today, i return to a previous self.  maybe the pain is good for me.  as a result, i am caged (beautifully so) in my new grey sheets, in my new bed, in my new room at the front of the house.  last week, i upgraded.  i jumped from renting the smallest room in the house to the largest.  private bathroom and all.  this aspect alone makes it feel as if i suddenly live by myself save for the occasions when i hear a roommate drop a dish in the sink.  it is beyond nice. i can stretch out again.  i am no longer cramped.  my books no longer crowd me, dominate the room.  i enjoy the light that spills in to my room each morning from the window above my bed.  i wake up feeling free.  i wake up feeling grateful.

even today.  despite this pain.  a day in bed should rectify this ache.  tomorrow will be better.  tomorrow i should be back on my feet.  but until then, let me languish in this strange variety of luxury.  though i am in pain, it is fantastic to be able to spend the day in bed with a book.  especially Kate's book.  i think back to that weird, wonderful era when we communicated across the electric blue line of the internet in the comment boxes of each others' blogs.  so many of us, us girls and women trying to say something about our lives and find a site of understanding...  having to fashion our own nests out of words and sadness and the light of a computer screen...  i lived for my blog in those days, and i lived for hers, and i lived for rebecca's.  i was obsessed.  pleasantly obsessed.  i was so miserable in my daily physical reality, then: trapped in the deadening silence of little Calistoga, in the deadening silence of a dead relationship.

it's hard to even talk about it.  not because it hurts but because it seems (and feels) like such an impossibility; a falsehood.  it feels like it never happened.  that wasn't me.  i was never that girl...  but i was.  i lived it.  and it feels just as much a lie now as it did then.  jose reminds me: "but you made so much good art there".  he's right.  i did.  but i have a hard time calling that a fair trade.  i have a hard time looking at my work and saying, "yeah...  that's a good consolation for what i went through".

i used to write everyday in this space.  

i wrote everyday in this space because i wanted desperately to have someone to talk to.  it is horrible to me that that was the impetus and i was in a relationship at the time.  

on page 24: "I am realizing you become a wife, despite the mutual attempt at an egalitarian partnership, once you agree to move for him."  

perhaps, i became a wife when i agreed to follow a man out to the California countryside, a place i had no desire to be, in order to feel some sense of safety...  for so many reasons.  so many hard, horrible reasons.  the collapse of my biological family being central to that decision.  and we were never officially married but everyone saw as as married anyway.  toward the end, i resented that.  as if my decision to remain unmarried didn't matter.  there were good reasons for remaining unmarried and it upset me that they weren't acknowledged...  and this Upset led me to look at myself and what i'd chosen to be a part of...  i helped keep those good reasons a secret: the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell each other and the lies we build together.  it's easy to allow oneself to become lost in the haze of desire.  especially the desire to be Right...  the desire to avoid the shame of being Wrong.  

perhaps i became a wife when i chose Silence.

perhaps i became a wife when i chose to endure Silence.

it horrified me when i'd hear women far older than i complaining about how their husbands never talked with them and how deeply i related to that deep pain.  the ignored wife.

years later, i lay in my own bed reading about the silencing of wives...  the necessity of a wife's silence.  i recall the years i offered up my own Silence as a benefit to the lives of the men around me.  my lover and my father and my step father... all the things i never spoke of because, in telling on them, i told on myself (or so i believed).  in telling the truth about my own circumstances, i somehow became a Judas.  i somehow betrayed my mother.  i somehow betrayed everyone by simply telling the truth about my own life and self.  the knots of silence that keep a girl in place.  the knots of shame that keep her poised and pretty and appreciated by everyone around her.  the prize of her silence.  the reward she receives is simply the absence of Shame. 

perhaps that's why i put so many words out in to the street now.

perhaps it's why i am so slow to trust men and so slow to trust the idea of family.  i need a new definition for these things...  a new understanding of what relationships can be and what they are for.  i am most comfortable and happiest in my independence.  and so i paint my nails lavender and turn the pages of a book.  i lay in bed, shopping on the internet, and choose to not feel guilty about any of it.  if i am silly, let me be silly. let me be what i actually am: a non-wife and a non-daughter.  i went down the other roads and it nearly destroyed me.  i am making my way out of silence. 

.

artist statement

.


sometimes...

sometimes sometimes sometimes...

(manchmal...
quelquefois...    )



sometimes art is only about your own ridiculousness...



sometimes art is only about how lonely you feel, how separate, how insecure. sometimes art is only about the text message that went unanswered.  sometimes art is only about the pain that sweeps through you silently and unseen on the train as you careen home, alone, wishing there was someone to hug on the other side of your own front door.  sometimes art is sentimental and sticky.  sometimes art doesn't give two shits if it's pretty or not or if it's got a red face when it cries.  sometimes art is only about the fact that it's fucking 2am and you're drunk and tired of feeling alone and separate and insecure and that's exactly why you're drunk in the first fucking place.  sometimes art isn't about any of the fucking theories.  sometimes it's about your dead mother and sometimes it's about your absent father and sometimes it's about how estranged you've become in this wide world of christian morals and families holding hands on sundays.  sometimes art is about all those nameless regrets...  because what is it to regret something that was never really even a choice or a deed, simply an event...  like childhood.  sometimes art is only about that deep ache to be touched.  sometimes art is only about the need for a good, hard slap on the ass and the fact you have to find a way to go on living tonight without it. sometimes it is so fucking Freudian there's no way around it: we want what we want.  and sometimes that's all art is.  sometimes that's all it possibly can be. sometimes art is just a girl, alone in her room, drunk on vodka at 2am, wanting what she wants and yet barred from it all, staring wide-eyed at her own desires and crying over their absence.  sometimes art is only about longing.  sometimes art is only about desperation.  sometimes art is only about finding a way to believe life is worth it.  sometimes art is only a way to convince yourself that your own life might actually matter, somehow, to someone else, somewhere.  sometimes art is only a way to remind yourself you have a sister and you have a brother and, if not for yourself, then for them.  keep drawing (breathing, working, trying, aching, striving, smiling) for them.  sometimes art is only a way to keep yourself sane.  sometimes art is simply a reaching toward faith.  a way to build faith.  a way to believe in something other than your own solitary breaths, exhaled in white puffs in a cold, empty room.  sometimes art is simply the life-preserver you throw to yourself.  sometimes art is the only window you've got.  the only friend you've got.  the only mother you've got.  the only god you've got.

sometimes art is another way to pray.




sometimes i'm 8 years old again, alone and afraid of the dark, and dreaming of a savior...



i reach for my pencil.  i reach for my pen.  i reach for my hook.  i make a drawing.  i make a poem.  i make a blanket.  i take care of my fucking self.

sometimes that's all art is.


.

while reading The Hour of the Star

seems i am always circling around some sort of Reckoning, some sort of Return.  these thing i chase.  the moments when i feel most alive, charged with electricity and love, full of fear and pleasure and ego.  or the moments in the middle of the night when i am convinced of my own ineptitude, my selfish stupidity.  those horribly cold moments when i wallow in all my worst thoughts of myself, when i focus on all i lack, all i have always lacked. 

chasing a Reckoning.  some sort of Shattering.  a tear in the seam.  a crack that will let a little light in.  or a little dark out.

and i open a book and i read the words and for a one warm moment i feel Known in a way that i've always needed, in a way that i so often crave. 

 

the words stare at me and i nod my head: "Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"

there are so few moments of reprieve.  too few.  i look at my hands.  i put polish on the nails.  i look at my eyes.  i pull tar through the lashes.  i look at my mouth.  i cover the soft pink with the loudest red i can find.  these additions make me Real.  these flecks of color, these gestures toward Urge and Desire prove i am alive and healthy and humming with the ability to take part in an exchange with the world.  i am here and standing and capable but my little love-sick heart goes on wishing after so many ridiculous things.  

i want to be invincible and never made silent through shame or guilt.  i want to be the strongest thing in the world.  i want to not hurt.  i want to not long for things the way i do.  i want to feel contained and content and totally devoid of certain desires for the symbols of approval and appreciation.  

i suppose it's normal now for the questions to come.  it's been a week since buying the ticket and i am settling in to the knowledge that something i've dreamed of for so many long, lonely years is about to happen.  i make lists of what i need to take care of.  i need a backpack and flip-flops and a towel and a lock and a map.  i woke early this morning and kept my appointment at the post office to get an expedited passport.  when the moment came where i had to declare under penalty of perjury that i am who i claim to be i felt so giddy.  such a child-like happiness coursed through my entire body and i couldn't help but smile at the woman who asked for my oath.  in 2 weeks, my passport will arrive.  my birth certificate will come back to me under separate cover.  it's the first time in my entire life i've actually ever possessed the document.  it's always been in someone else's care. i'm an adult in such an official way.  i look around at the portfolios leaning against the bedroom wall, the guitar i haven't played in close to a decade, the books that will remain unread and all i can think is "just get rid of all this shit.  get rid of everything."

i war against my frailties.  i pull yarn through a loop with a cold hook.  i fashion a text of my own in red letters and i stitch them to poles on the street in the middle of the night when i walk home from the train station after waiting tables all evening.  i say this in plain language but it is a romantic moment.  no cars, no birds, no sound at all save for the soft scratch of my shoes against the sidewalk.  for however humble my life may be, it is also quite charmed.  i am not blind to the beauty that curls around me.  i am not oblivious to the goodness that swirls.  and so i am disappointed in myself when these frailties rear up and my little lonely heart beats against my ribs, begging for things i know don't matter and will only serve to hold me back. 

think of airplanes, little girl.

think of airplanes, woman.  

there is so much i do not know.

 

 

DEATHMARCH (write your heart out)

WORDS WORDS WORDS

my Talent of the Room finds me and every morning i spend a solid 2 hours writing in my diary at the kitchen table as i sip my coffee.  i look out the window onto my busy street.  i listen to the cars and people rambling by.  i feel the sun on my legs and the pen in my hand.  soft pleasures.  necessities.  i can't imagine ever being without this little waking ritual of mine.  i can't imagine ever giving this up.  these hours behind the pen, inside language, inside the inexplicable twists of dreams and memories.  there's nothing "little" about it.

i've fallen back in to a phase of self-investigation and exploration.  i doubt one's need for such things ever really goes away and that's probably a good thing.  as i gain insight and information, i recalibrate.  as i pick up moments of confusion and wonder - or even doubt and fear - i use them to look a bit closer at my own motives and desires.  everyday i seem to be learning more about myself.  i feel like i'm growing up in a totally new way.

i finished reading the second volume of my 2012 diary yesterday on my train to work.  going through these pages is an integral part of my current round of investigation.  i feel so lucky to have such a tool at my disposal.  i can't explain how amazingly valuable it is to be able to read exactly what i was thinking about and wrestling with on THIS DAY one year ago.  it's a fantastic was to measure change.  but also, i return to the idea that to keep a diary is more than simply recording one's thoughts and activities.  it is a life's work.  i've said so many times here that words make the world and i truly believe that.  language is a living, nebulous thing and our use of it impacts how we see ourselves and the world we inhabit.  it determines the world we create.  my attractions all have a root in Language.  from the look of a person's handwriting to the particularities and lilt of speech to the a person's command over poetics or even just the maintenance of a deep, strong vocabulary, my interest is ensnared.  i have deep attraction to people who have big vocabularies and can use them effortlessly, who don't sound pompous and puffed-up.  even the sound of someone's sigh is attractive to me and a good laugh is a very strong aphrodisiac.

all this to say- language, in all its forms, the very act of and desire to communicate with another human being is something i've always been attracted to and is a basic building block of my own personality.  as i look back and re-live certain experiences through the lens of my diary, i see how necessary certain types of connection are to me.  i need conversation, intellectual engagement, philosophic enterprise, and poetic experience.  simply put, i need passion.  i am not a simple person who can be satisfied by simple relationships.  i'm not difficult either but "difficult" is not the only opposite of "simple".  complexity is also an antonym.  i like complex people.  i like the mysteries they contain.  i like not knowing the next thing that might shoot out of a person's mouth and i appreciate people who know how to hold up their end of a conversation. 

sounds simple enough until i look deeper at the statements that i just put forth.  it is romantic to say that i want a passionate life.  but in accepting a passionate life, one also accepts the necessity of pain.  one must accept certain risks and that sometimes the gamble will be lost.  i won't always come out on top but, thankfully, i'm the type of person that can turn almost any negative in to a positive.  i'm not thankful that other people have mistreated me and i would probably never thank someone for their atrocious behavior regardless of the good that may have ended up flowing from it later on.  but i am thankful to be the kind of person that can take that hurt and allow it to polish me rather than become embittered against others.  it's not so much a point of forgiving others as it is a matter of forgiving myself.  i'm not exactly sure what that means or how to accomplish such a thing other than learning from my own mistakes and not allowing myself to slide back in to familiar, yet harmful, patterns. 

it's difficult to know, though, when i'm being smart or when i'm running scared.  certain emotions make me feel foolish now and i've noticed lately that i run from them.  i play it cool and not a single ripple of embarrassment or heartache will show on my surface if i can help it.  i have no problem showcasing pain in art or writing or even here on the blog but i do not put that shit on display in front of many other people.  there is a very small handful of people that i am close enough with to really lay my emotions out in front of and, within that group, still fewer that i would actually allow to see or hear me cry.  but i suppose that feeling foolish (or even actually being foolish from time to time) is going to be part of the ride.  necessarily so.  but i don't know how to uproot this idea that seems to have grown in me that others will find my emotions to be repulsive.  i don't know how to counteract my experience that people run away from the darkness a human being contains.  i don't know how to stop believing that most people are fair-weather friends.  somehow i must unlearn these things and manage to become brave enough to risk feeling foolish. it's the next step in becoming a better friend and a better artist.  risk is mandatory. especially for someone like me who wants to know about the world and establish meaning in life.  especially for someone who doesn't think before she writes and puts all this shit out on to the internet for anyone to read. ;)

i am also afraid but i have to keep moving

.

"Each time our hope for a better world is based on a system, this system collapses, due to the corruptibility and imperfection of human beings.  I believe we have to go back and work at the growth of human beings, so they will not need systems, but will know how to rule themselves.  Now you have suffered the shock of disillusion in an ideology which has betrayed its ideals.  It is a good time to return to the creation of yourself, not as a blind number in a group, but as an individual.  Poetry is merely the language of our night-self, in which are imbedded the seeds of all we do and are in the day.  We can only control it by knowing it.  Better to make this journey back to what you had first intended, rather than to die of disillusionment."

The Diary of Anais Nin
Volume 4, page 10 




i live wildly these days.  maybe i'm trying to make it back to a life and self i had once intended.  i return to reading.  everyday, i long for the companionship of my books.  i miss the books that are stowed away in my storage unit.  i want so badly to go rescue them from that cold cell.  it's hard to believe i've gone so long without them. how long has it been now?  10 months?  so much has happened.  so much has changed.  i wind my way back to an earlier idea of myself.  i return to the pages that evoked my rebirth.  Anais Nin's diary.  the healing waters of her words and rhythm.  i scribbled this passage from her diary in to my own.  i read it on the train a few days ago and i've been thinking of it ever since.

i have no answers.  fear is normal but should never be allowed to become King.  change is a scary motherfucker.  especially when the individual is in charge of making change within their own life.  i've been listening to the song posted below for days.  and while my shoulders bounce as i dance alone in my white room, i consider my actions and the wages of all my "sins".  my biggest mistake thus far has been allowing my fears to dictate my actions.  or, rather, my inaction, if i want to be more accurate.  i have stood still when i longed for motion and have remained silent when i longed to speak.  these instances haunt me and torture me and yet, after years of this mode of being, i became so accumstomed to minding the egg shells that, now, when i do otherwise, i am immediately met with stabs of guilt.  i sit and stare at the words i write and wonder if i'm being bad.  i look at the romances i've enjoyed and wonder if i'm immoral.  i look at my late nights of dancing and worry i might be a glutton.  it is the old training kicking in, the instilled fear and implanted guilt of the particular system i was brought up in.  i was taught to fear myself, my own desires and dreams.  i was taught to second-guess my own insticts and to veiw my interests as selfish and wrong.  and i'm not just talking about family or religion but the larger cultural climate in which the spheres of family and religion exist.  the sexism.  the deep hatred of women.  the assumption that desire is evil and must be regulated, must be doled out, defined, prescribed.

i don't know what i'm doing half the time but i know i'm tired of feeling bad for being interested in normal things.  i'm tired of being haunted by the tenents of a religion i am not a member of.  i'm tired of all the alarms going off in my ear; alarms i don't agree with and wish i could silence forever.  as the new year approaches i begin to think again of all the dreams i've held close for so many years.  i begin to think of my "night-self" and who that could be.  especially now after having chosen my freedom, after having chosen to write and to go on writing. 

.....

and then i started drinking with my budddy, ate some mexican food, started thinking about theory and sushi.  we said, "i could do a roll...  " and mean while hip-hop does its thing in the background.  we've been talking all night about art, what it means, what it does, how to make it;  and last night at dinner with my beautiful friend Freya, we talked about life and priorities, how life and priorities change based upon era, the era of one's life.  one feels a certain way in their twenties.  one feels a certain way in their thirties.  one feels a certain way in their forties.  so on and so forth.  and here i am, early 30s, horny as hell, apparently normal (relative in all the worst ways), caring only about music and booze and art.  satisfy me.  and if you can't, at least pay attention to me.  let me pant in your ear.  let my image hang on your wall. let my script dance below your eyelids.  i'll take your beard burn if you attempt to take me seriously.

but is that monolithic?  do i need your faith?  do i need your faithfulness?  are we circling back around to the thing i'm complaining about, the thing that harms me, the thing that hurts you?  we are all subjects.  do you feel compromised?  i do.  how do i reconcile this shit and how do we, as a UNION or COMMUNITY proceed.  seth asks , "but how do we have a non-system?"  how do we inter-relate?  if not based on the systems that have already infected us/informed us...  informed our fear?  my fear?  am i afraid of you?  damn right.  you're a fucking monster born to hurt me.  i'm only just now realizing that i am as well.  i am a monster in my own right, especially if you look at me through a Christian/Muslim/Jewish lens.  please look at me through an artistic lens because i am, in fact, an artist and i govern myself with an artistic criteria.  a criteria i hope you will someday examine yourself with and view yourself through.

and now at 3am, i feel useless, semi-embarrassed but somehow still entirely alive.  could this be a condition of my survival.  my friend eddie said "there's a time to make art and there's a time to live.  you gotta have something to make art about."  i look at the text i've hung on my walls: don't cry.  and all i can think is: cry harder.  could that be the way back to what i once "intended"?

fear

yesterday at work, my friend jamal asked me if i ever think of putting a book together.  i think about it on a regular basis but only as something which may or may not exist in my nebulous, dreamy future.  it's always been a fantasy but ever since i wrote my letter to kate i've been thinking about end points for my writing.  i've been thinking that maybe some pieces should have a different outlet than this blog.  i mean, i tend to think of my blog as a performance space so it is definitely fitting to test drive certain artworks and poems here.  it is definitely part of the performance itself to engage in certain levels and modes of exposure, to move quickly and attempt bravery inside writing.  but the thought of a new form of publication is actually a bit scary for me and i wonder why that is?  i'm not at all afraid of rejection.  i've been rejected enough to have built up a very thick skin when it comes to that and do not take it personally in the least.  in fact, most of the time i receive a rejection letter for an artistic endeavor, i usually end up agreeing that i wasn't the best fit for the project.  but writing is so much different from my visual practice in one key way: i don't know how to end a piece of writing.  i can go on and on in the folds and flips of a poem.  i can go one writing endlessly.  hence my appreciation for the blog format.  i have no clue where The End actually is or how to make one.  maybe there is no end to writing at all?  maybe an End is totally arbitrary and i should simply allow myself to keep working on this 6,000 word secret poem of mine until the end of the year , reign it in, begin the horrible process of editing, and then begin something else?  at very least, volume 2 of the same, long, dirty poem? 

i guess i just put so much stock in writing, so much faith in words that i want to be able to organize something as beautifully as possible and i have no clue how to do that.

i'm afraid of being a bad writer. 

friday night bullshit

listening to The Smiths and enjoying a spectacularly poured greyhound here in my white room (zum wohl!) with a burning shoulder from spending the last several hours hunched over a painting.  these text pieces look so simple but a tremendous amount of labor actually goes in to them.  all my work seems to be that way.  my friend Lea once said "your work is so devotional".  her comment has stuck with me.

i am a devotee, to be sure, but devoted to what?  the rules change quicker than i can name them.  it's gotten to the point where i no longer care about rules at all.  this damn inner compass of mine gives me enough trouble.  i've made a point of ignoring it lately and just leaving myself open to the strange throes of exploration.  how else will i know what i'm made of?  how else will i know anything?  how else will make art?  risk, as such, is a definite necessity.  i've felt so scared of so much for so long.  i've felt afraid of being myself.  but i'm at the point now where feeling afraid of something actually becomes the reason to explore that particular something or do that particular something or cultivate an environment where i have to somehow explore the fear.  fear becomes the reason for a lot of things these days but never not to do something.

funny enough, the result is that one begins to be afraid of very little.  maybe i am devoted to the questions?  maybe i am devoted to the attempt?  to understand anything.  to understand one's self.

am i getting too philosophic?  is it too late for that?  wait, it's friday night/saturday morning.  it's not too late for anything!  and aside from that, it's never too late for philosophy!  philosophy is a necessity.  it's right up there with food and air.  so let's get philosophic.  tell me your secrets and what the fuck you expect out of this life.  the clock is ticking, friend.  get on it.  fear is a reason to DO IT.  i look at this body of mine and i watch it dying.  people think i'm so much younger than i am.  in some ways, they're right.  in some ways i am much younger than i actually am.  but i am watching this body age, for however imperceptible that may be to others, and it is a huge motivating force in my life.  i look at myself and i see my mama somewhere under this skin.  her genetics, her softness, her absolute kindness...

fuck.

talking about her makes me want to cry and marry the first person who will ask me.  our fairy tales are hard at work in me too, i promise, i've just decided to ignore that shit and hold out for the best.  or atleast the most honest expression of self i can manage.

but my mother...  she's dead. and i feel her beauty everyday.  it is such a deep pain.  i try to think of my life along the same lines of hers.  i ask myself "what if you die at 55, kid?"

and so: i bought a ticket back to new york.  7 weeks to go, friends.  7 weeks.  and this time i plan to go all alone.  i will walk and walk and walk and see as much art as i can.  i will write in the bars and cafes.  i'll do things that i am afraid of doing.  it matters.   i plan to move there in the spring.  i have 6 months to save as much money as i can but, regardless, i'm going.  even if i end up arriving penniless, i'm going.  this next trip back is more about exploring what daily life would be like rather than being on vacation.  i re-read my NY diary tonight over sushi at my favorite oaktown sushi bar and recalled how instantly at home i felt in that city.  god, it overtook me.  i loved it the second i saw it.  i loved it the entire time i was there.  i was heartbroken at the thought of leaving.  my last day in NY was a rough one.  i really didn't want to leave.  it took all i had not to cancel my flight.  it really did.  i have to go back and let her have her way with me.  i have to follow my own trembling, romantic, boisterous heart.  our time is too short.

but let's not get too serious.  the brevity of our moment is also a reason to participate in exquisite simplicities and sensual pleasures.  i'd like to offer a very loud and public THANK YOU to Lady Gaga for making my life infinitely better by making me smell this fucking fantastic!  her perfume is amazing.  seriously.  i test drove it at Lord & Taylor in manhattan but waited til i got home to buy it.  i've already spritzed an inch of the stuff and i've only had it a week.  good thing i bought the big bottle.

and speaking of Lady Gaga, there's this really special thing i keep resisting making mention of here:  jack halberstam's new book GAGA FEMINISM.  oh looky, looky! whose image is that on the cover?  awwww shit!!!  yep, you guessed it!  yours truly!  and i am absolutely honored!  SO HONORED to have been asked by such a thoughtful and exciting theorist as Jack to use one of my drawings on the cover of this book! and also SO HONORED to participate in the feminist/queer discussions of our age.  it's a major feather in my cap that jack liked this drawing.  period.  and i am absolutely honored to, by proxy, engage with Gaga's discussion of identity.  i am a lucky bitch, to say the least.

and if you are at all wavering on whether or not to buy this book, don't!  it is spectacularly written!  i'm only about half way through and i am IN LOVE!  GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!!!!!  you definitely won't regret it.

and now back to painting and drinking greyhounds.

all my love,
angela.


.

now

i have learned too early maybe how short life is. i am afraid of the brevity. i want to be an old woman in my bed. i do not want to be cut short. i am afraid of being cut short. i want the death (and life) of Louise Bourgeois- 98 years old, warm in my bed after a day of work in the studio, spitting images and loves at the world all the way up to the end. i want to work with that fire. i want to be a slave for decades to it.

everything is memento mori to me now. i am making myself a sweater with a skull on it. i never really cared for skulls as an image much before but now i am strangely attracted to them. i think of vanitas, our eye-blink existence, and want to claim every single shred of joy and sweetness i can. especially those bits found inside the swivel of sorrow. they are the most nourishing, the most poignant and necessary.



my sweater doesn't look like this but maybe i will attempt to make something along these lines as well. i love it.

come see me at slingshot today if you're around and we'll talk about art. or we can crochet together. i'll be sitting in the huge window at 890 valencia in san francisco.

revision

i spent the entirety of yesterday going back and forth between two drawings and an essay on Revising Poetry. the day went by in a quick breeze of graphite and pages turned. the same few pages, over and over again, looking for an answer... but really, looking for an easy answer. the quick fix.

and then a very close friend of mine called crying. nothing tragic... except the tragedy of life itself... disillusionment. and feeling so pitifully unequal to the task before you. that horrible sigh that sweeps through your entire body. the sigh that says it's just so much work.

and though our daily circumstances are very different, the root issues that make up my and my friend's struggles are pretty much identical: tremendous worry and confidence that seems to fail too easily.

while we were talking i heard myself say: if i could just stop worrying so much, i'd get so much more done. all the time i spend worrying, all the time i spend trying to unearth myself from all this worry, could be spent actually working toward the goals i'm trying to reach. my own words sort of slapped me in the face. here i was, trying to build someone else up, trying to give them stamina for the fight, and i ended up saying exactly what i needed to hear. in fact, it's something that i need to hear on a fairly regular basis. that one step, one day, one drawing at a time, one word either read or written at a time, one thing learned, one thing gained, one inch at a time, i will end up building a life that feels right. it comes down to faith. belief in oneself... to keep the dream tight while the big bad world outside, rife with status symbols and expectations, screams NO in your face. to keep going, keep moving, no matter how short the ground i've gained is, in spite of the nay-sayers outside my window. to beat back my own disillusionment and truly believe in myself and the meaning i'm trying to create within my own life. do i really need re-assurance in order to do that? or even praise? those things sure do feel good, but are they really necessary?

i have always written. i have always made drawings and paintings. i have always sung in the shower. i think that as a result of being such a shy child, and also the massive tragedy that found my family so early, i clung to particular talents in an attempt to feel safe. these things became a sanctuary. they were the only site i had where i felt safe and was truly myself. opening up those talents to include the eyes and opinions of others is a very scary thing. basically, i don't want my sanctuary demolished or laughed at or called "flawed". and so i have to beat it in my head, over and over and over again, that my sanctuary is MINE, it's for ME, it is OF ME, and the words and eyes of others don't destroy that. it either welcomes them or it doesn't. and if my work fits well with the life of another human, it is a grand and beautiful thing. i can feel connected and strong and encouraged. i can feel less alone. but even if no one liked what i do, i'd still do it. i know this because that's always been the case. i've always written. i've always made pictures. i've always sung in the shower or some dark corner where no one could hear.

i guess becoming an artist is also about leaving the dark corner. finding a way to make that safety mobile. finding a way to carry the sanctuary with you, on your back like a hermit crab... a bookcase in the brain, all the bibles lined up one right after the other, and just say it matters to ME.

consistent, sustained action in a single direction. and if i come up against a wall and have to chip it down with my own toe-nails... well, that's exactly what has to happen then. and Revising Poetry feels pretty much just like that. this search. this wanting everything to work out... and work out RIGHT NOW. this dark road, no answer, except just keep going.

just keep going. just keep going. and don't make it bigger than it actually is. i have a very bad habit of that. i build things up to be so huge and scary and important in my own head... that nasty perfectionism that really only serves to silence me. that's where all this ridiculous worry originates. fear of my own imperfections. fear of being disappointing. fear of not being good enough. all the common worries of artists. of people in general.

part of maintaining my practice is learning how to trust the process of the thing itself. trusting that yesterday's activities of reading and drawing were, in fact, WORK and that i did move forward... whether or not i can actually feel it. a lot of the struggle of being an artist is overcoming a shit ton of really bad social and cultural lessons- definitions of what constitutes success, what constitutes value.

a lot of this is simply going my own way and not worrying about it so much.

and so... like revising poetry, it's going to take lots of time and effort and somehow managing to acquire fresh eyes every now and then. gaining a new perspective, a fresh perspective, and not giving up. and when i get stale-mated, put it in the drawer and come back to it later when i've learned more, experienced more, and have a better attitude about the task at hand... when i'm not so worried about "what it all means!" and "but is it even any good?"

sometimes, i have to try to let the joy of the act be enough. because it is. it really really is. and to wrap my mind around the fact that, YES, even "work" can be joyful.

ahh

anytime someone says God has a plan it's never a plan anyone is very fond of.

in fact, that statement is in no way a comfort and i really wish people would just stop saying it to me. all it does is make the person on the receiving end feel completely alone, completely helpless... completely hopeless too.

i understand they're really only attempting to comfort themselves when they say that. and i can be sympathetic to that. and if it does work to calm the speaker of that horribly inept sentence, then they should just repeat it inside their own head, to themselves, where no one else has to hear it.

because we have plans too.

the same plans everyone has.

we have good, wholesome, beautiful plans.

simple plans. simple times. simple hopes.

don't tie my hands behind my back so i can't hold those dreams anymore. why can't i just be allowed to hold them just a little while longer? don't take my hope from me. i'm someones daughter. i'm someones child. just let me hold on to the remainders of my daughterhood. just a little while longer. the good remainders. the ones i want to keep. the ones that are long hugs and back scratches. the ones that let me feel like i belong somewhere. the ones that make me feel like i do have a place to call home. is there any place in the world that feels more like home than when your parent hugs you? is there really a person on the planet that doesn't long for that feeling to claim them again? that feeling when you were little and you were held up high. held up and laughing. held up and protected and warm.

i'm just so angry. everyone who is going through this is angry. but i'm not angry at god. i'm not angry at anyone. i'm angry about the threat of time, the loss of time, and all the things that i haven't gotten to yet... as if a parent even needs a very big reason to feel proud of their child.

it's such a slow, horrible fear.

such a dawdling anguish. the spin of sorrow and regret and not knowing what to do.

there are so many days where i have no clue what to do with myself. i try to write it out and plug this in to the work... but i just end up feeling as inept and ridiculous as that damn statement.

fucking cancer.



the only sentence that feels at all close to the reality of all this is i just want my mama.


most days i just feel like begging.




.



i'll probably end up deleting this.

the forest is not to blame.




yellow leaves spin. screeching hinges. the pig-sounds
of wind snared in tall trees.
my breath goes a loose white.
swaying.
limbs are coming down.

yellow leaves spin. an awful determination.
sparks radiate. crack my palms. catch in a crescent, this
lowly rabbit. the transparent virus.

last night i lay awake a long time. my thoughts were angry.
polluted and skittish.
the scent of too many deer.


i want to think of the forest.
i want to think of my mother and
the forest behind her,
behind her roses. her roses
behind her iron rods:

deer-bitten.
slowly frozen.
the cracking-sounds, her upturned palms.

my mother will not die in concrete.


the death of frozen things- people
held down, cars
flipped on their side.


i wake to find things on the ground that weren't there before.
black branches, black burl, bits
of litter flung from the highway. i wake
to check the calendar. i wake
and well up my Fear Traditions.
the silver and the shards dug in.


the moon is white. full in the little window between the tall trees.
full-blown. this cold, unclouded thing.
yellow leaves spin.
there is a gaping eye to push through. a solid white.

the wind is to blame.

it wants our doors. splits its knuckles.
toys with our hair-delicate hinges. fingers creeping
against the dry seal of so many mouths.
fingers like thermometers. cold. cold. and sharp
against our fevered pink.

first thing, i look up to the little window


i am lonely. it is a black morning.
aching. windless. an awful veil.
stolid as a dried out fish belly.

apples fall out of the trees, thickly black.
no time to cut the bruises out.
wrinkled and twisted. i lock my eye
on the tiny shimmers of gold below the cracks,
wilting on the inside.

my mother will not die in concrete.


yellow leaves spin.
limbs are coming down.


here
is the thread end

and the needle cut loose.

a solid eye to push through.






.

the regular fears

my internet connection has been failing off and on for the past week and half and has become totally unreliable. i called customer service and they let me know our modem is bad and so a man is coming out today to check it out and hopefully give us a new one. the upside to this is that yesterday after posting about kate's book, my internet was down all day- effectively hog tying me and keeping me from deleting the post... which i sorta wanted to do and was in a panic all day long, waiting for my phone to ring, and going over and over in my head fear-driven conversations and how to explain the difference between art and life, how to use one to inform the other, and that creative license and honesty are an imperative of our times, etc etc etc. ha!

and then i started thinking about lady gaga. yep. she is a recent fascination of mine. and i thought how a lot of people in this country seem to think she's the spawn of Satan and, looking at her work, listening to her songs, and paying attention to her message of self-acceptance and self-love... i really have no clue where these attacks on her are coming from. it's one thing not to like her work, a totally other to label her as "poison for the minds of our children". and i thought: here's this 24 years old girl that has somehow managed to acquire enough strength and stamina to endure such a massive onslaught of hatred and malice, and here i am, a 29 year old girl, fretting about a "review" i wrote about a book i love and posted on my personal blog. a blog which doesn't get a ton of traffic anyway. at least i don't think it does- i disabled the tracker on it months and months and months ago.

but there it is- the thing every person needs to overcome if they expect to be a writer (in the public sense of the word): getting beyond the fear that you will anger or embarrass your family, and speak from a site of truth and strength. let come what may. this is a very very VERY hard thing to do. very.

i love my family. of course i want them to be proud of me, the work i do, and the person i am. we've been through a lot of shit together and have come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of what it is to be resilient, capable, and how to truly practice forgiveness. still, there are some stories that need to be told. they need to be told because silence seems to have (strangely) become the dominant mode of our era. these stories we have need to be shared. and when i stumble across a piece of writing that i am able to see my own life story in, i feel such a huge comfort. i become stronger. i become more confident, more able to not only stand up for the rights of others, but also for my own. i also become more able to forgive, to see the other side. silence prevents forgiveness.

and so, i must find a way to let my words and work keep their wings. i must find a way to shake off fear, run right through it, and just keep digging digging digging. it is a strange world and a strange life and our stories have such value, such power, such music in them. i want to be strong enough to let that fact sit on high and not apologize for the life i have lived and the life i have found as a result.

and so it begins...

stumbled across this first thing.

:)


yesterday, with all my pictures back in my care, piled in to the car, i drove back across the golden gate bridge in to the wide green of the countryside. the light, all yellow. the light, all golden. tunnels to honk a horn in. and still, the heavy sadness. again, the heavy sadness. strange how that emotion staples itself to even good decisions.

i have not lost sight of the positivity of this action. my words and my face and my name and all the things that pour out of my hands are mine. mine alone. and maybe it's the alone part i don't like. it is scary sometimes. but i am reaching toward it and trying to be fearless, trying to look at nothing else but THE FACTS and THE FACTS are that i love what i do, i believe in it and i want to live inside it every single day and i want to see where these tangled roads lead. i want to find a deep courage within myself and i want to hold tight to integrity and love and honor. there will be sacrifices. yes yes yes there will be. lots. and lots of times when i feel afraid and incapable of rising to the challenge in front of me.

our fair elisabeth left a comment yesterday about the need for space. i readily agreed with her because i felt deep in my heart that it is true. and her comment stuck with me for the rest of the day. it followed me to bed. and as i lay there, wrapped in a black quilt, smelling the graphite in its pocks and dimples, under the black of eyelids, i realized i'm afraid of having lots of space. i'm afraid of claiming something i desperately need. my tendency/training kicks in and i feel i am being selfish. or just plain lonely.

it is a lonely road at times, but here i am. and i will allow myself the privileged/necessity to scream in my new wide-open space if i need to. i will allow myself the luxury of making an ass of myself if i need to. and i will roll around in all these words and images and fears until the heat of my struggle and flailing makes them congeal, gives them form, sends sparks off my body and burns my eyes from their bright glare.

my friend said to me: i am so interested to see where you will go from here.

me too. i am summoning the courage for that battle right now.

crochet hook? check.
paint brush? check.
pencil? check.
punk rock? check.

and this day will awake with my two Miss Smiths: Patti and Kiki, side by side, hugs and middle fingers aimed at the world, poems tumbling and a winning smile. :)

the new road opens.

this road

i ran out of my delicious hazelnut and walked down to the market to buy more. on the way, i saw a hand painted sign in the window of a boarded up (papered up? sheets of white butcher paper on the inside of the windows) storefront that read closed for renovations in quite a lovely, humble, careful script. the letters were a dusty red on a flat white background. it looked like whoever painted it really took their time- no drips, no sloppy edges with the brush. and it reminded me of margaret kilgallen's work- her fascination with the signs people make for their small business, hand-made cultures, the beauty that follows actions of necessity. and i stopped to look at the sign again on my way back home. it's very simple but something in it spoke very loudly to me about my own life and struggle and pursuits at the moment.

closed for renovation.

i guess that's how i feel right now.

especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...

but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.

i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.

i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.

simultaneously scary and exciting.

but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.

i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.

i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.

i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.

and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.

i am trying to ignore fear.

i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".

maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.

the facts

i've been a good girl since last october when the diagnosis came. resisted the urge to go online and freak myself out by reading the research available about pancreatic cancer.

but i've stopped being a good girl. it's a member of my immediate family. i am reading it. i know what the statistics are.

relatives have been calling, getting in touch through Facebook, reaching out to me and my siblings.

based on what i've read, surviving this since october is, itself, a miracle.

i am so grateful for that.

and also, for as hard and painful and scary as this whole thing is, i'm grateful for being forced to look at mortality close-up, in a new way- a way that is biological, not theoretical. it's easy to expound upon the horrors of the world from a safe distance. theories show their holes when you get up-close and personal. the importance of love and hope starts to shimmer. the shimmer builds in to a beautiful shine. we begin to twinkle in our moments together. we begin to feel thankful. certain histories finally find a resting place.

other histories don't. beasts i thought had been conquered, or at least put in to a deep, unbreakable hibernation, have come slinking out of their caves. the beasts awaken. writhe. scream. blood in their mouths and caked to the claw.

i feel lost some days. i spend a lot of time feeling afraid of the world but, somehow, still loving it. somehow, still wanting to help. somehow, not sarcastic. still... this weighty fear. fear that i will make the wrong decision, the wrong turn, waste my time, waste the time of others, and staring with my gaping O of a mouth at how horribly short Time is.

all i can think some days is hurry hurry, get the paintings out so she can see them. so she can see i accomplished something. so she can be proud of me.

there are lots of mornings when i want to ignore the alarm clock. i hear it and think what's the fucking point? plenty of mornings where i wake up feeling so stunted and small, just like a little girl. floundering and frail and just so bent up by fear. the dark. no night-light. no angels. no open door. there are mornings i wake up crying.

i reach for my notebook. i reach for my pencils. i make drawings.

the amazing/odd thing about it, is that i'm doing the best work i've ever done. at least that's the way it looks to my eye. somehow this fear has armed me with an unexpected drive to push the work further, go deeper, take chances, be brave in a way i hadn't yet learned to do.

there is a lot of anger in it. there is a lot of sadness. but i think there's also a lot of hope.

it's the hope that lives in these pieces that are the most important part. it is the portion of the work that i am most proud of. it is the site i try to lay down in. i live so far away from her.

since the beginning it seems, our little family has been a magnet for tragedy. i know we're not exceptional in that. tragedy is not as rare as people like to believe it is. nevertheless, the division and splintering and unfixable things that have resulted are really hard to look at some days.

the divorce. the swimming accident. my father. ambulances. hospitals. halo bolted to skull. poverty. ugliness. abuses. falling in with a bad crowd. bad mean boyfriend. scary situations. and then the work of repairing one's mind, one's broken heart, one's dream of life. and now cancer. now chemo.

these are the things i'm writing about in The Letter- the 9,000 words that have been typed out and are morphing in to something else. i have no clue what yet but it just keeps on pouring pouring pouring on days when i'm strong enough to be a vehicle for it.

this is the well that all the new work is rising from.

and the new work brings me closer to the kind of artist i want to be. the kind of human i want to be. to find a way to create some sort of beneficial, hopeful thing out of all this. but it also leads me away from certain ideas, certain places. it has to. it's unavoidable. the lineage has become clearer.

it's time to take certain risks.

it's scary and sad and overwhelming, but it's also a very positive action. ask any baby bird about the terror of the free fall when they are first urged out of the nest. that's the stage i'm in. it is a necessary stage.

because if i say i mean it and i say i believe in the power and worth of art and i say art saves lives, then i am charged to follow a particular road. a road that has all sorts of barricades across it and all sorts of pitfalls and potholes, a road that has no caution signs, a road that will be dark and lonely at times. but i must follow it. i must. i have to try to be brave. and so i cut away my safety net, in spite of all the things that are going on within my family... or maybe because of them. maybe it is because i see how short and uncertain a single life is. how full of opportunity, how full of chance, how full of the inexplicable...

i've asked to be released from my contract. the gallery agrees it is time. it is sad for both of us even though it is best for both of us. we've been building toward this moment for a year. it's time for this baby bird to jump. it's good to have support in this. it's good to find myself in the position to take a good hard look at my work and the kind of artist i am. this is an opportunity for me to get very specific about my goals as an artist, to work and struggle as hard as i can. i'm lucky to have so much encouragement from the people in my life. i'm lucky for the open door that remains. i'm lucky to have the friendship and support i've received. i'm very lucky.

and mostly, lucky to have art in my life. this outlet. this desire to make maps out of all these things. maps and poems and portraits. documents of hope. documents of desire. documents of my passage through this world. i am not joking when i say ART SAVES LIVES. it does. it has saved mine, over and over again, since the very beginning. and i am blessed.

i am very very very blessed.