upon deciding to move to new york...

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...and creating a life that feels right for me.




the tickets are bought.  New York, here i come.  :)

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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.

 

 

THE DREADED UNKNOWN! THE DREADED KNOWN!

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i went to my little storage unit earlier today for the first time in 10 months.  so many of the objects seemed like they didn't belong to me.  or couldn't.  but they did.  they do.  and i've been paying rent for them to be kept safely somewhere for the passed year. 

it is a strange time-capsule.  an odd window in to a different era, a different heart.  after i turned my key in the padlock and swung the big, white door open i felt as if i was looking at someone else's belongings.  in so many ways, i was.  i am.  i took one small carload of boxes and artwork back to my house.  as i unpacked, i came across such a funny and weird assortment of shit from my past.  numerous lives!  it made me laugh joyfully to pull a two dollar bill (with red and black ink print) from the lowest drawer of my black Japanese jewelery box.  i dumped the contents of the entire thing on to the floor, cleaned the drawers and hinges of a year's worth of dust, then rooted through the tarnished pieces. 

i made a massive pile of trinkets i'm definitely not interested in wearing anymore, i'll say that much! ha! i looked at the glittering heap on the floor in front of me and felt next to no attachment to any of it.  i'll keep the pieces of jewelery my mother gave me even though it's of a style i no longer wear.   there is the necklace she gave me for my 16th birthday.  here is the necklace she gave me when i graduated from High School.  and here, the necklace she gave me when i graduated from college.  when she died, i took a few of her necklaces.  not because i wanted to wear them, i just wanted them near.  like a Bible.  amulets.  talismans.  and who knows?  maybe the future will give me occasion to wear these necklaces again. 

but i digress.

i didn't remember how much stuff i'd managed to cram inside such a tiny unit.  i rented the smallest one available!  my crap is really shoe-horned in, let me tell you.  it's going to take a few more trips to get this all sorted out.  most of which will be left on Oakland street corners or given to the Goodwill.  i don't want it.  i don't identify with it.  i have no feeling for most of what i've saved.  i want to be rid of it and have a clear, wide expanse in front of me upon which i may build a new life, a new future, a better, more honest Self.  i don't want the anchors of The Past pulling at the corners of my eyes, the corners of my heart.  i don't need the barbs and burrs. i don't need or want the attachments.  it's truly just stuff.  and mostly annoyances.

but my books.  god, my books!!!  i've missed them so much!  i brought two boxes home with me today.  i found the boxes that held my kiki smith and louise bourgeouis monographs and also my collection of jean genet's writings.  i've been wanting to re-read The Theif's Journal since i embarked upon an idependant life a year ago.  i need to have it around me, again, like a Bible.  i need the reminder of his fearlessness, the illustrations of his philosophic bravery and poetic swagger. 

right now, i am uploading my cd collection in to my laptop.  soon, i'll be able to relish in the sounds of my brilliant music collection as i stomp back and forth across Oakland and San Francisco.  i've been without Fugazi and Tori Amos and En Vouge and TOOL for a year!   a fucking year!  it's so good to have my music collection here in front of me.  it is an ecstasy, truly. 

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the future grins from its dark corner.  change is afoot.  there is no reason to think his grin is sinister.  he is merely chuckling at the surprises he knows are in store for us and of which we will be amazed and glad - these same things which we (i too) are afraid of now.  the Unknown is a scary motherfucking thing,  but i feel the fear and barrel forward anyway.  like my friend said "get busy living or get busy dying".

it's easier now that i have music to do it to.  ;)



let's live, kid.