greenery

the light this morning is beautiful.

i stumble around, undressed, enjoying the simple fact of where i am: the hard wood floor under my feet and the empty stretcher bars leaning against the wall, a huge drawing in its infancy laying on the living room floor. the only furniture we have are two huge bookcases - one in the living room and one in the bedroom - and the chest of drawers and hope chest i inherited from my mom a few years ago when she was first thinning out her possessions in preparation for her move to tennessee. other than our massive collection of books and all the art and art supplies that follow me around, it is pretty spare here. i must say i rather enjoy it. i like having less.

yesterday, i ran a round The Lake again. 3+ miles of sweat and hard breath, hopscotching around and over huge piles of goose shit. i had no idea canada geese were so filthy but they are. canine sized shits only green from all the horrible algae they slurp up. and EVERYWHERE. my god. nevertheless, a beautiful place and an amazing run. it is the perfect distance. it is just a bit longer than what my endurance likes and that's a good thing. i have to push myself to finish and i feel happy as i make my way back around to my starting place. i feel happy as i run, lost in all my daydreams and plans, turning over each thought like a stone. i will run again this afternoon. this morning is for crocheting roses and drinking lady grey tea.

i sit here with kate's postcard from scandinavia next to me. the smooth design of the postage stamps make me yearn for an adventure of my own. new languages in my ear and new fruit in my stomach, dusty museums to wander through, words i can't understand and a train ticket in my hand. ahhhh... one day soon, i hope. i am so horribly un-traveled. this must be remedied.

it is the last day of june. we have lived through, miraculously, the first 6 months of this year. we have 6 more to go. i found my notebook from last december and looked at my list of new year's resolutions. i've accomplished a good number of them but most no longer fit who i've become. rather than scratch them off the list, i'll make a new one. a new list for the second half of the year. it'll help me know where i am, where i've come from, where i need to go.

i read kate's book and see myself tucked in the corners of so many words. maybe not as green, but green nonetheless. i'm not ashamed, just surprised. how could it be that i am still a bit naive? still wondering who i am and who i should be? still trying to darken my own outline and distinguish myself from what i was taught to be.

last night i sat and read her book in public when i probably should've been making eye contact and smiling and being approachable. it might've been rather rude of me to sit there with my nose stuck in a book but how does one tear oneself away when they are reading the curve of their own story?

i bounce back and forth between it and volume 3 of anais nin's diary. my lineage flowers in front of my eyes and it is a gorgeous, angry, swirling thing. magical and fantastic, romantic, inspired, and just so damn smart!




where are you, now, 6 months in? are you a list maker too? what do you want to do?

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.

yes. you.

lately our ideas have been sprawled in the same field. or turning cartwheels. or screaming for attention. or screaming in to a pillow. or kicking our feet, ill-behaved children throwing a temper tantrum, trying trying trying to find a way to say what we're all thinking, what we're all after, and from a thousand different vantage points, a thousand different diamond shards circling our heads and landing in each other's eyes. and sometimes it hurts and sometimes it is beautiful. and so i followed your lead and i went to the used book store yesterday and got my very own copy of The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras. i was up til midnight. i read the entire thing all in one hot, addicted shot. and instantly i felt such a strange and bonded lineage. i saw the contours of it. i saw that it exists even if i can't name it. maybe the name doesn't matter. and i immediately thought of The Bell Jar and The Piano Teacher. they are sitting side by side in my book case and this book will be slid in next to them. and yes- the easy corollary of insanity- but rather... fragility. how a person is damaged. how deep damage can be. that fragility, that search for the one right word that would explain our damage, make it okay, make it understood. that right word that would erase the shame that follows fragility.

thank you all for referencing these books on your blogs and for bringing Duras to my attention.