.
languidly waking this morning next to Brian, i rolled over and looked at his sleeping face and thought, "my mom would've really liked you." i smiled and rubbed his head and closed my eyes. it wasn't until another several hours had passed that i realized what day it is. it is the fourth anniversary of my mother's death.
i was shocked that it wasn't the first thing i thought of today. perhaps it's a sign that my life is no longer dominated by her death. i think she'd be happy about that. i think she'd be relieved that i am not walking around crying behind my sunglasses the way i used to, a calm demeanor presented to the world but wanting to be just as dead as she is in the aftermath of her loss. my entire physicality felt like one big gaping wound. sometimes, it still does. i don't think i'll ever reach a day when her death doesn't cause pain. i miss her incredibly and the world is a drastically different place without her in it. her absence is so palpable some days, so pronounced... how unfair it all is, how awful. there's no way around it. it directly effects the decisions i make. her early death brought me face to face with the reality of my own mortality and it's impossible for me to take it lightly.
i wrote in my diary like i do every morning then went for a run. i wanted to feel my body move. i wanted to breathe heavy and feel blood coursing fast throughout my body. i wanted to feel my legs getting tired and yet push myself to meet the challenge i'd set for myself. i wanted to feel young and alive and beautiful. i wanted to appreciate being in the world.
afterward, i bought myself a new tube of lipstick. hot pink. a celebration of life and vitality; an honoring of our shared brevity and a recognition of the fact that life is too short to not live boldly. that's what lipstick symbolizes for me. when my mother was feeling sad, she'd go to the drugstore and buy herself a new tube of lipstick.
.
i wish she were here.
i wish she could see me.
i wish she could see what i've accomplished in the last four years and how far i've come.
i wish she could see the portrait i drew of her.
i wish she could meet Brian and hear him sing.
i wish i could talk to her.
i wish i could just talk to her.
.
i feel very alone in this big world sometimes. it makes me want to run from people i love because i'm afraid of losing them too. i didn't realize that i have this fear until recently... that i would rather push people away and keep them at a distance than get close and deal with losing them. there is a part of me that somehow believes that everyone i love is going to go away. i know that isn't true but it's my little girl voice speaking. it's the little girl in me that still believes i'll never be good enough... that somehow i'm unlovable and i'll never belong anywhere... and i don't have a mama to run to to scratch my back and tell me otherwise.
but i have a lover who loves me.
i have friends that love me.
i have a brother and a sister who love me and know exactly what i'm talking about when i say the things that make other people too sad or too scared or too uncomfortable to keep listening. brian too. he has cried with me and it is such a comfort to me. it means i wasn't wrong or crazy for wanting to cry about the bad things that have happened. it means things really were that bad and i perceived it all correctly. it means i should've never been made to feel ashamed in the moments when i did cry.
and i have Vermont and the awakening that happened there:
my sister pointed out to me how pronounced it was that i quit drawing after our mother's death. instantly. i dove headlong into my crochet practice. it was such a powerful thing to stand alone in my huge studio that night in Johnson, VT and draw her portrait. our portrait. it unlocked the floodgates and drawing after drawing spilled out of me after that. a big part of myself healed.
today, i made a small linocut of an iceberg. i stamped it out 20 times. the iceberg is a strange sort of metaphor for me, a self-portrait of mine. the iceberg is the middle child.
there are still so many secrets
but i am finding ways to tell them.
i am finding roads out of silence.
i am finding roads toward courage.
i am more myself than i have ever been and, despite the brutality of her loss, my mother's death worked to teach me how absolutely imperative it is that i BE MYSELF, that i live honestly and bravely, that i keep putting one foot in front of the other, that i must will myself to be undaunted and to build the life i want for myself. her death taught me that there isn't always going to be another Tomorrow. if there is something one NEEDS to do, it's best to do it now.
.
my mother used to wear a lipstick named Yummy Plummy. i stole it from the bathroom the day she died. it's in my makeup bag. i never wore lipstick before she died. now, i twist the hot pink bar of my new lipstick and paint my mouth and allow myself to languish for a moment in the pleasure of being alive.
.
Showing posts with label mortality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mortality. Show all posts
Jan 12, 2015
Feb 27, 2014
just to be asked...
sitting in my kitchen, annie lennox on the little boombox we keep on the counter by the window. everyone else is asleep. and my mind turns to a few nights ago when a man sat in the chair next to where i'm sitting now and asked me about my mother. this song was playing and i relayed the story of when i visited my mother for the first time in Tennessee. it was just after her 55th birthday and the chemo had really started to kick in. one evening, my stepfather made good on their deal to buzz her head once the drugs made her hair begin to fall out. they walked into the kitchen together and he sat her down on a stool, wrapped a white sheet around her thin shoulders just like a barber, and turned on his clippers. i walked away. i hid in the guest room. i told myself that, as an artist at least, i should witness this. i told myself that, as a woman, i should witness this pain, know this horror and keep the record. i walked down the hallway and crossed the living room. i stood for a few long, horrible seconds in the entry way to the kitchen. i saw my mother's head bent over like a school boy's, head shorn and bowed obediently. i can't tell you what happened in my heart then. i can't tell you. english doesn't have the words...
when she came out of the kitchen, she went straight to her bedroom and put on a men's white button-down shirt. then she went to the bathroom and put on dramatic eye make-up and lipstick. Yummy Plummy by maybelliene. her favorite. when she walked in to the living room and sat next to me on the couch and sighed, i said, "mama, you look like annie lennox!" she smiled wide and i wanted to cry but i smiled wide right back. i smiled wide and wanted her to just go on feeling beautiful and bold. i didn't want any standard to dissuade her- she WAS beautiful and for once in her life i wanted her to not argue with it. not even in the hands of cancer and the horror that it offers.
i told this story to a man in my kitchen the other evening and he might actually be the only man i've ever known to sit and listen to these things. this is an important happening. it flips my ideas all around. so few people have let me speak to them about my mother's death. even fewer have initiated that discussion. how can i explain how necessary it is to speak about this horror? i can't shake a person's shoulders hard enough. i can't cry loud enough. i can't scream and kick and beg enough. there is no language for it. there is only the moment that sweeps in so unexpectedly... an annie lennox song playing in the background, wine in the glass, an open ear, an open heart, a willingness to let another human being know they aren't sitting at the table alone, and that there are enough scars between the two of us to be able to look at each other squarely when she sings, "this kind of trouble's only just begun."
and then a breath...
and then she sings...
"i tell myself too many times 'why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?'"...
and my entire being shakes.
goddamn... the secrets i keep.
i feel so embarrassed sometimes. and so often, i wonder if i've said something wrong... done something wrong... maybe was just BORN wrong... inefficient or defective... made for a different world...
and i know none of that's true. it's the old training kicking in. the training which has me rushing to smile wide and proud and warm in those difficult moments... in those moments when i KNOW that's what the Other needs to see...
to be asked about her...
just to be asked is a tremendous thing.
and when she sings, "i don't think you know what i feel. i don't think you know what i feel. i don't think you know what i fear. you don't know what i fear."
i'm tired of having so many opportunities to say the same thing.
to be asked is a tremendous thing.
.
when she came out of the kitchen, she went straight to her bedroom and put on a men's white button-down shirt. then she went to the bathroom and put on dramatic eye make-up and lipstick. Yummy Plummy by maybelliene. her favorite. when she walked in to the living room and sat next to me on the couch and sighed, i said, "mama, you look like annie lennox!" she smiled wide and i wanted to cry but i smiled wide right back. i smiled wide and wanted her to just go on feeling beautiful and bold. i didn't want any standard to dissuade her- she WAS beautiful and for once in her life i wanted her to not argue with it. not even in the hands of cancer and the horror that it offers.
i told this story to a man in my kitchen the other evening and he might actually be the only man i've ever known to sit and listen to these things. this is an important happening. it flips my ideas all around. so few people have let me speak to them about my mother's death. even fewer have initiated that discussion. how can i explain how necessary it is to speak about this horror? i can't shake a person's shoulders hard enough. i can't cry loud enough. i can't scream and kick and beg enough. there is no language for it. there is only the moment that sweeps in so unexpectedly... an annie lennox song playing in the background, wine in the glass, an open ear, an open heart, a willingness to let another human being know they aren't sitting at the table alone, and that there are enough scars between the two of us to be able to look at each other squarely when she sings, "this kind of trouble's only just begun."
and then a breath...
and then she sings...
"i tell myself too many times 'why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?'"...
and my entire being shakes.
goddamn... the secrets i keep.
i feel so embarrassed sometimes. and so often, i wonder if i've said something wrong... done something wrong... maybe was just BORN wrong... inefficient or defective... made for a different world...
and i know none of that's true. it's the old training kicking in. the training which has me rushing to smile wide and proud and warm in those difficult moments... in those moments when i KNOW that's what the Other needs to see...
to be asked about her...
just to be asked is a tremendous thing.
and when she sings, "i don't think you know what i feel. i don't think you know what i feel. i don't think you know what i fear. you don't know what i fear."
i'm tired of having so many opportunities to say the same thing.
to be asked is a tremendous thing.
.
Jan 2, 2014
YOLO
.
58th @ telegraph
oakland, CA 2014
walking home in the cold tonight through oakland, i came across a couch that had been abandonned on the side of the road and totally stripped of its skin. perfect canvas for an Ode to David Wojnarowicz. this is an action i've been taking for close to two years now. the text is taken from his essay THE SUICIDE OF A GUY WHO ONCE BUILT A SHRINE OVER A MOUSE HOLE which is one of the most affective, searing personal essays i've ever read. David Wojnarowicz is one of my most favorite artists. an instant beloved and i ache for his loss. the art and writing he left in his wake is beyond tremendous and i am inspired every day by his endless bravery and daring. he was in touch with his own mortality the way few people are and, fearlessly, the man created and loved and didn't apologize for either of those things. if you haven't read the essay, get your hands on it. get your hands on any/all of his work. because make no mistake: one day this is going to be YOU, friend. each and every last one of us is going to meet our end.
SMELL THE FLOWERS WHILE YOU CAN.
.
oakland, CA 2014
walking home in the cold tonight through oakland, i came across a couch that had been abandonned on the side of the road and totally stripped of its skin. perfect canvas for an Ode to David Wojnarowicz. this is an action i've been taking for close to two years now. the text is taken from his essay THE SUICIDE OF A GUY WHO ONCE BUILT A SHRINE OVER A MOUSE HOLE which is one of the most affective, searing personal essays i've ever read. David Wojnarowicz is one of my most favorite artists. an instant beloved and i ache for his loss. the art and writing he left in his wake is beyond tremendous and i am inspired every day by his endless bravery and daring. he was in touch with his own mortality the way few people are and, fearlessly, the man created and loved and didn't apologize for either of those things. if you haven't read the essay, get your hands on it. get your hands on any/all of his work. because make no mistake: one day this is going to be YOU, friend. each and every last one of us is going to meet our end.
SMELL THE FLOWERS WHILE YOU CAN.
.
Oct 14, 2013
yeah, i said it
.
tonight, i think "fuck grad school"...
tomorrow i'll probabaly think different.
and next week i'll be in anguish.
because how fucking long am i gonna hem and haw over this shit?
how many weeks/months/years
because before i know it i'll be 50
and before i know it i'll be 60...
or at least, i fucking HOPE i'll be 60...
you know my mother died a week before her 56th birthday, right? it's gonna feel really fucking weird when i turn 56. if i am so lucky. because i assure you, all youzzz who are over 55 and are reading this are LUCKY. it's true. so isn't it totally stupid that at the age of 33 i'm worried that i'm somehow passed my "prime". fucking stupid. because i assure anyone that may need assurance, i live on the edge of my prime. my feet are hardly wet. i love this place where i stand. how is it that inadequacy finds me? how is it i ever feel unsure? how is it i look at my eyes in the mirror and search for the crow's feet???
AS IF THAT SHIT MEANS A FUCKING THING!
i will tell you right now, crow's feet don't make a shit bit of difference when we're talking about ANYTHING that actually matters and is worth discussion. a wrinkle don't mean a thing when we're talking about art and it don't mean a thing when you're bleeding out (or over, or on) a poem (writer or reader). a fucking wrinkle won't get in the way of any type of real beauty, not for a second, and it sure as shit won't make me look any less magical, any less spectacular, any less worthy of idols fashioned in my likeness when i'm sucking your cock. just saying. and if that's crude, if that's distasteful, i really don't give a shit. i truly don't care. because anyone who's got a cock i should be sucking wouldn't be offended by anything i've just said at all. in fact, they'd get hard. and for more than the obvious reason. i let some twisted ass suburban version of spirituality pervert my view of Self for far too long and i've been listening to britney spears and drinking vodka all night. just a regular sunday night. i've been getting my hands dirty with graphite and thanking my lucky stars that i'm not trapped in the life that was (once upon a time) laid out for me. some life of bitching at each other... some life of being told what to do and how to be. come on now. i ain't my mama. i don't get told what to do. i loved that woman, be sure, but she wasn't perfect. and all us girls are allowed, at a certain point, to critique our mothers (dead or not), to see them as women, and to determine for ourselves who we will be despite the crazy shit they taught us. it doesn't make me love my mother any less and it surely doesn't make me miss her any less to tell you that she fucked me up. she did. so did my dad. that's what parents do. i am not minimizing ANYTHING. because the truth is that some parents fucked their kids up way more than others. *cough cough*
but this isn't about blame. it's about singularity and how to bare it. how to walk with one's head held high amidst the onslaught of judgement flooding forth from the most unsupposed places and people. it's about fear; the horrible nagging fear that maybe your best just plain sucks. it's about the strain and stress of looking at one's own life and wondering what the fuck avenue to cruise down next.
don't you know i just want to run to you, curl up against you, feel that tremendously beautiful heat that i cannot provide myself regardless of how hard i try, and spin in that beautiful ache of pleasure and pain and need. don't you know that your face in my hands is the only image i actually think sacred? don't you know that when you slapped my face, i found completion, and all i want is to curl at your feet and whisper all my secrets across your toes. i'll scratch your back and play your favorite song on repeat...
or at least, i would...
if i were as brave as i try to be.
tonight i think "fuck it all".
tonight i think, "just tell everyone you love that you love them".
and really, who gives a shit if you've got a line at the corner of your eye. girl, keep smiling. you've got every reason. it makes you more beautiful anyway. that's what i've been telling myself all day. even though my life has been what it's been, i've got every reason to smile, the least of which is that it makes other humans want to be around me and i really like hugs and scritches.
curl up with me. let me scratch your back. come watch me draw pictures. come drink my vodka. come help me practice my german and french. come dance.
.
tonight, i think "fuck grad school"...
tomorrow i'll probabaly think different.
and next week i'll be in anguish.
because how fucking long am i gonna hem and haw over this shit?
how many weeks/months/years
because before i know it i'll be 50
and before i know it i'll be 60...
or at least, i fucking HOPE i'll be 60...
you know my mother died a week before her 56th birthday, right? it's gonna feel really fucking weird when i turn 56. if i am so lucky. because i assure you, all youzzz who are over 55 and are reading this are LUCKY. it's true. so isn't it totally stupid that at the age of 33 i'm worried that i'm somehow passed my "prime". fucking stupid. because i assure anyone that may need assurance, i live on the edge of my prime. my feet are hardly wet. i love this place where i stand. how is it that inadequacy finds me? how is it i ever feel unsure? how is it i look at my eyes in the mirror and search for the crow's feet???
AS IF THAT SHIT MEANS A FUCKING THING!
i will tell you right now, crow's feet don't make a shit bit of difference when we're talking about ANYTHING that actually matters and is worth discussion. a wrinkle don't mean a thing when we're talking about art and it don't mean a thing when you're bleeding out (or over, or on) a poem (writer or reader). a fucking wrinkle won't get in the way of any type of real beauty, not for a second, and it sure as shit won't make me look any less magical, any less spectacular, any less worthy of idols fashioned in my likeness when i'm sucking your cock. just saying. and if that's crude, if that's distasteful, i really don't give a shit. i truly don't care. because anyone who's got a cock i should be sucking wouldn't be offended by anything i've just said at all. in fact, they'd get hard. and for more than the obvious reason. i let some twisted ass suburban version of spirituality pervert my view of Self for far too long and i've been listening to britney spears and drinking vodka all night. just a regular sunday night. i've been getting my hands dirty with graphite and thanking my lucky stars that i'm not trapped in the life that was (once upon a time) laid out for me. some life of bitching at each other... some life of being told what to do and how to be. come on now. i ain't my mama. i don't get told what to do. i loved that woman, be sure, but she wasn't perfect. and all us girls are allowed, at a certain point, to critique our mothers (dead or not), to see them as women, and to determine for ourselves who we will be despite the crazy shit they taught us. it doesn't make me love my mother any less and it surely doesn't make me miss her any less to tell you that she fucked me up. she did. so did my dad. that's what parents do. i am not minimizing ANYTHING. because the truth is that some parents fucked their kids up way more than others. *cough cough*
but this isn't about blame. it's about singularity and how to bare it. how to walk with one's head held high amidst the onslaught of judgement flooding forth from the most unsupposed places and people. it's about fear; the horrible nagging fear that maybe your best just plain sucks. it's about the strain and stress of looking at one's own life and wondering what the fuck avenue to cruise down next.
don't you know i just want to run to you, curl up against you, feel that tremendously beautiful heat that i cannot provide myself regardless of how hard i try, and spin in that beautiful ache of pleasure and pain and need. don't you know that your face in my hands is the only image i actually think sacred? don't you know that when you slapped my face, i found completion, and all i want is to curl at your feet and whisper all my secrets across your toes. i'll scratch your back and play your favorite song on repeat...
or at least, i would...
if i were as brave as i try to be.
tonight i think "fuck it all".
tonight i think, "just tell everyone you love that you love them".
and really, who gives a shit if you've got a line at the corner of your eye. girl, keep smiling. you've got every reason. it makes you more beautiful anyway. that's what i've been telling myself all day. even though my life has been what it's been, i've got every reason to smile, the least of which is that it makes other humans want to be around me and i really like hugs and scritches.
curl up with me. let me scratch your back. come watch me draw pictures. come drink my vodka. come help me practice my german and french. come dance.
.
Aug 16, 2013
impotent dick
okay, okay... so i have a bit of a habit. me and my big black marker possess quite an affinity for abandoned furniture. i just can't help it. :)
in honor of David Wojnarowicz
58th Street Oakland, CA
August 15th, 2013
the flash blew out the black lines of the text but whatever. this isn't an art that cares about being pretty. in fact, prettiness is the least of its concerns. the uglier the better, actually. as human beings, we spend substantially more time discussing, dissecting, analysing, and assessing the "ugly" than we do the "beautiful". that's an observation i can use as a tool and my aching heart simply won't let me walk passed an opportunity to get a little ink out in the world.
i actually walked passed this loveseat and made it all the way to the next block before the hook got in, whipped me around, and lured me back. it's impossible to resist such a big, open canvas when i've got my Sharpie Magnum in my bag. :) especially after having sucked down a Corona after work and walked a mile from the train after waiting tables for 6 hours and all i can think of are the hands that aren't on my tits and the tongue that isn't in my mouth, my empty bed and my dead mother and how totally fucking angry me and my siblings are, how totally angry me and everyone else is. at least half the time. because at least half the time we all feel like we're caught in some sorta crazy shit that is spinning well beyond our control and IF we're not allowed to have control then let's get a little out of fucking control. why not? just once. just for a minute. let's see what it's like. let's see if it feels good. let's see if the house really burns down. let's call bullshit on the threats. let's see if the rules really exist or if its just impotent dick. because i learned the hard way what being "good" gets me. scraps just like any other begging dog and no closer to claiming a seat in any supposed heaven.
it isn't bitterness.
and so i sat down on the edge of this loveseat abandoned on the street and i searched and searched and searched for my big black marker in the crazy abyss of my big black bag. it took a while to root it out but i wasn't in a hurry. one of my favorite things about being a Grown Up is the fact that i'm allowed to be out at night. i love walking around my beloved oakland after midnight when everything is slow and dark and romantic. i love the way streetlamps make everything beautiful; lonely in that way that makes the tears sting... that unnamable heartache that lives within us all...
it isn't bitterness, it's heartache.
i take out my marker and i think of my mother. i think of all the things she wanted to do. i remember David Wojnarowicz and how adamant he was, how dedicated and in love with Art, how totally convinced he was that humanity matters and that we all have a right to live, not just march toward our End. i think of what a minimal effort it takes to simply REACH IN YOUR BAG AND GET YOUR PEN, GIRL and i write the words.
i write the words because words make the world. and i want to be in control of the world that i'm making for myself. i want to see myself sitting securely below the lamplight on a dark street after midnight writing the mantra of a dead artist on a dead loveseat. i want to see myself alive and moving, passionate and reaching toward the world. fuck it if i make a mistake. fuck it if the rules are real after all. i can't stand the thought of dying before i've actually managed to say something.
it isn't bitterness, it's heartache. it's the heartache born of realizing our time is too short and a day will never be longer than it is and later this week the loveseat will be hauled away to the dump where it will be hacked in to pieces by a man with a big bad axe. and that's exactly the point. one day, that's gonna be me too. and you.
.
58th Street Oakland, CA
August 15th, 2013
the flash blew out the black lines of the text but whatever. this isn't an art that cares about being pretty. in fact, prettiness is the least of its concerns. the uglier the better, actually. as human beings, we spend substantially more time discussing, dissecting, analysing, and assessing the "ugly" than we do the "beautiful". that's an observation i can use as a tool and my aching heart simply won't let me walk passed an opportunity to get a little ink out in the world.
i actually walked passed this loveseat and made it all the way to the next block before the hook got in, whipped me around, and lured me back. it's impossible to resist such a big, open canvas when i've got my Sharpie Magnum in my bag. :) especially after having sucked down a Corona after work and walked a mile from the train after waiting tables for 6 hours and all i can think of are the hands that aren't on my tits and the tongue that isn't in my mouth, my empty bed and my dead mother and how totally fucking angry me and my siblings are, how totally angry me and everyone else is. at least half the time. because at least half the time we all feel like we're caught in some sorta crazy shit that is spinning well beyond our control and IF we're not allowed to have control then let's get a little out of fucking control. why not? just once. just for a minute. let's see what it's like. let's see if it feels good. let's see if the house really burns down. let's call bullshit on the threats. let's see if the rules really exist or if its just impotent dick. because i learned the hard way what being "good" gets me. scraps just like any other begging dog and no closer to claiming a seat in any supposed heaven.
it isn't bitterness.
and so i sat down on the edge of this loveseat abandoned on the street and i searched and searched and searched for my big black marker in the crazy abyss of my big black bag. it took a while to root it out but i wasn't in a hurry. one of my favorite things about being a Grown Up is the fact that i'm allowed to be out at night. i love walking around my beloved oakland after midnight when everything is slow and dark and romantic. i love the way streetlamps make everything beautiful; lonely in that way that makes the tears sting... that unnamable heartache that lives within us all...
it isn't bitterness, it's heartache.
i take out my marker and i think of my mother. i think of all the things she wanted to do. i remember David Wojnarowicz and how adamant he was, how dedicated and in love with Art, how totally convinced he was that humanity matters and that we all have a right to live, not just march toward our End. i think of what a minimal effort it takes to simply REACH IN YOUR BAG AND GET YOUR PEN, GIRL and i write the words.
i write the words because words make the world. and i want to be in control of the world that i'm making for myself. i want to see myself sitting securely below the lamplight on a dark street after midnight writing the mantra of a dead artist on a dead loveseat. i want to see myself alive and moving, passionate and reaching toward the world. fuck it if i make a mistake. fuck it if the rules are real after all. i can't stand the thought of dying before i've actually managed to say something.
it isn't bitterness, it's heartache. it's the heartache born of realizing our time is too short and a day will never be longer than it is and later this week the loveseat will be hauled away to the dump where it will be hacked in to pieces by a man with a big bad axe. and that's exactly the point. one day, that's gonna be me too. and you.
.
Jun 18, 2013
so there
.
the entirety of any and all beauty i may contain or present is beholden to the fact that i am keenly aware of my own mortality and it is allowed to rest plainly upon my surface.
.
the entirety of any and all beauty i may contain or present is beholden to the fact that i am keenly aware of my own mortality and it is allowed to rest plainly upon my surface.
.
Jun 16, 2013
ghost love
i love being around people's mothers.
i love looking at pictures of people's mothers.
it's the closest i can come to looking at pictures of my own.
still, ma mere, the caught image of you sends me running.
i've learned how to keep a dry eye:
don't look at beautiful things
that pull the old heart strings
and which you'll never see again.
and so i bask in the smile of other people's mamas and feel absolutely real joy. i keep my own mother's image in my heart. especially when i look at the sky. i think of her when she was 19, walking cobblestone pathways in Germany, wearing her forest green velvet blazer. i can finally fit in to it. i wore it on thursday and thursday was the best day in the whole fucking world. :)
i love looking at pictures of people's mothers.
it's the closest i can come to looking at pictures of my own.
still, ma mere, the caught image of you sends me running.
i've learned how to keep a dry eye:
don't look at beautiful things
that pull the old heart strings
and which you'll never see again.
and so i bask in the smile of other people's mamas and feel absolutely real joy. i keep my own mother's image in my heart. especially when i look at the sky. i think of her when she was 19, walking cobblestone pathways in Germany, wearing her forest green velvet blazer. i can finally fit in to it. i wore it on thursday and thursday was the best day in the whole fucking world. :)
Jun 4, 2013
just the beginning
.
over a year in production, The Blanket of DOOM is finally finished. mostly. a few small tweaks here and there, a few loose yarn ends to be woven in to the grain of stitches, and a ton of photographs to take before i can legitimately refer to this project as Done. in fact, it could be quite some time before i see the end of this particular piece. the photo up top signals what i envision for The Blanket: a life prior to finding itself on display in a gallery. we'll see where we end up together. :)
but it is a happy moment to see her in all her good glory. so many long hours and evening spent hooking away at this piece. it is an expression of dedication and faith that, even if imperfect, the idea was a good one and to chase it to the end. there were plenty of times at the very beginning of this massive undertaking that i wanted to give up, unravel the entire thing, and focus on smaller projects. there were plenty of weeks when i didn't touch her at all. couldn't. even hated the idea of working on her. there were plenty of times when i dreaded the work that needed to be done. it seemed so endless. impossible.
when i finally reached the half-way mark, my hope and strength returned and i felt committed to seeing the project through to the end regardless of how it turned out. i no longer needed it to be any good and i just wanted to make the blanket for me. i began to see it as a landscape... a road... a way to learn something deeper about who i am and the type of artist and human i want to be. a poem to wrap myself in.
Lea had said to me once, "your work is so devotional." her voice came back to me so many times while i worked on The Blanket. what is Devotion? what is it to devote oneself to something? what does it require? it comes down to an unspeakable trust. i trust my work with all that i am and all that i've got. i entrusted my entire life and self to it a long time ago and haven't questioned it since. my road through this world might very well be different from others but it is a good one and my work has proven itself to be the very best map and guide.
the picture of me laying on top of the Blanket of DOOM was taken this morning in my kitchen. she takes up the entire floor. i'm 5'6". each letter in DIE is taller than i am. but the work has always been, and always will be, bigger than me and that has nothing to do with physical scale. :)
so happy i could DIE
crochet
kingsize blanket
angela simione, 2013
Apr 25, 2013
Jun 13, 2011
the luck of the thing
strangeness twined inside this light. suddenly she comes in her robes and curls, lip-sticked and smiling, that image that i've always had of her: full and bright and tall.
one of my aunts, one of my mother's sisters, had a heart attack and, though she is okay, it shakes us all so violently and the recent death we've all just seen comes flying up to face us again. we all become the mirror of it. we all walk around, mirrors on legs, shining the horror of it, the quickness and inexplicability of this damn life. too motherfucking short. should i be thankful to have learned this so early in life? or waste even more time than i already have on feeling cheated?
i make the sweaters. i work them like diaries. twist twist knot and turn. you will all at least have these peculiar objects to snuggle in and warm yourselves with when my day finally comes and i am gone. the sweaters and every image and every word i can muster. everything.
one of my aunts, one of my mother's sisters, had a heart attack and, though she is okay, it shakes us all so violently and the recent death we've all just seen comes flying up to face us again. we all become the mirror of it. we all walk around, mirrors on legs, shining the horror of it, the quickness and inexplicability of this damn life. too motherfucking short. should i be thankful to have learned this so early in life? or waste even more time than i already have on feeling cheated?
i make the sweaters. i work them like diaries. twist twist knot and turn. you will all at least have these peculiar objects to snuggle in and warm yourselves with when my day finally comes and i am gone. the sweaters and every image and every word i can muster. everything.
May 3, 2011
what if???
a few nights ago i watched Coco Avant Chanel and i've been thinking of it ever since. this orphan girl and her sister, both making their ways through the world, equal turns of generosity and brutality... the steep ups and downs that always seem to follow people with a creative mind. i found myself wondering as i went through my long day of school and work yesterday... is it harder for us? artists, i mean. is life harder for us? is it somehow more brutal? more affecting? i guess it is. i suppose it must to be. it must be and we must let it be if we expect to be able to do this Work. we have to be sensitive and open. we have to roll on the ground and expect to get splinters. we have to allow affliction, maybe even infection. there's no way around it. and, when i think about it, i'd want it no other way. if i turn my back and drop my eyes, i am no longer really living. i no longer have anything to say. yes, it sounds so dramatic and obnoxious and romantic, i know, but i think in this climate of strange silence and strangulation of ideas, suffocation of education, and the rampant acts of Stifling i see it becomes even more important for artists to NOT RUN. i have to risk being called "dramatic". i have to risk being called "romantic" and "obnoxious" if i am to get over the threshold, if i am to stumble in to a territory that is honest and brave. as i turned on to the freeway yesterday to head to work, i thought of my mom and i wondered if she knew it was coming so soon. death. i wondered what that would feel like to know in 3 weeks i'll be dead. would i be panicked? or would i be assured of what was right for me to to do? would i know exactly how to spend those final 21 days doing? i asked myself: what would i do if i knew i only had 3 weeks to live. i'd write and i'd draw with every fucking thing i've got.
so i guess i've got my compass.
i've been drawing since 8am and only stopped to eat a bowl of oatmeal and write this. i am in the drawing today. in love. when i've got a show on the horizon, my fire and hope really start to blaze.
3 weeks to go. BURN! BURN! BURN!
so i guess i've got my compass.
i've been drawing since 8am and only stopped to eat a bowl of oatmeal and write this. i am in the drawing today. in love. when i've got a show on the horizon, my fire and hope really start to blaze.
3 weeks to go. BURN! BURN! BURN!
Dec 10, 2010
"we are already ghosts"
her last post, very much a memento mori, bring shivers and shakes and that familiar, sad pull of helplessness. the hum in the back of your throat, the unanswerable why? i found out from rebecca yesterday that poet cami park has died. the news made my hands shake. i valued her and her work and her presence her in blogland. she and i had corresponded a few times and i sent her one of my prints and she had blogged about my work... i really, truly, deeply liked her. i wanted to know her better...
rebecca wrote a shivering post about cami's death. and then this morning, another post reminding us that the connections we make here in this strange world of text and light are just as real as the connections we make in the physical realm. maybe even more real, more true sometimes.
all these reminders recently of mortality, the shortness of time, the quickness, the rush, the spin. and illness. the tragedies that find us all, unbeckoned and unapologetic. my heart tears to pieces for her daughter. for her friends and family. for anyone who knew her and respected her. this, as winter rolls in. colder now because of her loss.
time is short. too short not to make as much art as you can and as many poems as you can and to fling these loves and fears and questions in to the world. too short to give too much of a fuck what others might say. do your best and GO.
i carry the sweet girl's name and words with me today, tonight, and on and on.
rebecca wrote a shivering post about cami's death. and then this morning, another post reminding us that the connections we make here in this strange world of text and light are just as real as the connections we make in the physical realm. maybe even more real, more true sometimes.
all these reminders recently of mortality, the shortness of time, the quickness, the rush, the spin. and illness. the tragedies that find us all, unbeckoned and unapologetic. my heart tears to pieces for her daughter. for her friends and family. for anyone who knew her and respected her. this, as winter rolls in. colder now because of her loss.
time is short. too short not to make as much art as you can and as many poems as you can and to fling these loves and fears and questions in to the world. too short to give too much of a fuck what others might say. do your best and GO.
i carry the sweet girl's name and words with me today, tonight, and on and on.
Aug 27, 2010
today
simple pleasures today. coffee and my cold morning stoop. the forest ahead. the squabbling squirrels. the pen. the notebook.
all these, in their own soft and quiet way, are a confrontation with mortality. and there is a sweep of gratitude in that. a way to secure a deep and abiding thankfulness. i begin to see FAILURE isn't even real. no such thing. except maybe giving up. just that. only that. everything else are steps and branches.
"Even if i knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
- Martin Luther
or orange tree or pear tree or cherry tree or avocado tree or banana tree or pineapple tree or fig tree or or or or...
write your poems, girls and boys. whatever form they take.
all these, in their own soft and quiet way, are a confrontation with mortality. and there is a sweep of gratitude in that. a way to secure a deep and abiding thankfulness. i begin to see FAILURE isn't even real. no such thing. except maybe giving up. just that. only that. everything else are steps and branches.
"Even if i knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
- Martin Luther
or orange tree or pear tree or cherry tree or avocado tree or banana tree or pineapple tree or fig tree or or or or...
write your poems, girls and boys. whatever form they take.
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