and suddenly, your memory...

.

when he shaved your head in the kitchen, i could only watch the first pass of the clippers, mama.



afterward, you stood and walked to the bathroom...

i've told this story before...

you came out wearing dramatic, dark eye shadow and smiling.

you sat down next to me on the couch and i knew i should mimic you.

i was smiling too.

i said, "mama, you look like annie lennox!"

i wanted to cry so bad.

in my head, she sang, "some things are better left unsaid, but they still turn me inside-out..."

like us smiling, mama, instead of crying

instead of yelling

because we both knew, right then, that you were dying

and i was putting on a brave face

just like you, mama.



just like you.




i get so mad at you sometimes for taking off and dying the way you did.

your little girl and i still need you.  us, and your boy too.

the men you chose have added up to nothing. neither one has been a father.  neither has been an umbrella.  neither has even been a friend.


i put on annie lennox and think of your big lips, mama.  i think of you smiling.

i wish you were here tonight to push my hair back from my forehead and tell me it's okay to feel afraid.

i'm getting ready to make some really big changes, some really big decisions.  i wish i could talk to you about them.  i wish i could hold your hand.

i wish you were here...

because maybe i wouldn't feel 14 years old at 34.  maybe i'd feel a bit more solid in this world and in this body.  maybe i wouldn't feel so thrown by glances and sighs...

i don't want to be as insecure as i am.

i don't want to be as insecure as you were.

i don't want to give up as easily as you did.

i want to love me more than you ever did, mama.

and that's the plain truth.



i want to love me more than you ever could and i want to love you as a woman, not as my mother.


i want to love you like i love me.



if you were here, i'd hug you so hard and we'd laugh so hard and i wouldn't be awake at midnight listening to annie lennox and writing things like this.

4 years ago today

.


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.


.

simple

.

today, i bought myself flowers.  big, red daisies.  i don't know their actual name.  i cut their stems and put them in a mason jar.  i put the mason jar on the dresser by the bed.  i listen to patti smith.  i twist thin, soft, black yarn around my crochet hook and sink into a revery about how life once was.  not all my reveries are sad but i allow myself even those that are -  the freedom to mourn, the freedom to be upset, the freedom to feel lonely and singular.  the light was beautiful today and the food i'd bought for myself tasted good.  i walked in the sun, bought myself a new notebook, let my deep scars shine inside of me.  i tried to listen to them.  today, they want to cry.  sometimes, the old aches wake up.  sometimes, the best thing to do is to let them...  to give them their due, to allow for a reckoning, to give them their say.  and so i twist yarn around a hook and listen to car alarms, listen to my laundry tumbling in the dryer, listen to patti smith.  i pour myself a glass of Dr. Loosen Riesling and salivate all over a tiny hunk of Saint Auger blue cheese. i allow myself these pleasures, these luxuries, so distant incongruous to the life i once lived.  i allow myself this moment.  i allow myself to be silent, to stop the performance of so many things, to free myself from the cage of constant smiling.  i lay on my bed in front of the small electric fan and twirl my hair.  today, i am grateful for it all, everything that has happened even though my spirit lowers its feathers to hide its diamonds. despite the anvil of memory, today was new.  and tomorrow so shall be.  

.

Marc...

.

 

in the early morning hours of saturday, september 21st, one of my greatest and most loved mentors died in southern california.  my sweet, sweet Marc.  he was 71 years old.  i had no idea he was even sick.  no one really did.

400+ miles away, i'm sitting in bed with a cocktail, finally free to cry after battling through a night of waiting tables where i wanted to cry every 20 minutes. i only went to work today in the hopes of getting out of my own head.  i only went to work today to make Marc proud.

god, i loved that man.  i really did.  i do still.  it doesn't matter how many years it's been since i last set foot in my home town, i still love the people i love and Marc was an enormous influence.  i adored him from the second i heard him speak.  i took my first class from him at the age of 18 and studied under him for 7 consecutive years.  he taught me how to make a mark.  a REAL mark.  "make a bold mark early in a drawing," he said.  "It doesn't matter if it ends up in the wrong place and needs to be erased; you've given yourself something to respond to and that's what art is all about." and as i write those words, i see it's a lesson that can be (needs to be) translated into all areas of life...  especially now when everything feels so raw and so dire and so fucking lonely.  i can't help but lend my voice to that tired refrain but it is absolutely true: when mike called and told me Marc had died, i felt like a light had gone out in the world.  

i hung on that man's every word.  i loved listening to him speak.  he had such a great voice.  so full of sensuality and humor and generosity.  after i'd been taking classes from him for a few years, i caught myself one day thinking, "... if only he were 15 years younger". hahaha!  and i fucking meant it too! his love of humanity and beauty was evident in the way he talked.  the lilt of his speech betrayed what a lover he was and i loved him for it.  in fact, i adored him to the point of anxiety.  i don't know that i ever completely relaxed around him.  i was so enamored of him and so impressed with him that it was hard for me to be entirely myself...  i wanted him to like me too much.  i wanted him to be pleased with me.  i wanted to make him proud. 

i was at fucking Forever 21 when my beloved friend Mike called and gave me the news.  at first, it felt like a joke.  there was no way this was real.  after about 20 minutes had passed, i tasted tears in my throat and knew i needed to find a bit of privacy.  i hung the clothes i was holding back on a rack and went outside.  it was pouring rain.  i ducked in to the alcove of a broken elevator and curled my self against the corner where two walls met, my back to the street, my face hidden from view.  there, i cried as i listened to Mike tell me about his last moments with Marc.  i pushed myself as far into the corner as i could go and covered my face with my hands.  

i want to call everyone i know and tell them i love them.

i'm going to stay up late drawing tonight.  it's the best thing i can do and the best way to honor Marc.  i can make a bold mark once more and give myself something to respond to...  a place to put the agony of my loneliness, the emptiness that charges forward with such brutality and callousness.  i can carve out a space for beauty and resilience and love somewhere in between these tortures and roll around in the tall, black grass of his grace...  a sliver of the generosity such a deeply affective mentor and friend bestowed to me.

i miss you, Marc.  it really fucking sucks that i didn't get to hug and kiss you one last time and listen to your stories.  god, i've missed your voice.  i've missed it for so long and now i will go on missing it.




i lit a Yahrzeit candle for him last night.  the flame was so tall.  it stayed that way all night, lighting up my room the way i would light up whenever i was in the same room with him.  it made me happy to see such a tall flame on his candle.  it suits him.  it suits how i feel for him.  what a bright light that man was.  absolutely brilliant.


i love you.

DEATHMARCH (write your heart out)

reading Barthes, 3 month mark:

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*the text referenced here is Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary.

mourning good morning

and last night, that big ol' yellow moon. did you see it? it infected me. made me feel less alone than i have in weeks.

it's amazing how specific life is sometimes. how specific and how tragic. as i drove home last night i realized (again) that there is no right answer, no wrong answer, just was IS. the world was destroyed and all the bits of it hang in the air. nothing has landed. just trash in space. i float. i collide.



i am listening to Lykke Li's new album this morning.

30 years ago today, john lennon was murdered. today, imagine peace on his behalf.

repair

i am still thinking of louise bourgeois. i have become warm and still, comforted by her face, her smile, and the awesome fortitude and courage she showcased in her work and life. i think of the fact she was 70 before critical attention and acclaim found her. late recognition but she kept going going going and, by the time her due came, it was beyond earned, beyond deserved, and her fire was charged, endless, heartbreaking, and something so tremendously special that our language has not yet birthed words to describe.

my tribute today is that i will not beat myself up with the things i have yet to accomplish. i will enjoy the pace of this day. i will draw and be present and not torture myself with worry and fear and uncertainty, those assassins of aspiration and joy. i will relish in the fact that my hands are black with graphite. that my scent is covered by the dust of the pencil. that the scribbles and scratches have meaning.

her work is here.
the comfort of it.
she left us with such a strong, capable cradle.

i am drawing a huge spider today. all day. for her. for myself.

death day

today is the anniversary of sylvia plath's death. our fair radish king holds a bake-off every year in her honor on this day where those of us who have been touched by her work can trade recipes and poems and thoughts... a time and place of remembering and appreciating... a work of mourning and respect and joking around.

i thought of sylvia plath a lot this past week. in my sickness i've been cutting out tons of heart-shapes- a personal symbol of plath's. and i have strings of hearts hanging in my bedroom window. silvery and sparkling and dancing slow. they have been cut from "failed" paintings and drawings. i thought... even though the composition was wrong, there was still love in this work. let me at least save that part.

i want to keep that thought in mind today as i remember her... and as i remember her son, nicholas.

-

the first poem in Ariel is written to a child. for a child. it is thick with love, thick with amazement. she was not without love... let's at least save that part. draw a heart on something. cut one out. save it. hang it in your window. this is the new tradition.



MORNING SONG


Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.








october 27, 1932 - february 11, 1963




and here is my poem about her for you... since i can't bake. :)
(click the pictures to enlarge)






you know her
artist book
angela simione, 2009

transcript:

you know her


she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting.

circle, circle, circle...

my love, my love, my love...

you will be missed,
over and over again.
i will collect your pages
and keep you.

good-bye jim.



via the Radish King this morning.

i have no answers or insight or relief to offer. give me yours...

this post has taken hours to write... and it's not nearly what it should be. i'm sure there are flaws and confusion all through it. i'm sure i've said it wrong.

but every now and then, it becomes necessary to talk about my private life here. every now and then...



i know that it's everywhere and that there's no real, dire need for yet another blog post about all the death in the news lately... and honestly, i need a bit of a break from it too... and honestly, i don't really feel ready or even equipped to speak about those deaths in any specific way... and honestly, i feel beaten up and weary and useless and confused...

and i feel this way because of the work i make. a lot of my work deals with death... and it all deals with loss in one way or another... with grief and identity and victimization and robbery and abuse and marginalization... a lot of really uncomfortable subject matter in general. and so the news of late and watching the world stop and stare and cry has effected my mood. i woke up feeling a bit lost today... dazed... like a piano has been dropped on me...

i called my sister and we talked for hours. conversations weaved in to one another and we covered as many topics as possible until the battery got too low and the call was dropped. we talked about grief mainly. how it is a different experience for everyone and yet there seems to be a culturally prescribed way to deal with loss... and a very dominant expectation for everyone to feel the same way about the same thing. it's not a moment to rock the boat or go against the grain in any way... all cultures have it to one degree or another... appropriate displays of grief are a culturally mandated thing... and it's hard to watch. at least for me, it is. i'm not pointing any fingers or making any judgements here... it's just that the prescribed model doesn't fit me and it feels bad not to fit in sometimes.

i'm coming face to face with one ethical or philosophical or emotional dilemma after another and it's a lot to contend with. my boat has been rocked. my grain has been splintered.

i don't know where i stand and i'm tired of thinking about it but i can't stop thinking about it and it's reminding me of leah's death. it's reminding me how i felt when i got the news and how, to this day, i'm still angry with her over a great many things she did during her life... cruel things, mean things, and lies.

and it feels mean of me to still feel angry, to harbour resentment...

she's dead.

who am i screaming at?

does all the crap from the past even matter? exactly what am i having such a hard time getting over? of what nature is my loss?

i don't want to become bitter. i never want to become so soured against humanity that compassion becomes impossible. i want to be compassionate and extend forgiveness and love and understanding...

leah used to say, "if you came looking for sympathy, you came to the wrong person". i don't want to be like that... but i know that i have been in regard to her life and her experiences... experiences that made her sarcastic and mistrustful and hateful and judgemental and manipulative. i've tried to take my knowledge of her and make it explain how she could do the horrible things she did. i've tried to excuse it all. i've tried to find a path of forgiveness. i've tried. and i've failed and failed and failed. i guess i'm not done trying...

but it's hard when your heart has been eaten by a person you loved and trusted and admired... a person whom you felt safe with, whose presence in your life was prized, a friend you wanted forever and talked with about being two old ladies together, laughing in our rocking chairs on the front porch and giving children a hard time...

it's hard when that person puts all your secrets on display... removed from it's context and twisted to get the biggest laugh. it's hard when you've been victimized by someone so close, so trusted, so elite in your life. it's hard when you've got no recourse, no power and no voice... no way to explain yourself because no one cares to hear it... the damage has been done and everyone believes the worst and no one cares about the truth. it's hard when you've been humiliated and used and your pain gets laughed at. it's hard to have your private life and emotions put on stage by the one person you trusted most in the world. it's very hard to know what to do or how to feel or how to forgive when then that person dies and you never had it out with them, never called them out on their bullshit, never defended yourself...

i never defended myself.

not really.

i chose to leave her life quietly.

i was tired of all the yelling and i was tired of defending myself against the opinions of strangers and co-workers, whoever. i was tired of the cruelty and i knew i couldn't win and that it'd never stop as long as i kept responding. i was tired and beaten down. i handed her the crown and i walked away. when she died, i hadn't seen or spoken to her in over 5 years.

5 years. i didn't think of her very often and i didn't care about what was going on in her life. i had no curiosity, not even the morbid kind and, as far as i was concerned, no news was good news. i felt betrayed. still. and i referred to her as Brutus in the corner of my heart and mind and memory. i did not regret letting go of the friendship. it'd hadn't been a real friendship after all. i did not miss her... but i really missed who i thought she was when we first met. i really missed the persona... the late night conversations and silliness and sharing and kinship i had felt... that mask she built from lies and deceptions- i missed it horribly.

and so today, the weight of all that hurt is back on me... and i don't know what to do with it or how to set it down. it feels like shit to admit that after all these years i'm still hurt and i still feel betrayed. it feels like shit to be mad at a dead woman... to still be afraid of her.

leah is the person who first exposed me to earth, wind, and fire... to de barge... to billy ocean... and to old michael jackson. i learned all the words to P.Y.T because of her... to make her laugh at karaoke. she would be in bed crying her eyes out right now if she were alive. she'd refuse to eat or leave the house or get out from behind her quilt. she'd collapse and stay collapsed for a week or two and call off from work and just crawl inside herself and hide. she'd be wounded by yesterday's news in a huge, horribly deep way. she'd have been traumatized and it would've taken her a long, long, long time to crawl back out of her cave.

i need to learn how to forgive her. i need to learn how to tell good, happy stories about her. i loved her best when she was in my life. i need to find a way to move passed everything else. it does no good to hold on to all this. it has no value anymore. some one's daughter is in the ground and i'd never wish it on anyone to have to bury their own child. no one. and my heart broke for leah's mama. it still breaks for her. i need to learn how to set it down and be okay and remember her in a better way and hold on to the good that was in her in spite of everything else. i think i'm finally mourning her... and i feel inappropriate and too late and my grain is flying all over the place- splintered and useless and adding up to nothing.

loss...

back on the painting train this morning. i've got another big canvas following close behind and can hopefully get it wrapped up within the next 2 weeks or so. i'm so happy to have so many things to work on right now. between painting, drawing, writing, and crocheting, i should never find myself with nothing to do and feeling bored that's for sure.

after working for a while on the next big canvas first thing, i finished this little painting that's been floating around the studio for a couple months:


untitled
12" x 12"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

i can't quite figure out what the hell i like about this particular painting but i do. i really do. it's a bit nostalgic, a bit creepy, and hey, it's even got some color in it! :) whatever. ha! but the more i look at it, the more i like it. i may end up hating it by next week but for now i'm enjoying it. i've got it tucked in my bookcase. these twins are busy watching over my poetry collection... definitely something guard-doggish about this piece... in a "The Shining" sort of way.

maybe because of my own high level of happiness lately, the news about nicholas hughes' death the other day really threw me off balance. i had actually just been thinking about him a few days prior- about his reclusive lifestyle and how hard that must be... the fact that he lives a life of semi-anonymity... not quite a regular guy, not quite a celebrity, but infamous because of all the death and trauma that exists in his family... and the horror of having that trauma play out in public. i was thinking that i didn't know what he looks like... if he favored his mother or father in appearance... what color his hair is and if he and his sister resemble one another... how i know who he is but that i don't know a single thing about him...

and then two or three days go by and i read that he committed suicide. gone. and his sister is now the only living member of the plath/hughes family. she is alone. and she hates us. and i think she's right to hate us even though it hurts. and again- one more person there's not much any of us can do for... except leave her alone. i'm glad she's an artist and writer. i'm glad she has a husband to wrap herself up in right now. i'm glad she has places to go, corners to hide in, words to get lost in...