Strange to be laying here like this, staring at the ceiling, hardly able to move, and thinking of the plane I am supposed to get on the day after tomorrow. I didn't think I'd pushed myself too hard but I guess I did. I'm trying to not let my disappointment get the better of me... The cancelled dinner plans, the people I am unable to go see, the hours I must spend in bed. I'm trying to just breath, just relax, just feel gratitude for this day, despite pain, and recognize my great luck in this world. For however rough the start, the adventure has begun. It is here.
Freya dropped off a huge suitcase on wheels to me this morning. Annie is on her way to fold my remaining clothes in to it. Brian shipped boxes of my art to my sister this afternoon. The bathroom still needs to be cleaned and a box of odds and ends needs to be set out on the curb, but the bulk of the work is done. I must find a way to relax. I must let go of disappointment and tell my body that I love it. I must care for it. I must stop the chorus in my head that goes on and on about how horrible this is. I must be bright. The future is wide open.
If I was in a better physical state right now I'd be feeling quite sentimental. I'd want to take pictures of the sky. I'd want to write dreamily in my diary of all my hopes and wishes for the road ahead. I'd write about watching clouds being cut by an airplane's wing and hearing sad trumpets weep in New Orleans. I'd spent a bit of time tearing down my large sheets of Rives BFK and wondering what I might draw during this great voyage across the United States...
I can wonder and I can be excited for the adventure ahead. Though I must be gentle with myself, I can still experience my absolute exhilaration about embarking on a path I've yearned for for so long. I can be strong in other ways today.
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 29, 2015
3 days
.
sifting through pages, the never-ending pile of papers, the abandoned manuscript(s), the poetry collection, paragraphs cut up, rearranged and taped back together again; a mangy, coffee stained scroll. gorgeous. i tuck it into the box that holds my diaries. i close the lid. i close my eyes against the sting of tears. how badly i want to lay around today and read these things. especially with my back such a stiff mess of pain. later. another day. one fine day, it'll be such a gift when this box comes back home to me. for now, a hard patience. for now, a closed lid. for now, vicodin and ice. i'm hopeful that tomorrow i won't need the crutch of this little opiate but today i do. the injury wins. i am a snail. i do what i can 20 minutes at a time and then i reward myself with 20 minutes on ice. i must finish the task of sorting, boxing, throwing out and making way. yesterday, such an existential crisis about clothes. i looked in my closet and thought, "who am i going to be now??? i'm paving the way for someone new. will this new girl still need this sequin jacket???" ha! i leave clothes on the street. they disappear quickly. more sketches and half finished drawings find their way in to the recycle bin. suddenly i hate all my earrings and i leave them in a big pile on the kitchen table for whomever may want them. i pawn off my nail-polish and perfume on my roommate, sara. i pawn off my big binder of cds on my roommate, ben. i'm sure i'll find something to pawn off on seth too. i leave a silk pocket square hanging on his door-knob. what to do with these old rosaries? what to do with this huge mirror? what to do with the ache in my heart? this old red trumpet that wants to blare and blast and scream. dear friends, what am i without your hands on my shoulders? i am going to miss everyone so much. i close my eyes against the sting of tears. my 20 minutes are up.
.
sifting through pages, the never-ending pile of papers, the abandoned manuscript(s), the poetry collection, paragraphs cut up, rearranged and taped back together again; a mangy, coffee stained scroll. gorgeous. i tuck it into the box that holds my diaries. i close the lid. i close my eyes against the sting of tears. how badly i want to lay around today and read these things. especially with my back such a stiff mess of pain. later. another day. one fine day, it'll be such a gift when this box comes back home to me. for now, a hard patience. for now, a closed lid. for now, vicodin and ice. i'm hopeful that tomorrow i won't need the crutch of this little opiate but today i do. the injury wins. i am a snail. i do what i can 20 minutes at a time and then i reward myself with 20 minutes on ice. i must finish the task of sorting, boxing, throwing out and making way. yesterday, such an existential crisis about clothes. i looked in my closet and thought, "who am i going to be now??? i'm paving the way for someone new. will this new girl still need this sequin jacket???" ha! i leave clothes on the street. they disappear quickly. more sketches and half finished drawings find their way in to the recycle bin. suddenly i hate all my earrings and i leave them in a big pile on the kitchen table for whomever may want them. i pawn off my nail-polish and perfume on my roommate, sara. i pawn off my big binder of cds on my roommate, ben. i'm sure i'll find something to pawn off on seth too. i leave a silk pocket square hanging on his door-knob. what to do with these old rosaries? what to do with this huge mirror? what to do with the ache in my heart? this old red trumpet that wants to blare and blast and scream. dear friends, what am i without your hands on my shoulders? i am going to miss everyone so much. i close my eyes against the sting of tears. my 20 minutes are up.
.
Mar 24, 2015
i'll be your blade
.
that scene in Gia where Angelina Jolie is freaking out, afraid of her surroundings, afraid of the world and all the assholes who inhabit it: "You can't just take someones knife when they need it!"
i pulled my Francesca Woodman book from the stack of books meant to ship to my sister's house later this week, a book i've slept with and needed near even if i wasn't looking at it. some sort of balm. some sort of knife.
objects go in to boxes. boxes cover the kitchen floor.
a maze of piles. piles and piles and piles. all the trappings and papers and matchsticks of a life. it isn't detritus, this build up. these objects have significance. i think of the shoes i must soon sell and i close my eyes. i don't want to think of it just yet. the other half of my book collection too, must be sold off. i put my diaries in a box. 8 years on paper. i couldn't bring myself to tape the lid shut yet. i pulled Aase Berg's poetry collection 'With Deer' from the stack destined for the used bookstore. "not this one", i whisper. a balm, a knife to keep at my side.
but let me be honest: i wasn't much help today. mostly, i pointed from my place in bed, laying on an icepack. i've been locked in bed the passed three days. today, at least i could stand. today, at least i could walk. slowly, but i could do it. another round of drama with my damn iffy disk and, can i just say, the timing is absolutely awful. the only thing that would've been worse is if this had happened the night before we head to the airport. still, it's far less than ideal. i missed my last three nights of work at my restaurant. not only are there the lost wages and tips i'm thinking of but, more importantly, i didn't get to say goodbye the way i wanted to. i tell myself that maybe it's better this way. no ooshy gushy, tear-laden au reviour. but i know i'm wrong. it's not better this way. there are people i want to hug. there are smiles i want to see. and for however selfish or paranoid it may be, i don't want to go out being thought of as fragile, as a victim. i hate the way pity feels. this moment, this entire event is supposed to be one of staunch focus and bravery. i hate that it is being tempered now with the inconvenient fragility of my body. i hate it.
let me sip this beer.
there are pleasures to keep. despite the pain of my particular ailment, i've enjoyed the very rare opportunity to just lay in bed and spend the day reading. it isn't a luxury that i have often these days. i finished Kate Zambreno's 'Heroines' and want to write a huge response to it here but i need to digest it a bit more first. i need to calm down a bit. i'm having such an emotional, nostalgic reaction to it. it brought me back to aspects of my life as it was 4 or 5 years ago, an era i choose not to dwell upon very often. an era i've chosen not to write in detail about here but her book has made me rethink that stance entirely. there are memories that should be set to paper. there are stories that should float in this electric ether. i keep thinking about my mother tossing her journal pages into a large aluminum coffee can on the back porch and setting them on fire. i saw her do it on several occasions there at the house on Frontier Avenue. there is no personal writing of hers left. none. i have a few cute notes she scribbled and that's it. a birthday card here and there, nothing else. that's the way she wanted it. that's the way it is.
but i'm not her and she's not me. despite her big Angelina Jolie lips, i've got a much bigger mouth than she had. i wake up talking and there's no one left to disown me anyway. having any fear of family retribution is ridiculous. it's simply not in the cards and there are stories within this family that deserve to be told. there are stories that have been denied a voice for far too long. there are stories that could be a balm for someone else, that could lay like a knife at their side.
part of this act of writing (of making art) is to build one another up, to lend each other a bit of steam. at least for me it is. the lineage we create, how we talk to each other across time and space. i lay in bed this morning looking up at my big drawings on the wall to my left of The Bell Jar's book covers. i looked at them and wondered: is there any way she could have known how affective her book would be that a girl would make huge drawings of its cover and tape them to her bedroom wall? there is no way she could've know that, let alone trusted it, but we must trust our lineage. we create it. anyone can be a member. anyone can add their voice to the chorus.
i think of all this as i point at this and that and say which box what goes in to. i think of all this as i secretly wrap my mama's old aprons around christmas ornaments and hide them in boxes labeled ART. :) i think of my nephew and the lineage i can open a window to if i just keep writing, if i refuse to choose silence. i think of him and want to be a sort of balm, a knife laying at his side...
.
that scene in Gia where Angelina Jolie is freaking out, afraid of her surroundings, afraid of the world and all the assholes who inhabit it: "You can't just take someones knife when they need it!"
i pulled my Francesca Woodman book from the stack of books meant to ship to my sister's house later this week, a book i've slept with and needed near even if i wasn't looking at it. some sort of balm. some sort of knife.
objects go in to boxes. boxes cover the kitchen floor.
a maze of piles. piles and piles and piles. all the trappings and papers and matchsticks of a life. it isn't detritus, this build up. these objects have significance. i think of the shoes i must soon sell and i close my eyes. i don't want to think of it just yet. the other half of my book collection too, must be sold off. i put my diaries in a box. 8 years on paper. i couldn't bring myself to tape the lid shut yet. i pulled Aase Berg's poetry collection 'With Deer' from the stack destined for the used bookstore. "not this one", i whisper. a balm, a knife to keep at my side.
but let me be honest: i wasn't much help today. mostly, i pointed from my place in bed, laying on an icepack. i've been locked in bed the passed three days. today, at least i could stand. today, at least i could walk. slowly, but i could do it. another round of drama with my damn iffy disk and, can i just say, the timing is absolutely awful. the only thing that would've been worse is if this had happened the night before we head to the airport. still, it's far less than ideal. i missed my last three nights of work at my restaurant. not only are there the lost wages and tips i'm thinking of but, more importantly, i didn't get to say goodbye the way i wanted to. i tell myself that maybe it's better this way. no ooshy gushy, tear-laden au reviour. but i know i'm wrong. it's not better this way. there are people i want to hug. there are smiles i want to see. and for however selfish or paranoid it may be, i don't want to go out being thought of as fragile, as a victim. i hate the way pity feels. this moment, this entire event is supposed to be one of staunch focus and bravery. i hate that it is being tempered now with the inconvenient fragility of my body. i hate it.
let me sip this beer.
there are pleasures to keep. despite the pain of my particular ailment, i've enjoyed the very rare opportunity to just lay in bed and spend the day reading. it isn't a luxury that i have often these days. i finished Kate Zambreno's 'Heroines' and want to write a huge response to it here but i need to digest it a bit more first. i need to calm down a bit. i'm having such an emotional, nostalgic reaction to it. it brought me back to aspects of my life as it was 4 or 5 years ago, an era i choose not to dwell upon very often. an era i've chosen not to write in detail about here but her book has made me rethink that stance entirely. there are memories that should be set to paper. there are stories that should float in this electric ether. i keep thinking about my mother tossing her journal pages into a large aluminum coffee can on the back porch and setting them on fire. i saw her do it on several occasions there at the house on Frontier Avenue. there is no personal writing of hers left. none. i have a few cute notes she scribbled and that's it. a birthday card here and there, nothing else. that's the way she wanted it. that's the way it is.
but i'm not her and she's not me. despite her big Angelina Jolie lips, i've got a much bigger mouth than she had. i wake up talking and there's no one left to disown me anyway. having any fear of family retribution is ridiculous. it's simply not in the cards and there are stories within this family that deserve to be told. there are stories that have been denied a voice for far too long. there are stories that could be a balm for someone else, that could lay like a knife at their side.
part of this act of writing (of making art) is to build one another up, to lend each other a bit of steam. at least for me it is. the lineage we create, how we talk to each other across time and space. i lay in bed this morning looking up at my big drawings on the wall to my left of The Bell Jar's book covers. i looked at them and wondered: is there any way she could have known how affective her book would be that a girl would make huge drawings of its cover and tape them to her bedroom wall? there is no way she could've know that, let alone trusted it, but we must trust our lineage. we create it. anyone can be a member. anyone can add their voice to the chorus.
i think of all this as i point at this and that and say which box what goes in to. i think of all this as i secretly wrap my mama's old aprons around christmas ornaments and hide them in boxes labeled ART. :) i think of my nephew and the lineage i can open a window to if i just keep writing, if i refuse to choose silence. i think of him and want to be a sort of balm, a knife laying at his side...
.
Mar 21, 2015
grasping and scattering
.
it is a strange territory, this place of transition. a part of me wonders (has been wondering) if it's time to let go of the blog, to let it be an archive of a particular era and move on. i don't lean on it as much as i once did. i guess i don't need to. i am an entirely different person than who i was when i started this blog 8 years ago. it's hard to believe it's been that long. it's hard to believe the amount of change my life has undergone in that time. i look back and feel an almost total lack of connection to who i was when i published my first blog post. this has become a strange sort of time-capsule. i never really go back and read it. maybe one day i will. just like the diaries. i very rarely go back through them. the passed few years have been so much about living and not at all about reminiscing. i don't want to page back over my life right now. i'm interested in the view that is opening in front of me. i am interested in my Future. i've spent enough time dealing with the Past.
but it's complicated and i can be so inconsistent when it comes to certain things. i spent an hour reading a diary i kept when i was 23. it was amazing to read. i loved flipping through the pages and seeing my handwriting, almost identical to what it looks like now, and reading my complaints and passions, also almost identical to what they are now. it's funny what remains the same despite growing up, despite leading an entirely different life. the diary volume felt like such a treasure and i feel lucky to still have it in my possession. such a window. such a view. i know i'll feel the same way about the diaries of the passed few years too. i'll feel that way about the young days of the blog. i just don't know what this place is anymore other than a place to cry out in the dark. it isn't part of the community it once was. and that's okay. in some ways i prefer the silence that exists here now. i never fear my comment box. i never feel any pressure to blog. i never feel any eyes on me at all. every time i write here, it's a sudden impulse and not at all governed by rules or expectations. when i made rules for myself to blog everyday, i was probably a better writer in many regards but i also posted a lot of meaningless shit too. it's better this way - only posting when i have something i actually want to say - but i silence myself so often. i don't write here as much as i want. i'm not sure why i stop myself and the only answer i've come up with is that perhaps i've moved in to a different era of living. perhaps i don't need to do this anymore? or at least for awhile. i'm not sure. perhaps i need to make myself do it everyday again and wake the impulse i once felt to pound the keys back up. it's so easy to hide away in my private diary. it's so easy to close the cover and let my life stay there, stay put, remain safe. untouched and unknown.
i've been feeling a strange nostalgia lately from going through all my possessions and getting rid of things. i put all my nail polish on the kitchen table for my roommates' girlfriends to take. i pulled all my photographs out of the photo albums which housed them and left the albums on the street corner, too bulky to consider transporting on my month-long adventure across the US to new york. i put my mother's possessions in a box to send to my sister. i made a stack of books to send to Jose: Jean Genet and Kathy Acker, a Keith Haring coloring book. i send texts to friends asking them to come over and pick out what they want. i sold a third of my book collection the other day and got $200. i sold a third of my wardrobe and got $100. i sift through the objects i've lived with for so long and either feel an absolute connection and affinity with them... or nothing at all. the closer i get to the day we leave, the more i want to just be done with this task and leave everything on the street. that might just be what ends up happening. the last time i did this i even left art on the street. nothing good, nothing i was sad to be without, but even art was left behind to find its own way in the world. the urge to begin again, to be unfettered. the instinct to grasp at freedom.
i've written these types of sentences before. i've expressed these same sentiments and made similar statements. i guess it hasn't really been all that long since the last time i moved but i've never made such a big leap. moving across the country is a pretty major thing and it absolutely feels like a new chapter is opening. a deep sense of calm has found me despite the stress of needing to wrangle the possessions and memories which remain. i fight the urge to simply let it all scatter in the wind. some things must be saved. the diaries especially. everything else could burn but the diaries need to be kept safe. maybe that's the biggest perk of keeping a blog- it can't be destroyed. even if these words are never read, they remain. my mother burned everything she ever wrote. there are no poems and no diary entries. she burned them. she burned everything she wrote within a few days of scrawling them. she was that paranoid of feeling ashamed of herself. she was that sensitive. she was that afraid of her thoughts and words being used against her, of someone else twisting her emotions or statements. i don't want to be like that. for however obscure my life is i don't want to obliterate it. i don't want to erase myself. this desire to burn it all down, i don't want to share in it.
.
it is a strange territory, this place of transition. a part of me wonders (has been wondering) if it's time to let go of the blog, to let it be an archive of a particular era and move on. i don't lean on it as much as i once did. i guess i don't need to. i am an entirely different person than who i was when i started this blog 8 years ago. it's hard to believe it's been that long. it's hard to believe the amount of change my life has undergone in that time. i look back and feel an almost total lack of connection to who i was when i published my first blog post. this has become a strange sort of time-capsule. i never really go back and read it. maybe one day i will. just like the diaries. i very rarely go back through them. the passed few years have been so much about living and not at all about reminiscing. i don't want to page back over my life right now. i'm interested in the view that is opening in front of me. i am interested in my Future. i've spent enough time dealing with the Past.
but it's complicated and i can be so inconsistent when it comes to certain things. i spent an hour reading a diary i kept when i was 23. it was amazing to read. i loved flipping through the pages and seeing my handwriting, almost identical to what it looks like now, and reading my complaints and passions, also almost identical to what they are now. it's funny what remains the same despite growing up, despite leading an entirely different life. the diary volume felt like such a treasure and i feel lucky to still have it in my possession. such a window. such a view. i know i'll feel the same way about the diaries of the passed few years too. i'll feel that way about the young days of the blog. i just don't know what this place is anymore other than a place to cry out in the dark. it isn't part of the community it once was. and that's okay. in some ways i prefer the silence that exists here now. i never fear my comment box. i never feel any pressure to blog. i never feel any eyes on me at all. every time i write here, it's a sudden impulse and not at all governed by rules or expectations. when i made rules for myself to blog everyday, i was probably a better writer in many regards but i also posted a lot of meaningless shit too. it's better this way - only posting when i have something i actually want to say - but i silence myself so often. i don't write here as much as i want. i'm not sure why i stop myself and the only answer i've come up with is that perhaps i've moved in to a different era of living. perhaps i don't need to do this anymore? or at least for awhile. i'm not sure. perhaps i need to make myself do it everyday again and wake the impulse i once felt to pound the keys back up. it's so easy to hide away in my private diary. it's so easy to close the cover and let my life stay there, stay put, remain safe. untouched and unknown.
i've been feeling a strange nostalgia lately from going through all my possessions and getting rid of things. i put all my nail polish on the kitchen table for my roommates' girlfriends to take. i pulled all my photographs out of the photo albums which housed them and left the albums on the street corner, too bulky to consider transporting on my month-long adventure across the US to new york. i put my mother's possessions in a box to send to my sister. i made a stack of books to send to Jose: Jean Genet and Kathy Acker, a Keith Haring coloring book. i send texts to friends asking them to come over and pick out what they want. i sold a third of my book collection the other day and got $200. i sold a third of my wardrobe and got $100. i sift through the objects i've lived with for so long and either feel an absolute connection and affinity with them... or nothing at all. the closer i get to the day we leave, the more i want to just be done with this task and leave everything on the street. that might just be what ends up happening. the last time i did this i even left art on the street. nothing good, nothing i was sad to be without, but even art was left behind to find its own way in the world. the urge to begin again, to be unfettered. the instinct to grasp at freedom.
i've written these types of sentences before. i've expressed these same sentiments and made similar statements. i guess it hasn't really been all that long since the last time i moved but i've never made such a big leap. moving across the country is a pretty major thing and it absolutely feels like a new chapter is opening. a deep sense of calm has found me despite the stress of needing to wrangle the possessions and memories which remain. i fight the urge to simply let it all scatter in the wind. some things must be saved. the diaries especially. everything else could burn but the diaries need to be kept safe. maybe that's the biggest perk of keeping a blog- it can't be destroyed. even if these words are never read, they remain. my mother burned everything she ever wrote. there are no poems and no diary entries. she burned them. she burned everything she wrote within a few days of scrawling them. she was that paranoid of feeling ashamed of herself. she was that sensitive. she was that afraid of her thoughts and words being used against her, of someone else twisting her emotions or statements. i don't want to be like that. for however obscure my life is i don't want to obliterate it. i don't want to erase myself. this desire to burn it all down, i don't want to share in it.
.
Mar 10, 2015
Feb 21, 2015
reverie and residue.
.
i was feeling all GUNG-HO industrious and shit, pulled out the boxes from the back of the closet, fully intending to throw away whatever was inside in order to make way for a new life, in order to lighten my load and get myself in a new york state of mind. i pulled back the cardboard covers and found a huge artwork i'd made for my mother- a deadbed/rosebed i made in the weeks after her death; a huge collection of crocheted roses in varying sizes and shades of red, displayed on a piece of dark red felt on the floor which was cut to the exact dimensions of the bed she died in, a bed which i layed down next to her in and crocheted red roses and lay them on her thin chest the last day she was alive.
there's no fucking way i can get rid of something like that! there's just no way! it's impossible! i texted my sister in a panic because there's also really no way to bring my entire art collection to the east coast (at least not initially) and asked her if she had any space at all in the back of a closet in her house where i could store some art for a time. sweetheart that she is, she said yes immediately and told me not to get stressed out about this stuff; "i'll make room for whatever you want to keep, sweet sister" she wrote. i breathed a deep sigh of relief but still this strange anxiety. it takes a lot out of me to go through these boxes, these memories, these secrets, the evidence of a life... of lives.
i went through the red suitcase that houses tons of saved photographs and postcards. there were some old scraps of paper with messy notes to self scrawled across them that i easily tossed in to the recycle bin, and a few books given to me by a long-forgotten acquaintance that i never got around to reading due to sheer lack of interest which are now sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house. then, i came across my 23 page poem-thing/manuscript that i haven't worked on since i left my last relationship. i shoved it into this suitcase and then the suitcase was shoved into a tiny storage unit where it sat silently for close to a year. i couldn't bare to read it once i brought it home. i sifted through the pages tonight, skipping the intensely sad parts, but thinking that i really should go back to it, dive in, see if i can finish the thing...
going through all this... it's an entire life! it's who i've been and where i've come from. it's the residue and evidence of my growth, of my Becoming. it's the maps i've used. it's the maps i made for myself with words and images and the sweet postcards that came to me from friends. how do i get rid of these things? and should i even be trying to do such a thing??? they are not trinkets and baubles, they are meaningful objects. objects which contain the spirit of a Past, a Family, a Mother, a Daughter, and the puzzle of love and loss. it's a diary.
and then there's THAT. my diary! it's humongous! i've been keeping a daily diary for more than 6 years. i don't even dream of parting with these volumes of scribbles and rants. not for a second. but they definitely pose a bit of a predicament for someone who was hoping to move by airplane with two bags of luggage. hahaha! that's certainly beginning to seem a bit unrealistic. i'm feeling a bit like Anais Nin right now wondering what the fuck to do with a diary that needs a suitcase all to itself. :) i'm glad i still have almost 6 weeks to figure it out but that's not really much time at all. 6 weeks is nothing.
sigh...
and i'm not even complaining. not at all. i'm looking forward to this change so much! i am exhilarated! i'm ecstatic! i've been wanting to do this for so long and i am overjoyed that the day when i can hop on a plane with a one-way ticket to new york in my hand is almost here. and the fact that brian and i are doing this together makes it even better. i'm so glad that i'm doing this with my best-friend. now, if i could only find a way to shrink all these things down and make them miniature-sized! i truly do want to make room for a new life, a new world.
.
i was feeling all GUNG-HO industrious and shit, pulled out the boxes from the back of the closet, fully intending to throw away whatever was inside in order to make way for a new life, in order to lighten my load and get myself in a new york state of mind. i pulled back the cardboard covers and found a huge artwork i'd made for my mother- a deadbed/rosebed i made in the weeks after her death; a huge collection of crocheted roses in varying sizes and shades of red, displayed on a piece of dark red felt on the floor which was cut to the exact dimensions of the bed she died in, a bed which i layed down next to her in and crocheted red roses and lay them on her thin chest the last day she was alive.
there's no fucking way i can get rid of something like that! there's just no way! it's impossible! i texted my sister in a panic because there's also really no way to bring my entire art collection to the east coast (at least not initially) and asked her if she had any space at all in the back of a closet in her house where i could store some art for a time. sweetheart that she is, she said yes immediately and told me not to get stressed out about this stuff; "i'll make room for whatever you want to keep, sweet sister" she wrote. i breathed a deep sigh of relief but still this strange anxiety. it takes a lot out of me to go through these boxes, these memories, these secrets, the evidence of a life... of lives.
i went through the red suitcase that houses tons of saved photographs and postcards. there were some old scraps of paper with messy notes to self scrawled across them that i easily tossed in to the recycle bin, and a few books given to me by a long-forgotten acquaintance that i never got around to reading due to sheer lack of interest which are now sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house. then, i came across my 23 page poem-thing/manuscript that i haven't worked on since i left my last relationship. i shoved it into this suitcase and then the suitcase was shoved into a tiny storage unit where it sat silently for close to a year. i couldn't bare to read it once i brought it home. i sifted through the pages tonight, skipping the intensely sad parts, but thinking that i really should go back to it, dive in, see if i can finish the thing...
going through all this... it's an entire life! it's who i've been and where i've come from. it's the residue and evidence of my growth, of my Becoming. it's the maps i've used. it's the maps i made for myself with words and images and the sweet postcards that came to me from friends. how do i get rid of these things? and should i even be trying to do such a thing??? they are not trinkets and baubles, they are meaningful objects. objects which contain the spirit of a Past, a Family, a Mother, a Daughter, and the puzzle of love and loss. it's a diary.
and then there's THAT. my diary! it's humongous! i've been keeping a daily diary for more than 6 years. i don't even dream of parting with these volumes of scribbles and rants. not for a second. but they definitely pose a bit of a predicament for someone who was hoping to move by airplane with two bags of luggage. hahaha! that's certainly beginning to seem a bit unrealistic. i'm feeling a bit like Anais Nin right now wondering what the fuck to do with a diary that needs a suitcase all to itself. :) i'm glad i still have almost 6 weeks to figure it out but that's not really much time at all. 6 weeks is nothing.
sigh...
and i'm not even complaining. not at all. i'm looking forward to this change so much! i am exhilarated! i'm ecstatic! i've been wanting to do this for so long and i am overjoyed that the day when i can hop on a plane with a one-way ticket to new york in my hand is almost here. and the fact that brian and i are doing this together makes it even better. i'm so glad that i'm doing this with my best-friend. now, if i could only find a way to shrink all these things down and make them miniature-sized! i truly do want to make room for a new life, a new world.
.
Jun 7, 2011
return
ahhhh...
i love it here. LOVE!
we are by no means settled in in regards to books being in the case and paintings hung on the wall (there are boxes everywhere), but my heart and brain has settled in swiftly. the switch was flipped instantly. as soon as i stepped across the threshold here i was at home and it felt as if the last 3 years in the country were only a dream, never happened at all. it feels like no time has passed since i last lived in this city.
yesterday, i began my new job hunt and am keeping my focus limited to jobs i actually want and feel inspired to try for. i went driving around this morning to drop off a few resumes and locate the closest Bart Station. I also realized that the first tuesday of the month is free admission day at SFMOMA so that's where i'll be hustling off to next. :)
i can't tell you how excited, relieved, hopeful, ecstatic, motivated, inspired, and happy i am to be back in the east bay. a tremendous sense of possibility greets me each morning and i feel so thoroughly hopeful. it makes me aware that i am still young and still strong. it's a very good feeling. there's been far too much despair the last few years. and though i agree that there are definite benefits from having experienced despair and surviving the torture of it, it feels damn good to be on the other side of it today.
there's so much to catch y'all up but i don't know how or where to begin. maybe all the back-tracking is unnecessary anyway. Here and Now is so good and bright! all i want to do is be outside. i just want to walk up and down the avenues of my hilly neighborhood and see all there is to see. it renews me to see the skyline of downtown oakland and san francisco. a new life must be built and i am so excited to have the opportunity to do so.
i love it here. LOVE!
we are by no means settled in in regards to books being in the case and paintings hung on the wall (there are boxes everywhere), but my heart and brain has settled in swiftly. the switch was flipped instantly. as soon as i stepped across the threshold here i was at home and it felt as if the last 3 years in the country were only a dream, never happened at all. it feels like no time has passed since i last lived in this city.
yesterday, i began my new job hunt and am keeping my focus limited to jobs i actually want and feel inspired to try for. i went driving around this morning to drop off a few resumes and locate the closest Bart Station. I also realized that the first tuesday of the month is free admission day at SFMOMA so that's where i'll be hustling off to next. :)
i can't tell you how excited, relieved, hopeful, ecstatic, motivated, inspired, and happy i am to be back in the east bay. a tremendous sense of possibility greets me each morning and i feel so thoroughly hopeful. it makes me aware that i am still young and still strong. it's a very good feeling. there's been far too much despair the last few years. and though i agree that there are definite benefits from having experienced despair and surviving the torture of it, it feels damn good to be on the other side of it today.
there's so much to catch y'all up but i don't know how or where to begin. maybe all the back-tracking is unnecessary anyway. Here and Now is so good and bright! all i want to do is be outside. i just want to walk up and down the avenues of my hilly neighborhood and see all there is to see. it renews me to see the skyline of downtown oakland and san francisco. a new life must be built and i am so excited to have the opportunity to do so.
May 31, 2011
hannah, yes, i think you are right (see comment box of post below). i read through what was available online at the amazon link you sent and i nodded and nodded and nodded. i came to that word - that horribly popular word - and thought yep, that's exactly where i am. the word is liminal.
in-between. that's how i've been living for so long it seems. in a mist or in a tantrum, it's hard to say. i swing back and forth between knowing, for sure, which road i need to take, and having absolutely no clue who i am or what i'm doing. lost.
there are days when i feel so angry. angry to the point of hatefulness. so angry i go cold.
i suppose a death will do that to you. i spoke with a friend this weekend and, of his father's death, he said for two years straight i was moving in ten different directions. such a sense of relief swept over me. a cool hand on a fevered forehead. see, i'm not crazy i thought. but maybe my problem is that i'm not crazy enough? that i am so afraid of Shame that i do not allow myself certain expressions, certain risks of emotion and behavior. i'm afraid of "being bad". i'm afraid of being a bad daughter. my horrible lessons are surfacing and the anger i feel, the sense of being cheated, is so strong that it is hard to feel any sense of security or stability. i need an environment of stability in order to work, in order to wrestle with all the chaos that births these images and words. i need a safe home so that i can be unsafe in another: my practice.
the past 5 months have been odd. especially the last three. living between towers of cardboard, all our books packed away and book cases broken down, knowing that an exit was on the horizon but not when. unsettled and afraid of so many things, i took to smaller modes of work. the diary and the sweaters. i made a few paintings and a few drawings but no where near the usual amount. it felt true, honest, to work on the sweaters and scribble in secret. it felt true to not worry about oil painting and that grand history of art. it felt honest to just look at the installations and sculpture of louise bourgeios and read anais nin's diary. it felt right to to work in these tiny loops: the loops of my cursive, the loops of yarn on my hook. black ink and black wool and the slip of graphite every now and then...
maybe my practice is changing? how could it not?
and now this change in location, a change i've wanted for so long. still, there is something hard about packing one's life and history (self) in to boxes. it is sad and sentimental and heartrending. handling the old objects and wondering why i even have them. they are here because they've always been here. i give them to The Goodwill. i must. there is such a tremendous need in me to crawl out from under the weight of my family, the weight of our Past, yet it is so hard for me to toss out certain scraps from that Past. of course, i save the photo albums and heirlooms... but the trash that has followed me must be let go of.
most of it is gone.
next to me there is a pile of old drawings that i need to go through today. j is washing the tops of the walls where i couldn't reach. there is the small pile of books i kept with me just so i could feel safe, feel like myself in the middle of this chaos, and my diary is almost filled. only a few pages from the end but, even if i don't fill them before we leave, i will buy a new notebook to begin the first morning i wake in the new place.
in-between. that's how i've been living for so long it seems. in a mist or in a tantrum, it's hard to say. i swing back and forth between knowing, for sure, which road i need to take, and having absolutely no clue who i am or what i'm doing. lost.
there are days when i feel so angry. angry to the point of hatefulness. so angry i go cold.
i suppose a death will do that to you. i spoke with a friend this weekend and, of his father's death, he said for two years straight i was moving in ten different directions. such a sense of relief swept over me. a cool hand on a fevered forehead. see, i'm not crazy i thought. but maybe my problem is that i'm not crazy enough? that i am so afraid of Shame that i do not allow myself certain expressions, certain risks of emotion and behavior. i'm afraid of "being bad". i'm afraid of being a bad daughter. my horrible lessons are surfacing and the anger i feel, the sense of being cheated, is so strong that it is hard to feel any sense of security or stability. i need an environment of stability in order to work, in order to wrestle with all the chaos that births these images and words. i need a safe home so that i can be unsafe in another: my practice.
the past 5 months have been odd. especially the last three. living between towers of cardboard, all our books packed away and book cases broken down, knowing that an exit was on the horizon but not when. unsettled and afraid of so many things, i took to smaller modes of work. the diary and the sweaters. i made a few paintings and a few drawings but no where near the usual amount. it felt true, honest, to work on the sweaters and scribble in secret. it felt true to not worry about oil painting and that grand history of art. it felt honest to just look at the installations and sculpture of louise bourgeios and read anais nin's diary. it felt right to to work in these tiny loops: the loops of my cursive, the loops of yarn on my hook. black ink and black wool and the slip of graphite every now and then...
maybe my practice is changing? how could it not?
and now this change in location, a change i've wanted for so long. still, there is something hard about packing one's life and history (self) in to boxes. it is sad and sentimental and heartrending. handling the old objects and wondering why i even have them. they are here because they've always been here. i give them to The Goodwill. i must. there is such a tremendous need in me to crawl out from under the weight of my family, the weight of our Past, yet it is so hard for me to toss out certain scraps from that Past. of course, i save the photo albums and heirlooms... but the trash that has followed me must be let go of.
most of it is gone.
next to me there is a pile of old drawings that i need to go through today. j is washing the tops of the walls where i couldn't reach. there is the small pile of books i kept with me just so i could feel safe, feel like myself in the middle of this chaos, and my diary is almost filled. only a few pages from the end but, even if i don't fill them before we leave, i will buy a new notebook to begin the first morning i wake in the new place.
May 30, 2011
memorial day
there is a horrible sadness on me today... growing in my sleep the passed few days and during recent rounds of somnambulism too. i have been caught in that state of walking reverie and fantasy. that state where i am only half present, only half listening, standing with one foot only in the current physical reality and the other in my inner reality, far from the horrors and obligations of the later. the moments when physical reality calls me back to tend to it are so sorrowful and painful. the simplest chore becomes a lengthy exercise in tremendous self-control. an exercise in how to not scream, how to not crumble, how to hold one's self together and stand silently while rage and confusion clash like rams beneath one's skin. i can't tell you what it is. it's never just one thing. all this change, all this chaos gets to me sometimes. there are days when nothing is right and i have no clue what to do about it. there are days when i just want to run, days when i just want to cry.
the last time i did this - the big CLEAN - i was alone in the house for three days attempting to convince myself that as i lifted stains from the carpet i also rid myself of stain and corruption... that as i erased the traces of the family who lived there, maybe i could erase the traces of that family within me.
today, we wash the walls and put our odds and ends in the last boxes.
the last time i did this - the big CLEAN - i was alone in the house for three days attempting to convince myself that as i lifted stains from the carpet i also rid myself of stain and corruption... that as i erased the traces of the family who lived there, maybe i could erase the traces of that family within me.
today, we wash the walls and put our odds and ends in the last boxes.
May 24, 2011
forward
i woke up and wrote for an hour, drinking irish breakfast tea all the while, and then began filling a box full of our dishes wrapped up in my clothes to keep my beloved blue willow intact while they are transported from the country to the city.
i can't tell you how anxious and joyful i am. how ready. how absolutely ready i am to move. i keep wondering about the images i will make once this is all over. once i'm out of this place and back to something that feels more like myself, my life. i'm eager to find the shadows i will roll up in next.
i took my German final yesterday and worked my last shift at my retail gig. my life here is winding down quickly. we moved the majority of our stuff to the new digs this passed weekend and now there's just the strangler possessions to deal with and the obligatory deep-cleaning to muscle through. i want to be done. i want to be moved. i want to wake up in a new room, in a new square of sunlight, with a new life budding all around me.
i can't tell you how anxious and joyful i am. how ready. how absolutely ready i am to move. i keep wondering about the images i will make once this is all over. once i'm out of this place and back to something that feels more like myself, my life. i'm eager to find the shadows i will roll up in next.
i took my German final yesterday and worked my last shift at my retail gig. my life here is winding down quickly. we moved the majority of our stuff to the new digs this passed weekend and now there's just the strangler possessions to deal with and the obligatory deep-cleaning to muscle through. i want to be done. i want to be moved. i want to wake up in a new room, in a new square of sunlight, with a new life budding all around me.
May 21, 2011
hope
we took a truck-load of books over to the new place yesterday. easily a thousand pounds of paper weight. GEEZ! hahahaha! and this morning i loaded as many paintings as i could in to the truck and j will cart them all over later this afternoon while i get in some study time in preparation for my German final and go to my second-to-last shift at my retail gig. the end of things... the slowing of the old cycle yet still racing to the finish. there are things that i must finalize and be responsible to for just a little bit longer. walking outside yesterday evening in the beautiful yellow light in oakland and having a new set of keys in my hand woke up a firey hope. it was hard to drive away and come back up here to the cabin. and looking at j across the restaurant table yesterday as we celebrated with philly cheesesteaks, i realized that nothing is broken and that we are completely beautiful, wiser than we were at the beginning of this little detour out to the country, and stronger for having gone down this road. i stayed up late drinking mint tea and finished Just Kids. i'm not going to spoil it for you, just read it. especially if you're an artist. especially if you need a dose of courage and an art-related pep talk. i think it's required reading for all artists or anyone caught in a struggle. it's a very encouraging, inspiring document. patti smith's honesty in this memoir is so generous, so beautiful. the book, in so many ways, functions as a guide and a warm hug. it was definitely the right thing for me to read as my life here winds down and a new one springs up in the east bay, right next door to my beloved san francisco.
.
.
May 16, 2011
Nov 2, 2009
looking for home...
after dinner last night, we all sat around and talked and laughed on the great big veranda at the neighbors house. they told us about funny and wacky camping trips they've been on, all the little sideways adventures and fun... and it dawned on me that my sweetie and i have been on one big sideways adventure since the day we got together. we've moved every year and a half for the passed four and a half years. and though a couple of those were to seize beautiful opportunities, it always makes for a strange transition and re-ordering of life. and come to think of it... my family moved a lot when i was a kid. i didn't grow up in one house. i didn't go to one high school.
anyway, when we moved here a year and a half ago, i couldn't seem to get up the energy to unpack. i think it took me a good 8 months to set our possessions in order. and of course, every time i opened a new box, i saw all sorts of objects that i no longer wanted, no longer needed, and some ghosts tried to get out too. and for the first year of our stay here, our little home has been in a constant state of re-arranging, removing, weeding through, getting rid of, rotating paintings, etc, etc, etc. and as i was telling the neighbors about this last night and watched their eyes change and heard how chaotic it sounds to most people- moving that often - i realized that maybe it took me so long to unpack the boxes because i feared i'd just have to repack them soon enough. my sweetheart and i have lived an a strange moment of upheaval and change for almost 5 years. some of it good, some of it not so good, but we've managed to be good to each other in spite of all that...
and so when i started feeling nervous about the house we looked at, nervous over what a big decision it is, i realized that i'm sort of scared to put down roots... i don't want to have to yank them back up. i don't want to have to relocate anymore. at least not for a few more years. i want to get down to enjoying my daily life and be free of the feeling of impending DOOM of having to move again. it's been hard on both of us and i'm ready to settle down for awhile. i'm ready to build and grow and change IN ONE SPOT. i want to start putting together a show and making plans and all sorts of wonderful things which is so hard to do in a state of flux. tremendously hard. and the longer i'm here in this area, the more i love it, the more i see the value of living in a place like this. i don't want to uproot again and go some place different just yet. i want to keep running through the vineyards with my dog, writing and drawing first thing in the morning, painting and playing. i don't want to lose these things. i want to keep them safe. i want them to grow and get bigger. i want them to weave in and out of my day and i want to feel secure enough to just be happy where i'm at. my sweetie feels the same way. we want a bit of ease and a bit of consistency and all those adult things that once upon a time sounded so boring.
anyway, when we moved here a year and a half ago, i couldn't seem to get up the energy to unpack. i think it took me a good 8 months to set our possessions in order. and of course, every time i opened a new box, i saw all sorts of objects that i no longer wanted, no longer needed, and some ghosts tried to get out too. and for the first year of our stay here, our little home has been in a constant state of re-arranging, removing, weeding through, getting rid of, rotating paintings, etc, etc, etc. and as i was telling the neighbors about this last night and watched their eyes change and heard how chaotic it sounds to most people- moving that often - i realized that maybe it took me so long to unpack the boxes because i feared i'd just have to repack them soon enough. my sweetheart and i have lived an a strange moment of upheaval and change for almost 5 years. some of it good, some of it not so good, but we've managed to be good to each other in spite of all that...
and so when i started feeling nervous about the house we looked at, nervous over what a big decision it is, i realized that i'm sort of scared to put down roots... i don't want to have to yank them back up. i don't want to have to relocate anymore. at least not for a few more years. i want to get down to enjoying my daily life and be free of the feeling of impending DOOM of having to move again. it's been hard on both of us and i'm ready to settle down for awhile. i'm ready to build and grow and change IN ONE SPOT. i want to start putting together a show and making plans and all sorts of wonderful things which is so hard to do in a state of flux. tremendously hard. and the longer i'm here in this area, the more i love it, the more i see the value of living in a place like this. i don't want to uproot again and go some place different just yet. i want to keep running through the vineyards with my dog, writing and drawing first thing in the morning, painting and playing. i don't want to lose these things. i want to keep them safe. i want them to grow and get bigger. i want them to weave in and out of my day and i want to feel secure enough to just be happy where i'm at. my sweetie feels the same way. we want a bit of ease and a bit of consistency and all those adult things that once upon a time sounded so boring.
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