while reading The Hour of the Star

seems i am always circling around some sort of Reckoning, some sort of Return.  these thing i chase.  the moments when i feel most alive, charged with electricity and love, full of fear and pleasure and ego.  or the moments in the middle of the night when i am convinced of my own ineptitude, my selfish stupidity.  those horribly cold moments when i wallow in all my worst thoughts of myself, when i focus on all i lack, all i have always lacked. 

chasing a Reckoning.  some sort of Shattering.  a tear in the seam.  a crack that will let a little light in.  or a little dark out.

and i open a book and i read the words and for a one warm moment i feel Known in a way that i've always needed, in a way that i so often crave. 

 

the words stare at me and i nod my head: "Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"

there are so few moments of reprieve.  too few.  i look at my hands.  i put polish on the nails.  i look at my eyes.  i pull tar through the lashes.  i look at my mouth.  i cover the soft pink with the loudest red i can find.  these additions make me Real.  these flecks of color, these gestures toward Urge and Desire prove i am alive and healthy and humming with the ability to take part in an exchange with the world.  i am here and standing and capable but my little love-sick heart goes on wishing after so many ridiculous things.  

i want to be invincible and never made silent through shame or guilt.  i want to be the strongest thing in the world.  i want to not hurt.  i want to not long for things the way i do.  i want to feel contained and content and totally devoid of certain desires for the symbols of approval and appreciation.  

i suppose it's normal now for the questions to come.  it's been a week since buying the ticket and i am settling in to the knowledge that something i've dreamed of for so many long, lonely years is about to happen.  i make lists of what i need to take care of.  i need a backpack and flip-flops and a towel and a lock and a map.  i woke early this morning and kept my appointment at the post office to get an expedited passport.  when the moment came where i had to declare under penalty of perjury that i am who i claim to be i felt so giddy.  such a child-like happiness coursed through my entire body and i couldn't help but smile at the woman who asked for my oath.  in 2 weeks, my passport will arrive.  my birth certificate will come back to me under separate cover.  it's the first time in my entire life i've actually ever possessed the document.  it's always been in someone else's care. i'm an adult in such an official way.  i look around at the portfolios leaning against the bedroom wall, the guitar i haven't played in close to a decade, the books that will remain unread and all i can think is "just get rid of all this shit.  get rid of everything."

i war against my frailties.  i pull yarn through a loop with a cold hook.  i fashion a text of my own in red letters and i stitch them to poles on the street in the middle of the night when i walk home from the train station after waiting tables all evening.  i say this in plain language but it is a romantic moment.  no cars, no birds, no sound at all save for the soft scratch of my shoes against the sidewalk.  for however humble my life may be, it is also quite charmed.  i am not blind to the beauty that curls around me.  i am not oblivious to the goodness that swirls.  and so i am disappointed in myself when these frailties rear up and my little lonely heart beats against my ribs, begging for things i know don't matter and will only serve to hold me back. 

think of airplanes, little girl.

think of airplanes, woman.  

there is so much i do not know.

 

 

beautiful day

i pulled on the shiny black pants i bought in new york.  i pulled a sweater over my head that i made at the beginning of this year and have never worn.  i stuck little pins in it. one that says R. MUTT and one that says I WILL CRUSH YOU. then, i went walking in the dark and in the cold.  it lit up my lungs and skin.  i feel a bit lighter in spite of myself, in spite of my arrogant pins.

i indulged in some much needed sweater-making time today.  i sipped coffee and wrote.  and last night after my last blog post i stayed up til 2am reading The Maids by Genet.  i truly love that man's work.  i love his ecstatic, passionate engagement with language.  after i get further along in german, i'll dive in to french so that i can read his work in its original form.  but The Maids...  it is a dark, seething play.  it spews the hatred that the poor of this earth often feel.  it tells of the insanity that can grow from humiliation and degradation.  it tells of the insanity that can grow from envy and subjugation.  it tells of the insanity that two sisters can grow together if left alone together too long in too hard a world.  it tells of the insanity we can encourage in each other when we stroke dangerous desires; the dire longing that reduces one to a state of abjection.  or maybe it isn't insanity at all?  i remember feeling the same way when i was very young and growing up poor.  i remember feeling so much less than everyone else.  my cousins and my classmates.  our society encourages it.  it's always been the case that we associate beauty with wealth.  to be poor is to be ugly.  to be poor is to be lazy and stupid.  to be poor is to be lesser.  or so the lesson goes.  it took many years to root that lesson out.  nevertheless, reading The Maids last night i could identify with that hard longing to be seen as an equal, to be valued for something more substantial than what clothes rest on my back.  and the language of the play is absolutely stunning.  cutting.  Genet is as masterful at sarcasm as he is at poetics.  i'm happy i stayed up late last night and read it.  i'm happy i stayed up late last night and read!  i plan to do the same tonight.

i went walking in the cold because i needed to buy a new notebook.  one more notebook filled and one more to go (at least) before the end of the year finds me.  i can't believe winter is already here.  wasn't it just yesterday that i was braving these winds?  did summer and fall already rush by? god, it's all been such a rush of image and breath and dance.  such a flood of music and alcohol and laughter.  i'm glad i took the time to write so much of it down.

i am so lucky to have crossed your path. 

i ended up scoring two of the coolest...

.



































.

luxury

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the rain beats the roof. a storm covers our country. i have stolen the hours of this day for reading, spending the length of this day in bed with the gorgeous thief himself. jean genet is one of the most lyrical, beautiful writers i have ever read. he is not excessive or flowery, but abundant. a skilled lover. no touch is wasted. everything is necessary.


.

breath

we are losing day light. the season is robbing me of my beloved early mornings. i noticed today how dark it still was today at 6am. absolute black here at the forest's edge.

it's been freezing in the morning too. i will need to get a ski mask so that i can keep running in the winter.

running has become a ritual. breath and blood- pounding pounding, surging. a necessity. and my mind travels through time, through branches, through fog toward early light and shade while i leap across the two-lane highway, barrel down the lane along vineyards, orchards, tenements, and the wide, unkempt fields littered with rotting walnut husks.

stray dogs. squirrels. signs for who to vote for.

i am making a big cup of tea with honey in it. after i enjoy it, i will go vote. exercise my rights and then come home, dive back in to my black graphite, scratch scratch scratch the page, and sit in bed with my Mr. Wonderful- Roland Barthes. it is high on my To-Do List today to re-read Camera Lucida. it's been years. i don't remember a thing about it and that makes me feel too silly to not do anything about it. besides, as i go along, i seem to crave more and more time with Barthes' writing... believing, in a way akin to faith, that dealing with his work truly does make me a better artist. i am sure of this. and in becoming a better artist, also a better person.

i've been singing lately while i work. yesterday, i sang almost all day long while i sat on the living room floor working on a huge drawing. the day moved so quickly. and i felt such a deep stir of emotion while i worked. the swell and release that only the act of singing seems to bring. an exorcism of sorts, i suppose. a reckoning. and i felt like i accomplished something good and true just sitting here on the floor, singing and drawing, all day long.

try

yesterday i started writing at 7am and didn't knock off til after 3 in the afternoon, completely worn out. at one point, writing a childhood memory, my eyes welled up with tears. the only thing that stopped me from crying was the need to keep banging my fingers down on the keys. the click click click of the act. and once it was done, i felt like i was in a trance- not really seeing anything or thinking anything. hypnotized. half asleep. limbo.

then i made dinner, relaxed with my sweetheart, and we both climbed in to bed a bit early to read. i finished the 2nd volume of Persepolis. i am amazed by Marjane Satrapi. amazed. this chronicle of her life is just astounding. not just the events these books contain, but her knack as a writer to tell an entire story with such few words! the comic form doesn't lend itself to wordy writing. it is so paired down! efficient. i'm way at the opposite end of that spectrum! ha! and the books, from start to finish, are just gorgeous and heart breaking and important. also, i continue to be amazed by writers who aren't afraid to use their own life story to produce an artwork. especially an artwork whose basic material is language. such exposure! such a brave, compelling act. seriously. this is definitely Required Reading. in fact, this should be required reading in high school. it really should be. it would make the world a better place if it were. no joke.

and in the pages of her story, a truism was presented; one that i've been thinking myself lately. "one must educate oneself". coming across this statement within the text shook me hard. it is the exact right answer, coming at the exact right moment, a moment when it is absolutely needed.

i must read. i must study. i must TRY. and i have to, simply, just keep doing what i've been doing- writing, reading, drawing, painting. all in a big loop. a huge web. my constellation.

keep plugging away.

i have plenty of coffee and paper.

education and "education" and love:

the risk of yesterday proved to be beneficial and worthwhile and happy-making. :)

i have put the piece away again but it will be back one day. thank you. (((HUG)))

and last night before bed, i thought of Anne Sexton. opened The Complete Poems at random and read "Suicide Note". then this morning, another random ruffling of pages, and i read "That Day". and so caught by her, her story, her persona (?), the cape that swirls around her, i read the introduction by Maxine Kumin, with my coffee, aloud on the floor of the bathroom.

i knew the neighbor kids could hear me as they walked off giggling to school.

but i read the entire thing out loud, unembarrassed, and by the time i got to the end where Maxine - a friend to Anne, so close a friend that maybe, if we ignore ideas about tradition and location and gender, their friendship could be described more accurately as Marriage - speaks of Anne's threat to never send a telegram of her death plan ever again and then succeeds in her attempt just 6 months after making that assertion. and my eyes teared. teared so badly, i couldn't make out the text. i felt overcome with loss and gratitude and awe and just plain ol' love...


she did not start writing poetry (in terms of words on a page, at least) until she was 28.


Maxine writes: Untrammeled by a traditional education in Donne, Milton, Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, Anne was able to strike out alone, like Conrad's secret sharer, for a new destiny. She was grim about her lost years, her lack of a college degree; she read omnivorously and quite innocently whatever came to hand and enticed her, forming her own independent, quirky, and incisive judgments.


and this passage caught my eye and heart. more and more, i think of the education i am receiving right now, currently, today, this minute, all the minutes stacked one on top of the other, self-governed, fueled by private loves, private interests, private fears - my self and body and history as the manual for such a nebulous, hungry, fiery education - and how lucky i am to have it. to have a site, no matter how small or humble, of fearlessness. to read what i want, to not apologise for my attractions, to think, and breathe, and give myself over to an entire day of reading if need be and not feel bad about it. to play and struggle and dance and sing and yell and cry and cry and cry sometimes...

and that it is a gift too, for as embarrassing or strange as it may seem to some, to tear up in the bathroom over the death of a person i never knew some 30 years ago.

and if empathy is an acquired "skill", should that not be one of the pursuits of education, traditional or un?

and i think of the amazing WAVE of hatred for education that seems to be sweeping through the U.S. lately. a tide that continues to rise and rise and rise. and the false definitions and call for "credentials" that come along for the ride, in this, the Land of the Free. this, in a place that looooooves stories of triumph and beating the odds and rooting for the underdog. and this wave spills on to Art too. the definitions and rejection of lived experience as if LIFE has no relevance. really? then what are you making Art for? what are you reading for?

education only "counts" in this country if it is "formal". and the "formality" of an education is decided by whether or not one might be able to win a paycheck of substance once said education is complete (by that defintion, my BFA is NOT a formal education). but the notions of "completion" and "education", to me, seem completely inharmonious. to the point of sad ridiculousness. when does education complete itself? is there really a day when learning ends? i mean, other than death? doctors, surgeons, lawyers, whomevers continue to study their areas of interests. they write and research and explore. at least the good ones do. the ones whom i would trust to cut me open if i needed to be.

and so too, it should be with Art. and the "best" artists and writers have a wide open definition of what art is, how to make it, what tools can be used. the answer is : EVERYTHING. including your life. especially your life. because perspective, perception, ideas are reality. and so why this limit placed on which education is valuable and which is not? look at the work. the work signifies who has wrestled and who has not. who cares and who doesn't. who is blowing steam and who is a steam engine.

i love critical discourse. it is an area in which art is really wrestled with. explored and fought with and cried over and yelled about. it's exciting! the excitement is infectious and wild and important. but critical discourse is an aid to education, not an end.

Anne Sexton's work was loved and hated in equal measure. it still is today, hated and loved. who's right? will that debate really be won by taking a look at credentials? and what credentials does one need to become an artist, to be an artist, other than the extreme hunger and love of the thing? Mr. Wonderful (our lovely Roland Barthes) knew this. he wrote an entire book, all in fragments, about love... what it is to love. an emotion that, at every turn, shatters reason, thwarts logic, and compels the lover to continue beyond the event of heart-break and humiliation. a critic and philosopher shouting PRAISE for the human spirit. and NO ONE, no critic, has yet to say a word back against that book.

because it cannot be refuted.

because the love of knowledge, of ideas, of exploration, of continuing to learn and grow, is LOVE in action. it is a necessary ingredient to becoming "educated", regardless of how one might define that word or go about attaining it.

it is my love that pushes me. and it is my love that quickens me, spurs me on to learn as much as i can, where i am, with the tools available to me. that allow me to see the circumstances of my own life and history as a rich, valuable site of learning and exploration in and of itself. that the books i read, the images that flash in front of my face, provide a new mirror, a new pick-axe with which i can excavate my own experiences and hopefully, maybe, at least try, to provide that same moment of self-recognition in another human being. that unexpected scorch. that moment that throttles my heart and brain and allows me to dig deeper this time, this time, next time, and to create meaning within my own life. that is what artists do. that is what art is good for. that is what an education truly supplies: the ability to make meaning.

and i really cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful education i am acquiring right now! there are so so so many exciting, dedicated, passionate people from all walks of life maintaining such exciting, driven, forward-moving blogs right now. i have a book list that spans pages and pages in my sketch book that is completely derived from reading other artist's and writer's blogs. the discussions that take place in this electronic landscape, in the comment box, are so fertile and interesting! and it's open to anyone and everyone that has an inclination to learn and a computer to borrow! it's amazing! and then, running through a wide vineyard and drawing pictures and making silly little paper dolls, paintings of icebergs and x-rays, trips to the used book store, walking around in the sun and mosquitoes, listening to music, writing my own weirdo poetry, day dreaming and thinking and embracing all that results- the shine and the sour, the whole shebang.

and speaking of the whole shebang, please please PLEASE read Dodie Bellamy's "Barf Manifesto". two lectures transcibed about what writing and art can do and be, the furious "vomit" that may transpire- the aesthetic of the 'good' and the 'bad' swirling together in the same bowl, the multiple temporalities of memory, how they get all mixed-up and overlap, past experience and right-now-this-minute all mixed up, and what a wonderful, insightful, necessary enterprise to allow the "messiness" of human existence to come in to view. it is benevolent. and expands the definition of art, of education, of skill, craft, and knowledge. it gives "permission" to view one's life as valuable, full of meaning, full of spark; and encourages bravery... risk taking, the flowering of one's own mind and life.

literary pursuits

last night, i read the first 100 pages of The Catcher in the Rye again. i haven't read this book in years and years and years. i forgot how funny Holden Caufield is. HILARIOUS! the book actually made me laugh out loud as i sat in bed, curled up in my quilt, trying to wind down after a long and very draining day. it actually accomplished the very opposite. it woke me up. hahaha! and there i was, laughing like a crazy person at a book, and it dawned on me that, the first time i read this, it didn't at all strike me that Holden Caufield is insane. other people have told me the character is nuts, but i don't really pick that up from the story. at least not at this point 100 pages in. and i don't remember anything about how the book ends so i guess and just wait and see if he gets crazy all of a sudden. although... there are similarities actually between The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar... the main character's distraction and obsession... distracted obsession. getting derailed by small appearances in the world and turns of phrase and the way someone moves... they get locked up by small things. thwarted. it's like The Bell Jar for dudes. hahahaha! because i don't think The Bell Jar is all that crazy either even though it is the story of a young woman's decent in to madness. the description of the narrator, how she perceives things, don't seen crazy to me. they seem sensitive. a deep sensitivity that is easily harmed by the world... prone to feeling "outside" or Other. soft-hearted and sharp-minded can be a painful combination. it leads to a lot of confusion and agony. but i don't think that it spells crazy. there's still 100+ pages to go though so maybe my opinion will change. i thought it'd be good to re-read it since Mr. Salinger died recently... a way to pay my respects. and also, temper the information i've been letting in to my brain since the start of the year. i've been very focused on female writers and i thought it'd be a good idea to get some men in the bunch. J.D. Salinger seemed a perfect fit.

thanking my lucky stars

"A Lover's Discourse" by Roland Barthes (my forever mr. wonderful) is the best possible thing i could be reading right now. it pulls together, in such sensuous ways, all the things i've been reading, all the things i've been thinking, all the ideas, each splinter. and his eloquence is breath-taking. hard edged and shining. it is just like reading a book of poetry. it IS a work of poetry. and resistance. VIVA! he charts the site where all logic crumbles. logic falls away, unusable. reason becomes a frail thing in this land.

a fear.

an exaltation.

gorgeous. and every word, a true a word.


i have tried to pick a favorite passage to share here. i fail. there is no favorite if favorite means 'only one'. every word is necessary.

education:

mine has been an odd one, that's for sure! full of corkscrews and resistance and anger and ecstasy.

and it absolutely continues to be that way.



did you know i graduated from continuation school? ha! it's true! i was in honors classes prior to that and it was pretty hilarious to see my old class-mates pop up there too. ha!

it was there however, at the school for "bad kids", that i read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the first 1000 page book i'd ever read, the first book that i felt really did leave an indelible mark on my life... it changed everything.

and it was while i was enrolled there, after having read that book, that i became a california state art scholar. which made everybody do a double-take! hahaha! one day i was a step away from dropping out and the next, i had a medal in my hand. very odd!

i can't tell you how long i lived as a statistic, how close i was to always being a statistic. and i think it was my hatred for that "statistic" that made me hungry for something more, something else, something Other. that, and a teacher who believed in me.

it was then that the dream and act of writing, of being a writer, really really woke up. woke up hard and fast and burning and searing and flailing. wild! and totally uncontrollable. i always had my notebook with me. always. and i held that dream tight. i decided to follow it. i decided to believe in myself the way my teacher had: my lovely, lovely Mrs. V.

after graduation, i spent 7 LONG YEARS at the same junior college, plugging away and trying to devise a plan for somehow finding the money to go to a university. it absolutely took that long for certain doors in the financial aid department to open up for me. and so in the meantime, i decided to keep in practice, keep going to school, keep working, keep trying, keep searching for a way out of my circumstances.

7 years of life-drawing. of every single art class the school offered. every writing course. and religious studies and history and literature and math and psychology. everything that i had even the fainted interest in. and at the time i hated it.

i felt caged and ridiculous. i felt like a fucking loser. i spend a lot of time feeling entirely lost and completely helpless and utterly stupid... full of anger and regret and despair. of course, despair. like most teenagers, my dreams where way too big for my little town and it was soul-crushing to have to stay put that long.

but now, i couldn't be more grateful for the weird meandering line my education has followed.

during those 7 years, i worked too. some really un-fun jobs. i wasn't just hanging out (though i did a fair amount of that too and had all the horrible experiences everyone has). a couple times i held down two jobs while going to school. and there was one really, really bad relationship tucked up in there too. and for awhile, i double-majored in english and fine art. after a year and a half, art won out. at the time, i figured that if art wasn't what i ended up doing for the rest of my life, it would at least lead me to what i would be doing and i've been following it ever since.

i was 25 when i got to art school. the first day of class was my birthday, in fact. best present i ever got. and the best thing about it- i got it for myself. my circumstances had changed. it took a lot of heartache to get them to change, i won't lie. it took a lot of persistence and failures.. but they did change. and i changed my life with my own two hands.

that memory in particular is the one i lean on most when i'm feeling defeated. that i did it once, i can do it again. all i have to do is keep trying. and that fighting spirit is what i lost during the big bad 2 year depression. i completely lost it. gone. and being without that strength of will was so damn painful, so scary. that little spark of rebellion, of refusal to accept one's circumstances as THE RULE, is so important. amazingly important. because until i die, the struggle and shit of the world will be mine too. the ability to believe in myself is the only thing that got me through the shit thus far. to have that spark back feels so amazing and securing and valuable. like a gem... or a childhood relic that has been saved from the yard sale.

and it was the dream and act of writing that kept me from slipping back in to the hated "statistic".

and so my education continues. it has not stopped. even that depression is part of it. even that has value now that i'm on the other side of it. if anything, my education has gotten deeper as a result. it's so much more personal and fiery, full of such exquisite twists. it is scary and angering and beautiful... this search, this reaching out. it's even embarrassing sometimes but it makes my life so full and alive and buzzing. i've never read so much in my life as i am reading right now. and i am actively seeking more things to read- things that are definitely not at Barnes & Noble, things that have to be hunted down, wrestled with, slept with, fought with. things that piss me off and offend me sometimes, things that really do challenge my ethics and force me to look inside myself and see why i believe the things i do. sometimes, my beliefs have changed. other times, they've been made stronger. trial by fire, to be sure. and all the while, i maintain a certain level of fresh naivety because naivety keeps you from feeling intimidated in a lot of ways. when you don't know any better, you're more able to just be yourself. you're open and interested and, in some ways, entirely fearless. just like a little kid. and since i was a shy child, always so full of fear, this fearless playfulness feels wonderful.

this is one of the reasons i get a kick out of things like National Poetry Month- a built-in excuse to be playful, to be a "nerd", to take charge of my own education, to make the rules up for myself, to cater to my own interests, to lavish in adulthood this way, to decide for myself what is worth-while. i love it!

education has a very broad definition... or, at least, it should. it is a life's work. at least i think so. and it doesn't stop after the degree is in your hand. in fact, in the 2 years since i got mine, all the stuff i read has really started to sink in... and it has made me so hungry for more. it's like i've learned how to see. lived experience is what all the theories and studies and ideas are derivative of. when we study, we're studying life in all its forms- all its beauty and weirdness and atrocity. if i have a definition for what "education" is, it's that: learning how to see. just see.

anyway, i'm feeling sentimental now. ha! i'll be back later with today's poem. there's more coffee to drink and more ideas to play with and it's still early. good morning. :)

good morning, all my loves!

i stayed up so late last night! so late that when the alarm went off at 5 i didn't even hear it. and when my sweetie tried to rouse me 45 minutes later, i sat up, looked at him, and my sight was shaky- something that used to happen to me during my last semester in school when life was GO GO GO and sleep was a rare gift. so i grumbled "one more hour" and laid back down and slept for 3. ha!

i went out to the city last night for one of my friend's openings. the show was gorgeous and i was so inspired and happy to be there. and i lost track of time laughing with people and meeting new people and, before i knew it, it was 10:45 and i still had an hour and a half drive back home, out here to my little spot in the countryside. but i had a fantastic time. it was one of those nights where it's so hard to pull back on the reigns and detach from the happiness at hand. amazing. well worth being tired. well worth the snag in my "schedule". ha! besides... it's friday and drizzling and i've already given myself permission to say the weekend has arrived. :)

lately, i've been spending my weekends with my nose jammed in a book and it has been such a gorgeous experience. i count myself incredibly lucky to have been exposed to the work of such amazing and skilled writers. and reading is so integral to my practice. such a necessity. this huge influx of ideas is my favorite environment- tall grass to roll in, warm and without judgement. and taking in all these words, all these images and metaphors and philosophies and theories and poems and gestures is so much like drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. so comforting and safe. it's an experience in which i feel completely myself, completely at home. i hope the used books i ordered from amazon show up in my mail box today. especially "A Lover's Discourse" by Mr. Wonderful, Roland Barthes, my love. swoon swoon.

and of course, our big built-in excuse to be BIG FAT POETRY NERDS! YAY!!!!!

yesterday, after posting the first poem of the month by the untouchable Sharon Olds, i got in a wonderful email exchange with Jeff Callico about her work- how forceful and hard and gorgeous it is, and how, like Bukowski, she doesn't mess around with metaphor... she wanders the autobiographical and presents the shit, the mess, the joy, the jumble of living. and it made me want to read all her books all over again. to dive in to these black lines and float there on the rim of her life, the memories that crawl back and back again, that twist the present, that caress or corrupt a day.

so let us hold on to her black rope again. a double shot. she is worth it. and she is required reading, for sure.

a poem for Good Friday. ;)




The Pope's Penis




It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat- and at night,
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.





(from The Gold Cell)

page after page

i am reading The Bell Jar again. this is round 3. it's been about 2 years since the last time i read it, and 14 or so since the first. when i read it the 2nd time, i didn't remember anything about it other than i remembered liking it when i read it when i was 14 or 15... somewhere around there, the common age for the first time read of this particular work, it seems. HA! and so when i read it again at 27, i was startled by it completely. it unhinged things in me, let long hidden things float to the surface. or come screaming up, tearing up, bleeding to the surface.

the language and the tempo of the book are easy in a lulling kind of way. slowly, slowly, we (i) follow the guide of the words, chapter after chapter, and when the break happens, when the collapse of function occurs inside our heroine, we (i) collapse as well. something unhinges. and in that gap, the text of this book begins to pool.

yesterday i slid back and forth between my graphite pages and the pages of this book. i'd draw for an hour or two and then go read. draw for an hour or so and, again, go read. and then i took a late afternoon jog through the vineyard and noticed spring has arrived. daisies and vultures out everywhere and the thirsty evening clouds of gnats. it was a relief to see these signs of a new season. the waking-up of the land. and when i came home, i made a big dinner, took a shower, and got in bed again with my book. i read until i fell asleep. i don't remember having dreamt. and i woke, sore-eyed, to the aroma of fresh hot coffee.

this day will mirror yesterday in my activities but this strange, daily education and practice is taking shape, clicking in to place, and it simply just feels right. my life contained and expressed and breathing across so many sheets of paper. the soft texture. the mark of graphite. the smudges of type on my thumbs. the gray that shadows up my forearms from drawing and ends eventually on my cheek.

something i read yesterday...

"...The description itself does not reproduce the object, it rather helps us to restage and restate the effort to remember what is lost. The description reminds us how loss acquires meaning and generates recovery- not only of and for the object, but for the one who remembers."

from Unmarked by Peggy Phalen, page 147


All these paintings and drawings are descriptions. And just as the above statement asserts, my "description" of, my portrait of Sylvia Likens will not bring her back.

But the act of drawing her, the act of describing her, even partially, is a way to help me remember her even though I didn't know her. It helps me remember what happened. This act of remembering, this seemingly simple act of drawing her likeness of a sheet of paper, is a gesture toward recovery... not only hers, but mine,

ours.

words words words

i have been reading all day long. ever since i woke up. ALL DAY. and i think i'm just gonna let this train keep rolling.

books make everything matter so much more.

love, love, love

yes. a couple highlights here and there, softly, softly, yes, and then the below painting will done. sometimes i need to see it photographed, see it smaller, to know what it needs, what it's missing, what it's thirsty for.

the rain is here and it is dark. but today i'm thankful for it and not anxious for the clouds to move off. the bad weather brings a great many blessings sometimes- unforeseen. entirely unexpected.

today i'll stretch more canvas and line all those sweet virgins up in a row. i'm so drawn to large-scale painting right now. completely. anything smaller than 44" x 38" feels too small. not enough land. i need a large expanse of white to spill my oil on and slide and smear around, wrestle inside of, ache and moan and yell and beg.

i've had such a heavy influx of ideas lately. excited and fast and steady. it feels beautiful and i am grateful. the fertile land of fairy-tales, Alice in Wonderland, Cadaver Dogs, The Bloody Chamber, and my very own notebook have been good ground for me to stand on. i am surging. and these short days don't supply me with enough good light to cater to all my ideas and leanings and cravings, but it gives me time to sit and read and write and play inside my own imagination. and that play is where all these wonderful wants and concepts have sprung from. it makes me re-think my new year's resolution... maybe instead of a drawing a day, i'll read everyday. something new, something i've always wanted to read but didn't or couldn't. it's just such a deep, beautiful well and has always broke my mind wide open: reading.

writers have always made my life so much better, fuller, deeper, more sincere, more thoughtful, more beautiful, more.... MORE! i'm thankful for you- all your hard work and struggle and the resistance you display to the dumbing-down, fizzling out, cynical onslaught of cultural laziness and lethargy. i am indebted. quite. and so i do my best work for you in return. beyond era or circumstance or recognition, i do my best work for those who inspire it and for those whom might be inspired in kind.

good morning, Roland!

sometimes a bad day leads to good things. a funny plurality. and a comforting one.

yesterday, i spent the majority of the day feeling bogged down and out of sorts- suddenly a bit angry and confused by life. my life. and, off and on, i thought "go bury yourself in a book. get out of yourself and in to something else". and, of course, i waited until evening to listen to my own fine suggestion. i am stubborn that way. and of course, once i obeyed the call to read, i felt endlessly better. the benefits of reading have been widely praised by everyone starting with our kindergarten teachers. and it's all true too. i don't really know why, culturally, reading has fallen out of favor in terms of "for fun" activities, or why i have gone down that same road since graduation... but it is something i have felt uneasy about this entire past year and a half. i have felt out of sorts and without a good guide.

lately, i've been day-dreaming my own memories back in to the present. the Big One being my final year in school when i would read every morning on the train - a 45 minute ride to campus - and then again on the train back home. and of course there was all the reading i had to do at school, for homework, reading as research for papers, theory to explore, philosophy, poetry, supreme Texts, and Text-based Art as well. reading, looking back, was king. the most dominant and influential activity in my life. more and more, i have missed this way of living and have wanted to go back to that practice for a very long time... pretty much since the moment i set it down. i have resolved to add reading to my waking rituals from here on out- after my morning 'coffee and notebook' time, and before The Almighty Jog- right at the start of the day. i will get back on my beloved and horribly missed, longed after 'train'.

and so, this morning as i stirred in bed as i woke, i remembered something i'd read yesterday on a poetry website that said "Serious writers are serious readers"... and i thought about our dear sweet Radish King's constant assertion (and healthy affirmation) that reading is just another form of writing... so i got out my readers from class. they are here in a big stack- the ones i felt closest to my senior year and the ones that feel significant and relevant to my life at present, to my practice, as it is, today, and i jumped right in:

i read 'The Death of the Author" and "From Work to Text" by Roland Barthes. HA! big stuff to begin the day with and, magically, is about everything i was just speaking about. :) especially the fact that, historically, reading and writing were viewed by society as a single act in spite of it's plural nature- much like how a musician practices: she is both playing and listening at the same time. the separation between reading and writing is a fairly recent social change. dividing these things isn't good and, for me, has been fairly detrimental to all sorts of things. i am a person that likes ideas. LOVES ideas. and by cutting myself off from an entire side of language (reading), no wonder i haven't felt necessarily good. no wonder, i have felt that my writing, as a practice, has suffered. no wonder i feel less able to answer Art's call in a lot of ways. no wonder my stamina has slipped.

the two essays deal with much more than what i'm reacting to right now- lots of heavy shit that i will take in pieces and most likely re-read again and again. but it is the focus on being plural that struck me so deeply today and offered such a wonderful comfort.

because it is true that 'what you put in is what you get out'... and if i put big ideas in myself, those big ideas will work themselves back out on to my canvas and across the blue lines of my notebook... my practice becomes more whole... deeper... a way of living. in this sense, it is life imitating art, not the other way around... and that's the way it should be. if not life imitating art, than what are the lessons of art for? this isn't to say that artists are nothing more than copyists, spewing out the lessons they've taken in. that is not what i am saying. i am saying that artists must digest ideas, live with them, process them, roll around in bed with them... and whatever transpires while you are rolling around, whatever change or mutation or inspiration has taken place, will find its' way back out on to the canvas, inside a poem, in the stitches of whatever it is one builds.

all this to say, reading is God. or it needs to be. language, study, wrestling with meaning, making meaning plural, deciding against the mandate that a person reduce herself to a singular entity: mother ONLY. daughter ONLY. soldier ONLY. writer ONLY. no. that is not the way to live. that is not the definition of 'human'. to be human is to be a collection of things- ideas, outlooks, 'titles', cares, concerns, activities, and approaches. this multiplicity is essential... even if only in reference to a person's own sanity and happiness. you cannot cut yourself away from your shadow... no more than reading should be separated from writing... because what is the point of writing if no one reads. writing goes beyond its' action... when it is experienced by another (the reader... even if 'the reader' is just yourself) it is activated, it thrives, it is constantly in the NOW, the present. it breathes. the work goes and continues and survives. and so too humans should survive- constantly plural, irreducibly plural. a multitude.

i won't worry myself anymore over choosing a single title for myself. or at least i will fight that worry when it finds me. i will read and create a deeper life- a more inclusive, benevolent life... a life that strives to practice the lessons that ART teaches.

and this is me when i read big things first thing in the morning, hopped up on coffee. :)

reading...

i have picked back up the joy of reading (much inspired by my dear sweet Radish King) and who would've guessed what a big beautiful difference that seemingly small act can make in one's life. i'm always reading poems and blogs and stuff but i finally got back to the novel. and it's a murder mystery of all things! ha! i haven't read one of those since i was 14! and geez that writing is good! and i've also been working on redaction poems almost constantly for the past 2 weeks, building a stack of the little beauties pretty much daily, and have begun to compile them in to strange little poetry books of my own. books, books, books everywhere and it really does build up quite a nice life. quite nice indeed.