reverie and residue.

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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.

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i look to the right...

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you fall asleep with your glasses on.

i turn off the movie you suggested.

i make a little film of myself dancing in the mirror:

black dress, swaying hips.

i send the film to jose because it's not out of the ordinary for him to be awake this late.

he sends me a film in return: 

girls dancing in short skirts and my art on his walls.



i should send him more.  what do i need all this art for? 



sometimes i wonder about who i am
vs.  what i was taught...



i think about that a lot lately.

maybe it has something to do with the time of year?  the slant of the sun?`  the yellow cast catches my eye- the way it drips from the leaves, the way it oozes through the blinds.  i think of home...  days when i'd come home from school to find my mother standing in the kitchen, days when i'd drag my body home so begrudgingly...  always feeling at odds, always feeling the pull toward something else, always unable to just get along...


i look at myself in the mirror and i can see that i'm older but i don't feel as old as i am.  really, i feel like i've just begun.  maybe i'm just a late bloomer?  i was simply getting ready all this time.  i was simply gathering wool.  i was only learning the vocabulary i'd need. 

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i walked down shattuck ave in the late afternoon and it felt so much like the late afternoons i spent in my hometown.  i'll never hate oakland the way i hated redlands.  i could never hate oakland at all, it's just that i've been here too long.  i lust too hard after other sunrises.  i lust too hard after other winds echoing across other avenues.  i've drempt too hard for too long of far off places.  the residency sealed it.  i belong elsewhere.  i've known it for quite some time.  it feels good to have finally made the decision to click the BUY NOW button on a plane ticket and choose a new adventure.  i need to walk down streets i'm inspired by again.  i need to welcome the next phase.


i tried to throw away old art supplies today and couldn't do it.


there's so much to get rid of.

 i cleaned the toilet instead.

i want to give myself the gift of a fresh start but it is horrendously painful to part with certain things.  i'm leaving the contents of my bookcase until last.  it'll break my heart to have to part with certain books.  today, i looked at my copy of the collected novels of Jean Rhys and thought of Kate- those old days of writing back and forth to one another through email and the comment boxes of our blogs.  i read all of Jean Rhys' novels during the 8 days i had to wait before i could board my plane to tennessee to go watch my mother die.  then kate mailed me a copy of Roland Barthes' "Mourning Diary" after i returned home to california after the funeral.

i shouldn't have become so distant after all that (with everybody) but i honestly couldn't help it. 

i couldn't help it.

sometimes i still can't
but i'm glad to not need such a deep silence now. 


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brian is curled up under my white quilt.

i love him and i'm glad he is here. 

tonight while we walked home from the bar, i looked at him and said, "hey, brian elder, you're my best friend!"

he looked at me and said, "oh yeah?  you're my best friend!"




i'm happy as fuck.  :)


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