shift

.
 
it's strange to me that there have been so many days lately where i haven't wanted to write.  it's a big shift from my normal mode.  even when i don't write here, i'm scribbling away in my diary, hermitting in that crisp, blue-lined home of mine.  but there have been days lately when i just need to sit.  there are days when i run from the workings of my own mind, when i simply need the simplest of things- a movie on Netfix and a deep pillow...  things i very rarely allow myself.

i JUST saw Lost in Translation for the first time last week.  why it's taken me so long to make time for such a beautiful film, i can't say.  or i can.  it's that i have really fucked up notions of value when it comes to spending time in front of a screen.  or not fucked up, maybe, but issues nevertheless.  my ex stepfather spent the majority of his free time in front of the television and i was always so disgusted by that.  my mother would be outside working in her garden, enjoying the feeling of her hands in the dirt and the sun on her back, and he'd be inside yelling at the tv screen.  she hated the tv always being on.  always had.  growing up, she refused to let us spend a saturday simply laying in front of the television.  she was definitely the type of mom that yelled at us to get outside and be in the sunshine.  and good for her.  i've come to appreciate that about her so much.  and so it was so strange to me that she married someone whose favorite "hobby" was watching tv.  she and her husband got to a place where they didn't even eat dinner together at the table anymore (something my mother really valued).  she'd make dinner and bring it to him in front of the television set.  she'd sit next to him and watch Law & Order, a major concession and acquiescence that was hard to stomach. in my adolescence, i swore to myself that i'd never marry a man that watched tv all the time.  i needed passion and romance and someone to stay up late talking with.  i needed someone who read books every now and then.  i needed someone who preferred the stereo to the tv set 9 times out of 10.

though we were never married, i found myself in a relationship that shared this exact component of television love that i so disdained.  i fucking hated it. at 28 years old, i had the awful, humiliating, confusing, and painful experience of meeting a man at the front door in revealing lingerie just to be walked passed after a quick kiss on the forehead and a careless "you look nice, honey" to flop down in the armchair and turn on Sports Center.

fuck that.

and, yeah, i know it's not the tv's fault that i lived with an inept asshole...  but it's easier to be mad at an object than at another human being.  especially a human being you love.  one looks for a scapegoat, a storehouse for blame. 

and so i considered television a complete waste of time and found it absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable that it is the number 1 pass time of americans.  that's disgusting.  disgusting and ridiculous.  but my judgement about television extended to anything and everything that took place on a screen.  everything from music videos to film to art.  if it happened on a screen, i saw it as a waste of my time, a waste of my life.

that's harsh.  and i knew that, in some ways, i was missing out...


it was amazing to have such a simple, direct experience the other evening.  it helped that there was a gorgeous man in the room with me, laying half naked on my bed. :)  we laid there together, drinking vodka sodas and running our fingers along the curves of each other's legs, as Sophia Coppola's beautiful, poignant film played in the dark of my bedroom.  it's been so long since i've had such a soft, safe, close experience.  it's been a really long time since i've felt at home with a man.  i've not felt this comfortable with a man in a very long time and, at times, i am unnerved by it.  i'm used to being inside my own head.  i'm used to having the only say.  i'm used, now, to not being hurt and assuring my safety through remaining single.

but something is opening up in me.  my armor is melting away.  i look at this other human being and think he's got the best face on the entire planet.  i look at this other human being and feel so thankful for his humor and wit.  i look at this other human being and think, "maybe i'm not alone in this world after all...  "



and so there are days when i don't want to write.  i want to just lay and be.  i want to curl against his form and not think about all the heavy things.  i want to lay my cheek against his back as we snuggle in bed and i want to enjoy the rare instance of a quiet mind.    it was this soft moment of laying together in bed watching Lost in Translation that made me realize i'm truly ready to try my hand at this Love thing again.  it was so simple and so quiet but there was no other place i would've rather been. 

i felt entirely at home.


.

a rambling, eagar voice in the dark. a possible artist statement.

.


in a way, everything i do, everything i make, every drawing, every poem, every photograph, every sweater, everything, is a love letter.  every next breath.  and the next.  and the next.  it radiates through me and i can't keep the reigns on it, this quaking, unsteady love.  i don't know how to shoulder the weight of it.  i don't know how to call it by name.  my gentleness unfolds below its scorched anvil but my gentleness is only for you, not for me.  i squirm and shift and ache.  i pry my eyes open every morning and force them shut every night when all i want to do is curl up against you and breathe you in, tracing a slow line up the back of your neck with my nose.

when i do that, i feel the rhythm of your breathing change.

when i do that, can't you hear the small, scared voice of my heart saying, "now it's your turn"?



i looked at all the people's faces on the train today when i went to work.  they all looked tired.  they all seemed closed down.  i thought, "i wonder if, somehow, we all hate each other...  that we don't believe the things we hear...  that we don't believe each person is fighting their own, private war?  do we only want sympathy from one another without extending it ourselves?  or worse, do we really just want a bit of pretty pity?  do we want to be told we're right and that everyone else is wrong, everyone else is the asshole, everyone else is stupid and mean and tacky?  do we see human beings when we look at each other?  and what does that require anyway?"

we are owed nothing.

still, my gentleness extends.  i can't help it.  i am incurable.  my kindness wounds me.  it does me such damage some days but i cannot contain it.  i cannot cover it up, put a lock on the lid, and stow it away.

i've been thinking a lot about love lately.  it's facets and forms. maybe because i've been having dreams of my mother again.  it's the time of year...  my heart curls into itself and tries to nurse that impossible wound.  i go to bed with a cocktail and crochet hook and meditate on my little question, my little statement, my little anthem:  THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED.


i've been thinking about desire and lust.  i've been thinking of security and comfort.  i've been thinking about acceptance and forgiveness.  i've been thinking about the game.  the chase.  the intrigue.  i've been thinking about all the wonderfully nuanced levels of romance and friendship that so many seem to be blind to...  the way your lips look in the evening verses the morning.  that shadow that catches on your chin.  or the beautiful way light cuts through the iris of a stranger sitting at the bar midday.  or a child on a swing.

i don't want to be cynical and i don't want to be afraid.


in a way, everything i do is a love letter; an honoring of the way your forehead wrinkles when you shrug your shoulders...  how badly you drive on the freeway...  how beautiful you sound singing in the shower...  the photographs of you as a child...  the dreams you have...  the dreams you had...  the scent you wear and the laces in your shoes.


.

satisfaction is a wonderful feeling

.

romance.


and last night while walking in the cold, cold wind in san francisco, i realized no one has ever provided for me as well as i provide for myself.  i must somehow allow myself at least a short moment to feel proud of myself and the life i am creating.  these dreams once seemed so far out of reach...  impossible to believe ever coming true.  here i am with a passport and plane tickets with my name on them.  BIG MIDDLE FINGER TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO SAID MY GOALS WERE STUPID AND UNREALISTIC. 

smiling so big right now.  :D 


hahahahaaa!  and i cannot help but giggle to myself.  i know i still have 3 1/2 weeks to wait until i board my plane to New York but it's going to fly by and my excitement is building building building.  Becca and i will rendezvous at her favorite restaurant in the village 2 days before we get on another plane to Heathrow Airport.  i'm trying not to get misty eyed just thinking of it now.  i'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself.  i have absolutely no idea what to expect but i can't wait to grab my bag and let this adventure begin.  yesterday, i played tourist in SF and bought the bag i will live out of for a month.  bright yellow in honor of my long lost Bumble Bug.  i loved that little car so much but the life that awaits is one in which owning a car is totally unnecessary.  it's unnecessary now.  i love that i live in such a way that allows me to enjoy the romance of riding trains daily.  and aside from which, me and my converse get around just fine.   ;) 

artist life.

HOLY SHIT!

neurosis/romanticism/just make art

.














.

(BIG SMILE)

back on my good grey horse this morning. already already.

it's funny how quickly perspectives shift.

yesterday, a miraculous thing happened: i began a new oil painting. something about priming and sanding and smoothing new canvas made me hungry for it... to revere something. and oil painting is a very reverential thing- the history of portrait painting bleeding through... no matter the subject... it's always a portrait... and they say, in some way, always a self-portrait. i tend to agree with that. all work is, to some degree, autobiographical. even if only in terms of aesthetics. and this is a perfect way to perceive it. a perfect way to proceed. why work on something you're not at all attracted to? that doesn't speak to you? why spend hours deep in the wrestling if you aren't captivated by the image itself?

and this outlook i've given myself permission to cling to - of recognizing, day by day, what image or form or material speaks loudest to me - has unleashed such a rapid love. a quick-moving, diligent, reverential love. and so i slid the black oil all over and kept going, kept going, kept going. and i realized that maybe the thing that has been bugging me specifically about oil painting isn't the material and isn't the image, but rather my handling of it. specifically, my technique. it needed to change a bit. evolve. i had locked myself in to a procedure.

but all the drawing i've been doing has refreshed me... let me see images in a different way... let me see materials in a different way. how painting is an act of honoring. a mode through which we (i) esteem something. and drawing can be that way too, but it's more intimate... full of traces and stains and the sweep of the human hand throughout its entirety. if you look close enough, you will find a finger print. and that's why i am so attracted to drawing lately. the intimacy of it. the imperfections and explorations that are inherent to the media itself.

but yesterday, something shook loose and i remembered that i do in fact know how to paint. that i know how to paint wet-into-wet. that i don't have to stick to the procedure if the procedure no longer aids the exploration as a whole. it was a fast, hard, happy realization and i worked late in to the evening.

it's funny... the things a person forgets. and how frail my ego gets some days. days when i say the worst things possible to myself, convinced everything i've ever done is stupid and pointless and that i'll never get it right. haha! all artists do it. and it feels like hell at the time. but i have to laugh at myself and just keep going.

it is bright and beautiful and green green green outside. maybe i'll paint outdoors today in the good light.

i'll be back later with the poem of the day. i'm enjoying just thinking about painting right now and want to sit with my coffee and look at the canvas for awhile this morning before anything else. it's romantic. :)