she's a mess

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a major round of Sciatica brought me to the ER on monday.  i spent two days laying in bed before making the call to go to the hospital and i've been laying in bed ever since.  luckily, it's not as bad this time around.  i am able to walk, albeit slowly.  i am able to sleep, albeit with the aid of Vicodin and muscle relaxers.  i am able to work on projects from my bed, though i wish i was out in the world, making money and friends, and taking pictures.  it's hard for me to lay around like this.  it truly is.

the first time i dealt with back problems was during my last year in art school.  crocheting was the only art-making method i could utilize while laying flat on my back and not moving for hours upon hours at a time.  i suppose it's no wonder that i view the skill as one of mending, of catharsis, of process, of healing.

yesterday, in my warm opiate surrender, i started making a new text piece that i'm not sure will be a yarnbomb or a scarf.  perhaps it will be both.  perhaps i'll wear it for as long as the cold weather calls for it and then transform it by stitching it to a pole somewhere.

i like that idea.

i like this notion of giving away my history.  or better said: gifting away my history.

this work has so much to do with the conflation of the public and private self.  i take texts from my diary or lyrics from songs i like (in this case, the lyric comes from the Lady Gaga song 'Dance in the Dark') or bits of my personal autobiography and stitch them in to sweaters, scarves, and blankets.  i take the text of my fear and desire and twist them in to some sort of signage... my story being told one yarnbomb at a time on city streets.

it's a game of exposure, of exploration, where the photographic image also plays a very heavy part.  which image of me is real?  which image is the most honest?  the image you've met in person?  or the image i make in my diary?  what does it mean to sit naked in front of a mirror, taking pictures of one's own reflection wrapped in the lyrics of a favorite song?  especially when the chosen text is "she's a mess. she's a mess. she's a mess".  especially when the naked body in the mirror's reflection is a body in pain.

maybe i was a mess this month in more ways than one.  currently, i am a physical mess but there was also the fact of my mother's birthday and death anniversary to contend with.  those events are exactly a week apart: january 12th and 19th.   and amid all this, i'm trying to learn my own curves of conscience, the twists within my personality and sensibility.  i'm learning about myself through these moments of exposure. i'm learning what i'm capable of and who i want to be.

i felt lonely today being cooped up like this.  i made a choice just to bare it.  i reached for my crochet hook and let the soothing tingle of medications wash over me.

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tonight, the center of my heart is still

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my bedroom window in open.  i can hear my neighbor flirting with a girl on his front porch.  and every so often, the thick click of a new can of beer being opened overlaps their giggles. 

this is the dance.

i think of my newest banner stitched to the cold pole of a stop sign in front of a wasted, graffiti covered warehouse.  the words wail out in black in white: THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED.  isn't that the only search?  isn't that what we're all up too out here?  isn't that the dance?

the voices next door lower.  they're speaking softly in spite of the beer.

the way you need to be loved...

i've been asking myself this question for a while now.  we all crave that beautiful sense of security that tends to proliferate romantic partnerships.  we all want that sense of security and belonging, of being understood.  i'm no different.  those things feel good and sometimes in the middle of the night the deepest seed hunger in me begins to ache and twist.  i think of eyes locked in to one another and hands lost in hair.  i think of eager mouths and eager hearts and sweat flying.  i think of all that gorgeous softness, all that fantastic hardness and sigh.

the way you need to be loved.

i think of the words i bang out across the keys.  i think of all my scribbles, the pages i fill, another volume of the diary nearing its end.  i think of the images i've made and the images i need to make.  i hunger after their creation.  i want them in front of me.  i want them to exist.  i want them to be seen and to be known.   my value dwindles in their absence.  a day passes and i haven't drawn and so i begin to feel the worthlessness of my life stand tall.  if i can't do this, what is my life for?

the way you need to be loved.

i remember laying awake next to the snoring body of a man who no longer touched me.  i remember waking up early to run and sweat.  i'd pretend the pounding rhythm of my feet on the pavement was the pounding of hot, delicious sex.  i was young and alive and i wanted to express those qualities, luxuriate in the beauty of them, but i was in a relationship that no longer provided for such things.  my heart broke over and over again every time he rolled on his side away from me in the bed.  i would gaze at this dark outline and try not to cry as i felt the worthlessness of my life stand tall.

the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.

i miss my siblings.

i miss our mother.

i thought about her a lot in Germany.  that was her fairytale land.  it's a place where anyone can fall in love.  it's a place where spectacular heartache and spectacular beauty rest side by side.  one morning as we cruised through sunrise in the most uncomfortable bus i've ever sat/slept in, i looked up right in time to see the sign for Hannover.  i thought, "that's your Germany, mama.  i'm heading back to mine; my rough and tumble Berlin"

i'm more schooled in what i do NOT want than what i do.  i look at myself in the mirror and realize that i'm simply searching.  just searching.  i've still got so many unknown corners within myself to explore.  i don't want to backtrack.  i don't envy the relationships i see around me.  all the locks.  all the ugly names.

i took this photo in a mirror inside an exhibition at the Foam Museum of Photography in Amsterdam a few weeks ago.  It's half-frame photography that ended up in an accidental double exposure.  it's actually a very accurate self-portrait.

the images collide and waver.  the outlines are indefinite.  i am searching.  must it feel like sadness?

that seed that twists itself like a knife within me is trying to tell me something but i've not yet learned its language.  i have to listen closer.  i have to get the static out of my ears and the anger out of my heart.  i have to pay attention and make room for the unexpected.  i have to pay attention and i have to be brave.  i have to use my two hands and build a life for myself that fits me.  who i truly am, not who i've been expected to be, nor the dream others have of me.

i like this moment...  laying in my bed alone listening to my neighbor flirt with a girl.  soon, another beer will crack open and i'll raise my cocktail silently toward my open window in cheers.


the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved

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