Well, sometimes mistakes repeat themselves. As in, think for a while, have an idea, pursue idea, and reap the wrath of presenting said idea. I don't think this is how it's supposed to work. I guess I've never had to explain in quite so much minutia what it means to feel creative. There...I said it. I don't think creative. I feel it. In my gut, like I need it to survive.
The same as I require food, a roof over my head that doesn't subject me or my loved ones to negativity and strife, and therefore a job. School is something I do on the side, because again I need to learn. I need to feel what it's like to learn from people who have been there, on the other side. I have some respect for my professors. Lifelong learning is for me. Lifelong schooling, probably not. But at this stage, continued education will help me in my job, and as I'm learning, in my life's work. It's taught me that I know very little, and yet I've learned so very much. It's a conundrum of sorts, as I think for me, recognizing my weaknesses helps me locate my strengths. And this leads to a whole lot of self-doubt, which can be crippling. But only if I let it.
I can say I'm wise, but this doesn't make it so. Not even if I say it one hundred more times. Wisdom, I think is something we obtain quietly, without much fuss. It typically comes on gracefully, but often enough it arrives painfully followed by a sort of sadness. Sadness that it took you so long to figure it out, sadness that the time in your life that was easy going and breezy has passed--even sadness that you don't even see it coming. It just eases its way into your bones; into the farthest reaches of your heart. It's acceptance and it is all of the things you've ever fought. Win or lose.
It may be easier to judge another person's plight. This kettle's been called out too many times not to recognize that it's easy to hate what you can't understand. Most of the time we spend looking at someone else and judging is simply a way to avoid introspection. I know this because I do it more regularly than I'd like. It's this fault in my process that makes me the most unhappy with myself. What I've learned to do is turn it around as often as I can and look at what I can do to make me the person I know I can be. As in the best version of me that I'm capable of becoming at the time. Because I can't "fix" someone else.
That's not to say I'm broken. Just bruised and tired. Still--a little self-awareness goes a long way.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Saturday, August 9, 2014
The Color Essay - an assignment
I thought after two months of writing classes, I'd post a little bit about what I've been doing in lieu of blogging. It's been busy, and even my final drafts need some tweaking, but I've enjoyed the exercise of writing more or less daily, even if it wasn't here.
Yellow. The color of two of my childhood homes. We moved from Massachusetts to Shreveport, Louisiana when I was three. My father had been transferred at work, so he left ahead of us and bought us a large ranch-style house with a carport and yellow siding from a writer and director of several B-rated horror movies. I don’t recall the move, but I do remember the house. It had a large kitchen with a bar overlooking the living room, a dining room, three bedrooms and a bath. It was 1977 and in the seventies, whatever wasn’t orange or yellow was brown. The living room was dark sometimes, as it was built toward the back of the house and had no windows. The other rooms were plenty sunny, and the grass grew as green as I’ve ever seen. My mother would sometimes make us picnic lunches to take outside and sit by the swing set to eat. Our neighbor, Rose, would often come to the chain-link fence that enclosed the backyard to chat with my mother.
For the most part, we enjoyed the house and the new location. We made new friends; my mother began a new part-time job as a real estate agent. Since both of my parents worked, we were occasionally left with a babysitter for several hours at a time. As many parents may know, teenaged babysitters often prefer to watch television or talk on the phone than play with bratty children. I took full advantage. By my mother’s account, I once “painted” the tub with bismuth because I wanted it to be pink. I shook baby powder across my brown bedroom rug because I wanted it to be white. I vaguely remember the latter act. I also recall feeding my sister and myself—one spoonful at a time—the entire contents of the grape cough medicine I’d found in the cabinet. That time, my father caught us and swooped us up into the bathroom. Panicked, he made us swallow a raw egg each, whole. If you’ve never swallowed a raw egg whole, I don’t recommend it. Unless, of course, you need urgently to throw up.
Most of all I remember tossing my yellow blanket over my head and into the bed of my mother’s friend’s pickup truck. When my mother retrieved it for me, we discovered that it had landed in a motor oil spill to be ruined for good. It was a sad day. Almost more sad than the day my mother turned to me at the side door, suitcase in hand and told me I couldn’t come with her where she was going.
When my birth parents decided to divorce, my little sister and I moved back North with my Dad. This was best. The fighting between my mother and father back in Louisiana had caused my sister to be ill; later, it made me ill as well. I recall that my father was a wreck. He had two little girls, and he didn’t even know how to style their hair, let alone feed them and dress them. Two months after we arrived in Massachusetts, my now step-mother then father’s girlfriend Cindy moved to Massachusetts to be with us. I was just glad that we didn’t have to eat cereal for dinner anymore. I can only imagine how relieved my father was. She was only 26, but she had helped raise three of her four brothers. My father was eight years her senior, and we were five and three. Thankfully, she was wise beyond her years.
About a year later, we moved from the small garden-style apartment where we had been living into a yellow cape with dormers and brown shutters. They married after a year and held the reception at the house. My sister loved Cindy dearly from the start. I regret that I appreciated her presence much less. It took me nearly 12 years to call her Mum. It took 20 years for my sister and me to start calling my birth mother, “the mother.” I don’t know why we do this, except that it helps us differentiate between two. Perhaps after that many years apart, your mother is your friend and a mother—just not your mother. I still feel badly if when talking to the mother I refer to Cindy as “Mum.”
Neither the mother nor my Mum would have guessed that my father would turn out to be an alcoholic. How my Mum has remained married to him is beyond what I can yet comprehend. Three years in therapy, and when it comes to my Dad’s illness, I got nothing’. None of us recognized it or saw it coming. When I recall our days in the yellow cape house, I remember his large brown ashtray full of butts next to a glass of gin and tonic (no rocks) sitting on the coffee table next to his recliner. And I remember he loved us very much. Sometimes, when we were riding in his little Datsun, he’d turn to me and ask, “How come you’re so cute?” I called him “Daddy” until I left home.
By all appearances, we led a charmed family life. Our house was huge compared to our friends’ houses, and my father built us a pool. He wasn’t a muscular man, nor was he handy; instead rather tall and lanky, like me. But he was dedicated and determined. We all watched “The Muppet Show” every week as a family. My father and I watched “Creature Double Feature” together on Saturday mornings—just the two of us, as my sister was terrified of the shows. On Saturday mornings he either made us elephant-shaped pancakes, or picked up doughnuts on his way home from work. He was the production manager at a tool and die company, and worked as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone work. He had been there 35 years when according to him, without as much as a warning they laid him off. I don’t think he’ll ever recover from the shock.
Everything he did, he either for us, or for work. Nothing else mattered to him. Whenever I went somewhere I shouldn’t, he found me. When my softball coach insisted I play right field, or often enough, not at all for an entire season, my father insisted the coach move me to where there would be more action. Win or lose, he warned the coach that I was there to play softball, and that I would play softball. When the kids started to make fun of me and my lanky and four-eyed appearance, he gave me the best fatherly advice ever. “When the kids give you shit, punch them in the face,” he said. “They won’t bother you again.” So when my neighbor looked me in the eye and said, “At least I don’t have to go to a psychiatrist,” I slapped her right across the mouth. He was right; she never bothered me again.
My sister and I got bikes for Christmas, and dad took us a street over to the dead end to teach us how to ride. Every time he told my sister to just keep pedaling, she would whine and answer, “I can’t.” His patience wore thin, and he threw my sister’s bike in the bushes. “Now you can’t,” he said. I remember her, terrified and crying in the road, and I remember pulling her bike out of the bushes and walking it home for her. He was always infuriated when I was late home from the movies. Or anywhere. He was worse when I started getting C’s instead of A’s and B’s. Don’t get me started about the F. My sister cried a lot. My father yelled a lot, and so did I.
Eventually, my parents sold the house we grew up in. Maybe we grew out of it. We got a new house in a new town, where we went to a new school. The house was blue. It was on a cul-de-sack with a long, paved driveway and a two car garage. It was nearly 2000 square feet with a wraparound porch. As large as it was, it wasn’t big enough for the four of us. My father threw me out over and over again. I had two years of high school to go. During my senior year, he threw my bed down the stairs, out the front door, and over the porch onto the lawn. I didn’t know what to else to do, so I called a friend’s mother to pick me up and moved out for good. I was 17.
I’m 39 now, and my father is still on the sauce, so they say. He has the early stages of liver disease, but he doesn’t know that “fatty liver” test results mean he has sustained damage from the years of alcohol abuse. He doesn’t yet know that the color yellow is coming for him, but I do. He tells me that he’s sorry he wasn’t a better father. The thing is, he was. I tell him so, but his wires are crossed—he doesn’t receive the message. I tell him he can be a better father now, because now is what really counts. But he’s sad and lonely no matter what anyone says, even his first daughter. This, because his only friend is Smirnoff. I don’t much care for that guy.
I have what they call “generalized anxiety disorder.” Maybe it’s hereditary, and maybe it’s just life. All I know for sure is that the little yellow pills I take make it better. I struggled with the idea of medication for a long time. I knew I had been o.k. once, but the longer I fought it, the farther from o.k. I drifted. I thought I must be able to manage on my own, and I held out for two years. I couldn’t travel, I hated crowds, and every time I ate it felt like I was choking. When I couldn’t breathe anymore and I could no longer tell the difference between happy and anxious, I took the script and filled it. I wanted to drive again. I wanted to work. Most of all I wanted to live fearlessly and fiercely again. Yellow to me is home. It is fear, and it is disease. And yellow is for Paroxetine Hydrochloride. I know now that sometimes good people fall on terrible times. That we can’t judge a person’s character by their illness, as humans are so prone to do. I try to remember this every day. What would you do?
Take One of These
Yellow. The color of two of my childhood homes. We moved from Massachusetts to Shreveport, Louisiana when I was three. My father had been transferred at work, so he left ahead of us and bought us a large ranch-style house with a carport and yellow siding from a writer and director of several B-rated horror movies. I don’t recall the move, but I do remember the house. It had a large kitchen with a bar overlooking the living room, a dining room, three bedrooms and a bath. It was 1977 and in the seventies, whatever wasn’t orange or yellow was brown. The living room was dark sometimes, as it was built toward the back of the house and had no windows. The other rooms were plenty sunny, and the grass grew as green as I’ve ever seen. My mother would sometimes make us picnic lunches to take outside and sit by the swing set to eat. Our neighbor, Rose, would often come to the chain-link fence that enclosed the backyard to chat with my mother.
For the most part, we enjoyed the house and the new location. We made new friends; my mother began a new part-time job as a real estate agent. Since both of my parents worked, we were occasionally left with a babysitter for several hours at a time. As many parents may know, teenaged babysitters often prefer to watch television or talk on the phone than play with bratty children. I took full advantage. By my mother’s account, I once “painted” the tub with bismuth because I wanted it to be pink. I shook baby powder across my brown bedroom rug because I wanted it to be white. I vaguely remember the latter act. I also recall feeding my sister and myself—one spoonful at a time—the entire contents of the grape cough medicine I’d found in the cabinet. That time, my father caught us and swooped us up into the bathroom. Panicked, he made us swallow a raw egg each, whole. If you’ve never swallowed a raw egg whole, I don’t recommend it. Unless, of course, you need urgently to throw up.
Most of all I remember tossing my yellow blanket over my head and into the bed of my mother’s friend’s pickup truck. When my mother retrieved it for me, we discovered that it had landed in a motor oil spill to be ruined for good. It was a sad day. Almost more sad than the day my mother turned to me at the side door, suitcase in hand and told me I couldn’t come with her where she was going.
When my birth parents decided to divorce, my little sister and I moved back North with my Dad. This was best. The fighting between my mother and father back in Louisiana had caused my sister to be ill; later, it made me ill as well. I recall that my father was a wreck. He had two little girls, and he didn’t even know how to style their hair, let alone feed them and dress them. Two months after we arrived in Massachusetts, my now step-mother then father’s girlfriend Cindy moved to Massachusetts to be with us. I was just glad that we didn’t have to eat cereal for dinner anymore. I can only imagine how relieved my father was. She was only 26, but she had helped raise three of her four brothers. My father was eight years her senior, and we were five and three. Thankfully, she was wise beyond her years.
About a year later, we moved from the small garden-style apartment where we had been living into a yellow cape with dormers and brown shutters. They married after a year and held the reception at the house. My sister loved Cindy dearly from the start. I regret that I appreciated her presence much less. It took me nearly 12 years to call her Mum. It took 20 years for my sister and me to start calling my birth mother, “the mother.” I don’t know why we do this, except that it helps us differentiate between two. Perhaps after that many years apart, your mother is your friend and a mother—just not your mother. I still feel badly if when talking to the mother I refer to Cindy as “Mum.”
Neither the mother nor my Mum would have guessed that my father would turn out to be an alcoholic. How my Mum has remained married to him is beyond what I can yet comprehend. Three years in therapy, and when it comes to my Dad’s illness, I got nothing’. None of us recognized it or saw it coming. When I recall our days in the yellow cape house, I remember his large brown ashtray full of butts next to a glass of gin and tonic (no rocks) sitting on the coffee table next to his recliner. And I remember he loved us very much. Sometimes, when we were riding in his little Datsun, he’d turn to me and ask, “How come you’re so cute?” I called him “Daddy” until I left home.
By all appearances, we led a charmed family life. Our house was huge compared to our friends’ houses, and my father built us a pool. He wasn’t a muscular man, nor was he handy; instead rather tall and lanky, like me. But he was dedicated and determined. We all watched “The Muppet Show” every week as a family. My father and I watched “Creature Double Feature” together on Saturday mornings—just the two of us, as my sister was terrified of the shows. On Saturday mornings he either made us elephant-shaped pancakes, or picked up doughnuts on his way home from work. He was the production manager at a tool and die company, and worked as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone work. He had been there 35 years when according to him, without as much as a warning they laid him off. I don’t think he’ll ever recover from the shock.
Everything he did, he either for us, or for work. Nothing else mattered to him. Whenever I went somewhere I shouldn’t, he found me. When my softball coach insisted I play right field, or often enough, not at all for an entire season, my father insisted the coach move me to where there would be more action. Win or lose, he warned the coach that I was there to play softball, and that I would play softball. When the kids started to make fun of me and my lanky and four-eyed appearance, he gave me the best fatherly advice ever. “When the kids give you shit, punch them in the face,” he said. “They won’t bother you again.” So when my neighbor looked me in the eye and said, “At least I don’t have to go to a psychiatrist,” I slapped her right across the mouth. He was right; she never bothered me again.
My sister and I got bikes for Christmas, and dad took us a street over to the dead end to teach us how to ride. Every time he told my sister to just keep pedaling, she would whine and answer, “I can’t.” His patience wore thin, and he threw my sister’s bike in the bushes. “Now you can’t,” he said. I remember her, terrified and crying in the road, and I remember pulling her bike out of the bushes and walking it home for her. He was always infuriated when I was late home from the movies. Or anywhere. He was worse when I started getting C’s instead of A’s and B’s. Don’t get me started about the F. My sister cried a lot. My father yelled a lot, and so did I.
Eventually, my parents sold the house we grew up in. Maybe we grew out of it. We got a new house in a new town, where we went to a new school. The house was blue. It was on a cul-de-sack with a long, paved driveway and a two car garage. It was nearly 2000 square feet with a wraparound porch. As large as it was, it wasn’t big enough for the four of us. My father threw me out over and over again. I had two years of high school to go. During my senior year, he threw my bed down the stairs, out the front door, and over the porch onto the lawn. I didn’t know what to else to do, so I called a friend’s mother to pick me up and moved out for good. I was 17.
I’m 39 now, and my father is still on the sauce, so they say. He has the early stages of liver disease, but he doesn’t know that “fatty liver” test results mean he has sustained damage from the years of alcohol abuse. He doesn’t yet know that the color yellow is coming for him, but I do. He tells me that he’s sorry he wasn’t a better father. The thing is, he was. I tell him so, but his wires are crossed—he doesn’t receive the message. I tell him he can be a better father now, because now is what really counts. But he’s sad and lonely no matter what anyone says, even his first daughter. This, because his only friend is Smirnoff. I don’t much care for that guy.
I have what they call “generalized anxiety disorder.” Maybe it’s hereditary, and maybe it’s just life. All I know for sure is that the little yellow pills I take make it better. I struggled with the idea of medication for a long time. I knew I had been o.k. once, but the longer I fought it, the farther from o.k. I drifted. I thought I must be able to manage on my own, and I held out for two years. I couldn’t travel, I hated crowds, and every time I ate it felt like I was choking. When I couldn’t breathe anymore and I could no longer tell the difference between happy and anxious, I took the script and filled it. I wanted to drive again. I wanted to work. Most of all I wanted to live fearlessly and fiercely again. Yellow to me is home. It is fear, and it is disease. And yellow is for Paroxetine Hydrochloride. I know now that sometimes good people fall on terrible times. That we can’t judge a person’s character by their illness, as humans are so prone to do. I try to remember this every day. What would you do?
Monday, July 7, 2014
except for nothing.
Another day of sick, and I'm ready to jump out the window. Fourth of July didn't happen with a bang, but every day can't be the best day. I feel like I want to melt into the abyss of my couch as Love It or List It pokes and prods my brain in the background pulling me in and out of a reality best suited for people much stronger than me. Virus=1. Me=negative 3. I am pooped.
Tired of the psychological effects of people having ripped scabs off of cuts that should have healed, but clearly hadn't. One more, and they may find that they've sabotaged the only possible shiny piece of metal to come out of the wreck. Is that the intent? Probably not. At least not a conscious intention. Know thyself. Know that when you look into the magic mirror it may say you're the fairest, but in the end the outside isn't what keeps your heart full of joy. That said, throwing poisonous apples at the problem certainly won't fix it.
I dreamed of a pack of wolves this weekend. They chased us and hounded us. They killed geese, which also chased us. By all accounts, this means I need to be self-sufficient, and not indulge my thoughts when they begin to consume me. Some things are indeed beyond my control. That leaves me to accept the rain, accept the thunder, and accept that the grass will grow without me. That reminds me of something I learned a long time ago, and then went ahead and forgot. Don't plant weeds where you want a flower to grow.
I realized one big difference between me and a bitter soul. I do things because I want to share my love. I want to share my insides with anyone who'll have the guts to look at them. To accept them. Performing, creating, making beautiful things can only become me if I put the best of me in the forefront. I just don't feel like things can be beautiful for any other reason. And then...the pressure was off.
"Now began the part of her life where she was just very beautiful, except for nothing. Only winners will know what this feels like. Have you ever wanted something very badly and then gotten it? Then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be.”
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
Tired of the psychological effects of people having ripped scabs off of cuts that should have healed, but clearly hadn't. One more, and they may find that they've sabotaged the only possible shiny piece of metal to come out of the wreck. Is that the intent? Probably not. At least not a conscious intention. Know thyself. Know that when you look into the magic mirror it may say you're the fairest, but in the end the outside isn't what keeps your heart full of joy. That said, throwing poisonous apples at the problem certainly won't fix it.
I dreamed of a pack of wolves this weekend. They chased us and hounded us. They killed geese, which also chased us. By all accounts, this means I need to be self-sufficient, and not indulge my thoughts when they begin to consume me. Some things are indeed beyond my control. That leaves me to accept the rain, accept the thunder, and accept that the grass will grow without me. That reminds me of something I learned a long time ago, and then went ahead and forgot. Don't plant weeds where you want a flower to grow.
I realized one big difference between me and a bitter soul. I do things because I want to share my love. I want to share my insides with anyone who'll have the guts to look at them. To accept them. Performing, creating, making beautiful things can only become me if I put the best of me in the forefront. I just don't feel like things can be beautiful for any other reason. And then...the pressure was off.
"Now began the part of her life where she was just very beautiful, except for nothing. Only winners will know what this feels like. Have you ever wanted something very badly and then gotten it? Then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be.”
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
Sunday, July 6, 2014
yellow blankie.
When I was just a little girl in Louisiana, my mom's friend came by in her pick up truck to take us out for a little while. I have no idea where we were going, but like most little girls, I wanted to bring my most beloved thing with me. I hurled my yellow blankie with the satin edges I used to rub under my nose up over the bed of the truck. I had no idea that this decision would lead to a world of hurt. When my mom retrieved it, it was covered in motor oil. Ruined.
Sometimes our own insecurities get the best of us. Sometimes when you take the things that make you feel secure along for the ride, you single-handedly ruin the thing you needed the most. And then you grow. You realize maybe you didn't need it as much as you thought you did. In the end, you say leaving that behind is best. Primarily because you have to.
I'm not insecure about my ability to write. To think. To observe. My writing is a place where I go to take all of these observations and turn them into something beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking. Other times it's funny and cheap. But no matter which thing it is, I'm confident I'm doing it well. During a recent writing course I took, my peer reviewers seemed to genuinely enjoy the stories, and pointed out things I could do better. They are not writers, they said, but it didn't matter. They were my audience, and if they couldn't grasp something, I knew I needed to so something to make it clearer. I don't write for others, but I do write to connect with people. If something is keeping them from accessing my "art" then I'm damn well going to hear them and try my best to make it better. What I don't want to do is put myself above them and say that because they are not writers the same as me, that their observations are invalid. It is counterproductive for me, and condescending and insensitive to them. As I reviewed their work, I pointed out what I felt was good or came through the best, and suggested mostly that they write the way the speak. One of them quoted me in their final essay, and said that it was the most valuable thing they received from their peer reviewers.
I may not be enlightened, but I am lighter today than I've felt recently. To say that my observations are not valid because I am not as good as, as productive as, as creative as my peers is to say that one has nothing left to learn.
I was confident in my ability to write before I took my introductory writing course. I mean, I've already been a paid writer. My experience must speak to something. I tried twice to test out of it, and missed it by a very small margin. I could have tried a third time, but instead said to myself, "I can always learn something." I stayed in a class full of people who claimed not to be writers. Who had never written before. Some of whom will probably try to avoid it at all costs. And in the end, I learned as much from them as I did from the instructor and any professional writers I've ever read. I am no better or worse than them. Just different.
I'm o.k. with that. With all of this. Some of us will part ways, and some of us will see each other in Writing II. I'm looking forward to reading what every last one of my classmates has to say, regardless of their background. I can't wait to see what I learn.
Sometimes our own insecurities get the best of us. Sometimes when you take the things that make you feel secure along for the ride, you single-handedly ruin the thing you needed the most. And then you grow. You realize maybe you didn't need it as much as you thought you did. In the end, you say leaving that behind is best. Primarily because you have to.
I'm not insecure about my ability to write. To think. To observe. My writing is a place where I go to take all of these observations and turn them into something beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking. Other times it's funny and cheap. But no matter which thing it is, I'm confident I'm doing it well. During a recent writing course I took, my peer reviewers seemed to genuinely enjoy the stories, and pointed out things I could do better. They are not writers, they said, but it didn't matter. They were my audience, and if they couldn't grasp something, I knew I needed to so something to make it clearer. I don't write for others, but I do write to connect with people. If something is keeping them from accessing my "art" then I'm damn well going to hear them and try my best to make it better. What I don't want to do is put myself above them and say that because they are not writers the same as me, that their observations are invalid. It is counterproductive for me, and condescending and insensitive to them. As I reviewed their work, I pointed out what I felt was good or came through the best, and suggested mostly that they write the way the speak. One of them quoted me in their final essay, and said that it was the most valuable thing they received from their peer reviewers.
I may not be enlightened, but I am lighter today than I've felt recently. To say that my observations are not valid because I am not as good as, as productive as, as creative as my peers is to say that one has nothing left to learn.
I was confident in my ability to write before I took my introductory writing course. I mean, I've already been a paid writer. My experience must speak to something. I tried twice to test out of it, and missed it by a very small margin. I could have tried a third time, but instead said to myself, "I can always learn something." I stayed in a class full of people who claimed not to be writers. Who had never written before. Some of whom will probably try to avoid it at all costs. And in the end, I learned as much from them as I did from the instructor and any professional writers I've ever read. I am no better or worse than them. Just different.
I'm o.k. with that. With all of this. Some of us will part ways, and some of us will see each other in Writing II. I'm looking forward to reading what every last one of my classmates has to say, regardless of their background. I can't wait to see what I learn.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
= love.
A Short Story About Important Things I've Learned
I've never claimed to be a saint. What I can claim today is that I'm not a liar. I don't take things out of context (copy and paste is a great tool) and swirl them around to suit my insecurities, and I can't force myself to fit into a very tiny box when I'm working on something creative. If my ideas have to fit into a set of someone else's narrow parameters, I can't operate. If feel cornered. I feel undervalued.
I refuse to undermine my ideas or my talents, and I don't intend to allow anyone else do it for me. I think everyone can understand that from the giving and receiving end. This is not a meaningful or productive way to bring something from idea to reality. The fact that I learned this is more positive to me than the fact that I didn't know it is negative.
Am I rash sometimes? Of course. But I've seen enough of that to know that this isn't a permanent fault, but a temporary set back. Either way, at the end of the day when I find myself saying, "Why doesn't anyone love me?" what I'm really saying is, "Why don't I love myself enough to let them dislike me?"
I can change whenever I want; when it suits me, and especially if it's a change for the better. I don't have to wait for someone to tell me to do it, and I don't have to do what anyone else would expect from me. I've hurt some feelings, yes. I've even had a petty moment or two when prodded. Repeatedly.
Still, I haven't killed anyone's baby.
Considering the circumstances I--and a bunch of other people--have endured this week, you'd never know it. I don't say, "I've never been so hurt in my life." Primarily because I have, over and over again. Loss and losing are part of life. So I called the game. I finished it, at least in my mind. I don't have time to work on things that can't be worked. Not because they are bad, but because they are tired.
When I met Jeremy, we immediately bonded over a song. No, we didn't fall in love right away. For me, it took time because of many of the things I mentioned--my own insecurity, having carried hurt with me for too long, and not loving myself enough to be loved. But he fought for me because he saw something in me that no one else does. He waited and he was kind. He was the reason and the moment and everything I needed to pull me out of a black hole.
I told him exactly who I was, no filter. And he said to me about the bad parts, "Well, you're not doing that now." And he promised to stay, no matter what anyone said about me. I gave him a fair shot to get out, which speaks volumes to the amount of self-loathing I was feeling at the time.
Four years and some change later, these are his words upon being told he should really be "allowed" to continue playing with a band that doesn't want to overlook my perceived fatal flaws anymore:
"I pictured myself, standing there on the stage ending a great solo. We would end the song and people would be cheering and I'd look up...and you wouldn't be there. You'd be sitting home, and I wouldn't be able to share it with you. I would want to share it with you."
This is not a manipulated and "whipped" man. This is true love. He needs me to stand behind him doing something 1. he loves and 2. that delivered to us each other. I will always do that for him (also love). To suggest otherwise for selfish gains is foolish.
I write this because...well, how could I take a wonderful person like this for granted? Answer: I can't, and never do. If I catch myself falling into a routine, I take a step back and look at our current circumstances and how far we've come. I look into a sea of blue and see not someone who's drowning, but oceans of love and respect. This is where I choose to swim, and this is what I've earned.
In case it's not clear, I've earned this by listening, by supporting, by encouraging, and by nurturing. This is how you make something worthwhile and at first imaginary come to life.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
sometimes it sings.
I stole fifteen minutes in the sun by the pool today. I wish it were ours. Before too long, there was company, and everything got louder and more social; more social and relaxing don't seem to be my thing this weekend. I retreated. I retreat. Sometimes I have to find the quiet or I'll go mad. Today, during band practice wasn't a good time to need quiet--in fact, being in a band is so much the opposite of 1. what I thought it would be, and 2. peaceful and/or evoking harmony both within me and among members. As for the latter, it does happen, but much more rarely than I expected.
What I did anticipate is that it would be hard work. Not difficult work, but hard work. Like play until you sweat...until you lose your voice pushing forward and really feeling the music. As in, in the present. How I feel music isn't likely the same as how everyone feels music. I hear something, and maybe it has a line that sounds important, or a line that says something I didn't know. Maybe the melody is sad or the harmony is bright. In fact, maybe one line can mean everything to me, or has at one time. From there I like to savor it. Relish it before it can be something that becomes implanted in my memory, at which point it will evoke memories of days past, distant and recent. I study it from the inside out, and hear all of the parts separately and then occasionally as one. This is my curse. Because I can't love everything I play. I don't have enough time to savor it, and I cannot become a consumer of it. I listen the same way as I eat. I am mindful. I eat slowly, and stop when I'm full. If I were to keep consuming beyond that I would become sluggish and most of all disinterested in food. I leave a little room for dessert. I breathe. When my heart is full, I stop and listen to it beat. This is not a want. It is a need. Both in life and in music.
I've always been fairly confident in my ability to articulate what I think and what I feel. I would like to believe I am honest, but compassionate. For myself, I try to be objective when I know I'm in love with a song. In fact, that is when I'm the most critical of myself--I don't want to be blinded by my love and miss the fact that I haven't achieved the thing in the song that moved me to begin with. I played a song today that I thought was fun, and I know it's just not there. I'm o.k. with that. If someone else told me it wasn't working well, I am 100 percent positive I would agree. No harm, no foul. I'm not a fantastic singer--I just get by. I'll give myself a little bit of space there, because if I really feel it, I think it reaches farther than my own self-loathing permits me to believe at the time. I do O.K. I don't really push to do much of my own well-loved material, primarily because I'm learning how to use empathy to really get into other peoples' heads and feel what they feel. I want to give something I don't know a fair shake. I think they deserve that. A shot at meeting someone who can relate. A friend who if they can't relate can instead be there as a comrade in a fight they'd rather not go alone.
Someone after practice once said, "I just want to stop talking about our feelings so much."
This, now this has to be the most ridiculous thing that I never imagined would be uttered during my short tenure in a band. We are making music mother effers. And what the fuck are we doing if we're not feeling anything? And yet, I just can't make myself feel everything. If I did, I'd go mad, chock full of empathy and starving for one little iota of quiet. Of peace. Of me. What a fucking conundrum.
So tell me. Am I in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the right place at the wrong time? Do I feel too much, or is it too little?
I'm trying so hard to get to the answer, but the answer keeps changing. So I took a deep breath and came up for air. Maybe that's stupid. Necessary, regardless.
What I did anticipate is that it would be hard work. Not difficult work, but hard work. Like play until you sweat...until you lose your voice pushing forward and really feeling the music. As in, in the present. How I feel music isn't likely the same as how everyone feels music. I hear something, and maybe it has a line that sounds important, or a line that says something I didn't know. Maybe the melody is sad or the harmony is bright. In fact, maybe one line can mean everything to me, or has at one time. From there I like to savor it. Relish it before it can be something that becomes implanted in my memory, at which point it will evoke memories of days past, distant and recent. I study it from the inside out, and hear all of the parts separately and then occasionally as one. This is my curse. Because I can't love everything I play. I don't have enough time to savor it, and I cannot become a consumer of it. I listen the same way as I eat. I am mindful. I eat slowly, and stop when I'm full. If I were to keep consuming beyond that I would become sluggish and most of all disinterested in food. I leave a little room for dessert. I breathe. When my heart is full, I stop and listen to it beat. This is not a want. It is a need. Both in life and in music.
I've always been fairly confident in my ability to articulate what I think and what I feel. I would like to believe I am honest, but compassionate. For myself, I try to be objective when I know I'm in love with a song. In fact, that is when I'm the most critical of myself--I don't want to be blinded by my love and miss the fact that I haven't achieved the thing in the song that moved me to begin with. I played a song today that I thought was fun, and I know it's just not there. I'm o.k. with that. If someone else told me it wasn't working well, I am 100 percent positive I would agree. No harm, no foul. I'm not a fantastic singer--I just get by. I'll give myself a little bit of space there, because if I really feel it, I think it reaches farther than my own self-loathing permits me to believe at the time. I do O.K. I don't really push to do much of my own well-loved material, primarily because I'm learning how to use empathy to really get into other peoples' heads and feel what they feel. I want to give something I don't know a fair shake. I think they deserve that. A shot at meeting someone who can relate. A friend who if they can't relate can instead be there as a comrade in a fight they'd rather not go alone.
Someone after practice once said, "I just want to stop talking about our feelings so much."
This, now this has to be the most ridiculous thing that I never imagined would be uttered during my short tenure in a band. We are making music mother effers. And what the fuck are we doing if we're not feeling anything? And yet, I just can't make myself feel everything. If I did, I'd go mad, chock full of empathy and starving for one little iota of quiet. Of peace. Of me. What a fucking conundrum.
So tell me. Am I in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the right place at the wrong time? Do I feel too much, or is it too little?
I'm trying so hard to get to the answer, but the answer keeps changing. So I took a deep breath and came up for air. Maybe that's stupid. Necessary, regardless.
Monday, June 9, 2014
book marked.
I'm posting this partially for a friend, and partially so that I can remember to think about this when I consider art. When I consider writing. Most of all when I go about my business at work and at home. Makes me wonder how much of my business I'm going about, and how much of it is my male counterparts' business, which I seem to take up without question.
I've never much been interested in becoming a feminist. It's such a complex title to give oneself. I mean on one hand, I enjoy taking care of things like cooking and cleaning; on the other there are so many things I could do otherwise. I'm not sure I can even stop myself from liking them. In Psych class I learned about certain activities becoming culturally "embrained," in humans. So not only have I been somehow culturally coerced into liking these activities, I'm actually very, very good at them. Already I am confused about whether I am a victim of misogyny, or just a person who really likes taking care of things around the house. I mean, I love our house and I don't like dirt. But when my boyfriend's working on a project and the shit needs to get done, am I taking the wrong stance by doing it?
Do I think he's a misogynist--no. For the record, I'm just exploring these ideas. The man pulls his weight. And honestly, I have no desire to perform activities that require heavy lifting and power tools. My max weight lifting limit is about 50 pounds on a good day. Putting things together makes me impatient. So that's his job, as un-feminist as it sounds.
Still, I found this morning two interesting things on the internet. (Perhaps the WWW should be called the interestingnet?)
One is a zine project by feminists and for the rest of the world. The other was an article by Joyce Maynard about J.D. Salinger, which reminded me of someone and reminded me to think about the things I do and why. Her article can be accessed by clicking her name at the bottom of the quote.
http://itscomplicatedproject.tumblr.com/post/61341010070/to-a-stunning-degree-for-a-period-of-over-half-a
I've never much been interested in becoming a feminist. It's such a complex title to give oneself. I mean on one hand, I enjoy taking care of things like cooking and cleaning; on the other there are so many things I could do otherwise. I'm not sure I can even stop myself from liking them. In Psych class I learned about certain activities becoming culturally "embrained," in humans. So not only have I been somehow culturally coerced into liking these activities, I'm actually very, very good at them. Already I am confused about whether I am a victim of misogyny, or just a person who really likes taking care of things around the house. I mean, I love our house and I don't like dirt. But when my boyfriend's working on a project and the shit needs to get done, am I taking the wrong stance by doing it?
Do I think he's a misogynist--no. For the record, I'm just exploring these ideas. The man pulls his weight. And honestly, I have no desire to perform activities that require heavy lifting and power tools. My max weight lifting limit is about 50 pounds on a good day. Putting things together makes me impatient. So that's his job, as un-feminist as it sounds.
Still, I found this morning two interesting things on the internet. (Perhaps the WWW should be called the interestingnet?)
One is a zine project by feminists and for the rest of the world. The other was an article by Joyce Maynard about J.D. Salinger, which reminded me of someone and reminded me to think about the things I do and why. Her article can be accessed by clicking her name at the bottom of the quote.
http://itscomplicatedproject.tumblr.com/post/61341010070/to-a-stunning-degree-for-a-period-of-over-half-a
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