September 10, 2015

I write for a lot of reasons.

For a catharsis, getting things out into the world makes them easier to bear sometimes.

So I can remember, I have had a wonderful life and it keeps getting better.

I write to forgive others and myself.

I write to leave myself markers on this path I walk, in case I end up back there.

And I write on the off chance that someone out there will read these things I have done and feel that ever so comforting ‘me too’.

I wrote The Dress. Mentioned having Poland syndrome, not for the first time or the last. It is a huge part of what I am. I got a private message from a man whose daughter has it too. My heart leapt. I got to say the words I needed to hear as a child. Tell her she is not a burden, tell her she is whole. Tell her she is an Amazon reincarnated. Tell her she would have been worshiped and revered in other cultures way back when. Give her power, make her brave. Lord hear our prayer and my emphatic hallelujah to be given this chance to make something right.

Part of me writing is saying things I am ashamed of, out loud, so I can laugh at them.

My head is a decidedly odd place to live in, or even visit really. But 200+ people a day wander over and peek in the windows or walk through the door. It’s always open, come on in. You hungry? I’ll feed you. Been walking a long time? Put your feet up.

Just don’t point them at Buddha. It’s bad luck. You can’t anyways, all my Buddhas face east, none of my chairs do.

Forgive me Father, but for like an hour out of two months I spent time, thought and energy trying to get the throw pillows right on my bed so a boy would come back. I see now the error of my ways. Time is a precious gift and that is some weird OCD superstitious bullshit.

In my defense, I was sad. Never really been able to think straight when I am sad.

But it feels like sinning or squandering my magic powers and wishes on something silly.

Sorry about that, so sorry.

It happened again.

I have those Indian cotton throws for bedspreads. I change them and my sheets every Sunday. I had bought a new one with a mandala design and caught myself thinking “maybe this one will work”, remembering my prior folly. Kinda chuckled at myself.

The photograph attached is actually my actual bed. I have an up-cycled fireplace mantel with an OPEN sign above it for a head board. I have a pillow that says “leave some room in your heart for the unimaginable”, which always reminds me of a Stephen King quote “it became the unspeakable”. Told you my head is a weird place. So is my bed apparently. Weird and wonderful. Things unspeakable and unimaginable.

My head is also a mess of movie quotes and song lyrics, constantly tangling and folding themselves to make sense of things. Tiny mantras and theme songs.

Here is what it sounds like right now…

“Brian:  See, we had this assignment, to make this ceramic elephant, and um…and we had eight weeks to do it and we’re s’posed to, and it was like a lamp, and when you pull the trunk, the light was s’posed to go on. My light didn’t go on…

I’m a fuckin’ idiot because I can’t make a lamp?

John:  No, you’re a genius because you can’t make a lamp.

Brian:  What do you know about Trigonometry?

John:  I could care less about Trigonometry.

Brian:  Bender, did you know without Trigonometry, there’d be no engineering?

John:  Without lamps, there’d be no light.” (The Breakfast Club)

Here’s the funny thing. The open sign is supposed to light up. When I mounted it one the brick wall with those 3M sticky things, the nubbin got pushed back just far enough in that I can’t turn it on. Houston, we have a metaphor, or a psychic block…it’s a problem.

There is one more reason I write. I write to create. Words are literal magic. With my words I create my thoughts and my world. It’s called spelling for a reason. These are my desires, laid out and sent into the ether. I have seen them manifest beacuse I have faith. I always get what I ask for, or something better. All ways, all days, without fail.

Kidlet popped his head in the bedroom the other day and said he wasn’t coming home that night, hinted that it would be a good time to have a boy over.

I realized, I have had this brand new bed for 8 weeks to the day. Never had a boy in it.

One of my favorite lines ever is from the show Weeds “You made your bed, go fuck in it.”

This too comes to mind as I am fluffing pillows and straightening throws.

I make a damn fine bed. I want a damn fine bed fellow.

I’m fixing the sign and there will be light and it will be good.

“You were the light and the way…” (Maynard James Keenan)

What I want or something better.

Lord hear our prayer.

Amen

 

 

 

I can never leave the past behind

I can see no way, I can see no way

(Florence and her glorious Machine)

Imagine yourself gripping a jagged rock so tight, fingers changing colour from the strain and blood trapped in there.
Now imagine how good it feels when you finally let go. That relief.

Good, Weird, Bad shit happens and I just write about it. Life feels like an elaborate maze and I am enjoying it, even the stuff that really hurts, the heavy, sharp, cutting things. Turn them over and over in my mind until the edges becomes smooth and the lesson understood. Like a rock tumbler, bringing out the shine.

I was just on the phone with an old friend who is going through some serious relationship trauma. He asked “how do you date after this?” I rhymed off the tiniest list of shit I have been through, and I stopped dead in the middle. Wait…seriously…How DO I do this? After all the pain, the trauma, the cheating, the lies, the ghosts and I still go out and try again? And not half-assed neither, lately I am all fucking in.

I’m trying to solve the labyrinth, but not so I can get out of it. I want to live here (it’s made of magic). I’m learning, exploring. I am pushing my long held boundaries of what I think I am allowed to give and what I thought I could take. I’m starting to freak myself out a bit with this actual enjoyment of the strangeness. I supposed it’s some kind of survival mechanism or, maybe I just know I’ll live through it.  Or maybe I am home.

Apparently I am not allowed to bring any of my past into the future. I have to be a Terminator. Come in naked, lightning crackling. No fate but what we make (Sarah Connor Terminator 2).

I like that.

Monday.

I stumbled upon some pre-summer beautiful boy messages that made me physically ill. Not because they were mean…because they were so fucking sweet. I had to forget how extraordinary he was so I could wrap my head around him leaving. Didn’t help. He escaped the oubliette. Truth is, I never locked the door. I thought of him every time the sky turned red.

I think it’s like covering a tattoo. The original ink will always show through from certain angles. I am doing that too. Covering all my old tattoos. Everyone asks what I used to sit for it. Nothing. Caterpillars don’t take painkillers. I’m altering what I was, I am becoming something.
Ya, it fucking hurts, change often does.

Tuesday.

So I was in the proverbial desert (see The Nothing). Yes, there is a desert in my Labyrinth, Terminators too, just roll with it. Feeling like I was getting close to the end. Ha, the Gods are funny fuckers. Car broke down. First instinct, grab everything I could carry and walk. Well, no. first instinct scream like a banshee, cry a bit and then do the thing.

Too much weight, so I LET IT GO.

Texts from another ex

Him: “please stop telling me I bettered you and changed you, I have read enough of your blog to know everyone you ever fuck, which is apparently a lot of people, help you and better you, I feel fucking unclean now.”

I forgot how awful he could be.

Midnight until 6 am. We held a palaver in the desert. He doesn’t like the blog, said I painted him a villain, so he turned back into a monster, the monster I forgot about, never wrote about?

Well that hardly seems safe now does it?

“Because you did it is why I think you did it.” Paul Rudd

I know better than to engage but I was so wired/tired from 3 hours of 1 am driving. I let him mash his fists into the old control-panel that held ALL my buttons. Oh honey, I’ve upgraded, I’m not wired that way anymore. He said I would end up old and alone, all I would have are memories.
I seriously thought (but didn’t type) Do you promise? That sounds amazing!!!!

I know I’m not dumb. I know I am not ugly. I’m okay with my whoreishness.

You have no power over me (Sarah in The Labyrinth)

He hasn’t for years. He exists only in the past. I could see the fight like I was watching an old home movie, detached. Safe in my present perspective. Stop.

I didn’t vilify him. I checked. I offered to let him edit, tell me what I did wrong and I’d fix it. Offered to print a retraction. Tried this exit and that one. I think he was looking for a fight and I drew the short straw.

I washed my memory clean of this behaviour ages ago when I forgave the both of us. But that night he came dragging a dead horse whose name I forget, and showed his true colours when I showed him mine. I’m too much whore and not near enough Madonna for him. Always was. Illusion shattered. I’m not sorry.

I suddenly and fully remembered why he is my ex.

Wednesday

I realized something. I had a full mental breakdown about the boy of pre-summer.  I wept, hard. That deep soul sobbing. I wrote this whole big article, posted it and everything. As of today, it’s the only post I have ever deleted. He didn’t ask for revisions or retractions. We just talked a bit and I realized it wasn’t the truth, he was something lovely I’d painted over so I could forget. I couldn’t stand by it. He was sweet to me.

Angry ex? All posts stand. “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Anne La Mott. Eyes are desert dry.

Yes, my memory is selective. I can only carry so much and I want the things I bring to feel light and right and good. Smoothing over is a good thing, makes it easier to walk on and hold onto sometimes.

My girl flew in from the real desert the night this started. I picked her up after Burning Man. She spoke of the Haboob.

I know I’m in it right now. Fine grains of sand in storm form, forcing me to drop the last of my past, hands free to cover my eyes. I need those where I am going. This grit and dust isn’t getting me dirty, it’s the final stage of polishing me clean. I won’t look back, I am not going that way.

Never go that way.