At the edges of adventure is where fears and doubts are born,
where the dawn might nevermore defeat the dark and herald morn',
Far beyond the warmth and comfort of the things you think you know;
But to places of adventure, an Adventurer must go.
Where the days ahead cannot be seen, and doubtful is the past,
and it seems unlike the world to grant me certainty at last,
I must leave my world behind and step out into the unknown;
To the edges of adventure, I must venture, all alone.
Every day as I step forward there are things I dread to face~
For adventure, now I've found it, is an overwhelming place.
But it's said where one has fallen, two united may yet stand~
To the edges of adventure, let us venture, hand in hand.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Nobody
(originally written a long time ago)
I woke up this morning and there was no power in half the house.
I woke up this morning and there was no power in half my body.
I woke up this lifetime and there was no life in half my heart.
And I screamed, and I cried, and I cried out...
for mercy.
And they laughed, and they pointed, and ran...
and they ran from me.
And I lay there bleeding from wounds no-one else could see.
And looked up to see Nobody,
because Nobody came to rescue me.
Noboby came to comfort me.
And Nobody helped me get back on my feet again.
And Nobody convinced me to start trying to eat again.
So don't come to try and take my heart.
I share my heart with Nobody.
Don't come and ask to be part of my world.
I gave my world to Nobody.
And if you want to have some of these things,
don't come around to talk to me.
You can go ask Nobody.
And you know what?
Nobody will answer you.
So don't you dare ask me who I am,
and don't ask what's become of me.
'Cause you didn't come when I was dying.
And now all I am...
is Nobody.
I woke up this morning and there was no power in half the house.
I woke up this morning and there was no power in half my body.
I woke up this lifetime and there was no life in half my heart.
And I screamed, and I cried, and I cried out...
for mercy.
And they laughed, and they pointed, and ran...
and they ran from me.
And I lay there bleeding from wounds no-one else could see.
And looked up to see Nobody,
because Nobody came to rescue me.
Noboby came to comfort me.
And Nobody helped me get back on my feet again.
And Nobody convinced me to start trying to eat again.
So don't come to try and take my heart.
I share my heart with Nobody.
Don't come and ask to be part of my world.
I gave my world to Nobody.
And if you want to have some of these things,
don't come around to talk to me.
You can go ask Nobody.
And you know what?
Nobody will answer you.
So don't you dare ask me who I am,
and don't ask what's become of me.
'Cause you didn't come when I was dying.
And now all I am...
is Nobody.
If I Were Not Afraid
(originally posted on FetLife on May 9, 2010)
I'd ask you for your time tonight,
to share with me in warm delight,
the lusts of touch and sound and sight,
if I were not afraid.
I'd tell you all I'd love to do;
to offer up, to take from you,
and ask to hear your fancies too,
if I were not afraid.
I'd come and knock upon your door,
I'd pull you down onto the floor,
and tell you that I must have more,
if I were not afraid.
I'd fly through life on silver wings,
and make of it a million things,
and voice the notes my passion sings,
if I were not afraid.
But oh, the fear, it fills me,
it haunts me to my core.
It taunts me and it kills the dreams
I'm most enlivened for.
I must admit it's also true,
that other times it shakes me through,
to think of things that I might do,
If I were not afraid.
That I might hurt, or I might kill,
that I might crush a weaker will;
For vengeance, whose blood might I spill,
if I were not afraid?
It may seem very strange to some,
how far I let my terrors run,
for fear of what I might become,
if I were not afraid.
I'd ask you for your time tonight,
to share with me in warm delight,
the lusts of touch and sound and sight,
if I were not afraid.
I'd tell you all I'd love to do;
to offer up, to take from you,
and ask to hear your fancies too,
if I were not afraid.
I'd come and knock upon your door,
I'd pull you down onto the floor,
and tell you that I must have more,
if I were not afraid.
I'd fly through life on silver wings,
and make of it a million things,
and voice the notes my passion sings,
if I were not afraid.
But oh, the fear, it fills me,
it haunts me to my core.
It taunts me and it kills the dreams
I'm most enlivened for.
I must admit it's also true,
that other times it shakes me through,
to think of things that I might do,
If I were not afraid.
That I might hurt, or I might kill,
that I might crush a weaker will;
For vengeance, whose blood might I spill,
if I were not afraid?
It may seem very strange to some,
how far I let my terrors run,
for fear of what I might become,
if I were not afraid.
Innocence
(originally posted on FetLife on May 9, 2010)
For wisdom, I have paid the cost
of scars to wear, innocence lost,
and found a world brilliant with beauty at heart,
but worn, dank and rusted in word, deed, and art.
Perhaps one day, through nature's way,
a method plain and crude,
I'll bear again the beauty
that is innocence, renewed.
For wisdom, I have paid the cost
of scars to wear, innocence lost,
and found a world brilliant with beauty at heart,
but worn, dank and rusted in word, deed, and art.
Perhaps one day, through nature's way,
a method plain and crude,
I'll bear again the beauty
that is innocence, renewed.
Fantasy
(originally posted on FetLife on April 17, 2010)
Here we are just chasing fantasy,
wishing for a day that's never been,
Living...
as though uncertainty, were
something strange,
not how things ought to be.
Chasing dragons, in dragging days,
killing boredom when we can.
Trapping bitterness and wringing it dry,
as though to try
to make it sweet,
While we're just chasing fantasy,
visions that will never be, until
we stop chasing,
we start making,
for a day that's never been.
Here we are just chasing fantasy,
wishing for a day that's never been,
Living...
as though uncertainty, were
something strange,
not how things ought to be.
Chasing dragons, in dragging days,
killing boredom when we can.
Trapping bitterness and wringing it dry,
as though to try
to make it sweet,
While we're just chasing fantasy,
visions that will never be, until
we stop chasing,
we start making,
for a day that's never been.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Depression
(originally posted on FetLife on April 17, 2010)
The goodness of lust just feels bawdy and cheap.
Exhaustion prohibits the goodness of sleep.
The goodness of beauty, a marketing scheme.
The goodness of kindness, a fool's naive dream.
The goodness of working, a chase after cash.
The goodness of fieriness burnt down to ash.
The goodness of sky lost somewhere in the smoke.
The goodness of daydreams sold out to a toke.
The goodness of flavor washed dreary and dry...
The goodness of life, just to wait 'til I die.
The goodness of lust just feels bawdy and cheap.
Exhaustion prohibits the goodness of sleep.
The goodness of beauty, a marketing scheme.
The goodness of kindness, a fool's naive dream.
The goodness of working, a chase after cash.
The goodness of fieriness burnt down to ash.
The goodness of sky lost somewhere in the smoke.
The goodness of daydreams sold out to a toke.
The goodness of flavor washed dreary and dry...
The goodness of life, just to wait 'til I die.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Choice and Responsibility
I clicked into a serious talk on YouTube today. I wasn't really looking for it, not actively anyway. It was about choice, capitalism, and the paralysis of clinging to what little we have rather than risking the loss of it by moving to engineer social change. It strikes kind of hard... I'm familiar with this truth. I think it may be one of the things I was trying to talk about with To Do What I Must While I Am Who I Am.
It also reminds me of The Little Prince. I find myself almost wanting to cry as I think even of myself, trying to force myself to ascribe to something I do not believe, the idea that submitting to the need to work on whatever my employer's terms are will empower me to make a difference, rather than making me a supportive cog in a system I despise and disempowering me by giving me something I must fear to lose...
I see myself trying to mount a stressful job search, with minimal resources and trying to bury my resentment of the system that puts me here and demands that I serve it in order to live a better life... turning into what the Prince would call a 'mushroom'; putting off, ignoring, or dismissing important matters of emotionality, sensitivity and wonder because "I am concerned with matters of consequence!"
I do not want to take solace in that phrase or in the necessity of my busywork. I don't want to allow myself any excuse for not doing what I believe in in every way I can.
And yet... I must job search, I must work. If I refused, I would be denied what little survival budget I am being given, and pushed into an even smaller, darker hole. To avoid both would be dishonest and as such a betrayal of principles I hold most dear. I am already concerned with matters of consequence... matters of survival. And I must admit I already kind of hate myself for it.
I wrote in the very first pages of the notebook that's now become my journal, quite some time ago:
It also reminds me of The Little Prince. I find myself almost wanting to cry as I think even of myself, trying to force myself to ascribe to something I do not believe, the idea that submitting to the need to work on whatever my employer's terms are will empower me to make a difference, rather than making me a supportive cog in a system I despise and disempowering me by giving me something I must fear to lose...
I see myself trying to mount a stressful job search, with minimal resources and trying to bury my resentment of the system that puts me here and demands that I serve it in order to live a better life... turning into what the Prince would call a 'mushroom'; putting off, ignoring, or dismissing important matters of emotionality, sensitivity and wonder because "I am concerned with matters of consequence!"
I do not want to take solace in that phrase or in the necessity of my busywork. I don't want to allow myself any excuse for not doing what I believe in in every way I can.
And yet... I must job search, I must work. If I refused, I would be denied what little survival budget I am being given, and pushed into an even smaller, darker hole. To avoid both would be dishonest and as such a betrayal of principles I hold most dear. I am already concerned with matters of consequence... matters of survival. And I must admit I already kind of hate myself for it.
I wrote in the very first pages of the notebook that's now become my journal, quite some time ago:
People in a culture with as much technology, resources and interconnectivity as ours have absolutely no right to be concerned about their mere survival.I am guilty of this, and feel that I have failed, not on my own lack of merit, but as one of the billions, as a member of the whole human race. I also wrote:
Western culture has adopted the image of an organization collapsing under its own obsession with efficiency - efficiency itself compromised by endless lawsuits over liability and breach of protocol...
A machine so frantically upgrading and replacing its pieces that it tears itself apart.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Scarcity of Connection
From the title you might assume this is going to be a post about the frustrations of finding a romantic partner that meets my standards and offers some chemistry in the modern world and while homeless. It might have been, too - I have been feeling that way recently. But it's not. This is about the internet.
I don't have a laptop of my own right now (or a desktop, obviously... or, for that matter, a phone) and have been relying on resources at my disposal at the library and at the shelters. Earlier in my stay, it was often possible to get hours of uncontested internet at a time without even signing up for it at the shelter, while most of the other residents were busy, I suppose, with other things and often no-one would come in to use the other of the two computers on this floor for quite some time even while it remained free. Some of the staff, bless them, will give me extra time at night and leave the room open past its official closing time at 10 PM. I have, I suppose, been a lucky little 'net addict.
Recently, though, times have changed. There is a new girl on our floor that I find I have taken an immediate dislike to, perhaps unfairly, because she is competition. It seems that half or more of the times I peek in the window to check whether there's a machine free, there she is. She plugs herself into earbuds just like me, but unlike me, she tends not to react if you try to get her attention. The first night I saw her here, she had been using one of the computers when I came in and started on the second one. Someone came in having booked use for the upcoming hour. It's usually something of a protocol for the person who was using a computer first to get off first unless either it's approaching their own booked time or the other volunteers to leave. I looked at her but she made no indication that she'd even heard the newcomer. I tried to talk to her (never an easy thing for me to begin with) and got nothing. So with some frustration I logged off, and asked at the office whether there was a free slot at the computers. Being told there was, I signed up for it, determined to spend more time online (what can I say? I was stressed out that day), came back to the computer room and quietly announced that I'd signed up for the second slot. Still nothing, at least for several minutes until one of the other ladies managed to get through to her somehow, at which point she typed out another few lines to someone or other, agonizingly slowly, and at last, removed herself from the computer. Herself, but not her earbuds or plugged in MP3 player. I unplugged them and handed them to her myself, trying to be friendly about it. An hour later she returned, having booked the next hour, and thus with the authority to boot me off. I left - after all, the other lady on the computers hadn't been there as long as I had - but I was in a foul mood about it. I must admit I was starting to take it a little bit personally.
Now... I realize that from the perspective of a lot of the ladies here, much of this could probably just as easily have been me, and it's led me to wonder whether my greed for hours on the computer annoys other people the same way as hers annoyed me, but I don't think I'm that bad. I have always been very careful about it. While I indulge myself for as long as I can without feeling impolite, if both computers are taken and someone new wants to use one, and the other lady, whoever she is, shows no indication that they are logging off, I almost always will, even if the newcomer doesn't have a slot booked. When someone opens the door, I usually take out at least one of my earbuds and turn to look at them, smiling, to indicate receptiveness to communication so that if they need to ask me to get off, they can without too much awkwardness. I try never to be unpleasant about it and usually to be prompt. While I know it may be unfair to criticise anyone else's typing speed, mine is fast, so it's generally not hard for me to quickly tap out a few quick goodbyes and be on my way.
To make matters worse, yesterday something mysterious must have happened overnight or something, because one of the two computers is now asking for a password at start-up, and the floor staff don't seem to know what it is. This has caused the computer to be out of commission for two days now while the maintenance guy either fails to get around to it or is somehow just as perplexed by the problem as the rest of us - in which case... who had both the administrative priviledges and the ill will to password-lock the computer? Those functions are banned from common use on these machines, so unless we have a really vindictive hacker on-board here, someone in authority must have restricted it. Regardless, this does mean that it will be harder to get time on the computers and on the net until the problem is fixed and possibly longer. I still have my daily-except-Sundays hour and a half at the library, but time at the shelter is uncertain and often full of drama.
I know it shouldn't be as much of a stressor as it is... but... while waiting (endlessly... for fuck's sakes it's been over two weeks now) for OW to contact me with a meeting so I can go do their intake and get the funds cleared for me to move into the room that's been reserved for me... while sleeping again in a 10-bed dorm where it's not uncommon at 5 AM for some lady to be woken up and start shouting at the source of the offending sound, because obviously if one person was disturbed, it's important that everyone else is, and while continually failing to finally get over the last of the congestion that's been plaguing me for about a week... I'm stressed. I'm really, really, really stressed and it often feels like I'm losing my mind. There is no privacy in this place at all, no-where at all that can even be relied on to be quiet. The internet and its comforts are a reassuring home-turf for me, and there is nothing else I have that allows me to relax in the same way. I have Damon's ipod back, admittedly, and it is a comfort, but a comfort small; My music, the stuff I listen to that Damon doesn't also like, isn't there. No Ani DiFranco, no soothing tones of ToadyOne's Dwarf Fortress podcast... God, I miss Dwarf Fortress so much... Even without net capability, if I could have that laptop, just as it was, netless but functional, to sit in the library and game for an afternoon... It would be like a vacation.
I think you get the idea. I'm starved of what I rely on for access to my emotional supports, relaxation, and in times of this much stress, sanity. Oh, cruel world, why doth thou take away mine internet!
I realize that if you're not among those who understand, this may sound like the bleating of a whiny, spoiled child who wants and cannot have the newest shiny toy. It's important to understand this is more than that. It's probably a generational thing. Anyway... I may or may not post again soon... And if I don't... I shouldn't have to tell you why.
I don't have a laptop of my own right now (or a desktop, obviously... or, for that matter, a phone) and have been relying on resources at my disposal at the library and at the shelters. Earlier in my stay, it was often possible to get hours of uncontested internet at a time without even signing up for it at the shelter, while most of the other residents were busy, I suppose, with other things and often no-one would come in to use the other of the two computers on this floor for quite some time even while it remained free. Some of the staff, bless them, will give me extra time at night and leave the room open past its official closing time at 10 PM. I have, I suppose, been a lucky little 'net addict.
Recently, though, times have changed. There is a new girl on our floor that I find I have taken an immediate dislike to, perhaps unfairly, because she is competition. It seems that half or more of the times I peek in the window to check whether there's a machine free, there she is. She plugs herself into earbuds just like me, but unlike me, she tends not to react if you try to get her attention. The first night I saw her here, she had been using one of the computers when I came in and started on the second one. Someone came in having booked use for the upcoming hour. It's usually something of a protocol for the person who was using a computer first to get off first unless either it's approaching their own booked time or the other volunteers to leave. I looked at her but she made no indication that she'd even heard the newcomer. I tried to talk to her (never an easy thing for me to begin with) and got nothing. So with some frustration I logged off, and asked at the office whether there was a free slot at the computers. Being told there was, I signed up for it, determined to spend more time online (what can I say? I was stressed out that day), came back to the computer room and quietly announced that I'd signed up for the second slot. Still nothing, at least for several minutes until one of the other ladies managed to get through to her somehow, at which point she typed out another few lines to someone or other, agonizingly slowly, and at last, removed herself from the computer. Herself, but not her earbuds or plugged in MP3 player. I unplugged them and handed them to her myself, trying to be friendly about it. An hour later she returned, having booked the next hour, and thus with the authority to boot me off. I left - after all, the other lady on the computers hadn't been there as long as I had - but I was in a foul mood about it. I must admit I was starting to take it a little bit personally.
Now... I realize that from the perspective of a lot of the ladies here, much of this could probably just as easily have been me, and it's led me to wonder whether my greed for hours on the computer annoys other people the same way as hers annoyed me, but I don't think I'm that bad. I have always been very careful about it. While I indulge myself for as long as I can without feeling impolite, if both computers are taken and someone new wants to use one, and the other lady, whoever she is, shows no indication that they are logging off, I almost always will, even if the newcomer doesn't have a slot booked. When someone opens the door, I usually take out at least one of my earbuds and turn to look at them, smiling, to indicate receptiveness to communication so that if they need to ask me to get off, they can without too much awkwardness. I try never to be unpleasant about it and usually to be prompt. While I know it may be unfair to criticise anyone else's typing speed, mine is fast, so it's generally not hard for me to quickly tap out a few quick goodbyes and be on my way.
To make matters worse, yesterday something mysterious must have happened overnight or something, because one of the two computers is now asking for a password at start-up, and the floor staff don't seem to know what it is. This has caused the computer to be out of commission for two days now while the maintenance guy either fails to get around to it or is somehow just as perplexed by the problem as the rest of us - in which case... who had both the administrative priviledges and the ill will to password-lock the computer? Those functions are banned from common use on these machines, so unless we have a really vindictive hacker on-board here, someone in authority must have restricted it. Regardless, this does mean that it will be harder to get time on the computers and on the net until the problem is fixed and possibly longer. I still have my daily-except-Sundays hour and a half at the library, but time at the shelter is uncertain and often full of drama.
I know it shouldn't be as much of a stressor as it is... but... while waiting (endlessly... for fuck's sakes it's been over two weeks now) for OW to contact me with a meeting so I can go do their intake and get the funds cleared for me to move into the room that's been reserved for me... while sleeping again in a 10-bed dorm where it's not uncommon at 5 AM for some lady to be woken up and start shouting at the source of the offending sound, because obviously if one person was disturbed, it's important that everyone else is, and while continually failing to finally get over the last of the congestion that's been plaguing me for about a week... I'm stressed. I'm really, really, really stressed and it often feels like I'm losing my mind. There is no privacy in this place at all, no-where at all that can even be relied on to be quiet. The internet and its comforts are a reassuring home-turf for me, and there is nothing else I have that allows me to relax in the same way. I have Damon's ipod back, admittedly, and it is a comfort, but a comfort small; My music, the stuff I listen to that Damon doesn't also like, isn't there. No Ani DiFranco, no soothing tones of ToadyOne's Dwarf Fortress podcast... God, I miss Dwarf Fortress so much... Even without net capability, if I could have that laptop, just as it was, netless but functional, to sit in the library and game for an afternoon... It would be like a vacation.
I think you get the idea. I'm starved of what I rely on for access to my emotional supports, relaxation, and in times of this much stress, sanity. Oh, cruel world, why doth thou take away mine internet!
I realize that if you're not among those who understand, this may sound like the bleating of a whiny, spoiled child who wants and cannot have the newest shiny toy. It's important to understand this is more than that. It's probably a generational thing. Anyway... I may or may not post again soon... And if I don't... I shouldn't have to tell you why.
DKLOD
You may take away my accusing eyes.
You may steal my scolding tongue.
You may rip away my claws that I cannot with them deface you,
and surgically remove any part of me that offends you;
But short of killing me,
you won't be free of the mind that sees your treason for what it is
and judges you, Guilty.
You may steal my scolding tongue.
You may rip away my claws that I cannot with them deface you,
and surgically remove any part of me that offends you;
But short of killing me,
you won't be free of the mind that sees your treason for what it is
and judges you, Guilty.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Bed Bug Alert
Today just went from dull but more or less average to very stressful.
This isn't due directly to the fact that there were signs of bedbugs in my dorm room. It's the process for dealing with it that's causing me more tension. I was ambushed on my way back into the shelter, not allowed to access my locker, but asked for the key so that staff could do so, and presumably wash, and/or process everything in there. I was given a set of clothes from the clothing room, a towel, and some shampoo and conditioner (one in a hotel bottle, one in one of those little paper cups for condiments with dinner) and told to go shower, and put everything I had on me that was washable in one bag, and double-bag it, and everything that was not washable in another, and double-bag it. I did, with five exceptions:
1) The key to my locker's lock
2) My keycard to this shelter
3) My library card (I go to the library almost every day to use the computers, and if it takes more than a day before I get my things back, I still want that with me)
4) My glasses (though I removed the tassel that always hangs off them and tied it to my washable backpack instead)
5) A single hair tie, for its intended use.
I am already really, really wishing I kept Damon's iPod, or at least just the earbuds attached to it, too. I swear, I'm going to go crazy having no access at all to my diary, my music, or even the ability to listen to Savage Lovecast online, which I often listen to while stressed or bored to laugh a bit and calm down. My stationery, my wallet with all my ID and what little moneys I had, my passport, my writing, my bag... is all in double-bagged plastic in a dorm-room with everyone else's stuff and no-one can tell me exactly when I will be able to access it again. If I don't get everything back whole, intact and just as functional as it was before, I will be very, very, very upset. For now, I'm blogging just to put off the stress of not being able to do what I usually do when I'm stressed: listen to music, or comfortingly familiar voices, or watch Let's Plays on YouTube. Technically I could watch them, but couldn't hear the commentary that makes them interesting, and makes them Let's Plays.
So here I am in ill-fitting high heeled shoes without heel enclosure, a white t-shirt and grey stretchpants. At least after I complained I got a bra. It's too tight, but it's better than nothing. Without one, I felt disgustingly floppy and unpresentable, and was extremely conscious of my prominent nipples. Don't get me wrong, I love my nipples. I love my breasts! But I do not love wearing a loose shirt with no support for them. It feels as though everyone must be staring at me for being so hideously underdressed.
I don't know what I'm going to do for the evening, or indeed the next few days. If I'm lucky, I may be able to get access to some better fitting shoes, and perhaps a pair of earbuds. In the mean time... Oh, gods, the hours are just going to drag, right, on.
To make my stance perfectly clear: I am glad they're taking the bed bug thing seriously. I am. I really am. But the method is a huge inconvenience, and it is going to be making me quite miserable until it's over.
This isn't due directly to the fact that there were signs of bedbugs in my dorm room. It's the process for dealing with it that's causing me more tension. I was ambushed on my way back into the shelter, not allowed to access my locker, but asked for the key so that staff could do so, and presumably wash, and/or process everything in there. I was given a set of clothes from the clothing room, a towel, and some shampoo and conditioner (one in a hotel bottle, one in one of those little paper cups for condiments with dinner) and told to go shower, and put everything I had on me that was washable in one bag, and double-bag it, and everything that was not washable in another, and double-bag it. I did, with five exceptions:
1) The key to my locker's lock
2) My keycard to this shelter
3) My library card (I go to the library almost every day to use the computers, and if it takes more than a day before I get my things back, I still want that with me)
4) My glasses (though I removed the tassel that always hangs off them and tied it to my washable backpack instead)
5) A single hair tie, for its intended use.
I am already really, really wishing I kept Damon's iPod, or at least just the earbuds attached to it, too. I swear, I'm going to go crazy having no access at all to my diary, my music, or even the ability to listen to Savage Lovecast online, which I often listen to while stressed or bored to laugh a bit and calm down. My stationery, my wallet with all my ID and what little moneys I had, my passport, my writing, my bag... is all in double-bagged plastic in a dorm-room with everyone else's stuff and no-one can tell me exactly when I will be able to access it again. If I don't get everything back whole, intact and just as functional as it was before, I will be very, very, very upset. For now, I'm blogging just to put off the stress of not being able to do what I usually do when I'm stressed: listen to music, or comfortingly familiar voices, or watch Let's Plays on YouTube. Technically I could watch them, but couldn't hear the commentary that makes them interesting, and makes them Let's Plays.
So here I am in ill-fitting high heeled shoes without heel enclosure, a white t-shirt and grey stretchpants. At least after I complained I got a bra. It's too tight, but it's better than nothing. Without one, I felt disgustingly floppy and unpresentable, and was extremely conscious of my prominent nipples. Don't get me wrong, I love my nipples. I love my breasts! But I do not love wearing a loose shirt with no support for them. It feels as though everyone must be staring at me for being so hideously underdressed.
I don't know what I'm going to do for the evening, or indeed the next few days. If I'm lucky, I may be able to get access to some better fitting shoes, and perhaps a pair of earbuds. In the mean time... Oh, gods, the hours are just going to drag, right, on.
To make my stance perfectly clear: I am glad they're taking the bed bug thing seriously. I am. I really am. But the method is a huge inconvenience, and it is going to be making me quite miserable until it's over.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
To Do what I Must; While I Am who I Am
No, I do not bring happiness with me wherever I go. Not always.
To my love, my presence is sorrowful; It confronts him with the guilt of having done me wrong. It puts a pressure on him that prohibits, rather than enabling and encouraging him to open up to himself, to be open and vulnerable enough to question, probe, consider, and discover, the deeper reasons for his own restlessness. I know it is hard enough for him to find that vulnerability within himself alone, let alone before the image of a sad love, a person he has hurt and cannot heal. I feel (I fear) it might be better for us both not to bear this painful, wistful company, full of the flashing glimpses of regrets and roads not taken.
I read a guide to interview planning and etiquette. It's all tips I've heard before. And I feel an instinctive despair, a familiar objection from my very core: "This is not who I am!"
"It's only what I do." The second voice rises like an ocean over a desert, like rivers into the sea. It brings with it a rightness, a freedom. And perhaps it brings the problem well into light. Is it not a beautiful, distant dream? To be able to Do what I Am, rather than live a dichotomy, in the left hand the truth of Who I Am, and in the right the truth of What I Do, each clumsily struggling to tie separate knots, or, may all goodness forbid, the one constantly undoing the other's, rather than forming a graceful bow of mutual effort between them.
And yet, having not come to that place, the separation is a forgiveness. I may do What I Must Do, and this does not override Who I Am. I need not be fundamentally changed or overwritten to fill a less natural or fitting role. My capability is a fact, and my quirks flavour and enhance it, but while I Do other than what I Am - at the behest of others, to feed myself - my secret self is not deleted, but lies in wait like a spy waiting for his opportune moment to strike, or a caterpillar for his wings.
Even as I write this, every letter feels like a lie, the mere thought of the act is uncomfortable as deceit, and the excuse that I "have to" tastes bitter and hateful in my mouth. But perhaps, I can consent to Do even in service of my enemies, and to Do with my fullest capacity for excellence, while waiting and growing and stowing myself carefully away, preparing for the chance to Do what I Am, and bowl the world over at just the right moment.
Now if only I could believe it.
I must find some way at least for the two not to be in open conflict, or I shall tear myself apart...
To my love, my presence is sorrowful; It confronts him with the guilt of having done me wrong. It puts a pressure on him that prohibits, rather than enabling and encouraging him to open up to himself, to be open and vulnerable enough to question, probe, consider, and discover, the deeper reasons for his own restlessness. I know it is hard enough for him to find that vulnerability within himself alone, let alone before the image of a sad love, a person he has hurt and cannot heal. I feel (I fear) it might be better for us both not to bear this painful, wistful company, full of the flashing glimpses of regrets and roads not taken.
I read a guide to interview planning and etiquette. It's all tips I've heard before. And I feel an instinctive despair, a familiar objection from my very core: "This is not who I am!"
"It's only what I do." The second voice rises like an ocean over a desert, like rivers into the sea. It brings with it a rightness, a freedom. And perhaps it brings the problem well into light. Is it not a beautiful, distant dream? To be able to Do what I Am, rather than live a dichotomy, in the left hand the truth of Who I Am, and in the right the truth of What I Do, each clumsily struggling to tie separate knots, or, may all goodness forbid, the one constantly undoing the other's, rather than forming a graceful bow of mutual effort between them.
And yet, having not come to that place, the separation is a forgiveness. I may do What I Must Do, and this does not override Who I Am. I need not be fundamentally changed or overwritten to fill a less natural or fitting role. My capability is a fact, and my quirks flavour and enhance it, but while I Do other than what I Am - at the behest of others, to feed myself - my secret self is not deleted, but lies in wait like a spy waiting for his opportune moment to strike, or a caterpillar for his wings.
Even as I write this, every letter feels like a lie, the mere thought of the act is uncomfortable as deceit, and the excuse that I "have to" tastes bitter and hateful in my mouth. But perhaps, I can consent to Do even in service of my enemies, and to Do with my fullest capacity for excellence, while waiting and growing and stowing myself carefully away, preparing for the chance to Do what I Am, and bowl the world over at just the right moment.
Now if only I could believe it.
I must find some way at least for the two not to be in open conflict, or I shall tear myself apart...
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Idle Artist
Posted to Grit Uplifted
I sit by the river, and it is a river of paint, the reeds like brushes, dipping and lifting it away to an imaginary canvas. I am Van Gogh, watching my vision flower across the sky, colouring the clouds, giving them life and animation. How casually they take up their roles, laughing at the piece: What care I? I am only air! Very well you paint me in the raiment of a priesthood, labour’s worn jeans, teenage fashions. Alright, I’ll dance for you, silly dreamer, and will you make a prophecy of my play? It is only the whimsy of the wind that tells this story, and only your own wandering mind that reads so much into it.
“Yes,” I whisper to the river, the brush, the canvas, to the mischevious actors on stage.
“And yet there is truth to it.”
I sit by the river, and it is a river of paint, the reeds like brushes, dipping and lifting it away to an imaginary canvas. I am Van Gogh, watching my vision flower across the sky, colouring the clouds, giving them life and animation. How casually they take up their roles, laughing at the piece: What care I? I am only air! Very well you paint me in the raiment of a priesthood, labour’s worn jeans, teenage fashions. Alright, I’ll dance for you, silly dreamer, and will you make a prophecy of my play? It is only the whimsy of the wind that tells this story, and only your own wandering mind that reads so much into it.
“Yes,” I whisper to the river, the brush, the canvas, to the mischevious actors on stage.
“And yet there is truth to it.”
Echo of the Reaper
Posted to Grit Uplifted
Death stalks tonight;
But guilty footprints, shrieking truth, betray his passage.
His heart’s a drum in sharp staccato,
Pounding mortal fear in mortal danger.
The darkness whispers:
“There is no escape…”
Blood on his fingers
And fire in the black,
The seeking eye of Justice comes hunting:
He is not the only one
To bear the reaper’s scythe tonight;
For he has run beyond forgiveness now,
And there is no return.
Death stalks tonight;
But guilty footprints, shrieking truth, betray his passage.
His heart’s a drum in sharp staccato,
Pounding mortal fear in mortal danger.
The darkness whispers:
“There is no escape…”
Blood on his fingers
And fire in the black,
The seeking eye of Justice comes hunting:
He is not the only one
To bear the reaper’s scythe tonight;
For he has run beyond forgiveness now,
And there is no return.
The Serpent Street Choir
The last meeting of Grit Uplifted in the session of fourteen was today. I feel slightly bloated. There was a small party with baked goods and a free beverage from Red Roaster, courtesy of the facilitators of the group. And then dinner at the Center of Hope directly afterward.
I spent some time after the confidence boost of reading some of my newest work at Grit walking the streets and imagining that I were leading a practiced choir of recruits from My Sister's Place and the expanded community in a slow march through the streets, singing "I Have a Right" together; two people carrying large, cardboard signs in clear black and white, one with "I Have a Right, by Sonata Arctica, from their album Stones Grow Her Name", and the other with "adapted and performed with choir by (me - name removed)" on either side by the front; instrumentalists who wanted to join in playing a simple, repeated rhythm on drums, perhaps even a guitarist.
For a long, instrumental break, I imagined the choir filling the space with a simple, rhythmic refrain in increasingly complex harmony (perhaps with parts of it singing a supportive harmony in simple aah's or la's),
"I have a right. You have a right. We have a right. We all have a right. The rich have a right. The poor have a right. The old have a right. The young have a right." ...Back into the chorus.
I imagined drawing much energy and attention while slowly progressing down some streets.
Only thoughts... But such beautiful, beautiful thoughts they are.
I really must think about trying to start up a small choir group at My Sister's Place. It would be an early step to some wonderful thing like this actually happening.
Ah, and in my imagination, with my ego, I called it The Serpent Street Choir.
I spent some time after the confidence boost of reading some of my newest work at Grit walking the streets and imagining that I were leading a practiced choir of recruits from My Sister's Place and the expanded community in a slow march through the streets, singing "I Have a Right" together; two people carrying large, cardboard signs in clear black and white, one with "I Have a Right, by Sonata Arctica, from their album Stones Grow Her Name", and the other with "adapted and performed with choir by (me - name removed)
For a long, instrumental break, I imagined the choir filling the space with a simple, rhythmic refrain in increasingly complex harmony (perhaps with parts of it singing a supportive harmony in simple aah's or la's),
"I have a right. You have a right. We have a right. We all have a right. The rich have a right. The poor have a right. The old have a right. The young have a right." ...Back into the chorus.
I imagined drawing much energy and attention while slowly progressing down some streets.
Only thoughts... But such beautiful, beautiful thoughts they are.
I really must think about trying to start up a small choir group at My Sister's Place. It would be an early step to some wonderful thing like this actually happening.
Ah, and in my imagination, with my ego, I called it The Serpent Street Choir.
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