A Failure To Communicate

Hmmm, I can't really explain what's going on lately. Scattered, absent-minded, mostly numb, floating from one thing to the next with no real focus or ambition. I don't think it's a bad thing for the most part...because out of it I have been creating, painting after painting pouring out of me like some kind of dam that has just broken. However, my writing has become disjointed, barely even sentence structures. Earlier today I wrote an entire page on the various ways to tell someone to go f*** their hat...not kidding. I ended it with "what we have here is a FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE"....what does that even mean? 

My last night journal entry was a conversation ... Quotation marks and all, that has never happened. 

I am not complaining at all. I can ignore all kinds of uncomfortable things, feelings, loss, grief. Back burner all of that baby! Why? Because I'm eyeball deep in creating! Ping pong between cleaning, helping, painting, photography, kids, errands, writing...stick in those treks to the great outdoors....and BAM....no loneliness, irritation, anxiety, depression. I should market this and sell it on eBay! 

Meanwhile, life carries on. I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am, and that's a fact. I sit and stare at a flower, propped up on my wall beside my dresser. I barely know the artist, and yet it's almost as if it was created for me. Painfully beautiful it is. Like its very existence begs to be stared at. And perhaps it is that way only for me. Who knows, I'm not a mind reader. I'm just thankful to bumble my way through another day, no matter what that looks like. 

So, back to creating. Because as much as I might wish to find my footing again, I refuse to resist even one iota of what ever this current phase is. Always forward, always now.

A Saran-wrapped Theory

Sometimes, a light is just a light. An idea is just an idea. A dream is just a dream.

I have known things at one time, to find them untrue later on.

Sticking my toe in a drain will not suck me into the sewer. That shadow tapping on my window isn't a rapist, it's a tree. Once, I scared myself silly by walking into the bathroom in the dark. Coming face to face with a stranger bent on killing me. A blood-curdling scream erupted from me at almost the same time I realized it was my reflection. Still, the pounding rush of blood in my ears muffled the sound of my nervous giggle, and I hit the lights to confirm my suspicions. For a second, I KNEW I was going to be killed by a bathroom-stranger.

I would like to say age has brought me wisdom. Silly fears and knee-jerk knowledge is a thing for campfire stories and inside jokes. But I'm pretty sure I would be lying.

Most often, I am caught off guard by the depth of my wrongness. The only thing age has brought, is the grace with which I accept it. I no longer try to avoid responsibility or explain away my err. I approach it with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge. 'Dja see that one? Got me good, it did' tee hee, once the sting has worn off that is.

I have a couple "ideas". Firstly, that "being in love" is like Saran Wrap. You stretch it out over the leftovers. It stays there, at the back of the fridge. The food goes mouldy, but you won't smell the stench until you pull it out and peel back that Saran Wrap. As long as it stays there, firmly over the food...you can stay in love. You don't have to know how much it stinks. 

Not that I think LOVE is like that, nope, but the term "but I love ..(whoever)..." 

Is the Saran Wrap, covering the stank. 

Which brings me to my second idea.

What if true balance accepts both love and fear. That all of the struggle with ego, lessons, teaching, learning, growth, and so on; are the train driving you to the tracks' pinnacle. That once you have arrived, you will realize it was all just part of the journey. The point was to travel, not reaching any purpose at all. 

Rejecting one for the other would be like stretching an elastic band until it snapped, and wondering why it wouldn't stretch any further. Reaching and climbing, ever higher. Finding that the top

was the bottom and you came full circle. 

Both ideas are the same. This toil to find a place to belong, being the place we created and accept. That we can never know what we don't know, but know enough to know what we do. Maybe reaching to the back of the fridge and peeling back that Saran sealed dish isn't the best plan if you can't deal with what's under it. To know that "pride cometh before the fall", and let the falling happen any way. 

However, sometimes a light is just a light. An idea is just an idea. A dream is just a dream. 

The Voice Went Quiet

As I sit, hunched over the painting I am creating, I am reminded that "I don't paint" 

This is something I have been saying and telling myself for years. 

It has been because, the ghost of a voice from my past has never quite quieted. The voice that told me I don't hold the brush right. My colour blends aren't smooth enough. There is no place in painting for expression. This voice has whispered in my ear for close to two decades.

I have known all along that the voice was wrong. It came from a limited-minded-control-freak who used me for her own agenda. Yet, still I carried her voice with me. 

Strange how we do that. 

I can convince myself of almost anything, yet without meaning to, I create a space of limitation and minimalistic thought. To achieve great glory in a box. 

So I painted. I painted with purpose, with vision. A gift for an admired friend who I know would appreciate something that money can't buy. But what happened was something else. 

That voice is gone. I can't hear her anymore. What I awoke to was a song that sang wake up. "Get up and create." 

So I did, and I am. 

Out of Commission

Slowly put down the cell phone and back away....
Ever have those moments?
I've had about two weeks of those moments. I have been completely out of commission. I play Bubble Witch Saga, Farm Heroes and avoid contact with other humans as much as I can.
Mouth shut, say as little as possible.

I've been battling some kind of virus or infection. Started as a common cold that spread and kicked out fever after fever. Boo-frickin-hoo.
I'm not blogging a pity-party.
I'm blogging an interesting aspect of my human psyche. I'm very whiny when sick. Everything bothers me. Smells come and go through the snot-bubbles, and they infuriate me. People's voices grind on my last nerve, and I literally bite my lip to avoid saying an 'un-take-backable' thing. Even the sound of my own voice can drive me bonkers. So I try to keep quiet, to myself, and away from situations with sharp objects too handy. I also avoid writing too much, which is why I keep my hands busy with mindless games. Things I write when I'm down, range from violently disturbing to nauseatingly melodramatic.
I get extremely tired, and along with that exhaustion comes emotional overdoses. I try not to read too much, especially emails from friends or deep thoughts. I'm apt to take something wrong and blow it all out of proportion.
Like drunken texts, I avoid texting anything beyond simple facts and requests, information or dates. Too much thought and I will likely write about the desire to eat the eyeballs out of the next snivelling turd to drop a fart in my general area. Or my unexplainable desire to drive a pencil through the knee of someone who makes me repeat myself.
These are not normally things that even bother me...much. But for some reason, when I am sick, it's like every nerve is set to high.
The weight of my own hair is bothersome.

Well, today is the most well I have felt in two weeks. So I'm excited to say I will be back to normal soon...whatever my normal is.
Why did I decide to share this.....?
Well, I figure everyone has their weaknesses. Some women struggle with PMS. Some pregnant chicks get all testy. Some guys have this mood cycle they struggle with. The list goes on, but my point is, I'm just embracing my "Out of Commission", and putting it out there. Some days just suck. I don't think it's negative to say "it's raining". I don't think it's complaining to admit something bothers you. So, I'm a real whiny snag when I'm sick....facts is facts. Bigger and brighter is in the future!

The Tub

The 'creak-creak-creak' of the chair as she rocks back and forth splits the night-chill like a razor blade on flesh. Her head bows forward and back, hinged at the hip. She is not in a rocking chair. You would not know that if you happened to walk by. She is moving with such rhythm that your mind would create one where it doesn't exist.
In between her broken speech, she alternates between vicious hauls on a cigarette and low, guttural moans. Like an animal caught in a trap that has given up wailing.
Her head is throbbing, pulsing like an oversized cyst, ready to burst.
Lighting another cigarette off the last, this is not the time for laughter, or even tears.
This is 'freaking out', or 'trippin'.
I call this 'being in the tub'.

For a moment, she is me, years ago. Before the burn-out. Before the numbness set in. Watching her is like watching myself. I want to grab my mid-twenties-self and scream, "look at yourself!" I want to tell myself to stop this before the shut down begins, before the illness takes hold.
But I don't.
I don't because of two things.
One, she is not me, and this is only a reflection.
Two, I would not be who I am today had I not gone through what I did.
So I shove this painful reminder to the back burner and refocus.

'creak-creak-creak'
"I just don't get it." She holds her head like holding back a sob that is on the edge of breaking the dam.
I don't get it either, but I don't say this.
Truth is, I know what she doesn't get. That's not the same as what I don't get.
I don't get why we do this to ourselves. We fight against our very nature to do the one thing we have no right to do.
It's so easy to tell ourselves that WE can't make our hearts do something. We can't force ourselves to love, or love in "that way". Yet we convince ourselves that someone else can or should.
If we are good enough, perfect enough, give in, give out, put up with...THEN, we will be worthy of THEIR love. And it has to be THEM. It HAS to be. Because WE love THEM so much, can't they see that........?
"You need to breathe." I remind her. It sounds stupid as I say it, but it's true.
Her 'trippin' is reaching a peak of anxiety proportions. She is muttering herself sick and in circles.

Some time ago, I lay naked in a bathtub. Eyes blurry from a throbbing head and day three of no sleep. Chewing the inside of my mouth, while muttering "I just want to sleep", over and over. HE had been out with HER. I knew this. I felt this.
I reached out and turned on the cold water, flicking the knob to shower. Emptying the bottle that sat beside me, I threw them back one at a time, gulping the icy sprinkle after each one.
"Seven, eight, nine, I'm fine, I'm fine."
Not because of that. Not that at all.
Just to stop the feeling. Just to stop the pain. Just to fall asleep and forget.

'creak-creak-creak'
On the porch with no rocking chair.
"Maybe it'll be okay." I tell her. I really mean this too. She fiddles with her phone and the creaks slow.
"It's not." She states matter-of-factly, "I just have a feeling."
Fair enough.
Deep breath.
"Fast forward to later." I suggest.
"I'm not gonna sleep tonight." She retorts.
"Okay then, fast forward to two or three days from now. You've always gotten through this!" I am adamant. In the tub, the future always seems so bleak. There is no solution, and there is no hope.
The reality is, however, that we get through it. Whatever "it" is, passes. We live to fight another day. We reach down and find what we need to make it. We survive, even if only as shells of ourselves.

In my mind I am walking, alone, it's three in the morning. I have been walking in the pouring rain for two hours. For some reason, in the freezing cold darkness, this was the only solution. If I had stayed I would have snapped, I was back in the tub. The rain has soaked through my jeans and hoodie and I have the only plastic on me wrapped firmly around my cell in hopes of its' survival. I can't take it out to call for help, or get someone, or it will be destroyed by the rain in seconds. By now, the freak-out has passed and all I can focus on is getting home. The tub makes the most illogical things the only option.

'creak-creak-creak'
As a shadow moves in the darkness, the creaking stops.
She straightens her back and the air becomes calm. Only our mutual shivering remains. This is my signal that the freak-out-time is over. I lean forward to finish my smoke. A yawn stretches out of me. As I rise, I say good-night. It doesn't matter to me that nothing was resolved. I will get up and do this again and again and again. Whatever it takes. For her, for anyone I love. No matter how tired I am. No matter what the reason.
I want those I love to know that I am there for them. Partly because that is what love means to me. Partly because a piece of me never left a Mississauga-cold-shower.
The night I went numb with no one to call was the night I let go.
Others are not there yet, and that's okay. There are places I haven't gone yet either.
They are still curled up, believing they can make themselves good enough or perfect enough to be loved.
But you can't Baby-doll.
You're already good enough.
You're already loved.
You just can't see that when you're in the tub.

Reaching

What falls between the cracks unnoticed.

Stricken by the forced left hand.

Scabbed and challenged, spine set solid.

Christening tears refuse to bend.

Hair curled blindly round a finger.

Mind long wandering, hollow eyed.

Lips licked thickly, tasteful leather stretched too thin.

Smell of litter long since sifted.

Smoke and ashes, dust and filth.

Shady here in lonely wondering, shaded by a tree stripped bare.

Tracks like smiles and look beyond them.

Add the love not here to find.

Arched in bended plastic glory.

Reaching out from under ground.

Long forgotten, words left wind blown.

Waiting, waiting, reaching, broken.

Found as trash and hoarded down.

Heaps of broken glass for hire.

This is known.

For this is known.

Abandoned.

Recycled.

Discarded.

Kept frozen.

Unfeeling.

Unfolded.

Unknown.

Reaching for the sun.

Footsteps caress a solace unseen.

This heap for the broken and home for unclean.

A heart limbo stricken, unclaimed to the side.

A soul locked by form and with pride.

Waiting, waiting, reaching, broken.

*this poem is inspired by my latest adventure into an abandoned house. 

I think we can become locked in a place where we wait to be found, instead of realizing we are not objects. I don't generally explain my poetry, but in this case I feel the desire to. If we allow our world to crumble around us and succumb to the will of others, we are dolls trapped by debris. We will be picked up or set down by the whim of those who play with us. We will be forgotten, destroyed, trapped by our inability to function without the guidance of our manipulator. 

The good news is, it doesn't have to be this way. We are not dolls in rotting hoarder-homes. We can choose to live and love without permission. We can choose to realize our value. We can if we want to. It's up to us.

I know both sides of this, and chose to write the poem based on my familiarity with those feelings. But that is no longer how I choose to live. I recognize it and feel great sympathy, however I know the heart-beat begins when the waiting stops. No one can make that happen for someone else, it all begins within.