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Sunday, August 25, 2013

DEAR DIARY

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Did you ever FEEL too much?  I mean REALLY feel ~ all the way to the deepest depths of your soul…get so far down into the abyss of yourself that you literally become lost.  Some people call it overthinking or overanalyzing, but how can thinking or analyzing ever be in excess?  We all, at some point or other, think about our mortality, the meaning of life, etc.  But did you ever want so desperately to know who you are that you are willing to dive into the black sea of emotions whose very horizon threatens your sanity every waking moment? 
I am a writer and an artist.  They say that artists teeter on the fine line between insanity and reality and each day that I am blessed with a clean slate in the morning, I realize that to be fact by the sun’s descent.  My own personal abyss used to cause me great depression and a very negative view of life in general.  Now, that I’ve grown and evolved with it, I am enamored by the myriad of layers which are all parts of me.  I can very much understand why people have multiple personality disorders.  It’s as though they cannot deal with all of the layers rolled into a united front ~ like the layers don’t make sense as a whole, but as separate entities, i.e. the feminine side, the masculine side, the musical side, the angry and happy sides, artistic side, sane side, crazy side, inhibited side…well, you get where I’m going here.  This is not new….far from it.  Exploration of these very depths have driven people mad as far back as you can imagine.  Leonardo Da Vinci comes right to mind. 
There is a soliloquy from Macbeth in which his wife wants to rectify the dire situation at hand and she prays, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!  Make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between the effect and it!  Come to my woman’s breast and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature’s mischief…”  The words are eloquent, yet a bit hard to understand in present society where such beautiful language has been torn asunder and twisted into the lazy colloquialisms we know today.  Loosely translated she is saying, “…Come down to me spirits and bring my mortal thoughts to fruition – take away my femininity (unsex me) and fill me from top to bottom with the worst cruelty and hatred known to man so that I feel no remorse or pity as it would be natural for me to do so.  Thicken my blood so my body will prevent these natural feelings of pity and remorse.  Drink poison from my breasts where there once was milk, killing you instead of nurturing you.” 
We all FEEL deeply sometimes, yet some of us are willing to go deeper than others…some of us are willing to strap on ankle weights and literally sink to the bottom of the muck…if there is a bottom, or risk sinking forever into the black abyss of nothingness. 
I write in my journal because I feel things SO deeply and because if I didn’t I’m pretty sure my soul would explode.  I deeply relate to the following lyrics in the song, “Breathe”, by Anna Nalick, “…2 a.m. and I’m still awake, writing a song…If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to…and I feel like I’m naked in front of a crowd cause these words are my diary screaming out loud and I know that you’ll use them however you want to…”  That’s how I feel most of the time.  It’s as though she is saying, “I’m putting it out there because I want to and no matter how you interpret them or use them, you can’t hurt me because I don’t care what other people think of who I am.”  I don’t care about others’ views of me and how I live my life.  If I want to convey or reveal an emotion to the world, or everyone in my local world, even raw passion, then I will.  The ultimate passion of self-love even.  I envision sitting naked in a chair before a large audience and after passionately caressing myself I spread my legs and masturbate until I explode and end up in an exhausted heap on the floor.  I then imagine the reaction of the crowd…there would be ooohs and oh-my-God’s and foul language thrown up at me by those in denial, living in their tortoise shells.  Then there would be fuck-yeahs, woo-hoos and you-go-girls from the free, uninhibited, honest people, who are comfortable in their own skin.  I’m always being judged for being “too open” which I have decided is a compliment from people too jealous and closed off to show others who they really are.  Those who hide from the world in fear.  I’m also called weird, twisted, stupid, idiot, and a freak and to me, all compliments.  Yes I FEEL and feeling, like masturbation, is a form of passion.  If a woman went before the same audience and performed a beautiful cello solo, she would be applauded for her passion.  Masturbation is a passion, a high form of self-love and comfort and something from which there should be no shame.  I use masturbation as an example here, but it would be the same in an form of expression of passion and feeling.
My poor mother, most of her life, was riddled with fear that someone might ever learn that there was a passionate bad girl inside of her that she kept shackled under lock and key.  The black waves of depression would nearly drown her from time to time because of it, but she always found the shore again and could wrap herself back in her shiny plastic wrap so the world could see the reflection of the image she wanted them to see.  Inside the plastic she believed the darkness she lived with could not escape.
So many people are living in plastic wrap and, for a time when I was young, I was too.  Don’t be afraid to FEEL to the darkest depths of your soul and put it out there for all to see.  Ask yourself, “What will others think of me if…” and then answer, “Who fucking cares what they think!”  Will your world end if it’s a negative comment about you?  People in your life who know you and know the deepest parts of you and don’t run away, now those are REAL friends and you know this because you have shown them every part of you and they are still there.  I will always be me ~ unique, one-of-a-kind, bearing no resemblance to my neighbor, and always laying my shit bare!  Like it…or don’t!

Sunday, August 18, 2013

DAY BY DAY

As I sit by the open window in my bedroom, listening to the red robin perched on the fence just outside, his melodic whistles flitting about the cool breeze, I am ever aware of the aching pains in all of my muscles from the waist down.  Why does the moist air this time of year send my body into a state of atrophy?  I feel my age when this happens and I try never to feel my age.  I await the arrival of the mechanic who is going to drop by and start my work truck, who loves spending time at mechanics' shops more than she does working for me, and will drive it down there and drop it off.  Worst part about my job so far?  Never having my work truck up and running as it is the one thing I need to perform my job.  I hear thunder booming in the distance, most likely making its way toward me bringing rain and lightening.  The Western breeze smells wet and cool. Knowing that the people I love most in the world are safe and secure gives me a warm feeling of joy.  I am making plans to go to Clifton this weekend to take some great pictures in that small, beautiful mining town. Although it is quite a drive, I look forward to the awesome scenery, taking my time getting there as I stop along the way to take pictures of anything that catches my eye.  Could I complain about how life has been lately?  Of course, who couldn't.  Will I?  Hell no.  I find only the positive aspects of each and every day and weave those into what I want to take with me on my journey.  My eyes are now drooping as the promise of sleep lingers just inside.  I am off to rest, per chance to dream.