29 June 2010

Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love

June has been good to me.

Rounded it off with a gathering of unique souls yesterday and last night. It's amazing what people can do when we set our sights on one goal, especially when that goal is our own happiness.

I've been happy before, but this is something entirely different. The things that came out of us last night felt like ectoplasm in a seance, something wholly not of us, but partly possessing us. Using us for some purpose that none of us would have thought of, something that no one believes has a purpose anymore.

To play is to remember what it was like before I imposed limitations on myself, before I became self-conscious about the only body I'll ever have. Before I was taught that life was pain, a constant lack of money, and a series of unhappy relationships.

Before all of that, I was brilliant. I remember now.

28 June 2010

The Pool

I've always been a vagrant. Mostly in my mind, not travelling as I'd like to, I separate myself from those I should be most close to. I like to look at them as I'd look at an ant farm, watching them procreate and interact, seeing how they do things. I've never really counted myself as one of them.

But I am one of them. Undeniably, I am just another person who feels at least just as strongly about anything as they do, about the same things they do. Instead of living in the pool though, I prefer to pace the edge, deciding when and where I dive in and getting out quickly after, lest I be swirled into the ebb and flow of human drama. Sometimes I think I'm kidding myself, or putting myself above everyone I love. Other times, I feel that by doing this, I'm below them--less courageous somehow, not able to risk my skin over something I believe in.

Yet the fact remains that I love them, deeply. Sometimes I want nothing else but to jump in the water with them, and stay there, losing myself in a big whirlpool along with everyone else. It's human nature to connect, to desire that connection that keeps friends around us as we age. As the years go by, the water gets warmer, and the more inviting it becomes.

I'd love to say it's because I've been hurt before, but everyone has. It's not because I've been hurt. I don't know why I prefer to dance around real commitment in relationships or friendships. I don't want people to think I'll be around forever, because I've always known I won't be.

My sister told me recently that she always knew I'd leave. That I wouldn't be me if I stayed here, that if I did, she'd know I wasn't happy. My mother told me something similar, but in a more worried tone. I guess I won't know how much I worry her until I have a child like myself--a wild girl who seems to never be satiated. I'd never wish it on anyone to raise a child like me. It's far easier to have a normal child who wants the things she's raised to want. Toys, boys and rings. Cushy comfort, monetary happiness. It's easy enough to gain that in this day and age. I wish I could jump in that pool, and I've definitely tried to before.

I'm just not happy there. It's unnaturally warm, and I have this feeling that it'll boil without me ever noticing, when I'm 35 or so. And when it starts to hurt, I won't know what's happening. I'll have forgotten what it's like to be uncomfortable, and I'll just die slowly, on my own neglected watch, forgetting everything I've sacrificed to get that comfort that I don't even actively enjoy.

It's a sad story, but it won't be mine. I'm not meant to be satiated or satisfied. I'm meant to starve and strive for everything I want, because that's what people like me have to do to be happy. I don't have a choice. I never did.

And still, I want to drag them all out of the pool with me, because I love them. Such is the heartbreak of life, because I'll never get them out of there. It's too comfortable. I can't blame them.

I'm

get your saddle
don't bother putting on your boots
go as you are

chopping off her hair

clothes bespeak the person

exchanging slippers for walking boots,
chose a pair rough

"I mustn't polish my boots any more."

she was growing less distant
through her skill at disassembling
she was growing in grace

she made no reference to the last evening

the topics they had broached
not to be touched upon again

I carry you around

These sights disturbed him deeply
the animals coughing and
sneezing


imagine
a nuclear war. A layer of sweat
inside his plastic head bubble,
he could
hear them, shrieking and calling distantly beyond
claustrophobia or panic

fitting each syringe with a needle
to be filled with drugs


"You are going to euthanize,
don't get attached"
They were going to die
anyway

They have to go


every last one

27 June 2010

blackout poem

she was asleep before
he ordered champagne
little girl,
"It's a long life . . . there
will be lots of champagne another time . . ."


In some ways, the prospect excited him,
In truth, it was difficult to imagine.

24 June 2010

Oh man. I'm never gonna be the same, am I? I might be worried.

22 June 2010

...whoops.

Every once in awhile, I bump into someone or remember something that grows a wild hair in my ass and makes me do something.

I just had a conversation with an old classmate that more or less convinced me to go teach English in Korea in September.

Let's see where this hole goes!

21 June 2010

Beans of Solitude

Ever since I got my space back, I've been... oh, how do I say it? Reveling. Being amazed by my surroundings and my Self and how far I've come. The thing I didn't have before--the feeling that people lose after being comfortable for so long--was the certainty that I was still myself under all that mess I'd made. It's probably what kept me there for so long, standing on some precipice, staring longingly into the unknown I've loved for centuries. You know, some bullshit like that.

I wasn't sure she still existed. I thought maybe I'd killed her--rolled over her in my sleep, or something equally unceremonious. And the me that I once respected, the girl who could survive this sort of trauma, was gone for good. And whatever was left, well she'd never survive.

There was a brief moment, of course, where I fell apart. I lost it. I fell into an abysmal mania and wondered whether or not I'd done the right thing. I imagined this cliff I'd been coming to for a while now, and I'd jumped over a gap to another ledge, equally unstable. I was afraid and in a dark place. The cool thing about my tendencies though, something that others have mistaken for insincerity in the past, is that I tend to go through dark periods really fucking fast. I put my head down, close my eyes, and run like hell to the other side.

The second I hit the bottom and started running with my head down, though, was the second I knew I was still alive. Of course it hurts, just as bad as everyone else does. It wasn't fun. But to know that the me I know so well was still there, and ready to power me through anything, was enough to believe I can deal with whatever is heading my way.

Regardless of what ledge I landed on, or if I even landed anywhere, the jump was correct. That's an absolute. I can't look back.

And, as a separate thought pertaining to the same thing: I read this again and realize it sounds very self-centered. It is, in a sense, but that's avoiding an entire other side to this.

I believe in certain souls helping others along and certain intervals in time--when something is supposed to happen, or needs to happen--and I owe them all everything in this situation. A great friend of mine told me in December of last year to jump in a car with him, because I "needed to be reminded that I could." He told me that I originally put those seeds in him, years ago, and that he was returning the favor. I went ahead and jumped in the car, regardless of impending rent that I didn't have. He started it.

My neighbor popped her head in my door once in March to say hello, and said "Aw, it looks so cozy in here. Our places are so cozy. They make it hard to leave, or grow." Then she left.

A friend came into town a few weeks ago. He started a fire that burned most of the things that needed to burn.

I didn't get here alone. Though I'd like to think so sometimes, I've never gotten anywhere alone. There's a lot more to be said about that, but I'll stop. Some quarks and strings and geists do not like to be discovered, or talked about. In a sense, they're the elves that clean house while we sleep, that your mother always wished she had.

Little bursts of energy, pushing people ever so slightly to say and do things to encourage others. Instead of quarks or strings or geists, they should be called beans. That's my big idea.

15 June 2010

I love when I consciously try to spend extended periods of time without the internet. All that mentality does is make it off-limits, which in turn, makes it all the more alluring. I love you, internet. I can't go more than a day or two without needing to google something.

Permaculture for Renters (.com) is something I've been wondering about for a while now. Found it tonight, about 6-7 hours after I decided I would take an internet break for a few days. Whatever, Christie. You can't do it. Not when it's right here!

Talked to a friend of mine at work tonight about that sort of lifestyle--the "I don't need your bill, Entergy" lifestyle--and his grandfather, a spunky old man who goes by the name Wild Bill, does exactly that. He has a blacksmith shop somewhere in North Louisiana and just kind of lives off his land and makes knives and guns. I googled Wild Bill Caldwell tonight also. I want to learn all that shit. I probably never will, but you know. I waited on Wild Bill once, and that's probably the closest I'll ever come to learning how to make weapons.

I'm cutting this one short for frozen yogurt. That's something the internet can't give me.



14 June 2010

Trash, for later inspection.


Among the littered floors of break-ups and job-quitting, and the baseboard-cleaning of exterminations, I found all this...stuff. Pictures, flyers, drunken ramblings, textbooks, those little pamphlets the hare krishnas give out in free speech alley. Bar napkins with awful poetry written on them, fiction critiques from classmates I've long forgotten, doodles in the margins of classes I later failed.

Part of me wants to stuff all of it in a bag and chunk it, like I've been doing with everything else. Really, no matter how much I love throwing stuff away, I'm absurdly sentimental... and I went full-blown grandma on the things I found today. There was something very... important, and subtle about everything, because most of it I never intended to keep. It's the residue of my life for the past four years.

Important, because these are the things my brain has used to file away memories. These are the things my college experience memory is based on. And I know it's silly, but I feel like if I sweep them all away or scrub them out of existence, I'm also doing that to the six years I spent at LSU. I know I'll never forget them, but I will forget the little things--the bar napkins and dusty pieces of mirrors, ha--because finding them today, I hadn't thought of their stories in years.

And god damnit, the little things are what I consider to be the blood of experience. They're the things I write about--they center my stories, and they are my literary devices. Little pieces of stuff, trash, that I can pile together to paint not just a story, but a scene--complete with smell, touch, electricity. Life. A force that has power to move others.

I have these boxes in my closet. I haven't gone through them in years, but I think I'll put all those important pieces of trash in there. When I leave here, I'll secretly put them in my parents' attic, where they'll be safe. If I take them with me, they're likely to be destroyed, and I kind of think of them like my crow, or Samson's hair. The source of my power, whatever my power is. I'm not sure I know what my superpower is yet, but I know the potential for it is in those boxes.

Along with everyone I've ever gone on a date with, or destroyed, or anyone who's broken me down to pieces--how it happened is in the closet. All my love stories, all the residue from my drug experiments, all the pictures at the watering holes where everything went down. Bits of string I played with at the park and names of bartenders I loved and customers I loved even more. Besides holding the secret to my superpower, I think I keep all this stuff so that, maybe later in my old age and infinite wisdom, I can open the boxes and put together some document that makes sense out of the things I've done. Because man, it's rare when anything I do makes sense while I'm doing it.

People say hindsight is a bitch. I think hindsight contains the meaning of life. And you know, even if it is a bitch, it always makes sense. Maybe people who think it's a bitch don't want it to make sense, because they wish they'd done it better, or smoother, or otherwise different. I've had my own instances of that--where you're angry because you see exactly why you made a wrong decision, but you still can't go back and correct it.

A life that makes sense in hindsight is the most any of us can ask for. We just want more, more perfection, so we can have the right to go out and tell others how to live. No one has that right. It's hard to blame people for seeking priests and spiritual advisors, or for keeping boxes of trash in their closets for later inspection. We all just really, really want there to be an answer. I don't think there is one, aside from what we each experience, because that's the only thing that will ever make sense to anyone.


12 June 2010

daisuki


I haven't spent a dime in days. I've even offered money to people who didn't take it. The universe seems to want me to pay my bills by myself. I've been offered money to buy me out of my life of student loan debt. I've been taken care of many times over this week--my wisdom teeth are gone and I feel I've grown closer to my family by letting them take care of me (also the painkillers helped me be very, very chatty). For the first time in a very long time, I'm not wishing for anything or envious of another's life, or thinking that I should be doing something else with mine. For once, I'm pretty damn sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. In the prophetic words of my magic 8 ball: All signs point to yes.

Tommy and I split up in the best way it could have happened. I hope everything he wants comes to him, but before that, I hope his wants mature a little. He had a lot of them, I could never keep up.

All the bullshit in my life is evaporating at an explosive rate, like none of it was ever real in the first place. It's finally my turn.

08 June 2010

This has happened before


I abruptly jerked from my sleep and instantly remembered being there before, when I never have been. I looked around, and the resemblance faded into a gradient, starting at the banisters and ending in the corners of the room, as if the recollection were right there, sneaking around in the shadows, just out of my reach.

The distinct impressions that future memories leave--in the form of smells, flashes, and lighting; the colors of the paint and the creaks of the stairs--are the residuals of dreams.

I had been there before, in a dream. I remembered being there before I ever was.

The fifth dimension is tricky, and it's all the more because we're only 3-D creatures, incapable of anything but small flashes of clarity at random, meaningless intervals. Most of the time, they come and go, and they end up being nothing but a good dream, something that couldn't or wouldn't ever happen, and you file it away with all the other good, improbable dreams.

But maybe it will happen. Or if it doesn't, then it did on some plane of time, when you chose another path. Maybe what you're dreaming is glimpses of a future--not the future--that exists somewhere. Maybe they're gifts from the past versions of yourself, put there to guide you along to what you're supposed to do with this one.

Normal deja vu at places I've been to before happens frequently. But this--this is rare for me. All these things are happening in a positive feedback loop that I no longer have the power to stop. I suppose if this were the wrong way to go, it'd be too late now to change it. And that's something that I'm going to go ahead and thank God for, because if I had to think about it and make every step meticulously, then none of it would have ever happened.

It looks like I might be lighting that fire under my ass way quicker than I originally anticipated. Every few minutes, I feel a door opening somewhere that, only 48 hours ago, was locked with fear and doubt. I've none of that any longer. Everything will happen, and is happening, quicker than I have time to think about. I think I trust it.

05 June 2010

The Land of the Dead Bugs

I need a decompression. The last few days have been excruciating, but oddly invigorating.

I discovered bedbugs in my box spring about four days ago. I won't go into the nightmare that ensued, because I've been complaining about it for days. And in all actuality, the baseboard-cleaning and furniture dissection and disposal of beds has turned into something... uh, somewhat therapeutic.

Throwing away things has always been kind of cathartic to me. It's really hard for me to do, but when things happen that necessitate the mass removal of crap that I don't actually need, I jump at the opportunity and never look back. My bed had a pull-out drawer where I just piled up old school stuff, like returned papers and homework and things. I thought I'd want to keep it for one day when I forget everything I learned from LSU. But instead of picking through it and wasting hours of precious bug-ridding time, I just got a garbage bag and shoved everything in it. I can't explain how good this made me feel.

It's like a chance to start over.

I lit a fire under my ass after that. I've had a degree for over a year now, and decided that along with my less-cluttered life, I'd quit my job too. So I put in a month's notice on Thursday. I've already got some leads on jobs, and have for awhile now--just haven't had the courage to follow through on anything. For the longest time, I said it had nothing to do with courage, and it was everything to do with practicality and finances. But what I was really saying, was that I didn't have the drive it took to make things work. I make more than enough money to pay my bills every month--I just don't exactly live frugally. I guess by comparison, I'm in the most frugal category, but I'm not comparing anymore. I'm just looking at the numbers, and how I could better spend my money while possibly taking a pay cut. I'm not concerned with the way others spend their money.

Courage has everything to do with it. I've been living without it for years now, and it is destroying everything I love about myself. So I'm done with that--I'm tossing it in the garbage bag without picking through every little detail and wasting more time. The illusion that I have to be absolutely secure every hour of my life has prevented me from taking any sort of step forward. I'm done being scared; and I truly do not know what's going to happen after this, but I don't give a shit anymore.

Hello, life! Opportunities! Changes! Low budgets! Absolute uncertainty and leaps of faith on par with Kierkegaard! See, I do remember things I learned at LSU without keeping all that crap. And I even failed Existentialism. Like, really failed, with a giant red F.


In other news, I've written and published my first few articles for the Tiger Weekly. They're free and around Baton Rouge. My first lead story goes to press for Wednesday of this week--check it out, it took a lot more work than it looks like. And I'm getting paid for it, although minimally, it's still a payoff.