bruises & pirouettes

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it's right around now when it becomes unbearable.  with trees shedding red and purple leaves, and a chill wind to remind you of holidays and solstices ahead - i start to get homesick in a way that can only be measured in familiarity to unrequited love.

i wonder what i'm doing, the answerless "what's it all about" questions that must occur to astronauts who have been in the space station too long. you can make all the long-term plans you want, but stiffening your resolve can take a lot of energy, the kind of energy i'd rather be spending baking a cake or making a family or somethin worthwhile.

right now i don't feel like i belong anywhere. my old friends, some i spent 20 years making, and my siblings have drifted in their orbits, like constellations that no longer look familiar after eons of time travel. the rest of my friends are spread out, scattershot across a map of the world, and all of them have their own fish to fry. which leaves me wondering, where does my lil' bit of mass fit in this massive space?

i don't think i believed them when they said everyone grows older. perhaps i thought there would be a way out of it, a secret hatch my friends and i would install, making sure we never succumbed to the ennui of distance and the fatigue of time. maybe i thought there would always be a voice, not just mine, who would always answer the question "is that all there is?" "is this it?" with "are you kidding?"

but i'm only hearing echos.

skeletons, go away.

there's a girl who was nuts about a man who was not fully available, and feeling guilty about her feelings she came to chat with me over a beer.  we were debating the whole thing: is it ever right, or at least, not wrong, to encourage someone who is in the wrong relationship to get out, by any means necessary? how bad does a situation need to be to merit half-truths? i can tell you that she and i were of the same opinion, on one side of the argument (regardless if it meant her own heartbreak), but another friend said, without a moment’s hesitation, “well, it’s amazing how happiness can assuage any guilt.” this friend was just this short of proud that they'd been untrue to their previous significant other, and that this infidelity led to their now extremely happy relationship.

i don’t know that i can ever think like that. i’m a person who learns how not to act from watching others, trying not to do things that i know will hurt me to others and from things i’ve learned in my past.  also, being a young girl a bit on the flippant side – i learned, somewhat early on, the powerful damage that a good solid lie will cause. i lied about something and the ripple effect of that lie lasted for years. never again did i lie- not in that particular realm, anyway- and my honesty now when it comes to relationships, to my friendships, to my intentions may be almost too brutal. but it’s the path i choose, and it lets me sleep at night. or, rather, it’s not what keeps me up.

but here is what does keep me up: what is my capacity for change? what is other peoples’ capacity for change? i find myself thinking that maybe i don’t have to beat myself up for the transgressions in my reasonably distant past, but sometimes i have a hard time giving that same leniency to others. and that’s not very fair, is it? i’ve done so many stupid things - largely harmful only to myself, but still- in between forgiving myself and then beating myself up, i get lost. and i have to remind myself that if i can change, if i can do better, so can others.

here’s the rub: the comment our friend made that night was the exact same sort of comment that would have come out of his/her mouth years earlier. unapologetic, simple, with a complete disregard of any pain or suffering that might have come out of those actions. which leads me to wonder: are most people like that? are most people uninterested in questioning their own behavior, in exploring their darker selves, in becoming, if not “better” people, people with a deeper self-awareness? do most people really just come home from work, pet the dog, kiss the kids, turn on the computer, and not give the last decade or so of their lives any thought? or do most people cringe when they are randomly reminded of something stupid they did years ago?

i suppose it’s somewhere in between. i don’t think we should walk around punishing ourselves for bad things we did, or for that matter, constantly congratulating ourselves for the good things we did. i do think we should always be striving to learn more, to do more, and to be more self-aware. but if we don’t take responsibility and at least attempt to do better “next time”, then what’s the point?

it frightens me not a little that there are many, many people in this world ready to justify any action- anything from punching their girlfriend to just a beer to going to war- without caring about the outcome or the repercussions. and once you have suffered betrayal of any scope, it is difficult to learn to trust again. maybe it’s liberating to say what my friend said- maybe it’s so much nicer to stick one’s head in the sand and say, “it doesn’t matter what it took to get here, now that i’m here.” but i know it’s dangerous and it’s not the world i want to live in.

so i’m searching for that balance: taking responsibility for what i’ve done, good and bad, and trying to re-learn some lessons where i got the short stick the first time around. i know there’s not much i can do about folks who aren’t interested in self-awareness, but there’s got to be some point in all of our lives when it creeps in. i’m a lot less angry at myself than i used to be. and that sort of relief feels a lot better than desperately struggling to keep the skeletons in the closet.

pardon the verbal out pour.. . i digress..

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a puffer fish puffs itself to get huge when it sees another fish. it's so the other animals think it's huge and don't think they can eat it. when we look at a puffer fish we know it's not huge.

... and we eat him.

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i was thinkin' last nite that it's funny, when you look at your own past, you see the many opportunities you had to get off the train, and how many times you decided to keep going because, well, surely the scenery had to get better. hey, they say that the act of giving birth releases a chemical that makes the mother forget about the pain soon after the event, allowing her to contemplate giving birth again someday. i would be very surprised if that weren't true about almost everything.

"you know, it's always a good time for us.  i know that because i want to squeeze your face even when i hate you. rite now.. i’d just do anything to patch things.. jus’wanna hold you/make out with you."

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macaroons. lovely on the outside, too sweet on the inside. 

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even after midnight
i can hear
the gut rumblings
the city groans
in the heat.

..have we had rain lately...?

the traffic sounds
ride the night air
in waves of trigonometry.
the cosine of a siren.
the tangent of a sigh.
a system. an axis.
a logic to this choas.



yes.

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sometimes in the throngs of chatter, i stumble over my conversation mainly b/c i feel like an oof for asking too many questions. but i've figured it out and i (shockingly) have a complaint. and this complaint is not even town-centric; it’s just as bad in jax, new york city, and on tv. namely: why don't people listen anymore or more importantly... WHY DON’T PEOPLE EVER ASK YOU QUESTIONS ABOUT YOURSELF?

seriously, i’m not making myself out to be some sort of bastion of social etiquette, but i always ask everybody i meet at least a few questions about their work, their thoughts, where they’re from, even slightly personal queries like “are you happy?” and "Well, what's next?"  i do this because i’m easily bored, and everyone has a story, and there’s always SOMETHING that will briefly excavate a fascinating aspect of an otherwise-tedious-seeming person.

what does the world ask me? and it’s not just me, i listen to other conversations, i see this on the internet, and i am not a verbal sociologist, but it seems like nobody asks anybody anything; they just wait their turn to hurl out their yawp, and hope something sticks.

“i lived in chicago?” 
“oh really? i’ve been to chicago. my friends brother lives there too.”

“i was in a class with him at UNF.” 
“i met him at the bar. he liked my dress.”

it’s enough to make you think that the entire fucking population of america wants an oompa-loompa and they want it NOW. 

i freely admit my barrage of questions came from years of pseudo intellectual seduction; the sad truth about this world is that a lot of people will sleep with anybody they find mildly attractive and quasi listens to them. but it wasn’t a cynical ploy; i was (and remain) genuinely interested. i was so desperate for people to tell me something fascinating that I would often go WAY overboard, turning a date or a friendly conversation into an asexual confessional.

perhaps that’s why therapy is so effective and so expensive: you’re actually paying somebody to ask questions of you. people need to be heard like they need bread and water. during a particularly bad fuckup this week, in which a friend felt grossly mishandled, i listened intently and said, with emphasis, “I HEAR YOU.” the conversation melded into delight as soon as those words were heard.

“oh, the irony,” you must think, “this asshole is complaining about needing to be heard while she’s writing a public weblog.” yeh, yah. maybe all blogs are a cheap way for technology to assuage the babies whose mommas didn’t pay enough attention to them.

but do me this favor: at some point today, ask somebody a question about themselves. even if you don’t give a fuck. at least you won’t be part of the problem.

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i love funfairs and books and soft colors and snuggling and horses and white wood floors.

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willin' wishes for another year filled of sugary sweet kisses, holdin' dewy skin hands & givin' baby honey bear hugs to my favorite people.. it's the best to warm their candy-coated hearts and touch their gooey good parts ... happy birthday to meee! 

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woke up to a beautiful clean boy, cuddling with me and scratching my back. his stubbly face raised hair and gave shivers down my spine. i rolled over, dug my face into his clavicle. he says i sleep like the undertaker, hands crossed on chest, waiting to be closed into casket. i quickly reminded him that out of everything in the world i could be, a vampire is at the very top of my list. i have the glaring pallor and the tendency to hurt people, but way too many freckles.