Notes on My Life

Fucking Lover’s Rock, Sade. Just when I thought I’d cleared you out of my head. The Universe prevails, looping me back in just as I open myself back up to write. Such a slow track, it fades out, almost taking me out with it, lulling me back into a haze of sleep.

The couple sitting catty-corner to me is a story, in itself, of a California Man-Boy and his much younger girlfriend. I can read what level they are at through their body language. They are adorable, yet predictable. He’s older enough than her to seem wise, to know things. She’s got a doe-eyed look about her that makes her just dumb enough to think that just because he’s older than her that he knows more. He’s not, he’s just had more chances to learn from his mistakes. But has he taken those chances? Or is he just dumping them on her, because she’s young, and maybe he thinks she will help him to work through it. Who knows. He’s wearing a finals shirt from the SF basketball team, so he’s low-key but he’s got money. She is wearing the cutest shirt, with like a greek icon pattern. She lazily, half-heartedly reaches for her purse when it’s time to pay, he pulls out his wallet and fingers through cash. He says he’ll get it. She wasn’t going to anyway but it’s fun to watch. I can feel him aware of me next to me, and I catch him staring at me as he picks up their order. I know you see me, I see you too. I get you, I’m not interested.

Today I am moving slowly, knowing that there is time. It is not about rushing. Rushing is panic and panic is anxiety and I am trying to deal with that anxiety as part of me now, not as my enemy. I heard somewhere that anxiety is the same type of energy as excitement, just turned negatively against yourself. It is an activation energy, and if it doesn’t have anywhere to go, it gets wrapped up inside you and turns into anxiety. Like a nasty hair ball in a cat’s throat. I am trying to welcome this type of energy into my body but in its positive form. Time to hack up that hairball, clear my throat (chakra) and get into my body, not try to escape the uncomfortableness. I need to ask it what it really is, dig into it, untie the knots, brush the hair out lovingly as needed, just like I would do for my precious cats, when they let me. Yes, that can be tricky with the long-haired one, knots and all, sometimes brambles even. Just like with her, I need to be gentle with myself. Gentle strokes, gentle hands, mothering myself even when the brambles get stuck and hurt. A little at a time, I’ll get them out. Recently, I have learned that she will play with the brush if I let her. She tries to bite it like a toy. Maybe it’s that sense of playfulness that is the key. I have to be playful with it too, with myself, with the process. I am going to make mistakes, there will be brambles, but I will get through it, get them out, even if it takes a few sittings, I can keep coming back until they are out, giving myself a break if it hurts too much. Giving myself a break in general. There are no extra points for making yourself feel bad, for hating on yourself. Mess up, fall in, fuck up, say sorry, and be gentle with yourself. Only then can you feel better, with a shiny coat and chilling in the sunshine on the warm rocks, like a happy lazy black cat on a breezy summer day.

That’s the goal. Stretched out, and relaxed. Move through this with that energy. This is why I came to the page, to put this into words. This concious relaxedness. How to get there – over and over – to return to this inside myself, this center, this image. 20 years of anxiety isn’t going to unpack itself – unwrap itself. But of course packing would come up, as it always does, in both my waking and dream life. I am literally sleeping in a room full of half packed boxes and things that haven’t found their place, yet. That is the goal now, to remake the house for the family that we are today, to let go of those heavy fucking things that are still here. My liver pain is there – I can feel it. Like a hairball that’s turned to stone. Acupunture or surgery, or maybe a tonic to dissolve it. Must get ACV to make potions, this is essential in our moving forward, to do stuff in the house that feels like the next chapter. To make potions and tonics and paint and listen to that ghost stories podcast that you’ve told me about. Peace and togetherness as ourselves, now. Surprised / not surprised how much we actually have in common. It’s that lineage, that DNA, that you can’t get away from. I don’t want to ,because it’s magic, like we’ve been part of the same thing throughout the ages. We are just dealing with this part, now. Maybe this story happened already, when we were doing this ten generations ago. Makes you wonder.

But for now, I must push through the desire to go back to sleep to dream about that very real possibility. It’s right there though, the heavy pull of my unconcious to revisit that, right now. Now I am present in my (very tired) body in the here and now. There’s mopping to do and a carpet cleaner machine sitting at home just waiting to be used on the rugs, the couches, and whatever else gets in our way. Maybe we keep in another day, slowed down as we are, keeping the anxiety at bay, so that we can use it on everything, even have someone else use it – this would be ideal – so that I can rest and enjoy and not reach the point of breaking that that level of exhaustion would bring.

I popped onto Facebook for a minute as a friend messaged me. We met back in that same time warp, in DC. Love her, think of her always when I am here, here straighforwardness, her preppy style, her commitment to herself that was evident to me from day one of meeting her. She’s great. So this post popped up, 3 generations, one spirit. That’s not a new concept, it’s real. We are of the same spirit, and have been, forever. Being of one spirit, if one of us is unwell, we are both unwell. We have to heal this, now, as this is something that is effecting not only us but everyone that we love – as we are sick in this corner of our spirit. We’ve got to heal, over and over again, until feeling good and right and safe is the normal again. Maybe it hasn’t ever in this lifetime been the normal, but I think we need to make it that. We deserve it, deserve to move on, together and separately, in peace, or at least working towards it.

Well, it looks like I’m just going to diver right back fucking into this, headfirst, long and smooth, hair flowing behind me, gliding through the water, pausing in the silky, soft flow of the water behind me as I slither through it. In this long moment, it is just the water and no air, and inertia, that holds me until I burst back up through the surface to take a breath. It is nothing but peace and movement.

This morning that awakening was not quite so gentle. No, not one bit. I was however, gasping for air, the only similarity. I was jolted awake by the snooze button, happily, as I had been caught in a dream trap of my own where everything is wrong. I keep repeating, searching, not being able to do things, find things. Caught on a loop of anxiety, stress, searching, revisiting, returning. The tiny one bedroom secret apartment at the top of some other building, a warehouse or something? Is it supposed to be London? Chicago? San Francisco? I’ve been there before in my dreams, was delighted to find that it was mine, and threw some sort of party or generraly had a great time. On this visit, there was a squatter, a broken tiny tv, the old box kind, and things strewn about. Not a lot of things, not like the god damn house here in California, but things nonetheless. I had gone up there to have privacy, perhaps a tryst with a sex doll, that had earlier been mistaken for a test subject and given a makeover at a counter that had promised it would really, actually, only take a minute. So many things happened in this dream and it’s like a mixed soup in my head right now, if the soup was in a whirlpool. The bright sunshiny day song playing on the radio right now seems to be purposely, ironically, teasing me.

Platform heels, once so easy to walk in, have now become a part of my treacherous landscape navigation in my dreams. They have now become difficult to navigate, like so many other things in these dreams, in my life, and they are on my body, like the torn neglige dress that was peach at the end, the color of my flesh, but somehow started out a sturdier, Dolce kind of fabric, holding me in and up with the black platform heels that I had to go up and down the stairs in. Teetering, I would fall. But it didn’t hurt. It was only the fear of pain in the dream, unlike the very real pain that I felt a few weeks ago, when unsuspecting me took a tumble in the pair of seemingly benign beige flatforms that I had been effortlessly wearing for long enough that I felt safe in them. Maybe that’s what hurt the worst, that I felt safe, and then lost everything, writhing in pain just a moment after walking happily in the sun with my daughter, cold soda pop in hand.

I was looking for you again, in this dream. I was traveling, but was at least in the same time zone as you. I think I was up north from DC, I remember this vaguely. I was north enough to be close to you, even if you were at your office. I’ve never been there, nor looked it up, but ironically it turns out that Buck’s County is where I’m from, if you go way back. Generations back, a large part of my ancestors were from there, the colony of Buck’s, whoever he is. I’m sure I’ll find that out at some point during a late-night search, intrigued by the lives of the past and their connection to me.

It was all an amalgamation of things, as usual. There was a mall, where I was detained by the counter lady who promised it would only take a minute, even though I told her no. She mixed something just for me, it was a foundation color into which she blended a reddish iron color and a golden bronze as apparently this was my skin tone, in another dimension at least. Even then, I thought it strange. Then she put it on the mannequin, or the person, who later turned into the sex doll. In the mall there was a restaurant, “upscale American”, the style that a group of old friends adore, for cocktails, eats, and a bit of drama. I met them there and they did not disappoint. They were in the outdoor seating, a grand terrace that went over the highway. The restaurant designer had somehow declared that this was the coolest thing ever, to be able to eat high above an actual highway, with cars racing by underneath. Chalk it up to culture shock, or just everything wrong with America, but I hated it, obviously. I was there to see them, though, not to critique the architecture. It was mid or late meal when I arrived, someone was leaving, and it broke up quickly. Q was taking a wrapped rack of ribs to go, so that he could devour them in peace at home. I told him that I loved making them, and for the price, that mine would probably be better. He told me they were 75 dollars.

Once out of the restauraunt, back in a side lobby or plush corridor of the mall, I realised that I could try to call you, try to find you. I sat down on one of those extra comfy, industrially made chairs that are for high traffic use. My platform heels were making me unstable. I called the Mandarin, and you weren’t staying there, so I tried to google your office address, and the phone was difficult to use, my fingers were fumbly and against me. But I found it, it was close, so I went there.

I had to climb some stairs in those platforms, which was hard. Your partner or assistant said you were busy. When I saw you, you didn’t see me. You were going out to lunch with your younger, hot, Italian girlfriend. A goomah really, she was perfection. Fun, young, loving, and a bit bossy. I followed you, as one can in dreams, to see you go to a hotel and playfully fuck. You were wearing a cabbie’s hat, looking like a teenager from the 90’s. You were happy and having fun. But did you love her, like you loved me?

Did you ever really love me, or was it all a game too?

Then I woke up. Startled awake. Shaking, relieved and full of wondering – what the hell was that?? Because this is just the ending, not the beginning of the dream. It was long and looping with many other locations which I cannot still remember, as my head is full with its dramatic finish. It will come back to me throughout the day, if I just pay attention to the signs, if I leave space open for it to return.

My first thought was, Now I can really call you. My fingers will work, I can just call and start the process of finally getting in touch with you, finally having this conversation that I wanted to have after so many years, to just be in peace with you, to prove that it was all real, that it was love. I was sure, clear, and confident, ready for that google search to be the very next thing that I would do. But even that series of actions seemed very unsafe, so I grabbed my things and got here, with coffee, to the page to try to see what the hell this is all about, all of it, but maybe just this little part of it for now.

I have had dreams of you for so long, so many times, over and over for so many years now. What is it, 16? I have been married for 15 so does that make it almost 17 now? This is not for therapy, its too short of a time. It needs much more than this. I want to speak with you but I am afraid either way. What is to become of that conversation, what is the end game? Maybe there is none.

See, I know the facts, the events, I can remember a lot of them very clearly. Two and a half years of them apparently. That much I cannot remember, that’s sure, but highlights, times, and feelings are clear. We met, we got along, we liked each other. You chased me, I let you. I knew that seeing you again would change my life, and I was not sure if I wanted it to be changed that greatly. So I waited a little bit. It was not a game, I was not playing you with the waiting, I just needed to be ready, to be sure, to want to have my life changed. So we started up, you in your cowboy boots and looking at a property in Virginia, a farmhouse if I remember correctly. It didn’t, it should’ve, struck me as odd that this was your choice of a first date, a follow up from an hours’ long conversation on, ugh, Valentine’s Day, the night we met. I remember that my guy before that, at the time, had asked me out on the evening of the 14th, to which I said no, as you clearly don’t accept such a significant date the day of, or evening of, as I had clearly made other plans with my best girlfriend to go to a bar and see where the night would take us.

Your down-home, corporate cowboy look and house visit didn’t strike me as odd, no, it just filled me with a gentle softness to be with a man like you, who was also looking for a new beginning, in the horse country of northern Virginia. I remember the light pull of the tall grasses against my ankles as we trugged through the backyard, where the agent left us to wander. We walked in silence, the best kind. I felt small next to you as you towered over me. You were timid but confident, it was obvious that your parents had raised you to know how to treat a woman, and I liked that.

But what now? 17 years later, why is this so in my head, so often, and right now? Because I am here, in the same country as you? This all makes me feel like a crazy stalker, thinking of you so much in my dreams. An internet sleuth, I am, tried and true. It was my basic google skills that enabled me to figure you out. You were still with your partner, with whom you share a child. You lived at her house, your house, with her. You didn’t have a small place on her brother’s property, like you said. Even though you spent the week with me, you went home to her, to her house, your house, to see your child, and her. You came back to me on Sunday afternoons for ice cream and walks, cuddles and gentle, loving fucks.

I must stop for now as the morning is old now. My hands are shaking and I need to take pause from this. I have looked at your website, deleted my old note to you on LinkedIn, which I don’t think that you’ve read. I have looked at your website, your personal blog, I think, and I know that I can contact you directly if I want to. That is enough as for now, I must wait. I must process all of this, yet again, but in the present moment. It is always so strange when I come here, to California, as it all comes out. In my mothers house, our mothers house, now ours, it all comes out in full force. There is something different about the energy here, they all say, and it never disappoints. So far, it has been a lot, and its only the 3rd waking day that I am here. 3 days and 3 nights have passed, and I am already blown open by being with myself. I must now set this aside until some time has passed and I can open this particular can of worms, once again. I must take my time, as it’s not often that you get the chance to ask the dead why they left you. Till then.

Day 10, or something. Upon counting I realise that I am, in fact, correct. 5 more days of being here, and then one of travel and then boom, I am back in my other life. It’s a shock to the system, as always. I was hoping that this time it would be less though, having tackled things a bit, here at home. But here I am, 5 days left, feeling as though nothing has been accomplished. I am at once, relied on and detested. Despised and dependable. My normal sense of time, dependant parts needed to be ordered, causes, effects, and consequence thrown out of alignment because of another person’s grief, hormones, and related emotions. Here I am, feeling lost and discouraged. Stoned and resigned. I find, as usual, at a certain point in the voyage a sense of pointlessness. Dragged back in and under the fucking sad sea of the way things are here. Don’t believe, don’t have hope. Resign to the difficulty, the tragedy, the fucking emotional undertow of it all. Slow down, be still, revel in it.

I hate this way of doing things. Hate it. Amor Fati, I try to say to myself, Love thy Fate… is this my fate? Well, it is here, so I guess it is my fate. Maybe on some level, my sister is able to feel my help, my physical presence, as love. Maybe it gets through, although it comes in a package of annoying habits, ways, and actions, as myself. I hate being in a place where I do not feel liked, where I have to question my self too often, and feel like I am being constantly judged. This is some kind of lesson, maybe in radical self-acceptance, trying and testing the work I’ve been doing in the most tender and sensitive of situations, with my sister.

I guess that is it then – how can I be the most fully myself, loving and being true to who I am while interacting with the one human on the earth that has the longest relationship with me, or at least the closest, not counting the few aunts and uncles that I have left, on the peripheries. Here I am, faced with what is left of my family, the one who shares the love, loss, and tragedies with me, although hers are different, lived through the lens of the events of her upbringing, so different than mine. We share a story closer than with anyone else, which makes the disagreements and dislikes even that much harder, as they seem to exist in their own solitary world, involving no one else but us.

I am worn out from all of this. A full, large iced coffee is gone and I am still tired, deep in my bones. Nights like last fuck up my schedule, my plans. I was up until perhaps 4am, exhausted but unable or unwilling to sleep at a normal hour. I don’t know how I will pull this energy out of me but I must. Must go into nature today on a hike with my sister. I want to stay in bed, not at home but at a grand hotel with a heavenly bed. Not the couch or the pull-out at home. I don’t want to be in charge, to create the safe, sound ground on which or space in which to discuss and decide the fate of our house and our heritage. No, I want to be heard, to get it sorted in a way that works for both of us. To have to create this safety and hold this space, the mere thought of it is exhausting. But I will surrender to it and once again and figure it the fuck out. Loving it, that will be a challenge but I will fucking do it. Amor Fati, indeed.

Right now I am living the 90/10/90 rule. It is a theory that for any project, 90% of the work takes 90% if the of time. Then the final 10%, even though you think it would be relatively easy, demanding the remaining 10% of effort. When in fact, that last bit takes as much effort, energy, concentration, and performance as did the first 90%. It kinda sneaks up on you, when you are doing the work, reaching the end of it, seeing the finish line, and then bam – it hits you like a slow motion reel in real life. Yesterday, I lived this while sorting through all – and I mean aaaaallllll – of the family photos. I had found a rhythm, it had gotten easy, when all of a sudden, I felt a lull. Then, I made the mistake of looking up, up from the singular, manageable pile of photos to survey the floor, the entire floor, of the room to regard a sea of photos. Wow – and try not to panic. Then I reminded myself of the rule of 90/10/90. Thank goodness, it wasn’t a deficiency of mine that I was finding this difficult, this was normal. This wasn’t a character flaw to ruminate over, descending into the pits of self deprecation and loathing. Nope, today I was just, simply, reassured. Today, I felt normal. Just conjure another 90%, no problem.

However, the next day, today today, the pile is still there. The group of piles, of photo boxes stands around the room like each its own little gremlin, waiting to, needing to go back in the box. After succumbing to the exhaustion caused by all the emotions that flooded out of those boxes like some sort of tsunami of nostalgia that at once knocked me over and then, pulled me under, deep under, confusing past with present, with my presence in the now, in this moment in time, in my life, in my story. All of my forgotten friends, lovers, memories, loves, and losses… so many losses.

I was jealous of those around me who could just be bright, not weighed down around their necks with sadness. They were my nemeses. I hated them, too busy hating them to ask myself why I had such a strong reaction to them. It was because they were, they had what I wanted – happiness, joy, a lightness I couldn’t quite reach. They had experienced love, of some sort. They had it, and I couldn’t figure out why, then, I hated them for it, but I did. Deeply, fully, in jealously. Alexis, Serena, and whoever else. Amanda, Kirsty. I hated them for having the family ties that I so desperately longed for. They had someone to check on them, to make sure that they were safe. That they shared their stories with. That gave them money if they needed it, that took them in. That told them that maybe, perhaps, I wasn’t the right friend for them. Maybe I was responsible for their bad decisions, not their own child. Laura even. But her mother never blamed me for anything, not that I know of. There may have been a time in which yes, momentarily, I was a bad influence, but with Laura that time passed and I became a last hope. But seeing as she was not one to get involved, too much, her mother Kate left her well enough alone. She did her best, when she could, but it was not enough.

So easy it is to go down that spiral, that whirlpool. No wonder that last 10% is tricky. Ending is hard, just as hard as being in it for the other 90% of the time. Finishing is another story, where all the action in a story comes together for the climax and the the denouement. It is the most important part of the story, in a classic narrative. So on I must go, and finish it.

I sat here today to write about one person, one part of my past. Matthew, and his tousled, floppy curls. His brand of innocent, boyish charm that only an Englishman could have. The sweetness and loneliness behind his eyes. All of it, in a stocky, solid body that was at once reassuring and undeniably sexy. Strong and vulnerable, soft and poetic, and prone to binging and lashing out, just like me.

I deeply believe that our relationship would have been perfect as just good friends. We had a lot to understand in each other, to admire, to heal, to enjoy together. But there is something about man and women, especially when they are in their full-hotness era, and full of themselves, that they feel inclined to go all of the way into each other – mentally, emotionally, and physically – until they can’t stand it. And so this is just what we did.

He liked me first, he kissed me first. I was surprised that he liked me, and that he kissed me, but also amazed by the fact that I had completely surpassed that part where I like someone and am not sure if it is mutual. Always looking for an in, a chance to find out, I was inclined to make things happen on my own. Leaving the surprise of the first kiss out of the equation was just something that I thought I was much more comfortable with – making it happen on my own, taking the first step, making the first move. Turns out that this too was probably also a way to protect my own heart, to push the mere potential of rejection to the forefront, to take control, by begging the question in real time. Do you like me? Just kiss me, then. This time though, he took the risk. He kissed me goodnight. I was surprised, as I thought of him only as a friend, although a hot one, and an English one, which in my mind really doubled the hotness factor.

I remember riding in the taxi home, on that wet Sunday night in the late Chicago winter. I thought about how nice that surprise was, how unexpected. Maybe I could just let this happen, let it unfold, let it continue to surprise me. All the way down to Pilsen, the ride must have been. It’s all a bit of a blur now. I am sure it is Pilsen as I remember hungover mornings there, with him. Sunlit spring mornings, in his loft bedroom, one and then the next. The big windows, industrial beautiful that let in the light, softly, and silently. His was a place of repose for my soul. He was a kindred spirit for mine, at the time. We both needed quiet, needed peace, needed companionship. We both needed a place away from the outside, scary world, that moved too fast for us. We needed a pause, a safe and warm place, and someone to share the colours in the shadows with, to look at them, admire their dark beauty, with. That was us: together, sad, comfortable. Alone, together. I believe that both of us, being aesthetically inclined, took comfort and pleasure in the other, in looking at the other, in being with the other. He was magnificent to look at with his beautiful, deep eyes; chiseled face; soft, curly hair just long enough on top to run my fingers through; broad, tight shoulders. I know now that the tension in those tight shoulders was from years of unprocessed emotions but then, I just found them protective. Oh, how much I have learned since then.

I speak of him now because of that big pile of photos, collection of boxes and boxes on the back room floor in the house that belonged to my mother and for now is my only family home, the home of my ancestors that hold all that is left, the remnants and the ruins. They are all there, for now at least, for us to excavate. Today it is Matthew, his sweet soft curls and his polite demeanor, his sharp and observant sense of humour, his comments often too quiet for most to hear, but I did, and laughed, smirked quietly while exchanging a knowing glance. Today it is love and empathy, remembrance of the goodness that was in them and in me. There is also the other side, the inverse. The rage and the jealousy, the mistrust and the violence, in him and us and me. There is not blame there but merely recollection, a recall that is still a bit untouchable. For first, I must remember the love, the goodness, the innocence that is in every beginning, when two souls meet and recognise each other, in each other.

For now it is remembering – that in every beginning there is that innocence, that hope that there is finally a kindred spirit, open and willing, to be there, to exist, at once with yours. This is not a minor event. No, this is major, this is everything. How could anything in all of the human experience be more important that this, than meeting another soul that would like to interweave with yours? How miraculous in and of itself. How is it that we are prone to at once marvel at this and yet also, take this for granted. Unless it is exactly in the gratitude that we can realise and live in its enormity. By taking it for granted we are simply denying its enormity and therefore limiting its impact – either positive or negative – that it might have on our lives. Protection, it seems, is something that we implore, not only from bad things but also from good. Only opening up a little, or opening too much through drugs, alcohol, or even the drunkenness in giving trust or love too early, too freeely, makes for complicated connections and trust, in deed. It creates a risk that is hard for our heads and hearts to manage. So, we learn to protect, at all costs, through fighting, through denying feelings. Unable to communicate in loving ways, we resort to the worst that we know, because at least the complicated feelings, misunderstood in the truest sense of the word, get out of the body, either through arguing, yelling, crying or fucking; all offer relief.

But for now, I will just think of the young man in the photo with his sideways, wayward glance, with his curls, flopping about in the wind, the sweetness of his heart and the softness of his skin. I imagine that this photo was taken on the very first warm day of Spring, that year in Chicago in May, many weeks after that very first kiss on a Sunday night in the doorway of his drafty Mid-River loft. It was long after the night he’d come to find me at the Gay Night at the club to tell me, urgently, that he’d realised that I was his muse. It was after, on that warm and windy day, when we were our happiest. We were beautiful, young, in love – with ourselves and with each other. It was not a deep love, but a love that made the other feel safe as each of us finally felt the love that we so believed that we deserved. As we made our way through the city streets to the lakefront, to just lay in the grass, in love. It was the most perfect day that we had, in love, together. It was everything, it was bliss, it was the best we ever were, together.

Did you know that there is liquid THC here in California? In tiny bottles, like a power shot, but instead of giving you energy its like a tranq-dart. Somehow, after having actually been careful to make a measured spritzer, and ingesting a mere 25g, I think that selling a tiny 100g, highly-concentrated bottle is actually grossly irresponsible. How could you even tempt someone to do the entire thing like a shot? So they could pass out, or black out? I won’t get into the implications of that here, but I can assume that could be highly dangerous. It could be easily slipped into someones drink without them knowing, or slammed on a dare or just out of curiosity, by teens looking for the ultimate high. At such a small size, it doesn’t even offer the slowness of ingestion, nor the possibility of reflection of having to sip something that is larger. It, too me, seems like it could be quite dangerous.

But that is not of my concern, now. I have had a rollercoaster in the past few days. Beginning on Sunday, when I had yet another 360° disagreement with my sister. It started with me watering a houseplant without her consent, continued with a story about my inappropriate actions during the time when our mother was actively dying, and ended up with me realising that I actually might not be able to go into an agreement about the house with her. I have realised that I am in a place in my life where I am not about to make anymore stupid decisions, ignoring the warning signs in front of me, the red flags that have been put out for everyone to see like it the trooping of the GD colours. I spent Sunday evening trying to get my head around this, crying my eyes out, so sad that things are how they are with my sister. I think I have finally realised that I might have to walk away from all of this in order to preserve my peace.

Sunday night, I slept in the woods with Bettie, at her place. What a magical place. The drive up her mountain was filled with ferns, flowers, and butterflies crossing the road. How magical! Monday morning was slow, had a lunch and then made it down to the chiropractors, then a yoga class. Now, after my liquid THC experience, I am exhausted in mind, body, and spirit. Yet here I am, drinking coffee with sugar and forcing myself to stay awake. Thinking of going shopping to continue the mind-numbing that I’m currently experiencing. I might as well, it seems like the perfect opportunity to just veg the fuck out, and perhaps I need this as much as anything, as much as honing in, focusing, healing, concentrating, processing, etc.

Sometimes things can be rolled back to a time of simpler therapies, like friends and shopping. Sparkles, bags, distractions… shallow promises of the possibility of a different life, from a shinier than the one I’m in now, overloaded by images from the boxes and boxes of family photos that must be gone through. All the times of my life shoved randomly into pretty boxes, each one holding some good and some dark memories. So many traumas wrapped into my story, our stories. Forgotten moments, archived by my camera – they are there, too. Times long forgotten, times when I was alone, and truly myself. Truly at peace. At least, there are records.

And so, my deepest fantasies return, my most secret, obvious desires, even drive to fulfil these dreams, these ambitions, so long cast aside. When I look at the picture, the good pictures in which I had really found myself, alone, pure, my vision and timing locked in tightly, working as one with the lens and the shutter, knowing how the speed of the film would take it in. The results were marvelous. They were worthy of being seen, objects of beauty in their own right, yet I was afraid. Afraid of trying, of again exposing my soul to be told that it wasn’t quite good enough, that it was immature, repetitive, redundant. Now I see, it wasn’t even me. It just was. These pictures have nothing to do with me. They are, both subjectively and objectively, art. They work. They tell a story, not a narrative, but a story of moments, actions, composition, and colors. What happened was individual. The photos were just the scenes in which the experiences took place. They set the stage for the drama, love, loss, and loneliness of us all – at that time and in that place.

Now I am finally ready to show this work. I only hope that there is more than the couple of rolls that I have found. I worry that that is it. I wonder just how much of my work from that time that my violent, war-torn, painter ex-boyfriend destroyed. On the eve of the dissolution of our relationship, he went into a scary downward spiral. Imagining a betrayal that wasn’t there, he attacked my work and my files with a knife, destroying several boxes of negatives. From what I remember, and I tend to remember those types of moments pretty well, that is was mostly my old work that he had hacked to bits.

There are pictures of him there, too. Pictures from my college graduation when my parents came, via last-minute plans, to see me, to see us, in Chicago. I look in everyone’s eyes in these pictures, searching for the real emotions, hidden by the fake, unaware smiles that were only possible in an age before camera phones. I look to see what anger, disappointment, resentment those smiles try hide. I know it was there, I remember it. Today I will continue to dig through the archives. I will try to enjoy the dragging sensation I feel, try to let it melt into relaxation, even a nap. I will try to embrace this funny process, at once upsetting and healing, as at least it brings all of this out into the open.

Here I am, in my American home. Between the forest and the sea, I am siting in my local coffee shop, as I always have. Listening to Radiohead, holding back tears. Is this heaven or a dream? Certainly it can’t be real. Time is compressing – the eras smashed into the now, through the taste of my iced coffee and the knot in my throat as I feel like I am 20 and 37 and 48 and also like it is 20 years from now, 40 years from now and I am looking back at it all with a sense of wonder and awe. Did it all really happen? Did I go all the way out to the deep dark, tumultuous unknown and really find my way home? Did I really either lose or destroy everything I ever had and rebuild my life into something I wanted? Did I really heal from it all to be happy, content, and hopeful? Did I finally learn how to love? Did I really do something that I was finally fully proud of? Did I really? Yes, I did.

Here I am, now, in the in-between time, once again, in Northern California in my local coffee shop listening to the mid-morning mid-90s mix that’s been made just for people like me. Once again I am here, in what has become somewhat of an annual ritual, alone this time, to be with my sister, my friend, my self. I am able to both look back and look forward from where I am now, to see how far I’ve come and how far I still can go. I am pleased; I am proud of myself; I am content. I am no longer running from my feelings. I still want to, but I fight the flight reaction, or more so, I accept it. I accept it as a part of me that I don’t have to fight anymore. I don’t have to fight anymore, period. I am done fighting, I am only flowing now. Ok, well not really, but I will tell myself this until it is true. The song that’s on now is some instrumental that I remember in my body, a post-rave English song that was at once melancholy and hopeful, slow and steady, and oh so very London. No idea what it is but maybe it will come to me again, later, unexpectedly.

Here I am once again to take stock, to reflect on how far I’ve come, to process more, and to leave more behind while working to create a future that I love, with those that I love. Taking pleasure in the little things, the tiny pleasures of coffee, sunshine, family treasures, country dirt, noise of the morning cocks and crickets, even the smell of the skunks wafting through the late sunset air, as they take to the streets and reclaim their territory from the domesticated animals of the daytime. I am so grateful for it all as together it makes up the story of my life, of my family, and of my future. Even the fucked up bathroom in the house holds reason to have gratitude, as it represents one real, one big project to be done that can bring the house into the luxury of finished-ness, of modernity. It represents a new future, not of making do but of enjoyment, of feeling worthy of nice things, of ease, of completeness. A pretty little bathroom with a pretty new door and a pretty everything – a little oasis that shows what the house is, a tiny little treasure box in a tiny country town on the north coast of the best state in the United States. It is small and shiny and weird and wonderful. It is our home.

Time is a gift, especially when it feels like extra time. In a time when we are so unaccustomed to delaying any gratification, an unexpected delay can feel like an ocean of time in front of us. Nowhere to go, no place to be, forced to sit still and just be for a short time… is truly exceptional. Today I have that gift in front of me in the form of a layover. I am just waiting at the gate, feet up in a high-back chair. I don’t want to watch the news at the bar close by, or stare at my phone. I prefer to be here, with myself, writing between two times, two lives, in the San Francisco airport.

I have begun to archive my Instagram. I thought I would do it in one fell swoop but my nostalgia combined with my love of imagery and a good composition has made me delay that, too. It now stands as a beautifully edited down version of what it was before, a longer story of my memories, real and imagined, of the past four years. Recently, I decided that it was time to archive it, to draw that line in the sand, or more so in the wet concrete at the foundation of the new life that lays in front of me. Suzi was here – I could write. The proof of which has been that Instagram account which now seems unnecessary. It is now the back story, but one that should be in that closed volume of tragedy. Now it is time for something else, and I must start with a clean slate… but for now, I have kept those images there that I really love, to look at them a few more times, in wonder of myself, in hopes that I might actually feel that wonder in myself, deep in my soul.

Who knew that connecting, truly, with myself would be so complicated? Now I feel that I must write my story, in the world, literally, so that I can rewrite the story I tell myself in my head. I must write so that when I am feeling lost, and unaccomplished, I can come back to it, read it to myself, and remember just how much fun I’ve really had.

This show. I tried to stop watching, but between curiosity and the boredom of covid exhaustion, I returned. The theme, the theme that I am interested in as of late, is that of being ruled by past decisions, past events, and how these decisions replay themselves in our heads, how the replays create the present reality, if we let them. Is it possible not to let them, or is that part of their curse? This series explores that, by looking at the effects of the way-distant past, the past of a shared childhood. Then, on top of this rich soil, it also looks at how the events of the present morph into memory and into a new set of influences. It examines how choices made in a split-second moment, with the information at hand, can then govern the psyche for years to come. Years, lifetimes, generations it seems, from my own experiences. Of course, this makes me consider my own experiences. I think of the split second reactions, actions, that led to the grandes histoires in my own life. These events that take up so much space in my head, my heart, and my personality. We tell ourselves these stories over and over again. When will it end?

When will it end? This is the question that one brother repeats, over and over, as he kills another. When will it end? Never, it seems. Never. One bad memory is replaced by a new set of sins. Negativity bias, once there to protect us from certain death through a healthy fear of danger lurking around us, is now killing us slowly. It’s creating cancer in our bodies and souls, the fear of what might be, because of what had been, growing exponentially, raging through us, until it destroys completely, from the inside. We are our own greatest enemies, we are slaves to a past that we cannot change. We are crippled by it as we limp forward into the future, sure that it will be just as bad as it has ever been, if we allow ourselves to believe these cautionary tales of protection.

Why do I have to keep going back? Why, and when will it end? Every night, it seems, I am back in the family home of my grandmother’s. Why must I go here, why must I fight these strange battles there, at once happy to be home while also fighting for my survival? Why, why must I go there? I beg myself for the answers, for the truth, as if it is locked up inside of me somehow, I want it to come out – soon, now. Is there a missing piece or is this just the bane of existence? If I come out with a theory, how will I know it is real, and not another strange dream, a fantasy, and not a recollection?

Maybe I can ask my ancestors for clarification. I know that there is another plane, as I have been there. I have had it proven to me on multiple occasions that there is more than this, more than there seems to be. Am I perhaps not dreaming, but visiting another place of shared creation, where the others visit, too? If so, can I call out to them for answers, for clarity, for a sign of the truth? I am in my grandmothers house, that is for sure. I can hear the screen door closing. It shuts lightly, with the silent expulsion of air from the pneumatic hinge as it closes, as to not slam. This luxury was once thought through by someone. It was a choice, it was an improvement on a design we didn’t even know we needed, an amelioration that made everyday life that much more pleasant, as we need not hear an angry slam or clack every time someone went outside. No, it shut gently, with a little double click at the end as it latched – che-clunk. I long for my family. Maybe that is the simple truth. I long for that time when we were all together, safe and sound. That simple little latch. It kept the cold air in in the summertime, kept out the hot and sticky, buggy cloud. I can still see my grandmother in her yardwork clothes, happy, smiling, content. She was always either working or at rest from working. I think all she ever wanted was her family around. Although, late at night, when she was alone and couldn’t sleep, worrying, perhaps she wished that she had wanted more. Perhaps that was the real restlessness, of wondering what might have been if she’d wanted something more. Had she gotten everything she ever wanted, or nothing at all? Did she even dare to dream of more?

My heart is broken when I think of that family, the family I had before the one I have now. It all shattered when she died. It all fell apart. It was the beginning of the end that I am living now. Now, there is complete destruction. The only foundation I ever had was destroyed, completely, and I am not yet healed from it. I live in the rubble, everyday, searching for survivors, searching for the self that I was before the misfortunes of life ravaged the peaceful and bountiful land of my heart and my homeland that was before.

The sun comes out now, and I must go. At least the questions are out, even if the answers are not yet found. I feel I must cry, cry and release, as I don’t think I’ve said this much out loud before. I have been dying for so many years, over 30, almost 35, I would say. It’s been for most of my life, all of my life that I’ve been suffering from this. I’ve chosen over and over again to be angry instead of sad, to be strong instead of vulnerable, fake instead of human. I am tired now, I am ready to let go of this heavy burden, this terrible curse. I have to not shut out the devils that are coming for me. There is only a screened in door and a flimsy latch, it won’t hold, won’t keep them out for long. There are bodies in the safe, in the garage, next to the drinks fridge and the dangling tennis ball on a string that tells you just how far to pull the car in. It’s all there, waiting to be found out. I’ve just got to face it all, face how much I have lost and take the sentence. Enough of the running. I have to find a way to face it so that I can feel it and move back into the present. I am 48 years old, stuck in my childhood memories and longing for my childhood world that has long since disappeared. Yet in my dreams it is still there, calling for me, dragging me home.