March.10.03

I stand on the edge and look down. Far below is blackness and watery shadows, a whirlpool of uncertainty. I said before that I wouldn’t do it, but now here I stand gripping the wire fence, my toes curling around the edge of the earth. There are groups of hikers lined up on either side of me, behind the fence, looking on in anticipation. They are dreamlike figures. They stare at me like a television image. When I blink the image cuts in and out as if the reception up here in the hills is poor. Other than my vague awareness of these formless figures nudging me closer to the edge, consciousness of my visual surroundings is slipping away. The sunlight pales into a hazy shade of green. The colours of the landscape, the lemon trees and bright blue sky, meld into each other and swirl down into the oblivion. I am crushed between the fence and a wall of nothingness. I feel naked, suspended so perilously, afraid and dangerously outside of myself. The presence of the hikers has become almost oppressive. A strange impulse to liberate myself flares up in me. Suddenly I am conscious of my breath, and then of my right foot lifting and moving forward. I am aware that I have jumped only after I begin to fall, feeling warm air rushing all around me. Am I screaming? I hear no sound. My mind is tranquil. My entire existence is encompassed in this moment alone. I am tumbling noiselessly into the depths of the sea without the knowledge that I will ever again see the sky. Then the water is all around me, and there is no turning back because I am immersed in the thrill and rush of fulfilling a desire I was unaware I had. My head and shoulders break the surface and I swallow a hungry mouthful of air. I spread my arms to swim and kick my legs like a swan. Seventy-five feet above me, the figures gape, waving and clapping their hands, but they are mute and faceless. I laugh and glide onto my back and my head is haloed in the salty liquor of the sea, my eyes cast upward to the golden sun.

Feb/March 2003

I brushed his hand away. I looked to the other people on the bus. The women with their children, old men with their leering eyes, the driver who glances back in the rear view-none of them caught my heart in their throats. A little girl choked on it, coughed and spit it out into her hand, stuck it under the bus seat in front of her. And that is where my heart remains, cushioned in bubble gum and cigarette ash. My heart is lonely at night when the bus is parked in cold, dark parking lots. My heart watches strangers-waits for someone to run their finger under the seat to press their gum somewhere and find my heart there, peel it off and raise it to their mouth to kiss it. For now it remains where the girl has left it. I get off the bus, leaving behind the little girl, the man with wandering eyes and hands and my heart stuck under the seat.

*****************

My sister waits for me on the back step-she is pulling the hair of her ink stained doll. She is making long braids of the bleached, plastic strands and lying them beside her on the cement step. She’ll leave them there later, when she jumps up to do something new and will forget about them. The cat will chew on them and we will find yellow hairballs on the furniture for weeks. My little sister is singing-the words sound like the things mom says, but musical and sweet. She is singing about headaches and laundry and bags of sour milk left in the fridge. Mum is at the other end of the yard, laying evergreen boughs over her decaying garden plots. She is wearing one of Dad’s old wool sweaters and a pair of black rubber boots. She doesn’t see me, so I slip inside, past my sister, quickly so that i trick my heart into skipping a beat. I hold my breath until I am safely alone in my room, and I close my door.

I then reach under my bed and pull out a shoebox. It is full of letters. They are all from people who once claimed they loved me. I compare them. They all love me for the same reasons, although most of these reasons are never explained. All of the people who wrote these letters have tied themselves to me at some point in time, and I’ve drawn them all towards my heart, embraced them for a few glorious moments and released them like butterflies-watching them flutter off towards the sun. I separate them and at the same time they all represent the same thing to me. I remember them for the unique way in which they loved me. One of them lay with me in fields and read books about faeries, another cried into my heart until it was soggy turning my insides into a lake of sorrow. The latest rolled back and forth over my body until I was unrecognizable. Each one of these letters have marked my heart, like a map marked with pins for all the places you have travelled. It resembles a throbbing pin cushion...lonely, throbbing and stuck under a bus seat...

I pick through the contents of that box, examining each item as if it contains a clue. I am a detective piecing together the stories that string together my life like a Christmas chain strung on a tree. I am moving ahead like a needle at the end of the string, collecting pieces of popped corn and dried cranberry, some falling apart as I prick them with the point of my needle. I re-read the letter from Gabriel, the boy I carried on with long distance when I was only 13 years old. His letters are a part of me. The words are so familiar. My life would not be the same if these letters had not been written in this sloppy green ink prose. I no longer feel the connection with Gabriel I once had. When I see him I feel empty and strange. But the words in these letters are alive to me, more alive than Gabriel himself. I feel a connection with my past when I read them, and it is a feeling I can only resurrect by seeing and touching these old letters. I am a creature of material things. My stuff becomes a part of me, as important as my thoughts...they are thought-stuff. Old shoeboxes and letters, broken marbles, hair clips and stickers. Having them, holding them evokes strong memories for me that would otherwise be dead.

I replace the letters and slide the shoddy box under the bed. I sit in front of my mirror and brush my hair, while staring out the window. I fall into a hair brushing trance as I watch mom carrying branches across the yard. She walks back and forth, bedding all of the gardens with fir. I have been home for an hour and she hasn’t stopped. She appears to be in a bit of a trance herself. My little sister is no longer on the step. I notice that the television is blaring Friday after school cartoons, and I can hear the kitchen cupboard doors slamming. I hope she isn’t standing on the counter, I’m always a bit worried she’ll slip and hit her head on the linoleum floor. I watch mom for a few more minutes and then reach over to open my window. I lean out and feel the cool fall breeze on my face.

I used to love it when my parents would work in the yard. On Saturdays especially when they would both be out there, working silently side-by-side. Dad moving the rusted yellow wheelbarrow around and around like a sailing ship, tossing things from behind the rock walls and around the edges of the woods into a pile and wheeling them across the yard to the burning barrel. The smoke curling up to meet with the neighbour’s burning barrel smoke. Mom singing greetings through the trees between our house and our cousin’s, who live next door. Dad and Uncle Richard sending each other big silent waves and moving the wheelbarrows in patterns across the lawns, creating ridges and curving roads for the rain and mud to gather when it rained. My mom has always spent most of her energy on the gardens, either trimming and removing growth like weeds in the summer, or adding layers of boughs and straw in the winter. On these Saturdays, when I was younger, I would sit inside and listen to records or the radio and watch my parents through the windows, or else I put on my rubber boots and shadow my father, skipping along the rock wall or helping him pile dead branches into the wheelbarrow. I loved the way my parents would work together, silently without stopping. I would meditate on their silence. This silence may have come from unhappiness-but I don’t realise this when I’m so young.

My mom seemed to enjoy the work more than my dad, who spendt his week days twirling around in big cushioned chairs in government offices signing his name to important letters and documents and setting up meetings. My sisters and I always used to joke that Dad and his co-workers had chair races all day at work. His office consisted of cubicles and long corridors, perfect for these events. He would just smile when we asked him who won when he returned home from the office. When he sat in his office he wasn’t thinking about fertilizing the garden or lifting heavy rocks to and fro across the lawn. This yard work seemed to be his repentance. He did his work with rigid shoulders and a tight lipped expression. I sensed that he was struggling when I was young, but never understood why he always looked so strained. I thought maybe it was because the rocks were so heavy. I did not understand the full weight he carried along with them. Mom, on the other hand had always seemed to enjoy whatever she was working on around the garden. She would stop occasionally to help my dad manoeuvre the wheelbarrow or clear a section of the rock wall, and always seemed willing and ready to do whatever she could. My mother is incredibly capable. She could have been doing the heavy work my dad did, but she worked in her gardens because she was passionate about them.

As a child I thought of the year in terms of gardening seasons. In the fall we planted bulbs and lined plots with insulation before the first frost. In the winter I would walk over the wastelands of gardens and crunch the frozen straw under my boots. Around February, seed catalogues would take over the house and mom would pour over them and mutter strange plant names, trying to decide what kind of perennials she might like this year. She would ask my opinion and I would lay the catalogues out on the floor, leaf through the dog-eared pages, amazed at the variety of plants available. No wonder she spent so long looking. She would start her plants early in the spring and the house would smell of damp soil and fertilizer. Electric blankets would cover the plants at night and fluorescent lights would glow from corners of the living room. (My friends thought our family was growing dope. I suspected maybe they were right, considering my parents strange behaviour but I remember once discovering marijuana plants in the back woods and my parents being surprised.) Spring would come and the gardens would begin to come alive again. The forget-me-nots and forsythia would bloom and the gardens would be tilled and prepared for spring planting. Around this time, playing in or around the gardens was forbidden and I would often hear my mom chasing and swearing after neighbourhood dogs who thought a moist soil-rich garden was a better place than anywhere to relieve themselves. Summer was my favourite garden season. I would sit on the rock wall and stuff my face with wild blackberries and rummage the ground for tiny red strawberries while my mother dug around on her knees in the dirt. On nimble-feet, I would explore the rows of net-climbing snow peas, bushy carrot tops and flowering potato leaves, identifying plants according to the faded wooden stakes marking each row. Each night at dinner mom would excitedly point out how much of our dinner had come from the garden. We would eat out of mom’s garden all summer and throughout most of the fall. She would cook carrots, peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce and beets. We would have stewed rhubarb over ice cream, rhubarb pie, crumble, crisp, squares, cake. Dad would make big stews and soups from the vegetables and chicken bones that would simmer on the stove on long fall Saturdays when we were all home and we would eat them for lunch and dinner for days with mom’s home baked rolls, fresh out of the oven.

My childhood is mostly defined by food and the outdoors. At least the happy side of my childhood. I care to think about these things before I think of the family tensions. Food and our home kept our family together for a long time.

Luckily our house was large enough for all of us to hide in. I think my parents spent a lot of their marriage in that house hiding from each other. My mom always went to bed before my dad and stayed in bed longer in the morning. My dad would stay up, in another room, reading and wake up early in the morning to make me breakfast before he left for work. Early in the morning and late at night were my favourite times spent with Dad; just the two of us. A breakfast of pancakes, hot oatmeal or egg-in-the-hole was my reward to rising early alongside him. My sisters wouldn’t drag themselves out of bed until after I had eaten seconds and sometimes thirds. I had a hearty appetite........(unfinished but maybe worth posting...inconsistent, I know)

2002

Night time falls on the two sitting silently on the beach sand. It has been a long day and neither of them feel the need to speak. They watch birds in the distance, seagulls calling their children home from a day of hunting for fish and diving for hidden crustaceans. At moments like these words are unnecessary, silence can say so much more. Words are finite and they would only bring conclusion to the day. Silence is eternal and if one does not speak as the sun sets, lives become intertwined with eternity. All of these thoughts go through her head as he dusts sand through his fingers over her toes and says nothing. The sun sets above them like an egg cracking over their heads. The fiery ball is like yolk seeping down over their eyes and the shade of darkness spreading over the sand like egg whites congealing in a hot pan. They are covered by the night like a blanket that makes them shiver as the warmth of daylight disappears; a blanket that radiates no heat but covers and protects them. She feels as if they are hiding down here on the sand, and every time the beam of light from the lighthouse passes over them she holds her breath, in suspense that their secret spot may be revealed.

Rocks and seaweed that were friendly playthings during the sunlit hours become dark and dangerous in the moonlit night. Beneath the glimmering surface of the ocean dark secret things take place. She imagines all of the sea's evil creatures lurking beneath. She experiences a sort of vertigo in desiring to dip her toes into the water and catches her breath in excitement. While she dances around in her imagination he sits and thinks of the events of the past day. Five hours ago they had been running in the deep sand on this very shore with their neighbour’s children, Richard and Anna, and their dog. They laughed and tickled each other until they all collapsed on the sand, squealing and out of breath. He had always wanted some children of his own, but she didn’t feel the same way. Sometimes late at night while she lay sleeping he would lift up her shirt and place one of his hands on her belly imagining that her sleeping breath is really the frail heartbeat of his son or daughter. She had no idea he did this. Tonight he thought how much this particular moment would change if they had a child. They would probably not remain so silent, they would feel so much more pressure in their lives and even this small moment would be altered by all of the questions and concerns pulsating between.

He is pretty sure that if they had a daughter she would be just like her mother, creative and wise and overwhelmed by the sight of anything beautiful. He worried that some day the sunrise would take his wife’s breath away forever. He knows that his daughter would outgrow him the instant she took her first breath in the world. He did not have the first clue how to raise a girl, but he had a lot of love to give and wanted nothing more from the universe than to be a father. He did want more from his wife however, because he stayed even though she remained ambivalent on the topic of trying for a child together. He didn’t believe in God really, or at least he wasn’t sure, but he prayed to some higher being that someday his wife would feel the same way. He was terrified that this difference would eventually tear the two of them apart. But he was even more afraid that he would not find the strength or courage to leave her if it never happened. He was torn, because either way he would lose something of extraordinary value.

2002

I had to get out. I decided to dress up and go for a drink at the hotel bar. I would even wear hose, and I hate hose. I wash my hair and spend way too much time on my make-up. Preparation like this will only lead to disappointment. But that I was used to. Somehow I feel that a few disappointments will eventually lead to one fulfilled expectation. I French-braid my hair and drape the long rope over my left shoulder. I learned to do that is Paris, it’s very European. I wear my gold earrings and the chain link bracelet given to me by my grandmother. She died when I was eighteen, and left it for me in her will. I always feel like I’m carrying a bit of history with me when I wear it, although I am sure my grandmother would roll over in her grave if she could hear me say this. She was only seventy-two when she died, but when I was eighteen I felt she was a relic. I pull my rose dress over my head and shoulders and twist my arms all sorts of ways trying to do the zipper. The damn thing is stuck halfway to the top. It won’t budge, so I have to wear the black dress. It is sexy, that is what my daughter says. I don’t think a woman should know what is sexy until she is at least thirty; that way she will never get her heart broken. I check myself out in the mirror, as I have done so many times. I pull a fifty dollar bill from my wallet and slip it into my bra. I stash the wallet in the refrigerator. I think that would be the last place someone would look if they were trying to rob someone’s hotel room. Unless of course they wanted alcohol, I had never thought of that. I take the wallet out of the refrigerator and slip it under my pillow instead. I lock the door on my way out and wink at the bell boy, who is smoking out of a window at the end of the hallway. This is a non-smoking floor. I take the elevator to the ground floor. I am alone so I borrow the opportunity to check myself out from every angle in the small mirrored space, to find the most flattering profile. Sadly not enough people are lucky enough to see me from above.

I step out into the carpeted lobby and walk over to the bar. I shuffle in among the crowd and find a stool close to the bartender. I turn my head a little to the side and smile. He comes over and asks me what my favorite drink is. I can’t think of anything clever to say, so I simply ask for a Martini. He smiles at me anyway, probably out of pity. I am alone and obviously not waiting for someone as I am sitting between two other people and not saving a seat. I notice only at that moment that most of the people staying in the hotel, or at least those at the bar, were no older than thirty years. I have chosen a particularly trendy hotel, it is so like me to forget that I have grown up and no longer belong in trendy hotel bars. But that doesn’t stop me from ordering a shot of tequila before I leave. I leave a semi-generous tip, although I know the smile was out of pity, pity is what I feel I need tonight.

Ten minutes later I find myself on a familiar street corner. Looking around, I notice that most things have changed, including the business on the corner. It was once a cheap diner, but is now a modern café style restaurant. Twenty years ago I also stood on this corner. However, I was not alone and it was daylight. I was with my childhood friend Liz, who had grown up with me in the country and whose parents had been close friends with my grandmother. Ironically, after we graduated from College and got jobs in the city, we never met in the country again, only downtown, and often only long enough for a couple of cups of coffee. I was thinking of a fall afternoon, and I had been wearing my long brown camel hair coat, very New York. Liz had been talking for at least ten minutes about childhood memories and friendship and crap and I was window shopping. She didn’t notice, which made me think for a moment that maybe something was wrong. So I stopped and turned to her, on that corner, and asked her if everything was alright. That is when she told me that she had fallen in love; with my ex-boyfriend Rob. I didn’t much like this particular corner, and I had made a mental note that day to never again come to Tom’s Diner for coffee with anyone. The reason Liz’s news had not been well received is simple. I am still in love with Rob. But I am married, so there wasn’t much I could do other than give Liz my congratulations. It was complicated. So complicated that I never again met with Liz for coffee, my RSVP to her wedding invitation said I couldn’t make it as on that date I would be going on a second honeymoon with my husband. It was complicated enough that when she called and told my husband what I had said, I organized an impromptu surprise honeymoon for Nick and I. He never discovered the truth, and the trip actually turned out to be a lot of fun. I don’t regret skipping the wedding. The truth is I am still in love with Rob, and I couldn’t bear to see him marry someone else. The odd thing is, Rob is completely unaware of my feelings. In fact, our breakup had been entirely mutual and pleasant. Things had not been working out. I didn’t realize my true feelings until that fall afternoon on this very corner, which is why I will never drink coffee here. Rather peculiar, I know.

The night goes on, and I feel very lonely. I no longer know why I wanted so badly to leave my hotel room before, I always feel lonelier around other people. I go back to my hotel and back up to my floor (which now smells of smoke) and back to my room where I can be alone…

Feb.20.02

I’ve had so many experiences with so many different people. I’ve been close to people at times, who I probably will never again be acquainted with. I have had countless moments with people, when we would lie together and discuss everything that was there in our minds at the time. What happens to those moments? After they occur do they just drift away into space and time? Do they cling to the inside of me, like burrs on a dog’s fur, and are carried around with me forever? Maybe they aren’t real and they never come into existence and so don’t go anywhere. I don’t know...but they feel real at the time, substantial and tangible. I’ve been obsessed with time lately. It is something I will never really understand. Is life made of time? It must be, what else could the universe be made of? We have days and nights and months, which I realize have been created by man, but we can’t deny the perpetual motion of growth and decay, and the foreword movement of life. Maybe life is space. We could be hurtling through space like meteors, moving at indefinite speeds in no specific direction. Moments render our existence, and when we die they all die with us. Death is when the meteor crashes to the ground, and explodes into thousands of tiny pieces. All of those moments scattered over great distances. Maybe pieces of ourselves will be found millions of years later, and those moments can come alive again for a while. I wish I could keep my favourites and save them in a jar for those days when I need them. Tonight I would like to go back to one....one that I could lose myself in. Life is just a collection of these moments. That is why each moment is as important as the next. This is life, this moment could be your last. Inevitably, one of them will be the last, and I won’t see it coming, which is why I should live in every moment as if it were...

Nov.23.01

I wake up to yet another day of passing time. It has become such a pattern that is actually feels like I’m always waking up to the same day. It has become almost impossible to distinguish one weekday from any other. I wake up an odd number of minutes before my alarm makes its screeching announcement of the day, I acknowledge, stare at the ceiling for a minute, write the same mundane factual narrative which is supposed to make me more creative but actually just points out the triviality of my life, and slip my feet out from under the covers and onto the cold mat on the floor beside my bed. I mourn the day before it’s been extinguished.

Troubled thoughts go through my head as I picture the last day of my life being an almost exact replica of this one, with a few details rearranged. I may as well be dead now if this turns out to be the case. What is the point of living if I only do it one way forever? Despite these thoughts, I slip out of my frayed nightgown and into a warm shower, in an attempt to feel renewed.

I only feel scummy as my hair begins to dry into it’s annoying shape and I see that the bags under my eyes have not been washed away, not that I expected them to be. I feel like an old rag, cut from a faded childhood dress that was outgrown and handed down several times. I slip into something equally faded and, right on time, flick the light switch and close the door behind me as I leave.

I don’t learn anything today that excites me, and I come home as dissatisfied and distressed as I was before I left. So why do I even leave my bed? Well, because there always exists that hope of some event completely changing my life. These fantasies, symbolically, usually involve someone (often an individual more handsome and charming than myself) coming to my rescue and changing my world. I haven’t had much luck transforming anything myself, I think I’m waiting for someone else to do it for me.

Some days, I don’t have this hope and almost decide to stay in bed, but always get up, out of habit and also because it is expected of me. Some days I don’t think that the person in my fantasies actually exists, it’s just the reason I’ve created to get out of bed.

I look into the mirror at the end of the day. Have the dark shadowy circles beneath my eyes become more deeply engraved? Some days I worry that they’ll sink right into my skull and suck my face away, so that I can’t see anything. Then I’ll never find my brave, strong someone. I ponder upon this and decide that my face looks the same that it looked yesterday, and the day before.

I write a little bit, but the words are so dreary, overly descriptive and senseless, that I stop. I stay up reading until I fall asleep, not accomplishing anything again today.

I wake up to the sound of my alarm screeching an announcement of the day. My tomorrows are slowly fading away, every day becoming a yesterday.

Nov.?.01

I saw a group of teenage girls rolling around on a luggage cart outside of the Holiday Inn earlier tonight, and there was an old woman on my side of the street watching them. She had a kerchief over her head and a long trench coat wrapped around her. Her eyes were slanted and the corners of her mouth were slightly turned up into a smile. It made me happy. It was sort of an eerie scene actually because the wind was blowing leaves up all around the woman, and she stood there for a long time. Such calmness and stability surrounded by such chaos. When I turned the corner she was still watching them.

Nov.29.01

Montaigne is so inspiring. He speak of twin souls, maybe he could be mine! I feel like I'm caught....I'm wavering between believing myself and doubting myself. I wonder what Montaigne would say to me? Would he tell me to put myself out there and reveal my thoughts, because they are authentic? Like him, I want to live in solitude. Sometimes I worry that living in solitude would smother my creativity because there wouldn't be so much change around me and I would have nothing to write about, but I have an idea that if I did sneak away from the madness of the world, thoughts would leap up out of my consciousness and reveal themselves: “Here I am! I’ve been waiting for the right time to show myself to you!” Not that those thoughts aren't there all along, but I am too clouded to acknowledge them. It is amazing that so much can come out of nothing. Man’s mind is an eternal resource that can never run dry. As Montaigne said, man is always changing, that is the human condition, which is why our thoughts and our perspective are always changing. I want to witness this change in a solitary environment, with as few factors as possible, so that only nature and God (or whoever is working within myself) have influence. Then, I am sure, the thoughts would be pure and enlightening. Montaigne began his essays in total despair, and ended with a newfound joy for life, and all he did was think. His thoughts progressed because they developed from one another. He would think a thought and that thought would grow another. Several generations later, he reached a conclusion. However this conclusion was only temporary because soon another thought would grow off of it. And so there always remained the potential of discovering something new within himself. This shows that there isn’t much man can do to stop the movement of life, because it begins from within.

Oct.12.01

This is so exciting...i’m getting so much pleasure out of studying these ideas. I knew this course would be perfect for me. It seems the more I push myself, the easier everything comes...it just takes setting things in motion.... It’s like jumping off that cliff in Cinque Terre...I stood on the edge staring down into the waters far below, knowing that I wanted to jump, but still hesitating. Watching others jump and getting a glimpse of the rush...Finally I make a decision to jump and it happens so fast, before I know it I’m falling. And then the water is all around me, and of course there is no turning back because I am immersed in the thrill and rush of fulfilling my desire. These ideas are filling in the spaces that exist around me....I’ve always been aware of these spaces, and have been searching for something..meant to be plugged into them....It all comes flooding...I feel when something is right, and fits. But still...even if I know within myself one hundred percent I have trouble sharing...i’m insecure, even though I know within myself that my thoughts are valid. I’m afraid...Getting over my fear is an important step. And when I take it, that will be a very significant turning point. It is the one thing holding me back from everything!

Everyone thinks I’m a geek, but that is because they don’t understand the pleasure I get from knowledge...staying in on Friday night in order to understand the most fundamental principals of philosophy is joy to me. Going out with a goal of getting shit faced and hooking up with someone completely random, is not fulfilling. I don’t want to be distracted from reality, I want to be immersed in it! Fuck, why can’t I find anyone who sees things the same way as me....or enjoys my way of looking at the world. Sure, sometimes I’m overwhelmed and also want to go out and forget about things of importance...In fact, it’s important for me to do that sometimes so that when I return to what I really love I really appreciate it. Only sometimes, though!

I wish everyone could discover something that they love...It feels good, and I’ve only gotten glimpses of it. But they are truly beautiful.

Apr.11.01

I curled up in my dark corner of the world and peered inside my thoughts. I wrapped the thick blankets tighter around my body and closed my eyes, longing for escape. I imagined a world in which I would never again have to face another human being. I could imagine my world and create the people from my fantasies. A world full of gardens and flowing streams, in which there were no hate and murder, and everything would fall out as I willed it. There would be no insecurities in my head, and I could walk peacefully down the street, without ten thousand thoughts attacking me at once. My mind would stop trying to convince me that everyone was staring at me, thinking how glad they are not to know me. A world in which I wasn't perfect and pathetic, beautiful and hideous, intelligent and naive. A world in which I was not a walking, talking contradiction. In this world, my thoughts would flow easily on the page, in dripping ink and glorious prose. They would never catch on a fleeting doubt in my mind, of myself, or on a great other being. Everything would flee my mind, all but pure thought and feeling. They would be relieved onto the page, and all insecurities would vanish. There would only be room for pure thoughts. I would write them all down and they would change the world. Whether it be the entire globe, or a tiny street lined with potted plants and on doorsteps, one eyed, one eared cats and thier bastard kittens.

Jan.26.01

After returning from someone who knows you so well, it’s almost impossible to accept anybody else as a real person. I feel like I’ve sucked out the depth and it can’t be restored. I’m scared to waste any more on someone else. I feel so, scared or lonely..or something of the kind. I just don’t know what I feel. After so many lights going out around me, like magic, one turned on tonight when I was all-alone. It could have been a symbol. Something has changed. Things are going to get better. I’m just not sure what to do with myself at this stage. I feel like the remnants of our relationship are like a battered and bloody body. I’ve never buried a body before. I’m scared to look at it right now, to touch it and feel absolutely no pulse. Can love really live on after the death of the body that carries it? Can it still cry? Can it still feel sad? Because I do. I’m sad for life. I’m scared for life. I can’t take the sorrow of all of this passing.

Nov.13.00

Where will my life end up? Will my history resurface? There is so much of it. I can recall my fondest memories; catching fireflies in the darkness, staying up through all hours of the morning listening to my parents and their best friends play music and laugh by lamplight, their children and I running on the dewy grass around the cottage, then inside to ask for more cake. As we grew older we stopped running, and began smuggling beer, not cake. At our age now, we stop going, and there is no more music. Only the memories have survived death and divorce. The grass grew longer and the cake went stale. I will always look back on those memories and try to relive them in my mind; the smells, the tastes, the sounds and most of all the feelings. I will always remember the feeling of being a part of something so big, always being surrounded by love, warmth and laughter. The more independent we become, the further we drift away and the colder it feels. We have let this great thing disappear. The warmth and the light have faded, the laughter sounds farther away, and memories become merely wistful stories…

Nov.09.00

No one knows what they’re fighting for

I’d like to ask people what they live for. What’s drives them to go on? Do they just live because it’s “what you do”?

Survivors of War fought and would have sacrificed their lives to fight, and now the ones that live, live for a purpose. They strive to inspire and to teach others to live, and to not take anything for granted. So few people are touched by what these people have done, and they say it’s impossible to understand because they’ve never seen a War, but it isn’t entirely about War. It is about not taking life for granted and living for something. It is about doing what is right and feeling.

I live for inspiration and my purpose is to inspire others and teach them to not take life for granted. I may not have been in a War, but I am a fighter for love and peace, and I encourage you to fight as well.

Oct.23.00

It isn’t the message; it is how you interpret the message.

Many sufferings in our societies have been created by misinterpretation of messages. Take, for example, communism. Originally the ideal system came from the theories and ideas of a German philosopher named Karl Marx. He co-wrote “the Communist’s Manifesto” and worked to encourage the practice of his system in some societies. After his death, a man named Joseph Stalin misinterpreted Marx’s incredible ideas, and therefore societies began to malpractice the system, which led to the destruction of many world societies.

My theory is that people are born with messages within them (which make us unique from each other). But because of messages instilled by society, conflicts between the two messages exist, and they are both misinterpreted. This is what causes people to act and react to situations. Often, because of conflicted messages, people tend to act or perform in particular ways and fight for things that they don’t entirely understand. Each individual is unique, and will therefore uniquely interpret information and act in different ways. This is where our conflicts are based and why it is impossible to achieve a harmonious global village.

Oct.11.00

Passion is like a strong scent that you smell from across the room. Use all of your power to find what's attached to it, and when you do, let it soak into your pores and absorb it into the depths of your mind and soul. I will spend my life bathing myself in that scent and smothering everything that is impure with the overwhelming fragrance of love, beauty and passion. I will wear it with pride and let it seep around corners and spill over onto others so that they too may feel the power that lies within this feeling. I live for my passion and I will die knowing that I sucked the bones of life dry, for everything that they are worth and I will take nothing with me to the grave, but the knowledge that it is in fact the truth.

Sept.14.00

I used to spend my days passing time like a train speeding by forgotten landscapes on it’s way to a better place. Up in the morning, down at night, around and around during the day. I would stare out windows and feel trapped inside the glass. I feel now that my train has let me off and I’ve chosen to travel the rest of my journey on foot. It’s better that way. I have time to stop and smell each rose petal and smile at each forgotten world. I have so much to live for now. What makes me completely high is speaking my mind. I love the sound of my voice in a big room. The glorious sound of silence during and afterward. Those eyes on me like I had just made a giant slit down the center of their phony backdrop world.

July.11.00

I sat on the ledge and looked down. It was never a question of feeling safe; I just wanted to feel free. Free and alive! I needed to unchain myself from my inhibitions. I knew the days behind me had gone, gone with the wind and with the dust kicked up by my own heels. I was almost ready to tread a new path, but there was still something lingering, a faint something. Like the smoke that wafts after a gun has been fired that changes the air and makes the action impossible to forget. I’m not sure if it was something that would go away on its own or if it needed convincing. All I knew is that in order to move on I had to get myself the hell away from it! I felt a draft against my bare feet as a dusty pick-up truck sailed by. I wondered if he could have even stopped if he tried. I watched him go over the hill and I watched the cloud of dust he left behind. I watched until it settled back into the dirt road, then there was no sign that the truck had ever been there. I wondered if people could be forgotten that quickly. As I pulled myself up through the window I tripped on the hem of my dress and almost tumbled off the ledge...

07.09.00

I pack my suitcase, carefully making sure I am not leaving anything behind. I look around the room. I need to get out of here. I cannot face another day waking up to the memories this town contained. Everything here reminded me of us. All I could think of were the days when we would just stay inside and make love for hours to the slow soft music that you would play on your stereo, or when we would curl up under your big blossoming apple tree and talk about our dreams of leaving the small town together. I lean into the tall heap of clothing I have been folding and begin to shake, not quite crying. It topples and I do nothing. Who could have known he would do it? I received the phone call from his mother the night it happened. She told me in a shaky voice, not yet wet with tears, before realization had set in. I closed my eyes and chuckled when she spoke; I could hear only the train in the distance, I strained to listen to what she was saying but could only hear the blaring sounds of an engine whistle pounding on my eardrums. I hung up, not remembering that she said I could come over to be with the family or that she read the letter he had left me or even that it wasn't my fault. I gave up on packing and lit a cigarette, but my tears put it out before I could even drag it to my lips...

May.28.00

People feel too many obligations. When the phone rings, people feel obliged to answer it. They feel that they must eat breakfast in the morning, put their t.v’s in the living room and their furniture along the walls of their rooms. People are programmed to do all of these things. It’s very unnatural when you think about it

May.25.00

I want to give the world something REAL. I want to show people beauty, hate, love, anger and sadness BARE. The way it really is! I want to deal with things that really matter, and not get caught up in fame or money or superficial materialism. I know it’s hard to avoid these things, but I’m sure as hell going to try. There are so many katrillions of things that I want to do. People say that I can’t do it all, but what is wrong with aiming that high? NOTHING! I’m a human being and do not feel limited by my age. It only means I have a fresh perspective and am not faltered by “reality.” I’m willing to take risks and learn from my experiences. I want my experiences to be as real as possible, and PLENTIFUL! I need love and support. What I don’t need are people who tell me I don’t have the world before me and that they’re aren’t unlimited possibilities. NEGATIVITY WON’T GET ANYONE SOMEWHERE!

Feb.18.00

I lay out in the field, grass tickling my back, smoking a tightly rolled joint and looking up at the starry sky. The tiny diamonds seemed to wink at me and I felt like the entire night was laughing behind my back. I could hear the sound of the jazz band playing at the other end of the field and had one of those far away feelings. I closed my eyes and took a long drag, holding in the smoke, inhaling deeply for almost a full minute, until the smoke tickling the back of my throat made me choke. I could sense someone coming towards me, entering my space and saw a shadow cast across the pool of moonlight shining on my bare belly. You didn’t say a word, just lay down beside me. I offered you a hit from my joint but you sighed and waved it away. I shrugged and brought it up to my lips. The band began to play an old favorite and the drunken crowd began to holler. I could feel you looking at me, but I just stared straight up at the sky where there was always something new to look at. I knew that if I were to look over at you I would see the same blue eyes and feel the same breath on my skin that I was so used to. I took another drag and burned my fingers. “Holy SHIT!” I threw it down and looked over at your eyes. In the moonlight they almost looked green…

January.31.00

Elvis droned in the background, Costello not Presley. I lifted my eyes to the fan above my head...it shook the ceiling and was psychedelic in the candlelight. I took a drag and watched the smoke circle over my head...I could smell the varnish on my freshly painted toenails...they sparkled iridescently. This was my favorite part in the song and I hummed along, not worrying about waking you. I figured you'd be awake by now anyway, the smell of the smoke was strong. "I won't refuse if you know how to use it Just stop playing that ugly drug music…" I chuckled as I flicked the butt out the open window onto the balcony. You stirred and I turned my attention towards your facial expression...while you slept you seemed to figure out everything that was wrong...that's why I trusted you. It seemed that you were sitting on top of the world and if I followed you around long enough I would reach that very same place. I was beginning to lose hope that I would amount to anything. And maybe I’d spend my life crawling around pathetically, getting high every night by myself.... I did it to forget...because for a while it made me feel better about who I was becoming. I was comforted by the fact that I was still pretty enough to score a gram off the corner for under the average price, just my lifting up my dress a little. "So tonight I'm drinking to your health. Because tonight I just can't stand myself" I smirked and scanned the floor looking for my Marlboros. You opened one eye and pointed with your toes to the empty pack lying on the floor. "Fuck" I said, reaching for my papers....

Dec.11.99

Life is full of illusions. I look at a person and the way they treat someone, and see only good. But then maybe with another, it's so easy to put them in a different light. I want to find the one who is perpetually basking in light. The one who doesn’t change with its scenery or company. Someday two faiths will collide and so much good will come from their meeting. One decision will be made and the two will bask eternally in each other’s light. I sometimes find it difficult to understand why people are even different from me. We were all born into this world, and we all feel the same things: Fear, hatred, joy, love, sadness. Each person interprets the world and the people in it in entirely unique ways. I suppose it is what makes us all very different. I wonder if many people are as proud as I am. I see all of the blessings around me and feel love and security in my own wisdom. I never fear that life will be worse, only better, because I am in total control. It would be ignorant of me to think that this could ever be a perfect world, but why can't we who were born with rights and free will decide for ourselves how life ought to be? Why must we fall into formation? I choose to freestyle and find freedom a far better comfort than the security of being like all of those who believe that life is a pattern to be repeated. It's not a stamp.... It’s a newly sharpened lead pencil, and paints! And colored ink.... And a beautiful pure white sheet of freedom! I will produce a work of art with mine...

Dec.01.99

The way she is about beauty.... It isn't about the clothes...or even the way she smiles.... Her every movement is beauty…The way she carelessly brushes her hair away from her eyes or just lets it fall over her bare shoulders...her lips are like two pale blossoms...every word spoken of pure poetry.... She draws me in, and then draws me out. Her words spike into my heart. Some days I just find it difficult to be in her presence. I want her to admire me as much as I admire her. I want her to look to me when she's alone, think about me when she's basking in light. I want to bask beside he. She’s so very beautiful, hers is almost impossible beauty...The way she treads lightly through the mud...not around it...the way she drinks her beer.... The way she laughs and smiles even when nothing is funny...the way she cares in that certain way...that no one would ever know.... It isn't possible to get inside her head...know what she is thinking. She is sacred.... She is beauty...she is my sister....

Nov.22.99

Without my dreams I would be lost. After a long day, after feeling everything start to crumble, all it takes is an evening of recluse…candles, soul music, a few words and a long nights sleep. These things entice my dreams. I fall into my deep sleep and I enter my world. It isn't perfect and is completely believable. That is what's so mysterious about dreams. They are so real! And they come from somewhere real. They HAVE to! How could something that wonderful not exist somewhere? My mind is full of beautiful things that should exist, and it's up to me to create this world! Oh it's a good world. It’s MY world and it will exist. I am determined. It is my PURPOSE! Oh sweet night come upon me and proclaim your intent! Tell me WHEN! Oh and WHERE! Just assure me that it is going to COME!

June.29.99

Sometimes the only thing someone needs to hear is 'you are beautiful' there is far more to beauty than the smile on your face or even the sound of your voice. Beauty is so deep. To me, beauty is more like a feeling. Beauty is the feeling I get when I feel a beautiful sunrise, or hear the racing thoughts of another. The way that people express themselves is what makes them beautiful. I would fall deeply in love with someone who expressed their beauty in ways that made other people feel good. Someone who would completely selflessly take the time out of their life to tell someone else why they are so beautiful. It takes courage to show your true beauty. It isn't something that you are born with, it is something that you find. I have been blesses in ways that help me feel my beauty. I found it by seeing other people kind hearts and without all of those gestures I would not be as happy as I am this day. It hurts me to see other people, wonderful people, feel ugly. I am deeply troubled to see that the people who have these negative feelings are often the ones who have the most inside of them, but don't realize it. I think that people who feel pain must truly be blessed to feel something this profound. People who are sad have opportunities to change! Others, who see themselves as perfect, leave no room for self-improvement and soul searching, but those other people have giant windows of opportunity to become the most beautiful people. The only difficulty is getting them to leap through that giant window. Whenever I am sad It helps me realize how precious life is because I have been given these deep feelings. I don't need anything but myself to experience life. I have the power to change anything I want, and if I believe in myself no one can stand in my way.

Sept.13.98

Sometimes I feel so fake. I walk around with a phony smile and laugh at jokes that aren't funny to me. I look at all of the people who surround me and I sneer. I hate the way the walk around looking so secure. They all know where they're going, why they’re here and who they are. I am always so uncertain of who I am and what I want. I don't often feel safe. I never feel like me. I want to be real to somebody. But not even I understand my existence. I have yet to discover why I am the way I am and how I want to be. I hate lying about everything but nothing at once. It's almost like I’ve created this character to entertain others. Every time I make an unnatural move I shake inside. I know I’m lying to myself. I am just as honest with everyone else as I am with myself. So many of my words are planned and the only time I ever feel truly free is when I am writing. My writing sets me free. I write from within. My words are carried from deep within my soul, from the place where I want to go. Solace...Please someone take me there...