journal-03/30/01

03/30/01

I know there are so many parts inside of me-- so many components making up this whole me. Sometimes one or a few of those parts take over the rest-- a mood forms... Transforms me into a different version of the whole me.

But I'm still here. It's just that some of me is hidden away... some of me isn't visible, isn't tangible-- doesn't mean I've changed...

It just means I'm in a mood.

And tonight I do not want to talk to anyone.

My parents and I sat in the Mexican restaurant quietly, eating and watching, absorbing the world around us-- bare minimum conversation.

On nights like tonight-- it's more than effort just to speak. To talk-- because speaking is out of the question at this point.

I need to call some people. Friends-- friends I haven't talked to in months... friends I haven't talked to in days, in hours.

Not tonight-- it won't happen. Just moving this pen around on the page saps enough energy out of me, let alone verbal breath being pushed out of my mouth-- over the edge of my lips like boulders over the edge of mountains-- they're lost, the words, the instant they leave my warm mouth.

So I am content to resign myself here, listening to Sade (Lovers Rock) inhaling a candle called China Sea-- and I wonder if the sea really smells this way in China, and if it does than I want to be there.

I dream of places to be, I dream of people to be with-- and then it's too much effort and shruggingly (a new word?) I smirk and realize I just need to be alone.

And this is me, and I am alone, and I am content. Here, in my favorite gray knit pants and my favorite long sleeve white t-shirt and my gray socks and ponytail-- I am all me. My soul only has room for me tonight, no one else.

My cup runneth over with me.

Strange, isn't it? how sometimes we can't stand to be around anyone but ourselves, and sometimes that's nearly too much.

Nearly, but not quite.

Listen to the beat with me, groove-- hold this moment in the palm of your hand together because an instant from now it'll be gone forever, lost somewhere in the annals of memory, locked away and only partially retrieved as a faint experience-- broken up, not whole-- the parts not equaling what was once whole.

How do I save a piece of time? How do I hold onto it? Truth-- I can't. I can close my eyes and inhale so deeply as if to capture some molecules of my experience-- I smell it faintly later, flashback... I touch everything and try shoving tiny slips of paper or other important remnants deep into my pockets so I can pull them out next year-- discover-- place puzzle pieces together. I open my eyes wide, staring, memorizing-- filing away visual cues to recount the steps later-- digressing. I listen-- opening my ears grasping bits of music written just for me-- words interspersed that I'll remember forever (or die trying)...

Remembrance.

It is so fickle and so subjective. And so personal. Really, we write our own history in an effort to hold ourselves together, rewrite the past-- making it better or worse (at least more fantastic) as time passes...

You ask me if I'll write a novel--
I tell you, my novel isn't a novel at all-- it's truth, and it's stranger and more wonderful and desperate than fiction could hope to be. And just because of my perception, my reflection, my skewed memory, my tattered parcels and pieces of memory-- it is fiction.

At least, to a point.

(My life is the greatest novel I'll ever write...)

I write letters.

How much of myself do I give away in a letter? Probably more than I realize. That's ok. It's a dying art form. It's the most wonderful and personal form of communicating (with the possible exception of lying naked in bed intertwined in the body parts of the man I love while we spend the rainy afternoon perfecting the art of reading each other's minds).

(ha)

And really, when you're in love-- that's the only way you really care to spend a rainy afternoon.

When's the last time you were in love? I mean really head over heels. Have you ever? (If not, you should try it-- for all the risk and all the probability of pain-- there's nothing in the world more incredible. Really.) What do you remember loving the most about that person you so loved? Was there one specific thing? Or was it more a package deal? I'd go for the package-- that's what makes love so special-- you accept someone at face value, you love that person with all your heart.

No psychoanalysis please-- I'm not depressed or desperate or whatever-- I'm just in a thoughtful mood... and in case you've ever wondered, these are some of the things I think about when I feel like thinking a lot (and actually sharing those thoughts).

I am beautiful.

I am strange-- I know this. I don't try to hide it. What's the point in that? People don't understand that I have these moods and sometimes they last for longer than I'd like, moods where I'm just horrible about keeping in contact with the people I care about. It's very strange.

I am easily amused. I am easily bored. I smile easily. I cry easily. I am emotional.

So?

I enjoy watching the ink spread itself on a page when I write groups of letters-- words, sentences, paragraphs, epics. I watch the ink dry from this smooth-writing gel ink pen-- extra bold tip (just the way I like it). The words glow a little on the page-- they jump out, they have a life of their own, they tell a story... The way letters are formed-- writing in cursive or print or an inconsistent mesh of the two.

Mesh-- what a word. it describes fabric-- "it's mesh"... it describes the work relationship of co-workers-- "we mesh well"... it is action-- "he meshes with me"... it describes--

Bodies mesh--
belly fitting into the
small of my back,
hot genitals warming
my cool ass,
legs and arms confused--
which body belongs to whom?
It doesn't matter--
we're here,
we're alone,
together,
for the moment--
we are one.

(Resembling, or even replicating, a poem I wrote.. well a version of a poem I wrote about 1 1/2 years ago.. where is it... here)

When I think of who understands me, and who tries and who doesn't (and who succeeds and who doesn't) I imagine myself on a tiny Fijian island (because that's where I'd like to be right about now anyway)-- and although some people come close sometimes, the boat never quite comes ashore. Although a few have, but they have contained precious fish that have somehow always managed to wriggle out of my fishnet (Flaubert's Parrot again dammit!)

There are some fish that have only danced and played in my distant outer waters-- they've never come quite close enough to get any glimpse of the real me-- and I haven't seen much (if any) of the real "fish" either.

(Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water, drying up on the gritty sand-- throw me in, throw me back-- save me)

But there are a few fish who manage to leave such an impression in my waters that it seems they're always here.

And they are...

Sometimes just making it through the day is more than I can handle. Anyway, it's all I can handle.

And some days I feel INVINCIBLE. I can take on the world, do anything, be anyone, know everything-- but most days, it's somewhere in between invincible and fragile.

This is one of the best words describing that sort of mood. Fragile. Do you ever feel fragile? As if you're in the hands of someone careless and bored and you happen to be a porcelain China doll, and you're (all day) on the verge of being dropped, shattered into a million tiny shards-- and no one can repair that...

Fragile like a soufflé-- anyone who stomps in the kitchen will ruin you.

Deflated.

Fragile like the fine line of a tightrope-- don't lose your balance (today there's no net underneath)... don't make any sudden movements (the tight rope, drawn too tightly, snaps).

And then there are those fragile days, fragile moods, fragile moments that do their worst using the element of surprise-- little did you know you've been held in firm grasp of a bully all day and he's just waiting for the tiniest slant to CRUSH you with his giant fat thumb.

And then you've come undone.

(Understandably)

Somewhere, an angel's wing tears slightly when this happens...

You will mend... the human spirit is strongest when it is least expected (and most needed).

We do mend-- this is the miracle of being human.

Know your miracle. Realize it. Because although your miracle of life is thankfully far from perfect, it is yours. Your miracle.

(Miracles find us ever day... just open your eyes.)

And some people spend their whole lives with eyes clenched shut-- they miss so much and concentrate on what they don't have-- when will you realize that all you have is all you need? That all you do is enough, that all you are is enough because you are alive and that is a gift and you can make this life as good or as bad as your imagination and effort allows?

Realize. Accept. Act.

*whew*