sourface

i’m in such a sour mood i wrote a paragraph about my sour mood and then deleted it because i was disgusted with the content.

i need to eat something. i’m surprised that my rumbling tummy hasn’t sent word to my vascular system that it’s time for a migraine. still thirty minutes to go before i can pull into some nasty fast food place and order something out of desperation to keep from fainting from hypoglycemia. and i’m only half exaggerating.

i’m at the mercy of my metabolic system. it sucks. but when i try to rebel, lethargy and migraine ensue. my other option at this point is to walk in the heat to get a snack. not worth it in my book for two reasons. 1) women know that while surfing the crimson wave, going from sitting to standing too often can cause issues and i didn’t bring a sweater to tie around my waist if you catch my drift, and 2) it’s hot. it’s texas hot. and i’m hot natured.

i’ve given up on finishing my last task for the day. my blood sugar is low, i’m fuzzy brained, and i’m cranky. and i’m sullen. and i’m annoyed about being all of those things. i may be gritty with my friends which makes me not want to go on this Sex and the City Movie outing that i’ve allowed myself to get drawn into. the one good thing is that i will have an excuse to lash out irrationally if a particular girlfriend gives me a reason. i’m just begging for a reason. please give me just one reason to squish you with my thumb and give you the verbal thrashing of a lifetime.

…big sigh…most likely i will just fake cheerful, because i’m good at that. and i’m good at making people laugh so that they will say “heeheehee, same ol’ ________, her comedic timing is just impeccable” even when every word i say is motivated by disdain. i will likely make silly jokes. like always. and i will smile from ear to ear so that the dimple on my right cheek digs in extra far and people will be sure to see it. i will toss my long hair flippantly and laugh just as jovially as usual.

however, what i will do is lay low and try not to end up being the organizer/facilitator of the group. hopefully there is at least one controlling bitch there to take that roll on. hell, if there are two, it’ll just be that much more entertaining for me. i’m through being the diplomatic peacemaker/communicator. let the she-wolves tear each other to shreds for all i care.

hopefully my mood doesn’t end up permeating the group through my blackest black aura. everyone will need to stay at arms length, i think. NO GIRLY HUGS! …here i go. towards the certain demise of the evening.

unfocused flow

last friday before i left the ghost town that is our office during the summers, i lay down on the floor of the cramped file room with the door locked and the light out. at first i was hesitant and had to test just how dark the room would be without the flourescents on. afterall, i am afraid of the dark. after deciding that it was tolerable i went about the business of making myself comfortable.

the cool air had settled to the floor and once my eyes adjusted, i was comforted be the halo of light seeping through the spaces around the door. i grabbed two packaged-air cushions that our printer cartridge has been delivered in and propped them under my head. i’m easily pleased and physical comfort is often easy to achieve if one isn’t too picky. i slipped on my headphones, found the quietest music available on my ipod and allowed my arms and body to sink into the floor.

when my immediate atmosphere is settled, it only takes me a few moments to drift out. my mental imagery goes first on a wooden raft, huck and jim. then my thought process, jagged rocks distorting and stretching into smooth lines. then my physical body, dissolving sugar in water. it’s something i’ve been able to do since childhood. i stay still long enough to forget that i’m anything or anywhere but everwhere.

i started thinking about religion and spiritual traditions and the hesitancy that my peers seem to be faced with. gone are the days when young adults easily adopted the tradition they were passed through family. i feel i’ve been fortunate to have been exposed, mostly through my education, to many different types of spiritual traditions. everything i come across is lacking. of course, along with my education comes a degree of cynicism. the usual. and i look at each religion and see that the Jungian archetypes are present in each. i have an objective appreciation for other religions, much the way i can appreciate art. i used to read the sacred texts and let it all jumble together in my mind to attempt to make a full picture. but all i ever find is the weak semblance of certainty. and when i observe those who purport to lead others in those same teachings i get disgusted. themselves flawed in their understandings and passing along flawed teachings to hungry baby birds. my hypothesis is that everyone is on their own.

i pick and choose ideas along my way, mental activities and ideas that i find useful while discarding the rest. i can’t imagine putting all of my eggs in the basket of some individual in spandex sitting in a commercially owned complex thinking he or she is on the way to oneness. i shudder melodramatically at the thought. i also could never religiously dedicate one hour of my existence each week to listening to rote regurgitation and interpretation by a man who operates his institution like a business. my cynicism prevents me from staking much of myself in anything.

i’ve acquired a few valuable things. i don’t intend to explain my beliefs. i haven’t got the energy. but i like to draw as much water as i can from any well i visit. one exercise comes to me often, like habit.  when my mind is quiet. i probably learned it at some saturday morning chai and meditation class with every new age yuppy trying to heal their inner wounds through breathing and stretching. it just doesn’t seem fair to mix prozac and yoga. that’s cheating. digress. digress.

it was something to the effect of: welcome your thoughts and memories. thank each one for its emergence and send it off with a promise to return to it when it is time to process. i hated the instructions when i heard them, irritated even more so by the soporific monotone of the teacher. but being “open-minded” means you can’t have mean and sarcastic thoughts about what someone else is trying to teach you, so instead, i did what i always do. i took what i wanted and made it my own. i discarded the rest on the way out the door; a child picking the prettiest fruit from a suspicious tree and running away to tear it apart and examine its contents. what i took was this…

my thoughts collect. one at a time. silver lotus prayer lamps floating on the ganges. accumulating at the meanders. hopes and dreams, fears and regrets, precariously surrounded by the acrid waters of that ancient stream filled with the lost prayers, empty wishes, and bitter tears of countless hopefuls. do i send them away to be doused or do i embrace them and extinguish each flame with my own tender gesture?

impatience is my constant companion. agitated and awaiting the passage of the hours. the hours are the only thing in between me and eternity. my many worlds all converging. sometimes i don’t care to experience. the bombardment in the present with images of ifs and ares. i scold myself for the parallel paths i have taken, castigating myself simultaneously for the ones i have not. my many worlds always streaming side by side some as frothing rapids, others gently lapping over cobble, chiming with the allure of hope. and my woolfish hands are dropping stones into my pockets.

hello

i’ve been allowing my thoughts and emotions to pass unobstructed. it’s been a steady stream of both happy and troubling phases. and as i was cleaning out the space under my desk half an hour ago, something grabbed my ankle and i was pulled under a tidal wave of sadness. i didn’t see it coming and i wasn’t prepared for it in any way. i can’t communicate the weight of my sadness right now. it’s a chill that twinges my throat and expands to leaden my limbs. every faculty but sorrow is rendered numb. i can barely form thoughts that are intelligible to me. i’m unable to manipulate myself with logic and i know i’m in checkmate and i have to allow this to run its course.

just because i know what an anniversary reaction is and how it functions and that it will pass doesn’t make it any easier for me to be in its midst. me knowing that the images, memories, thoughts that are on perpetual replay are a normal part of this doesn’t make them less agonizing to a person with vivid and detailed memory. and when you add guilt to that bitter tonic, you forcefully poison yourself.

knowing that it’s normal for me to feel prostrate by my grief doesn’t make my throat burn any less when the tears threaten to trespass. knowing that in a few days, or even possible a few hours, i could feel perfectly fine does not help me to not want to curl up in a fetal position and dissolve into myself right now.

you can never forget the sinking feeling in your heart when you expect to see and hear a heartbeat and get neither. only an innocently curled up image of what should be a brief slumber. and the week of wait while you try to block out the reality of the proximity of death but force yourself to bear it because to ignore it is an indignity to a life that was. and trying not to put yourself in the position to be the one feeling life slip away. was there pain? was there fear? was there fight? and one friend has a baby that would be the same age. and two cousins have babies just a bit younger. and a friend gave birth this week. and another is just about to. and because i am knowledgeable, i am often approached about the ins and outs of new motherhood. it only serves to grind the millstone and i extend my advice as generously as possible, never betraying my lingering heartbreak.

and where one drop escapes the clouds, the rest follow close behind.

and you can never wipe out what you beheld as a child and you come to understand that your compassion for those who suffer comes only from having seen suffering. and in a brightly lit hospital room in my mind, seeing the great-uncle that claimed you as his granddaughter try to hide his face and pride as he coughed blood into a metal pan. and remembering the still and quiet moment when his apologetic eyes connected with yours while fretting aunts propped him up on pillows and served him useless cups of water. he had no way to extend comfort. shooed from the room by uncles, who themselves were unable to remain unaffected, and thinking ‘i can’t fix it.’

and you can never forget a father’s last tender kiss on the cheek the week before he is no longer able even to speak. even when he is only actually your aunt’s husband, irrelevant in heart ties. and thinking to yourself, ‘i want to wipe away the moisture he left behind on my face’ and coming to the sudden realization that no part of his physical being will exist for much longer and so you leave it to dry on your cheek. and you will always know that the last thing he ever said to you was that he loved you and it soon becomes the only thing you are able to conjure in his voice. and suddenly being aware that you are a floating child with a string of surrogates who pass in and out as quickly as winter shadows.

and i can play a song on repeat until it no longer incites any reaction. that’s what i will do with my memories and thoughts until the next monsoon. and i’ll re-order events on the timeline. they jumble together so frequently that it becomes difficult to distinguish between old grief and new.

sentient

i’m wired today. it’s a feeling of being strapped to a chair with a lightning storm raging through my synapses. it’s not a feeling of physical energy, but one of mental revving. soon as i release the brake, i’ll see what happens. peelout and lose control?

someone explain to me, please, humans give themselves all these stupid things to do EVERY SINGLE DAY. if someone could level with me without being exhaustive about using logic that sounds like a state farm commercial, i may very well listen and even accept that bureaucracy and materialism are really the laws of land and time. and why do i have to take a shower everyday?

sometimes i want to box my own ears. i was sitting at my desk today, clearing out some of the promotional crap that our supply sales lady brought by yesterday. i flipped through one of the brochures and peered superciliously down my nose at the variety of products. i was thinking “why the hell would anyone want a twin turbo label maker that gives you all this variety in the types of labels one can print? who are the pathetic sheep that actually think their silly desires for office efficiency justify the expenditure of resources?” and then i saw it. a cord organizer! a streamlined solution to the jungle of computer cords under my desk! oh look! it fits 6 cords to a unit! that means, if i get two, i could comfortably add a few more devices for use in my office area and i won’t have that unsightly mess of cords under my desk! …where no one can see them anyway… and they don’t hamper my ability to work efficiently… and…and… aw, shit (i’m from texas, so it comes out ‘awww sheeeit’), they got me…

i’m not generally a materialistic person. of course i like gadgets and gizmos a-plenty. whoosits and whatsits galore. just like anyone else, i like to have things i don’t need. i know don’t need the gazillion little grooming gadgets i’ve accumulated as a female living in western society. i don’t need the cumbersome appliances i own that curl and straighten and then damage my hair. i certainly don’t need the chemicals i slather all over my body from top to bottom just for the sake of…well, i don’t really know what sake. i can’t shake the feeling that i don’t need a table and chairs and chargers and placemats and matching chinawear for a family meal. and that i don’t need matching duvets and bed skirts to feel like anything in my life is complete. aesthetics are one thing. but i’ve seen quaint jungle villages on the discovery channel that have more charm than the carefully decorated homes i’ve been in ’round these parts. such a strange thing. and in spite of our comforts and luxuries, there is still void. void. big void.

my very anglocized christianized westernized and otherwized view of myself is that the physical body is a prison to be transcended and mastered for the after. on one metaphysical hand, this seems to be true to me. the soul resides in a conch. hold it up to your ear.

on my other metaphysical hand, the body is a wonderful gift. a vehicle to teach the anima within that physical limitations are also a truth. you honor the physical bodies who share this space. you honor the obvious along with the mysterious.

there’s a tree near the library on the campus where i work whose leaves i love to see shake in the wind. the leaves are thin and delicately veined and an odd oblong-ish shape. and because of a mineral deficiency in the soil around here (or so i was told by a co-worker that i asked about them), the top leaves and lower leaves vary in shade. so when the sun shines through them, they glow in a descending gradient. magnificent if you can catch it at just the right time of day. and if there’s a breeze, forget it. i get lost in daydream for at least a few moments. i pulled a leaf from the tree and placed it in my journal. i look at it carefully sometimes and i summon the image of that tree. that a simple pleasure like this would have such an impact on me is exhilarating. it means some part of me gets it.

god, i never seem to have a point.

respite

wheel keeps spinning, spindle humming

web grows to tangle itself

you hear the hum of a million miles of soul

traversed in an instant, too slow to see

the lode stumbling violently across the streambed

no respite

awaiting mercy from movement

an instant to alight on a moment

and be still

transcendent

perched on hidden peaks

hide and go seek and don’t find

“Would that love were something / Than a false slavery / To a god I don’t know / And to all the things that tempt me” - azam ali

all the things that tempt. the flesh, the mind, what does the soul do when it has no frame of time to reference, no task to perform, no means or ends to seek. what does it do when it simply is? “do”? “is”?

god, love, temptation, slavery

i drift in and out of an ambiguous understanding of time. i’m mostly grounded, firmly rooted in the natural forward movement of my life. but other times i meander. once and future. i find my sense of time is the most easily confused of my involuntary senses. if i disrespect that balance, i pay in bizarre currency. i don’t need my third eye pryed open for me, it does just fine when and how it pleases.

simply a madwoman.

i don’t know a god who operates in corporeal measures and mechanics. sit stand walk point wave breathe pivot

i don’t know a god that fits in my mind, god is something like…

the amalgam of material existence, down to the atom of physical form, human, natural, in conjunction with the spiritual, the emotional and psychological realities, the infinite space in which we are helpless but to spin in circle within circle. it is beyond the capacity to understand. we are unable even to conceptualize something as simple as the size of the earth because we have naught to compare it to. numbers and abstract equations representing its size don’t help me grasp it in my mind. beyond this, it is the most extravagant demonstration of impudence to think we can perceive the architect. the microcosm. the macrocosm.  i don’t desire to attain understanding. it is more natural to me to be always seeking.

love doesn’t allow for understanding. its core is elusive.

pain, pleasure

slave to all the things that tempt me… heiress to the temptations of the flesh. the mind and soul have worse temptations.

where my unjust anger tempts my soul to besot itself with unworthy causes causing my equilibirum to rock, my just anger cries out in protest to rebalance the pendulum. i don’t know where to go with this but out is better than nowhere.