Scarlet Pimpernel

I seek it everywhere, everyday. My own Scarlet Pimpernel, the message, the armot-piercing bullet that passses through my kevlar defense - love, you are worthy Kelly, you can feel peace, you can feel happiness. So far, no response, a voice and ear straining for the slightest sound. I fear it is too late, kind words made me saddder, praise slides off unabsorbed. My kevlar - undeterred - thickens. I feel bad.

I need just to plug into this thing and have it identify, assess, translate all these feelings, it's a big mess in there, anger, sadness, despair, hate, for starters. but not love, just ugliness. My spirit rises only to be crushed under a tiny, ridiculous bootheel. For a few moments there was happiness, a sense of accomplishment, som hope, hey it's gonna be ok. No as it turns out.  it will never be.

Talisman

It's been a stormy stormy day here on the east coast of Vancouver Island. It's been even stormier inside my head. Years ago I opened a fortune cookie and read "your path will be long and difficult but you will be greatly rewarded".

Silly I guess, but I held on to it for years, kept on my various desk blotters, even since Victoria I think. It came with me to Petawawa and back to Comox. I  saw it as a beacon of hope, a talisman to keep me grounded I suppose.  For so long now the first part of it has proved true so I reasoned the second shall eventually come to fruition as well. Hence the hopeful bit.

I often think about what a "great reward" could be, what it might entail. I know my desire forf ame is in fact my desire to feel worthy of this life I have been given. There are many kinds of rewards: the obvious ones money, job satisfaction, a thank you, a smile. There are as many things that feel rewarding as there are people on this planet I suppose. Many guises, ones that are obvious and ones that reveal themselves later.

I have recently experienced a disappointment of  spirit-crushing potential and am trying very hard to see through to the second part of it as well. It's very challenging. And it's about all I can say for now.

Creeping Forward

A nice morning, frosty, slippery on the deck. Gto some firewood, fed the dog. He has had his morning in and out puts. He's 13 months (almost) but increasingly dog vice puppylike in his shape, demeanour, maturity, it's encouraging. I still fear him but then that is no surprise as I fear most things.We're going to Vancouver this weekend to install my commission finally and I am very nervous, it woke me up early pondering various things. I hope it goes well, I hope I don't get all angsty but I probably will. I hope I come up with other ideas too. I liked school for it's creative atmosphere, sparking off one another, perhaps a class would help. I am isolating myself, telling myself it's the dog, feeling even guiltier if I leave my husband to it. Hoping I'm moving, creeping forward. It's all I can ask really.  To live my dream, be an artist, notice the world. Show the world my version of it.

7 Billion Weak

There's so much hate in the world, it's a poisonous noxious substance permeating everything , I think perhaps the worst poison afflicting our environment, the most harmful to our ecosystem(s), because of quiescence hatred incites, the wilful ignorance, the hurt at the root of all this malice and ignor-ing. We are all capable of acts of viciousness and equally of breathtaking compassion. Some say it is harder to choose to be kind, but someone recently suggested to me that the harder path is to respond in hatred because of the long-term impact and deleterious health consequences. That gave me pause. Yet still we go to what we know, and if our lives have been infused with lethal words and acts, vice love, there really is no surprise what many of us choose. We most often go with the immediate gratification, or at least it seems to me, the action, the behaviour that gets us what we want in that split second, it is in the rest of the second that our remorse sets in and if the remorse is too big, then in justification and hatred seeps and is nourished and nurtured and blossoms. And today the earth is 7 billion weak.

Animals shake, we jackhammer

what to write. Probably need to, probably in one of those cemented states that needs a little emotional jackhammering to loosen things up. Animals shake after heavy stress aka just escaped the predator, so  that explains why exercise, of the vigorous nature does the trick. dancing, jumping running, fast walking, had a faster walk this morning courtesy of a neighbour who is becoming friendlier towards me, trust builds slowly sometimes, if at all. Me, I remain uncertain as to whether I trust anyone, not completely, I don't think that's a reality (or should be) for anyone, or maybe that's just a sad statement about me. I was breached far too early and far too completely to trust I think. Then when the steady erosion continues what is there left, a loss of trust in myself. I don't trust myself, emotions when I let myself register them are suspect. Who I am drawn to, suspect, just like Groucho Marx, it's amazing how powerful, how innate it seems, just like breath, except that I breathhold, and didn't know it for so long, discovered only when I learned to scuba dive when i kept returning from dives with so much more air left in my tanks, that it stood out. Then I met another breathholder and voila mutual validation. That was at the same workshop wherein I learned that my boundaries were so rigid I didn't allow anyone even close, I kept people not just at bay but an entire ocean's worth away. I still do. This morning a fellow dog owner invited me to join a group on a trip to a nice local beach , a place Strider loves to go (I do too in fact) my first response, of course, fear, and an internal silent scream - no, don't ask me. Is it the fear of expectations? Not just fearing I'll not live up to them (that seems to me a given, that I am disappointment perpetuity personified), but fearing there just might be some, of me. Yeesh. Fear of fear of fear really after all.

Writing helps, I say again, writing helps (old radio lingo habit, cause "repeat" means to fire again).

Effexor still ok, also believe the new vitamin regimen is assisting.