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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Sine waves

Back to neutral ground again. Watching life from a safe distance. Was at the beach yesterday, enjoying the water, the life teeming around me, envious of the momentum. Small squeals, barks, water everywhere. Life for life's sake, thousands of sand dollars - why?
Ranges of parenting examples, some encouraging adventure, some entrenching fear. Older people frolicking in the water. Inspiring that.
Instead of rejoicing in the life spirit around, I feel it instead as failure as comparison and lacking. But it's not piercing as it can be. I guess reducing the negative also nullifies the highs. Gotta have a sine wave or nothing.
The sun feels good, the water assuages. Water is like that, the great mother - bolstering, suspending, reducing the weight of whatever we're carrying. My fears dissipate into the Pacific, their concentration reduced. Buoyed with soothing.

Then I come home.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Sister Wendy shaves her head - a poem

Hair to the front of her
Hair on her neck
Straight sides, curly back
Heifer...what the heck?

A life devoted to others
Saving them from bad choice
She answers the call from Cancer
"Take that" in her kindest voice

She'll give all her hair
She's done it once before
But this time she 'd better get
more sunscreen from the store

She looks good in hats
She looks good without
I wished she liked cats
But I digress...

All my sisters make me proud
My parents and brothers too
Sister Wendy shaved her head
To help others, so can you

You can help fight cancer too! Donate to cancer research through Wendy's site http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/Wendy.Bolt

Friday, July 2, 2010

Internal Forecast: Wallowing or Drowning

Self-fulfilling prophecies, I hate 'em. I've been feeling really flat, low this past week or so, much of what I talked about last time I think. I think I was hoping all this goodness would make me feel better about myself - guess not. I'm living in a fog of apathy with a slight chance of despair. I'm wondering what will it take - more faking till I finally believe? Is this what others do? Is it just that I am giving into the lowness, I'm not trying hard enough? Well, that's a yes because I don't even feel like trying. I think there are many many others who feel like me out there but they're just trying harder, are being braver. I am feeling very cowardly. There I've done it, made myself cry, so maybe I've hit the truth. I have this utter conviction that I am simply incapable, that I am broken beyond repair, that this is when you toss the model out. I am crying now so maybe I've just managed to get inside my own shell, breached my own defences. Did you know you can be your own double agent. I guess it's confusing wondering what side you're on. Edges blur, I still don't know why I cry, sadness, but will it ever stop? I have talked about almost everything I can think of, terrible things that have mostly happened to other people., I just happened to listen to them and try to offer compassion, I guess it was a trade off, they left feeling better (maybe just momentarily) but I took on the horror, the agony. It's emotional agony. I can betray berate myself for anything, even if nothing bad has actually happened. I think it's a way I try to feel powerful, it's so twisted, all I can say that feels like truth is that I just feel numb most of the time and some of the time, I feel very very sad and sometimes I feel happiness, so its possible, but it's just not that often and I really have no clue about where these happy times come from. They feel good, I want them, some people think people like just like being depressed, that I'm wallowing in it, I'm not wallowing I'm drowning. I think it's goo that I'm crying, at minimum it means I exist. I don't think people cry for no reason. But maybe my brain is just so completely miswired that there nothing to reason around it, there no pattern I can discern. i am able to talk, able to write this stream of whatever, but it mostly feels self-indulgent, which I judge as a negative behaviour - but maybe I need to , I need to get this poison out, I feel so toxic and I am making my body more toxic by not looking after my physical self, it seems part of me is bent on self-destruction, like little slices at a time, like it hurts at first then you get used to it and you stop noticing and all the while you're circling the drain.

I finally got my webpage up, I really like it so now I can apply for other submissions to other galleries, and I've got my resume up to snuff I think. Like I said, good stuff.

Wallowing implies will, drowning may not be a person's fault, maybe not so directly. I remember the things that pierced me. The things that feel like losses, the things I haven't found the way to process, integrate. I haven't found the will to move myself into a kinder place - I'm all about the martyring - I know there are many who have experienced, seen far worse than me and I feel ashamed to even to talking like this, like I have not earned the right. Yet I would say to another person that they have losses and that it is important to grieve them, that a person has a right to grieve. Grieving, crying removes those toxins from my system, cause right now I am feeling tired but less apathetic. So writing helps. It doesn't matter if anyone else reads it, these are my thoughts, they may not fit for anyone else, I need to do this for me not for the aim of helping anyone else, although if that happens I am glad.


Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Elliott Louis Gallery

Check out the Elliott Louis Gallery website

Balance Sucks and Sharp Relief Leaves a Mark

I think I've had a major crash, it's not that I'm feeling sad, just lifeless. No motivation. I think it's all the China excitement and also school finally ending. The bigger the high etc. I guess it will pass but I do want to keep making.

I've spent a great deal of my life attending school, maybe it's a safety net for me, I don't have to be an adult cause my status as a student protects me. This is when I feel so cowardly and immature. Everywhere I look I see people with all of these admirable accomplishments and at earlier ages. I guess it throws my perceived inadequacies (aka failures) into sharp relief.

Not sure what to do with myself today, hopefully I'll workout. I did finally venture into the facebook world, but I don't really know how well/long I'll keep involved. Blah.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Frog Will Never Get There and Chiclets

Hi. Haven't posted in a long time. Lots of really good things going on in my art world, so this is good. This is Ruth with my Swarm II in Beijing. She's an amazing woman. This is very thrilling!

I didn't take my meds last night (Clonazepam and wellbutrin [ironic name really - I'd like to have the job of naming some of these drugs]). And I guess there was some sleeping because there was plenty dreaming, couple times waking myself up by talking, waking up my partner with my talking.

I read a comment on my artwork - it said "no understanding of life" - I wondered if that was a mistranslation or if that was what the commenter really thought. There are many times when I certainly am baffled by this whole being alive thing. Being alive for the sake of being alive - part of me thinks that there must be a reason for everything, else why have it? But maybe there is no reason - finding a reason for things gives me comfort certainly, then I can exhale with relief and say ohhh, that's why, ok.

I'm weirded out with the good things happening - don't know what to make of it, trying to just be thankful and gracious - but these qualities are not innate to moi. Oh well.

I have decided - aka placed my hopes in - that some day someone will figure out how to undo the hardwiring to the amygdala that happens when a person experiences trauma. There are plenty smart people in the world, someone will do it. Go someone!

I am curious about happiness, are some people happy (as opposed to Meg Tilly's character's belief in The Big Chill)? Is it a conscious effort, a willing oneself to be at peace - is that the real work? I don't think it's possessions for sure - that's silly and external. Yet I believe it vital (as in life-giving, affirming) to witness oneself reflected in the world somehow, that there is a reason I guess. It's hard to see purpose in the many thousands of daily child deaths though - no way to reason around that. reality check.

Questions, discussions that have been ongoing since people became people. I think every being is getting more complex, smarter, more evolved I suppose. The logarithm of learning I guess. All the philosophers have been wrestling with these puzzlers for many millenia. Maybe I should read them more. I don't remember what they were saying when I read them over 18 years ago - sorry Philosophy prof. I wonder why the necessity for the big words, but maybe that just helps people get their thoughts down faster. I suppose it's quicker to write a 15 letter word than an entire sentence of regular-human speak. Just makes me, the dear reader, have to work harder with many interruptions to race to the dictionary. Of course I am a slower learner than I am a retainer so it's kind of like the frog-jumping-half-the-distance-each-time-puzzle: I never get there.

I am so well-defended against criticism - in my mind anyway - I am in a constant state of edit. Kind of a chickenshit (chicletshit!) approach to being in the world. Yet it is an impossible goal, there will always be negative and positive interpretations of me. One day I hope to learn that making mistakes will not kill me - but I remain afraid - not as much though I am pleased to say. And I think the combo of a slightly increased dose of Wellbutrin coupled with all manner of placebo affects and the good circumstances around me are all contributing. Overall I am indeed feeling better and I hope I will really feel and actually be contributing something positive to the world - gotta justify all this taking up space I'm doing!

Take care.