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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.

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.

Naive thy name is Hammy

I have been advised that after all my rapturous robin-parenting praise earlier today, that maybe the eggs weren't being cared for, not incubated with warmth of either parent blah. I hope that I had just momentarily scared away the robin, but then there was no dive-bombing by said bird, no berating of said intruder (me).

I will hold out for a positive ending. I can't fathom birds who could abandon their young but then ultimately, it's about survival. She could make more eggs. This is a strange parallel to my own experience 3 yrs ago. My body stopped encouraging my fetus (embryo) to develop, I am guessing my body sensed there would be massive health problems with my baby and just shut down production (lots of contributing factors me being too old having a first child, me taking a cocktail of SSRIs and anti-anxiety meds). Maybe robin mama senses there is something wrong with her eggs - or all of our curiousity left them too human smelly. I hope not for the latter reason, I don't like to kill any living creature. I save spiders and woodbugs (I encounter many in the firewood) and wasps and bees and even those kind of mini-dinosaur-looking earwigs.

It's hard not to think that I was defective when my baby stopped developing. I still grieve this loss so much. I wonder. everywhere I look here are babies, there are mothers walking with their daughters, laughing. It would be so wonderful. But I am afraid. And selfish too I think. Yet I try to be loving to everyone I meet, especially children, to let them know that there is kindness in the world. All I want is kindness.

Why do I hurt so much?

How spears and arrows (but not slings, sorry Hamlet) were discovered

I'm awake again, it's very late or very early - one of those in-between states. Raining hard, windy. Not so windy on as Friday, we had gusts of I believe hurricane magnitude. Lots of trees down, day long power outage. So Saturday was cleanup and also start working on recovering my badly neglected garden. Lots of grass and weeds and very aggressive ground cover with poor boundaries. Lots of pulling, digging, shoveling and I even transplanted a struggling hydrangea, I think it will be much happier in its new home. I love dirt, ate some too, by an accident, I start off wearing gloves but then I just can't stand it, rip them off and start digging and rooting up stuff with my hands. Couple of significant slivers.

What was most impressive were the sticks that the wind had driven into the ground - the ground is soft what with all of the ran, however, they were in there 3 or 4 inches. Got me thinking that #1 - that would leave a mark ; and B) this was how cavepeople discovered a simple weapon. Spears!Then of course advances in killing technology introduced the arrow and its friend the bow - look at us now eh?

The other day we got 4 cords of wood for next winter, but because we were away so much we still had a good cord left in the wood shed. So I moved as much as I could into another area and my husband discovered a robin's nest high up in the back of the shed, no eggs though so we moved it outside. After the storm settled down somewhat we checked the nest and there was an egg in it(!!) and we had our generator all set up in the shed, quasi-noisy exhaust etc. and we were flummoxed because we didn't have a new shelter for the nest. Anyhow, we were saved as the power finally came back on (8pm) and he placed the nest back on top of the wood where he'd found it. Hoping mama would ignore our human smell and come back to roost. Well, she did indeed, yesterday when I was putting my favourite tools away (wheel barrow and assorted digging and cutting devices) I thought I would peak in and see if the egg was still there - well bless my britches there were 2 eggs now! Pretty freaking cool, very inspiring and reassuring- what a great mom. Can't wait for the spring flying school in the backyard.

The nest itself was a wonder of engineering and just trying to imagine the time and number of flights required to gather all of the materials blew my brain. It was soft straw inside, and moss with twiggy bits woven outside with an upper ring of MUD - how the hell do they do that with their little beaks and large weight ratios - its boggles it does. All for its children, how wonderful. So I got to thinking about parenting as humans, and wondering how we compare. I am not a parent, so I cannot really speak to this - but the singular devotion of the robin was very touching.

In many of my digging forays I uncovered worms o'plenty so the robins have plenty to feast upon. They need it. Bless all worms.

My SSRI was increased slightly last week, so far so good.

Hammy

I am to Toast as Altogether Morris is to Hammy Hamster.

I see a psychologist pretty often and it is a place of safety and trust. I talk, I cry a lot, and she shakes her head at my penchant for self-subversion. She is kind and insightful.

It wasn't shaping up to be a challenging day but then I got into the heavy duty stuff and I've been toast for the day. It's incredible how draining it is. Where is my frickin' cheese!

I love to sing, I sometimes still have hope/dream that I could be a singer in my own band, or just have a someone to accompany me. I love to perform and am a big hammy hamster. Altogether Morris is an inspiration for me, he doesn't care what people think, he just rolls out of his little cedar chip nestbed with his omnidirectional hair and plays his tiny little rodent heart out. Who the heck was the first person who discovered hamsters and guinea pigs? Oh yeah I was takin' a swig out of the local waterhole this morning and check out this little whisker, sniffy and chompin' action by the bullrushes, a gaggle of little furry potatoes that squeak. Might kinda put you off your starches.

I am tenuously hopeful that some day I can move through this deeply, deeply entrenched conviction that I must everyday, by my actions, earn the right to live. It's crazy that I believe this, when I have so much to be thankful for, so many reasons to live, people who love me in this world where billions of people scrap it out everyday just to live. I think I sound arrogant it's too easy to get caught up in this downward spiral. I want to feel grateful, to have a grateful heart, but instead the sadness, the guilt, consume me. I never feel I am doing enough, to help people. There are so many people in my life who are always helping others, being thoughtful, sensitive to others. I just get overwhelmed and freeze in inaction. I'd like to feel useful.

Yep, just another uplifting blog from yours truly.

Peace everyone.

Sleepus Interruptus and a Trickster Eye

Awake since 1:30 am. Mind full of things - don't know why I woke up but it's a WIDE awake.

I was initially pondering my "lazy" eye. And I just read a friend's blog about choice wrt to many many issues including our ethnicities. She is very wise and a much deeper thinker than I. Coincidentally another blog of someone dear to me (also wise and deep) was about choice, so I guess these things are gonna happen in threes.

My right eye likes its independence. It looks at whatever it wants whenever it wants. Only when I close my "good" eye do I see what my personal trickster has been up to. I know it's said many elsewheres that tricksters end up only fooling themselves, nonetheless, my Indy Eye just keeps on.

I should clarify, I also know what my prefers-to-be-a-cyclops eye is looking at when I receive all manner of looks - curious, quizzical, friendly waves, etc. - from people I didn't think I was looking at. Here's an example of how it gets me jumbled up aka tricked. I was at an Art Event a couple weeks back, talking with a friend and another classmate smiled and waved at me I thought "Ahhh Coyote Eye my clever friend - getting me into trouble"

I did not choose my wonky eye - strabismus did. My brain at the age of - oh, yeah, birth - was not a seasoned center of dispute resolution. Both eyes campaigned hard, but could not reach an agreement, so my brain, like King Solomon, chose instead. The right optic nerves perforce began what is close to a half-century work action. Kind of ironic really: right eye - work action (left-wing joke - sorry).

Living with this eye is an interesting adventure. Reportedly, it would work very well in someone else's head, a head with optic nerves o'plenty. Apparently the technology for a successful relocation does not exist yet? According to my eye doc anyway, but he's a big bag of himself and, I suspect, a stupey pants.

So depth perception is fun. When I knock over stuff (like my tea last night), drop stuff, run into stuff, try to grab something, drop a wheelbarrow on my forehead (it is possible), give myself a black eye - well guess what, sometimes it is not a success story. And what is even more interesting, some people have called me careless, accident prone. Yes, I find all kinds of tiny little bruises peppering my arms and legs (and head) from time to time (aka most days) and instead of a compassionate response, I don't know something like "you Ok?" I am instead greeted with shaking heads, stares of disbelief and a perception of me as a tainted specimen. A factory second as it were. Why do we most often go to a negative ascription of character when witnessing an action that falls even slightly outside the usual?

I did not choose this. In the big scheme of things it is not a dire issue, it is a minor flaw, I can't even bring myself to claim it as a disability. Still it has shaped me, my life, my interactions in this world.

What is a dire issue for example is the ubiquitous practice of raping of women that STILL goes ignored. I can even say it is a sanctioned even encouraged act of violence because it is so prevalent - someone must have said it was ok to do. It is a weapon of war. And this war is ultimately a war against women. I'm pretty certain this is not what women have chosen. But it is an act rooted in the objectification and commodification of women. So long as men see women as property, as an object, as less; rape will continue.

So, it finally dawns on me that in one of my favourite movies "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", said seven joyously sing a song about the Sabine women - a kind of older brother DIY instruction on how to get a wife. Seems to me that the Rape of the Sabine women was not a joyous event. I can't watch this movie anymore. It's so depressing and discouraging seeing how entrenched rape of women is, in this world. Course now the earth - mother earth - is being systematically raped, has been since "progress' (the noun).

So again, we make what difference we can. Teach our children to have respect for all peoples. Teach them alternatives to violence, give them, encourage, lots of choices. This is not what some people might call spoiling a child, it is instead part of nurturing. Nurturing compassion for and in a child (and in ourselves) makes our world a little less violent.