So here it goes, I’m just going to freely write in the way that I write shit down with ink in hand against recycled paper without predetermined lines in a leather bound notebook.
I write every day in a personal journal. I usually draw something every day too. I do this the old fashion way, like I mentioned above. It’s always been a way for me to somewhat make sense of what is inside my head, by seeing it all laid out before me. I am visually engaged, I like to see things and touch them. I am excellent at drawing. I have lots of practice. I really have been drawing almost every day for over two decades. I paint too. Not as often. I also make clothes and alter almost everything I have that I didn’t make, and my most recent endeavors have been in the realm of furniture restorations and up-cycling. My favorite piece of furniture that I have is a vanity from the 50’s that now stands in my bedroom in a brightly colored magenta. I would eventually like to show some of these things I’ve been making to people, but I am still working on being comfortable with that. Since I see all of the things I make as extensions of myself, I’m slowing preparing myself for accepting the criticism I will receive once people are able to see these parts of me.
I started this blog almost a year ago. I deleted everything before August though, before I told any of you I was doing this. Before, it was much in the format I’m presenting to you today. I started this blog because I got hooked on reading yours perhaps and a lot of other ones when my body was unfortunately not working properly at all for the first half of this last year, due to a car crash. That crash changed my whole life and I am really starting to be aware of some of the ways that it has. For much of this year I was pretty immobile because of injuries I had sustained. I could not wear pants at all comfortably until a few months ago. My left hip is entirely fucked up and I have scar tissue all over creating tension and pain when I wear any sort of fabric directly against it, hence pants and their waistbands. In turn I started wearing dresses as my uniform. I still wear dresses most of the time, because pants still bother me if I sit down in them for more than a few minutes. Not that I have ever been one to sit down for long periods of time too often. If you know me and see me out and about, I’m hardly ever sitting down. I’m energetic and I like to move around and be constantly stimulated. (I am currently standing while I type this.) So when I was unable to move around I spent so much time lying in bed with my computer in my lap discovering all sorts of sites and pages across the interwebs that I never would have stumbled upon had my whole life not stumbled into the direction it had. I had stumbled into a new sort of inspiration, the sort of inspiration that prompted me to create my own space for others to stumble upon.
I had never been the kind of person to ask for help. I could always do it myself. I know that I am often perceived as whimsical, or fluttery, or even aloof, but I have always planned everything, sometimes years in advance. A year ago today, I was quite certain where my life would be two years from now. Now, I have no idea what next month will bring. I have had to ask for help. I have had to rely on other people. This has proved quite difficult for me. This has made me feel quite inadequate. Although, I did realized how resourceful I could be. Too bad I don’t have photographic evidence of the sling contraption I created that I needed to use in order to use the toilet without assistance. When you need help to urinate, a normal bodily function that you had always performed numerous times a day with ease, of course the feelings of inadequacy will naturally overcome you. I couldn’t feel like complete shit about my situation though, I wasn’t dead, I was remarkably not dead and I was coming to find that there are people in my life that will assist me in life if need be. I have also come to find that there are amazing people in my life that have just offered to help me with things, whether it be picking up items I needed, taking me to doctor appointments or just getting me out of the house for awhile.
In a lot of ways I do feel like I died last winter. Well the life I had been living died last winter. I have had to start over. It was so forced too, thousands of pounds of pressure, spinning around in a crush of metal, blood and bruises, and the destruction of many things I had once believed were essential to living at all. I had to start over. I had to literally learn how to walk again. I still limp half the time too, but I’m walking without the use of a handmade craft or a cane or anything else like that. Now thinking about it, it’s incredible to be so mindful of each and every step I’m taking it. It’s unavoidable really; I feel every step I’m taking in my hip and some other places with a pulling, poking, and stinging awareness. I can no longer coast and glide through my days with the thought of a three years away goal propelling me. I have to really live my moments, there is really no way around feeling completely connected to right now when I’m completely conscious of even how my clothes feel on my body.
So I didn’t pay off a five year car loan in half the time like I had planned to three years ago, and I didn’t move into my very own condo where there are no one else’s dirty dishes left in the sink but mine, and I didn’t start circus aerial arts school either this year. I didn’t do any of the things I had planned to do this year. As much as I think that it is unfair that a dude could just drive the wrong way down a major freeway and fuck up the flow of my carefully planned life, I am grateful to even have this new life and a new perspective about life.
Originally I was going to rant on about Christmas. After all it is Christmas. I was going to say how much I loathe today. I don’t loathe today, today. Christmas time does make me feel depressed though. I feel a little depressed today. When I was a little kid Christmas was fun. There were presents that I was anxiously hoping for, and I got most of the toys I wanted. Now that I am older it’s not fun for that reason anymore.
I love my family, and I even like them most of the time, but most of my extended family lives in Chicago and my immediate family hasn’t made a holiday visit to that part of the country in over twenty years. So I don’t have the excitement of seeing all these people together in one place. Shit, all my cousins have multiple kids now and I don’t think I know half of their kid’s names. I did plan to go down there over the summer and reconnect with all the relatives, but without a car and a secure income that didn’t happen.
Christmas also falls right after my Dad’s birthday and my nieces birthday, so it’s not super exciting to spend the day with my parents and my siblings and their kids when I just saw them all together last week and the week before. I do like spending time with my family and it is nice to see them all at once three times in one month and a couple weeks before that for Thanksgiving dinner, but you see, no magic and wonder because that was fulfilled over the last month already. When it does come to exchanging gifts with my family, well it’s not surprising. We tell each other exactly what we want to get and then we go out and wait in long holiday lines and buy the items requested. I don’t know why we bother putting them in gift bags or wrapping them in red and green paper. I see it as a waste of trees and water. I mean, when I purchase something at a store, the cashier usually places the item in a bag for easier handling while you walking through the mass of people. What’s wrong with the bag it comes in? I mean, we always place a gift receipt in the bag so it’s evident where it came from, no surprise there either. I guess its fun for the kids though; my nephew and my nieces are pretty great kids with lots of character and they’re entertaining to watch most of the time.
I have no cookie baking traditions; we don’t drive around and look at houses with decked out light displays. I have never been to the Holidazzle Parade or midnight mass. When I do pass houses during this season with yard ornaments aglow and streams of light framing the structure of abodes, I think how much more their electric bill is this month, and what good could be done with all the light money to help other people, by like feeding those who are down on luck or giving gifts to kids who don’t have anyone in their lives to get gifts from. If this season really is about compassion and giving, well, I see a lot of brightly colored displays that are not totally displaying that. This depresses me.
Oh, and Christmas to me has never been about Jesus or anything like that. My parents were raised Catholic so that has something to do with why I was taught to put up a synthetic tree and decorate it with a collection of ornaments and that gold chain with all the butterflies I remember. I also remember these little pixie fairy ornaments we had that were like little dolls with felt covered wire limbs and they were all holding gold spray painted instruments. There were four of them and each was a different color. I used to get excited about digging them out of the box and playing with them.
So what happened to make me ever loathe this day and feel depressed about it? I probably shouldn’t logically feel this way. I have all the essential parts in play to have a nice Christmas, and this day is often nicer than a lot of the other days I experience. I guess knowledge and awareness and growth happened. I believe very much in science and study all sorts of aspects of it.
Another thing about me, since I’m telling you things about me, I read everything. Well obviously I have not read everything, but if there is something to read in front of me, I read it, then I check their sources and I read them too, and then check their sources and so on. I like to learn and know as much as I can about anything and everything I can.
Another reason I started this blog, that is much more evident, I like cool stuff and music. I thought this would be an easy way to document that sort of stuff. Like I’ll remember an awesome video and how the song goes, but I’ll totally forget the name of the band or some other element that would hinder me finding it again. So copy and paste and a little note about it have seemed to work for me.
So like I do when I write with a pen on paper instead of typing, I just stop writing when I feel like stopping.
Here is a picture from the
Godiva store in Tokyo designed by the creative firm
Wonderwall.
