MY BODY HAS A LOT TO SAY

and it’s full of revelations

firstly being how right kat’s dance teacher is that if you want to write you have to first move. i switched up my body and my mind woke up. so full so sure.

it’s not that “everything happens for a reason.”
it’s that everything means something. (does it? me who loves nonsense, do i really believe that?) or maybe it’s more like nothing happens in a vacuum. everything is attached to something. but maybe everything does have meaning and if it seems like nonsense it’s because the riddle isn’t unscrambled yet? after all, we’re just the conduits.

driving along and thinking about the past, my past self. my happy list - the joy in simple things. picnics and mud and swings and dancing. just friends. those are all the real things. when did it get so bogged down? and when did i decide that my depression has always been eating me alive?? i mean it has but it’s not like i never enjoyed anything. i felt miserable in a cruel world that made me hate myself and makes people have to do horrible things to keep up with it. i was never actually the problem. i had so much passion and energy and i knew what was important!!! i’ve got to get that back.

and that was another revelation - all along six of cups. for months six of cups - good memories, childhood, family, roots, growth. i have to remember how to play. i have to get some of that child essence back. to be good and do good and CLOWN and remember how to be happy.

HARRY COULD ALMOST CRY AT THIS SIMPLE GIFT OF THE UNIVERSE.

i’ve been staring at it all along and i never really saw it. i’ve been saying yes yes i know and thinking it has to do with being home but now i see it’s about something i’m missing, or don’t have enough of, something essential. REMEMBERING TO PLAY. remembering to move. appreciating sensual experiences. i see now how i have to kill some of the adult learned bullshit to get back to a place where i felt better being a blank slate. (i’ve looked for that feeling so many places. sex, masochism, drinking, fire, internet, candy crush, dancing. playingggg and moving without myself is the best one. yeah?!)

i have to say thank you to the clown gods for being patient with me on this one. i’m sorry i had to ask so many times. i need to find a better way to process these tarot readings. through dance, maybe??? today i had the urge to get off after the reading, to be open and explode pleasure in the presence of the cards. i thought that would give them energy. obviously they don’t need it! i’m the one who needs the movement, the rhythm, the process!!!! to take it into my mind it has to come through my body. or vice versa.

is it a gift that the clown gods, the earth messengers, others, out there, are communicating with me? i guess they must talk to everyone like this, but not everyone listens (or knows how to). not trying to talk like i’m some great listener!! obviously i missed the six of cups message for months. (why haven’t they given up on me??) but i want to learn and i want to do better. better, bigger, harder, brighter magic. i want to make it good enough. i hope they’ll keep helping me understand how.

also side note i really need to get “brett” or whatever skeptical voice out of my head so that my thoughts stop getting distracted. ugh. at this point, how can i even doubt????

lost on the ride

i haven't been writing. that's no good. i think this adderall helps my brain to not be a pinball machine but instead i am constantly hyperfocusing (??) i don't know if that' sthe right word to use for what is happening. i'm forgetting that i put a string around my finger. i maybe lost hte string before it even got to my finger. oof. i'm getting lost in the internet ALL THE TIME. this week i made a bunch of internet IMPULSE BUYS which is a new thing that i've never really done and it was a little too easy. i'm trying to do some research, or what i am doing turns into research, but i am just amassing a bunch of links and articles that i have not read. it's all stuff that's very exciting to me, about clown and performance and activist art, but the deeper i go, the more overwhelmed i am. first of all, by the amount of information i've already gathered that i haven't touched, and second, by the sheer amount of people in this work. is this kinda why i fell off the train last year? when i realized there are thousands of clown troupes roving around the world, living my dream??
BUT REMEMBER - if them, why not me? don't forget that xmas revelation!!! that was a big one. if people are doing it, why can't i be one of them?? because i'm afraid of not being as good as them OR of not being original enough. it seemed like a better idea before i realized there were thousands of theatre clowns. BUT ALSO REMEMBER - as we learned from our trip to dell'arte, much of what these clowns are doing is not exciting to me. they're doing a different thing, they're on their own journey. that's why i keep coming back to POCHINKO and the CLOWN FARM and canada and i know i have to go there. i have to write to john, said donna. i have to call donna back. why am i avoiding these things???????? fear of failure, probably. goddamn that one.


i just got lost on a goodreads trail for like 30 or more minutes. what hte fuck. i didn't want to and i don't want to. i have nO SELF CONTORL!!!!!!

maybe tomorrow no beer is best.

today i was in an okay mood. not super happy persay but confident and ready. i beat myself up a lot for not being good enough at one thing or another - my memory is garbage for one thing. i can't seem to remember all the world things other people do. but i can remember my friends and my own personal history pretty well and that makes me feel very self involved. so last night, today, i was saying, so what?? maybe i can't remember that stuff because i'm not living in the same reality as everyone else and maybe there's nothing wrong with that. maybe that means i'm egotistical on some level but it doesn't mean i don't care. maybe i just need to embrace that i'm comfortable over here and i don't need to try to memorize all the same facts as everyone else just for the sake of conversation. maybe it's okay to make faces in the mirror and try to be in my wiggle body.

i had been excited about the concept of dell arte, then i looked again at the curriculum and the tuition and quickly became intimidated and overwhelmed. then i got settled into this new years mood and felt like so what? why should i be worried about having to perform something new every week and my ideas not being good enough? why am i already putting so much pressure on myself? can't i for once become some silly puddy? haven't i always known what to do? that i could do it bigger, better, more more more? i can see it so clearly sometimes. sometimes i forget, sometimes i remember i've already been doing it all along. i can be allowed to do more. i love to overdo it. i love to make people laugh. i love to be as stupid as i can. i love to forget and reinvent and remember and forget. i want to make it happen. i don't know what else i can do. if not me, then who??

and then and then it falls apart. i don't want to write it now bc writing the first part made me feel better and i want to hold that while i sleep. maybe tomorrow. maybe not. (short version - family is hard.)

jumble

let's be real. i have always been a feelings person. my strength comes from my empathetic side.

why has it been so hard for me to find my way ?

some of it i'm blaming on adhd. especially now that my head is more clear and i'm not so depressed i can see patterns better. i focus intensely on something or fixate on an idea for a few days and then move on, for whatever reason. i have not focused long enough to specialize in anything.
it's not only adhd of course but i think that definitely helps with the quickness and the forgetting. what do i do? even i don't know. but it means i'm good at hyperfocusing and concentrating super hard on one specific thing for an extended period of time - and then also being able to shift my focus quickly to something else. some of this maybe is just keen perception. i see all the things. i see the choices that make sense. (in simple logistical situations anyway. other times i'm a dolt.)

the point is.
the point is everything i already know but always forget.
i am a feelings person. i am an art oriented person.
i might be interested in things like sociology and herbal medicine and animal behavior but i have never had the drive to focus on those things long enough to really learn them. could i if i wanted to? sure but then i'd have to actually choose a thing. that is the hardest part.

but when i think about learning something like clown or performance or dance i am just sure i could do it. in terms of my excitement and my confidence i'm all in. it's only REAL WORLD garbage thoughts that crush me. i should be doing the other thing. the real thing.

HOW IS IT that i am still having this thought process even after being brought up on the value of art? how is it that my parents taught me that and yet they scoffed at every nonacademic artistic dream i ever had???? it's driving me bonkers that i'm just now realizing the full weight of this. i feel like other people's folks tend to swing one way or the other, like kat's parents consumed by their research or alice's music teacher folks. mine are some in between with my dad as collector/hobbyist who finally decided to try his hand at writing in his 50s, and my mama hinting at some vague dreams of writing or storytelling or some wisp of a memory of a dream so incomplete it is just dust, but still she's passing it off, urging us to write, to publish, to create, except no don't go to art school bc you need a job.

oh it's just a mess it's a muddle. like the world like all our brains.
and me always in the middle why ??
does everyone feel that they're here?
outside in the middle
not right. not center
caught between options until you're nothing

this must be what everyone feels.
but still for some reason everything is so hard for me. it all takes so much time. i can hardly get anything done. my days disappear. here i am still. driving my parents crazy. no more of a plan than i had in july. where did the time go? everyone tells me i'm doing so well, it's so good to take my time to heal properly, except my mama. why can't she let me do this ?

i'm up too late. at this rate i will want to skip the social shit tomorrow but i guess i'd better not. damn. rot.

library life

after a weekend of cooking my brain and losing my mind and crushing my body, i was terrified and panicked to start my new job. even at the library! even though i should've felt perfect, i was in a panic after not having had a "real" job for years (ever??)

last night i could hardly sleep, and when i did, i was woken up over and over by my nightmares -- sexual violence and terror and mundane garbage. in the last dream, around 6am, i had to get to work but i was stuck in south boston with thursday and time kept moving and we kept not catching each other to come back to baltimore.

but despite the lack of sleep, i felt motivated and capable all morning. in the shower, i realized i'd been humming "polly, put your kettle on," my literal get-it-done theme song back in austin. i knew i could do it all! i immediately put on some coffee, put together my outfit, and put my diva cup in a pot to boil WHICH I HAVEN'T USED IN A YEAR because i haven't cleaned it. what!!!!

i left the house an hour before my shift to pop into artifact for an egg-cheese-mushroom muffin and, let's face it, a soy latte. despite being there much longer than anticipated, i didn't feel too rushed on the half-hour commute and even though i'd never been there, i didn't feel too stressed about driving across baltimore. these skinny bumpy streets confuse me but somehow i'm learning just by being a passenger. my learning style is observation sponge, and even i don't know it's working till way down the road.



SO. revelations:

• libraries are always going to be comfortable, no matter what.
• librarians are awkward turtles and i don't have to be scared of them.
• i thrive in a service position!
• i love to help people!
• helping people makes me love people!
• i am capable of being confident!
• i believe i can accomplish things that regular people can. (fix my car, fix my life.)
• i believe i can still retain my sense of self and my weirdness while working a "normal" job.
• i think i can also stop smoking! i can! or at least cut way down.