Amongst all the new life
The joy
new beginnings
As I pivot
Desperate to not loose
The part of me that is you
I cry - I weep
At hearing of good news
Because I don't get to share these secrets with you
And I realize
And self hate
I forgot to mourn your death date.
Four years later seems appropriate to state. Fours years since my last post. And I can honestly say the writing damn near ceased. The life line run dry and now even as the trickles of the one thing that I have always needed starts to flow back through me, it feels like I am foal on slipper hooves. It's not graceful and it's a little forced at times. But the proactive nature is finally returning, purple rain is on the radio, blue in green is on the radio. I can no long dance with you in our bar to our songs, but in my mind’s eye I am there feeling your black T-shirt and beer belly again.
I severely underestimated the greif I knew so well growing up. Grief is on going, we do not stop. But this time, I lost that will and fire to be without. Through that I learned to not take for granted that instinct to pick up the pen to write a new note. To savor those moments to make room for them.
Four years later, I see despite my grief I still made work. But it took four years to see the projects, to see how they exist. These are things school does not teach you. Four years later I am on a train, feeling things I didn't want to feel anymore. My pen flying, my mind and paper in a dancers embrace, back and forth. I finally see the next thing, and it filled me to know yes, this is me, i like this feeling - welcome home.
Through walking and aloneness. While I have been quite quiet lately even though I have been writing volumes of letters to a person with no address anymore. It is curious how a city prompts self-consciousness, that a placed filled with busy people going about their lives most with even recall walking by you maybe. Somehow though here I feel the weight of the population. Walking used to make me disappear in many ways in the south, dispite the very known fact that everyone knew me as the girl who walks, an uncommon trait mainly because I walked alone.
Tonight I feel restless and yet more tired than I have been in a long time, I worry I am becoming depressed. I feel like I should be comfortable with my surroundings but my anticipation has been met with mediocrity. Three doors before me two are the same one is different. I feel I have laid before them in another life time. Towering over me. I have created a sanctuary in a shell here but it still doesn't change the fact I am trapped in my own making. I feel everything right now, excitement, overwhelmed, depression, loneliness, and most of all drifting. I reach out to touch something but there is nothing there, I am yet again not allowing myself to get close enough.
As I lay here in bed the air is heavy and wet, it feels like a hot summer in the city. I can feel my old bed hear my oscillating fan see the WWI memorial from my window. The windows are open I hear the sirens and cars below me, the smell of the hot concrete still lingers even after the sun has gone down. I lay here hot unable to sleep but find myself relishing in the moment of this sweet summer weather. I feel not of this place, the air is heavy with energy and hold the potential of magic. Tonight I feel something shifting.
The world has been feeling too large lately. My practice has been teetering as I remember how hard it is to create and to also sell my time to live. It is natural to have a death mark a major point in my life as it did when I was born. My emotions seem to be running unchecked this week as I prepare to go home for the first time in over a year, because I know as I get on that coastal plane it will be real that you are gone. That my parents are both orphans now, that I will be next, that it is just me. The mindset that has truely fucked my relationships with other people repeatedly. While being happy alone has become a scape goat for me to avoid what I have know for a very long time - that you will not last one way or another. That in time I or you will be alone again. That pain can be inflicted easier when one is in love. I don't believe love is a rare thing, I believe I have loved so many people and that is how it should be, to fill up with bubbles and to feel the energy of another human is not a rare act nor should it a demeaning thing either. I worry and care and feel for so many that I often wonder if that is our true nature, that singular love is a colonial idea. Today missiles fly to kill hundreds of soliders in Iran, the world is shifting, there is no love being preached. There seems to be no hope. This idea of lovelessness has been on my mind a lot lately, we are at a very comparable time to that of the 70s but unlike then there is no one singing of love, there is no last hope of the hippie movement, there is only plastic of the 2000s. The world wants us to feel pain, and in many ways it only seems right. I remember watching WWII movies and docs with my dad as a kid and I remember thinking I hope there is no war in my life time. I truely believed there was so much hope to come from the 90s but that's the problems with that early 90s and late 80s generation we were promised something that did not exist anymore. Leaving us questioning everything but stuck in ideas that we still have to work hard to live. Whereas the younger generation the idea of self care and love seem to radiate more naturally. We stand here in our compression socks on the 11th hour of our 9 hour shift that maybe they'll get it right because we don't have enough hope for ourselves let alone the world right now. What will the future see in our generation that we are missing, will they see us as broken, as weak, as forgotten, as beaten? We are all these but above all of them we are still here no matter how much it hurts.
silence.
As we roll through the northern hills and flats of Arizona passing through reservation as the sun goes down and the desert takes on it cool blue demeanor. I see the the soft sage brush warmed by the porch lights. These lights ring still as hopeful and as hopeless as I imagine a lantern lit would be back when this land was still being fought over. Hope warmth shelter; isolation struggle to trust. I don't exactly know why I feel so connected to this desert landscape, maybe it's because I'm reading Song of the Lark, maybe it's because it is just beautiful, or that I would dream about being a cowboy, that I just want to run away and feel the energy of the earth without hesitation, or is it because I can see the edge of the earth. Melding perfectly with the sky. I read somewhere there is a freedom in seeing this edge that we need this to full fill some deep human need to feel small. This land makes me want to fall in love, into a dangerous consuming love. My heart feels open here, I feel close to something...
I am sailing above the great American west now, I have never seen a landscape like this. It's rich, cracked and I feel Thea here. I look down and my mind is.rushing with the thoughts of cowboys and the southwest native Americans, watching the shadows of the clouds move with such distinction it makes my heart feel more than it has since living in the south. In looking at it from this high I can only think no wonder people needed this place so much. The land is warm and ancient and while it has past pains it does not hold them like the soil in the south. It regenerates I can feel it that energy from thousand miles above, its thrilling. I think of myself at 15 working the drive thru on third shift and taco Bell, my window faced west and I would often look out it and think I'll be on the other side of the sunset one of these days. That part of me is very happy that we are here finally. My soul is crying that finally there is a relief in my surrounding and I knew the south was making me hard and cold and spiteful but I had no idea how much until i saw those winding and twisting caverns of red. I wanna cry and I feel as though I will when I see Courtney in the airport both our winter's have been so hard and finally we will have relief together. Future Dana always spend the money to see your friends - always.
So I find my self asking what is the purpose of art.
It is ridiculed if it is made in a spiritual sense or god forbid aesthetic! Why is that?
It was once for the purpose, but now that is no longer allowed because of primitivism, so what’s the big fucking idea.
So.
We think, and we think until we cannot think, make, do, speak, love without a deeper understanding of our actions. So now you can’t complain because you have to acknowledge your privilege to be able to think -
But then you say, it was so much simpler then, but oh no
Because then you support the nuclear family or again primitivism…
So we thought and thought with nothing on our hands.
Because they are bound by our thinking - fucking pickle
And though - I have longed for the days of smoking by the river
I have begun to realize...I can’t have that again.
Is it fair to say that the elitist theory is too much about us for us to work within its parameters? And if I feel this way, what does it mean for those who had it worse than me?
This is where having -
No, making us validate ourselves with our tragedy comes in...to make us say we belong here not because of pedigree but because of our pain.
Our get out of poverty free card.
And then this makes me want to drink.
Forgive me if I am overgeneralizing here, I do not believe in the nuclear family nor the idea of primitivism.
I feel bound
By wanting to help and wanting to explain that I know what I feel in relation to how you might also feel.
I have been struggling with the idea that I moved to a place with the most violence, hate, and sorrow built into the soil, roads, homes - it's literally everywhere.
And no one really seems to notice, care or believe anymore.
It is only those far away generations that still care - funny how we hold onto this past self without any real hindsight.
I hate all of it, and I am human and miss all of it.
We really have made a terrible environment for ourselves.
I guess this might be where one talks about suicide...
But that has become a cliche in the art world.
Sad huh?
And around and around we go unable to define what is classic.
I dare ask, can anything be classic after 9 / 11?
What is classic? Is it that sweet moment of bliss before tragedy?
The weather reports in Hiroshima, August 1945
Clear blue skies, sunny - classic. Beautiful.
The bomb brings newness, new landscapes with the radiating regrowth of neon plants, new illness, pain, shadows.
and now nothing can be classic again.
We haven't made love in a while.
I look down at my body and all I see is the accident. All I see is time lost and efforts wasted. I know you still find me beautiful but I can only see me at 17. When I was complacent when he left me for the first time, unknowing. When I was weak physically and emotionally. All my hard work into being stronger lost. I am now soft , once again. I know you still find me beautiful, but I fell as though I will never be as strong as I once was. I want to be stronger but I can't even conceive a path, let alone clear one to achieve. We haven't made love in awhile but this time I know love isn't conditional.
I have recently been thinking about all these men that have come through my life, actually to be more specific two, two that I really have no real interest in reconnecting with but here I am thinking about them again. One crazy enough still the greatest love I ever had, by that I mean the passion and the pain. The other one is the could have been, seen through a distance of what maybe could have been. I have been feeling attached to my social media more than ever these last two weeks, and there they were - watching. Crazy how we can see now who is watching us, our life from afar. To both of these, I had no idea that either one followed me so to see their names hit me like a bolt of lightning. The great love is still hidden from me because I don’t believe I should rekindle that for mostly his sake. The other a complimentary follow back even though we haven’t talked in over 6 years. Both these men, now, showed me whatever it was I needed to push me toward going to college, and both were not a big part of that after I had moved.
This has got me thinking about the manic-pixie dream girl, the girl that gets the men to move forward in their lives. I have been such a girl, but I never saw it that way - just that I was a friend and I wanted the best for my friend's life, who happened to be a boy. So what are these men to me? Are they my manic-pixie dream boys? If you were to ask me that at any point of knowing them the answer would be no. Maybe they were, but this goes back to the idea that there is never a role where women nor men can interact with one another without falling into a trope, there isn’t one single character that doesn’t fall into a cliche use of the opposing gender. We are so stuck on this idea of using each other, and I have been no stranger to using the opposite gender as well, and for that all my loves I am deeply sorry. If anything the idea of a manic-pixie anything proves that the boxes we have generated for ourselves keep us from not only helping one another without pretense but also isolates us in the process. In film, everything is dependent on a binary system, problem - solution, bad - good, unhappy - happy. How could film function in a nonbinary way, not counting “art” films because they are not dependent on the narrative in most cases. It could be possible the best pop culture film that doesn’t follow a simple one-two would be Legends of the Fall. There is only the illusion of a solution, and isn’t that just real life? I guess that is the binary I always find myself in, to help or to just watch it all burn, thinking now about Randy, and his finger tattoos, I am what I am worm food. Don’t we all feel that way?
I know I have talked about the videos I want to shoot previously, where nothing happens, and there is some kind of soccer game that happens to make it kinda feel linear. Maybe that’s what I need to do. In terms of these two watchers, I don’t really know, they are there. In a lot of ways I have stopped fantasizing about silly notions of love and things that won't be, maybe that's sad, but it’s where I’m at, at this point. They only romanticizing I do listening take me back love songs. I have given these two men plenty of credit and possibly more than they deserve, but I am always thankful. Because one is the reason I believe so strongly in education and its reform, the other helped me realize that I should do more with my life than run away from my problems.
April 17th, 2017
I left your messages unopened. I saw them there filled with emotions that would twist my stomach, I left them there. When the second came all I saw was a mindless 'hey' but I couldn't bear to open it. I thought I never would so I deleted them, they sailed into the ether and I avoided more pain. I never understood your depression and now while battling mine I could not explain then...why I left them. I hurt too much anything as loaded as you could of sent me spiraling down again. And at last for a second I was feeling okay. I could not handle the why's or how's or it's not your faults, and I was too tired to lie and say I was doing good. I haven't been good in over a year. I wonder what followed your 'hey' I tried to find them maybe today...but like most things I made them sail away.
It's 5:45am you left about a half hour ago. I hate seeing you leave so early, because I worry about you riding to work. I roll over to your side as I hear you lock the door behind. It comforts but does not fill any void.
And for a second I felt it again, I felt that sweet breathe of air blown into my heart and I was lifted. Maybe it was purple rain, maybe it was hot summer night air, maybe it was the wind from driving fast in the passenger seat but there it was again. A feeling I only felt when I would enter Chicago but now I felt it here in the place I live. Maybe this means things will turn around maybe this means I did good today. As I look at the tungsten light reflex off of building and swing sets as we glide past I feel a bit of that hope that I'll be alright. But like I said maybe it was just purple rain.
May 6, 2016 8:57 pm
In order to be remembered one must be a painter or a sculptor and both of these are masculine so therefore women can't do that
April 24, 2016 10:16
There comes a point in someone's life when you realize that maybe you won't do anything really special with your life that it will just kind of fade out just like every other person around you. You like to think that yeah I'm gonna do something I'll be great, I'll make it, I swear I will, I swear I'll make it, but then there's a point when you're driving home and you kind of just realize that everything isn't going your way and maybe it never will. I don't believe in fate I think it's nonsense I rather like the illusion that I have choices in my life but the way the world is set up what choice do we really have in a caste class - but I don't like thinking that way today. If any of this was actually worth it but I think it's just because my car got towed and I got a medical bill I don't really have a good paying job even though I love my job I can't afford to live where I am at, graduating with nothing to show, really i'm very scared.
And then a saw a "yes, you can...badass" sticker and everything went at ease
May 11, 2016 6:28pm
I think of red velvet when I think of you
I think of all the hard times you went through
I think of all my sadness that has been
And I know it too shall end
It may not be by the end of the season
But I still can't think of a reason
To not keep going
Cause not even a fire
Kept you from creating
March 13, 2016
Isn't it lovely how interchangeable the word you is it can mean you or can meet anyone else it's subjective and objective at the same time anyone can plug in who they want and make it about themselves and enter into whatever I'm trying to say but it will always be you about you. for me you will never change no matter how hard I try to it will always be you.
March 24, 2016 8:16am
Reality TV is it really reality. It's not the reality for anyone, it's more like the real reality. Why should I have to make something that makes you feel like your life needs anything, because I mean in reality it probably wont. I want to make movies that are real bad maybe a shot in the course of the day and maybe do a few voiceovers at a soccer tournament so you can feel better about watching it but in the end nothing really happens and that's the point .Why should I have to entertain you, should just be happy with the fact that you're alive I mean come on what the hell do you want. I could, I have to, focus my life and when did we become so unhappy with just the ordinary real. Be happy with what we have been happy with all our days and if we are happy with the day, it'll be hard at first but in the end you'll just make life easier.