This is a short story about the long winter of night drives through the fog without signal. Waking up in a town too small for the interstate to pass through. Coffee and thick sweaters, tinny country music playing on the radio. You look out the window because there is not much to say. It might be time to get back on the road.
THE VALUE OF LOOKING BACK
It is a hobby of mine to periodically go through photos I took years ago and never edited or used in any way. Usually at the time I just thought I did not get a good shot. Or maybe I selected one from a group of fifty or so and thought nothing more of the rest. I find the process of reevaluating the raw images at face value and ignoring what my original intention for the shoot was gives me some insight on my shooting process. Too, I think when I am not looking for anything specific that I find a very striking photo or two that all this time later can be edited and added to my portfolio. As though it is from a totally new shoot. It is really fun to take old images in a completely new direction. It is fun to see how my style is changed. It is fun to give new life to the ignored.
Bitter Zine
I would here like to take a break from my usual vague forlorn posts about things long in the past. So much of my artwork is about the ways humans hurt one another physically and emotionally. Those who go through trauma do not finish suffering after the last blow is dealt or the abuser exits. Those words and actions live with us. Those scars maybe never fully heal. While I strive to be more than my trauma, I know that it is part of me and a burden that both I and my loved ones must deal with.
It is baggage that makes it harder for me to approach others. For fear of being hurt like that again. And it makes others less keen on getting close to me. It is true what they say about damaged goods.
So, today I want to celebrate artists who support one another and champion one another. Those who proudly say that you can be valid and damaged. I got the opportunity to have my work featured on the cover of an artist run magazine called Bitter Zine. This magazine broaches topics of mental illness and recognizes the worth in artists who may not have elsewhere been given a voice.
Today I am grateful.
ACCEPTING
You always used to tell me that maybe I need to get comfortable with the idea of being alone. You said I should try to spend more time in silence not talking to or needing anyone.
All this time later and I am finally taking your advice.
It hurts to let go. The quiet can be really lonely. But I remember every word you ever said to me. I have started to withdraw. Maybe more than you meant. Maybe from everyone all together. Maybe I have realized solitude is easier anyway.
There are people who used to want to talk to me every day. I do not speak to them anymore.
I DO NOT FORGIVE YOU
I do not forgive you.
I do not forgive you.
I do not forgive you.
GHOSTING
Here is to packing up and leaving home. Here is to going three thousand miles away from anyone you know. Here is to starting over. Here is to being a stranger again. Here is to being alone even if it is terrifying.
Here is to deciding that you are no longer afraid.
UNABLE TO SPEAK
You are far away. You are long ago. Your memory is hazy and sideways. Who you were in my life is melting away from me. I think maybe I am starting to forget your face, but then I picture the wrinkles you get around your eyes when you laugh.
Sometimes I still listen to that song you for sang for me.
I can’t quite get through it. It is all I have left of your voice now. You can’t talk to me anymore. You don’t look to me anymore. So now I picture you with your eyes closed.
I always picture you laughing.
PERFECT MIRACLE
You told me that you still think I am wonderful that last day you ever saw me.
I am pretty sure I will think about that for the rest of my life.
THERE IS NO HOME
It was you.
It was the time we spent dancing slowly to christmas music in front of the fake fire on the TV.
It was you.
When we whispered to one another in the moonlight fingers entwined.
I pretended I was strong though I was broken. You told me that you would take care of me. That there would be struggles but none that I would have to handle alone. But I have learned the hard way that when I am hurting that no one is coming to save me. No matter how many times they say that they can and will.
It was your house, not mine. I only had a small duffel bag. But you made it feel as though we had lived there for years. You sat on the roof to eat grapes with me even though you were scared. We stayed up all night talking. Didn’t even realize until the sunlight began to come in through the blinds. It was your apartment.
But with you I was home.
I WANT TO GO HOME
I moved again. I dragged my mattress to the curb. I swept the floors. I scrubbed any trace of myself from the bathtub and the sinks. I walked back into my empty room. My footsteps were the only sound. The house is not mine. The house never was mine. I sat on the wooden floor and watched the sun go down outside. The light faded like any remnants of memories I had made here. I waited to feel some nostalgia, warm feelings for this clean quiet apartment. But it just felt like any other place I had been. And I was sitting alone on the floor of an empty house. It was time to go.
I left my key in the mailbox on the way out.
BABY
When you are a teen they tell you that you are too young to know love. They say the first relationships do not count. How could you possibly know true emotion when you yourself are so tempestuous and yet so naive. But as you grow older you become marred by unrequited feelings and messy ends to messy affairs. Relationships become more hesitant and less hopeful. One does not want to give it labels. The other does not want to open up for fear of being vulnerable to yet another who will run away in the end. Grandiose gestures and all night phone calls of youth turn into quiet comfortable dinners and a movie. Perhaps coffee. It is all smiles and saying the right thing at the right moment. Both parties know the rhythm of what they should do and what is expected. It seems all right. It could be secure.
But in all the polite text messages sent soon enough to show interest but not so soon as to exude desperation, the thrill of young love is lost. Both will forever wonder if they had just met that first love a little later. Maybe if they were not so young and foolish. Could it possibly have blossomed? These pressing thoughts leave a distance between the new couple. Because it is impossible to know how you would interact with the same people if you were different.
WHISPERS
The night always brought nightmares with it. It was as sure to me as that the one word contained the other. They went together. My eyelids would grow heavy, and the midnight monsters would begin to rear their ugly heads, though I was not quite asleep. I always have had dreams of being stabbed through the back in the gloom. I am never quite able to see the assailant. But in that darkness as sleep approaches, I can feel him.
Lurking.
Ready.
A habit I picked up as a child was to shake myself loose from the dreams.I would force myself to stand, wrap my blanket around my shoulders, and pad to the window. I find the gathering dawn to be comforting. The even light sopping up the deep shadows. The habit progressed in my teen years, I would leave my house, closing the door softly behind me. Then, barefoot, I would walk through the silent neighborhood alone. The delicate dew and empty streets in the blue dawn would remind me that there is no one lying in wait to hurt us. I would venture to the top of a hill, knowing nothing hid behind the trees. There, with grass under my feet, I would greet the sunrise and watch the world wake.
I liked that the darkness faded into normality.
IDENTITY
There is never much to say by this point. I think there is beauty in brevity. I find myself at a loss wondering if there is a simple way to take art from an abstract vision to a realized piece to a number in a bank account that lets it become my day job. Maybe it is getting it in front of eyes and off my hard drive.
LIFE
All we are given is time. The amount is indefinite but finite. All the afternoons we choose to lie in bed are us spending the limited currency of existence on something unexciting and forgettable. Nothing gained. I wonder when the signs of aging catch up and we become discontent with just being. I do not want to be complacent. Right now is all we have.
THE LONG SILENCE
Does it always feel like I am running away?
Big changes are on their way.
BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS
We had a fight in the car as it wound on the back roads through the mountains. You yelled, and I turned away to look out of the window sullenly as the trees flicked past and blurred into one another. We pulled into a dirt lot bristling from the exchange. Took turns apologizing despite how sorry we actually were. Neither of us slammed the door. Neither spoke either. Side by side we walked up the trail, silently but not uncomfortably.
By the end of the hike we were laughing and holding hands once more. The earlier disagreement forgotten. We took silly photos and picked wildflowers to put in a vase on our kitchen table. On the ride back I drifted off as I happily gazed at the same trees as before. I remember thinking in the fringes right before sleep that I could gladly spend forever next to you.
SMOTHER
When I was a little girl she took me aside and told me that no one would ever love me. She said I would crush all of those that I knew. She said it was a flaw to be kind when it was to the point that you suffocated those who were subjected to the kindness. It was obvious that my affection should be more delicate. When someone picks up a leaf they must grasp it tightly enough that it does not fly away with the wind. But they also must hold it loosely enough that it is not crumbled in their clenched fist.
To this day she has proven to be correct over and over. I give too much of myself. I love too fiercely. And so when I open my hand there are just pieces.
I am sorry if I smothered you.
I LEFT BECAUSE YOU DEPRESSED ME.
He said "Don't call me when you are crying."
I think about those words every day.
The catch of his breath as he hung up on me.
GOOD THINGS TO COME
I always talk about running away. I always want to escape. Talk about the greener pastures, the places to see. I still want all of that too, I am sure. But finally I have a way out and I have reasons to stay. You need to realize, I guess that it is the people in our lives who are the best thing to see.
Hold them close while you have them.
HOMEWARD
He said "Nostalgia is a dirty liar that insists that things were better than they seemed."
And he was right.
