With the Vinegar, I too, take the Wine

Layers upon layers upon uneven layers. Placed and thrown about at different moments in time, the spaces in which I've existed throughout. And often the layers are little to do with me--not me as me, per say. It's how other people and situations intersect us and augment our realities with their bits and pieces. At least that's the lens through which for so long I've come to be acquainted with grief and anguish and all the rest of it--and perhaps that's the crux. Is it others, is it us, is it our own expectations, or even just the nature of existence? Existence is suffering, I write that to remind myself and reflect yet still.

Today was already heavy. Started and ended weighty. In ways I see how I got the story I thought I always wanted--of being so afflicted I'd remain stuck in bed and touting sonnets of melancholia. To learn the topographies of emotion, big emotion. Big friendship. Gray spaces. Losses and gains, but mostly all that is in between. Indifferent and often unseen. 

This day was a day of re-introductions. "Allow me", said the layers of gray and gloom. These days I open the door most times, I instruct my psyche to entertain fear insofar as it might be impactfully utilized. Yet there are places I get so stuck, frozen in numbed seconds or the span of full days. The full damn day feels a waste, but I conjure up as much patience and presence as I might know. I slip into a yellow garment and line my lips with red and if need be, dig through the tool box of reliefs that have been elicited over as many years. Did you know that when you find yourself enveloped in big sadness, you're advised to bite down on a pencil? The act of biting on the pencil forms your face into a perhaps unintentional smile that tricks your body into releasing endorphins. I've done that and been there, and I'm not so lofty that I'd envision not being there one day again. Resorting to biting pencils and watching videos of baby sloths as tears stream and I rock back and forth in the shower. I think rocking back and forth gets a bad name, it for me has felt a means of dispelling tears and tensions.

So as all that remains swirls and churns, I label sadness and solace with a name. Let it exist and be holy. Less and less do I feel an urge to protest these realities, demand fairness or justice. For if not my own, I would have some that were another's. Along with the joys and less hapless emotional signposts I've come to know, the sad and heavy ones instruct me all the same. Just listen and attune yourself to their pitches and peaks, come to decipher best practices and advisable routes. Books and blog entries may only guide us so far and after that, you're off the map. More these days when I find myself lost, I sit down and feel the ground beneath my own body. Breathe deeply and belay myself to the board. I did that in ways just today. Sitting still isn't always what I'd imagine it to be, it's not grand and revolutionary--mostly I sense myself suspended in a solitary somber wheel of freebased emotional analysis. 

I reflect a fair number of my broadest smiles have emerged at the same time as tears, in the complimentary seconds of observing some massively consuming anguish. For I have found that in sorrow I am often transformed into a human of gratitude-filled acknowledgements in all that has been a blessing. I don't want to feel sorry for me, not because I perceive it weak or anything of that ilk, but rather that it's limiting and useless after a stint of marinating. No doubt in varied dates throughout my history I've been both the vinegar and the wine, unsure of which might be most befittingly useful. 

I truly cannot attest to being grateful that this or that has happened or that things unfold as they have or will. I am, however, glad to be continuously crafting myself into a truly skilled navigator. I'm wearing sweatshirts more because there are far more frequent cuuute options than I realized and they mesh decently well with kooky leggings and sensibly spunky tennies. And not to forget the accessories--a long draping necklace or big bold earnings and a pop of bright lipstick. It's all necessary on certain days, but often I find comfort in the mashup of stylings and functionality--feeling truly rounded and grounded and wise, ready with a chic but utilitarian (tool) bag. Lastly, some swimmers and floaties. To rest as I must, float on as I can, and strapped in for the ride. Because truly, it is one helluva dang dong ride.

A note. A commitment. A love letter. BLM

Song:  https://youtu.be/4976Fgvf5Ps

Commentary:

Silky smooth musical medicine.

Maybe corny, but this popped in my head this morning and I’m thinking tenderly especially of my many BIPOC friends and fellow humans of the world who are receiving in no uncertain terms, as is typically the case in this unjust world, that they are disposable, undervalued, not loved, not important, or worthy. There’s so much horrid brutality and oppression about this universe, that once you become aware...REALLY aware, and THEN can comprehend your space and place and role in upholding injustice and perpetuation of pain to others, you begin to sense an unshakable urge to disrupt it. For me it has been a steady comprehension all through college, coming from a small majority white town, having a curiosity and openness to all that is other and new, to asking questions and leaning in and sitting through defensiveness, committing to the process of unlearning all the ways whiteness does mean expansion and possession at the expense of those deemed “lesser”, further understanding that whiteness isn’t skin color really—it’s a vibe, a purposefully invisibilized upholding of correspondingly dangerous philosophy of domination and a unshakeable belief in some “god given” “betterness” of a way of being and safety existing in the world and everyone else damned, it’s an unexamined commitment to all that is whiteness (again, it’s actually not skin color—it’s an oppressive world view and philosophy that propagates colonialism through indoctrinated adherence and unadulterated loyalty). And I’ve seen it folks, I see it now and back throughout history, a toxic cancer with many faces and power sources, arms of the state which extend through all of us when we uphold and perpetuate everything that whiteness is. All that to say—I’m in this, deep in this, and because I’m in this and have seen and felt and heard enough indication that the doctrine of white is as alive and well as ever—from dear friends and random strangers and people I’ve dated—that I don’t need further “proof”, I’m not here to argue about whiteness and racism and if it’s a thing or doing harm. It is undoubtedly, and will continue to wreck havoc on innocent persons the world over until enough folks with power (I.e. whiteness) get fed up. I been fed up and I do my damndest every day and moment to bring others into the fold. The path toward justice and the future of a truly equal world is unmistakably long and treacherous and fraught with all kinds of problematic bullshit that has and will cause harm, buuuut... I’m on it, more and more I’m getting in lock step, arm in arm with all the rest of those who are coming awake or have been to the real reality that injustice is real and thriving. This pain is all our pain. These deaths and killings are our deaths. And these protests are our protests. And you know, maybe they need to be “riots”. I like to think of them as bullshit identifiers. You don’t have to agree with or understand the approaches or tactics of those who have been perpetually abused and downtrodden and “other-Ed” into oblivion. You don’t need to “agree” with that to agree with the wrongness of injustice, in another court case where a woman in her bed was murdered and nothing like justice has been shown (yet again, yet again, yet again). The “evidence” is there so all I ask myself and all anyone with adherence to whiteness needs to ask is “Is this a system I want to contribute to? As it is currently, without much indication of possibility for real sustainable change//that isn’t hinged on actively harming others?” That’s it. And for me the answer continues to be no, hell no. And any implication or outright detraction of being a “race traitor” doesn’t phase me...you know why? Because I’m not white in any way beyond the fact that I’m pale as fuck. But the cool thing about that is that I also possess this power of White Girl Dangerous (most commonly exhibited by subspecies of whiteness genus “Karen”, neo nazis, straight up nazi, et al)—but I am the type of White Girl Dangerous that knows things, that understands more and more the power in this skin, the good I can do in leveraging the knowledge of whiteness to tear (nay, even burn it down), via sure, protesting, but also through tough conversations with even often truly well-meaning white folks who may come in the form of friends and family (hiiii, y’all). I’m White Girl Dangerous with a smile on my face, fist in the air, and the knowledge of many avenues I can go about fucking up all that is colonialism and genocide and whiteness and all other  wrongness. An injury to one is unequivocally an injury to all. And y’all, we’re injured. We’re way culturally injured and lost and scared and angry and seriously...just wrong. We need to get right. Don’t you want to get right with us? I damn do. I pray and hope you may join us. And soon.

And truly to my BIPOC pals and friends and all other form of online connection. I do my best to see you and I want you to know I see you and beyond that value you and am protective as hell towards you. Always and more each day. I’ve no interest in virtue signaling or hollow promises of togetherness and oneness. But I do have a commitment to holding myself accountable and being as equipped and non-Karen White Girl Dangerous on any given day (it might not be possible to repurpose the white solidarity fist, but damn I wanna try). Heya hey, you lovely humans. Please do all you can to rest for even a bit and continue to shelter from all the horrible realities that show all the work that hasn’t been done. I hug you now only to say...I’m not going anywhere. I’m here and exploring all the ways to commit others to throwing out and burning the whiteness decree of foreveryear. Cause fuck this shit, since forever. I am certain this song is in my head for you. I want you around. And many of us want you and Breonna girl around and I’m in this. Don’t take my words for it, I aim to show you. 

✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻💛💛💛😳😭🤬😫😘

Just a Babe-ly Lil' Skeleton Lass

Tonight I chatted with a good friend about past relations, about seeing ones that used to be a regular part of our lives. Once they were active lovers of ours. And seeing where these people are now, meeting them or thinking back on what we were and had and where things fell and remain.

*
*

Sometimes I get caught up reflecting on how a select few splices of my loving heart are walking around in the world, held by varied and treasured souls. It's not that I even want those pieces and moments back, but I feel them, know they're around and about. Wonder I do, as Whitney sang, where do broken h#$*rts go? I can't perceive those slivers ever fully making their way back to me and it's ok. Once after my last major breakup I found myself gravitating towards this locket that was my grandma's and/or great grandma's--I started wearing it regularly around my neck, it felt urgent to have a consistent physical reminder of just how precious it was, how precious and to be treasured I am. To contend with what's perhaps really at stake. What's offered up and brought to the table, ya know?

I comprehend and do believe to know why some become callused and distant and build up a shell around what remains. The prospect of losing even more seems ghastly and unwise; indeed, I have moments in which I sense this desire within myself--to close up and remain so. Relatively, I grasp the appeal and function, I want to close people out most explicitly and find ways to sustain on alternative bonding and hobbies and a many other thoughtless and time-sucking occupations. To distract oneself from the inarguable void and loneliness we all sense as sentient and emotion-filled beings--and believe me, it's not a bad thing, rather just a real thing. A thing that once felt cold and unfeeling and broken and now seems honest and comforting. There's no amount of people or food or sex or jobs or writing that might ever fulfill that darkness, rather it's a sensation to channel and sit upon, to befriend. And indeed, I have found myself much more than ever at one with the skeleton babe in me that I begrudgingly drug along and ran from for my whole of existence. The view to her is as clear as ever and still rattles me, but I know her. Have greeted her many times as a friend. And I should venture to suggest that anyone who continues to meet me these many recent days and beyond will come to know her, too, now a tender and unshakable part of me. The worn and skeleton-ed pieces of me walking around with these specifically special others, that as much as it ripped me to shreds in moments, I find such grace and comfort and contentment in knowing them. In knowing I loved as wholly and deeply as I knew possible in those times. And dammit, I'm glad. I'm honored to have been blessed with so many connective opportunities.

I continue now on this path alone and lonely, but not frightfully so, primed to go toe-to-toe with fellow warriors--perhaps ever wearied from the storms, but with eyes and spirit open and in the ways I might be, too. It may be corny [as so many things might sound], but very honest to assert that knowing love and and non-expectant vulnerability and tenderness is to also likely know vastly wide loss and arching and warring with oneself and the forces beyond. This warrior skeleton lass is weary but not worn, is parts broken and remade, and is in this kindly raw space of accepting fully that others may come and go. Yet I shall stay here within my own perfectly imperfect being, finding the healthiest and happiest mechanisms for sensing and riding it through to the honest to goodness destination and truth. Anyway, it makes sense to my spirit and head. So that's something.

The Living and Judgements of Messy Unfurling

America: "...a culture obsessed with positivity and a people without traditional customs to appropriately navigate grief. Instead of acknowledging overwhelming, painful situations, Americans shove our feelings down and sputter out phrases like, “It’s for the best,” “Now we can appreciate…,” (via Bust)

--

To appropriately navigate grief. I stop. and ponder. and read it again. To navigate grief. Quite recently I've begun candid analysis of myself being immersed in grief and yet not grieving, in not allowing and sitting with anger, in not carving space for the messiness of raw processing. Even to just myself. To be messy is ok and vital, I'm telling myself. For forging forth. I've often wrapped "lessons" from trauma and painful loss up in gratitude and reframes that allow for streamlined, digestible, and perhaps seemingly regurgitated sharing. So strong and so wise and so resilient and positive. "It made me who I am or now I can appreciate," I might have said. I probably did say. And perhaps the root of such a method was and is survival or maybe it makes it easier for me and easier for befallen ears and hearts. That I couldn't bear having to hold your heartache next to mine own. It's not the heartbreak hotel or olympics, but I've had a sad or hard story in these days. Another manifestation of caring and care taking. For anyone but me. 

Having been groomed into many modes of abandoning. Of abandoning myself. Of knowing and propagating abandonment. Of seeking that which is familiar. Let me do it for me. It doesn't matter. She doesn't matter. Those feelings don't matter. Except that they do. They always have and always will. They're there. They're me and mine. 

I feel positivity even through this forced isolation and distanced socializing. Aims that I held up to manifest during my previous stead from work but didn't fully uphold have revealed themselves deeper and more true now. And truly I'm glad for the tendency towards gratitude, in quickly recalling the most basic of universal offerings that maintain thine sanity. And yet I am short and judgmental and projecting of what is "productive" and valuable and worthy of time and energy. I am harsh to prescribe and define "appropriate" timelines for adjustment. We should all over the place and everyone. All over us. 

"Judgement demands punishment," he said. Punishment of self or others. Demands punishment. And the truth is, I have been punishing and shaming this little girl. 

The truth is, it took me a month or so to settle into this shift. The truth is I likely haven't identified or grieved all the ways life will never be the same. In realizing what we lost there may be gratitude, but it ought not serve as substitute for bereavement. It too, has been a death. A death of immense proportions that is worthy of remembrance and takeaways, sure. Of messy unfurling.

Happy and accidental discovery #whatever: I so value and wish to protect my space and time. For myself, to savor, to hold near and love and appreciate the fuck out of. For just me. #fuckyea

and still

Not every pain and loss is positive or need be. The positive reveals itself most naturally when in reference to that which is not. That ying or ying, black and white, or here and there. The gray spaces I've inadvertently become adept at occupying. In not having the answers (because there aren't always solutions). The answer is the silence, the truth is in the muck and mire, the mud and the lotus. Writing this now I challenge myself to be better, more eloquent and varied and descriptive. But if I don't write I'll not harness the craft and without those less shiny entries,  I become no better. No different or improved. Just stuck in the mud, paralyzed to seek the surface. Which requires swimming and thrashing and being seen. Really seen. All up and wrapped up in this mess. This mess right here. This (to be) non-judgmental mess.

Source: Instagram (@sed.b0i)

In the Time of

Just now
the terror and anger
ever so slightly masks
the hurt and disbelief.
The reminder of tenderness
and deepest longings for connection.
Willingness to be open comes so easily
but I can now especially quantify why others don't-
it's for moments like this
when you realize you're naked and exposed
in ways you can't hope to control.
Flailing around in my mind
but implementing comforting habits
that so often serve me well.
And in this I sense myself closing up,
gathering myself close to myself.
Experimenting with manifestations of powerful-ness
in this body, this spirit, in this moment-in-time, especially.
And in that I find hope and promise
that indeed, I'm not embodying insanity
as I often have
Felt exposed and forgotten and continued
to open up.
Sometimes a hard or even soft stop reveals itself
and now I can see it's an invitation
to stand in my ground
as rubber hits the real and proverbial road.
I know where I am, where I'll continue to be.
Right here
holding tightly onto this
lovely me.

Berries and Sugar

All the jars in all the galaxies.
all the words in all the damn world.
the girlies in all of the spaces and places.
Jam.
In a damn jam jam.
And not at all, not even a bit.
Writing to write and speaking to speak,
to be spoken to and of and with.
A dang sticky weirdo in a dang sticky world.
Testing the limits of pectin and sugars,
introducing atypical ingredients and fresh variables.
Like resurrecting forgotten fruits with a delicate, healing touch.
Out here makin' pies. Makin' jams and jellies and jams.
And just when I fear a sweet tooth might get the best
I'm reacquainted with feeling rebuffed and angry.
Feeling scared and angry and isolating.
Know it well now, I do.
Are you rebuffed? Shall one withdraw?
No answers that ever really are answers.
No promises. No masters, nor gods.
Only berries and sugar and that too-often-bitter lemon.

Little Things and What-have-you-nots

38 entries in 2011 and 66 in 2018. The years in between ranged from 1-25, as if I need another reminder of the ways my spirit gets set ablaze and ripped asunder from the breaking of affections and chains and years together. Lights and incites.

As if there weren't a million other even little things that inspire me, daily. That set me on course, that cause me to spout sonnets. And it does seem that writing keeps my focus, causes me to encapsulate and reflect on moments. To more or less eloquently synthesize and capture aspects of what makes it tick, what gives it meaning, what agitates and invites me. Towards growth and newness and insightful[ness] or what-have-you-nots.

Picking up tricks and trends of the trade along this winding way. You're eloquent and well spoken, they've said. Mama used to say how good I was at writing and maybe I am, maybe it's true. She said many things, but that feels instructive and directive. This chance meeting of souls seems to enforce it, likewise. And I'm sensing lately new words and alternative phrases and creative approaches to description. Set ablaze, smoldering in a way.

irritated as I am enthralled

I wonder what a word cloud of my most commonly used phrases might contain. Reading even just a few passages I know it's of love. Ugh. Blasted L. Which however close or far always seems limiting. That women come to define themselves. By others. By bending. And many others do nothing of the sort. Make it their business to be distant. Too cool to be cuddly and cooing. The priority is work and the priority is surfing or being stuck. And the truth is, that's ok. It's ok as ok as ok. As I am here and you are there. The distance from here to there has often felt immense and expansive. Between me and so many, chasing affections and molding and morphing away from the Alex Mack that I am. I did something recently, I set a boundary and time for myself. If it causes displeasure and distance, well then. Oh well. Well. I did well. And I woke to find smiles. Growth is an odd thing, hard to gauge. But I recognize it most when reflecting in the moment in how I react. I never would have been this wise and collected before, I know that, I think. Like a cucumber, like a delicious fucking salad I consumed like mad just last night. I like doors and soft lights and plants and gushy eyes.

And am I the one who drags myself off the bottom of the sea, who's appalled at what I see? That ghost woman I came to be. It's my distance and degradation that draws some in, like a crash from which you cannot tear your glance away. Perhaps something to covet, no? But those damn gushy eyes, they get me nearly each and every damn time. As irritated as I am enthralled. Already prepped for a downfall at any moment, preparing to find things that can't be ignored. Red flags or orange flags and the green ones, all the same. Then what, then what. What to do with it, where to go and move. And sure going with that flow, going with it and with it and onward and away. The flow is the flow is the flow. Aches that once seemed to have all but dissipated reveal themselves present and to be accounted for. Listen, listen in. Listen some more. I don't like what you're telling me, but I listen, still. The cruelty and the beauty, wrapped tightly up in one. Learn to see it as more or less par. Jealously and insecurity and pondering and joys and those happy sad tears. All of those and them there. Opening up and reminding me that it's possible, it exists. I'm a resilient, brilliant motha. I am light.