Journal, March 2014. Blue days.

There's this great quote by Zora Neale Houston.  She says, "There are years that are questions, and years that are answers"-

Some years are walks in a darkening wood.  


March 12th-ish.

People who don’t know what they want are dangerous.  Resentful, unstable.  

Shapeshifters, adjusting themselves to whoever they are around.    

There’s a type of woman that feels she exists only in the moment that men glance at her.  I imagine for these women, aging is hard.  To feel your existence diminishing, year by year, until you cease to matter at all.  A living death.  This has been written about before.  

Betrayers- how can these people, these shifters, respect themselves, knowing that they have no spine?  

Perhaps they don’t respect themselves.  Perhaps this is why they need to check their existence in the eyes of strangers. 
 
That's obvious, I guess.  But when one friend betrays another friend, what do you do?  

What was at stake was trivial, has already passed.  And yet.  The true colors were there.  I saw them in her eyes.  

They say we are most critical of the flaws we wear ourselves.  So maybe- 

yes, probably.  Let’s be honest here, you and I.  I am critical of her because I recognize my past in her.

It’s a strange thing to have moved around as much as I have, in recent years.  And my past has not followed me.  

In Tucson, in Charleston, they did not know the truth about me, if truth is the composite of all we have done-

High school autodidact, moved out when I was- 16? 17?  Crazy girl, bad reputation.  Fell in love with a boy.  Our love-nest in the treetops.  Seven years of fierce, wolfish devotion.  Devotion that devoured itself- and then, there I was.  Suddenly alone, dust settling around me. 

I did then what hollowed-out girls have always done (what girl above is doing).  I exploded a bunch of other people’s relationships.  

Sometimes love is musical chairs.  

Musical chairs, for years.  One of those relationships held Andrew.  I stole him, like taking an egg out of a nest.  I broke some other girl's heart.  A nice girl, good girl.  

Arguably, I guess, I did also steal that first boy, back when  we were 17... another nice girl, good girl, much nicer than I was then.  Maybe that is how it always goes.  

(Maybe no safety in being nice.)

So I should not begrudge this girl, this devourer, for taking what she must, to figure out her borders.  Bittersweet thieving.  The lonely heart is merciless.  

Oh, girl.  But I do wish you were the thing I thought you were, anyhow.

Men have always been my cities.  It's my failing as an artist  The thing which has held me back most.  My weakness in love: devotedness.  

Our friends look to Andrew and I as a solid place.  To our relationship itself as a dot on a map: and yet in human relationships there can be no solid ground.

Knowing this, as I know all too well, what is love?  Everything is sand.

                                                                        ~o~

A dear friend came to visit us.  His buddy wrote a magnificent article about him.  I can never do more justice to Pat than that.  You should read it here.   

A number of wonderful days.  Editing.  Visiting Vail with family.  Snowshoeing, writing, another linocut.  Fireplaces.  Long cold walks in the city, in the trees.  This stuff, in coffee shops.  

---

Me, my dad and my Andrew in proxy. Gorgeous light in Vail afternoon.

little later, same day- snowshoeing with my amazing sister :)

lino block header for Evening Land. Chapter 3: The UnRelinquished Hand

March 24th, 2014

Blue day today.  I submitted some chapters to a contest.  Contests an unwise practice, as Pat’s chronicler, Joe Yelverton, advised me with this quote from a manifesto:

"Don't enter awards competitions.  Just don't.  It's not good for you." -Bruce Mau

If you win, you possess for a while an incorrect idea about your place in things.

If you lose- again an incorrect idea about your place in things.  (or is it incorrect?)

Bad all round.  I know this.  Knew this.  Still crushed.  

Yup.  Lost.

You know the stories about Hemingway papering his bathroom with rejection slips; Frank Herbert, Stephen King: dozens of rejections.  

You know this, I know this.  But man!  

Maybe someday.   I've submitted to several things... expecting more blues.  Blue months, years.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep working, I guess, because that’s what I do, is what I’m for.  Writing is the point of me.

But for the record, today I wondered what the hell I’m doing with my life.  

This is what I’ve got on earth, and this is how I spend it-  

Making signs on paper?

You ever wonder how many people get married, have kids, sign the contract, simply as a refuge from uncertainty?  I've never wanted that.  Never dreamt about weddings, suburbs.  Haha, but that path does seem so much easier, somehow, doesn't it?

Of course there is no solid ground.  Not ever, not really.

And sometimes there are holy days, even ecstasy, in making signs on paper-  Exploring mind.  Dreaming awake.  Hard as it is.  Still, I make a living with words, even if not with novels yet- so.  Progress, freedom.  Even in blue days.

Anyway, I’m incapable of giving in.    

I continue to do this thing that I am for.  Making signs, in case an echo wanders by.  Feeling lost-

Stay your path, friend.  

Heh, I told Andrew I was feeling down during travels. This is what he sent <3 Magic Hat!