Robotical Nuisance

In high school I used to sit at the bottom of our empty inground pool during the winter months. The moon lit up the aquamarine concrete that felt cool against my back and I could see some of the stars in the sky.

I don’t know why, but I wanted to smoke. I’d take some incense out into the yard and light it up. Breathe in the aroma and blow the smoke out. Awful. Somehow it gave a sense of relief. Eventually I would sneak a cigarette from my dad’s carton. It felt shameful. It made me smell like him, and I hated smelling like him. I can’t remember my clothes or house ever not reaking of cigarette smoke. Plates, cups, ashtrays covered in ashes. I did it anyway, like punishment and wished for something better.

Controlled release is the only way I can think to explain it. A visible sigh, exhaling all the shit clogging up my mind.

I made myself quit by the time I graduated high school and here I am nearly ten years later and still aching. I know no type of smoking will fill whatever that craving is, no alcohol or pills. No matter how happy my life appears to be, there is always that lingering need to let go. Sigh and get back to thinking simply again.

I keep telling myself to create what I know, not what I want. The more I try to articulate what I see, the more I doubt what is reality. Something as juvenile as, is the world inherently bad or am I wanting to be bad?

Why do I look to explain when I repeatedly tell myself that the purpose of my creative outlets is just to….. get release. Loosen my aching bones. Something else becomes “me” and it is now outside of my body yet somehow still a part of me. Egh.

I want to detach the logical side of my brain when I decide to write or create art. No more anxiously analyzing every move? Is it possible without being largely abstract?

Mourning the loss of a loved one somehow feels as trite as feeling in love. Every song that comes on is representative of how I feel. Every show, every movie. 

I guess it is a similar captivation of the mind - largely emotional and barely logical. The surge of sensations that run through every part of my body whenever I step outside. If it is the sun burning into my skin, the wind running fingers through my hair, or the darkness of the rain sending chills down my arms. The feeling  resonates and I think of him. Feeling alive reminds me how close death is.  

Sometimes I want to run, sometimes I want to contort my body in odd ways and yell absurd sounds.

I keep many people more than an arm’s length away despite a fondness for social interaction. I keep telling myself that awkwardness overcomes my ability to function.  When I am close, I am often enamored. I delve into the lives of others with fascination and cautiously step away because I can’t feel the same passion for my own. Then they’re gone, or I am gone.

I loved him, I hated him. I struggled to help, became frustrated, and essentially moved on. I’ve given in to the belief that my once in a while words of truth and understanding are far more valuable than attempted actions.  We are all responsible for our own lives, right?

Where could I have gone to save him from his young death. I replay all the memories with a sense of punishment and failure. Falling for my awkward childhood best friend? The temptation of drugs and violence. The belief in a first love that can survive despite all the dysfunction. So often I wanted to say come be here, but always wanted the baggage left behind. I left her behind, why can’t you?

Mostly, I think of his final conversations. Always baffled by the faith in my words and understanding. What good did it do?  What good has it done anyone? I was coming to save him, I pretended. Always making plans, always sharing our deepest thoughts. But truly kept just beyond reach. Don’t drag me down any further than I dragged myself?

Instead I found myself afraid to look at the lifeless distorted face of my cousin. Heh, only so long you can pretend that not seeing it means it is not real.  My shaking fingers gently holding the ice cold hands crossed over his chest. For someone so unbelieving of life after death, I certainly hoped he could feel my touch. 

I can’t express it and it certainly feels shameful to think so much about it. I just keep asking myself, asking him … where have you gone?  The surge of sensations rage through me again, numbing my neck and biting my lip when the answer gurgles its way up.

2003

There’s this definite placid emptiness to packing.

I’m avoiding it. I’m avoiding the awakening of memories that have fallen into the cracks of over looked pieces of my life. Its so hard packing away everything, when it all just fits together where it is right now in my room. It doesn’t matter where I put things, if they get moved, they’re where they always are.

Part of me cares, part of me doesn’t know if I should.

I’m not scared or sad, I’m just a bit apprehensive.

Things wont be so easy from here on.

It is 3am when I go outside with my portable CD player and seep into nothingness. Humid with a slight breeze… peaceful to a mind not at peace. When I am in pain, in confusion… when I am in any emotion the world seems different. It is just an illusion of stable air. The music plays in my ears is only a faint whisper of a melody. Suddenly minutes became hours, and I am watching the sun rise from drenched eyes. Crash the house, thought, wrote, seeped. 

Went to the beach with my mom and sister. Moments of splashing laughter, riding the waves and falling over let me escape for awhile… only to have the soft nudging of memory bring me back to my place in life. Pausing to stare into the murky salt water, wondering what I have done. I lay on a wooden beach chair while my sister and mom walk. With music playing in my ears again my hair, auburn and curly, dries while blowing in the wind. Feel the sun slowly burning my skin while the artist in me takes snapshots of the life around me. 

The horizon of the ocean breaking off into the sky where the clouds were hanging low, crisp and white. The small waves crashing onto the shore attacking the feet of little kids and parents. I could paint it.

I fall asleep for a half hour, so I’m a bit burnt, a bit tan. Gazillions of faint freckles everywhere, including a new batch on my thigh just above my knee. Played the same song over and over again, soaking in the feel of its words. Goodbye To You.

While I once felt that I was evolving nicely into someone I better appreciated, and better acknowledged I’m not sure that I’ve continued that evolvement. I think I’ve even digressed. I felt such a peace in the world, I felt like I could conquer anything I actually set out to defeat, but even if I couldn’t make it, it’d be okay. Because I wouldn’t give up or give in. My happiness rests within my mind, and within the choices and reactions I make in result of the events in my life.

Sept 4th, 2008

I am lingering in doorways, like a haphazard drunk.  My eyes need no time to adjust to the dark night inside of my childhood home.  A streetlight seeps through the curtains from a kitchen window, illuminating the crevices and stains of the sea foam colored walls in our living room.  I gaze at their door.  The entry into my parents’ private lives.  I step closer, softly floating like an apparition towards their room.  My arm rises instinctively to knock; but I hesitate, my fist gradually loosening in the air.  I rest my palm quietly against their door and my forehead follows.  There is a barrier much thicker than the two inches of the cheap hollow plywood before me.

 I had another nightmare, I wish I could say to them.  But I am an adult now, I reason, as I have since I was seven.  Since that night when I first began to drift through the house in the middle of the night,  realizing I am alone. 

I find myself at times obsessively browsing “sex.” Not really in the sense of fornicating and needing release, but relishing in everything that breeds sensuality.  I am not a video person, but I find myself collecting pictures upon pictures upon pictures. Still photos that are a little faded, a little mysterious, a little nasty.  I can look for hours and now with tumblr it is even easier to discover new people, new faces, new bodies, new positions.  Music is pulsing in the background, a glass of wine and a smoked pipe are on either side of me. My hair is pulled up high into a tight pony-tail from my “I mean business” mood at work earlier today.  Eyelids heavy, toes curled.

It is mostly bodies I relish over. Backs. Legs. Feet. The curve of torsos, napes, arched feet. Darkness caught in between unknown spaces. Scattered light. Quiet moments of nudity and solitude. Soft smiles and daring eyes. Vanity, secrecy, playfulness.  There is something so human in moments of sexuality that go beyond any other emotion - perhaps because they all take part within it.  Sadness, anger, happiness, desperation… all enveloped with touch. Dangerous or tranquil.  Powerful or weak.

There is something to be said for the moments just before nudity, the tightening and shifting of material over our skin as it heightens in sensitivity. The disposal, the release, and then the languid comfort.  Perhaps I’m a voyeur. It just seems so beautiful to me, so enjoyable to see others enjoying something so natural. I like to think about the moments in the past where unwanted and unexpected thoughts ran through my mind endlessly as different people enticed my appetite.

 Intelligence, creativity, humor, sensuality… I’ve experienced lust for so many different types of people for a variety of reasons and it was always something that just made me curious and hungry for life.  Hungry for the unknown. 

I’m tired of careful calculation and busy distraction. I know those moments of hazy instinct driven movements in the darkness of the night and the rapture of seduction. Words are not needed (sometimes non existent) because your body says everything in a frenzy before you can collect your motor skills together.

 I know I am romanticizing the experience of the strangers within the images I hum over. I romanticize over many things, a soundtrack and sepia filter over my perspective of life.

I am indulgent.  I don’t exactly know why and I asked myself today, is it ever enough? It doesn’t seem to be.  My moments of euphoria are there but it appears to be so simple while the opposite, it so destructive.

Maybe if I say it out loud it will be easier to remember as I wade through all the shit of the day bearing the immeasurable heaviness of negativity, unrelenting and inappropriate expectations. Even just the snarls, dirty looks, and silence that speaks more volumes than it should. How do I say it? Life is rough but god damn I’ve got some pretty amazing things in it. Does it matter that the most amazing aspects are not tangible? That I can’t hold in my hand the love or reverence I feel almost daily when I’m in my own world?

Does it matter that I can’t bottle up that moment shortly before I turn over to sleep - the hesitation before closing my eyes…  When I take in the walls surrounding me and the porch light seeeping through the cheap window blinds. The moon light on my lover’s face snoring softly next to me.  The bedroom door cracked open to reveal a dim light left on in the dining room down the hall.  

The truth is that for that (usually) brief moment I fear it all disappearing. I fear not waking, losing the love of my life, or waking to some sort of disaster that will change everything for the worst.  I know I can make it through… I reassure myself as I consistently do sporadically through each day. But I’m scared. I know nothing lasts forever. What can I do other than live on and live it the way I want to? The way I am able to…

I attempt to begin writing a story as usual. I keep reminding myself that I am a writer, or so my (heart?) tells me.  (How? By the growing sensation of ecstasy and adrenaline as I attempt to express myself in any way possible and the words race through my head). A tingling warmth spreads up my spine and all through my body. My logical mind goes blank like a wide eyed child in the midst of all the millions of thoughts and words I know linger somewhere in there. I stop. The universe is at my finger tips. Where do I go from there?

What did I do growing up? I don’t recall a dedication to writing although there were many attempts of journaling which did become a dedicated habit in my early teen years. Expression.  I expressed myself in many ways - but mostly in emotions and forms of destruction.  Drawing, carving, destroying the environment I lived in and my belongings. Anger and violence towards family members. Cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, pill popping. Walking in the dark night and laying alone on my pool deck staring into nothingness.  A loving obsession of listening to music non stop.  Did I hold most of it in?

The way music makes me feel. The way life’s settings make me feel. The way a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses made me as a 12 year old growing up in the late 90’s feel as if she was riding her bike through a neighborhood existing decades earlier.  I was constantly lost somewhere else with lapses back into reality when necessary.  It’s all caught in my chest like a lump of food forcing its way back through my throat and I am choking each day while I struggle to cough it out.

How did I become so much more than I once was? I know it is a trick question - a false one. What was I previously? Is it my mind that has changed or my demeanor? Experience… as it comes with age has strengthened my ability to coexist with others where and when necessary.  Work, school, and similar. But - but, I am still somehow that same young girl and teenager who couldn’t fit herself into anyone’s life.  Is it me? is it my past? The structure (or lack of it) in my childhood? Did I separate or was I separated? I could simply say that I am not normal but just as easily I don’t fit in with the abnormal.  Or so it seems.

The tree. What pulls me to this species? Solid, thick, sturdy.  An exterior that can be smooth or calloused with intricately broken ripples of bark.  The roots that dig into the earth beneath, traveling further, burrowing through the solidity of concrete and uprooting far away.  The continuing growth upwards and branching out, feathered in leaves.  Massive yet so… calming.  The continuous rebirth each year through the seasons. The flourish of color before the muted decay and withering of skin like leaves.  Trees usually weather the storm, right? 

We’ve gotten into this habit of “vacationing” in the living room on the weekends. It started with tossing the blowup bed onto the floor. A few weekends escalated to us creating a full on blanket fort covering the entire living room. We’re back down to the blowup mattress, as the fort proved to be a hassle not fit for every weekend and somewhat embarassing whenever random visitors stopped by.

I don’t know if we’re lazy or just enjoying life while it is easy. Wedding vows and the creeping of years passing by results in questions of more serious careers, children, buying a home… We want it but we don’t.

There is something amazing about being able to lay all day half naked with your loved one. To roll around on the floor covered with blankets, eating pizza, experimenting with new things, enjoying all forms of media. Blasting music and goofing off all day long.

Laughter and moans fill our weekends. It is an escape from the monotony of the work week. The obligations of family and “adult” life.

I find myself frustrated if I don’t fall into the required expectations - wake up early in the morning, make every meal (nutritious), keep the house clean and presentable, run the errands, and make sure to have a social life. Am I wanting to do these things because they are who I am or because I’m afraid to be who I am?

Some mornings I bounce awake at 8am, shower, throw on some music, and begin to cook a large breakfast. Feed the cat. I pick up around the house and begin to list things in my head of what needs to be done. Sometimes we head out into nature and hike through the hills, explore our town, or consider going somewhere social.

Mostly though? Mostly we want to stay home, sleep until 10am (or noon!), not shower, roll around in bed having sex, throw together a quick breakfast if we have it at all, and just …. do nothing. Watch movies, make fun food, listen to music, read.

Sometimes it feels like too much pleasure. Our junk food stock and my waist are growing and the house is often a mess. The yard isn’t meticuously groomed and we have pizza more often than what probably seems acceptable for someone on the later end of their 20’s.

I’m am for the most part happy, I’m enjoying life, but it feels as if structure that is more than a 5 day work week is required. I don’t know where I am and where I have to go in order to achieve the balance. I am conflicted with what I genuinely want, what I am doing to avoid falling into the trap of boring societal expecations, and what is necessary to maintain a healthy and long life.

I guess the most difficult aspect is that I don’t want to achieve a balance between 9-5 work (or rather for me, 7-4) and weekend and family life. Rather, I want to find a balance between enjoying life and maintaing a growth of creativity, exploration, and existence.

I am stuck in a moment of life where I can’t find it in me to create anything. That hardly feels like living at all.

The focus on tiniest of details - zoning out of the world and romanticizing the place I’ve been. Time slips away as I stare.

Bathroom - The size of a shoe-box.The curling edges of paper cut out fish, mildewing caulk graying from white, peeling away from cracks.  The small spaces in between pieces of the wood door. The cold toilet tank against my back, sharp edge of the broken toilet seat. Porous laminate flooring darkened by dirt.  Speckles of black, dust gathering ashes of death. 

I zero in to those specks and feel lost in years of the past.  A dark heavy pressure looms over my shoulders. A negative anxious fear of being “stuck” somewhere I long to escape from. When I scrub, when I mop, when I rub the darkness away it feels so good momentarily. The knowledge that this too - cleaning exhilaration - is the darkness. The obsessive attempt to escape. The quality feels unforgiving.

The decay and termite eaten wooden structure of my childhood, disguised poorly by new coats of cheap paint. The wooden ceiling weaving and bowing as I trace the facade of wooden rings.

I’m not sure who I’m expecting to see when I look at pictures, in the mirror, or similar. I don’t think he quite understands how much like psychadelics losing weight can be, or then again… maybe he understands perfectly.  I don’t think I dislike who I see necessarily but I just don’t understand who is there and I want to make sure that I am molding myself out to be the person that I intend.  I don’t want to wake up one day suddenly and not like who I am again, wondering how I am going to start all over and pick up the pieces to get back to where I began. I dont even know if there is a beginning anymore.. time never stops moving, we are never in the same place as we were a few moments before.  I can choose to continually progress along with time or to stand still and remain an artifact of something. I’m just not sure if I have much of a choice or not. 

Day one does not necessarily mean perfection, leaping away from all that is wrong. Day one just might be today where I simply decide that tomorrow there will be change. Day one should be the beginning of effort and progression, not a lingering thought “maybe” and eventually the transformation into “some other time.”

Today is day one of a million day ones. Some followed by subsequent days and others forgotten within the same few hours. But I don’t want it to be like all the other “One” as I want it to never be followed by a copycat imitation. I want today to be original, unique, the starting manifestation of evolution in the days to follow.

I am not certain if I want to become what I am aching to be. I am ultimately afraid that I will struggle to achieve things that are truly out of my capabilities. Or I will find myself exhausted and unwilling the continue the effort. A let down. I fear this because I deal with them every single day on a smaller magnitude.

More than anything feel a deep hunger for the challenge and to discover what I believe I may be capable of, both physically and mentally.  I hope that I will have the ability to overcome suffering and fear (and most importantly the temptation to procrastinate) to recognize that the effort and will power are enough to create a sense of accomplishment. I don’t have to become my ideal dream version of myself, so long as I can understand the individual that emerges instead. I need to find the middle ground between too much effort and no effort at all.

He is worried about the amount but I am more okay now that we have done this twice before. Nothing truly negative happened previously, just memories coming back. I will be okay though, I know this. I am a strong person, a positive person, and I know I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. I will enjoy this for the mind-expansion it provides and I will be okay.

6:00pm. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have mixed things but my head was hurting as usual and I was feeling much cabin-fever.

Then I begin to really step outside of the realm of feeling completely natural and okay with everything. I begin to question and doubt what is in front of me and what is in my head. I am paranoid that we are going to be unhappy and negative soon so I am double checking all the corners to make sure we are still “here.” But then that is when I finally realize, I may not be here.

It makes me laugh because I cringe and tremble a little at the idea of what is going on inside my head that I’ve wanted to happen, I wanted the challenge. I wanted the “excitement” and here I am terrified. I am a scared little girl, as usual. I laugh though, because I’m not a little girl. This is life. This is life as I know it and will it to be, even if it is surreal and dysfunctional. Could I have it any other way? I think of the other ways and I become more scared, I don’t want to be that either. I am so confused.

I tell him, I feel confused but powerful. 

My eyes suddenly see beauty. Colors are more vivid, everything is picturesque like a movie with filters to enhance the sentimental feeling. Oh this is so funny, orgasmic even. I feel great but I am still terrified of that feeling because if I feel great - it seems that pain will have its funny way of sneaking up in that hazy cloud. I just want to cry. I wrap my arms around him to confirm that things are okay. Why does hugging him make everything okay? I say that all I want is for his happiness.

It sounds romantic but really it is a statement of exhaustion.

All I want is happiness and all I fight for is happiness - when it is such an elusive and ever transient thing that I can not understand yet. But at the same time I am OKAY! I am okay with not being happy. I like the tenderness of a dark moment. I write to remember my past and to hold on to the things that make up the essence of who I am. A true genuine human being with flaws and many dreams.

I cry onto his chest because I know that I am taking on too much for one person, and that we all do this and we all fail at one time or another. We want to understand life and we want to win at life, but fuck we want to enjoy life too.

I want to feel that heat.