Well, hi.
“I don’t want to do that anymore, and anyway, I’m not sure I even can. It’s a high price to have to feel your feelings, because part of what that entails is connecting with other people. If you’re going to feel sad and angry, you probably will need to talk to some other people. As Audrey Hepburn said in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, “Quelle drag.” But I’ve lived the alternative: I’ve been a Brain With Feet, someone who races around with a tiny little body and a great big head, accomplishing things and staying above the waters of the emotions. It looks good, it’s neat and tidy, but it means the only pleasure you get to feel is at the level of Disney World or a hot fudge sundae. Nothing that lasts.”
“My parents are truly glorious, but they are my parents, and spending a prolonged period of time on their turf is like being Superman and living in a large house with a tiny amount of kryptonite hidden somewhere.”
Isn’t it amazing how one person’s words can resonate so profoundly, over and over, year after year, season after season? How we can seem so certainly to be on the same wavelength of people we’ve never met and will never meet, while failing to connect with so many intimate members of our own daily lives? The above words are by Nerissa Nields, posted recently on her blog, and they are resonating deeply with me right now, as so many of her words have done throughout the past many years. And she’ll never know. Weird. To be an artist and affect lives you will never know you are affecting...
I’m freaking out a little these days. So much upheaval. So much tragedy. So many things to be happy about and upset about and optimistic about and sad about. So much to feel, and remind myself not to stay numb to. I’ve been doing some admittedly stupid things in spastic attempts to ward off numbness/make some sort of connection, and what can I say, it feels good to be feeling things I haven’t felt in so long, even if they’re not necessarily good things. Life’s weird like that. I think back to this time last year, and the darkness that was prevailing, the heaviness that never seemed to lift, and I’m so happy and so thankful not to be feeling that way anymore. How could it have taken me so long to seek out some sort of help? I think back to that and it’s like looking back into a dream, grasping at details, fighting to see through a haze.
Speaking of dreams, man have I had some doozies lately. Woke up screaming two nights in a row, which until then had never happened to me in my entire life. Pretty funny actually; A and I still laugh about the craziness of it happening two nights in a row. The dreams that led to the loud awakenings were bizarre—two very different moments of two very different kinds of terror. In one instance I was in a bathroom somewhere (resembled a college dorm or something) attempting to wash fake blood from my face that I had smeared there in preparation for some sort of costume affair the following day. Actually, I had smeared the blood all over my body, which apparently was the first step in creating gaping fake wounds, which I then intended to complete the following day. But upon going to bed, I decided it might be a good idea to at least wash the now crusty red substance off my face before going to sleep. So I got up, went into the bathroom, lathered up, closed my eyes and began rubbing the soap on my face, when I was suddenly and unexpectedly attacked from behind by a still unknown-to-me assailant. I never found out who my attacker was, because it was at that moment that I woke up gasping for air (snorting, actually) and yelling out, before rolling over and quickly going back to sleep. Much to A’s confusion and alarm.
The next night I was having another weird one, this time involving a theater, a stage, and Rachael Ray (!) cooking for an audience, which suddenly took a very Twin-Peakish, ominous turn. Hard to relate details, but next thing I know I’m in my room, in my bed, thinking I’m awake (don’t you hate that?) when a man, clearly intending harm, comes into the room. Once again I wake up gasping for air (snorting), let out two yells of alarm, wake up A, and proceed to laugh for several minutes before stupidly falling back to sleep a mere few minutes before the alarm goes off. Both nights were restless and exhausting, and that sucks.
Thus ended the waking-up-screaming streak, but not the weird-dream streak. Oh no. The next night I had a great one involving fish, birds, and sea otters in my parents’ old backyard. Oh yes. Clearly ripe with symbolism, which I have no idea how to interpret.
So what has been causing all this nocturnal disruption? Obviously the disruption in my personal life since New Year’s Eve has played a role. And it’s affected my behavior in my waking life, too. No doubt in some good ways, and some bad. And now here I am, obsessing over things I shouldn’t be obsessing over, confused, scared, alone, but happy at the same time. Like I said, life’s weird like that. It is what it is. It is what it is.
“My parents are truly glorious, but they are my parents, and spending a prolonged period of time on their turf is like being Superman and living in a large house with a tiny amount of kryptonite hidden somewhere.”
Isn’t it amazing how one person’s words can resonate so profoundly, over and over, year after year, season after season? How we can seem so certainly to be on the same wavelength of people we’ve never met and will never meet, while failing to connect with so many intimate members of our own daily lives? The above words are by Nerissa Nields, posted recently on her blog, and they are resonating deeply with me right now, as so many of her words have done throughout the past many years. And she’ll never know. Weird. To be an artist and affect lives you will never know you are affecting...
I’m freaking out a little these days. So much upheaval. So much tragedy. So many things to be happy about and upset about and optimistic about and sad about. So much to feel, and remind myself not to stay numb to. I’ve been doing some admittedly stupid things in spastic attempts to ward off numbness/make some sort of connection, and what can I say, it feels good to be feeling things I haven’t felt in so long, even if they’re not necessarily good things. Life’s weird like that. I think back to this time last year, and the darkness that was prevailing, the heaviness that never seemed to lift, and I’m so happy and so thankful not to be feeling that way anymore. How could it have taken me so long to seek out some sort of help? I think back to that and it’s like looking back into a dream, grasping at details, fighting to see through a haze.
Speaking of dreams, man have I had some doozies lately. Woke up screaming two nights in a row, which until then had never happened to me in my entire life. Pretty funny actually; A and I still laugh about the craziness of it happening two nights in a row. The dreams that led to the loud awakenings were bizarre—two very different moments of two very different kinds of terror. In one instance I was in a bathroom somewhere (resembled a college dorm or something) attempting to wash fake blood from my face that I had smeared there in preparation for some sort of costume affair the following day. Actually, I had smeared the blood all over my body, which apparently was the first step in creating gaping fake wounds, which I then intended to complete the following day. But upon going to bed, I decided it might be a good idea to at least wash the now crusty red substance off my face before going to sleep. So I got up, went into the bathroom, lathered up, closed my eyes and began rubbing the soap on my face, when I was suddenly and unexpectedly attacked from behind by a still unknown-to-me assailant. I never found out who my attacker was, because it was at that moment that I woke up gasping for air (snorting, actually) and yelling out, before rolling over and quickly going back to sleep. Much to A’s confusion and alarm.
The next night I was having another weird one, this time involving a theater, a stage, and Rachael Ray (!) cooking for an audience, which suddenly took a very Twin-Peakish, ominous turn. Hard to relate details, but next thing I know I’m in my room, in my bed, thinking I’m awake (don’t you hate that?) when a man, clearly intending harm, comes into the room. Once again I wake up gasping for air (snorting), let out two yells of alarm, wake up A, and proceed to laugh for several minutes before stupidly falling back to sleep a mere few minutes before the alarm goes off. Both nights were restless and exhausting, and that sucks.
Thus ended the waking-up-screaming streak, but not the weird-dream streak. Oh no. The next night I had a great one involving fish, birds, and sea otters in my parents’ old backyard. Oh yes. Clearly ripe with symbolism, which I have no idea how to interpret.
So what has been causing all this nocturnal disruption? Obviously the disruption in my personal life since New Year’s Eve has played a role. And it’s affected my behavior in my waking life, too. No doubt in some good ways, and some bad. And now here I am, obsessing over things I shouldn’t be obsessing over, confused, scared, alone, but happy at the same time. Like I said, life’s weird like that. It is what it is. It is what it is.
posted by P/O at 1/10/2005 10:37:00 AM
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