"Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking." - Jessamyn West
The Hermit felt awkward around her more sociable cousin, the Firechief. She felt like everyone around her was judging her for being unemployed.
She didn’t really get around to being open with anyone about it. She felt that most people didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand her overall situation or predicament. And so, she kept it unsaid and simply tried to be the person that she felt she was, which was kind, creative, healing and humorous, most of the time, and bitter, hateful, angry, and sullen most of the other time.
The woman felt that she was without question a person who had come a long way and found a long line of things inside of her that most people would never get a chance to experience. Most people, the woman witnessed, would spend their lives hiding behind the Doing and the Chasing-the-dollar schemes and machines rather than learning to become the people of Being that they were. The woman had used her money to discover what this state of Beingness was for her, and she had recently discovered what it was, and was joyous to learn what she wanted to Be, all of the moments of her life: Creator.
The woman felt that this learning experience set her apart from the other animal humans. She felt that most of them thought and believed her to be lazy. She was not lazy, but she was very determined intellectually to sniff out her inadequacies and learn from them. So, she tried to do so. And because of this, she outcast herself.
This is how she came to be known as the Hermit.
Her avoidance of others led them to speculation of who she had become. Her silence allowed their assumption to grow, and in the darkness of that not knowing, their judgments of her, based on past experience, resulted in them never getting an opportunity to truly know her.
This led to her feeling rather awkward around anyone. Her awkwardness lent itself to a feeling that if she spoke of what she had been doing, she would be punished for not having done what was expected of her instead. What was expected of her was for her to utilize her magnificent intellect and become the woman everyone identified with intellect: successful, driven, oriented to goals, single-minded, passionate.
The Hermit was all of these things, but she was these things on a more subtle path than her peers. Their understanding of these successes was flamboyant, of the ego, not the shadow subconscious everyone chooses to hide from daily. No, the people did not consider a mastering of this to be anything special, and if they did, they hid it in jealousy, because their jealousy of not knowing their whole selves drove them to abuse those who did, in a pecking-order that was customary of the ego, but not the subconscious self.
Those who seek to master the shadow self become hermits because no one understands them. No one can comprehend the wonders these questing-masters have discovered inside of their own souls and hearts and minds. They covet this sense of never being alone, and because of that, their jealousy drives the mockery of these Hermit sages.
Walking back to her hovel, knowing it is messy around her, knowing that she has had little reward for her achievements, the Hermit’s ego was hurt each time she stepped out of the house and into the world. She wondered how she might now master the ego. Her ego was one of self-victimization and poor-meisms. She was tired of this behavior as it no longer served her purpose as Creator. And so she set out to find the new learning experience and tackle the ego. Her understanding of the ego was different now, and because she was no longer afraid of it, but acknowledged it as part of her, she was ready to see how she and the ego could coexist and cocreate as a community.
Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Lessons In Losing A Father.
My Dad used to help me write all my papers. It didn’t matter what age I was or what grade I was in, each paper was important in his eyes. Each paper brought my dad the ability to be the teacher he always was; each paper was a lesson for me to become a better writer under his tutelage.
I was always a procrastinator when it came to writing. It never really mattered what it was about, I’d wait until the last day or two to write it. This even happened with a 20 page independent research paper in college. No matter what, I couldn’t get inspiration to write until there was intense pressure. This was difficult when it came to getting help from my dad.
I can’t count the times he would be up with me helping me the night before a paper was due. He’d often type what I had written shorthand for me, and help me with grammatical errors and shortening of my verbose wording. There’d be times I’d be writing, and he’d go to bed and ask me to wake him up when I needed help with the editing - sometimes I’d be waking him up at 2 and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have a panic attack, and he’d help me calm down and write a couple sentences to get me flowing, and I’d flow into my own words with those initial footholds.
In those dark hours before dawn, Dad would sit in our basement in his robe, the coffee-machine percolating upstairs, going over my paper and telling me what I needed to change and what I didn’t need to fix. Sometime’s I’d object to his editing, but he usually had a logical point to the editing, and it helped me see my writing from a different perspective.
When the paper was complete, my dad would often let me go to bed and sleep in, and he’d call me in as sick until the paper was due, or he’d let me come home early sick after turning it in so I could get some sleep. I got to get rest, but he’d get dressed in his dapper suit, put on his Polo cologne after his shower, and head to work. He’d work until 6pm, and then come home on not much more than two or three hours of sleep. He’d go to bed at the regular time, and get up and do it again.
I never really saw all of this as love or sacrifice until he was gone. I never understood how tired he must have been until I hit thirty and realized how vital sleep is the older you get. I always thought he was editing my stuff because it sucked and he was disappointed in me. I’d feel that way until I got the A-grade, and then I realized I wasn’t so bad after all, and that he was just helping me get better.
I haven’t been able to endure a college writing course because of Dad’s help. All other writing-specific teaching has been empty and boring for me; it doesn’t really challenge me like Dad did. Each time I try to take one, I find the holes in the teachers opinions and tend to drift offline. Since Dad died, the classes remind me of him, and I get overly emotional with the grief I’ve never seemed to heal. I’ve dropped out of three lower division writing courses, and intentionally received an F-grade due to an utter lack of drive in completing the one course I stuck through. I tested out on these courses with my SAT/ACT scores, but somehow colleges always find a way to squeeze the students of more bucks when it comes to core requisites.
A big part of why I am writing this blog is because of Dad. He was an exceptional poet and a great writer, and he taught me all I have really held onto in writing. He was into the wordage of what he wrote, and he’d often write with words that I had never heard of. One of Dad’s most cherished possessions was his Oxford English Dictionary. Their station in our house was in the restroom or on the table where my dad would have his coffee. I’d catch him going through it weekly, reading aloud the words to memorize their meanings. He loved the English language.
Several days after he had died, he visited me. I was crying in the bathroom, unable to get out of a bath that had diminished from hot to tepid. I had to be back in college in two days to make my Boulder rent, and I didn’t really have it in me to be a good student then. I felt his soul enter the bathroom, and heard him say, Jenny, don’t make the same mistake I did; do what you love to do, pursue your dreams, and you will be all right. You will make it if you follow your heart. You will be okay. I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I will always be here.
I can’t really explain the logic or science behind that experience, but those words have guided every choice I’ve made since then. I don’t really like institutions or science without conscience, so I stopped studying at CU and didn’t finish my degree. I don’t really enjoy a life without creation, so I started chasing the dreams I wanted to chase, like blacksmithing and drawing and writing. I’ve been living off the inheritance I got from my father’s death, and it wasn’t ever as big as some folks thought, but it was enough to let me find out what I wanted out of this life and try to myself again. Most people don’t know what they want at thirty, but I do. Most people don’t take the time to listen to their heart, but I chose to. I had to because of the hard lesson of death. I had to listen because of my dad’s sacrifice. He died after living a life to fill the needs of others, and he lost himself along the way.
So, what lesson can be gained from reading about the experience of one who has lost a parent? Remember to not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your security or your families security. Remember to grieve when you need to and not to bury it - you deserve the time you give yourself to grieve. Remember that some actions parent’s do seem like disrespect, but they are really done with loving intent, and parents haven’t really been parent’s before. Remember to choose whatever it is that fulfills your higher purposes and aims, because at the end of life, if you don’t, you will regret it with every fiber of your being.
I love you, Dad.
I was always a procrastinator when it came to writing. It never really mattered what it was about, I’d wait until the last day or two to write it. This even happened with a 20 page independent research paper in college. No matter what, I couldn’t get inspiration to write until there was intense pressure. This was difficult when it came to getting help from my dad.
I can’t count the times he would be up with me helping me the night before a paper was due. He’d often type what I had written shorthand for me, and help me with grammatical errors and shortening of my verbose wording. There’d be times I’d be writing, and he’d go to bed and ask me to wake him up when I needed help with the editing - sometimes I’d be waking him up at 2 and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have a panic attack, and he’d help me calm down and write a couple sentences to get me flowing, and I’d flow into my own words with those initial footholds.
In those dark hours before dawn, Dad would sit in our basement in his robe, the coffee-machine percolating upstairs, going over my paper and telling me what I needed to change and what I didn’t need to fix. Sometime’s I’d object to his editing, but he usually had a logical point to the editing, and it helped me see my writing from a different perspective.
When the paper was complete, my dad would often let me go to bed and sleep in, and he’d call me in as sick until the paper was due, or he’d let me come home early sick after turning it in so I could get some sleep. I got to get rest, but he’d get dressed in his dapper suit, put on his Polo cologne after his shower, and head to work. He’d work until 6pm, and then come home on not much more than two or three hours of sleep. He’d go to bed at the regular time, and get up and do it again.
I never really saw all of this as love or sacrifice until he was gone. I never understood how tired he must have been until I hit thirty and realized how vital sleep is the older you get. I always thought he was editing my stuff because it sucked and he was disappointed in me. I’d feel that way until I got the A-grade, and then I realized I wasn’t so bad after all, and that he was just helping me get better.
I haven’t been able to endure a college writing course because of Dad’s help. All other writing-specific teaching has been empty and boring for me; it doesn’t really challenge me like Dad did. Each time I try to take one, I find the holes in the teachers opinions and tend to drift offline. Since Dad died, the classes remind me of him, and I get overly emotional with the grief I’ve never seemed to heal. I’ve dropped out of three lower division writing courses, and intentionally received an F-grade due to an utter lack of drive in completing the one course I stuck through. I tested out on these courses with my SAT/ACT scores, but somehow colleges always find a way to squeeze the students of more bucks when it comes to core requisites.
A big part of why I am writing this blog is because of Dad. He was an exceptional poet and a great writer, and he taught me all I have really held onto in writing. He was into the wordage of what he wrote, and he’d often write with words that I had never heard of. One of Dad’s most cherished possessions was his Oxford English Dictionary. Their station in our house was in the restroom or on the table where my dad would have his coffee. I’d catch him going through it weekly, reading aloud the words to memorize their meanings. He loved the English language.
Several days after he had died, he visited me. I was crying in the bathroom, unable to get out of a bath that had diminished from hot to tepid. I had to be back in college in two days to make my Boulder rent, and I didn’t really have it in me to be a good student then. I felt his soul enter the bathroom, and heard him say, Jenny, don’t make the same mistake I did; do what you love to do, pursue your dreams, and you will be all right. You will make it if you follow your heart. You will be okay. I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I will always be here.
I can’t really explain the logic or science behind that experience, but those words have guided every choice I’ve made since then. I don’t really like institutions or science without conscience, so I stopped studying at CU and didn’t finish my degree. I don’t really enjoy a life without creation, so I started chasing the dreams I wanted to chase, like blacksmithing and drawing and writing. I’ve been living off the inheritance I got from my father’s death, and it wasn’t ever as big as some folks thought, but it was enough to let me find out what I wanted out of this life and try to myself again. Most people don’t know what they want at thirty, but I do. Most people don’t take the time to listen to their heart, but I chose to. I had to because of the hard lesson of death. I had to listen because of my dad’s sacrifice. He died after living a life to fill the needs of others, and he lost himself along the way.
So, what lesson can be gained from reading about the experience of one who has lost a parent? Remember to not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your security or your families security. Remember to grieve when you need to and not to bury it - you deserve the time you give yourself to grieve. Remember that some actions parent’s do seem like disrespect, but they are really done with loving intent, and parents haven’t really been parent’s before. Remember to choose whatever it is that fulfills your higher purposes and aims, because at the end of life, if you don’t, you will regret it with every fiber of your being.
I love you, Dad.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Mountainpeople vs. Invasiverich Part 2.
If the Invasiverich had adapted to the altruistic sense of the Mountainpeople, things would have been different. Had the Invasiverich not introduced the false sense of “those with the most toys win,” their demise wouldn’t have been so gruesome. The Invasiverich saw the mountains as a new opportunity, a new frontier. They loved visiting the quiet communities and longed to experience that community as their own. Their reasons for moving into the rural realm were not without merit, but they failed to adapt to the region, because they could not leave their concrete boxes. Each autumn they would return to their limestone castles and make the money by breaking the backs of the poor. That was the only way they could live in the hills, they thought. They couldn’t make a living in a tiny town, they couldn’t own the property without the enslavement of the many. They wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. And so, each day at their rat race grind, the Invasiverich worked perceptively ‘hard’ to live their mountainlives each spring. They played their game of Marie Antoinette, while all their peers struggled for food, struggled to make rent, enduring days of broken dreams under the feet of their wealthy masters.
The Invasiverich had forgotten that the mountains are not just meadows and deer; they failed to acknowledge the dark side of winter’s bite, of the carnal needs of survival. The Invasiverich had separated themselves from these animalistic tendencies, present in every human being when faced with strife. They failed to understand that the endurance of those they oppressed could only last so long, and that, one day, the Mountainpeople would have enough.
Having spent lifetimes of caste intermarriage, the Invasiverich had become weak of body and frame. They could not endure the carnal winter, but they could enjoy their bodies in the summer sun of mountain skies. The Mountainpeople had no time for play; their bodies were a byproduct of their continual survival and communal cooperation. Wood for winter warmth needed harvesting, and the only way to harvest was with strength of back and bodily girth. The Mountainpeople were as solid as the rocks they lived in, and once awakened, their seething physical might would easily crush any force that came between them and that nature they loved.
The Mountainpeople didn’t believe the Sky stories played across the ionosphere that December in 2012. They figured something was off, that something was manipulated. They had experienced the machinations of the Megarich each summer for decades; they observed the patterns of the Elite, they saw their empty concrete hearts and their failed attempts at filling their gaps. The Invasiverich were more like the deer than the cougar, and the Mountainpeople knew this. They had become weathered like the granite of the peaks, and they knew the difference between true strength and weakness masquerading in the paper facade of money. When the cities were placed under marshal law, the Invasiverich took to their castles in the meadows. They had been planning, they had been stockpiling for this; they knew of the storm before the commonpeople. Their mansion arsenals were great, but their skills in marksmanship lacked as they hadn’t been spending a lifetime seeking food for their table with a gun. Their bars of gold meant nothing to the Mountainpeople, who were more interested in taking in the refugees of the cities than the Invasiverich who oppressed those refugees for so long. The Mountainpeople knew the plight of the cityfolk; they knew their skills would be greater than the elite, and they would unite with them.
The rage of the Mountainpeople came like a blood-red dawn in the dead of winter. Their passion for equality was their purpose, and, united with the refugees, this passion tore into the empty material of the Invasiverich, like rays of sunlight burn through the morning’s fog. The fancy shotguns and AA-12’s belonging to the Invasiverich could hone down the enraged mob, but it couldn’t keep them from the marksmanship of the trophy-hunter, a single rifle shot silencing the hollow concrete heart of the pitiful affluence-hunter. In the end, every Invasiverich finally got the mountain experience they longed for: in every Bourgeoisie death came that final second of carnal survival they missed by avoiding the winters. In that last instant of breath, their concrete hearts were filled with the knowing that experience is greater than wealth.
-----
Lawspeakers were those who memorized, recited, and created the law in Iceland during the Viking era. Goði (pl. Goðar) were the chieftains in Iceland, who often held both secular and priestly power. I am using it in the sense that the oppressors often hold power which feels supernaturally strong to the oppressed, and to get as far as most wealthypersons do, one must become sort of a believer in the materialistic dogmas of our era.
The Invasiverich had forgotten that the mountains are not just meadows and deer; they failed to acknowledge the dark side of winter’s bite, of the carnal needs of survival. The Invasiverich had separated themselves from these animalistic tendencies, present in every human being when faced with strife. They failed to understand that the endurance of those they oppressed could only last so long, and that, one day, the Mountainpeople would have enough.
Having spent lifetimes of caste intermarriage, the Invasiverich had become weak of body and frame. They could not endure the carnal winter, but they could enjoy their bodies in the summer sun of mountain skies. The Mountainpeople had no time for play; their bodies were a byproduct of their continual survival and communal cooperation. Wood for winter warmth needed harvesting, and the only way to harvest was with strength of back and bodily girth. The Mountainpeople were as solid as the rocks they lived in, and once awakened, their seething physical might would easily crush any force that came between them and that nature they loved.
The Mountainpeople didn’t believe the Sky stories played across the ionosphere that December in 2012. They figured something was off, that something was manipulated. They had experienced the machinations of the Megarich each summer for decades; they observed the patterns of the Elite, they saw their empty concrete hearts and their failed attempts at filling their gaps. The Invasiverich were more like the deer than the cougar, and the Mountainpeople knew this. They had become weathered like the granite of the peaks, and they knew the difference between true strength and weakness masquerading in the paper facade of money. When the cities were placed under marshal law, the Invasiverich took to their castles in the meadows. They had been planning, they had been stockpiling for this; they knew of the storm before the commonpeople. Their mansion arsenals were great, but their skills in marksmanship lacked as they hadn’t been spending a lifetime seeking food for their table with a gun. Their bars of gold meant nothing to the Mountainpeople, who were more interested in taking in the refugees of the cities than the Invasiverich who oppressed those refugees for so long. The Mountainpeople knew the plight of the cityfolk; they knew their skills would be greater than the elite, and they would unite with them.
The rage of the Mountainpeople came like a blood-red dawn in the dead of winter. Their passion for equality was their purpose, and, united with the refugees, this passion tore into the empty material of the Invasiverich, like rays of sunlight burn through the morning’s fog. The fancy shotguns and AA-12’s belonging to the Invasiverich could hone down the enraged mob, but it couldn’t keep them from the marksmanship of the trophy-hunter, a single rifle shot silencing the hollow concrete heart of the pitiful affluence-hunter. In the end, every Invasiverich finally got the mountain experience they longed for: in every Bourgeoisie death came that final second of carnal survival they missed by avoiding the winters. In that last instant of breath, their concrete hearts were filled with the knowing that experience is greater than wealth.
-----
Lawspeakers were those who memorized, recited, and created the law in Iceland during the Viking era. Goði (pl. Goðar) were the chieftains in Iceland, who often held both secular and priestly power. I am using it in the sense that the oppressors often hold power which feels supernaturally strong to the oppressed, and to get as far as most wealthypersons do, one must become sort of a believer in the materialistic dogmas of our era.
Mountainpeople vs. Invasiverich Part 1.
Once upon a dystopian future, the unspoken American class struggle finally came to a head. The raging civil war began not in the streets of cities, but in the rural West. Not long before the collapse and mockery of Belief played upon the blazing sky, a holographic portrayal of all hopes and fears reinvented on the largest plasma screen the world had, the wealthiest classes sought solace from the Rat Race by buying up mountain property.
The mountains, once a haven for persons who never fit into the concrete boxes of the cities, slowly morphed from a quiet place full of countrywomen and good ol’ boys to a bustling venue of Prada-ladies and import-SUV owners. The unbalanced and unhappy Elite brought their fast-paced Materialism with them, and with that came hikes in property values and a drop in available jobs outside of the service positions.
The Mountainpeople were those who stuck it out through the winters. They didn’t mind cold temperature extremes. Hunting and skiing, fishing and rock climbing was second nature to them, although many could no longer afford the slopes and resort-towns, which were teeming with Bourgeoisie. The Mountainpeople began to get angry, but like the geographic positions they had chosen, it took a lot to move them to act on emotion. Their anger was like a seething volcano, brewing over coffee in the small town cafes where local ranchers and servicepersons would mingle and discuss the changes they had endured. Most of the time, their communities functioned with flawless precision. They came together when the going was tough, and they endured the hard times like the mighty aspen endure harsh winds. The Invasiverich began to encroach upon their communities. At first, the Mountainpeople accepted them, although warily so. Many of the Mountainpeople had also moved into the hills to avoid the noise and hastiness of the cities, but when they came, they didn’t bring the city with them.
The Invasiverich settled like pestilent insects blown in from a foreign ecotone. Their hearts were as empty as the concrete boxes from whence they came, but their pockets were laden with the wealth of profits gained from stepping on the backs of the many. The Mountainpeople were enticed by this bounty, but it soon became apparent that with the money came inevitable segregation. The Invasiverich brought their lawyers with them, and soon began to mutilate the country laws to fit their interests. Millionaires began to be pushed out by billionaires, and whoever had the greater Lawspeaker* was the greater Goði*. The Invasiverich introduced their social Darwinism to the community ecology of the hills, and the ‘fittest will survive’ became the predominant theme, defiling the mountains’ dynamic and endemic diversity like an animal gene defiles a Monsanto seed.
The Mountainpeople had their land taken from them. Properties were deemed ‘condemned,’ ranches that were struggling were foreclosed. Mountainpeople began having to rent from the Invasiverich, or share homes amongst many kindred; they had to move into tiny cities in order to find the work to play and meditate in the hills they so loved. Persons born in small towns were pushed out of their orgin-community by rising costs. The Invasiverich’s houses were emptied with the coming winter weather, and the local economies suffered. Mountainpeople had grown accustomed to believing that they needed the Invasiverich. They adapted to the trickle down of dollars, and because there were no positions left save servitude, this became their daily grind. Serving those who pushed them out. Serving those who bought their land from underneath them, and not knowing what to do to revolt.
The mountains, once a haven for persons who never fit into the concrete boxes of the cities, slowly morphed from a quiet place full of countrywomen and good ol’ boys to a bustling venue of Prada-ladies and import-SUV owners. The unbalanced and unhappy Elite brought their fast-paced Materialism with them, and with that came hikes in property values and a drop in available jobs outside of the service positions.
The Mountainpeople were those who stuck it out through the winters. They didn’t mind cold temperature extremes. Hunting and skiing, fishing and rock climbing was second nature to them, although many could no longer afford the slopes and resort-towns, which were teeming with Bourgeoisie. The Mountainpeople began to get angry, but like the geographic positions they had chosen, it took a lot to move them to act on emotion. Their anger was like a seething volcano, brewing over coffee in the small town cafes where local ranchers and servicepersons would mingle and discuss the changes they had endured. Most of the time, their communities functioned with flawless precision. They came together when the going was tough, and they endured the hard times like the mighty aspen endure harsh winds. The Invasiverich began to encroach upon their communities. At first, the Mountainpeople accepted them, although warily so. Many of the Mountainpeople had also moved into the hills to avoid the noise and hastiness of the cities, but when they came, they didn’t bring the city with them.
The Invasiverich settled like pestilent insects blown in from a foreign ecotone. Their hearts were as empty as the concrete boxes from whence they came, but their pockets were laden with the wealth of profits gained from stepping on the backs of the many. The Mountainpeople were enticed by this bounty, but it soon became apparent that with the money came inevitable segregation. The Invasiverich brought their lawyers with them, and soon began to mutilate the country laws to fit their interests. Millionaires began to be pushed out by billionaires, and whoever had the greater Lawspeaker* was the greater Goði*. The Invasiverich introduced their social Darwinism to the community ecology of the hills, and the ‘fittest will survive’ became the predominant theme, defiling the mountains’ dynamic and endemic diversity like an animal gene defiles a Monsanto seed.
The Mountainpeople had their land taken from them. Properties were deemed ‘condemned,’ ranches that were struggling were foreclosed. Mountainpeople began having to rent from the Invasiverich, or share homes amongst many kindred; they had to move into tiny cities in order to find the work to play and meditate in the hills they so loved. Persons born in small towns were pushed out of their orgin-community by rising costs. The Invasiverich’s houses were emptied with the coming winter weather, and the local economies suffered. Mountainpeople had grown accustomed to believing that they needed the Invasiverich. They adapted to the trickle down of dollars, and because there were no positions left save servitude, this became their daily grind. Serving those who pushed them out. Serving those who bought their land from underneath them, and not knowing what to do to revolt.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
An American Fairy Tale, Part 2
One day, Uglyman fell in love with a girlfriend. She was everything he liked in humankind, and everything he knew from the Disneytales to be a bonified, genuine princess. She was smart and talented, skinny and active, beautiful of appearance, at least to those few who saw past her unconfidence. He felt she would be his equal, and together they could harness the world and be two parts of a Whole. Princessgirl enjoyed her time with Uglyman. He made her laugh and feel special and beautiful, when most people had told her or treated her like she was not. He loved to do the things she loved to do, and together they made great conversation long into the evenings. Uglyman seemed to be almost perfect, but Princessgirl was holding out for that White-Knight-in-Shining-Armor she had been promised would be Handsome. She knew of many handsome men, but they did not hold her attention like Uglyman did, and most times they would either lead her on with empty promises, or shy away from her feeble attempts at romantic advancement.
The evening when Uglyman had gained the confidence to tell Princessgirl of his feelings. They were to meet that afternoon for a bike ride, and then share a bit of dinner. Uglyman had a beautiful afternoon planned, and he was going to tell her of his love after a meal at a gourmet restaurant that he had saved up for.
Princessgirl had never let Uglyman pay for her meal, because she had felt that he had feelings of more than friendship for her, but she did not know how to tell him of her feelings. Princessgirl was nervous to hang out with Uglyman, because she knew that one day he would tell her how he felt attracted to her, and she did not feel the same. Princessgirl loved Uglyman, but only as a dear friend. His appearance was not handsome, and so he did not fit her description of the White-Knight, thus she could not be his girlfriend, even though aside from looks he was so wonderful.
After the meal, Uglyman promptly paid the waitress quicker than princess girl could negate. Uglyman understood this deed as a knightly act of chivalry; Princessgirl was affronted. She did not know what to do with a man-of-action, and not many people had done that before. She knew immediately that the drive back home was going to be a hard one. Uglyman began to tell Princessgirl now he felt romantic love for her, but when he asked if she shared these feelings, Princessgirl just sat there without anything to say. She couldn't break Uglyman’s heart and tell him he was too hideous to date. She couldn't find the words to say that, because it was cruel. It wasn't his fault that he was born with those looks. There wasn't a whole lot he could do, he wasn't wealthy enough to have an operation to fix it, and Princessgirl couldn't be the one to break all this news to him, and to inform him that he was not the half of the Whole she was seeking. Her heart was not full of mean intent, but she was as confused about her feelings towards Uglyman as he was confident of his love for her.
This moment of silence between them lingered for what seemed like hours. Uglyman knew that the silence was a rejection of his proclamation of love. His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach, and his chest began to ache. He felt like he was trying to breathe underwater.
The drive home was tense and conversation forced. Princessgirl didn't know what to say, she didn't know how to act or speak about what had just happened. Her impish shyness resulted in little skills in conflict resolution, and orally conveying emotion was near impossible for her. She got out of Uglyman’s car and decided she would simply avoid him.
Uglyman and Princessgirl drifted apart after that. The difficulty of the dinner was hard to talk around, and life went forward as it always does. Princessgirl found what she thought was her White-Knight; he was handsome and able, interesting to talk with and listen to, but he didn’t make her feel like an equal often, at least not like Uglyman had. Uglyman pursued a life of chivalry, but he did so with a lack of passion and his actions were tainted with mediocrity, as he felt he would never find the other person to make him Whole.
Both Uglyman and Princessgirl realized all too late, as age had taken his action and her confidence, that two people cannot make one Whole. Wholeness cannot be sought outside of oneself, but can only be found within. No relationship with another will ever fill the hole made by hating oneself. Neither Uglyman nor Princessgirl learned to love themselves, and their lives were pained with sorrow until their final days.
The evening when Uglyman had gained the confidence to tell Princessgirl of his feelings. They were to meet that afternoon for a bike ride, and then share a bit of dinner. Uglyman had a beautiful afternoon planned, and he was going to tell her of his love after a meal at a gourmet restaurant that he had saved up for.
Princessgirl had never let Uglyman pay for her meal, because she had felt that he had feelings of more than friendship for her, but she did not know how to tell him of her feelings. Princessgirl was nervous to hang out with Uglyman, because she knew that one day he would tell her how he felt attracted to her, and she did not feel the same. Princessgirl loved Uglyman, but only as a dear friend. His appearance was not handsome, and so he did not fit her description of the White-Knight, thus she could not be his girlfriend, even though aside from looks he was so wonderful.
After the meal, Uglyman promptly paid the waitress quicker than princess girl could negate. Uglyman understood this deed as a knightly act of chivalry; Princessgirl was affronted. She did not know what to do with a man-of-action, and not many people had done that before. She knew immediately that the drive back home was going to be a hard one. Uglyman began to tell Princessgirl now he felt romantic love for her, but when he asked if she shared these feelings, Princessgirl just sat there without anything to say. She couldn't break Uglyman’s heart and tell him he was too hideous to date. She couldn't find the words to say that, because it was cruel. It wasn't his fault that he was born with those looks. There wasn't a whole lot he could do, he wasn't wealthy enough to have an operation to fix it, and Princessgirl couldn't be the one to break all this news to him, and to inform him that he was not the half of the Whole she was seeking. Her heart was not full of mean intent, but she was as confused about her feelings towards Uglyman as he was confident of his love for her.
This moment of silence between them lingered for what seemed like hours. Uglyman knew that the silence was a rejection of his proclamation of love. His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach, and his chest began to ache. He felt like he was trying to breathe underwater.
The drive home was tense and conversation forced. Princessgirl didn't know what to say, she didn't know how to act or speak about what had just happened. Her impish shyness resulted in little skills in conflict resolution, and orally conveying emotion was near impossible for her. She got out of Uglyman’s car and decided she would simply avoid him.
Uglyman and Princessgirl drifted apart after that. The difficulty of the dinner was hard to talk around, and life went forward as it always does. Princessgirl found what she thought was her White-Knight; he was handsome and able, interesting to talk with and listen to, but he didn’t make her feel like an equal often, at least not like Uglyman had. Uglyman pursued a life of chivalry, but he did so with a lack of passion and his actions were tainted with mediocrity, as he felt he would never find the other person to make him Whole.
Both Uglyman and Princessgirl realized all too late, as age had taken his action and her confidence, that two people cannot make one Whole. Wholeness cannot be sought outside of oneself, but can only be found within. No relationship with another will ever fill the hole made by hating oneself. Neither Uglyman nor Princessgirl learned to love themselves, and their lives were pained with sorrow until their final days.
An American Fairy Tale, Part 1
Once upon a time, there lived a man with an aching heart. His heart ached because he was of a comely appearance. Uglyman had many talents, gifts, and a big capacity for love, but no one would bother to experience those things because they didn't like Uglyman’s face. To compensate for his looks, or lack thereof, Uglyman delved into the athletic sports of his region, and did so with chivalrous intent. He became a paramedic and a firefighter, and he saved the lives of people in the outdoors. He learned many things, and completed many good and princely deeds of servitude. Uglyman was the epitome of the White-Knight-in-Shining-Armor. He was everything the cartoons told him to be as a boy, everything the girls wanted in a man. He was fit, he was able, he was intensely spiritual and profoundly thoughtful, but he had no beauty of face, at least upon first glance, which was what most shallow-people gave him before politely turning away.
Uglyman was writing his own way into the world. If his heart could not be given to a lady, he would give it instead to his passions of prose and point of view. He would seek acceptance by building his own life, and making a hole for his peg that didn't ever fit in the Valley of Dolls. His achievements would be many, as he was competent to harness the moon, but even then no one would give him the love he so sought. Not one girl would give him more than a glance, at least not for long.
Uglyman had been given little opportunity to understand the opposite sex. Very few had paid him much attention, and what girls that did flirt with him most times didn't understand their actions were taken as flirtation. This led to a general state of confusion regarding femalekind, which exacerbated Uglyman's shyness and unconfidence. To compensate, Uglyman amplified his assumptions of what was going on inside the minds of others. All of his psychic, empathic, and emotional feelers were out, and because of this Uglyman sometimes took things the wrong way, especially regarding the intentions of those around him. This got Uglyman into a lot of trouble with friends and with females, because most people mistook his shyness and lack of social skills for abrasive rudeness and passive-aggression. When it came to flirting, most women wouldn't get it, or would feel awkward at his advances because when they looked at his face, they mistook his crooked teeth and mottled complexion as a symbol of his character. As girls, they had listened to the animated stories, and had been conditioned to think that all ugly men were bad men, just as they had been in the films. As this conditioning was at the very foundation of his culture, Uglyman had never gotten past second base.
Uglyman was writing his own way into the world. If his heart could not be given to a lady, he would give it instead to his passions of prose and point of view. He would seek acceptance by building his own life, and making a hole for his peg that didn't ever fit in the Valley of Dolls. His achievements would be many, as he was competent to harness the moon, but even then no one would give him the love he so sought. Not one girl would give him more than a glance, at least not for long.
Uglyman had been given little opportunity to understand the opposite sex. Very few had paid him much attention, and what girls that did flirt with him most times didn't understand their actions were taken as flirtation. This led to a general state of confusion regarding femalekind, which exacerbated Uglyman's shyness and unconfidence. To compensate, Uglyman amplified his assumptions of what was going on inside the minds of others. All of his psychic, empathic, and emotional feelers were out, and because of this Uglyman sometimes took things the wrong way, especially regarding the intentions of those around him. This got Uglyman into a lot of trouble with friends and with females, because most people mistook his shyness and lack of social skills for abrasive rudeness and passive-aggression. When it came to flirting, most women wouldn't get it, or would feel awkward at his advances because when they looked at his face, they mistook his crooked teeth and mottled complexion as a symbol of his character. As girls, they had listened to the animated stories, and had been conditioned to think that all ugly men were bad men, just as they had been in the films. As this conditioning was at the very foundation of his culture, Uglyman had never gotten past second base.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wild-child Part 3
On the day Wild-child was to begin the second semester of Grade One, her mom and sister walked with her through the park to the school. Mommy kissed Wild-child goodbye, and Wild-child lined up with the other kids on the playground to get ready to go to the new class. Wild-child saw Geoff and waved heartily at him, but Geoff just stared at Wild-child as if she had a lobster growing out of her skull. He ignored her throughout first recess, and at lunch Wild-child approached Geoff and asked him what was the trouble.
Wild-child: Hey. How come you won’t talk to me?
Geoff: My dad told me I couldn’t talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends.
Wild-child: Why not? Did your dad say why we couldn’t play together?
Geoff: Yeah, he said I shouldn’t be playing with little girls who don’t act like girls.
Wild-child: What do you mean? I’m a girl, I’m only a tomboy.
Geoff: Dad says girls like you are freaks because you pretend to be boys and you need to learn your place. Go away, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends anymore, I’ll get in trouble.
And with that, Wild-child’s friendship with Geoff promptly ended.
That afternoon after school, Wild-child told her mom what Geoff had said to her. Her mom consoled her and told her to just keep being herself, and not to worry, she’ll make friends. People will see, you’re a special girl, you’ll make friends, Mommy said. But that wasn’t Wild-child experience each day. Every lunch, Wild-child would wind up eating by herself, or with the little handicap girl she would sometimes play with. The girls wouldn’t sit with her, because she was weird and didn’t like to wear dresses. Wild-child’s mom started forcing Wild-child to wear dresses, to conform and hopefully make friends, but Wild-child secretly stowed an extra pair of jeans in her locker at school, and every time her mom sent her to Glen Eagle Elementary in a dress, Wild-child would change into her spare jeans and t-shirt when Mom wasn’t around.
Things were lonely for a time, and Wild-child focused her attention on her studies rather than on her social standing. That was how it went, until a group of boys started calling her names. At first, the names were like whispers on wind, uttered under the breath of children as though they hadn’t said a thing. Their sideways glances gave them away, and their blatant absolution only revealed their guilt. The origin of the name-calling was Geoff, who was quite popular as he often had many M.U.S.C.L.E. men to trade with. Wild-child suspected he had stolen some of hers during lunch, but she couldn’t say or do much about it. One day during a spelling Bee, Wild-child was in the back of the class and while the teacher was talking, Wild-child let go of a large, smelly, and rather large fart. She couldn’t do anything about it, she was nervous about the Bee. The teacher stopped talking, and the entire class turned to look at Wild-child, whose cheeks had turned a bright red, the colour of her Pterodactyl T-shirt.
Teacher (with everyone watching, and some grimacing at the foul stench emanating from the back of the classroom): Wild-child, what do you say when you do that?
Wild-child: ...Pardon me. I had cabbage last night that did not agree with me.
Some of the boys chortled. None of the girls laughed. The Grade-One teacher just stared at Wild-child for a long while, until the class was underneath a cloud of awkward silence and lingering kidfart that was so dense you could cut it with a knife.
The teacher never really liked Wild-child much. Wild-child suspected the lady didn’t like Americans, but she couldn’t be sure. Seeing as the point had been made, and Wild-child was the focal point of enforcing social norms, things were rough on the playground for a while. Mocking whispers became blatant curses, and Wild-child started going home for lunch each day.
Wild-child: Hey. How come you won’t talk to me?
Geoff: My dad told me I couldn’t talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends.
Wild-child: Why not? Did your dad say why we couldn’t play together?
Geoff: Yeah, he said I shouldn’t be playing with little girls who don’t act like girls.
Wild-child: What do you mean? I’m a girl, I’m only a tomboy.
Geoff: Dad says girls like you are freaks because you pretend to be boys and you need to learn your place. Go away, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends anymore, I’ll get in trouble.
And with that, Wild-child’s friendship with Geoff promptly ended.
That afternoon after school, Wild-child told her mom what Geoff had said to her. Her mom consoled her and told her to just keep being herself, and not to worry, she’ll make friends. People will see, you’re a special girl, you’ll make friends, Mommy said. But that wasn’t Wild-child experience each day. Every lunch, Wild-child would wind up eating by herself, or with the little handicap girl she would sometimes play with. The girls wouldn’t sit with her, because she was weird and didn’t like to wear dresses. Wild-child’s mom started forcing Wild-child to wear dresses, to conform and hopefully make friends, but Wild-child secretly stowed an extra pair of jeans in her locker at school, and every time her mom sent her to Glen Eagle Elementary in a dress, Wild-child would change into her spare jeans and t-shirt when Mom wasn’t around.
Things were lonely for a time, and Wild-child focused her attention on her studies rather than on her social standing. That was how it went, until a group of boys started calling her names. At first, the names were like whispers on wind, uttered under the breath of children as though they hadn’t said a thing. Their sideways glances gave them away, and their blatant absolution only revealed their guilt. The origin of the name-calling was Geoff, who was quite popular as he often had many M.U.S.C.L.E. men to trade with. Wild-child suspected he had stolen some of hers during lunch, but she couldn’t say or do much about it. One day during a spelling Bee, Wild-child was in the back of the class and while the teacher was talking, Wild-child let go of a large, smelly, and rather large fart. She couldn’t do anything about it, she was nervous about the Bee. The teacher stopped talking, and the entire class turned to look at Wild-child, whose cheeks had turned a bright red, the colour of her Pterodactyl T-shirt.
Teacher (with everyone watching, and some grimacing at the foul stench emanating from the back of the classroom): Wild-child, what do you say when you do that?
Wild-child: ...Pardon me. I had cabbage last night that did not agree with me.
Some of the boys chortled. None of the girls laughed. The Grade-One teacher just stared at Wild-child for a long while, until the class was underneath a cloud of awkward silence and lingering kidfart that was so dense you could cut it with a knife.
The teacher never really liked Wild-child much. Wild-child suspected the lady didn’t like Americans, but she couldn’t be sure. Seeing as the point had been made, and Wild-child was the focal point of enforcing social norms, things were rough on the playground for a while. Mocking whispers became blatant curses, and Wild-child started going home for lunch each day.
Wild-child Part 2
The trip to Canada was a hot and cramped one, and Wild-child had many nightmares in the back of that shiny new Yuppie Camry. She remembers her parents listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours cassette and stopping at a u-pump-it and getting Wild-child a Dr. Pepper. The Dr. Pepper was the coldest thing Wild-child had ever had, colder than any popsicle had ever been, because she was so hot in the back of that car. It made the nightmare less scary. It made the trip more bearable.
When the Middle Class American family left Colorado for Toronto, the half-human husband was told by his bosses that he would be in charge of a particular branch in Canada. When he arrived they had given the position to his competitor but had decided to keep him on as his competitor’s assistant. This greatly wounded the husband, who had to spend two weeks waiting for the moving truck to get to Toronto. His family’s new home was a hotel room until then. That is when his new baby got really sick. She was so ill she turned bright red all over her body, and her fever was potentially fatal. Tilly was rushed to the emergency and a doctor in Canada saved her life. She was sick and no one knew why or with what, but she almost died. It scared Wild-child and she didn’t resent her little pink sister so much for a time, because she thought the little one was a weakling and sickly, and took pity on her.
Wild-child always had a capacity to feel pity for the broken things in the world. She pitied the retarded kids who had no friends on the playground, and so she played with them when no one else would talk to or touch them. One time in Colorado, Wild-child met a little girl on a bicycle. She seemed like she’d be a nice friend, and Wild-child gave her the bag of M&Ms she had been eating in her yard. The little girl on the bicycle took the candy and rode away, and was never seen again. People saw Wild-child’s ability to feel pain, and some respected her for it, and others took from her because her humility was also gullible naivete. People like taking from the gullible - it makes them feel powerful. It makes them forget their bleeding wounds and broken souls. Wild-child allowed them to forget for a time.
It took her many years to find her niche, and she never really did. She was always the kind of person that people didn’t know how or what to do with. She didn’t make friends easily, and boys would tease her for dressing like them. She was a tomboy, not a boy. She was still a girl, she just didn’t want to dress like an idiot. She wanted to play war just like all the other kids, but because she was born a girl for some reason she could not play war as simply as those who were born boys could.
Wild-child liked to draw and create pictures with waterpaint. One day her dad bought her a model airplane, and she and Dad spent the entire weekend putting the plastic together with model glue, and when it was finished Wild-child and her dad played with it out on the lawn in the back yard. Wild-child loved her dad very much, and loved her dad most of all in Canada. He seemed to feel more relieved there than he did in America, in spite of his work-wound. As an adult, Wild-child came to find that it was probably because he was the man of his own castle, and had a whole family that was his own to come home to. It was like a cabin away from the pain of the work, and the family was the strength that kept him going. It wasn’t always so simple, but it seemed like that was why her dad was happiest in Canada. It reminded him of his childhood in Ottawa and in England, and he didn’t feel so silly for knowing so much about the world there. People in Canada didn’t treat him like a know-it-all, because everyone around him was of similar education.
Wild-child made a friend named Geoff the summer she moved to the big house on the corner. Geoff was a tall boy with sandy blonde hair, and he liked to wear camouflage a lot. Geoff had both a Nintendo and an Atari, but Wild-child’s family only had an Atari, so Wild-child would go over to his house to play Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Geoff liked wrestling and playing war, and he and Wild-child got into a lot of scrapes running around the neighbourhood. Geoff also taught her how to collect M.U.S.C.L.E. men, which were quite the rage in Oakville. Wild-child thought Geoff was to be her best friend, the way Camilla had been. Geoff sometimes ate at her house, but Wild-child never got invited to do the same at Geoff’s place. One evening, Wild-child was on her way home from Geoff’s. It was dusk, and she had her seagreen Schwinn BMX bicycle with the training wheels on it. Wild-child was going a little too fast down the hill, and hit some gravel. The BMX wheels began to skid, and even with the training wheels, Wild-child began to slide with her bicycle. She was wearing shorts, and her thigh met the gravelly pavement for several feet before she came to a stop. Her leg looked like Mommy’s meatloaf, which turned Wild-child off of meatloaf forever. She had almost slid underneath the bed of a large truck, but had stopped in time before hitting the back of the pickup.
The scab that formed on Wild-child’s thigh stuck to her sweatpant PJs. It wouldn’t heal for a while because Canada was so much more humid than Colorado, and Mommy wasn’t able to keep Wild-child from picking at it. Wild-child secretly liked to pull at the scab in bed, because it was unusual. It reminded her of the impact with pavement, and it felt odd to have pink skin turn into a yellow wound and then become hard and crisp like a potato crisp. It was weird, and it was gross. Wild-child liked anything gross. She even liked the gross slime that grew underneath the bridge by her house. Her mom had told her not to go down there, but Wild-child did all the time when Mommy wasn’t looking. There was art down there, and Wild-child was intrigued by the four letter words that no one was supposed to say, but everyone did.
When the Middle Class American family left Colorado for Toronto, the half-human husband was told by his bosses that he would be in charge of a particular branch in Canada. When he arrived they had given the position to his competitor but had decided to keep him on as his competitor’s assistant. This greatly wounded the husband, who had to spend two weeks waiting for the moving truck to get to Toronto. His family’s new home was a hotel room until then. That is when his new baby got really sick. She was so ill she turned bright red all over her body, and her fever was potentially fatal. Tilly was rushed to the emergency and a doctor in Canada saved her life. She was sick and no one knew why or with what, but she almost died. It scared Wild-child and she didn’t resent her little pink sister so much for a time, because she thought the little one was a weakling and sickly, and took pity on her.
Wild-child always had a capacity to feel pity for the broken things in the world. She pitied the retarded kids who had no friends on the playground, and so she played with them when no one else would talk to or touch them. One time in Colorado, Wild-child met a little girl on a bicycle. She seemed like she’d be a nice friend, and Wild-child gave her the bag of M&Ms she had been eating in her yard. The little girl on the bicycle took the candy and rode away, and was never seen again. People saw Wild-child’s ability to feel pain, and some respected her for it, and others took from her because her humility was also gullible naivete. People like taking from the gullible - it makes them feel powerful. It makes them forget their bleeding wounds and broken souls. Wild-child allowed them to forget for a time.
It took her many years to find her niche, and she never really did. She was always the kind of person that people didn’t know how or what to do with. She didn’t make friends easily, and boys would tease her for dressing like them. She was a tomboy, not a boy. She was still a girl, she just didn’t want to dress like an idiot. She wanted to play war just like all the other kids, but because she was born a girl for some reason she could not play war as simply as those who were born boys could.
Wild-child liked to draw and create pictures with waterpaint. One day her dad bought her a model airplane, and she and Dad spent the entire weekend putting the plastic together with model glue, and when it was finished Wild-child and her dad played with it out on the lawn in the back yard. Wild-child loved her dad very much, and loved her dad most of all in Canada. He seemed to feel more relieved there than he did in America, in spite of his work-wound. As an adult, Wild-child came to find that it was probably because he was the man of his own castle, and had a whole family that was his own to come home to. It was like a cabin away from the pain of the work, and the family was the strength that kept him going. It wasn’t always so simple, but it seemed like that was why her dad was happiest in Canada. It reminded him of his childhood in Ottawa and in England, and he didn’t feel so silly for knowing so much about the world there. People in Canada didn’t treat him like a know-it-all, because everyone around him was of similar education.
Wild-child made a friend named Geoff the summer she moved to the big house on the corner. Geoff was a tall boy with sandy blonde hair, and he liked to wear camouflage a lot. Geoff had both a Nintendo and an Atari, but Wild-child’s family only had an Atari, so Wild-child would go over to his house to play Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Geoff liked wrestling and playing war, and he and Wild-child got into a lot of scrapes running around the neighbourhood. Geoff also taught her how to collect M.U.S.C.L.E. men, which were quite the rage in Oakville. Wild-child thought Geoff was to be her best friend, the way Camilla had been. Geoff sometimes ate at her house, but Wild-child never got invited to do the same at Geoff’s place. One evening, Wild-child was on her way home from Geoff’s. It was dusk, and she had her seagreen Schwinn BMX bicycle with the training wheels on it. Wild-child was going a little too fast down the hill, and hit some gravel. The BMX wheels began to skid, and even with the training wheels, Wild-child began to slide with her bicycle. She was wearing shorts, and her thigh met the gravelly pavement for several feet before she came to a stop. Her leg looked like Mommy’s meatloaf, which turned Wild-child off of meatloaf forever. She had almost slid underneath the bed of a large truck, but had stopped in time before hitting the back of the pickup.
The scab that formed on Wild-child’s thigh stuck to her sweatpant PJs. It wouldn’t heal for a while because Canada was so much more humid than Colorado, and Mommy wasn’t able to keep Wild-child from picking at it. Wild-child secretly liked to pull at the scab in bed, because it was unusual. It reminded her of the impact with pavement, and it felt odd to have pink skin turn into a yellow wound and then become hard and crisp like a potato crisp. It was weird, and it was gross. Wild-child liked anything gross. She even liked the gross slime that grew underneath the bridge by her house. Her mom had told her not to go down there, but Wild-child did all the time when Mommy wasn’t looking. There was art down there, and Wild-child was intrigued by the four letter words that no one was supposed to say, but everyone did.
Wild-child Part 1
Once upon a time there was a middle class family in the 1980s in Colorado. The family had just moved into their first home, a tiny but efficient three bedroom house in the booming community of Lafayette, Colorado. The husband was a military-brat turned civil-rights-activist turned draft-dodger turned English-Lit-major turned poet turned husband turned half-person turned General-Electric-desk-jockey. This husband was an up and coming Yuppie, who sacrificed dreams and idealism for cold hard cash and a crib with a baby and two mouths other than his own to feed. Who can say that was a good sacrifice? I can, as I’m a byproduct of his sacrificial death of dream.
The wife of this up-and-coming Yuppie family was halfbreed “Black Dutch” turned poor-white-trash turned abused-child turned orphaned-rebellious-hippy turned Anglophile turned psychology-major turned sociology-major turned wife turned half-person turned housewife turned mother turned homemaker. This wife was a woman who was taught to believe in the White Knight to rescue her and she sacrificed her self, her dreams and her idealism for a lovely roof over her head and a crib with a baby and two mouths other than her own to feed. Who can say that was a good sacrifice? I can, as I am the biproduct of her sacrificial death of dream.
This middle class family believed all was well in Reaganworld, where so long as you kept on giving up for money, all the worries would be relieved by the glossy gifts of material greed. It was the way of their generation, it was the way of their culture.
The little girl they bore was unlike other little girls. She did not like dresses or frills, and preferred He-Man to She-ra. She liked Mickey Mouse and wanted to grow a beard like her daddy did each morning. She enjoyed playing and living out of house and in the yard, playing in the grass and eating Razzles and mud pies on stormy summer days.
One day the wife told the little girl she was going to have a little sister. The girl was excited and watched her mother’s stomach grow and thought that perhaps the baby got in there when her daddy would kiss mommy on the lips. Perhaps the little girl had lived in daddy and had crawled into mommy’s stomach through his mouth into hers. It didn’t matter, she was going to have a sister, and she had no say in the matter. It was already done.
Little Wild-child remembered her parents leaving for France with her daddy’s company. She remembers being forced to live at Meme and Grandpa’s. Meme had a fascination with suppositories, and grandpa enforced a strict dress-for-Sunday-school code, very much like an MP would enforce curfew. As much as Wild-child liked her grandparents, they smelled different than her parents and they were not as nice. She hated her parents for going to France without her, but she had no say in the matter.
Wild-child resented the little pink thing in the car seat next to her on the way home from the hospital. She resented it because it took mommy’s attention away. It demanded much more than Wild-child ever did, and it cried a lot. It made everyone frustrated, but still Wild-child had to like it, it was her sister, after all.
One day when Wild-child was playing with her finger paints, her sister came over and bit her knee so fiercely that she broke skin and Wild-child’s knee bled. She could not hit the teething infant but Mommy fixed the wound with a bandaid. She could not fix the wound of resentment in the little tomboy’s heart, the malice that tainted Wild-child’s relationship with Matilda since that first cut on her knee.
Wild-child remembered saying goodbye to the house in Lafayette. She remembered the big moving van and the new Camry that would take them to Toronto. None of it made much sense until she said goodbye to her best friend Camilla. Camilla was like Wild-child, she didn’t like dresses or frills and preferred G.I. Joes and Legos to Barbie, but Camilla couldn’t watch the Thundercats or the Smurfs because they were filled with witchcraft and sorcery and Camilla’s parents were missionaries. When Wild-child said goodbye to Camilla, she knew she was really leaving forever.
The wife of this up-and-coming Yuppie family was halfbreed “Black Dutch” turned poor-white-trash turned abused-child turned orphaned-rebellious-hippy turned Anglophile turned psychology-major turned sociology-major turned wife turned half-person turned housewife turned mother turned homemaker. This wife was a woman who was taught to believe in the White Knight to rescue her and she sacrificed her self, her dreams and her idealism for a lovely roof over her head and a crib with a baby and two mouths other than her own to feed. Who can say that was a good sacrifice? I can, as I am the biproduct of her sacrificial death of dream.
This middle class family believed all was well in Reaganworld, where so long as you kept on giving up for money, all the worries would be relieved by the glossy gifts of material greed. It was the way of their generation, it was the way of their culture.
The little girl they bore was unlike other little girls. She did not like dresses or frills, and preferred He-Man to She-ra. She liked Mickey Mouse and wanted to grow a beard like her daddy did each morning. She enjoyed playing and living out of house and in the yard, playing in the grass and eating Razzles and mud pies on stormy summer days.
One day the wife told the little girl she was going to have a little sister. The girl was excited and watched her mother’s stomach grow and thought that perhaps the baby got in there when her daddy would kiss mommy on the lips. Perhaps the little girl had lived in daddy and had crawled into mommy’s stomach through his mouth into hers. It didn’t matter, she was going to have a sister, and she had no say in the matter. It was already done.
Little Wild-child remembered her parents leaving for France with her daddy’s company. She remembers being forced to live at Meme and Grandpa’s. Meme had a fascination with suppositories, and grandpa enforced a strict dress-for-Sunday-school code, very much like an MP would enforce curfew. As much as Wild-child liked her grandparents, they smelled different than her parents and they were not as nice. She hated her parents for going to France without her, but she had no say in the matter.
Wild-child resented the little pink thing in the car seat next to her on the way home from the hospital. She resented it because it took mommy’s attention away. It demanded much more than Wild-child ever did, and it cried a lot. It made everyone frustrated, but still Wild-child had to like it, it was her sister, after all.
One day when Wild-child was playing with her finger paints, her sister came over and bit her knee so fiercely that she broke skin and Wild-child’s knee bled. She could not hit the teething infant but Mommy fixed the wound with a bandaid. She could not fix the wound of resentment in the little tomboy’s heart, the malice that tainted Wild-child’s relationship with Matilda since that first cut on her knee.
Wild-child remembered saying goodbye to the house in Lafayette. She remembered the big moving van and the new Camry that would take them to Toronto. None of it made much sense until she said goodbye to her best friend Camilla. Camilla was like Wild-child, she didn’t like dresses or frills and preferred G.I. Joes and Legos to Barbie, but Camilla couldn’t watch the Thundercats or the Smurfs because they were filled with witchcraft and sorcery and Camilla’s parents were missionaries. When Wild-child said goodbye to Camilla, she knew she was really leaving forever.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Introduction.
I don’t know how to start this ordeal, and it’ll probably blow, but I am going to attempt to do it anyway. My muses tell me, why not start in the Moment?
I will post at least weekly, and maybe at first it will be daily or several times a day or several times a week, until someone decides to hire me, or they accept my massive corporeal form at a volunteer organization of my preference.
Disclaimer:
I am more philosopher than artist. My philosophy manifests itself in creation mediums such as prose, poetry, metalwork, drawing, and storytelling.
I have never written anything more than twenty pages long, and that was a paper on the Collapse of the Greenlandic Norse colony. I need assistance by the readers in editing my verbose nature. Please be kind, I require buildup rather than breakdown. My style of writing is often with known contradiction to grammatical law, and is intentional as laws demand evolution and change.
I brazenly object to large aspects of reality. I play Devil’s Advocate, as that is how my father taught me. Observation and contentious opinion are a focal point of my writing, so that I might connect with others and not feel so alone in my philosophy. I’ve never found any one box to fit in, and so this oddity is an overtone to my many contradictions.
My existence as a Human American is troubling, to point of pain. My bitterness on the topic shall be evident. I consider myself nothing special but must scream out the poetic suppuration which clogs my troubled soul. I do not see myself deserving of a story, to even state a story implies I understand, and that is a jest. I know nothing of real hardship; I have never known true hunger or true illness, but I have known the pain of my society and my personhood.
Most people don’t talk about this pain, and they pretend it doesn’t exist. Our movies portray it as not existing, and those which do hint at the troubled souls of this country are often only sugar coating reality. The hardships of this nation are deeper than that which I have endured, but I have experienced and observed much for my age. I have chosen to expand upon this, and by showing my path perhaps I will reveal more to the reader. At the least perhaps you will know me more.
I have chosen different names for the entities I have known. What I say may offend and shock, and cause said entities to be upset with me. I cannot contain my stories for the fear of harming another, after all, we individually choose to feel harmed by another’s words. We choose to take things personally. If it is the choice of the reader to feel personally attacked, that is their choice, and I have no part in it. It is not my intention to hurt, but it may happen because of the choice of individuals.
I will begin with a story.
I will post at least weekly, and maybe at first it will be daily or several times a day or several times a week, until someone decides to hire me, or they accept my massive corporeal form at a volunteer organization of my preference.
Disclaimer:
I am more philosopher than artist. My philosophy manifests itself in creation mediums such as prose, poetry, metalwork, drawing, and storytelling.
I have never written anything more than twenty pages long, and that was a paper on the Collapse of the Greenlandic Norse colony. I need assistance by the readers in editing my verbose nature. Please be kind, I require buildup rather than breakdown. My style of writing is often with known contradiction to grammatical law, and is intentional as laws demand evolution and change.
I brazenly object to large aspects of reality. I play Devil’s Advocate, as that is how my father taught me. Observation and contentious opinion are a focal point of my writing, so that I might connect with others and not feel so alone in my philosophy. I’ve never found any one box to fit in, and so this oddity is an overtone to my many contradictions.
My existence as a Human American is troubling, to point of pain. My bitterness on the topic shall be evident. I consider myself nothing special but must scream out the poetic suppuration which clogs my troubled soul. I do not see myself deserving of a story, to even state a story implies I understand, and that is a jest. I know nothing of real hardship; I have never known true hunger or true illness, but I have known the pain of my society and my personhood.
Most people don’t talk about this pain, and they pretend it doesn’t exist. Our movies portray it as not existing, and those which do hint at the troubled souls of this country are often only sugar coating reality. The hardships of this nation are deeper than that which I have endured, but I have experienced and observed much for my age. I have chosen to expand upon this, and by showing my path perhaps I will reveal more to the reader. At the least perhaps you will know me more.
I have chosen different names for the entities I have known. What I say may offend and shock, and cause said entities to be upset with me. I cannot contain my stories for the fear of harming another, after all, we individually choose to feel harmed by another’s words. We choose to take things personally. If it is the choice of the reader to feel personally attacked, that is their choice, and I have no part in it. It is not my intention to hurt, but it may happen because of the choice of individuals.
I will begin with a story.
Storytelling One.
Once upon a time,
Alexis got tired of reading and watching all the stories of others, so she decided to write her own down. She was ill with the influenza of 2010 when she decided to do this, or that is what she guessed she had, as the incubation time was spot on in accordance to a rather rushed visit to the Denver Museum of Modern Art. Because Alexis acknowledged the wisdom of George Carlin and decided that a little dirt never hurt anybody, she failed to wash her thumbs when the social hand-washing check was instilled by the fellow minions in the restroom. Little did Alexis know, two days later when she decided to try her new spicy dreadlock soap that her damp hair would result in a low core temperature while sleeping, thus resulting in her present condition of general malaise.
Alexis was on a break. A leave of absence from school, glazed over with an interesting acronym, “TOP.” This was a typical systematic approach to condensing life issues into something more manageable, lessening the emotional blow of taking a “time out” into something which sounded proactive, successful, positive. Newspeak has infiltrated this culture into every level. She knew people who wouldn’t laugh at jokes but instead uttered, “LOL! OMG you are so funny!” It’s a miracle there are so many humans on this planet, still breathing and breeding.
Breathing and breeding, that’s what we do here. We don’t think or act or speak out, or truly stand up for things, nope. We just eat, shit and fuck.
So one night, after chewing on a major familial dilemma for about a half year, jaw sore from the grinding down of tooth enamel, mind fatigued with the continued guilt and the lack of interest in anything other than moving on, Alexis decided hiding was no longer the best course of action. You are either running from something, spectating, or committed. Time to commit, she said to herself.
I live in America. Not much pride here in the house of Alexis. I used to have a lot of pride, hope, belief in the Dream. But I’ve seen too much woundedness to admit this is the greatest place on earth. I know that what really goes on behind our four borders is more about covering up the wounds than being materialistic. It’s all profoundly spiritual, you see. These borders we build with our wealth are nothing more than a wall built to keep the awareness of depravity out. It is really just an illusion to keep ourselves from the reality regarding the greed of our materialism and our monotheistic cultural approaches to this world and what these choices have done to our planet.
My culture is the spoiled rich kid who stole all the food on Spaceship Earth, just as we were all hoping to find a safe haven via technological advance. Yep, so no pride here. Not any longer, in fact, I pity My-Fellow-Americans more than anything.
I’m sure some family members will be fairly pissed when they read this, as they likely will. I’ll be likened to some socialist fuck that everyone thinks they understand to be a socialist but really is just a capitalist parading as a dictator, or some such nonsense. I’m probably not making any sense, this whole illness thing messes with capacities to write. So much editing will occur. Or not. Meh.
Alexis woke from her Netflix slumber to the sound of her neighbour drunk-tripping up the stairs and stumbling into his apartment.
Alexis threw out a cruelly directed attack: At least I’m not hiding in a bottle of ale.
Which, upon utterance, became an instantaneous reminder of her own current coping method of hiding in hours and hours of cinema.
This allowed Alexis to remember she is no different from the wounded drunkard, her cocoon is just more subtle and socially acceptable.
This place is full of the wounded, who wake from their restless slumber to the sound of a violent alarm, wake up! WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!! and chase the dollar!
Chase the dollar, food must be on the plate, but don’t take leave, don’t breathe and ask for a holiday, or the time to handle the guts dangling from that wound you have in your centre.
We are taught to ignore the bleeding of our souls, because merely looking at it isn’t manly, or brave, but weak. So most people wander the highways to and from work, visceral tendrils hiding underneath their snappy suits and ties, pretending nothing is the matter. That is, in fact, the very reason we have trashed this place, and have built our wall of material around us. A blanket to cushion the blow that we are no different from the beggar in Calcutta, or the tenant farmer in Africa, or the Chinese whore in Shanghai.
Alexis was told she was different. Different from all the normals, less cool. She was without doubt insane. Yes, definitely, definitely insane. Crazy enough to consider suicide, which was of course, unnatural. I mean, why would anyone want to do that? Why would anyone want to wipe their smirk off the face of this planet, upon discovering the reality that the world they believed to be real was an illusion? That the United States of America broke dreams, not made them?
Yes, insane for seeing it, and most people who are sensitive to those kinds of things are painfully reminded of the reality of the world each day. Sometimes those who are hyper sensitive to the pain of the world wake up before they are ready for such harshness. Alexis woke earlier than most people in America do, but later than the mean of the global populace. This story isn’t going so well, she thinks as she writes this, but she has to begin somewhere, and she has begun this story millions of times.
Alexis was on a break. A leave of absence from school, glazed over with an interesting acronym, “TOP.” This was a typical systematic approach to condensing life issues into something more manageable, lessening the emotional blow of taking a “time out” into something which sounded proactive, successful, positive. Newspeak has infiltrated this culture into every level. She knew people who wouldn’t laugh at jokes but instead uttered, “LOL! OMG you are so funny!” It’s a miracle there are so many humans on this planet, still breathing and breeding.
Breathing and breeding, that’s what we do here. We don’t think or act or speak out, or truly stand up for things, nope. We just eat, shit and fuck.
So one night, after chewing on a major familial dilemma for about a half year, jaw sore from the grinding down of tooth enamel, mind fatigued with the continued guilt and the lack of interest in anything other than moving on, Alexis decided hiding was no longer the best course of action. You are either running from something, spectating, or committed. Time to commit, she said to herself.
I live in America. Not much pride here in the house of Alexis. I used to have a lot of pride, hope, belief in the Dream. But I’ve seen too much woundedness to admit this is the greatest place on earth. I know that what really goes on behind our four borders is more about covering up the wounds than being materialistic. It’s all profoundly spiritual, you see. These borders we build with our wealth are nothing more than a wall built to keep the awareness of depravity out. It is really just an illusion to keep ourselves from the reality regarding the greed of our materialism and our monotheistic cultural approaches to this world and what these choices have done to our planet.
My culture is the spoiled rich kid who stole all the food on Spaceship Earth, just as we were all hoping to find a safe haven via technological advance. Yep, so no pride here. Not any longer, in fact, I pity My-Fellow-Americans more than anything.
I’m sure some family members will be fairly pissed when they read this, as they likely will. I’ll be likened to some socialist fuck that everyone thinks they understand to be a socialist but really is just a capitalist parading as a dictator, or some such nonsense. I’m probably not making any sense, this whole illness thing messes with capacities to write. So much editing will occur. Or not. Meh.
Alexis woke from her Netflix slumber to the sound of her neighbour drunk-tripping up the stairs and stumbling into his apartment.
Alexis threw out a cruelly directed attack: At least I’m not hiding in a bottle of ale.
Which, upon utterance, became an instantaneous reminder of her own current coping method of hiding in hours and hours of cinema.
This allowed Alexis to remember she is no different from the wounded drunkard, her cocoon is just more subtle and socially acceptable.
This place is full of the wounded, who wake from their restless slumber to the sound of a violent alarm, wake up! WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!! and chase the dollar!
Chase the dollar, food must be on the plate, but don’t take leave, don’t breathe and ask for a holiday, or the time to handle the guts dangling from that wound you have in your centre.
We are taught to ignore the bleeding of our souls, because merely looking at it isn’t manly, or brave, but weak. So most people wander the highways to and from work, visceral tendrils hiding underneath their snappy suits and ties, pretending nothing is the matter. That is, in fact, the very reason we have trashed this place, and have built our wall of material around us. A blanket to cushion the blow that we are no different from the beggar in Calcutta, or the tenant farmer in Africa, or the Chinese whore in Shanghai.
Alexis was told she was different. Different from all the normals, less cool. She was without doubt insane. Yes, definitely, definitely insane. Crazy enough to consider suicide, which was of course, unnatural. I mean, why would anyone want to do that? Why would anyone want to wipe their smirk off the face of this planet, upon discovering the reality that the world they believed to be real was an illusion? That the United States of America broke dreams, not made them?
Yes, insane for seeing it, and most people who are sensitive to those kinds of things are painfully reminded of the reality of the world each day. Sometimes those who are hyper sensitive to the pain of the world wake up before they are ready for such harshness. Alexis woke earlier than most people in America do, but later than the mean of the global populace. This story isn’t going so well, she thinks as she writes this, but she has to begin somewhere, and she has begun this story millions of times.
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