The Right to Write: the Tangled Walk

The assignment is “go for a walk… untangle a problem.” I decided to fix the problem of my plus-size fashion blog in my mind, and head to the coffee shop 1.2 miles off to the east. I took my camera. I saw things – wonderful things. I found lavender sprouting wild from the corner of a property, overseen by apple trees. I saw the earliest signs of fall, on the trees that always turn first. I found manhole covers with giant petals painted around them. A man with a strange, broad nose and a small dog with an aura that reached out like a hound commented on the holes on the street. I ate a croissant, drank cafe au lait, wondered what it will be like to do the exact same thing in Paris. My hands leave greasy fingerprints on the copy of the Northeaster newspaper.

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On the way back, I thought sad things. They were not necessarily true things. About how other people do not celebrate my life – which is not true. At a throwaway telemarketing job in college, a woman made a point of throwing me a goodbye party. This was all the more gratifying as a former classmate that bullied me in school had to sit and smile through all the proceedings, and while I never enjoy watching people seethe, I did enjoy her seeing that she was alone in thinking of me as a lesser being. At Mankato State, co-workers sprung a surprise birthday cake on me.  I never got wedding showers or graduation parties; only Mike’s family sent me sympathy cards when Dad died -  but I did, at different and highly unexpected points in my life,  get acknowledgment. I may not feel or sense appreciation from people who “should” appreciate me (no one is obligated to.) But I am deeply appreciated, and from the most unexpected of places.

I worked my way through Audubon park, marveling that I never noticed the trail cutting back onto a residential street. I wondered at the people who lived in the apartment/house overlooking it. I thought of a friend I haven’t seen since January; I miss him, and I think he is angry with me. I shove away my feelings of failure over this.

Anger at another friend visits me.  He is quite impressed with himself for losing weight – and if he is happier, I am happy for him – but who is proselytizing his experience as though it is a formula for ALL experience, despite a complete absence of medical credentials to support his unintentionally bullying contentions. His intention is to motivate. His understanding that the body and its appearance is secondary to its miraculous capacities is still lacking. I feel attacked, but I know that whatever this is about, it’s not my battle – and on the unlikely chance I am being attacked, the real cause has nothing to do with this bio-political difference. If the second option is the case, I honestly don’t care what the problem is.

I otherwise wholly appreciate his motivation, as I attempt much the same thing in a more gentle manner.

I don’t know where the sad thoughts came from. I don’t know what triggered it. I found a new handmade bag shop, full of miraculous objects cut in rhinestones and made from upcycled everything. A dog with a zipper up its back sat over a bowl. Mother of pearl watches and cameos shared space with giant fleur-de-lis necklaces. Nothing should have made me so suddenly sad.

On the way home, I reconjured my original examination of the plus size blog. I realized I had solved nothing, and concluded that things aren’t clear yet. I need to work through more trauma, more sad, to make more room on the interior work-table for such a powerful project. I need to spend more energy on clearing and cleansing, and to leave things as they are for now.

I checked my mail on the way back into my apartment. I “clearing” kit I ordered from Lucky Mojo arrived, much sooner than I expected. I consider it my answer. For now, clear, cleanse, center, and focus on my spirit. That is my answer. The solutions will come to me later.

 

 

Filed under: Exercises, The Right to Write, magickalrealism, the right to write

10 items with emotional weight

Hmmm, this is hard as I expend effort not getting attached to “stuff.”

1. My God Jar – for me, it really is about getting something out of my head and seeing that the universe takes care of it. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, and often enough it becomes moot by itself.
2. My Artist’s Way books – right now, these are my guiding light. Really.
3. My disappearing TARDIS mug – I’ve wanted one since I was a little girl. So I gave it to myself. Every time I see it, I squee a little.
4. My protection charm jewelry – I actually do feel a little safer when I wear it
5. My wedding ring – It represents a commitment to a partnership, but it also reminds me of the struggle I have between social acceptability and my true desires. It also makes me wish the bike Mike bought me years ago wasn’t stolen, as it was the most remarkable of his romantic gestures.
6. Tiny! spoons – I get entirely too amused by tiny, tiny teaspoons, so Mike bought me a pack of them. I use them for mixing measures of goat’s milk and for eating ice cream slowly. I get a small giggle whenever I see them.
7. The Daria print that hangs behind my desk – it was given to me by friends I met in Daria fandom; while life has made us less present in each others’ lives, I still cherish and feel grateful for the  experience I have had and still have with that connection.
8. My book boxes – I have these boxes that look like books; I buy one a year. I use these to store my journals and the like. While it’s not a particularly clever disguise, it satisfies me – these banal book-boxes that contain my secrets in plain sight. It’s more about knowing the weight of the boxes is the weight of my journals, which is the weight of my inner life.
9. My topaz ring – It was my sweet 16 ring, that my parents gave me a day late, alongside wilted roses after the dog ate my birthday cake. I wish they’d had the sense to just throw out the roses, but my family was always so wrapped up in themselves that they couldn’t even conceive I had emotions about anything, least of all on my birthday. It’s a yellow topaz, which have been mined out of existence. You can only get them on antique rings. It’s my birthright, enough so that I had my father move it to his safe deposit box so my sister couldn’t steal it and pawn it. It’s the only sign I have at all that my family at any point respected and valued my life.
10. Tiny Willendorf – a woman who was a member of MSUPagan brought a tiny Willendorf back from a festival for me. She said that its unapologetic fat-and-sexy energy reminded her of me. I’ve always cherished it, and I do find its presence reassuring.

Filed under: Exercises, The Right to Write, magickalrealism, the right to write

the Right to Write: 10 items in my environment

1. Camera

Black and rectangular, its wristband trails like a fuzzy tail, as though a squirrel went through a dishwasher.

2. The postage scale

Atop my computer, a brighter silver than my CPU. It represents convenience, efficiency, the cost of $15 a month. I’m not even making enough these days to justify the cost, but I so love the convenience.

3. Rubber stamp

It reminds me of a judge’s gavel, with the wood handle. It looks so official. You’d never know it’s for stamping “please recycle” on all my packages.

4. The blue pencil holder

Purchased in a package with a bright blue stapler and bright blue scissors. The stapler and its matching remover broke or disappeared years ago. The scissors live in a box in my bedroom, where I use it in collage/art journaling. It is metal, smooth, reflective.  I remember how strangely my roommate looked at it when I first brought it home, back in that period between divorce and the next cohabitation.

5. Bluetooth

Black, tiny, the speaker phone pointing upward. I haven’t used it yet, and I don’t like it as well as my old bluetooth, the actual bluetooth. Given that the cyberman episodes of Doctor Who have left my terrified of these things, I’m surprised at my own brand preference/peculiar snobbery. It really is a stupid thing to care about, and brand preferences are in all but a few situations a manner of creating limitations rather than overcoming them.

6. Two bottles of acrylic spray sealer, with white caps and lavender labels.

Little gay army soldiers, standing at attention until I must complete my next act of decoupage.

7. Lavender scrunchy, strangely textured.

I took it off and forgot it – usually I just put my hair up with colored pencils. I probably wore this home after a workout.

8. The red stapler

Purchased after I started working for myself. It’s a good quality swingline, and makes a satisfying click noise. It’s come to represent the point where you can choose to be a victim, or to NOT be a victim. My former neighbor would often bitch about how his own red stapler was stolen; the moral of his story was “I was a victim.” Notably, he made no effort to take the stapler back. In the movie, the guy got his stapler and a lifetime on a beach vacation. NOT being a victim. A bizarre little talisman for me in my self-employed life.

9. The cigar box, with a Janus-like image of Antony and Cleopatra in a seal on the side.

I used to smoke cigars, but this I got from a woman off of Craig’s list. It houses post-it notes, still valid blogging ideas for Fat Chic. I haven’t touched it in over six months, as my energy is spread elsewhere.

10. A polished rock with a bear claw printed on it.

Picked up in a grab bag sale from a local occult shop; I don’t know of a particular meaning for it. The bear claw is a left claw, and I am left-handed, so I appreciate the association.

Filed under: Exercises, The Right to Write, magickalrealism

the Right to Write: Bad Writing on Purpose

according to the every awesome Weekly World News, this is a chupcabra. It could also be a blurry chihuahua.

For reasons of pure villainy, Ernest Hemingway and Sylvia Plath have been raised by the dead by two Nietchzian cults for what one witness calls a “Celebrity Death Match.”

When asked as to the purpose of such a match, a black-clad adherent of the nihilist ways responded, “Nobody knows, and nobody cares.” He then lit a cigarette, ashing and igniting a nearby tree on his way across the parking lot to the Har Mar mall. “If you’ll excuse me, we have a serious schedule of standing outside under trees looking spooky,” he said.

A copy of the Necronomicon was found on top of a Cub foods garbage can, near the trees where the nihilists hang out and smoke. The Necronomicon had no comment.

Further probing (we asked his mom) revealed that while Mr. Hemingway and Ms. Plath are indeed flesh again, they too seem apathetic as to the outcome of the match. Upon inquiry, Plath seemed far more interested in expressing distress at the rapid disappearance of honeybees.

Hemingway refused an interview unless compensated with Viagra.

Filed under: Exercises, magickalrealism, the right to write