move on

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”
― Tupac Shakur

and, so, it's time to move on.

i will miss the spring; arkansas has a beautiful spring.

i will miss my apartment - with the stone walls that crumble and shed as the mountain breathes. how many times have i pulled a nugget of the mountain from the puppy's mouth? many, many times. this, the bunker, is the safest place to be when the changeable weather goes sinister. it's not the kind of place for everyone but it's been a lovely place for me.

i will miss the friends i've made. they're quite a collection of quirk and talent and fun and brains. i tend to isolate myself but, whenever i see them, they open their arms to me. then, usually, we laugh.

i will miss my aunt and uncle. having grown up far from them, this time of nearness has been so fulfilling. i hardly see them these days but will miss knowing they're a fifteen-minute drive away.

i look forward to being so close to the ocean again. an hour's drive is manageable when i want to smell the sea or watch the storms come in.

i look forward to the openness and liveliness of a university town - an environment in which i can be myself again. even if it pisses people off.

i look forward to spending more time with family. reconnecting with aunts and uncles and cousins and children of cousins, with my sister, my brother.

i look forward to expanding my life. i've felt it constrict these last couple of years. time to crank it wide open.

it's been a tough decision. generous doses of sleeplessness and anxiety. nothing is certain in life, not much is easy.  regardless, the uncertainty, the constriction can be a poison and there comes a time when you have to decide how life is going to look moving forward. apparently, pretty soon, it looks like a moving truck.

the mission: boundaries (recognize, reassign)

i know i said i was going to try to think less in the new year. not two weeks in, i'm failing miserably. ah, well.

the joke is that i have boundary issues. the truth is that i have boundary issues.

we have a new person at work. she's friendly and perfectly nice. she was standing in my cubicle and noticed a little hand-written note had come off my artfully unruly corkboard. she reached over and started to tack it back onto the board. WHAT?!?!? if my reaction was any indication, you would have thought she was trying to pick my pocket or, like, steal my puppy. it's nothing, really - what she did was nothing - but there you are. it's all sorted now but, no, not my finest moment.

there's an expression i use when i feel somebody gets too close (physically, verbally, emotionally). i say there's an assumption of intimacy. homey don't play that. or, more precisely, homey might want to look into why she don't play that.

i had dinner with my core group of friends last week. i've known most of them nearly 4 years. as we enjoyed our dinner, i shared something about myself that was pretty surprising to all of them. we had a great laugh, tried to top each other with our stories, drank more wine, disturbed other restaurant patrons, went home. i later realized that, at some point, i mentioned i had never told my ex-husband about this particular life adventure. it's the kind of thing one might tell one's partner. hmmm.

i have a whole list of reasons i am the way i am - a whole list of life events that contribute to my particular world view. no excuses, just fact. fact and interpretation - by the child i was, and the adult i am. i think about it. i wasn't married for a long span of time but was with my ex-husband for nearly 5 years. truth is, we were very, very different from one another. i think i chose that situation, that partner, so i could hide in plain sight. we're friends, now. he'll probably read this and try to find out my big story.

really, it's not about the story - and it's not that i never tell a partner about my deepest self. my last blog post (from nearly 3 years ago!!) is proof(ish) of that. the person i talked about in that post was back in my life for a while at one point. he knew lots. he's not around now, though we keep in touch from time to time, and i do feel i learned a lot from my time with him. it was challenging in many ways, rewarding in more. isn't that how we describe hard-earned growth?

i would like to have a close relationship. a true partnership. saying out loud that i am a bit of a head case seems counterintuitive, i suppose, for cultivating something good. maybe not. copping to this tendency might be just the right thing to move me through. either way, i don't care -  it's a pretty big step for me. thanks for reading.

nourishment

"on rare occasions, if you're incredibly lucky, people come into your life and nourish you in ways you never knew you were hungry."

that was what i posted to twitter on april 12th. the follow-up would have to be that, when they go, which they sometimes must, you can feel you may well starve to death.

at this moment, seeing or speaking with this person again is uncertain and, i fear, unlikely. i will always be grateful for what i learned during the time spent in the company of this nourishment. for the freedom he gave me to be entirely myself, to accept help, to feel safe with another person. it's a rare gift.

truth is, i know i will not die from this. in any part of myself. it opened me back up to feeling and trusting (something i lacked even through my marriage and, y'know, divorce). as much as i'd like to withdraw from the possibility of letting someone get that close to me again, i will try very hard not to. i don't let people in easily - really let them in. they just think so. i'm social and friendly, so i cover pretty well. this one was a great surprise to me.

funny how, when one energy ends, a different energy can sneak in. i'm reconnecting with the other artists in my community. i'm again seeing what can be. after the extended dark period i've been immersed in since the divorce, it's looking like there's light outside. maybe this time spent with this person was to remind me of that.

going forward, there will be new artwork, new places and ways of spending time, new conversations. and kindness. can't have too much of that.

when the wedding tiara becomes irrelevant

my long-awaited divorce is, so it would seem, a few days away. i've waited nearly 603 days for this to happen. i couldn't stop smiling when my lawyer called to say we finally have our day in court.

ummm.... then what?

just last saturday i was working on the room that will be my studio - going through boxes and bins that have been in storage for ages. i found pictures of long-ago boyfriends (one of whom, oddly, contacted me on monday - after nary a word for the last 7 or so years). i found the decorative paper from between the bundles of newspapers i delivered every morning. i found the rusted landscape of linoleum that lined my 50s metal kitchen cabinet (under the sink, where the water leaked and gathered). i'd quarantined that thing for about 2 years before i used any of it in my work. at the time it was as disgusting as it was beautiful. now, it's just beautiful (this sometimes happens and it's really, really good). i found pieces of tin, old tile, innumerable architectural salvage finds, and paper, paper, paper. thrilling beyond words.

in all those gorgeous textures, i came upon my wedding tiara. i tried it on. i put it on shelby's little bean of a head. it gleamed so brightly amid all that competing decay. funny that this object means less now than all the cast-offs and half-ideas i've been hoarding and carting for so very long.

my impending divorce has been my identity for quite a while now - in fact, for the whole of the time i've lived here. i wonder how i'll be when it's finally done. my invisible cloak will drop and i'll find out what it's like to be free of the weight of it. i've been making my way here in spa city. connecting, learning, trusting - occasionally, distrusting - making things happen in new ways. even so, i feel surprisingly vulnerable right now. as certain as i am that the marriage wasn't good or right, it's been a form of protection.

i love that the challenges i've had over the course of my life have helped me realize any pain or vulnerability i feel doesn't define me. what defines me is where i go now that the weight of that cloak is falling away. i turn to the half-ideas and see if they're ready now, finally; if they've matured and ripened in all this time of decay and disuse.

i keep the tiara, of course, and i figure out what it means to be wholly myself again.

obligatory new year post

yes, yes, i and millions of others have returned to our long-neglected blogs to start anew. we, humans, are creatures who love a good re-start, doncha think?

my last post was exactly 3 months ago today. i had just gotten my apartment and was trying to fit an entire household into a pocket-sized packet of a place. i did it. the dogs and i are cozy in our little home. sure, there's overflow, but people with lots more room than i have storage places, too. i feel fine about it.

i've spent the last week in a self-imposed hermit-y existence. it's been good. year-end at work is ridiculously crazy and, through it, i've been wrestling with a miserable nagging cold, insomnia and general dissatisfaction with certain things about my life. the last page of that calendar can bring a load of self-reflection down on a person.

i start the year STILL married. it's almost a joke at this point. i texted my lawyer when jon & kate were finalized and said, in a nutshell, "really?!?!?" the arc of life is such that my near-ex-husband and i have been on great terms lately. i spoke with him earlier and asked for his girlfriend's phone number so i could be sure she'd be the first to know when he's free to marry again. his two-word reply was not "merry christmas". hehehe

today, mom and i saw "up in the air". aside from our admiration of george clooney's ummm, countenance, i loved all the ambiguities of the story. nothing was really wrapped up at the end. like life. i'm thinking a lot about what the main character said to his future brother-in-law. how he asked him the circumstances of some of his best moments; was he alone? or was someody else there?

i realize my best moments have been, in large part, with others. there was the time i got stuck overnight in the airport in paris. i had to sleep on the floor, surrounded by 8 weeks of luggage. a late-night tap on the shoulder was a young french kiosk worker bringing me an apple and a sandwich in case i got hungry in the night. then there was the guy from montreal whom i'd met on a ferry trip to remote islands off the north of scotland. we got stranded in the midnight sun and had to sleep in the half-light in someone's yard. my courage grew tenfold that night, though i didn't know it at the time. i also learned red and black are hard to distinguish from one another as i played solitaire in the perpetual dusk. there was the lassie-like tour a border collie provided on the isle of eriskay. i have a series of photos of that dog waiting for me to catch up as he led me to another section of the island. it was magic. it was a story, as many of them are, that i could never have written.

though i have had many 'best moments' with people i love - standing next to my cousin on her wedding day, or my sister and i calling out to mom and dad under the bedroom door on christmas morning to see if santa had come (i was in my 30s, she in her 20s) - i realize so, so many are with people or in circumstances that are, at the core, just moments. with strangers. these are things that will affect me for as long as i have the capacity to remember. i wonder, then, who i may have affected in passing. i hope it was in a good way.

for the new year, i resolve to recognize that the littlest moments can have the longest, most far-reaching impact. i will live my life in this awareness. i've been told i have great insight. i will learn to apply it to myself. i will remember that great risks are the way to great rewards, however, i will first breathe, then choose wisely - in all things.

i hope 2010 is a breakthrough year for all of us. i'm cheering YOU on.

145 square cubits

i've always been fond of small well-designed living spaces. like boat interiors or apartments in copenhagen. a place for everything. thoughtful, smart, quirky. in that spirit, i've thrown down the gauntlet for myself - design a highly functional live/work space in 435 square feet (or 145 square cubits, if you prefer). mustn't forget the two doggie crates.... er, end tables... (ha - as if!)

this busy time (what with pendant production ramping up for the holidays and a craft fair in the planning stages) is about to get busier. i love it! i'll post pictures of the space now and as i progress with getting things in order. please come back and see how i'm doing.

if only i didn't have so much everything...

time to be heard.

yesterday i had an extraordinary encounter: someone read my aura. she told me all about my life, my challenges, my gifts. in exact detail. i've never been read in this way and it was eerie as hell. it was equally fascinating.

let me preface the story with the observation over the last year that i've had trouble with my voice, with being heard. i'd recently talked with my sister about it and mom and i have discussed it a number of times.

i'd spent the day selling my work in little rock at the river market. i met loads of people and one of them, upon seeing that i was from hot springs, said she had left there because the energy was too intense for her. she's a massage therapist and healer. i told her of someone i'd met through the hot springs farmer's market - who did reiki. when i told her the woman's name, her eyes lit up and she said "she's awesome". frankly, i didn't even know what reiki was until i looked it up while writing this blog entry. shameful, i know.

this woman (the reiki woman), at a party i went to last week, handed me some crystals (i don't know which ones) to see if i responded to the energy they allegedly contained. i did. i felt vibrations through my throat but was unsure if it was from the crystals or from the intense scrutiny i was getting from the small gallery of people awaiting my reaction. i put it down to a little of both.

it was an interesting enough experience that i asked her to let me know when she was holding a beginner's class on crystals. the area here is rich with them and i love information. i used to study crystals a bit, once upon a time. i have a tiny burlap bag of specially chosen crystals that i carry when i travel. i got them before i spent my summer in france in 1998. i no longer remember what they are or why i specially chose them, but i carry them all the same.

back to the river market. as we talked, i briefly relayed the story about holding the crystals to the woman i'd just met. i didn't tell her any details of what i felt. she asked me if i wanted her to read my aura. i responded with an enthusiastic yes - i'd often wondered about auras (as i wonder about so many things). i stood back, unsure of what to do with my hands. she looked around, past, through me. her eyes are piercing brown. i watched her watch me. and i waited. suddenly, she stepped back, shook her head a bit and said "wow". wow?????? that's when she told me that i hold a lot of what's keeping me back in my throat. she said i need to honor my voice and who i am at a deeper level. that i'm a healer. she had goosebumps when she told me that we are sisters. she laid her palms on mine and the vibrations were so intense. it was amazing, amazing, amazing. she said many other things - about specific life experiences i've had and specific experiences on my current path. i actually fought tears as she spoke - it was surprising.

truly, i don't know what to say about any of it except that it was extraordinary. it was eye-opening (third eye, if what this woman said is true). i just looked up the chakras and see that the throat chakra's function is communication and creativity. interesting. i've been feeling my creativity soar as my communication has declined. it's time for balance, i think, of these things. the woman from hot springs had told me that people do not end up here by accident. that we are drawn here. in light of the year i've had since i arrived, i'm inclined to agree.

making a break for it

that's what i say i'm doing. the break is in no way literal, though. not yet. i've been thinking a lot about marriage and love. as i anticipate the final day of my marriage, i find it a mystery that i ever got to this point. the break is that, going forward, these things look very different to me.

growing up, i always assumed i would get married and have a family - a human family - of my own. i was, for a time, proposed to about once a year. i rejected most of them outright. some took longer. at 20 i was briefly engaged to a cop who, when he pointed his gun at his dog, became my ex. at 26, to an idea guy who was all energy and frenzy and fun. i broke off the engagement when i realized the depth of his madnesses, the fragility of his house of cards. for a time i worried he'd come back for revenge. it's the only time i ever feared someone in that way but i never ever saw or spoke with him again. whew.

since, i've spent a lot of time in situations that would never bear fruit of the marital kind (such as two years at the side of a gravely injured friend - through coma and rehab). to an extent i wonder why. to a larger extent i think i know. there are lists of reasons i won't explore here. lists - plural. i've thought of sitting down with a therapist and seeing how close i come to my own diagnosis. hmmm... i should check into that!

as i look forward (and i am) to being single again, i know that the circumstances under which i would marry again would have to be pretty remarkable. this is liberating. in all this talk of marriage i haven't yet mentioned love. interesting. as much as i'm skeptical of marrying again, i believe a great, enduring love is still possible for me. even probable. as i am free of the social construct that marriage represents to me, it opens doors for the real and true.

for now, i work on making my place in this place. it's good, good, good.

as·pi·ra·tion

~the act of breathing and especially of breathing in
~a strong desire to achieve something high or great.
~an object of such desire.


in this time of standing still i find myself taking inventory in a very literal way. of aspirations, of what is good and right. of how my life can look going forward.

it's been a bit of a slog lately. a shallow exchange of busy air that has passed for breathing for so long now. but hours and hours in a darkened theatre watching the ideas of others flicker in a million colors and sounds has given me something to aspire to. has helped me again breathe in. all the way in.

some of what i saw was of questionable quality but that's not really important. those people did something brave. they aspired to make a film, to bring it to the world, and that's what they did. that it's film and not writing or art or music or charity work or a really good pesto sauce makes no difference.

the question of how my life can look is a mystery yet. i won't try to invent too may details - as i am inclined to do - because i don't think it serves my unfolding story. or me. or the people around me. all i can say is that the work of letting things be, even as i actively seek change, has begun in earnest.

i wish everyone the opportunity to breathe in.

nest

in my twitter bio i say i'm in flux. ain't it the truth. i just heard from my lawyer today - the papers have been filed and things are FINALLY moving forward. i think i hear creaking, but at least they're moving.

whenever my friend is unsettled, she talks about not being able to make her nest. i feel this way. i'm not sleeping, i've been brooding, back-talky and generally unpleasant. i do apologize to the public at large - and i swear it'll pass.

i've decided to try a dbg in honor of my cousin's lovely blog.

d(esire): my own nest
b(rag): great cookware to put in my nest's kitchen
g(ratitude): the feathery comfort of family and friends during all this flux

small town

malvern, ar, doesn't have a cab service.

today a man with all his possessions packed in two neat, wheeled suitcases came to the door of the bank i work for. he made the mistake many do in thinking we have money there. we're the operations center (i like to think we're "the brains") and mainly ensure that everything in the money places runs as it should. we keep the doors locked.

one of the guys went out to speak with him, bringing a cold bottle of water along. the man, who thought he might possibly have an account with us, was looking for a place to get some help - his house had been stolen. clearly, he needed far more help than is contained in a cold bottle of water.

the receptionist started making calls to see if there was a place we could refer him to, a local shelter. she settled on calling the police to see if they might know of someplace. they sent an officer who, after talking with him for a few minutes, drove off. we think he gave him some money for food.

anyone who knows me knows this would never do. i knew there were places in hot springs a mere 17 miles away. i started making calls as our new friend wheeled toward the sonic. i called a women's shelter to get a number for a men's shelter to see if they knew of a malvern shelter. no such thing. my co-workers told me the nearest mental health facility of any sort is in bryant, 35 miles away. i'm still not sure that's true - it's too heartbreaking to consider.

i found, after a few calls, a place in hot springs that could take him this afternoon. he'd have a bed, a shower, a meal. check-in time was between 4 and 5:30 pm. it was about 11:30 am. i figured i could pay for a cab ride to get him to hot springs. no such thing. cab services in hot springs won't come there, either. i called the police back, i called the sheriff's department. they have cars, right? they transport people, right? not today. even so, i thought he might have gotten to malvern hitchhiking (we're right near the interstate). i decided to write everything down and bring it to him, suggest he spend the day heading in that direction.

he was out of sight by now - it had been a while. i got in my car and started driving around to find him. how hard could it be? it was hard. 20 minutes later, i found him crossing an expanse of grass behind some tennis courts. i called after him and told him about the place in hot springs, about how he could have shelter, a shower. he earnestly told me he just needed to get his money to buy a new car and change his identity. no more surgeries, he pleaded, no more lsd, no more fbi following him - he was done.

i gave him the note with all of the information. he put it in his pocket. if he turns up tomorrow, i'll do the same thing.

blame it on the moon

at 4:30 this morning, a large orange moon settled in on the trees. i only saw it for a moment before it wriggled its way down into the limbs and disappeared.

the battle i wage with melancholy can be epic at times. for me, last saturday, the melancholy settled in like that massive moon settled on those trees. i was overtired, i was reflective, i was spent. though the morning had been incredibly positive and successful, there was one episode that wouldn't just slide past me.

opportunity sometimes comes at you cloaked in a bad memory.

i was approached by a person to participate in a show. great, right? yes, great. she represents a pro-choice organization and prefaced her interest in my work with a near-disclaimer about who she works with/for. i assured her that i, too, am pro-choice and that i was interested to know more about this show. however, as she spoke i found myself fighting the urge to tell her of a print i had done, of the choice i had made, once upon a time. and how, though i am pro-choice, that decision still has its teeth in me more than twenty years later. i'm not convinced that's what she'd want to hear.

i titled the piece "the muddy nature of choice". when i first showed it, there were tears all around. several people asked if they could buy or trade for one of the edition. really? why? i still don't know. what i've learned in these intervening years is that the decisions i make - good or bad - can endure. many things can be re-decided. many, many things. some cannot. as i approach my 45th birthday having never been a parent, this particular choice comes with a built-in echo. i never know when it'll come around again. when it does, i am disarmed anew.

the decision i made wasn't easy. it also wasn't my decision alone. it should have been. since that time, i have been vigilant in following my instinct, following my own voice. i am often wrong but i'm ok with that. i stand or fall in living what i decide.

i just got in from walking the dogs. that orange moon is on the rise - this time on the up-side of the sky. as always, thanks for listening.

boomboomboom

i sit here writing when i have a million things to do. fortunately, i consider writing among the million. other things include completing my display boards for tomorrow, finishing about 80 pendants for tomorrow, packing the car for tomorrow, having cafe 1217's excellent tomato soup for ..... wait for it..... dinner. heeee.

anyway, i'm missing gallery walk this evening. this happens too much. i'm not missing fireworks in little rock. well, technically, i am. i was supposed to go with family and friends to watch from the ballpark but ended up having too much to do (for tomorrow) and had to beg off.

here's the thing - i'm happy (and relieved) because i hate fireworks. for the whole of my life, i've hated them. sure, i can ooooh and aaaah with all y'all but, really, i just don't get it.

and then...

i was 5'6" when i arrived for my summer in aix-en-provence. two events occurred while i was there. first, france won the world cup. aside from singing "god save the queen" while standing in the main town fountain (i was very good considering i only just learned it), i endured bottle rockets and firebombs whizzing by my head. now, that was a party... i have pictures someplace in storage. no flash, just flashes and, subsequently, flashbacks.

second, bastille day - a mere two days later.

in france, there are no fences around the fireworks launchers. there is no "safe" distance. it's an interactive experience. they shoot them straight up and let the sparks and ashes fall onto and through the plane trees. onto my hair, onto my shoulders, onto the interior of my right eyeglass lens and, sadly, into my lovely bottle of wine. this was new for me. new and very bad. the smell of sulphur permeated everything and the sound dislodged centuries-old bricks from buildings for miles around. i swear it.

imagine a turtle standing more or less upright. this was my posture for my remaining weeks in france. even through the wonder of the landscape, the clear, clear light, the dizzying scents of rosemary and lavender growing wild. i was traumatized. upon my return, 5'5". i swear it.

my view of fireworks has drawn ire from some and conspiratorial confessions from many, many more. it's a sort of cultural peer pressure, i think, to "enjoy" fireworks. i'd like to hear why people love them because i'm not buying it. anyone?

psssst - i hated "forrest gump", too. oh, and teddy bears? ick.

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." George Bernard Shaw

exactly.

time spent

i have no less than six blog entries in my drafts. every time i try to drag one out and work on it, there's something else to do, someplace else to put my energy. my best thinking happens in the early morning (or late night) hours and, by the time i have a fully formed idea, i'm in a place where i can't do any writing. someplace inconvenient like work...

i think much of this mental log-jam stems from work right now. we're (two of us) in the process of digitizing all account files of a specific type from twenty branches and a seven-year time span. the paper files are disassembled, sorted, scanned, sent to the proper digital storage section, verified page by page to make sure the scan was successful and that each page can be easily found in the system, then reassembled to be put (in fresh new paper folders) into fireproof filing cabinets. there is much staple-pulling and re-stapling.

i'm sure i have lost any audience i had by know. i feel your crushing boredom, really i do. and it has to be done by tomorrow. we found out about the deadline 2.5 weeks ago.

when i came to hot springs, i was sure i could find a reasonable job. maybe a teaching job. salaries here are very low, but then, so is the cost of living comparatively. i work with nice people who spend much of their time bemused by my wide-eyed fish-out-of-water observations. i like them. i'll have been working with them one year in august. at times it seems like ten years. as nice as they are, as a friend would say, they are not my people. and i don't mean that in a negative way - they certainly feel the same about me.

i know jobs are scarce and i'm grateful i have one. there are moments, though, when i feel i'm trading an awful lot. of my heart, of my imagination, of my energy. the challenge here is one of shoveling papers from one spot in the building to another. chasing, chasing, chasing an arbitrary deadline. there is little about it for the mind, for growth. satisfaction must come from a decisive click as the file drawer closes. then, this project will be done - followed soon by a similar one - and nothing in the world will be much better for it. sometimes i have a hard time with that - like this morning.

i know there must be a benefit for someone on earth from what i do today, right? for now, i'll continue to do a good job, i'll stop whining very soon, i'll work on figuring that out. thanks for listening.

write-bites...

...for lack of a better term. i have been unable to string enough thoughts together for a complete (whatever that might be) blog entry, so i'll offer the following for now.

~this morning - the unthinkable. someone was in my shower stall at the gym. what????? this is the first time it's happened and i considered waiting for her to finish, even though there were two other stalls available. i decided to change my perspective, suck it up and step into the one on the right. it was dark in there. luckily, i pretty much know where everything is and was able, ultimately, to shower successfully. the showerhead made a horrifying sound, though. like one of those whistles my 7th grade gym teacher had, even down to the rattle the little ball makes inside it. i was ready to off someone by the end of the ordeal. next time, i'll wait...

~i decided to hold off on moving right now. there's a lot going on, what with the divorce and stuff, so i've decided to try something new. looking before i leap. we'll see how that plays out. in the meantime, the search for a studio/workspace continues.

~my new venture in the farmer's market brought great rewards this weekend. the buyers loved what i was selling, i got a good idea for 4th of july weekend, and i didn't have some man talking baby-talk to me as i figured out the canopy assembly at 5:30 am. on the flipside, i had nobody to set straight about said canopy assembly physics so that was a bit of a bummer... all in all, this is progress. i do love progress, even when i don't know its purpose.

~lastly, i'm warming to twitter in a big way and i won't apologize for it. i read a bio that i wish i'd thought of, though, and it's really the reason twitter is problematic for me. a man wrote that he was "too loquacious" to twitter properly. honey, i sure get that. it is an exercise in restraint. i have a hard time texting in code, limiting my character usage, all of those things. let's be honest - my name is heather and i'm an over-explainer. i won't apologize for it. in the meantime, at least in tweets, 140 characters will have to do.

maybe one day soon i'll have something to say.

fear as luxury

in looking for a place i might want to live, the subject of safety has come up quite a lot when talking with friends. i have a budget that might preclude a "safe" neighborhood in most instances. this doesn't bother me too much. i used to joke, when a friend would worry over where i was living, that i wasn't so concerned about being robbed because my neighbors would be much more inclined to rob her than me. they knew where i lived.

the other upside of a sketchy living sitch is that i would get the best homemade tamales, fresh from my neighbor's kitchen. she sold them out of the trunk of her car but i intercepted them before they got that far. and i was generally on the same power grid as the police station so was always the first to get power back after a hurricane. lots of other things can be considered good about where i've lived - especially if one has a fondness for pounding bass, brightly painted el dorados, walking the dogs by helicopter searchlight.

the down side of safety concerns is fear. i don't like to live that way. there are real things to fear in the world, big things - one need only look to the elections in iran and all that implies for those people. i had a discussion yesterday with a young mom at work. she operates from a place of fear in many, many things. she fears being alone, she fears talking with strangers, she fears the worst from everyone she meets. i don't judge this but i do wonder what it will create in her life as the years pass.

i've lived alone a lot in my life. i've traveled alone a fair amount, too, even overseas. what i know is that if i meet someone's eye, if i greet someone, if i'm aware of my surroundings, i'm that much safer.

i found a little house that may just be perfect for me. the neighborhood has a bad reputation but the street seems pretty quiet and the houses are spaced apart. it has a fenced yard, two bedrooms, a bright dining room, living room and kitchen. i can live and do work in the same space. i might even be able to take in a roommate if i use the dining room for a studio. it's a little craftsman with a red door that once was adorable and is now a bit shopworn. i can relate.

we'll see if the timing is right on this one. i hope so. in the meantime, i cannot dwell on the fearful things. i find baseless fear to be a luxury of sorts. it can paralyze or make the shadows other than they actually are. i don't have that kind of time.

tweet tweet not so sweet.

so, i decided, after discussion with a few people, to join twitter. my friend and i talked about the silly funny profound things people tweet about as we mined lists of followers. fascinating. i've gone and followed scores of "people" who run the gamut from news organizations to poets to museums to corpses. clever or dry, i haven't lacked reading material these last 48 hours.

here's what i find: i have never felt more distant, less connected. i now follow 94 entities. any friends who twitter are lost in a sea of bbc updates and pearls from perez hilton. i'm being followed by many, many pervs and strangers for reasons unknown. i know why i follow hugh jackman, for instance, but, seriously, my photo is hardly the female equivalent. and how do these people recognize my genius from the few words of my bio? in fairness, that Horny Kitty does seem astute....

maybe i started too fast and am suffering from a virtual brainfreeze. dunno. i'll sleep on it for a few days and see how i feel about it. i only have a few hours in the morning and evening to check on this stuff and i suppose for me, at this time, i'd rather sit across from people i know than read (however interesting) what shiloh joile-pitt is sharing. we'll see. for now, i choose what's real.

home

i've decided to switch my energy, my intention. today. now.

i've been waiting and mulling and deciding to decide. enough. i heard yesterday about a studio space that may be open. don't know that it's a fit, but i'm going to call about it. drove through a neighborhood with a great little house for rent and called. house is perfect - bright, neat, with a fenced yard. price is not perfect. still, the man i spoke with has a number of houses and sent me to see one in my price range. it's dire. but we had a good conversation and he told me that things come up all the time, that he thinks there could be something down the road. i think so, too.

i've done my share of watching and evaluating. i need a workspace. i need a sleepspace. if they are under the same roof, great.

today makes one year since i arrived in hot springs, arkansas - almost to the minute. i'm happy i'm here. i'm ready for the next part.

forecast - rain. so to speak.

i'd never seen a sky like i saw yesterday. i ran outside and watched the clouds roll furiously, folding in onto themselves and looking for all the world like angry gray cauliflower. they moved so fast - the whole display was over in about fifteen minutes and i watched it all, transfixed. the rain that followed was brief, an afterthought. the weather equivalent of one of those silly honky bicycle horns on a muscle car. embarrassing.