Archive | Snapshot

The Mirrors Are Walls

In some selfies–a lot of them; mine, too–I see this hunger. I don’t see self-confidence and I don’t see arrogance, or, rather, arrogance is a subsidiary, a weak little land-staking, a bleat in a black hole. At heart, it’s fear: “Am I here? Do you really see me? Will I land somewhere safe this time if I remind you that my visage earns its keep? Can this glimpse of my face–my beautiful, hurt, craning face– remind you that I am someone worthy of keeping in your mind’s eye in other moments of the day as well?” What I really see in selfies is this: “Please, God, please. Don’t let me disappear without a trace.” If only we could really feel it, really grasp the truth: We are all, each of us, beloved children of the universe.

Love and Darkness, Green Days and Rain

I was so sad in my last post. More than sad, I was hopeless.

And I guess people aren’t accustomed to such despair from me. I’m glad they’re not, actually. And I’m even gladder for the subsequent outreach.

Subconsciously it’s probably why I put my great despair out there. Sometimes you don’t see the light unless you acknowledge the darkness from which it emerges. And a big source of light in my life are the people who do see me, and are loving and gracious in their perceptions. Are gentle with my heart.

Last week’s rain came right from my own body. I’d wept enough tears that they manifested as a nasty summer cold–sinuses streaming, fevers and body aches, all that natural-unnatural drama. Supernatural, too.

K and his kid dropped by impromptu Saturday evening with supplies and sardonic sweetness, their specialty for as long as I’ve known them as a dynamic duo. We sat on my dirty rug while I rasped like an inadvertent torch singer and Grace wove in between our legs. Everything under the sun got discussed except for the things that would have just hurt more. Then we even talked about those things because by then nothing hurt. My sweet sardonic friends kept me company until I was ready for bed, and then traveled back into the good night because they go to sleep just as I wake. Still sniffling, I floated in that darkness, grateful that K and I could fuse a real friendship from the embers of our failed expectations of each other. Continue Reading →

Rose-Colored Wrecks, Edgy Angels

I dreamed a very generous friend took me on what was ostensibly a road trip but really a mission to Harvey Weinstein’s. She claimed to be counseling him in his “convalescence,” but I could see I was going to have to bite a hand that was feeding me, because fuck that shit. I was pissed I now knew the location of his secret lair, even more pissed I found it enviable with soaring ceilings, forest views, loads of pink light. I didn’t see Harvey–my friend was upstairs with the “client”–but my awareness of him was like someone had shoved a pile of shit beneath a million-dollar rug; you could smell but couldn’t see his rotting decadence. I wanted so much to write a whole novel on his enormous pale velvet couch but instead had to go. Of course being me I fled only to realize I’d left everything I needed behind. To wit:
Computer
Wallet
Phone
Keys
Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy