What’s new?

I haven’t been here in a while. I’ve been off elsewhere distracted by crippling emotions—the kind that put you in a sweet happy world of dopamine before flaring into a wildfire out of control causing you to run from the heat only to fan the flames before crumbling to the ground in a pile of smoldering ash. 

A little green sprig pushed its way through the remnants, quietly so as not to disturb the tiny red-hot embers hiding beneath the surface. And then a gust of wind blew the ash away and turned embers back into flame. And I landed here. 

I’ve been painting more than writing, but the last week or so I’ve put the brush down. I’ve been staring at this pretty blue canvas with an idea of what to put on it but not a solid plan and with great trepidation of disturbing what I’ve got on there. If I screw up, I can’t fix the background. I don’t usually worry about the background because my art is usually fluid. But I don’t want to alter what I’ve painted so far. So I’m sitting here in front of this canvas waiting for an epiphany.

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And now I’m outside smoking a cigarette, or about to. 

So, what’s happening on this end of the world? This place feels so underground. 

To be honest, I just came here to vent.  

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This is what Google translate does to text when you re-translate the text over many many times between English and Latin.

The original words had nothing to do with doves and arks and sons, and never mentioned God or countries. 

This is sort of fun…
14 thousand, and the feet of the dove out of the ark of God upon his father deceitfully, and brought him as far as the water, and let the dry land. And I believe in him that made him: ‘Ask of me, and I was not able to; all countries. And shortly. But I do not care about them, to bless them. At the same time as they were made focused on the content. Getting water. 1 worried. Going concern. The caverns. And at this point I was not there. Drowning in need. Aching and mad. The water in the thousands hurt my son. It is home to the flood of anathema.

Beginnings

The past creeps up on me, and I run. Then I try again because the glue is set. 

The presence is inescapable, but not confined to want. 

It’s a spiritual thing. 

We encounter people daily, and some are never seen again or remain acquaintances. Some friends. Some inescapably present. 

It’s a spiritual thing.

something new, sort of

The doctor has put me on something that I’ve been on before. It’s worked before, which is why he’s prescribing it. I will find a way to combat the side effects. I have given up on medications because of side effects in the past, but I didn’t give up on this one the first time so I don’t expect to now. The weird thing about this drug is that it makes a person lose his/her words. Like, it makes a person forget what he/she is saying mid sentence or forget the word that means what he/she is trying to say. I never fully recovered from that side effect, even after being off the medication for five years. So now the problem will get worse. That’s a big deal since I’m a teacher and also since I like to write, and think, and you know, communicate in general. I started the medication this morning, and already I feel the effects. I am having trouble writing this post, in fact. But I’m not going to let this problem discourage me like I did years ago. I think that writing and reading and playing word games will help. Maybe. I hope. What the fuck do I have to lose to try, anyhow.

So I might not have anything to write about (I’m not sure I ever really do), but I’m going to write every day, here or elsewhere. If things start to sound weird, you’ll know why. It might even be entertaining. I sure hope my boss thinks so. (hm.)

The beginning

This was the start of my finding peace.

I’ve watched this video about twelve thousand times a day. His eyes have dug into my soul each time—they sliced me open. I was deeply saddened by his death, and I connected with him as a kindred soul. He helped me find peace, and I still feel him next to me. 

I can’t express enough what he’s done for me and how much he means to me.

Don’t know why I didn’t share it before.

I did it.

I broke down in the car yesterday. 

I was fine until I pulled up a song that I’ve been listening to obsessively for nearly two weeks. I wrote about the singer in my last post, I think. Or maybe it was the post before that. Or maybe it was both posts. He’s been constantly on my mind, and I’ve cried for him I don’t know how many times. But yesterday was the hardest cry yet. Sometimes I’ve cried just for him. Sometimes for me. Sometimes for both. Yesterday was for both. He ripped open a poorly patched wound that I had stored in a dusty box under a lot of rubble in one of the dark alleyways that I avoid in my mind. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been fighting a demon that I thought was slain. It wasn’t, clearly. And thank God for Chris. I wish I could yank him back into this world, but I can’t. But God gave him a task after he died. Or maybe Chris found me on his own. This is one of those cases in which something good was fashioned out of something horrific. I’ve never been able to face my trauma. It was neither relevant nor understood well enough by anyone I’ve known, so I never asked for help outside of professional therapy. 

Yesterday when I broke down in the car while listening to his song over and over, I felt an overwhelming need to tell my story. Remember the narrative I wrote about? I finished it. It probably needs a little polishing. There’s something, a grammar thing, that’s bugging the shit out of me that I need to go fix. And I’ll fix it. But my point is that my break down yesterday made me feel strongly about putting my story out there, the narrative, the part that hurts the worst to share. And I shared it—for myself, for him, for who knows who. I felt him urge me to do it.

Have you ever felt close to a dead person? Dead isn’t a good word. Moved on is a better way to put it. But he didn’t move on entirely. He came to my rescue. And heck, maybe to his own. The act of healing others heals us. 

So it’s out there now. How accurately the words come across, I can’t say. It’s hard to describe intense personal experiences. 

The past two weeks have been more therapeutic than any professional therapy I’ve received.

I thought I’d come share that with you. And to thank him for guiding me through the journey.

So thank you, Chris. More than you can imagine, or maybe you can.

Chris Cornell

I met someone yesterday. He’s dead now. He’s been dead just over a month now. He took his own life.

Suicide is a weird subject for me. I’ve been at its door, so I know it fairly intimately. I’ve known people who killed themselves, but none of those people were more than aquaintances. I’ve known people who were close to those people, who suffered the loss. And I took someone to the psychiatric hospital once or twice. But I can’t say that I’ve lost anyone to suicide. I can’t say I watched someone wither in despair to a breaking point. Other than myself. But I don’t count myself. Let’s just say that I get it, I understand it. But I’ve never suffered the other side of it.

As I watched him on the video, I looked into his eyes. And he looked right back into mine. I thought about his turmoil and decision. I thought about the moments leading up to his death, what he was thinking or feeling, and I wanted desperately to reach through the screen and talk to him. I wanted desperately to turn back time.  

I had only just met this person, on a screen no less, and I cried as though I’d known him in real life. I felt like I lost a person I knew, someone who was more than an aquaintance, 

I feel that he’s okay now, and that brings me solace. I feel this person’s presence, odd as that sounds, and that brings me comfort.  

I can still see his eyes and maybe even what’s behind them.

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I think I might have discussed my brush with suicide with someone once. It’s an awfully dark topic, so it doesn’t come up ever. But today I wrote about it. I wrote about it in narrative form and drew a picture for the featured image. But I couldn’t post it. Not because I feel exposed but because the subject is too intimate. I can write about it, like I am doing now. I just can’t write the narrative. I can’t share the narrative, I mean. And I’m not sure it helped me to write it at all. I felt darkness pulling at me as I edited it. 

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I cried for this person today, and I wished him to come back. But some things can’t be reversed. Death is one of them.

Ironic and sad that it took him dying for me to meet him. I would have liked very much to have known him in the world while he was alive.