Sunday blues

I have no idea whether anyone can see this blog.  Or will.  Or whether I even want them to.  I spent last year or two thinking about the difference between public art and private art.  Puzzling and really puzzling it out.  Now I know there is no difference.  A posture perhaps that happens more with public art but for it to be truly reachable, it must be private and from that private space that is privately totally public - i.e. accessible.

It is Sunday and I am making a roast so I can't leave the house.  I opened all the doors so the house would not smell like pork butt then all the bees came in and are buzzing around the skylight.

Sundays are always aimless.  We sit staring at the walls.  I do not like it, but as I tell my daughter, liking is besides the point.

It is not that we go beyond emotion but that we actually have less emotionality.  Unrepressed.  Natural resting space has no emotions.  I know that.  I like emotions because they make me feel alive and it's a way to relate to others.  But there is relating beyond emotion and I know that.  That is where to live now.  How?  It's not catchable.  It moves very fast at times and others it is still unmoving endless.

My left ear hurts and my left head hurts and I read that they have found a new pathway in the brain.  It was covered by something very thick.  It's what ages you, they think.

6 weeks or 6 millennia

Time is an illusion.

Slowly, things turn around and bubbles of insight rise up and then I pop them and I feel lighter because these thoughts are no longer trapped.

When you bring the back of your heart forward..

When you rub disgestive oil that Arikxander sells on your stomach.

I wanted to announce - I had a poop!  I had a poop!  It was green.  There is really no one to tell.   When I did not have a poop I walked around at Whole Foods wondering who had had a poop and who had not.  Is this important or not?

Life is not what we think it is because we relive our past over and over - because it's what we know and to live without preconceptualizing seems dangerous?  Unknown?  Too much effort?  Singular.  And Whole. 

It's an Orientation

5 weeks but I can stop counting now because this is just life in this body a middle aged body looking at other middle aged bodies trying to see myself.  Body consciousness is not even looking at a mirror for feedback because I know how my spaces are moving within.

What happens now?  I am delighted, delirious, desiring of nothing to be happy just wanting to bring that happy feeling to the things I touch.

Trying to see the waves coming at me.  If you don't see them you can't catch them.  They can't get through.

I'm in love with this garlic bread, I say
I'm in love with you, he says

Are you manipulative? A friend asked me as we walked the gardens.
Am I? I don't know.  I can't tell.  I used to have a big case of lawyer's brain but it's going away now so I'm not assessing risks and trying to come up with ways to protect my self interest.

What is your earthquake preparedness plan?  Asks my daughter.  It's for a science project.
It's to hide in doorways, I say.  No actually it's to let the insurance companies deal with it.  No actually we have a contracts with JetsforLife and they come and helipad you outta there in case of earthquake and then fly you to Twisp.
Really?  She asks.
No.  Can you just google earthquake preparedness and write down whatever makes sense.  I am feeling embarrassed that I don't have a preparedness.
She says she can't because that would be cheating.
Yes.  Ok then what will you say?
That you have no plan.
Right.  That's exactly right.  Come what may.  

4 weeks into life without avoiding

The further I get from my prior secret smoker shame-life, the harder it is to remember it.  Who was that woman who snuck frequently onto the patio and breathed deep, sought peace.  Or hid from the kids and from her feelings.  I felt unsexy because Lover literally recoiled from me after I'd been on the patio.

I have a lot of gas.  This is also very unsexy.  I am not used to being the one who is releasing noxious gases into the air from my anus.

I'm in a is-this-perimenopause or is-this-a-for-real-dark-night that I'd rather not talk about.  Maturity.  What does that mean?  First, not believing that maturity is boring.   How many stories about middle class progression are there?  A few.  This is 40.  Others?

I am 44.
I keep seeing 444.
There are 44 new sunspots on my face from this summer.

I am a tiny bit....

Lot bit

Upheaved.

Which is fine.  In time.  Since I am meeting someone.  I am about to understand.  I am about to see.  Or else there will be an increase in upheave in which case that will be.

Now I will go dine with the smaller child.

Day 9

The sourness of the stomach as it turns over a new leaf
I have the opening to become someone new
I still hover around the girls on the bench with a small white and gold box by her side
Or the one on the street 

Day 20something

Its between 3 and 4 weeks and I think I am A OK.  Except when I am deliriously happy or in the depths of despair.  I am noticing this more since I started taking 5HTP, a precursor to seratonin that also helps gut motility as I haven't got any.

This thought made me sad.

Sitting in the parking lot of the mall makes me happy, or actually sad.  Or something.

Last night I had the urge to shop til I drop.

However I cannot because I am a responsible nature adult with responsibilities and commitments to others whom I love.

Seeing the "expression" oil on dharmaceuticals made me cry.

Reading about Hillary on a ragmag made me cry.  She asks herself, "do I still love him?"

Shouldn't it be:  "do I still love?"

Last night when I asked for a cuddle he said of course, that's why people get married.  I wanted to argue about this but then I wanted the cuddle more. Then I could relax and go to sleep.  How wonderful.

I hid when I heard him coming up the stairs.  I wasn't dressed yet and didn't want him to see me like this - distended stomach, like the character in a Gabriel Garcia Marques novel, requiring daily enemas just to get by.

It's not that bad though it also is sort of worse.

I was excited to read that Karl Ove had also quit smoking using Allen Carr but then I read that he went back to smoking.  Not my hero.  It is easy to quit but then you or I have to deal with you or I because we don't have that lovely comfort of a secret affair with ciggies.

Eventually we have to give up everything til there is naught.  It is better to do this while still living - I do not know why.  Only that giving up is a practice now.  And I hardly know myself.  But I do like what I see in the mirror.  It is one of those times - when I have to cry all my tears.

Later I will laugh all my laughter.

Day 5

I went for a walk today.
I drank a carrot juice.
I put on a lipstick in a color that never worked with darker lips 5 days ago.
I examined my face for more signs and saw the black smoke lifting up.

There are these tinglings in my mouth and tongue.  When they happen I slip my tongue up to my hard palate and then press on the soft palate going as deep as possible.   This makes the tingling the longing go away.

I was thinking about a number to be.  Then I though no, why not let body decide.  Give up control to the intelligence of the body.  It knows.  Does it know I want to be a ballerina?  Yes.

I am reading a very sad memoir about smoking by Julia Hansen.  She is a sad heroine.  It is an identity that I can identify with.

Though after a sunny walk when I faced the sun without a hat, I felt like I have to be me.  I can't solve my problems with the same brain that created them.  Oh relaxing into everything.

I have decided on major purging.  Not little purgings.  But all of it.  Spontaneously.  

Yippee I'm a non smoker

thank you Alan Carr.  Grateful.  I'm in a fog but not really but I am lying around reading a lot and not having any peristalsis which is sad.

Susan Shapiro - thank you.  You are 40 and you are quitting.  I am 44.  I've only smoked for 2.5 years.

First smoke:  13.
2nd smoke: 15.
Remaining smokes: 17-28
Non smoker:  29-41
Just one Smoke in Tulum:  41
Several smokes:  41-44

I am mushy.  I am bigger because all the blood circulating is pulsing more strongly and I'm not the weak willowy, dark circled kind of drugged child porn star I've always wanted to be since I was 6 and saw that dreadful thing on TV in an apartment on Juhu beach in Bombay when mother left dad and his friend in underpants to watch the kids while she went sari shopping.

Seriously.  I am mature.  Maturity helps in conquering all the things.  Addictions, fears, phobias, childhood traumas, superiority complexes and inferiority complexes and all of the stuff I thought was my life.

Turns out no.  I'm 44.  I'm mature.  I haven't figured out everything yet but no doubt I will.

I am lying around now but soon I will get up and go downstairs confidently.  Day 3 is the day.  Today I awoke feeling refreshed!  Today I have purpose and more energy even though I still need lots of naps.

Life goes on.  A sauna is nearby.  Saunaing everyday can save your life.  Esp if you have very cold showers right after the sauna.  

Meditation on Writer's Doubt

Why do we doubt?  It's a double-take, like, hmmm, is this really happening?  Am I really going to make this happen?  Perhaps I'll just stay here where I am all cozy in bed with my fears of not being good enough.  Then I can suffer and blame everything else for holding me back, including this bed.   No more dreaded responsibility of thinking pure thoughts and writing them down.  And by pure I mean pure like sharp cold icicles or the unfiltered burning sun - not the pure virgin down the street who is naive and ignorant.  But perhaps her too because her ignorance is so pure.

I want to more effectively use my doubt or sense of judgement to chisel my word collages, my splatter books, my line by line letter arrangements.  Discernment, as my Buddhist teacher says.   Or even, just let the chips fall where they may and let the ideas fall into place like tetris don't over-turn them.

I found you because I have been feeling insecure about sharing my book with my beta-readers.  They all ask me about it now because I've talked it up much.  Do I have to share it with them?  What?!!  Then they will all know who I am, or who I was when I wrote the book over the course of a year.  It's so much more convenient to lead them all to believe that I am very good.  Very superficial.   Well dressed.  Well turned.  They'll have no doubt as to my impeccable taste.  But if they read my prose, full of black smoke and pennies with a hole in it and female lust and human longing and the reconciliation of our hopes into certain realities, then they will doubt.  They will know my own doubt.  She's a doubting Thomas, they will say.  She knows too much.  She knows nothing but the dark side.  Why?  Why isn't she more positive for Lord's sake.  Then they will smile and turn to me and say:

-I liked it!
-It was fascinating!
-Did this really happen to you?
-She was a victim!
-Why is she so angry?
-Why is she so pathetic?

And I will stand there stoically.  Oh?  Really?  Good.  That's fine then.  I will no longer doubt the double-facedness of your humanity.

My doubts?  I doubt Doubt.  It resembles debt.  I have debts so I doubt.  I dabble in doubt.  I have a draught in doubt.  I'll take a cold draught.  Are you daft?  Is there a draft in here?  It's cold.  Delightful doubt, embrace me.  Look doubt in the face and spit.  Surprise your doubt.  Call her Mrs. Doubtfire and  dress her neck in a leather belt.  See what happens.  Wallow in your doubt but only from 11:11 to 11:14.  All other times kick the doubt about and shout:  Dubious, dubious doubts you're out.  Then set about to work it out with pen in hand or fingers clacking or with your nose-held pencil that you cherish.  The words are only conceptual.  Actually everything is conceptual especially your doubt which we've now forgotten about because we're about to get started on the letters that form words that signify those hacking emotions jumbled about in your big old belly mixing with the jellymold.  Which is why they won't come out just right - but oh.  That's your doubt too.  Where art thou, spontaneity?  Where are thou, muse?  Don't tell me your muse is doubt too?

Spontaneous combustion that's what you are when you flare up with your nostrils raring to go, to jot down some doodles about a boy, a girl, an adult human or a dog or a fish or something that is consciousness totally disembodied.  Just a woohoo spirit, a candle in the wind, which will extinguish, extinguishing all the doubt that resides in you.