My silence is a blue tapestry
hanging by the old runny window.
Beneath my tongue the dream
dissolves, disheveled, voiceless.
Where his feet go,
my soul follows,
swimming through the cerulean sea,
stalking through the scorching sands,
clattering through canals.
His feet make tracks on the moon,
his ambition a horse for me to ride
to some frosted paradise.
In my tapestry,
the design of a snowflake,
sublime and thick.
There have only ever been a few science fiction novels that I have really gotten into. But I love science fiction short stories. I also love volumes of horror short stories. I will start posting some of those ones to show what I have found to be good. I am just diving into this volume but I really like it. Lots of creative and interesting story lines.
I actually have several volumes of horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy that I need to work through. I will probably right about those as I go. Then I’ve got this book called Year’s Best Weird Fiction. And that has some dark and strange stuff in it.
Once again my lighting isn’t great, but I think that this still life is better than the last one I posted. I really enjoy the rich colors and the blurriness of everything and the ephemera that I used. Do any of you do any still life arrangements? How do you repurpose old photographs?
Craig and I were engaged in this photo, and at one of my friend’s weddings where I was a bridesmaid.
I like my little bird living in his tropical jungle, so wild.
For the past few days I have been in a mixed state. Not a full-blown mixed state, which is where you are Manic and very depressed at the same time. But rather a softer mixed state. I am hypomanic and depressed at the same time. I am agitated, struggling with patience, creating until my mind gets so tired I can’t function, obsessed with reading and bright colors and research and music, dying to be alone, wanting someone to talk to, exhausted, and unable to stop moving and thinking. Simultaneously.
Mixed states are really hard. On one hand I’m grateful that I’m still creating and using my mind and living a life. On the other hand beneath all that I still don’t feel good. I long to be alone and I can’t be until the babysitter comes back to work tomorrow. She has been away for 2 weeks. I am constantly having to bite my tongue because I feel so short-tempered that I’m even in a bad mood with my family. I don’t want to yell or say anything short-tempered or unkind, so I keep silent. I have been biting my lip a lot!
If I could do anything right now I would take some art materials and books to a hotel room and just work and think quietly by myself for a couple of days. Or I would pay for a father-daughter weekend for Craig and Angelica and I would stay home and wander from room to room by myself. The whole time I would be lost in my mind without repercussion. I am very lost in my mind now, but that is a negative thing since I am not alone.
I had to take Klonopin and a sleeping pill in order to turn my mind off and get some sleep last night. I hope I do not have to do the same thing tonight. But as long as I get some decent sleep I’ll be happy. It’s probably the only thing that can stand between me and Mania. I just pray I don’t crash into depression.
radio static stands rigid in my room
the exorcist has been suffocated
by the weight of westward wanting
no one comes for the skull of
fresh stone
beyond my neighbor’s upright fence,
my grave guarded by bluejays
what I hear is sand and sea
in séance with salt,
who has disappeared behind a
shredded shrine
I am beginning to not only pray for success with my diet, but to try to actively incorporate God into my process. This morning I ate a delicious snack and then had some lunch that was not healthy but kept me within my calorie limit roughly. And since then I have honestly not been hungry, and I finished that food at 11:30 in the morning. But yet I still been finding myself tempted to eat some of my favorite chips or to get a little bit of Nutella for dessert or to have an ice cream sandwich or to have some wonderful parmesan peppercorn dip.
My diet does not preclude me from eating any of this. I’m going purely on a calorie-counting diet. Within my alloted calories for the day I can eat anything I want. That way I want I’m eating I’m getting food I really enjoy and killing at least some of my cravings. Believe me, I do not have the self-discipline to stick to any other kind of diet. And I believe that food should be enjoyed so when you are eating you should eat something that you like.
But for the past few weeks, basically since I have not been doing well, I have started to crave food even when I am not hungry. I just get cravings for salt and vinegar or for something sweet or for something cheesy. Just now I was in the kitchen and I went to grab some salt and vinegar chips. But then I remembered. I’m not hungry. I’m not hungry at all. I haven’t eaten in hours, but when I did eat I ate a pretty good amount and it was food I really liked and I don’t need anything else. So what is it I am really searching for? I mean some of it probably is the food. I really like food. Everybody says that but I really mean it. But part of it must be something else. What goes on in my mind or in my soul that makes me want something that you are supposed to partake of when you are feeling famished? Maybe I am famished, in some other way.
I want to start relying on God a little bit more for my diet. Partly of course for the selfish reason that there is no greater power in the universe than God so if God will help me who or what can stand against me? It seems silly to me now that I’ve been trying so hard to do this successfully, and I haven’t even asked the Lord for help except in passing. I haven’t sought Him out when I am failing. But tonight as I stood in the kitchen I said to myself, out loud, you do not need chips. You are not hungry. You need something else. You are not hungry. And then I asked the Lord to help me. Maybe the Lord can fill me. Maybe he will fill me with self-discipline, or help direct my mind to other things that I can think about and do that will leave me with no mental space for preoccupation with food. It is time to come to my God who loves me and wants to help me. If he doesn’t help me then I’ll know that my answer is no and either I’m in some sort of test where I need to do this without any help, although I feel like I’ve already been in that situation, or that maybe He’s telling me that this is the weight that I’m going to be and that I need to be less focused on getting slim again and more focused on something else. God never fails to answer a prayer. It’s just that sometimes the answer is no. But hopefully I won’t get a no. I need to lose weight not only because I want to be able to buy smaller clothes, but for my health.
I believe that God will help me when I need help and will bring me to whatever weight I should be at. If I practice self-discipline and count my calories, and if I lean on God to help me resist temptation, then my diet will continue to be successful. I need to pray more and talk to God when I feel tempted. I need to keep diving in the Word to keep close to Him and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Having lost about 40 lb, I have already come so far and I do not want to lose the hard won progress I have made. I feel like if I do I may never get back to this point again. I need to keep pushing ahead. I need to remember that like it says in 2nd Peter, men are slaves to which has mastered them. Food will not master me.
My Mondays are cocooned,
my years a chrysalis from which
only my age emerges.
Safe in my silverlit silk, I am
an unsung liquor,
and unbefriended possibility.
Failure cannot gnaw my alabaster soul.
In my serene rooms,
I float weightless,
worry bought and sold by someone else.
I need a friend. I have friends, a few at least. And I love them. But what I wish I had was one more friend, a friend who likes phone photography or writing poetry or taking still lifes or journaling or painting or collage. A friend I can do creative challenges with, or even start a separate blog with to post collaborative work or stuff that follows the same sort of theme or concept.
I think that working with someone and bouncing ideas off each other would make my creativity stronger. I would certainly love the companionship and having someone to talk to about creativity, either written or visual. It would be fun if we were doing the same thing, but it would be equally great if we were doing two different creative things and just talking about them with each other, and giving each other suggestions and keeping each other posted with our progress.
I feel like I run on and on about poetry and other artsy things to friends that aren’t interested in them. And no one wants to be the person in the room who talks for an hour about something no one else in the room is interested in! But it’s hard when almost no one is interested in something that you really love.
So many creatives throughout history have been shaped by other creatives that they were friends with. I would love to have someone like that in my life and I would love to be that someone for another person.
I am not an amazing artist or photographer, but I really like designing images. I wish there was someone I could talk about it with. Maybe we could inspire and challenge each other. Perhaps we could give each other ideas outside of one another’s usual subject matter or mode of creating in order to sharpen one another’s senses. Why not try mixed media? Or instant film and toy cameras? Or ekphrastic poetry based on one another’s photographs? Book binding? Incorporating ephemera into our art?
Blogging helps me work some of my Creative Energy out. Blogging is extremely important to me. But maybe through my blog I will make a serendipitous discovery of a kindred soul who might want to be an angel in my life and let me be an angel in theirs.
This is probably a long shot, but maybe someday somebody will find this post and a beautiful friendship will spark. I know it’s unlikely, but it’s always worth a try. If nothing comes of it, my life will continue in much the same way and I will not have lost anything. And I have a good life. But if I do find that kindred soul, how happy I will be! If I don’t open my doors no one will know that they are welcomed into my life.
Iron sharpens iron, and friends are priceless. Is anyone out there? Hello….Hello……
I am thinking of getting into doing simple still lifes with photographs and ephemera. I’ve done a few experiments. I don’t have the most professional looking materials. I don’t even have white foam board right now so I am using white tissue paper from gift wrap. I enjoy arranging decor and photographs and little odds and ends to make a picture. I’m debating investing in a Polaroid camera so that I can use little polaroid pictures for my designs. But for now I’m going to use the stockpile of regular photos that I have printed and haven’t used for scrapbooking.
This picture was taken when my husband and I first got married. I believe we were in Washington DC in this picture out to dinner. If not, we were in Rome. The background so dark and blurred and I can’t quite remember whether this was one of our trip to DC or our trip to Rome that year.
Miniature Moon 