Saturday, December 1, 2001
great quote
"The fool that willingly provokes a woman has made himself another evil angel and a new hell to which all other torments are but a mere pastime."
- Beaumont & Fletcher
"Cupid's Revenge"
"Injustice governs the universe. All that is made and all that is unmade therein carries the imprint of a corrupt fragility, as if matter were the fruit of an outrage in the womb of nothingness."
- Emile Cioran
"A Short History of Decay"
"I am the deadliest of my kind."
- a quote that I used to
put on my @doing when I was
a little MUSH freak.
I love that phrase: corrupt fragility. Were I forced to pick a title for the last five years of my life, that might just be it.
It's much better now, of course.
Posted by beth @ 04:21 PM PST [Link]
rainy days, rainy nights
I feel different.
I suppose that much shouldn't have been a surprise, neither to you all nor to me. But it's a surprise. Something I wasn't expecting.
For a long time, I thought that no matter where I went, under what circumstances, I'd feel the same way. That I'd be just me, with different geography. That I'd transplant somewhere that the scenery was more interesting externally, but not internally.
Boy, was I wrong. And I'm not nearly afraid to admit it.
I'm different. I'm alive. Drunkenly aware of everything around me, from the smell of cooking garlic in the air from the dinner I'm making for us, to the cool, damp air that wraps my skin in a sort of veil. The music around me is new, all the sounds of the city that fold together over a foreign (to me) radio station and add depth to a life well-lived. I'm awake for the first time in so long that I can't remember vividly the last time that I felt -this- aware, -this- alive, -this- in my skin.
The birth that led me here was hard. It's still hard. I consider turning tail and running on a daily basis. Then I look at myself in the mirror -- my dark undereye circles are disappearing and I'm losing weight and my eyes are bright again -- and I feel intoxicated with my own power. I'm a woman now. (How cliche is -that-? But it's true. I'm no longer a child.) And I can't turn back the clock. Even if I went back now, nothing would be the same in the place that I left it, and giant steps backward would do nothing for me except put an adult back in a child's place.
In a lot of ways, it's scary here. I have no safety net. If I stumble, even for a moment, my life is going to come to a screeching, abrupt halt. I find myself dependent by choice sometimes, waiting for a word or some kind of reassurance from outside myself and I realize with absolute clarity after the panic passes that I'm only going to get that from myself. And that's really okay, where it never has been before.
I wish things could have been different sometimes, too. That I could have stayed and found this within myself, and not hurt people who love me. I know it's a two-way street, but it doesn't make my guilt any lighter. I just refuse to give in to it. I'm better now. More "me" than I have been in a long, long time. But I do wish it had been a different birth.
Every year, I do an exercise in my journals called a "life vision". I write a five to ten page account of my life as I wish it was. I write in present tense, as if I've already done the work to get where I want to go, and assume that it's all possible. It changes with my dreams, but there are similarities in each of these vision exercises -- I took those similarities to be my true self, hidden in among the "shoulds": what I should want, what I should be feeling, what I should be doing.
Funny thing is, I just tried to write one, and it's my life now, with a few additions. I mean, sure, I'd love better hair, lithe muscle control, and the time to do more artsy stuff. I'd love a power-broker job somewhere in the publishing industry, or my own catalog business. I'd still like to stop smoking completely. But the way it -feels- isn't a fantasy anymore. I'm enjoying myself, and enjoying my life.
There's almost no room for guilt or regret anymore.
wishing you all sunshine and cool rain,
-----e
Posted by beth @ 03:20 PM PST [Link]
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
live and die on safari
I just found out that Dan Eldon's got a tribute website. It takes, oh, say, forEVER to load....but it's worth it.
I'm telling you -- had this kid lived, he would have taken over the world. And I'd have stalked him. :)
AND I just found his mom, Kathy Eldon, has a foundation called creative visions about media in activism. It's friggin' amazing.
And if that's not enough, check out voice and vision, which is all about promoting media that encourages cultural and spiritual education and diversity. Drool! (That's SO all about what I wanted IQ to be like.)
----e
Posted by beth @ 03:07 PM PST [Link]
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
bookmarks
For some reason, my pitas site seems to be down, so I can't bookmark anything and it's pissing me off. I don't have a lot of time to be messing around this morning.
That said, go mess around with some surrealist cut-ups. Based on a technique by Burroughs (among others), you'll be looking at writing in a whole new way. Some of the links don't work,but if you can find some good ones, you won't be sorry.
It's kind of like my Found Words, but not.
Anybody know of any good temp agencies in Seattle?
Posted by beth @ 11:11 AM PST [Link]
Monday, November 26, 2001
oh, man
Ever do something that looks like a good idea at the time, and is a rather grand gesture, and then you spend the rest of the day (week, month, lifetime) just blinking at your bizarre actions and wondering how the hell you ever thought it was a good idea?
My hair's wet. It's cold outside here. I'm going to catch pneumonia.
Posted by beth @ 09:21 PM PST [Link]
