January 31, 1997
End of a week-and what a week! all moved in at work and my brain still moving around. the effects of washington still seeping out, the stress, the angst, the excitement and the final reality, seeping out like methane. last night after dinner, the me i know just crumpled into a ball of exhaustion on the kitchen floor. unable to form coherent thoughts, explain myself, or get up, i stayed there, with ern, until we figured out what was wrong. trapsing around strange airports, lugging more than my weight in luggage-as well as a fragile poster, Ramona, and three pairs of shoes (!) I barely had the energy to tell my story. No wait, I don't even think I knew what my story was. And then, returning to an early move of office - orchestrating 12 movers and my own world - landing, to face eight 2X2 cubic boxes (it was written on the side) and four 2X2X6 boxes which I must make fit into spaces considerably smaller. shredding, and throwing, and giving, and sorting, opening and separating and placing and cavorting - wait ! what's this? cavorting? hm. being a member of a social group? hm. people talk to me? hm. now they are even serving me! hm. very bizarre....
And now Bob's on the phone. more things going on. hm. oh oh. i just passed the threshold. the coffee threshold. the point where the webs are truly cleared and thinking become erratic. making it difficult to remain seated in front of this box for much longer. the wires are crossing. the fingers are moving frantically now, faster than ever. no time to stop and think about moving packing cities. And I thought this coffee wasn't strong enough! hah! (not the regular stuff). but wait a minute-there's more time! I'm early-! There's more stuff I watned to say. Story of my life, too much to say, too little time and too few people who care. heh.
Oh yeah, i was discussing how i flip flopped onto the floor in exhaustion. (told you i was schizophrenic!)
Friday. Summary. End of week. Things behind me. Payday. Weekend. Warmer weather. Gastank full. good. coffee. better. what else? see? i'm talking. this is content. content to you and content to me; species different phenomenon. if you say CONTENT you should tell me who's saying so. Some content doesn't matter. some does. eheh!
ooo i like the little ones. HI ERN!!!!!!
January 30, 1997.
unpacking again today. tiring-thinking about what should be thrown away and what should be kept. very freeing, once the decisions have been made. Baggage, and lots of it. Maybe with less of it, things could be simpler. should i apply this concept at home, too? hhh. funny how certain aspects of change i thrive on, and others just make me feel ill. I have changed somewhat in this respect, lately. maybe it will take me a lifetime to learn this. maybe that is what i am here to learn. I can convince myself of just about anything.
January 29, 1997.
Even though it's heart wrenching, I wonder how many people know songs which allow them to relive the past. The way they can bring back not memories, not faces or places or smells, but bringing back real feelings. Feelings so powerful that they overcome me-stop me in my tracks, and launch my imagination into some alternative space-time place where I relive what I used to think and feel. Only certain music does this, who knows why-because Lord knows there are literally thousands of my then so-called favorite songs, any of which should be candidates for memory upheaval.
That music brings me back, mostly, to Julie's basement. Can nearly make me cry. Reminding me too vividly of the many days and nights we spent there. The music collection, the huge bar, the immaculately organized photographs of his beautiful family, and her father's pride. Of the peace we knew in that dark place, the peace only innocence knows.
---------------------------------------
with mystery gone i sit and think; of things discussed, of things distinct. with graeme's thoughts to direct the focus, see microcosms of reality; seeing lord of the flies everywhere we care to look, and each to his own 'going by the book'...and i bet some great cliche applies here; the only preventer being fear.
if you could know what's going on; but you cannot, cause it's not gone. and what is going on is just as real and just as fake as what you feel. ... So here i stand upon my horse - telling tales in forms of verse, and thinking, 'shit - things could be worse'!
----------------------------------------
january 27
i think we take this ...well, not more seriously, but with let's say more real interest. and me, well, i should learn to think less linearly. there's many thoughts and ideas out there in places where i let my brain go, when i let it. let's try to apply what i have learnt, without belaboring exactly what it is, especially since i hope what it is will change me instead of just leaving some little traces here in the MEP. i like the MEP, but i guess i've got to be other things, too.
i shouldn't be doing things i don't want to. I'M really not snobby, you know.
January 22,1997. 9:54 Pm
"baby ima want you-
baby ima need you-
you're the only one i care enough, to hurt about...
lately ima prayin'
that you'll always be a stayin'
beside me..
Used to be my life was just emotions,
passing by-
Feeling all the while and never really knowing why.."
-david gates, bread.
there's a line in that song that says "You made me laugh and made me cry" remember those days? the days when it was enough to make someone laugh and cry?
Do other people's personalities count less just because they are not able to express them? do others feel the same emotions i do, if they do not write, paint, or throw them? i guess that's what i often assume, and shouldn't. it's fine, if you live with passion-if your actions and mannerisms exude feelings, creativity, and life, then i might say you are an exception, but most people don't. if I don't see it coming out of you, i assume it ain't there.
my head is heavy with angst, my body aches. the excitement has boiled itself down to syrup. i have never felt quite this much like a burnt log. no, not quite.
you may not know it, but something big is about to happen. i'm not sure if it is going to light up, blow up, or blow away-...but something is about to be changed forever...and for that i am truly sad, truly sad. but i bite my tongue, hide my tears, and plow on as the pilgram inside me should.
back on Monday.
January 20,1997
And if I steal something and i don't thinks stealing is wrong, than
is it ?
rethinking all my symmetry, i am reminded that I like symmetry.
Jane Sibbery used to sing: "you can't cut down a symmetry"
So there. That's why I llike it.
January 19,1997
the argument about whether or not the world we know through the media is actually the world. sure, if a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear but no one does hear because no one does. arguing semantics might help, but let's not deny that we create our own reality. it annoys me to have to live in the world which has only been created once. it annoys me to live in a world where we can't know how changes will affect the way things change. it annoys me greatly to be forced to have a vision of our world which is given to me by someone else...
but it's fun to be able to see the world so differently from day to day. just friday night i felt so confused and alienated, and now i feel more connected and strong. that's the connection to who i am. who i am is simple. i know who i am.
then there's the product of society bit. (how could anyone call this stream-of-consciousness? these thoughts i am about to tell you happened three days ago, and i have been mulling them over in my head since)(are people confused when they see too many trains of thought?) in any case, i am also having trouble accepting the fact that i am a product of society. Funny, we call children a product of society, but it is us who are the products. you can call the kids something else, if you like, but to be a product of society it would seem that enough time must pass in order for society to have some kind of effect. i was thinking, actually, again, just realizing about myself, that i am lazier than i was. i won't say i'm lazy, but lazier than i was. i mean, i was definately NOT lazy before. so, i thought, must be a societal effect. why else would i become lazy? routine? age? work? boredom? nah, society.
bad society, bad.
lol. some college teacher of mine should be feeling pretty good about him/herself right about now, knowing that he/she really got his message across to at least one student. little did he/she know. little did they know.
barely employable alright.
is this page too long?
January 18, 1997.
i'm trying to live in two conflicting worlds, and i have been for almost three years. to live in 'their' world, i must remain fashion-consciuos, positive, and maintain a general quick pace. to live in my world, i must maintain a wholistic view, analyze my actions, and examine corporate behavior objectively.
i've never really thought of myself as particularly feminine, but keep realizing over and over again, that i feel more gender-neutral, if anything. and i most certainly don't treat myself like one of the masses, but i know i am one. had some frustrating revelations about the web last night...something i've been wondering about for quite some time, now. the idea that really, the kind of people i am most interested in are not the kind of people who would take to some mass media hipno-tech lifestyle...but then of course i've always been left staring at myself. In conclusion? well either i can conclude that yes, people like me do live on the web - or, the world is a changing place and the web is really just a tool and who uses or doesn't use it, means nothing - or, the last and most disparing option - i'm not so special afterall. and that's where yesterday's frustration was born of. being left with the fact that i really am just a cog. this is a very difficult thing to accept when one has been highly praised as a child.
January 15, 1997
berdj and i had a discussion about drunkeness. i was telling him that i just realized, during our discussion, why some people might avoid being drunk. not because of the feelings of inhibition and the emotions they don't want to feel, but because of the realization i had when i woke this morning: 'oh oh', 'what did i do/say/email/otherwise last night? and then, running quickly through my blurred memories, decided that i hadn't sent any insulting or slanderous emails, telephoned Australia, or revealed any age-old family secret that someone had entrusted me with.
but i did wake up worrying i had.
and i did spill my drink.
so i realized that some people may not drink, not because of the effects which it may have on them, but because of what they might do or say to someone else which they otherwise wouldn't. things that you might regret. things which could, possibly, be bad. i never felt this before today. i've never experienced worrying about anything i might say or do while drunk. so then this led to a discussion about whether or not we believed in the old cliche. as if probably obvious by now, i am a firm believer in that old cliche. you know, the one about the truth coming out...eventually, we were talking about being inspired, and that's when he said that having a creative outlet is like being sober from the drunk that is the mundane of everyday life. i said it was the other way around...i told him that that's the world that i would like to live in....saying what you feel and not what you think...talking to people whom you otherwise would never speak to... feeling emotions that you may never feel when sober, and being less inhibited... that these things don't come out when drunk, but that we walk around repressing them. but alas, i decided, we live in a primarily sober world, and so that is how it must be. and i think this conversation hammered some nails into my theory.
and so he didn't sound too sure of the old cliche.
we also talked about inspirations. what is inspiring. i have realized of late that there are situations that i find inspiring. it has taken me a long time to realize this, as until now, i really thought that nothing in particular inspired me. no wonder, with the common inspirational stereotypical surroundings being the ocean, mountains...none of these ever appealed to me and so i just concluded that there was no particular environment that inspires me. what a fool i can be.
so i tell berdj, 'you inspire me'.
he laughs heartily. "That is so ironic! You know, people are
constantly telling me, 'Berdj, you're so optimistic' 'you're so smart',
'you're so understanding', 'you're so helpful'...
All of the things that I feel I am not. It's a cruel joke".
so as we were having that conversation, i knew that i was close to zeroing in on what it is that inspires me. i didn't have it yet, but i knew i was close. now, after writing the above, and thinking a few loose thoughts, i see it so clearly; berdj, bill, eg, andy, the school girls, the beautiful girl on the bus, cynny, the little boy putting gas in his car, the man pulling his son on skis, Julia White, the list is endless. for crying out loud, people inspire me!
so here i am, just like berdj, living a catch 22. there's an element of cruelty there allright.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Before you learn how to do something, you must first learn that
you can do it" -me, yesterday. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 14, 1997
this morning's mug matches the mouse pad nicely.
what does 'veiled' imply? brides are veiled but i don't think that is the implication here. one thinks more of threats, or crimes. hmmm. i'm chuckling now, to myself.
meppisms following me around, for life? people don't wonder, much
anymore... i wonder why?
"I wonder as I wander..."
Don't cry.
I wonder how many of the most renowned sonatas and symphonies were born out of inebriety. i myself, couldn't imagine penning notes and staffs in such a condition-however such a state does certainly increase one's creativity.
we are, today, annoyed by different things. damn that dialin script. but what is the difference, the true essence of today? how can we be expected to live remembering so many cliches at once? this, the reason my head spins. trying to embody all that i am-all that i know-all that i'll ever have, i offer now to you.
it's difficult when you've been through poignant periods of self-checkism, to return to a state of knowing who you are. i had thought it was immediate, when i returned to my true love, but now i see that it is not. the process is still occuring but unfortunately, i think, it is not merely a backstepping, not just rewinding. returning to who i am, my confidences and all, by moving forward. What a concept. Taking all that i have learnt-all i have known-all i have seen-and ending up as screwed up as i ever felt. this is supposed to be different? or, is this what they mean when they say 'we never change'...? do all my experiences really sum up who i am? i doubt it. some experiences sideswiped me. some cut me in two. how can i fairly say then that they formed me? how bitterly annoying.
<:) with eyebrows raised i smile a sarcastic, arrogant, if cruel smile. *pause*
this is who i am. this is me.
if you could know me you might understand my smile. it is not meant for you- but only what you represent. only for what you have learnt. what you were not given the power to unlearn.
but i am not cruel, really. i think people think me so because i am not like them. why do i have to want conversations about office space...it does not mean that R's father's death touches me less? it does not mean that were someone to fall to the floor that i would not risk my essence to save them?
what's more, is that i believe,in all my arrogance, that it infact touches me more. that is, in fact, who i think i am. more alive. more hurt. more real. more creative. more essential. more living, more dead.
them's turtle words if ever.
January 13, 1997
8:04 am.
they plowed their way, with minimal equipment, no technology, and most
of all no knowledge of what was to come-through forest-bears and all, rain
wind and snow- and arrived somewhere building log cabins, hands maybe frozen,
toes probably frostbitten, and hearts and minds full of something else...
if only they could know the luxuries of today as a result of their efforts.
Ah! that's what their hearts were full of. of me. of you. of highways and
byways and international flights and probably, of little women sitting
around typing furiously into a computer trying to understand what would
have posessed someone to be the first to inhabit this land.
thanks
January 11, 1997 (I guess, since yesterday was the 10th)
"morning has broken"
in a sense, morning breaks the night. cracks it in two pieces for you to
stare inside the shells and decide if the yolk is a good one or not. yolks
always look good at first glance I guess.
if you live with someone whom you love more than anyone-you can't just say "If you don't stop doing that, I'll leave!, because you know you won't-so you don't. But you can't tell the person in a nice way, because what if what they are doing is important to them? *sigh*"
"my yolk is empty and my burden, is light"
so i'm thinking the other day. is this a tool? yeah sure, i conclude, but not a self-improvement one.
let's find another:
december 27,1985. I guess there isn't much to say as this year draws to a close. What kind of year was it? let me see-relationship wise, R and I had a wonderful time- I had a short relationship with F, a guy from upstate new york, um, i almost fell in love avec a cute doctor from Boston. M and I had a nice short thing-a fling with a cute guy from Myrtle Beach, Um let's see, the infatuation with the cure guy from the hospital, and then P came into my life. He was the first guy i called my boyfriend in about two years. secondly there's cynthia i guess. at the beginning of the year, i was depressed. And during the middle I was confused. and at the end...we are reunited. Academinally...I graduated from Dawson College...in Medical Laboratory Technology. and um took calculus and worked! yes work. I got my first job at 12$ an hour. my mother's first job paid 12$ a week. and um i started university, and i made a new friend Carolyn Barre and her sister Brigitte."
i'll continue;
"my watch is keeping off-beats with Bruce Springsteen (I think)
and my heart is sitting on the edge of it's Pericardium thinking of this
morning. Imagine if life could be one big high like that? Wow. Death would
be a welcome change. Or perhaps it is anyway...in the opposite sense-My
toes are tucked under(in) the furnace duct and my knees tremble. 2:45 of
watching a movie will do that to anyone I guess. Meryl Streep published
her writings (in the movie) and I have decided I will too. I wonder why
Steve M. hasn't called lately. Who just came in? Tonight I feel like going
to the Capital Club and talking with Paul over a drink. I wonder if he
wants to go out. It's wierd seeing him for a whole week."
there's more...
Hi. sunday night, 8:01 Swatch time keeping off beats with Guess who!
Bruce Springsteen. Boy I could tell you loads more - Stories like the previous
page but they become rather boring, always talking about sex. I don't even
understand why someone would want to make love to me. Right now I look
so ugly...
Happy New Year, Kiddo. This is your ninth year in my life and
each has been more and more wonderful. Even if this year's new year's resolution
was not to write so much."...
"I'm crazy for you, touch me once and you'll know it's true, I never
wanted anyone like this, it's all brand new, I'm crazy for you..."
That's what Dec.31 [1985] was like.
I was crazy for this huge hunk of man in a gray sweater and bowtie and we danced closely and I loved him and everything was wonderful."
"Hold me
that i shall not fly
Brace me
that i shall not wander
Capture me
that i am yours."
-1984.
You see, I still guage happiness by what it used to be. I can't feel it anymore, but I still compare it to the true happiness of my childhood. I miss those feeling so much. The excitement of new emotions new discoveries newfound parts of who i was-growing up to my own tune-dancing like tomorrow would never come...
that's the crux of the matter, and that's what i know.
January 10, 1997.
at the stop sign, to my right, there he was. not more than three, and his dad was holding on to a rope tied to his body somewhere. he had tiny little skis on his feet and his dad was dragging him along the sidewalk, which was covered with snow along with the rest of our known world today. i couldn't help but notice that the dad wasn't wearing skis. i thought that maybe this was the dad's idea of teaching the youngster early on to get used to skiis and that maybe one day he would be a world-renowned skiier. then i thought what other techniques could you come up with which are relatively easy but might teach your children important things early on in life?
you should have seen the city as i drove home tonight. you've never seen anythinbg so beautiful-even in any scenic postcard. everything is white and the huge evergreen trees are covered with big splotches of snow. it's such a peaceful thing. the snow dampens the air-i gues if you've never seen it, you wouldn't know the way that snow in warm temperatures insolates the world. it makes everything very silent and peacefull, like there's no rush to do anything. except go and walk in it. bye.
January 9,1997.
I am a bit schizophrenic and extremely emotional
and, I have only realized in the past several months who I am not.
I realized this morning on the way to work that I do not keep a ‘work face’. There was a time when I did, but I no longer do, and I feel sorry for all the people who do because what an awful thing to live with a facial expression created only for others. Or is it?
Then, the cars in front of me came to an abrupt halt and my heart went through my head. It wasn’t even a screeching one, but made me think about why it scared me so and how did people live driving like this? I recalled an incident recently where I braked and slid on the ice-might as well not have braked at all. That scare-or emotional experience, caused an imprint in my brain which now resurfaces in any situation even remotely similar to it. It made an emotiprint in my brain leaving me overreacting emotionally, to that situation.
So then I am thinking, hey I am thinking quite clearly today. And I feel happy. And the sun is shining. What was it that made me so frustrated lately and unable to discern and relate certain thoughts? Now that I am thinking clearly, I feel good. Or, do I feel good because I am thinking clearly. In any case I think - I really am who I always wanted to be. Just because I can think clearly and evaluate my situation. I cannot ask for more than this. To be happy, and able to stand back and see who I am-or at least who I am not.
I have begun to accept that I have to re-evaluate who it is I want to be, and I now know that I cannot be the person my 12 year old wanted or hoped me to be. I am not that person-not in this world. In the world as I viewed it then, perhaps, but in the world I live in NOW, I cannot be this person. I cannot be false. I cannot be fake. I cannot be someone I am not-and that is what in fact I would have to do, in order to be that person. OR, at least in the world as I view it now. That may change. I hope it does, because my me of now still wants desparately to be the me now that my 12 year old wanted me to be. What bizarre train of events has left me able to see what my 12 year old wanted me to be, realizing that I cannot be that person, but still wanting to be that person?
So, Does the fact that I am thinking clearly and able to see myself in this light make me happy - Or, am I able to think clearly and see myself in this way because I am happy (today) ? I have a tendency to believe the first line of thinking, since there must be a reason for everything.
What if it's the BOOK?
"Another Day another dollar"
"An apple a day keeps the Doctor away"
"time is nature’s way of preventing everything from happening at once"
actually, this is very true, even on a scientific basis. if everything happened at once, what would the world be like? one big explosion, i guess.. hmm, very interlesting. a big explosion, kinda like a bang.
it’s all about avoiding. avoiding the fact that you care, and avoiding the fact that you don’t. if you face it, there’s nothing.
i meant what i said this morning, i bet it’s hard for you to swallow-or you think i’m a total sap for feeling that way, but the proof is in the pudding.
fruits. vitamins and fibre. analogies. messages. letters. words.
this does get pretty difficult in a hurry. but i plan on leaping over hurdles and plowing ahead plow plow, i lower my head and blindly go where i have never gone before…geesh can’t even spell plow.
as long as i am offline i’m safe. so here i am in all my offliness, squirming and squiggling because my bum hurts from sitting endlessly…sitting…sitting…
a little roundish purplish belly has just passed by. under a smiling face with dark cropped hair, it went right by me. contained inside-a future laughing, crying, speaking being. i wish i thought it were some kind of miracle. i wish i could believe that. it would make life simpler. or easier anyway. but no, just a bunch of melding deoxyribonucleic acid, doing what it does because "nothing happens because it needs to". an area of low pressure here, acidity there, a bit of gravity, and voila! here we are. two arms and legs, kidneys, and a pelvic bone.
all this because everything can’t happen at once. amazing. truly amazing.
things i do are often not polished. i am not a polished person. when i do things i focus in-some part of what i am doing is perfect, but rarely all of it is. dissection is me. seeing the big picture, as i have said before, is not. if you look at me, and you are able to dissect out the part which looks perfect to you - be it teency weency, be it medium-sized, then maybe you can see past the rubbish that is the unpolished me. um, what kind of analogy could i make? i mean, the fly in the ointment here is that i do want to look polished, on the outside. perhaps i do, to some…if only they would let me know. but i think in general that most people miss the point entirely. once again, it would seem that most are only capable of splurting out what has been put into them. not praised enough as children i guess.
it’s so difficult because everyone has their own explanation. for a teenager, everything she does-be it smoking so that everyone can see her, that activity is important. no one can tell her it is not. so when people see my pictures of Ramona they probably see a kid at heart type, silly and whimsical, who likes stuffed toys. Well i guess they may be right on some accounts, but the point is that ramona is an adult. she represents adult things, adult fears, adult emotions. It’s the rest of the adults who I see as not having these emotions. Bottled up inside some exterior skin which has grown onto them after years of not caring anymore. ah. sigh.
lunch.
January 8, 1997.
"No matter how gifted you may think you are, no matter how clever you may be at thinking, talking, or performing, somebody is busy designing a circuit board that will outstrip your talents. When that task is completed, there will be a virtual you and your talents will be made available cheaply, on demand, 24 hours a day."-Angus Reid, (?) the Montreal Gazette, January 4, 1997.
I am learning about marketing. Maybe related to the paragraph above, i am learning, the hard way, that marketing, more and more, to a certain extent, comes naturally. One of my favs is how many times more McDonald's pays for the coke cups than for the content. Does this not bother anyone anymore-? And it was natural to zoom in on the coke cup, since it's the one you pick up and hold right to your face...and everyone else's. and lots of people run around never really understanding this concept. Again, part of the modern day phenomenon of 'If I know it-can i avoid it?' Do we want to live in this kind of world? - i mean, how stupid are we running around paying for people to sell us things...oh well, i guess they just got to the cicruit board first. (read; disdain, self-pity, shame). That's what it is, alright, one huge circuit board, short-circuiting left right and center. Difficult to distroy. lots and lots of little (whatever those little things are called in a circuit board).
let's find one. just one.
December 31, 1986. let me see. 1986. What kind of a year was it? it was a pretty crazy year. It was a topsy turvey year. It was filled with laughter and sadness, joy and confusion. I fell in love this year, I fell out of love. I was infatuated, and I was in real deep love. I made many friends this year, I went to new places. I went: to Ottawa, Quebec City, Laurentians, Magog, Danemora. I met; Silas, Danielle, Marie-Josee, Thao, Ricky Walter, Shelia B., Jim Ross, Jeff V., Roger, Arne, Paul Crabtree, Janet Bayleran, Jonathan Brassard, Diane, Marie-France. And of course, I met M. That is what makes 1986 special. The year of the future. The year I came alive. I felt very pretty this year, though. and I lost weight. I made some special friends and grew closer and distant from others. It is the first year I took the pill, Hmm..."
there. i've been wanting to do that for a while now.
more reading. more sleeping. more eating. Windy now. still not cold. cozy in here, my writing room.
January 7th, 1996.
Sit myself down and read,read,read.
Watch the words of others bleed.
Listen, bravely to their rant
And let them take you where you can't.
there's a two sided coin needing to be tossed.
Either the Web is a complete free-for-all, or we pretend to be polite here.
Unfortunately, the very nature of this place - the annonymity, the diversity,
and the availability-
suggests a place reminiscent of the worst of scenarios, much like the world
the media presents to us. But; there does seem to be segments of this place
which are dominated by those representing the other side of the coin.
Thank God that some people never learn that this world is so corrupt.
Did anyone like my review?
There is a sun.
I am getting late now.
I work.
January 5th 1997:
I am going to sit here and write. Write until something original comes off my lips, until i derive some sense of understanding, of unfolding, of knowing a little bit more of who i am. Margaret Atwood says words to which i feel compelled to reply:
"Simon finds if tiresome to be constantly accused, in his individual person, of all the sins of his country, and especially by these Britishers, who seem to think that a conscience recently discovered excuses them for not having had any conscience at all in an earlier period."
If I look back and see wrongdoing on my part-What is the correct 'feeling'? the correct way to react? If no one can say the correct way, then who is to say the wrong way? Why am I so insanely defensive about the right and the wrong? If we all agree that to be made a better person of it is a good thing, is this what we are to have learned? Is not looking back a good thing? Is this perhaps not all that we are capable of - and if we are capable of more, who is to tell us so but ourselves? And we have only ourselves to tell us so then how are to we to know if these are the only thoughts we have? How are to we have other thoughts, other explanations for our lives? How How How? How come all I ever end up is frustrated with myself?
And then I read about 'Things'. It is implied that we are not to hold on to things...Does this make us bad, for I most certainly want to be good. The writer is implying that I need counseling. Please take note that this is not meant to antagonize-on the contrary, I am using her words for growth. What she writes worries me because I fear I am one of them-difficult to be honest here but if I am not, what is the use? Perhaps less of late than in the past, but I would like to maintain that I have good reason to keep things. I do understand the philosophy and can see clearly why it should be so. However, either I am to face a reality-whose? or I am to change. Photographs can't possibly count, can they? What about books? What about printouts from the Web, containing information, resource information which I actually DO refer to every now and again. What about my ballet diplomas?
What about my swimsuit from 1975?
Jewellery box filled with childhood memories, like braces, teeth, and bracelets?
What about two hundred and thirteen diaries, locked up in a pale blue suitcase
for nineteen years?
A silver dollar from my Grandmother?
This is free form, here, honestly. I'm not searching for approval.
Approval from myself, maybe.
Winter coats?
I have learned to throw away socks with holes in them.
My mother has always disapproved of my possessions. I always thought it
was because they were taking up space in her house. Perhaps, however, it
is because she sees what you see, Julia.
Perhaps it is because, in the same vein as my reasoning for why she never seemed truly enthralled with Christmas gifts, she knows that possesions, ultimately, mean very little. We still disagree about the importance of the boxes I still keep in her basement. But I think, doesn't anyone else understand the meaning of the possessions my grandfather had in his attic? The sense of the past they gave to me as I saw his handwriting, years after he passed away, written in books there. The importance of leaving something behind? The trueness of the picture which only possessions and scribble can reveal ? I have discussed my grandfather and our family elsewhere and so I will not belabor the point here, but the sense of the past, and of my relevance to the future, was given to me through his possessions. I could not have known him if it were not for these things.
Yes, ultimately, the passing down of my possesions represents, in fact, a method to pass on myself which is essentially selfish - I admit - but in a very real way, I am all I have.
Maybe the 'I' in this phrase feels less selfish to me because I feel that I am as true to myself as I an possibly be.
Maybe it's because I have never known anything else.
Maybe, I never will.
I mean, we all know that we refute black and white because we have such a hard time seeing the grey.
January 4, 1996
But i am,
i am,
i am in a literary mood said she.
there are just far too many things in the way-but how can one interact
and write at the same time?-one needs both, experiences and the free space-space
without confinement-space without interaction-space without questions,
needs, attention, etc. Space and time.
seeing things in the rain-our lives-people in bars with huge white puffy drapes-
A guest has appeared in the MEP:
he says:
"Nothing, just write ... she says.
Don't worry about nothing.
Certainly I wouldn't worry about those people waiting to see a wonderful show in the white poofy club. What an evening to stumble about in a post-tragic-Victorian Barf-o-rama. Ah to be free and be able throw your head back with no reservations. And little else in the life of the suburbanite. The contrast, glaringly appparent, the differences, encouragingly little.
I will to be
As you wish to see
The way you will
My wishes to be."
rain in January in the city.
insolating and isolating ourselves as Canadians.
From Portugese to Vietnamese - we have, as he says, the luxury of choosing.
frustrated by a lack of thought process
January 2, 1996
Back to work. Late for work. Why work?
Millions and millions of thoughts running through my head, but they're all the same. Wanting to stretch myself in directions that i am just not able to go. wanting to make resolutions which i know i can't keep. trying to change something in the face of stagnation. the holiday gives us an excuse to ignore who we are for a spell. to look at others. what do we see there? Do we see but ourselves?
Early.Late.
Later.
-----------------------------
with some beautiful music adding inspiration to my otherwise bleak surroundings, i am contemplating writing a
review
of a review. If i believe myself to be a gymnast and a painter, then in my own right, i am so. if the world judges me to be otherwise - so be it. but my view of myself is my own, private, and sacred.
This review does sum up the quintessence of a graphomanic society, for which i am appreciative. It is very much a part of our culture to be self-serving and over introspective, your desire to sum it up notwithstanding. Reflective of a group of people who have long not had this freedom? Of a society constantly looking for meaning where there is none?
However, your ability to single out certain diaries was done with a bit of distaste-rather blindly and with your own poetic license, much as the diarists themselves have done.
In fact, the computer is not an impersonal medium. No more impersonal than a book. Perhaps it is yourself who is unable to visualize it as something more than impersonal. I find the chance to sit, alone and by myself, in a quiet room, and read what i find here, quite personal. Alone with myself and my thoughts, how much more personal can an activity be?
Perhaps if you would have stumbled across these writings by chance, and without expectations, you would have had the fortune to see human beings instead of “psychologically nihilistic identities” - women, instead of “the same old blather recycled” - and, the irony that you seek.
Whenever we seek to find “efficiency, industriousness, and productivity”, we may also find we are looking at a “one-dimensional” world. There is, in fact, very little quality left in the world. We are being held up by plastic chairs, together by plastic phones, and apart by plastic guns. The silverware in the resorts is tarnished. As a result, the ketchup bottle may outlast me.
I am constantly reaching for more, for something, for anything. It’s rarely there.
I have to keep reminding myself to stop looking so hard-it blocks the view.
The women you speak of are the ‘cog in the mode of mainstream, normative, socio-cultural identity production.’
You call it kitsch. They call it their lives.
There is no one to say the difference.