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Conscious Confessions

Here comes a confession: I’m not tidy. It’s funny, I know, but my subconscious works overtime to the extent that I actually can believe that I might be for moments at a time. But I’ve reached a point, now, where I finally cannot, not for even one single moment, really believe that I am all wrapped up tight in a neat little package. I know I’m probably the last to find this out, but I’ll be honest with me…I usually am the last to find things out.

I need a Xanax or I need sleep or I need both right now. Yesterday I slept away an entire drug induced day, which in reality, is probably not much different from many other days I’ve had spent awake. Things are starting to line up. Getting cleaned up, it’s tempting to say.

I’ve never been one for drugs. I’ve never been the dependent type. I’m the one who loves to take shit and turn it into something else, like I’m a human compost or something. Just give it to me, I’m totally unphased by shit and can turn it into something else. Art or a poem or something. Or a shapely body from all the metabolic processes it brings on within me. I can take on anything!

So here’s my next confession: I’m also a liar. I can’t deal with shit. I can’t take it on or process it. I bury it and it goes nowhere. It does nothing useful and I put on make-up, in various forms, to face the world. I’m shit-faced, I could maybe say. I’ve been living my life as an addict.

I’m addicted to the part of not being human, not feelings my feelings or knowing who I really am.

I might have even married my perfect counterpart.

But then….

Shit really started happening and I saw shit. And I said, “Oh shit!” And shit hit the fan.

Our household has a nicely splattered decor of shit all over in it now.

But that’s not the best of it.

The best of it is yet to be revealed.

I’m up to * here* in shit.

It’s not always necessarily a person’s exact fault when life has gone to shit. It can start at such an early age, the age before choices are really clearly made. It’s the age of instinct and survival. The age of not knowing any other way. Like the age when you shit in your pants and that’s just the way it goes.

Then all the sudden you get a knock on the door and holy shit you’re, like, going on 33 years old.

“Fuck, you mean the shit is still there?! ”

I’m sorry for the expletives. I’m blaming it on the drugs (that are helping me breathe) today, but it might be something else tomorrow. We will all cope in the best (and first) way we know how until there is another way, I suppose. So judge me if you must. I might not like it, but it probably won’t make that much of a difference if you do.

I have judged myself plenty enough, you can trust me on that one.

I’m behind on all of my ceramics assignments. And what do I say to that, “Shit!” Yes, it compounds. It grows. It does not go away.

So, I’m working on breathing through all this shit. There are not readily available lessons for this. I may be swimming in it, but the local “Y” does not seem to back the demand for this type of training.

I am off to the pool of coping which I am surfacing in.

Cope cope cope. Sometimes all that’s left is coping an hoping and keeping the faith that one day, whether subconsciously or not, things will be much better.

Wishes DO come true!

I (do)n’t Need!

It is hard to feel needy. The only thing I might wish is for it to be a little harder, though. Hard enough so that I wouldn’t feel it at all.

I thought I was going to be able to write about this, but maybe the moment has passed. I’ve been distracted.

It won’t be enough of a distraction to not get back to needing at 11pm or 3am, however.

Personal neediness doesn’t seem to pay much matter to personal convenience or sleep. It rears it’s head in the darkest hours of aloneness when the heart is searching and aching to soothe itself. Or it stomps its feet in the between times of trying to care for a hungry toddler or a hormonal teenager.

When do I not need?

In flash scenes from “What about Bob?” and the thought of seeking comfort from another human suddenly becomes the darkest of devils. Especially considering the convenience factor of when the feeling is at it’s strongest, which for me right now seems to be nearly all the time. Just not this moment when I’m trying to access it to write it out of my system. No, now I am totally self-sufficiently ineffective.

My lips have been frozen all day. I googled “cold lips” and the first thing that popped up was a link to Yahoo! Answers from a person asking:

“My lips feel almost constantly cold my doctor says it is anxiety but i don’t feel anxious?”

The most popular response was that this person was, indeed, anxious, regardless of being aware of it or not.

I guess denial can only go so far.

But not only have my lips been cold all day, they have also had that slight twinge of cyan.

So maybe my subconscious is trying to help me out by not breathing. Because, hey, it’s not like life and death or anything.

Which brings me to the topic of death. And life.

But that brings me back to neediness.

And I am not needy at all.

Warming Up…Ceramics 2 : Lesson 1

For my Ceramics 2 class this semester I intentionally signed up for the section taught by an instructor who focuses a lot on figurative sculpture. I want to explore and express the immediacy of what is going on in my life, but I am scared of it. Our first assignment has a completely open ending. I guess just writing that and seeing “open ending” gives me a place to start from. Yesterday, in class, I was feeling blocked. After many days of feeling full of inspiration class finally started and I couldn’t move.

Terror.

The assignment is meant as a warm-up exercise and I was dead cold.

Instead of starting on my real assignment I spent some time learning to use the clay extruder. I think it’s going to make my ceramics life a lot better. It will help in saving my hands and wrists and might be a significant addition to my toolbox.

Discovering there was this extruder in the school studio the entire last semester of Ceramics 1, but never being informed of it or taught how to use it is a little perplexing, if not a bit irritating. But…at the same time I’m glad I didn’t know about it. I learned things the “hard” way. I learned how to do everything through hard work and determination and it got me more intimate with my clay.

It feels like life is that way sometimes. Doing things the hard way through blood, sweat and tears and then someone tells you about something that gives you the same result with, essentially, the flip of a switch.

I mean, seeing this extruder machine in the studio is an extremely concrete “in reality” sort of thing. I can see that it’s a lot easier to make coils or forms using this machine than it is to roll out coils tediously by hand. But what if someone tells me an easier way to do something I can’t see or touch?

I have to admit, I even looked at that extruder with skepticism. I didn’t want to deal with the anxiety of learning how to use it and, at first, I viewed it as a sort of “cheat.” After all, shouldn’t everything be extremely difficult in life?

This seems to be one of my switched wires in my brain. Why do I go around thinking nothing is worthwhile unless it is painful and difficult?

What if I can go about putting my creative ideas into reality through simpler means and enjoy the entire process? Is it then, somehow, not as good???

It’s a little crazy, really.

I need to get over this idea that enjoyment has to be counter-weighted by misery.

It’s just a LIE.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The counter-weight of misery does NOT make joy any more safe.

And this brings me to the topic of Joy.

Joy is extremely risky, dangerous and downright chill-invoking without faith.

I might even believe that without faith there can be no joy at all.

This isn’t something I’ve thought about before writing this, but it just sort of dawned on me.

It’s all a part of letting-go and getting somewhere.

For me, it’s a part of getting unstuck. That’s what if feels like.

There’s enough aggression and violence in the world without me needing to add to it through the creative process of my life. Is it really needed?

What if I let the clay be soft and didn’t fight working with a clay that’s not workable yet? What if I took the steps to help the clay work for me and not power through by sheer force that is only going to break me and not lead to the greatest creative outcome anyway?

It’s back to breathing. Letting go, letting things be ok.

Accepting help.

Making a beautiful life willing to be made.

I have come to this acceptance the hard way and I wonder what miracles are ahead.

What other amazing machine I didn’t know about before hangs right in front of me on the walls of the studio awaiting discovery?

The Art of Letting Go

There are times that I wish I could let myself fall apart more. Somehow, those are never the times when I actually am falling apart. I will stop myself from falling apart even if it means a permanent ending to everything. The times I fall apart are like the short breaks between bricks. The places where the grout lays.

Clearly, there is more brick than grout, but without the grout the bricks most likely would topple over and never stand or do the job they are typically created to do….and I’m not getting into physics and the possibility of that. I know there must be exceptions to needing grout out there somewhere. But I’m talking about what I know.

I don’t actually know that much about construction and building materials either, but that also doesn’t really matter right now.

My point is that I need to fall apart, but I also need to stay together. I have to be both the brick and the mortar. (Oh yeah, I think mortar is what it’s called? Grout is for stuff like ceramic tiles, right??? I don’t know. But this is also not the point.)

I’m trying to understand myself.

I just know that sometime I lose it. I fall apart and I fall apart Big. But not often enough. But falling apart just once is too much!

I feel so stuck.

Maybe I just need to take down the wall. Maybe I don’t need more (or less) falling apart.

Maybe I just need no more walls.

Fear is the glue. (Glue now, not grout or mortar.)

Fear is static and unmoving. Fear causes crumbling. Fear leads to crashing.

I know I’m speaking in weird metaphors that probably don’t even go together. It”s hard to face where I am in this–because I don’t really know where I am. And this is part of the whole issue.

Am I strong? Am I weak? Am I needy? Am I too much? Am I not enough?

I need help. I can’t do this alone. I can’t be the wall and decide about what to do with the wall at the same time. There are too many directions at once. Repair it? Take it down? Keep some, change some?

I don’t know what to do with me right now.

I’m vulnerable.

I’m used to being it all. The brick, the mortar, the builder and the one who climbs on, around or over the wall when it’s all done.

The problem is…it’s never done.

It’s a lot of upkeep now and it complicates life rather than making it necessarily better.

But the prospect of subbing (sub-contracting) this out is end-of-the-world frightening.

It means trusting, at least a little bit, and not being entirely in control of where things go, at least for a little bit. I can still sort of have a say about things, but, in a way…I have to step back.

I write this like I have a choice about doing this.

It’s really already happening without me.

The memories are breaking through my wall(s). People morph in and out of the reality of who they really are. It’s hard to keep track of past and present.

I’m rattled all the time. I tremor. My fine motor skills are already gone and I worry about it progressing to more major movements like even walking or standing.

So I write this like I have a choice about letting-go.

The death-grip I’ve had on my life isn’t working anymore.

Omg!

I don’t need to read the Bible.

My whole life has led me God.

The Bible interests me for reasons other than knowing God or the idea of God. Except for the fact that I see God in people…and people are what I find in the Bible.

I am drawn to the Bible for the purpose of study. Nothing in the Bible has really led me to faith. So far.

This is not to say that it can’t or won’t strengthen my faith in the future, and not to dismiss the Bible and its importance or significance in people’s lives. But, given that, in all fairness I’ve barely read it, how can I not make these statements?

What does this have to do with my art therapy journey? I don’t know. It might have to do more with my journey, just in general. But my language, inside, is art…even when what comes out is words in a blog that don’t look or sound the least bit artistic. At this very moment, there is art forming inside of me. These are my thoughts…and thoughts lead to actions. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. For me, at least some of that action in my life is creating art.

I guess I can’t tell you why I believe in a higher power, especially when an overwhelming majority of events in my life wouldn’t point to the God I believe in, existing.

I say all of this as I begin down a path of embarking on Bible Studies. Along with my Art Studies.

Maybe I am putting this here as a plot point. A dot on the map so when I start talking about something I’ve come upon 5 miles down the road it all connects better and makes more sense.

I’m fascinated by people and culture and history. The only history class I’ve ever taken is Art History and it left me wanting for more.

Less, actually. Actually, less.

It left me asking more questions and yearning for context. It left me asking questions about how I came to be and how any of us came to be.

It left me with a plague of questions. Most people don’t want the plague.

My intro. class answered nothing.

So I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just know I’m going somewhere because this spot I’m in isn’t very homey.

I yearn for people and connection as long as they don’t get too close and let me come to them a bit on my own terms. Any sudden moves scare me away. And it’s like that with God, too. And that could be why I’m so interested in all of this. Figuring out what is psychological, sociological, anthropological and theological.

That is a lot of logic, if you ask me.

I never asked for this to be my brain.

And that’s why I have so many questions.

If I could change my passions I most definitely would.

Who in the world would choose this?

I think I would rather suffer in superficiality. I want to be addicted to “Omg!” (the yahoo “news” page) instead.

But that’s not the life I was granted.

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

The Bad (Sad) Egg: Part 2

I wrote about this sad egg last night. Otherwise known as the bad egg (more images in my last post.)

I’m back to look at it again. I slept on it.

It needed some incubation.

I dreamt about ceramics class.

I dreamt that I was in class with my current teacher’s wife, which while it sounds strange (yet, perhaps fitting for me if you’re familiar with my life) it’s not really too weird because my teacher’s wife is also a ceramics teacher at the school I attend. In fact, I had attempted taking her class the semester I got pregnant with my (now) toddler and quit (without officially withdrawing) because of pregnancy issues and I got an “F.”

An F.

That was an “F” to replace my “C” I had earned the semester 5 years earlier with her husband because I up and quit before final critique and the final written test in class after I was affected by one of my classmates committing suicide in the same class.

He was there one day, a nice, quiet guy…and then gone. And I only knew he was gone because his dad came to class to pick up his stuff one day and then my teacher made a vague announcement about him not returning. Ever.

You can take a class 3 times before the school cuts you off and won’t allow any more re-do’s.

So this is it.

My last chance at Ceramics 1.

I don’t remember all of my dream last night.

I basically remember being in trouble for something I did. I think I might have missed a class and my teacher was irritated at me. And I am really sensitive about irritating people. I don’t like to do it, which is ironic since I probably do it a lot. I’m probably irritating you now!

I remember a charcoal drawing of a pot, and I remember asking questions about it. There were things I didn’t understand. Stuff about orthogonal lines that confused me. And I love basically everything about art, but when it comes to orthogonals I definitely tune out.

So I woke up thinking about what I labeled my bad egg.

I never give up on things. It’s both what has kept me going and kept me from going, at times.

It’s my love/hate relationship with tenacity.

It’s my war.

It’s my life.

In some way, it’s me.

At one time I used the word as an online moniker.

I want this egg to succeed. When it started out I didn’t really care that much about it. I just wanted to complete this assignment and move on to one I was interested in. But then, it evolved.

And I had feelings.

And people saw.

And I had questions.

It developed a purpose.

If you really want the truth, it’s not really my project at all. It’s a kid inside me’s project. I didn’t care much about this one, so I handed it over, I guess.

And so…

And so what?

And so, I don’t know.

So I’m going to ask more questions for this one, inside.

I’m not going to give up on helping things along. It needs a little help.

She needs a little help.

Maybe a lot.

The long, hard night is over.

Today is another day.

I’ll sit on it.

The (bad) Egg

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This is a project I’ve been working on almost all semester. I think it’s been through the kiln 5 times for different processes. It’s experienced some experiments and some hardship. The lid has been cracked (and fixed) once (fell off my project shelf) and it’s had a bit too heavy an application of copper oxide for my liking. The egg no longer looks like it goes with it’s “nest” and the thing is starting to look overdone. I’m not happy with it now, so I’m thinking of just throwing as many things as possible at it to see if I can miraculously bring it back to life. I don’t know what else to do with it at this point. It’s one of those projects that starts out with a lot of promise, but in the end is a big disappointment. I kind of want to throw it at a wall. It’s a “learning” piece, but I didn’t want it to be a learning piece. I wanted it to do what I wanted it to do, and it’s not doing what I want it to. I’m frustrated with it and starting to be embarrassed by it. But I will keep throwing things at it until I just can’t take it anymore and throw it, itself.

There are only a handful of weeks left for this semester until all of our “wet work” has to be completed and the kiln is going at full tilt to get everyone’s projects fired for grades. I have other projects I’m working on currently, and at least one project I’m pretty happy with that is complete with another cool one in the wings. Then there’s the wheel thrown stuff that is somehow miraculously working out. But this is the one I’m showcasing because it’s the one that’s been the most emotional, so far. The most “unsuccessful.” The most troubling.

This is the one that feels so totally out of control, and the one that at some points I have tried to control the most. Because I’m looking for an outcome. Because I had a finished picture in mind somewhere along the way. And I am not happy because this is not it. I have quit feeling enjoyment while I am working on it. Will I be able to reclaim my joy with it? Can it be redeemed? Can it survive? Can it become good again?

Presenting “Operation Light”

I don’t know how darkness can be so invisible.

But sometimes it is precisely because of its invisibility that darkness becomes itself.

When I was a teenager I had a conversation with the darkness once. I suppose I was a little headstrong, a little unruly. The invisible darkness was the only real force I could rebel against. I definitely wasn’t going to try to rebel against my mother or father. In hindsight, that might have been the better path. (Not that I hope my teenager ever sees that sentence!) But for me, it might have been quicker path into light.

Instead, I stepped, unknowingly, deeper into the pits of emptiness in my effort to be good enough for them…and for me. Really, to be good at all, but mostly to be good-enough for anyone I though might love me if I performed well. Perfectly.

My hand was asked in marriage at 16. And I said yes to the man who was 15 years older than me. And so did my parents.

I bought my own wedding dress with money I earned myself. $300 at David’s Bridal.

I was a childcare worker. I made $8 an hour (I later realized taxes weren’t taken out so when I reported my wages I was taxed more than I ever earned, but that’s another story,) which was a huge salary (hourly) increase from my $7.25 I made at the dry cleaners and I loved children.

Except for later I learned I didn’t really love myself…and neither did anyone else. But not because they didn’t want to. Because they just couldn’t. I can’t entirely blame them. So I can’t entirely blame myself for everything that happened either.

But about that conversation with darkness. I remember it still. I remember laying on my bed in my bedroom in the apartment I was living in with my mother. It was after a fight. I’m not sure if it was abuse. I thought abuse only happened to children at the time, and I didn’t consider myself a child. It was just a fight, and probably my fault. I don’t remember the source of the fight that day. I only remember the conversation I had after it while I laid in my room where I could never bring myself to sleep. (I slept in the living room on the 2 cushion sofa every night with my neck propped curiously forward on the armrest.) I remember my mom telling me I should sleep in my bed because I was breaking down the couch. But I slept there for almost a year (the amount of time I lived there) anyway. So maybe I did rebel some.

I keep getting away from the darkness. Or do I? (Sometimes the question has to be asked.)

The darkness and my conversation. It was a little one-sided with me doing a lot of the talking, but the darkness doesn’t always talk in words. The darkness isn’t always nearly as direct. It likes to be more like a covering over everything so it becomes a mass so encompassing it can be hard to determine where it ends and begins, or to see it at all.

In this conversation, in my contempt, in my teenage righteousness and belief that I could surmount anything if given the time, I told the darkness, “You will never win. You will never get me. No matter what you do to me, I will never give you my soul. You can beat me down, but you can’t have ME. Never. Never. NEVER. Over my dead body will you win.”

And so….I hadn’t learned yet….about the light…and about Life With Light.

I didn’t know what it was going to be about.

I didn’t know what was ahead of me.

I didn’t know all the…all the….things.

I didn’t know.

But as I look back on that “conversation” today, I sometimes feel like it was the first conversation where I was ever listened to and believed. And I figured if I believed the Light could see my heart that maybe the darkness could too, and it would be so clear that I was invincible. I already could feel so little.

But I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

And so this head-strong, heart-strong girl spent a lot of time learning a lot of different things about what can be seen and what can’t.

And about how remarkably presumptuous I was.

I worked to make the right decisions. I always wanted to do the right things.

But what do you do when doing all the “right” things turns out to be wrong?

What do you do?

Sometimes you lose faith. But that comes much later, after you realize maybe you made the wrong decisions about which (or whose) faith to follow.

Oh so many things. So many, many, many many many horrendous things.

But the horror tonight should be about Halloween parties. Because that is where horror belongs.

And I am starting to put all the horror and darkness that has existed, that has practically been my life up to this point, where it belongs.

Off of me.

So tonight there is no covering over who I really am. This is me.

Sometimes it’s scary. Especially for me when I look into that magic ball and see where I have been.

I look toward and forward to the future, but I don’t look to know about it all ahead of time. After all, time does not like to be raced.

I didn’t know before, and even with all that I didn’t know about and the perilous journey I was on (but didn’t know I was on, at the time) I still work on just being present where I am in this day, in this moment. It is the only place I can be me. Right here with myself is the only place I can be good enough.

I was thinking about this tonight after me and my husband’s first couples session (for the 2nd time) (and this is my second marriage) with a new couple’s therapist. I was, more specifically, thinking about this after we returned home from our session and after the “fight” we had later.

I’m calling this phase of the journey, Operation Light. I googled it and it doesn’t exist yet 😉 Of course, now it does. So you can join this Operation of Light with me! 🙂

Life With Light: “Operation Light” ….I can see it in….lights, now. 😉

That proposes that it will work.

Operation Light is about infusing Light where ever darkness is even remotely suspected. There’s no danger is suspecting darkness to be everywhere. It is not possible to overdose on Light.

It will work….I’m talking to the Light about it right now.

I have had a little shift in my approach toward life. I am learning to address the Light. The darkness is not worth my time, and definitely not worth me. And it’s not worth you either. I just love people, and I can’t help it. I was well-meaning when I tried to fight against the darkness rather than focus on fighting FOR the Light….I was young and perhaps a bit ostentatious.

But the Light has helped me see that…ever so gently, of course. That’s the way of the Light. Because the Light actually did know what was inside me and behind my efforts.

So when it seems dark and insurmountable, don’t give up.

Don’t ever, ever give up. ” Operation Light” Lovers never give up unless they are giving it up to the Light. 🙂

The Selflessness of Dreams

(the unedited and unproofread version…proceed with caution and coffee if you’re the slightest bit tired and still interested)

It’s not that nothing has been going on. In fact, most people could probably attest that when they are most quiet is when quite a lot is actually “going in.”

…But how to define “going on?”

What is it I have been so busy with?

I could probably come up with a physical list only a few items deep: Being a family woman, a mother, a student….but then there’s something missing.

Something actually just a bit bigger than all of those labels, actually.

I have to admit I have mostly been busy being me. That’s right. Just me.

I know I fill those roles and they matter a ton to me, though I couldn’t individually weigh them.

But really, I feel like the biggest, most expansive, consuming thing that’s been going on lately is just me…living. Me living includes being married and those responsibilities, as well as being a mother and all those personal investments, but there’s been even more.

Life right now is filled with being created. I create along the way, I step back, I let things happen to me. I let this other force I feel in my life actually touch me. What I feel touching me is somewhat undefined, but there is no question of its presence. I’m being made into something/someone new…at least different. At the same time I feel myself returning to who I always was…who I was before my time ever even began.

This sounds mystical. A little off?

It sounds, even to me, like I could be having some kind of psychosis or delusions…..

But I’m pretty sure that if that is what I am experiencing then life exists squarely in the mix of it and that I am not alone in it either. The fact that you, too, are here verifies that you are in this with me also, does it not? Sorry, no exemptions. You’re here or you’re not. Are you here? That can be a challenging question at time…I know for myself.

But then, life is not always so clear-cut. Sometimes it is possible to be two places at once. I know this, also as fact, for myself.

Everything has been in a wild sort of shift. Motherhood, my student body, and wifedom. My three most prominent schedulers right now.

But then, there’s that other player…Me. And while “Me” is made up of those other things, ”Me” is defined as one with spirit….

And so I have grappled with my spirituality.

Spirituality, which for me, is so closely tied to every cell within me. And every cell, which is so closely tied to memory. And memory to history…and history to, well….everything that has ever existed, seen or unseen.

Wow, I’m not proofreading and editing as I go so this could be a long, wandering ramble.

Probably the more people get to know me, the more strange I seem. Or maybe I’m just flattering myself with that thought. Suppressed egotism. It’s got to be in there somewhere.

Besides, I’m just talking about all of this nonsense because I’m deathly afraid of sharing my real feelings.

Like the pains and the loneliness. The everyday defeats and how even triumphs sometimes pang me.

This is part of “Me” and all the busyness, I know…but I’d rather come off as completely crazy than talk about these potentially understandable feelings.

Lately, I’ve been more present in my life, though it wouldn’t seem like it probably in this “letter.”

Some days I handle it better than others.

Today is kind of a rough one.

But I’m here, so this could, perhaps, be counted as a panged triumph, for an example of that pang I just spoke of.

Last night, which I suspect was actually very early this morning, I had a most odd of oddly dreams. (But then, everything has been a bit odd seeming lately.)

It’s definitely one of those dreams to write to your therapist about (which I may well do, for good measure.)

I was in this house, and it was supposedly a house I knew somehow, but I’m not actually sure of the details. But anyway, I was in this house of sorts and it was like at some point I was in this house with other people and we were all being led on a house tour. And we got to this part of the tour and there was this passageway and it was so very, very, extremely narrow and all that could be seen was dark inside of it. There was no way of telling what was in this passageway. But to get through the tour and to eventually exit the house you had to go through this tunnel. I saw someone else go up the tunnel. They just walked up the steps and continued up through the covered passage (step were going up like a ladder) and disappeared. No sounds or noise. No commotion or cries for help. They simply disappeared as if they had never been there. And the guide for this tour was leading me to this spot and I neared it and felt my hands around the opening and I stopped there, not going further. People were behind me talking amongst themselves, seemingly unconcerned about this passage. (It had a very Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland /Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feel to the atmosphere…dark, strange, otherworldly) And the leader finally addressed me and said for me to go through this passage and I voiced my concern that the passageway was too small and tight for me and that I would get stuck (um….yeah, I am an artist, but NOT a fiction writer…I swear I am not making this up!) He said it would be fine and to just go.

***This ends my account of my dream***

Except, I think I went into the passageway and I don’t really remember the rest.

Cliffhanger?

I’m not sure, but I’m a bit uneasy about sleep tonight, as if I am ever really easy about it!

I want comfort. I want something or someone to come hold me and assure me that it really isok and that it really IS going to be alright, and I really am not too fat. Because I’ve been dealing with extreme body feelings along with everything else too.

But right now it seems there is no comfort. There’s just this narrow passageway I have to go into alone. It seems like a place to experience every fear I have ever had. Alone.

And maybe that is the biggest fear of all…Abandonment? Death?

For sure the feeling of Loneliness has been consciously tantamount. So why would I need a dream about it??!

Maybe this is about something else entirely different, after-all.

I just wish I could figure it out so I could move on to a different dream….

Better dreams….

And on the subject of dreams….Being a dreamer can be lonely…and now maybe I understand that just a little bit better/deeper/differently.

One of the first papers I ever wrote in college for Composition I nearly 12 years ago (I was something like 21 years old) was titled “Dream’s Reality” covering Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. What can I say, Ambition is not just a fad for me.

All these years later and I’m still not a professional therapist. I went the professional client route, I’m selfless.

+ high-res version

Wildly Growing

Well, it happened. Today I dropped my first class of the season. And what do you think it was? None other than Photoshop. My first and last class for Photoshop was last Thursday morning. Sad. Very sad. But more than sad, I’m happy because it means that I’m not going down a short and fast path of ruin. I stepped on it, felt the ground shake and quickly, but not too quickly, but fast enough to not get a permanent “W” (for Withdraw…(or how I fear it’s looked at by administration in big colleges, “Took the W because the F was coming?”). So…still breathing, I got out of there. I only went to the first class and the instructor is the same teacher who taught my Adobe Illustrator class and I actually signed up for his classes on purpose because I’d heard such good things about him.

It turns out he is very good, but good is so vague and relative. I don’t have a high aptitude toward graphic design and am only really taking Illustrator and Photoshop because they are prerequisites for a couple of other design classes I am required to take for my art degree. This teacher is first-rate if you’re into Graphic Design and that’s your major…but for the girl (woman, uhem) who likes to get her hands-up-to-her-armpits-dirty in clay, taking his class was about enough to make my head spin off my neck. It’s purely miracle and kind-heartedness on my teachers part that I was blessed out of Adobe Illustrator alive and with an “A” for effort.

So anyway, his class wasn’t the “Photoshop for Artists” I was looking for. Today I saved myself by clicking on a sweet, sweet drop button that, praise the Lord, still read “0% with no W on transcript.” when pressed. My husband asked if we’ll get a refund. I said “No, I only get to not self-destruct. Want me to reinstate my class?” Smiley face. (He asked me through a text message.)

I’m still living.

In fact, I’m so alive after I officially dropped Photoshop I stepped outside and realized an abundance of wildly growing flowers in a little corral next to our garage (which unfortunately has no animals in it because we actually live in the suburbs and only can pretend we are farmers.)

But still, when we bought this house I wouldn’t let the guys tear it down. I love my corral, and talking about it reminds me I need to get my bull’s head tied up out there again for lasso practice! It had to be taken down when the enclosure was painted. I’m digressing. (At least I’m not regressing. Digressing doesn’t seem so bad next to that possibility!)

All of this is to say…I was inspired to take some photos! 🙂

I’m pretty sure my neighbors were curious what I was doing bouncing around the corral for no clearly apparent reason today, but you know what they say about keeping good neighbors. Well, some say the best neighbors are fences, but we don’t really have fencing, so the next best thing is to feign insanity within their line-of-sight. (No doubt, you’re convinced, right!? )

So here are my photos of the day. Enjoy…I did!