this incredible photograph was taken at theOFOTCN cast party bonfire by ms. Kendall Hudson. thank you for sharing kendy.

my thoughts and feelings are flapping around this morning like sails torn loose in a storm. the noise is deafening. 

i'm ok, and i'm pretty sure i know most of the main reasons why this is happening, but it helps me to come here and sort it out. i hope you all know by now that here, i am am talking to my friends. if you aren't my friend - even if i haven't met you, or know you and don't THINK you are my friend, and i know i have some friends like that - then you shouldn't even be reading this. unless of course, you're just really bored. or you find it makes you feel less sad yourself, or something. in that case, please be my guest, new friend.

i have come to a BIG decision making-place in my life. there are questions of ground-standing and self-knowing, and stuff-burning and flat-out-!@#$-survival at hand, plus all the million questions and decisions that spin off of something like that. i have come to a hurdle, i can see it coming, i have time to decide whether to jump, veer, stop, turn around, but the hurdle is still hurtling at me* pretty fast. whee. 

it is true that no one ever said life is easy**. it's definitely not. and i have learned to be better at not purposefully involving myself in things or with people who might complicate my life dangerously or even unnecessarily. but you can't deal with a single other living, communicating, needing entity (like even a PLANT) without having to make compromises and special arrangements and things sometimes. surprises, illnesses, weather changes, lunar cycles, blahdy, blahdy blah - FACTS IS FACTS. one can set standards, set boundaries***, even set one's jaw, but there's really only so much you can do. friends cry. plants have to be watered and they get leaf mould. some guys are @$$holes. people get hurt and die. babies' diapers need to be changed. some movies suck. it's life. 

i work hard and revel in learning and trying to be good at ALL of it. if someone needs a christening gown, a wedding veil or a shroud, i can make or find one, and i can provide most of the services, skills and arts before, after and in between. i have never delivered a baby, but i feel certain that if the need arose, i could, and well, and even handle complications. just with what i have around the house, even if there was no power. i could do most necessary - and many fun and/or ornamental - things just with what i carry in my backpack. 

life IS hard, so i've tried to be good at it for ONE REASON: so that i could try not to worry so much and get on with trying to have FUN and ENJOY the good things we make and find and make sure that other people can and do too. 

no one in my waking life appointed me this duty, unless it was god, and then only through genetic planning and good fantasy authors, 'cause it darned sure wasn't any standard holy book. but i still feel an arrow-straight and -deep responsibility to this purpose. to learn and be good to the world, to myself, and to others, in that order. babies, animals and old folks first. :)

there have been several incidents in the past few years that have really tested my mettle. from HUGE ones like the motorcycle accident, the house exploding, losing Luna, the loony bin and having guns pulled on me by the cops; to smaller ones like the !@#$ emotion-go-round of existential-life-crises, shadows of infidelity, family $#*!, theater, and general hoo-ha and quackery.  this last year especially has been a test of 'who the !@#% am i REALLY'? i haven't been delighted with all that i've uncovered in the excavating, and i have been simultaneously supporting several OTHER archaeologists' digs, for better or worse, but overall i'm pleased with the whole picture. if nothing else, i know that, for the serious treasure-hunters/eco-cleaners, our heart is in our work.

part of the flappy-aroundy thing has to do with my chemistry, my meds and the way that my brain works (if that's what you want to call it). that is also effected by the fact that, every day i care less and less about trying to fit myself into the screen. i've always had problems keeping life and people in a line, temporally speaking i guess. sometimes i just don't learn or remember things that aren't important. i don't care what people's last names are, but i could draw their faces 10 years from now even if i only met them once. i really don't remember the order things happened in very well, but i often know what will happen next. it doesn't bother me so much. in fact, i work pretty well that way, as that is the way i seem to be made. but i can tell how much it frustrates liney people. i amuse and assist enough that i am tolerated and appreciated, but some of my friends just feel personally affronted by the way i am and do things, no matter what i do, or how many times they have to re-realize that this is how i am. i try to adjust myself to other people's speed, if i can, or get as close as i can, but this takes a lot of work and help, and causes OTHER complications. but who loves a dandelion and then expects it not to blow away?

i don't want to upset people or hurt people, and i believe that i am a helpful person, but time is suddenly running short, it seems, and there is still SO much to do, and i really really don't want to spend it doing and being things that i don't want to. i don't want to waste it on wasteful people. i don't want another bad moment that isn't an accident or an act of nature. i don't want to be in places or situations that make me unhappy, and i DO want to try more places and situations, because i suspect that i have it in me to be incrementally MORE happy by discovering new places, people, things, FOOD... :D

i'm learning a lot. it is like being a kid again, still. :) here are some important things i've learned so far:

i've learned that i can really be all of myself and that people can and will cope. 

i have learned how to make the ones who can't go away without violence or even a true loss of diplomacy (and i have different settings for every level of diplomatic need). 

i've learned that i can ask for and have what i want and that i can deal with the consequences. i've learned that i will never be alone. 

i've learned that i can be forgiven and that sometimes i don't want to. 

i've learned much more of what i can and will put up with, and what happens when i try against my will and common sense. 

i've learned that my thoughts, words and deeds really do effect my path and the paths of others.

i've learned that i can stand up for myself and others with no fear of the consequences, or even of failure.

i've learned that i'm a little bit of a hometown rock&roll star/superhero, and that every town is my hometown and that i am part of a SUPER super-team.

i've learned that so many of the friendships and loves i've invested in over the years were so very, very worth it, and apparently so was mine. what a great gift. (thank you internet.)

i've learned that i have power, and one of my gifts is to help others see and find and use their own.

i've learned that there is still SO much left to learn, and that's the happiest thing of all.

the flapping sails will be caught and mended. the other things will go forward or fall off because that's what things do. the burning time will come and go, and i will still be me. a different me, but still me. like the moon****. i worry (think, pray, hope...) about all of you too, every day. the people i talk to on myface and spacenook, the family and friends whose photos and art fill my life and my walls and books and head and heart (and fridge surface), there is always a little candle burning somewhere for each of you, and i am always honored when i get a message asking for special prayers, hope, wishes, light. always. 

this is my real work. more than my art (which i think is just as much a part of me as my skin now, i cannot be separated from it, not even naked and alone in the desert), more than my sundry Girl Friday work (that basically pays for my phone bill, insurance, chocolate, coffee, books, art supplies and shoes - all fuel for:), my volunteer/fun stuff, or even just the general, all-intensive job of being human, being me, being a friend, pet owner, girl-friend, sister, etc.

this constant state of prayer/meditation/trying to be aware/trying to be tabula rasa/trying to soak in life and people and light and feeling and experience and defend the rights of others to do so and help them find their way to this same simple appreciation of themselves, of others, of life, this is the thing that calls me like a grail. to be myself. to enourage others to be themselves. to enjoy the whole experience and be helpful during the unenjoyable things, so that we can get right back to it as soon as possible. 

i know i'm too hotheaded, too human, too rash and impulsive, too weak, too broken to be very good at this really. but that is one more thing i've decided not to give a damn about and proceed anyway. i feel that the fact that i KNOW these things and realize that they are handicaps, and have plans, thoughts, theories and help to work on improving in those areas, but i am certainly not going to try to wait until i am not all those things to get started. ha! 

i'm at least a pro at being me, so i think that's the best place to start. that means i need keep working on learning better people skills, like patience and whats-opinion-and-whats-fact, and and inside-head/outside-head voice rules and things like that. dressing at least DECENTLY 101, not-saying-every-single-thing-i-think, and learning to age gracefully(again. i have a feeling i've failed this one before. :), then hopefully i can keep up the good work. 

thanks for all your help. i know what kinda' pupil i am. this home-schooling is a !@#$. you've been good - or at the very worst, educational ;) - journeymen so far.

-s

 

*hur hur hur. that HURT. ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..... *hack*  and see, only FRIENDS would even TOLERATE this, much less somehow find it FUNNY. ish. sometimes.

[i want a little red star for the terrible steeplechase mettyfor too]

**except maybe paris hilton. but what the hell would that walking cigarillo know?

***well, they're more guidelines, really...

****haha! i  made you look at spongmonkeys!