the state of the onion

(it is all about layers, isn't it?)

it's been a strangely lonely week, despite the film team and the magnolias. it's bad enough that luna's absence is like a lost limb, but x is away on a week long shoot and with the gas crisis and work/play schedule, there is no way for visiting. the loneliness doesn't come from their absence though - i am at least proud to say that - but from what rushes into their absence. it's either the unadulterated* all of me or all the people who've wanted a piece of me for a while and haven't been able to get at it for my preoccupation with my own life (and of course, the magnolias). the all of me i can handle - though it is harder without luna than i could have ever dreamed. the loss of my eyes and ears and fuzzy beautiful shield wall has been devastating. people treat you differently when you are always with a dog and when she protects your home, especially if she is fierce and wolfy. as crazy as i go when i'm alone, it's the kind of crazy i'm used to and i feel that the things that surface are things i need to look at and feel and think about, no matter how hard and scary and ugly they can be sometimes. ignoring or burying these things is like - and please pardon and be warned - gross metaphor (or is it simile... it's simile, i think :) ahead: it's like getting a cut and letting the surface heal before the interior is clean. i won't illuminate further, i'm sure you get the gist. and that is exactly what it's like. when i begin to go off the edge into the blue or the black or the red, i just have to trust myself and follow the rabbit, even if he looks like frank**, or else the rabbit will haunt my sleep and sap the energy from my waking hours, and when i'm tired, it's all rabbits, all the time. !$% that. the point is, i don't so much mind my own company, even when things are rabbity. who was it what said 'loneliness is other people'? no, wait, it was 'hell', wasn't it? and it was sartre. maybe hell was loneliness to old jean paul. the problem is, when you are striving so desperately to be connected to others, it hurts. bad, all the time, non-stop - all of it (sometimes even the good can pull as hard on the soul as the bad). and what makes a person feel more lonely than holding in and taking in and soaking in all pain all the time? not much.
i am not complaining - i CAN'T. this is my choice. i decided to look at the world this way and let out my mental and emotional real estate in this manner. but here - and to my few close friends who can and will sometimes take on the loneliness of me - is the place where i can offer my pain, like christians do to their gods, like hindus do to the river, and pray that it doesn't add greatly to anyone elses'.or even that, in some way, it might lighten someone elses' load somehow. things are hard right now. (i mean in the world in general and specifically in the world around me. things are fairly calm in my own quarters, partially because i have consciously locked down and minimized as much as i can.) maybe not much more so than usual - there are always deaths, fears, losses, tragedies big and little - but they do seem to really glare in the light of economic hardship and major national tragedy. and of course, with new acquaintance comes new emotion, new pain to absorb, and new things to learn and consider about my own situation. it's a little sad to me that loneliness equals other people. maybe that's the next thing i need to work on.

right now i have my hands full with surviving as far as the job and transportation issues go, and thriving as far as my artly selfishness goes. i tell myself that i am supporting the theater, helping keep that particular beloved art alive here in this little town and encouraging others. i know i've been selling tickets, and i have done a lot of direct fundraising too. but the real deal is that my soul wants and needs to do this dangerous, exciting, exasperating thing. even though i believe i am helping the community, and that makes it something i can logistically and realistically justify, it's just that i need it. i need to explore this aspect of myself and my personalit(ies), i need to open and close certain chapters of my life, some which have been dog-eared since before i can remember.
i've got enough work lined up to get me through november at this point, and i have to pray that things keep coming. i have hopefully set enough wheels in motion that this won't be an issue. whatever happens, i won't let it be. chris is also getting good work right now and making solid inroads to more. i have made some headway in getting rid of material things, and the universe has been helping with that. i had a call today that solves the problem of one very large and very valuable (yet useless to me) possession and will very likely allow me to install a pantry, which i feel has become a necessity. i'm looking forward to tackling the MAJOR 'stuff evacuation' beginning in november. i am hoping that habitat for humanity, salvation army and other needful places will be happy to have it, and i suppose i'll yard-sale or give away the fun-stuff to friends.
it's time to go be magnolias - which, by the way, has REALLY begun to be fun. for all the addition of new heartache and joy to my saturated heart, these girls also know how to let you lean a little. they freely offer chances for some se--saturation, bless their hearts. :) they are good listeners and good people and they make me feel special, which is treat indeed, coming from such very special people. even with the lonely, and the blue, black and red, i am a lucky girl in so many ways. that's my self-sermon for today. what's yours?

-s


*this is DEFINITELY a 'triple intender' where i am concerned.
**my dear husband loves donnie darko. *sigh*

Currently reading : Monstrous Regiment By Terry Pratchett Release