On Death and Grieving

It is interesting that we, as humans are ceased to be amazed and devastated by death. It is as if we have taught ourselves that we and the ones we love will never die. Perhaps, this inability to be unaffected by death is for survival. In order to function and allow ourselves to love and work with other people we cannot accept that they may die. From this we are able to build relationships perhaps stronger than those of other animals, but the pain that comes from the reality of death and that it is applicable to ourselves and loved ones seems unbearable.

The fact is, we all die. Every single person who has been born to this earth has or will face death. Every plant, every rock, every whale, mouse or alligator will someday meet its end. Even our own earth will die. If we know this, then why are we so effected? We are devastated, wrecked, left meaningless. It is merely impossible to truly understand that one day we may see someone and the next day, that person may never take a breath in front of us again. What about all of the people I have met once in my life on a bus or airplane or at the hardware store? Do they die when we never witness them again? Learning to loose becomes easier. Over time, we are able to adapt and be happy again.

(The person I lost only may have died. I may never know. She could be living on the beach in Mexico or at the bottom of a river in Ohio. This kind of pain remains an open wound. Can I heal without resolution? I don't think about her being gone any less now than I did the moment she left. The pain is maintainable but always present.)

There is a beauty in death that we often cannot recognize. There is peace in any end. Like the way a sentence ends or a movie or a beautiful day. There is pain, but with the pain there is resolution. One should not feel guilty for grieving, but eventually we've got to pick up our belongings and continue down the trail. All of life does not stop for one. It continues just as it always has. With memories and feelings we keep moving. Thank you.

Fear:

Today, I was part of a workshop on goal-setting. During the workshop I was asked to write about my goals, objectives, and fears. It was relatively easy for me to think about what my future goals really are. I wrote, "I want to live an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life." I feel like this goal is broad but also attainable. I feel confident in this goal and feel that I am well on my way to achieving it.

When I was asked, "What fear gets in the way of achieving your goal?" I began to sink. This question was significantly harder for me to understand. The instructor talked about how most of these fears are perceived. After some thinking, I wrote, "I'm afraid of losing my relationships because of my goal." I say this because my family, intimate-companion, and friends seriously question my choices to live my goal. Part of my goals means that I need to change my lifestyle by living more simply. This means that I am doing laundry in my bathtub, eating local and organic foods, recycling or reusing most everything, bathing less, not wearing make-up, or not following all my family's traditions. I can see my relationships starting to suffer already, but I also see my lifestyle becoming more and more simple (in others' eyes this means "extreme").

I feel a need to deny myself things that I want if they adversely effect the earth or others. I feel an obligation to do lead this lifestyle. It is as if the people I love feel like I am making life more complicated-for themselves and me-by eliminated unnecessary desires I have. I, in no way feel that I am more noble than anyone by making these choices or denying my wants. I do it only because I cannot deal with the guilt of over-consuming or wasting. This is a very hard thing for my family, companion, and friends to understand.

I do not feel that this fear of alienating myself from my loved ones is perceived. It is very real. The arguments I have with my family and companion about my lifestyle are painful and exhausting. I know that I, as a human being, cannot live without relationships. I love my companion with everything I possibly can. I hate that my decision, my obligation to live my life in a particular way could be pushing me away from the people I love. I am starting to see my possibility of being a mostly-happy person slipping away. I cannot live alone, but my simpleness is too difficult for my relationship to endure. Thank you.

Start Newer.

When I decided to "restart" this blog, I didn't want to delete my old writings from my "Artist as Writer" class, in which blogging was a requirement, three years ago because I wanted them to be artifacts of my old ways of thinking and processing. I cherish these writings that come from a time when I was more naive, although I admit that there is a great deal of knowledge that I still do not have. This Blog will be documentation of my journey. Thank you.

When the Sun Tries To Go On Again

Here ye! Here me? Come with the night!
Butter cream smell
of rotting hydrangeas.
Who he is that will not come
Into the radical like of Jesus Christ
Our Savior?
Moss grows soggy after night of cherry
milk puffs eating esophagus
The King has spoken!
Shut up, eat your words
And spit them back out with commanding authority
Kill the mother. Birth her belly.
Oh radiant, child call into high grass
Unmown lawn?
Uncle Sam Lee Roy vaulted uncontrollable
laughing tears scratch kitten paws.
Lift up! Tired minds race three legged dogs
Grandma speaks loudlier?
The quiet movement of mouses nose!
The quiet movement of untired toes in midnight air!
Sleep ill with on ghost haunches? With
Cheerios, stop beating heart. Call into the
Wild for the illuminated wolf Buckeye Blitz. Then
lean into out of real the lemon of pink.

Bewildered With Student Loan Debt.

Befuddled.

The choice between what costs less and what means more is a constant. The road to life, I am finding adds more weights as the path goes on. Right now, the money is fake. I don't see it. I'm not licking my fingers and counting it out. The piece of mail that hs my current debt on it is nothing more than a cluster of characters to me. Should that cluster remain in the back of my mind since there is no way for me to pay it now? The economy is getting worse, yes. Are people still going to want art therapists when I am done with school and in $90,000 of debt? I hope so. I am the only one that can make me life meaningful, and that is a high price to pay it seems. Literally.

write write write write write

Sometimes I feel like I cannot write, even a little. My thoughts are so jumbled that putting them into words seems impossible. It would be a different story if I had the thoughts but struggled to get them down on paper, but I have a case of not even getting my thoughts. Any suggestions?

What I Meant to Say.

You must understand that it takes me a very long time to collect my thoughts and organize them into something sensible. And so, this my attempt to restate what I wanted to say in class in better, more understandable terms:

I envy the artist who has lost his mind. I envy the poet who curses the devils above his head and caresses the faces in the grass. He who knows of a place where there is NO LOGIC NECESSARY. He who lives to love the things that are not there. He who creates from an unreal world that is real to him. The crazy is FREE. The crazy isn't forced to manually make up an imaginary world in order to create a work. It is already there. He who lives in a world only visible to himself, I envy for the effortless creativity.

This Is Not How I Want to Think.

Writer does not feel intelligent.

Writer does not read enough.

Writer wishes she could be more intelligent.

Writer does not feel like making people feel sorry for her.

Miranda July

I think Miranda July's "stories" can be characterized as sort of character sketches. Each story develops a character that I wish I could think like. They all have wild imaginations and an ignorant selfishness that inhibits them from feeling silly for being themselves. I know that as I read I started to highlight the thoughts of the characters that I know I have had, but never really wanted anyone to know I had.

There are so many social norms that we as "civilized people" feel we need to follow. I know sometimes I think to myself, "This is bullshit. Shouldn't I act how I want to act?" If I'm not hurting anyone with the way I am acting then it should be fair game. The next time I feel compelled to do something that others might think is odd, fuck it. I'm doing it. And if I were to have a challenge at the end of every post, which I am thinking of doing from now on, it would be as follows:

THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE STRANGELY COMPELLED TO DO SOMETHING, DO IT.

Through The Eyes of the WILD Child

For my project I would like to learn more about children with behavioral issues. With my job this summer I feel like it would benefit me to learn to deal with children with in the most efficient and fair way. It want to better my understanding some of the children I work with. Basically, with this project I want to kill two birds with one stone. I really want to do something with this issue because I am really interested in it, and it would benefit me to learn more about it.

Research: I would like to research some of the most common behavioral issues found in adolescents and teens. I have already been searching for some books on the issue.

Writing: I want to write a short story through the eyes of a child with a behavioral issue. I think in doing that I will force myself to think like the children I am working with and therefore gain a better understanding of how to deal with those kids.

Class Connection: I do think of the children that I work with wild in some aspects. Not thinking before hitting, yelling, or doing something irrational is a part of human nature. One has to learn to get along with others. It's a part of human nature to act before thinking.

Any suggestions or critiques?

The Beginning

It was Sunday evening when the TV people showed up. The Traveling Veterans is what they called themselves. They were a group of older men traveling the world, and preaching the costs of war as they went. They were very popular, especially among the 13-16 year old kids who only listened to their gory stories for the sack of gore. In most cases the children in this town weren't allowed to watch TV, So when the TV people came it was heaven for them.

The group of about 11 men in their 70's took turns in front of a microphone in a small town hall. Their audience never exceeded twenty or thirty, but they felt this set up a better mood to tell their life changing stories of when they were forced to do in the war. As the adults listened, they expressed visual signs of remorse for the old men. As the children listened, their mouths were open in awe as if it was the first time they were allowed to use such a strange thing as the imagination.

Some things we don't grow out of.

I thought that once I left high school I wouldn't have to deal with the exclusion and bullying thing. Well as I read and we discussed Swamp Boy I realized that it still happens. I know that people still prey on others not only at my age, but even into "adulthood." I use quotations for the word because I am not sure I really believe in it. I think that we don't ever really grow up. I mean there is a level of "maturity" that some people gain, but I don't always think that since someone is 18 or 21 that makes then an "adult." Adults just have bigger mistakes to make. There a really good movie I've seen, You Me and Everyone We Know: it's about the difference between children and adults (or lack there of). Check out the movie if you haven't seen it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415978/trailers-screenplay-E24072-314

Hardy Har HAR

A pirate is wild.

So I think that when I am to the point of not being able to control my emotions, I am truly wild. Now that I think about it I have more wild moments than I am aware of. When I cry I feel wild. Maybe that is the attraction to it. It always feels better to cry. That could be why. Crying is a natural thing to do when we are sad or bothered. We learn this from birth after all. I say this because even though it truly wasn't today was the worst day of my life. I'm a bit over-dramatic. I know.

MONday roomKEY

As i sit wondering. I WONDER wonder. I wander as I wonder. Who said that? Any who, I thought of the phrase "The Wrath of God." I thought about the movie what stood out to me. I started to think of the movie with the monkeys at the end. I thought of how that was wild and why it was wild. THen I thought it would be truly wild if the humans were monkeys and the monkeys were humans. It would be so creepy, but I often see the public as a bunch of monkeys acting WILD with shopping malls and such. Maybe those are the moments that people are truly wild in our modern day world. Shopping Malls at Christmas.

Mermaids are WONDERful

As my eager roommate peered over my shoulder she exclaimed, "Mermaids!"
"No Kelly," I explained, "That doesn't say mermaids." After my reply I started to think of the wildness of a mermaid. The wildness of the creative thought that birthed the idea of the mermaid. It all started with a seaman suffering from sleepless nights and too many foggy mornings to confuse a sea cow for a mermaid. It only took a hint of confusion for his imagination to run WILD. Maybe that's what our childish fantasies of other worlds with fairies and dark lords is derived from. And, unless you are a great author, artist, or screen writer you are seen as odd to still dream of such things past the age of 10. Is it society that drives out this WILD part of our imaginations to make us see the world as more "practical" and "serious"? Only the kid who gets made fun of for "still playing with toys" understands this. The child who is forced to stop playing in an imaginary world feels the sorrow of leaving the WILD imagination. Why are we forced to leave this exciting sense of wonder in everything behind?

Domestic is for Dog

In a pondering thought of what it really means to be wild in Thoreau's idea I thought of myself as a woman. I decided that if a woman was to truly be wild she would be nothing that she is expected to be in our society. And as I decided in the shower, that I was not going to shave my legs because I didn't feel like it, I thought of so many things that women are supposed to do and be that inhibits them from wildness. I agree that in today's world things have gotten much better, but in the past-say the 1950's-things were much worse.
Things that women in American society are typically responsible for
-shaving (Women can't have facial hair, leg hair, arm pit hair, excessive arm hair, back hair...you know what I'm saying.)
-obedience to husband(cooking, cleaning, sweeping in pearls)
-being thin
-not getting pregnant when their not supposed to
-being graceful
-being the "damsel in distress"
-being weaker than men
-being extremely polite (no farting or burping)
-bearing children
I'm not really a feminist, but I do feel that it is more work for a woman to be wild. It might be due mostly to the socially accepted hygiene standards, but still.

Wild, Whiled

In reading the letter from Lope de Aguirre, my first thought was "What an asshole." I thought it interesting his sarcasm in repeating the king's title over and over again. King King King. He is throwing it in his face that he has the power to end the suffering that Aguirre is feeling. The use of religion as a weapon really bothered me as well. Now that I've thought of that, how about this? It bothers me (as it should everyone) that there have been so many wars and so many killings done in the name of religion. Now, I don't even know what I think anymore about "God", but I know that this is ridiculous. If there is a God I don't think that he would honor taking lives in his name when people can't even be sure that is what their "God" wants. So I'm throwing out the idea that far to many-a-war have been fought in the name of religion.

The Not-So-Practical Practicality of Henry David Thoreau

It is true that I sat openmouthed in awe of the vision of freedom and wildness Thoreau presented in "Walking", but I am also left wondering. The thought of ignoring all of the stresses of the modern day world and just living with my WILDNESS seems so freeing and also so lonely. I say lonely because it is also a natural human desire to organize. If I separate myself from my country, my womanhood, and my race it is true that I might feel free and wild, but there is also something to be said of the feeling of belonging. There is comfort in a community of people. There is comfort in organization. I am not lying astray the idea of breaking free, I just think there is a happy median-as with most everything-to what Thoreau is saying. However, being AWARE of our WILDNESS is a necessity I feel. So now I sit aware wide-eyed.

Truth Part 2

I decided to stay because...

I love Cincinnati more than I thought
I realized saving money doesn't save happiness
I want to be an artist
I can do art therapy in grad school
It was too much work leaving
I had a nervous break down that caused me to reevaluate everything
I do love art

THE TRUTH HAS COME!

I am staying....I am staying at the Art Academy of Cincinnati for the time being. So I will now take all questions and comments starting now. My next blog will be based off those questions and comments. All I can say is I don't know what to say.