2010

the word of the year

was create

and what did I create?

a mess, it seems

but maybe not

walls torn down

mind and heart

spoken as truthfully

as I knew how

art in suitcases

words online

new friends made

and lost

old friends

holding strong

the taste

of bourbon

and cider

and cream cheese frosting

the smell of

leather shoes

and the warmth

of good wool socks

the aha moment

when the person

in front of me

stands up

and for the first time

in a long time

their feet don’t hurt

the moon

and the tide

and the pull

of them both

river walks

and beach days

and hiking

up and down

this hill

and one more

lesson learned

but i think

i’ve learned it

this time

this time

i think i’m ready

to let the

right things in

Love and Truth

I’ve seen the boy twice in two days. The first time he walked by my work just as I was telling my manager: “I don’t want to be out in public and alone at midnight on New Year’s Eve.” (What are you trying to tell me Universe?) The second time was the next afternoon as I was walking home from making the appointment for my new tattoo. I was in a good mood, despite feeling more crazy and invisible than normal. I saw him a couple of blocks ahead and could have forced a meeting, but I didn’t feel up to it so I turned the corner and continued home.

He was in my dream last night. It was dark and hazy and confusing. All I can really remember is that we were in the same room with a bunch of other people and he got up and left. On his table were a bunch of newspapers and a piece of notebook paper on which he had written the dictionary definition for the word true. After the definition he wrote something else. And it seemed important and urgent that I read it. But it was dark. And people kept interrupting me. And I never did get to read it.

This is twice he’s shown up in my dreams asking me to think about important things. Love the first time, and truth the second. Love and truth. But what is love? And what is truth?

Nothing seems true to me right now, in many senses of the word. Nothing seems factual. Nothing seems in its place. Nothing really seems real.

Particularly where he is concerned.

My general ideas about love and what is true are skewed at best. I know this about myself. And it makes me wonder about the reality of my feelings for him. Did I make up the connection? Did I imagine the way he looked at me? Did I fabricate our seeming attraction to each other?

Does it even matter at this point?

Maybe he really was just a lesson. A gentle reminder of what I attract and what I need to avoid. Nothing traumatic enough to actually scar me. Just a little disappointment and a bit of feeling stupid. So what if I did make it up? Maybe it was worth it. Maybe I finally learned my lesson this time.

But what really did I learn?

I learned that I fall in love with people’s potential. I immediately focus on the person I see them capable of becoming based on what little I know about them when we meet. I do think I see who they are at that moment, but I very quickly transfer that knowledge onto some imaginary version of them.

And I also learned that I cannot resist the trifecta of intelligence, creativity, and overwhelming arrogant self absorption. On the plus side, this means that my seeming inability to be loved probably has more to do with the people I fall for rather than any real inability to be loved on my part. Not to say that things falling apart is ever entirely their fault. I do my fair share of destruction. Mostly in the form of self sabotage. I have always had a hard time dealing with happiness and tend to look for things to go wrong. And if I can’t find anything wrong, I will inevitably do something that creates a situation that causes things to go wrong. Horribly and irreversibly wrong.

This last time is more on me than him I think. I knew from the beginning that he was immature but I decided to pursue the connection anyway. I remember the moment clearly, sitting on my friend’s front porch. A defining decision. And when I found out that while he had been separated for five months he was still technically married, I continued on the path I had chosen. Not my smartest move. But it’s not the obvious things like that that nagged at me.

I never liked his hands.

There was something about them that seemed insubstantial to me. He was always waving them around when he talked, like he was trying to distract me from what he was saying. Or from what he wasn’t saying. I kept telling myself that not liking his hands was a stupid reason to not like him.

Now I’m not so sure.

We are all attracted to different things for different reasons. Maybe my interest in hands has more to do with some sort of intuition and less to do with vanity. Or maybe not. Maybe I just didn’t like his hands. But looking back I see it as something I should have paid more attention to.

There are many things in my life that I should have paid more attention to but didn’t. Not until after the fact did certain things rise to the surface of my mind. It’s enough to drown a person, thinking of all the things that might have been if only I had paid better attention. But the trick right now is to not get lost in all those might-have-beens.

The trick right now is to start paying attention.

Life On The Edge Of The World

I am Yankee born with a Southern education and I have exiled myself to the Pacific Northwest.

The mountains called to me first, and I left the bluegrass for the Selkirks and Cabinets of north Idaho. The safety of the valley did me well I think, but soon I needed more. Soon I needed the turbulence of the sea. And so I came to the most volatile place on the coast. The place where the Columbia River meets the ocean. The Graveyard of the Pacific. There is nothing settled about the energy here and the restlessness has seeped into my bones along with the dampness that never quite leaves the air.

I feel chaos building inside of me.

My carefully constructed facade is slipping and the crazy girl I try to hide is peeking out. She’s giggling and whispering nonsense that’s making more sense than it ever has before. Paint your face she says. Paint your body. Wear clothes that make people stare. Force them to look at you. Force them to see you. Scream your words but keep your secrets close. Don’t give away too much. But don’t hold back either.

And so I make art. And I write. And I dream of elaborate costumes to compliment the masks I’ve made.

I dug out a pair of heeled boots from my “to donate” bag the other night and now I’m scheming a trip to the thrift store to create new outfits the wear with them. I think it’s time to stop being cute and start being sexy. Or at the very least I need to up the mysterious. Alluring might be a good objective. Maybe even seductive.

I’m not sure if I really know how to achieve any of these. But I’m going to try.

Moon round with secrets, stars hidden by clouds...

Hair dyed the same red I used when I was 18. Same hair cut too, almost. Is this my do-over? Do I get to go back to that girl with all the wisdom I have now? Except the wisdom isn’t very profound. Isn’t really there at all in fact. So much I could tell her, but would it matter? No. She has to learn it for herself. Just like I did. Just like I’m still doing. But not very well, it seems. The same mistakes. The same lessons. Over and over and over. And it’s making me tired.

And so I research corset patterns.

Or maybe I just need a breastplate to protect my heart. A breastplate and a sword and some sort of micro chipped radar that allows me to detect potential heartbreakers. But everyone is a potential heartbreaker. I guess I’d just like to avoid the ones who feel the need to ignore me. The chicken shits who slink silently out of my life in the hopes that I won’t notice they’ve disappeared. But I notice. I notice.

And every single time it confuses me.

How did I let this happen? (Again.) And why do I keep attracting the ones who are so self involved that they would never be able to care for me even if they thought they wanted to. (Which they never seem to do.) Why am I dazzled by creativity and wit? Why does the smallest hint of their attraction to me break my resolve to play it cool? Why do I give too much too soon? Why can’t the nice ones keep my interest? Why am I never enough, just the way I am?

Why? Why? Why?

Because I AM enough, just the way I am. They just can’t see it. And if they can, it somehow scares the crap out of them. Which is another mystery to me. The idea that I am terrifying in any way makes me giggle and roll my eyes.

What is so scary about me?

more dream drawings.....

Enough

I should be working on my novel. I should be cleaning my apartment. I should be making more progress on my art piece.

I should...

I should...

I should...

“No,” I hear the wind whisper. “You should lie on a towel on a sandy dune, with the sharp grass all around you. You should stare at the shipwreck on the beach and listen to the tide come in. You should bury your toes in the sand. You should let the sunlight blind you.”

I should...

I should...

I should...

But so many pieces of the past six months have not gone the way I wanted them to. I have to figure out what happened. I have to fix what’s wrong.

“So what?” the wind whispers in my ear. “So fucking what? Look where you are. Look at this amazing place. You are here for a reason. Don’t forget that. You knew you had to come here for life to start. So let it start. Stop trying to force it into something it’s not. Let your life begin and let yourself follow where it goes. Stop trying so hard to fit yourself into other people’s lives. Let your own life be enough.”

Invisible

I have mastered

the art

of invisibility.

I don’t know how

to handle being

seen.

I think it might

be time

to learn.

How to be seen.

I want

people to see

me.

I want

YOU

to see me.

But—

Who am I?

And—

Who

do I want

to be?

broken

I used to believe that breaking made me stronger. But these days I feel that all this breaking has simply left me broken.

Broken heart and cracking mind. And a spiral that spins me back to places I’ve been a thousand times. But different. A slightly new perspective every time I spin around. But the results are usually the same.

I want too much so I give too much.

And then I give more than I have inside and I bleed myself dry. With my heart pinned upon my sleeve, I am always confused by the mess on the floor. There has to be another way.

And it all leads back to breaking. Or it starts with breaking.

I am broken and don’t know how to fix what’s wrong. But I’m not entirely sure that anything is wrong. Just broken. And maybe broken is right. Maybe broken is where I need to be right now. Without answers. Without knowing what comes next.

Sometimes death comes first and it’s the pain of loss that sets us free to live.

mise en place

From the French, a culinary phrase defined as “everything in place," referencing preparation and layout in kitchens.

It is time to put myself in order. It is almost a new year. It is almost another new beginning.

One more box left to unpack. Clean the clutter off the work table. Stock the cupboards with food. Make soup to freeze. Wash the blankets that have stayed hidden over the summer. Bring out the knit hats and mittens.

I made a schedule yesterday of before work tasks and after work tasks in an attempt to remember my pilates and yoga. I have pared my wardrobe down to five basic outfits with interchangeable parts.

I still have too many shoes, but that’s one vice I refuse to give up. One of two vices. Bourbon hot toddies do help in the winter months.

Cold weather gear will be ordered this weekend, along with boxed postcard sets, stamps, and an immersion blender. I have set up my glass jar savings accounts. I’m as ready for winter as I’ll ever be.

It is time to strip my altar and start over. Time to pause and begin again. Time to seek stability in trees.

Next week I go to say hello again to the Octopus Tree. Maybe this time I will climb the do not climb fence and ask her face to face for the help I need. Help forming the questions that should have been asked long ago. Help hearing the answers that are most likely already rattling around in my head.

I’m dressing up as a witch for Halloween. But I can’t decide on my hat. Do I sew one? Or knit one? Or buy a cheap one that might last the day? Do I copy the image of what a witch looks like to others? Or do I dress the way I know my own Trickster Witch looks?

This afternoon I figured out what I’ve been doing wrong every time I’ve tried to knit in the round. A small error, really. But one that kept things from joining up. One that kept the piece from being a connected whole. But I found the order of it. And now I’m three rows into my very first hat. Quite possibly my Witch’s hat. We will see.

And everything will have a place.

Unraveling

I thought I was patient.

I thought I was strong.

I thought I had my shit together.

I was wrong.

I am unraveling.

But—

My friend Clare (who taught me how to knit over beers at Busters in Lexington, Kentucky) told me that mistakes in knitting made her happy because she could unravel what she had done and start over—and starting over just meant she got to knit more.

I am unraveling.

Unraveling means that I get to start over. Unraveling means I get to unlearn some of the things I thought I knew. And if I can unlearn these things, just think of all the living I’ll be able to do.

So—

Things I Need To Unlearn So That I Can Relearn Them And Really Start Living:

1. what it means to be in love

2. what it means to be happy

3. what it means to be successful

4. what it means to value and be valued

5. what it means to be an artist

6. what it means to be a writer

7. what it means to be a friend, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, and sole provider for two rascally dogs and their cat

8. what it means to be me

9. what it means to be content

10. what it means to be a survivor

11. what it means to forgive (myself and others)

12. what it means to let go

13. what it means to hold on

14. what it means to just be

I am unraveling.

And unraveling is good.

To Love Without Need

How can I expect anyone to give me anything if I don’t really believe I deserve it?

I can’t.

Sparrow teaches about self worth.

Sparrow teaches that your voice doesn’t have to be loud to be heard.

Sparrow reminds me of Saint Therese of Lisieux. The Little Flower.

“What matters in life is not great deeds, but great love,” she said. To do the ordinary with extraordinary love.

How can I love like that when I keep looking to get something in return?

I can’t.

Pelican came to me the other day.

Pelican teaches about sharing.

Pelican reminds me to rise above my troubles.

“The only love you keep is the love you give away.” I don’t remember where I read that, but it’s been with me for many years now. Some days I think I’ve got a handle on it. Some days I’m too selfish to see it clearly.

How do I love others without looking for them to love me back, but still love myself and acknowledge that I am worthy of being loved by someone else?

Tricky.

Perhaps this is where Coyote comes in.

Titles of Mystical Import

Look at your hands.

I have my mother’s hands. Same fingers. Same nails. Same habit of rubbing pointer across thumb.

Mother is a sacred name. Someday I hope it’s one of mine. Right now, though, I’m just starting to figure out what love is.

(Lover is another----Mother Lover Significant Other)

Three times nine girls, but one girl rides ahead. I am Svava turned Sigrun turned Kara. A reincarnated Valkyrie. A chooser of the slain. But I choose love over death. But Sparrow said that they’re the same.

Maybe choosing love means that I can choose the one it slays.

Svava chose love too. And named him to boot, because his parents couldn’t think of the right one. Helgi, she called him. And through all of their reincarnations together he got to keep the name. (Even though hers changed every time.) I like to think it’s because she gave it to him. A gift that cannot be returned.

I am Nordic through my mother’s side. Danish to be precise. Lineage is an interesting thing. An ancient naming that we are simply born into.

I have my mother’s hands.

Whose hands do you have?

Invocation For Fall

Yesterday was the Fall Equinox, so today marks the first day of the year when the daylight hours are shorter than the darkness. I celebrated with a delicious meal of corn fritters covered in maple syrup, spice muffins with butter/cream cheese frosting, a bowl of pomegranate seeds, and a glass of wine. I threw out a general “help me” plea and set a place for whoever wanted to show up and answer. I gave thanks for all the things the past year has brought me. I read a few pages in my new book on trance work and recorded myself saying a shielding invocation so I could listen to it while I fell asleep and possibly remember it this morning.

I don’t remember it.

But I had a very restful night of sleep. I don’t really remember my dreams either, but I have this vague recollection that they were not dark this time. They did not involve vehicles in transit. There was less confusion than normal. Maybe it will come back to me today. Probably not, but that’s okay. What I carry with me right now is the sense of calm I had as I was falling asleep listening to my own voice on repeat. It helped my mind slow down. It provided a focus so I couldn’t distract myself from falling asleep.

And my voice sounds different from the last time I heard a recording of it.

This is possibly just the effect of growing older. But the inflections were different. I’m sure no one else would notice this change, but as a writer I read out loud a lot, and particular habits have formed. I pause in certain places. I raise my voice just so in others. Little things cultivated over many years. But last night I kept tripping over my tongue and had to record myself four or five times before what I was listening to made sense.

It was like I was learning to speak all over again.

I made a list of goals last night. Most notably, to let go of my preconceived ideas about love and open myself up to learning what it really is. I want to figure out why I seem to be attracted to unavailable people. And I want to find a way to stop giving so much of myself to those who don’t give me anything in return. There are so many awesome, nurturing people in my life who I have neglected, and I want to focus more on acknowledging their awesomeness.

Last night was also a Full Moon.

Living so near the ocean has made the cycle of the moon more apparent to me. Full moons are solid now. Not so abstract. Even when it’s hiding behind the cover of near constant clouds, I can feel the weight of the moon outside. I feel more settled. I feel more concrete. I feel more real.

I remember part of my dream now.

Not really part of the dream, but an image that popped into my head when I was in the in between. That place where you’re not asleep yet, but you’re not quite awake either. It was just a flash, but it made my breath catch when it appeared. A giant white bird that turned so one wing pointed toward the sky and one pointed toward the ground. It flew straight at me for a second, larger than life.

Then it morphed into a glowing white sparrow sitting in the middle of darkness.

Sacred Bricoleur

I crossed paths with Trickster Coyote the other night. Literally. I was walking the dogs up 9^th Street towards Jerome, about a block from my house, when I looked up and there, where the two roads meet, trotted out Coyote. His head popped up, a mirror of my own. Then we had a staring contest that lasted all of three seconds, but felt like three hours.

And everything was snapshot still.

I've been thinking a lot about Trickster lately and trying to reevaluate my definition of him. I have also been trying to disassociate from the asshole tricksters that have plagued my life and clouded the way I see. Trickster isn’t bad. He’s just—tricky. A situation inverter and a shape shifter, he alters our perceptions of the world around us. And it’s good to get shocked out of our ruts sometimes. It is in these moments that we are able to focus enough to see that something needs to change.

Or see that it already has.

I’m not the same girl I was a year ago. A year ago I thought I had my shit together. But now I’m seeing that I don’t. Have my shit together. At all. But I’m also seeing that this is okay. I have shed some preconceptions about myself and my place in this world. And even though starting from scratch is mildly terrifying, I’m excited about all the opportunities that have opened up for me. I am excited about the person I have the potential to become now that I’m not clinging to the person I used to be.

But am I ready to meet the Trickster within me?

Everything

You came in looking for shoes and we ended up talking about the existence of the color council and the necessity of focused art making time. You commented that no matter what you are doing, you are doing it creatively because you are a creative being. Creativity infuses everything you do.

I think, “Everything is art.”

I hear people talk about “creative sustainability” and how we need to think of new ways to use the resources we have on hand as a means to survival. But what about “sustainable creativity”? What would your day look like if you made as much of your life as possible not merely a product of your creativity, but fuel for your creativity? What would happen if your daily tasks were not just a means to an end?

I think, “Everything is poetry.”

Everything dances and sings, if you’re willing to see it in that light. Everything is connected somehow. I know I’m not the first person to think this, and I certainly won’t be the last to have such an epiphany. But right now the thoughts have lined up in my brain, like planets in alignment to the sun. Things make sense right now, and I don’t feel so lost and alone.

I think, “Everything is sacred.”

As you walked out the door you said “I think we’re from the same tribe.”

I think, "You might be right."

Sparrow

Sparrow carries away the souls of the dead.

Sparrow brings the souls of the soon to be born.

Sparrow circled three times as I walked.

I stopped walking and Sparrow flew away.

Sparrow circled three times at chest level.

I stopped breathing and Sparrow flew away.

Sparrow circled three times slowly, wrapping me with invisible string.

I stopped unraveling and asked Sparrow if she’d stay.

Sparrow is Aphrodite’s bird.

True love and spiritual connection.

I spin myself tighter inside Sparrow’s string cocoon.

Sparrow says keep walking.

Sparrow says keep breathing.

Life and death and love.

Sparrow says they’re all the same.

Compartmentalizing

In an effort to keep my blog space neat and tidy, I have created two additional blogs so I can somewhat separate the things I am writing about. One for dreams. One for art. One for all my other ramblings. (that's this one btw)

Dreams go here:

http://haikukatshaikulikedreams.blogspot.com/

Art goes here:

http://haikukatsartadventure.blogspot.com/

And if I haven't told you about it yet, here is the website my brother Carl is making for me!!!

http://haikukat.com/

(It's a work in progress as I get more info to him and he learns how to do this whole web design thing!)

As long as your hair is.

That’s how long I’ve known you. (a coworker said this to me the other day)

I can measure my life by the length and/or color of my hair. White-blond and uncut until 2^nd grade when I bravely sat in the beautician’s chair and had at least 12 inches chopped off by my own design. Bowl cut in 3^rd grade. First perm in 4^th. In 6^th grade I cut my own bangs about 2 inches too short, just in time for winning the science fair and the cheerleading/basketball awards banquet.

I started seriously cutting my own hair in 8^th grade when I was 14. I had a spiral perm and didn’t have to worry about cutting evenly because it was so curly. In 12^th grade I chopped my hair so short I looked more like my brother than I had in years.

Right after graduating from high school I bought my first box of hair dye. Auburn. My mother helped me pick it out. It was 13 years before I saw my natural hair color again. I went through various shades of red and purple and pink before I got sick of it and felt the need for a do over. So in February of 2008, in the middle of a pretty brutal north Idaho winter, I stood in my bathroom and shaved my head. Shiny bald. With a razor. And I told myself I was not allowed to cut or dye it for one year.

I made it a year and a half before losing it and chopping my hair and dying it Ronald McDonald red.

And then I moved to Oregon and decided I’d probably have better luck finding a job with no hair rather than hair that was a strange faded orange-ish red-ish color.

So I shaved my head again. Flawed logic I’m sure, but I did find a job with my shaved head. And I’m pretty sure they would not have hired me with the orange hair. I think I’m pushing things there with my visible tattoos. God forbid I ever pierce my nose again.

But back to my hair. It’s growing. Half an inch a month. Which most people tell me is really fast, but I find the whole process painfully slow. I have trimmed the back a few times, but only to avoid having a mullet. All in all I’ve left it alone. And it’s driving me nuts. It’s in that strange in between stage where it’s not short enough to be a cute Mia Farrow pixie cut, and not quite long enough to do anything with.

But I’m not going to cut it again for awhile. I’m tired of starting over.

(and I will add more pictures to this as I find them.)

Drawing On the Past and Dreams and Such

Diving into deep dark water. That was last night's dream. Searching for something. Like an archeological excavation. Searching for some piece of history. My history? Perhaps. Or maybe some history beyond myself. I don’t know yet. Before anything is found I’m standing at another excavation site. Or soon to be excavation site, because I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to see it.

It is huge and looks like it used to be a tunnel of some sort. White brick and cylindrical. It was built in a ditch at the base of a mountain in a desert. I tried to draw it. I didn’t get the scale quite right. Or the perspective. It’s been a long time since I’ve drawn something from memory rather than by sight.

I used to draw all the time.

At the end of the dream one of my fellow explorers gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl. The person I was with when I was told decided she could give them up and let the mother have them. I’m not sure what that means.

But I think I should try to draw some part of my dreams from now on.

Pigtails

Today, while I was minding my own business in the Safeway and trying hard to think of things I needed that weren’t too heavy or too big to carry back on foot along the river walk, a man walked past me pushing his cart and said, “I like your mini pigtails.” This prompted me to look up in surprise and accidentally make eye contact, which I usually try to avoid while in the Safeway. He was creepy. And I’m sure I did a stellar job of hiding the panic from my eyes while saying a quick thank you. But then it was over and I remembered that I wanted to get won ton wrappers.

And just like that my mind switched gears.

I am constantly amazed at my capacity to instantly forget some things. I am equally amazed at my capacity to retain other things in agonizing detail. I won’t go into these agonizing details. Some of them are horrific and some of them are just stupid and some of them hold the cryptic key to my sanity.

Now if I could just decipher them.

Change of Scenery

My roommate Cawby-Ku and I have recently begun rearranging our house. We realized that we were not making art like we had planned and blamed this partly on the fact that all our art-making stuff was in our basement “studio”. It’s easy to ignore things in the basement. So we are going to experiment with a new, hopefully better, use of our space.

Today I moved my bed down into what once was the dining room. And after some clever maneuvering, and with the help of my friend Tobias, I have begun to create a studio space out of the old living room. Essentially I have a mini two-room apartment that is connected to the kitchen. And I still have access to the awesome claw foot tub upstairs. And our new television room is stupidly cute and cozy. Cawby-Ku is keeping her bedroom where it is and will be turning my old room into her studio. Hurrah! She’s close to her artwork and I’m close to mine!

And my aging dogs won’t have to climb the stairs a bazillion times a day. I think it’s going to work out well for all of us. Even the cat seems to be okay, although with him I’m always on the look out for signs of emotional trauma.

So here I am about to begin my first night in my new room. One dog is already asleep on my legs. The other keeps looking at me with confusion in his eyes, because he clearly doesn’t remember anything that’s happened today. And the cat has already succeeded in tearing down the curtains I so carefully push-pinned over the archway between my bedroom and the studio.

The space feels good and I’m hoping that somehow I can absorb some of this good feeling through my pores while I sleep. I feel like I’ve been making some progress towards recognizing my own unique idiosyncrasies and I can’t help but think of this space as both a reward and a catalyst.

I still feel crazy though.

And I can’t quite shake the old feeling that I’m being a bother to some people.

Collaborative Art at its Finest

This is what I drew on my snazzy new phone yesterday.

This is what my roommate did with the picture on her even snazzier phone.

I foresee great artistic advancements in our future.