Snippets from the personal vault

As a person who has tried to self-medicate through journaling for most of my adolescent and young adult life, I have a plethora of material for potential compilations. It will likely take much longer than is reasonable, but I'm going to try to sift through the mess for any trash shiny enough to attract a magpie. In recent years I've written far less and in so -not- doing, I have found my ability to describe the mundane aspects of my life in colorful ways significantly diminished. Maybe that's why I'm finally electing to review my "work" of the previous decade - to either revive my present day partiality for metaphors or to bring to light the best of my personal meanderings. I may even go back to things I wrote in grade school on Xanga, if that rings a bell. Who knows where this will go? 

*Entries are listed in reverse chronological order, most recent to oldest*

We Are

So I started with writing prompts searched out online. I only had to read a couple to feel as if I was in a class for cranking out forgettable paperbacks that sell to tasteless housewives. None of them really represented or appealed to my style. I understand they were just meant to be provoking ideas to get my mind working but they felt two dimensional. 

"Buddhist shrine on a rainy day in urban area" - I wrote this and a few other sentences while listening to sound/music art at EMPAC. I'm choosing to build on this.

Rain in the city. Any old city. Or new one, for that matter. When we conceive of rain in our minds, I'm sure most of us associate the image and the sound with peace and tranquility. Rain is reminiscent of a kind of silence, despite the fact that it is an unceasing noise. No pauses. In fact, a slow drip with true silence between each drop is generally felt to be more distracting than the continuous pitter patter of rain. We love the monotonous droning of rain so much that we record and recreate it to help us sleep. Rain in a city, any city, does not have the same effect on our senses. Or is it just me? It's raining today. Looking out from my window, looking back at me is a sea of cloud with the tops of buildings like boats upon it. Sure, there is a dreariness about it that inspires a kind of film noir themed catharsis in the soul, but it doesn't remove me from my present reality. It doesn't take away the stress of responsibility that comes with being a self-sufficient adult in the twenty-first century. I'm late. Umbrella in hand, I take the stairs down eleven floors, out the double doors of the complex's entryway and stand under the awning. If it weren't for their own umbrellas, I would suspect the passersby to be completely unaware of the unseasonal winter downpour. No one pauses to avoid puddles or gazes up at the hazy sky between the buildings. No hands stretch from beneath parasols to catch a cold drop in the air before it hits the sidewalk. There is no smell of petrichor in the city to arouse our nostalgia or excite our primitive senses; just a lingering, heavy stench of souring garbage on every curb and corner. Perhaps this is why we rush from one indoor space to another; we simply move our bodies through the uncontrolled, unpleasant scents of the urban outdoors to the artificially sweetened ones trapped inside our concrete boxes. Sighing, I too push my umbrella open with a whoosh, shielding myself, and briskly walk into the deluge. 

Keep writing

 Are you still writing? Don't stop writing. Keep writing. My friends who understand my journaling obsession say these things every time they see me. They haven't read anything of mine in years most of the time and my journaling notoriously follows the same patterns year after year, so in my mind there is nothing new produced. Nothing worth being read, let alone created. What am I supposed to write about outside of my own vortex of anxieties and depression? The rug? Inspiration from Michael Fassbender in the movie Frank? There are many standing tufts in this rug... is it more or less poetic that the tufts aren't alone? They were all pulled forth by dogs sprinting and sliding through the room. Vacuumings sucked at the fraying further until dozens of blue and white strands stood standing proud. The white swirls in the fabric have gone yellow. The plush depths so thick that no amount of hanging, whacking, washing, vacuuming could possibly remove the years of hair and dirt and dust. Somehow that realization only endears the rug to me more. Rugs are tapestries of a different kind; they tell their stories horizontally with biodegradable human sediment that requires a microscope and a basic understanding of genetics... or a full lab to sequence DNA. 

A Letter from my 17-year-old self

 When I was seventeen, I had the incredible good fortune to get a scholarship for an Outward Bound program sailing off the coast of Maine with eleven others on a 30' pull boat outfitted with masts. I learned to navigate and sail the mapped, marked ocean. It was an irreplaceable experience. The counselors/guides for the trip had us all write letters halfway through the journey to our future selves, to be mailed in the months ahead. I found that letter last night and I'm so pleased with the words of my teenage self (from thirteen years ago) that I wanted to document it here.

"Dear Ana,

Hey, it's you, writing to you from the past. This is such a cool idea, which is why it's such a shame that I can't think of much to tell you. It's my last day on solo, [a three day excursion to an empty island where each kid gets to be alone after a week and a half on a boat with eleven people] and I just got finished eating my last apple and stale bagel, throwing my dookie into the ocean between two rocks, and packing up my shelter. Do you remember how you were feeling at that point? How you had felt before that point? How the trip had turned out thus far? Well let me enlighten you.

For Her Memorial Ceremony

My mother was everything.
This is something I have found myself telling people when they say she must have been important to me. Until recently I only saw part of the meaning behind those words. She was MY everything, yes; she was my strength and my inspiration. She was my role model and my adviser. My mother was keeper of my secrets, co-conspirator, patience, and love... and from here I began to realize she was much more than I originally knew. Corena was kindness and wisdom. She was also raw emotion and youth. Corena was music and silence and knowledge and ambition.
Corena was my mother and I am her daughter. I intended that statement to be repetitious to serve as a reminder to myself and to others who have (or have not) lost a parent; a reminder that you are the product of your mother and father. You can choose to draw strength from that relationship, however good or bad it may have been or continues to be. I did not embrace my good fortune as Corena's daughter while she lived. Since her passing many people have told me, "Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you." I didn't know what could be done, or maybe I didn't need anything then. But now that I have had time to sit in the mother's home and see the ghosts of memories in each room, I can see what I would have done differently. Therefore I can now see what I want from those who wish to help me:
What I want is for you to try and love your family unconditionally, whatever "family" means to you. If you have parents that don't necessarily always support or understand you (especially if they support and understand you), love them unconditionally, because I'm sure that is how they love you, even when you are in disagreement. If that cannot be, I want you to love your siblings unconditionally, because they are of your generation; they are the family that has seen you grow and will be there with you the longest. If that cannot be, I want you to love your cousins and aunts and uncles unconditionally, because they may be as siblings or parents to you, or view themselves as such. And if that cannot be, I want you to love your closest friends unconditionally, because they chose to have you in their lives, and they choose to share your joy and your pain. Your family sees you into this world and they will see you out of it, so love unconditionally, because it is the only way to ensure you are making the most out of the time you have with them.
My father told me that in some horribly macabre way I was given a gift in losing my mother. I now truly know what stands to be lost, and what I can gain from living and loving with my entire being. I will not pretend that I have become some miraculously forgiving and loving person who always lives in the present. I am not now nor will I ever be so flawless. But I bend my will towards becoming something close to that; towards becoming someone who is flawless because of their flaws; to becoming someone like my mother.