[ Sunday, January 18, 2004 ]
Poetry. Blogging. An insane drive to communicate? Discussion with one's self? Discovery? An anonymous reaching out? A desire to say 'Here I am. This is me. Told in first person. There's no need to speculate. This is my way.'?[ Friday, January 09, 2004 ]
I've been wondering why I do this--though my attempts are at best half-hearted, half-assed, sporadic posts with no real continuum. An act of processing perhaps. Communicating with myself in a form that is tangible, real...that I can lay hands or eyes on.
Reaching out occurs everyday in little ways. We learn to communicate in a way that provokes the least amount of upset. 'I'm doing pretty good. You won't believe what happened... Long hours. Overtime. I'm thinking about getting this... going here. I don't know what got into me. It's so cold out. I'm burning up.' Subtract the hours of bullshit conversation we've endured and uttered during our lifetimes & and how much of what we've really said or heard means anything?
10 minutes ago I finished The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian. Face aglow & smile plastered to my lips I wanted to tell somebody, anybody, everybody about this book. My eyes communicated what my lips wouldn't utter--I was lost in that world, roaming the streets of NY, heart open & raw & hungry & mourning, quietly following the misfortune & learning of a 23 year old fuck up. I wanted to take this fictitional character in. Offer warm food, clean sheets, soft pillows, socks. Creature comforts. The ultimate luxury. Softness against the cold sharp stinging reality that is life.
Hurts. The item for thought yesterday. Hurt ten houses away. Fifty houses away. Next door. Inside my house. Thirty years removed. Seventeen. Three. Hidden wounds opening before my eyes. Always opening. Just never exposed. Quietly festering & shaping the body around them. Honing survival instinct. The need to reason or explore or say 'this is just how it is. i'm moving on.'
Several quotes have dangled in my mind for the last week. Handwriting on paper that has crawled into my ribcage & kept repeating itself, over & over. Sadness pushed back in memories. You are not alone in your worship of the past, present, future. Profound. Quotes that make me want to bawl like a baby & say I see you. For the first time I really see you.
Documenting our lives. Had my mother documented her life better, left something for me to read, to touch, to explain how she was...artwork even, I would feel like I know her. Like I have some knowledge of who she was separate from being a mother & a wife. I don't have journal entries or sketches or recipes or notes scrawled on the backs of envelopes. I have one letter written in a baby book to me. And stories about her life, who she was, her temper, her plans. My brother doesn't have a letter in a baby book. He was younger than I was. His memories have probably faded just as surely as mine have. I wonder how he deals, how it's shaped him. I want to ask. To make the first steps in that hollow planet of loss. I'm afraid to. And I worry. Do I pick at the scab? Has he healed? Would I upset one aspect of his life that has become more factual instead of emotional? It's our truth. His and mine. Young & motherless. And left with that void. The screams. He was six years old and saw his mother standing at the foot of the bed. She wasn't there. She wasn't anymore.
Perhaps I pick pick pick. Analyze. Rationalize. Attempt to understand too much. I just want to be able to see everything clearly. To know what is true about our lives & how much is pretend. Wisdom I suppose.
Ignorance really is bliss. Self-induced blindness is not ignorance. The equivalent of a child closing her eyes & thinking, she's hidden. That if she can't see you. You can't see her.
I don't want to stay hidden. Silently worshipping this process called living--history, present & future so intricately woven. I want eyes wide open. Heart full. Words with meaning. To be and be seen--beautifully flawed but still beautiful & human.
~ Rebecca 5:23 PM [+] (0) comments
Back to the Dr. Phil stuff. I can't promise when the next one will get done. I didn't really want to confront this one.[ Thursday, January 01, 2004 ]
The Authenticity Litmus Test
1. Name a thought, belief or attitude that you hold about yourself.
I am mediocre at many things, exceptional at none.
2. Is it a true fact? Is what you are thinking or feeling verifiably true.
The truth? I really don’t know. I chose the above statement because it is the statement I feel I repeat to myself most often. And I apply this statement to many realms of my life--art, writing, knowledge, physically, spiritually, emotionally. Many times my best effort or output seems to me, to be mediocre at best. Perhaps this has to do with the inner critic, that feeling of not being good enough or never being good enough. This statement could possibly be a lie or truth depending on perception, feelings about myself, frustration. I can show you a piece of work & validate why it isn’t amazing. I can look in the mirror and pinpoint numerous flaws. I can take a piece of writing and scratch scratch scratch till nothing’s left. I can make a numbered list and cite the reasons I feel like a bad friend, daughter, sister, being. At the same time I know there is goodness, talent within me.
3. Does holding on to that thought, belief or attitude serve your best interests? Does it make you happy, calm, peaceful & fulfilled?
Hell no. This attitude throws me into a self-defeating pattern. Instead of accepting that a creation or output is my best effort, I am tempted to destroy it, to quit, to give up. I think of myself in terms of mediocre & accept a mediocre lifestyle. I don’t open myself to newness, the possibility of love, in particular because I think I’m not worthy of it. That I’ll find someway to botch the whole deal. That it’s not possible for someone to love the authentic me. It also makes me afraid to put myself out there in terms of art and/or writing. I’m afraid criticism of something that is so much an extension of me will validate the way I feel about myself. If someone says a piece of writing is worthless, often times I interpret that asyou are worthless. This in no way makes me happy, calm, peaceful & fulfilled. It inspires a great deal of fear, confusion, mixed feelings & anxiety. Perhaps even a general unhappiness.
4. Are your thoughts and attitudes advancing and protecting your health? Do your thoughts about yourself push you into situations that put your well-being at risk?
Advancing & protecting my health? No. In a nutshell. I believe that I am mediocre / worthless / not good enough. Therefore I don’t see myself as anything worth protecting. I make unwise choices concerning my health. Question 2? Concerning my past, I don’t believe that putting myself into a risky situation linked to how I felt about myself. I think that was more an indication of being young & making terribly stupid decisions. Recently, I’ve put myself into a few risky situations and that linked directly to a poor self-image, wanting to feel momentarily wanted & loved.
5. Does this attitude and belief get you more of what you want, need and deserve? Or is it leading you toward or keeping you in circumstances that you don’t want.
This belief about myself keeps me at a standstill. Accepting what is here & now & not hoping for or sometimes even wanting anything better. It is a crutch. My fear is fed by it. It keeps me complacent & not living to my full potential, not being my authentic self at all times.
~ Rebecca 6:30 PM [+] (0) comments
"I love you CHARLIE oh yes I do. I don't love anyone as much as you."
::except for, of course, Willie::
::and oh yeah, Waylon::
::and on rainy nights--live, private Goosecreek shows::
::and a cab driver lovingly named Jimmy Boy::
::and almost everyone in Section 15 Row Y::
New Year's Eve. Rupp Arena w/ Montgomery Gentry, Charlie Daniels, Dierks Bentley and that other dude whose name we couldn't remember unless we were looking directly at the ticket stub.
I finally got to hear Dierks Bentley sing "What Was I Thinking"! It's been well documented that the song is a touching tribute to well, me. Except I'm not from Alabama & I'm not an actual beauty & the chick in the video didn't look a thing like me. But my name is Becky. And that's the first word of the song. And that makes it mine. Plus, the original chorus went like this: "I was thinking 'bout a 2x tank top sitting right there in the middle by me." Apparently, fat-friendly lyrics don't sell country music. My 2x tank top became "little white tank top", any reference to Kentucky wiped out and I got no call to appear in the video.
At least I know the truth. Big girls get no love.
Charlie Daniels was the greatest thing I've ever seen onstage. I got kinda teary eyed when he sang "Long Haired Country Boy." That song, for me, is just an absolute anthem. I can't tell you how many times we forced Ricky John to play it at the cabin / his house / in the woods / around a campfire / drunks singing / beers swaying / feet stomping / tambourine accompanying. Last night all that flooded back to me & I couldn't believe I was actually hearing the living legend singing the song that has soundtracked so much of my life. AND THEN....in tribute to Johnny Cash, Charlie sang "Folsom Prison Blues". I thought I would go absolute ape shit.
Montgomery Gentry was good though I can't remember a whole lot toward the end of the night. The beer supply was too close to our seats and we were buying two at a time & toting them back. I got on a lovey-dovey life is beautiful drunk and hugged Lisa & Sam & some other people? about a thousand times.
LOL. Santa Claus sat next to us. I noticed him speaking to a security guard who was pointing in our direction. He finally made his way toward us & found his seat next to us. Which cracked me up endlessly. Because of the probably 19,000 there, one man dressed up in a Santa costume & somehow we end up right next to him chatting away. Things like that just always seem to happen. Gene Autrey Allen (aka Santa) had bigs plans to rush the stage. I was a little concerned that he might have had dynomite strapped to himself underneath the costume. I asked him to please give us fair warning if he decided to blow anything up. At one point he practically layed across me, Lisa & Sam talking and adjusting his hat. He admitted he'd been drinking & I had visions of him falling backwards into the crowd & maybe body surfing if anyone caught him. He kept patting our heads & telling us how beautiful we were, that we were beautiful, good hearted people & that the world needed to know about us. It was so funny but kinda sweet in a way. During one break I asked why he had chosen to wear a Santa costume to the concert. He said he felt invisible. That kind of sobered me up ( for two seconds ). I really didn't know how to interpret it. I didn't know if he meant it in a straight jacket type way...if he really thought he was invisible without the costume or if he was speaking metaphorically. That he just felt invisible. A lot of his conversation seemed to be centered on feeling unloved so I'm kind of siding with the latter. Of course I could be wrong & Charter Ridge could be searching for its latest escapee as I type.
Sometimes you really can't tell about people & that's troubling.
The countdown to midnight is a little blurry. I do remember locking lips with a stranger at the stroke of midnight. That's usually just a given. The last song was Sweet Home Alabama with John Michael Montgomery joining his brother onstage.
After that the three of us walked out of the building with arms linked. Not one of us could walk a straight line & thank god for security posts which stabilized us while we waited on our little yellow taxi and peeked into tinted limo windows.
Jimmy the cabdriver rocked. He was as country as country gets and said the word bonafide at least once when referencing his girlfriend. AND gunned it down a back alley when we asked him if ever raced his cab. Cab Drivers who race other vehicles for sheer pleasure kick big ole ass. Cab Drivers with Mullets kick big ole ass. Cab Drivers who take you where the prostitutes are just because you want to see a modern day hooker walking the streets KICK BIG OLE ASS.
And yes. We've had those drivers. Plus a few more.
Because a night out with the girls just isn't a night out unless you find yourself at some point, intoxicated in the back of a cab watching lights whirl by & either joking it up with the driver or thinking that you absolutely love the place you're in.
Sometimes, both happens.
Last night was that for me. It still is today. I love that I shared New Year's Eve with Lisa, Sam & Charlie Daniels. I love that Dierks Bentley with his flannel shirt reminded me of Ricky. I love that "Long Haired Country Boy" brought back memories so strong I could smell campfire & feel mud on my legs.
Last night I wished a whole lot of people were there with me. To take it in. To see what I saw. To feel how I felt. And just to laugh with. But in so many ways they were. And I'm incredibly thankful for that.
It doesn't get any more beautiful.
~ Rebecca 8:56 PM [+] (0) comments
