6/6/2013
The house was large.....many bedrooms, peeling paint. My siblings and I all running around picking bedrooms to share. My little brother there clinging to me. This would be something we would do many times in our childhood. I chose the room with the tub. The broken bathroom with no plumbing but a tub as if somehow the tub would save me. I stood in the doorway looking at it......as always the tub, the sound of running water drowning out everything. A place for me to scrub off the "dirty" and the pain. Trying hard to convince my sister this was the room for us. This is the room we would sleep together and cling to each other in fear. If we needed to hide we could always go to the teeny bathroom and bolt the door. This house had no closets like some of the others to hide in. The bathroom had no working lights it would be perfect. The room had a window onto the roof top. This would become a pattern for me. Tiny dark spaces, spaces to hide and little did I know at the time the tub would become my escape that would follow me into adulthood.
With the beginning of my project just waiting for the studio to be put together in a couple of weeks I am now driven to dream. I have for many years had these recurring dreams that I dreaded. Always of the same topic. Lost, homeless, running, hiding, dirty, afraid, penniless..... I hated the dreams and never wanted to remember them. It is different now. I want to remember. I want to dream. I welcome them. I am driven to go there so I can wake to write.
There were large dark trees everywhere. I found them beautiful especially at night. I found if I could stay out of site during the day as much as possible it was better. Crawling out of the window at night to sit on the rooftop and listen to the wind blowing in the trees left me calm. The world felt so big beyond them. Here is where the lines blur between my dream last night and true feelings. I wonder if this will be a pattern for me? Dream, wake to write.....as the pen hits the paper and I write the dreams go to the reality of my childhood. I am not sure at this point what shall come I just know I feel lead. Something pulling me hard. Excitement now to fall asleep and dream so I can wake to write. Soon I will be in my studio creating my reality of the past......I shall walk into the darkness and finally face it head on.
Xoxoxoxo
Darkness ahead...
06/05/2013
Today has haunted me..... today is my Fathers Birthday. One week before mine. This is the only day of the year I allow thoughts in that involve him. Dark brooding thoughts that leave me tired and empty. Struggling to maintain and keeping those thoughts at bay always seem to be a chore and today for some reason it has not happened. He has been with me... right over my shoulder in all of his ugliness. I want him to go away, I want him to stay away. I do not want his presence anywhere near me or in my life. Harsh but true, and cold. Yes it is, anything to do with him leaves me chilled. He has no right to a day in my life.
As I am getting close to starting my project it amazes me how much it has already taken over. My mind unable to stop, restless and driven. In a couple of weeks I will be going on vacation to once again unpack my studio. It feels like the beginning of something unexplainable at this moment. Something unknown. Something not pretty or easy. My thoughts are filled with ugly and dirty. I am battling the images in my head knowing I have no choice but to see them and see them clearly. No color, nothing but black and grey. Something definitely out of the norm for me. When I create I see things in color, bright vivid color that makes my heart sing and dance. How am I going to be able to create dark and ugly? Seems as though I no longer have the choice. If I am going to move forward with this I have made the deal with myself to be as honest and open as possible. To push the limits and put it out there for the reality that it is. If I am to get whatever it is that I am searching for from this there is no other road to travel but the one deep into the night. The road that has haunted me in my dreams. Those dreams of being lost, homeless, no purse, no shoes, no clothes, running, always running. The dreams that I have come to know so well.....
5/30/2013
I cannot remember a time when deep down I did not feel lost..... drifting, looking, searching. Knowing there was something good and normal but always just outside of my reach. Thinking as long as I kept moving forward someday I would "get there". Those of you that know me know that I just recently purchased a house. All my life I have believed that there is this magical place that I will land and call home. I have dreamt of this place many long years. Several times I could see it just at the end of the road and I would get so close I could almost run to it. Yet something always happened to put it just outside of my reach. A voice whispering that the time has just not come. Fast forward to now and I found it.... that magical space, THE SPACE, THE HOME. I wanted to shout I found it. I wanted my heart to sing and I wanted to throw myself on the ground and say I have waited a lifetime for you. This new home was never about being large or grandeur. that was not what I searched for at all. I searched for calm, silence and peace. I am here.... totally and incredibly in love with this ethereal place I now get to call home. Grateful and humbled that I get to live here as I unpack and pick paint colors.
I now believe my expectation of what this house would bring me is an impossible expectation. I am saddened beyond belief....
I feel myself still searching, an indescribable emptiness as I drive home from work everyday. Every time I see a for sale sign wondering it that could be "the one". I now have spent many early morning hours recently wondering what is wrong with me. Why still this empty hole? 'The hard answer is simply this. The hole or emptiness I feel is not about a place it is about something deep within me. Something never brought to the surface. While my intention is to never "air dirty laundry" or hurt those closest to me I know that if I am ever going to be whole I have no choice to face what is buried deep and deal with it. I want so badly to find happiness and love freely so facing it is the only choice for me.
The fork in the road.... the one never traveled.... the one that for sure I would get lost on is now before me beckoning me to take it in all of its sadness and pain. The road of the past. I know most people would say leave the past behind but for me that is now impossible. Ignoring it or fooling myself into believing that I am strong and don't need to deal with it is just a crutch. In all actuality having a plan makes me feel hopeful for the future. A future where there is no burden from the past. Unrealistic? Maybe but I have to try.
I have been told many times by those closest to me that I should write a story about my life. The truth is I don't like words. I find words to be harsh and cold. Maybe too painful to put on paper. I have decided instead to do a series of photos depicting the memories from an early age. Memories of a gypsy life consisting of abuse, abandonment and solitude at times. Darkness and ugliness. Just putting the "ugly" on paper is not easy. I have no idea where this journey shall lead me I just know I have to go and I have to go now. I do this not for sympathy from anyone I do this for self preservation and to find my way home. Join me if you like.
xoxoxoxo
