My Father Walking, and Twenty-Four Other Things

a soul that speaks to mine.
i love this.

Creative Thresholds

by William Michaelian

Am I truly limited by my senses, or are they, too, imagined? Can I prove my own existence? Is such proof desirable, or even necessary? What of my childhood, and everything else I am in the habit of believing I remember? Is memory a thing of the present? Is it a story told, and then countless times retold, changing and continuing of its own volition and accord? Drawing and writing; waking and dreaming; fiction and reality; life and death — I simply feel no need to know where, or if, one ends and the other begins. Does that make me strange? And yet what is strangeness, but the very delight of a beautiful, unaccountable world, ever the more vivid once we have learned to let it go?

Going Home

By firmly gripping a pencil in grade school and beyond, I developed a callous on the middle finger…

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……………………..

the sound of spitting camels at my back
…
I start to walk (to trudge, to clamber)
…
sinking with each step;
…
it is not simply my feet
…
searching for substance,
…
but as my toes are sifting sand
…
all I find is shifting land
…
Bottomless
…
this sandbox was poured
…
(is poured, will be poured)
…
here and now and then and always
…
Bottomless:
…
they call it,
…
as their fathers called it
…
and their fathers’ fathers called it
…
wandering;
…
before,
…
when they marked this spot
…
with a stone
…
worn to sand
…
which once was stone
…
marking this spot worn to sand
…
by the wind-driven rain,
…
meaning sand,
…
that blew through this spot marked with sand
…
in this mountainous desert
…
of time,
…
meaning sand
…

…

…

here, I am
Jonah drowning

But a kitchen sink to you,
is not a kitchen sink to me

…

processing (part 2)

I’ve got to steady myself

The ground had begun to fall away like those video games I used to play where the earth would just descend to blackness and I had to run, jump, run to get away. get to safety.

I’m slipping

I feel it like a wave rushing over me, filling in the holes, every crevice.  It was “lightbulbs dimming as a powerful appliance kicks on.” A force from beyond myself, seemingly with the entirety of existence at its back.  Defenseless, I lie in the sand, looking at the stars, praying that they too are not overcome by the vast blackness surrounding them.

Losing my grip

I try to concentrate on the feeling of the ground moving, vibrating through my foot, my leg.  My knuckle on the table edge.  The breath that flows in and out, stretching the skin on my torso, my ribs, imperceptible rush of wind through the caverns of my existence, stirring the dust on the floor to mingle with the light, floating, dissolving,

evaporating…

processing (part 1)

I knew I was injured, but I thought the bleeding was under control. I thought it was a surface wound – situational, temporary. But as the numbness subsides and feeling returns I am getting the impression that I was quite wrong; the cut that I thought was surface deep was actually much deeper into myself than I realized.

When you play with knives, you kind of expect to get cut.
But that wasn’t a knife. And I wasn’t playing.

sirens calling, wailing, whispering – how do they know my name?

The lighthouse keeper must have fallen asleep. Or perhaps the power went out. For these rocks couldn’t have just been left here unmarked, their jagged edges waiting to impale. Murderous teeth hidden behind lips of silky blackness. That would be cruel, unfair.

My dad did always say, “Well, honey, life’s unfair.”
But then again, he also told me that the covered hay bales
in the fields were giant marshmallows…

As the ocean and sky reunite, I am caught in the middle. Blown by the wind, tossed by the waves, pelted with rain. They must be angry with one another, the way they are lashing out. Violent black and stormy blue.

Maybe it’s just a front.

my hands, red-handed

I wanted to answer.  But the thoughts were written on driftwood drifting and the rain in my eyes put salt in my wound, bitterness flowed and the tide brought them out and in and out. I wanted to answer. But this whale of a pet is weighed by tastebud barnacles and there are bricks in my back and I am floating, floating, watching, watching.  “writhing configurations of weeping.” the backpack is heavy, so heavy. my hands…they’re blue…”I’m cold,” Snowden whimpered. “I’m cold.”

His white jacket, brown skin.

“He was adding his own post-assessment question, Then what?”

I was adding my own post-assessment question – then what?

of freedom

crying to Jenny & Tyler this morning.  not entirely sure what it is that is hitting me so hard…maybe their raw emotion and honesty, maybe the way they harmonize in a way that really makes it seem like their souls have been joined as one, maybe their abounding love for their daughter…

specifically the album Of This I’m Sure and this song in particular:

My Dear One, find freedom / Forfeit not hope … I listened to the logic / Fixed all the problems in my head / You didn’t know who to trust then / Didn’t know who would love you in the end … I’m not giving up on you, love

I started this morning with ordering some of the chaos that continually fights to overwhelm our apartment (a.k.a. mostly hanging up the pile of clothes that always tends to accumulate)… letting the sun rise and stream into our little home…and then doing something I never do:  yoga in my living room.  Yoga itself isn’t new for me, however, doing it by myself with just a light wordless soundtrack in the background, is novel. It made me want to start every morning that way.  To be still and know. To close my eyes and feel the way my muscles are interconnected, the way they loosen as I give them time.  To actually feel some semblance of balance, in my body and limbs and breathe, but also between my mind, body, and soul.  The typical Christian “quiet time” isn’t something I have been able to do recently without falling into the pit of my mind, however this felt free, peaceful, life-giving.  I didn’t feel pressure to reach a certain goal.  I didn’t have the distraction of comparison.  I could listen to my body, calm the voices in my head, and just connect.

Then I was listening to Jenny & Tyler while working on a collage and drinking coffee…and that’s when the tears came about.  Not the usual tears of bitterness or despair or hopelessness or loneliness… but tears of… freedom.

Curation.

Hello, whoever you are who is reading this.  You may be new, you may not have noticed, or perhaps you don’t care, but I just realized that I have been so particular recently in what I have been posting in this blog that I feel I am being exactly what I DON’T want to be: curated, edited.  I want to be honest and real and rambly (that’s not a word, but you understand…one of the awesome things about language  – webster doesn’t dictate what I can or cannot communicate).  I want to be profound and dumb and whiny and inspiring and hopeful and downcast…I want to be REAL.  In everything that I do.  But instead I feel like I am actually being true in nothing.  Instagram gets a different part of me than Facebook does, and I still don’t understand Twitter to be quite honest, and here, on my blog where I feel the most real, I still feel this need to have a certain theme or whatever.   So what if someone scrolls through and moves on because I am too unpredictable in my content to follow.  I shouldn’t care, right?  Except that’s not really how it works.

I can preach all day about facades and honesty and give off the air that I am above caring about it all.

But I’m not.  I care desperately.  And I HATE that.  I HATE that I have been checking my number of followers on IG, that I have been wondering why people have unfollowed me, why I can’t reach 250, when some people hit 1,000 without breaking a sweat.  I am intimidated by the vast number of talented creative people all over the web and IG and etsy.  How will I ever stand out among them?  Why would anyone ever choose to buy a piece of art from me when ten thousand people are doing it better?

Comparison kills.

(speaking of which, so does smoking.  there’s research to back it up.)  It sucks any enjoyment out of the things I am doing because I never measure up.

It’s a constant striving, a constant desire for more and better, but ultimately for most and best.

And so I see that ugliness in me and my reaction is to seclude myself.  To run from other people.  Because then instead of facing that ugly jealousy in myself, that voice saying “you’ll never be as [good, smart, pretty, skinny, successful, creative, kind, artsy, motherly, perfect] as they are. just give up now before you fail.” – instead of confronting those things I go into my metaphorical cabin in the woods.  For a while I am content with the birds and the grass and the sunshine and books and art…but that loneliness always comes creeps back in.  And the part of me that has spent a good deal of time in Christian community says, “well, if you were finding your all in Jesus, you wouldn’t be feeling so lonely. that hole you feel is just that God-sized vacuum” or whatever quote I am misquoting….point being, then I feel ashamed at feeling lonely, guilty for wanting to rejoin society.  And then I step my toe in the water, go on a coffee date or whatever, and find myself tripping down social stairs with my tongue tied around my ankles. “How did I ever interact with humans in the past?  I can’t even tell a story without coming across like a lunatic!” And then I end up online again, where I can filter my thoughts before I send them, photoshop my acne, delete my whining, hide my tear-stained cheeks.  UGH.

My best friend and I have been talking about some of these things recently.  (Even being able to say that I have a  best friend (and an awesome one at that!) is such a blessing.)  And I am doing a lot of reading and thinking related to the digital world for my thesis.  Do we need people?  Are we cheapening our stories and our lives by sharing them in bits and pieces on all of these social media sites?  Is the digital inherently harmful for social interactions?  Can it be done in a way that is life-giving?  That actually allows for understanding and connection and authenticity?  Does that mean narrowing down to just a few places to invest?  (the internet never really ends up working like that though it seems…)  But today I read the blog here  titled “Is Blogging Dying?” by Mayi Carles where she definitely convinced me if there is one online place to invest, particularly if I am going to actually try and start a business, it is on a blog.  Which after thinking about it, makes a lot of sense.  If I don’t like the pressure of chronological posting (the feeling of always needing something fresh and new and better than the last thing) I have some degree of control to alter that here.  Maybe in the end that’s a horrible way to go about having a blog, but at least I get to make that decision for myself, and can choose to change it myself.

Anyway, now I’m really off track… I think being married to a man who rarely (never) tells a story without tangents and mid-thought rambles has rubbed off on me more than I think it has. haha  Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing.  Rambly just may end up being the best description after all.  The opposite of curation. Which is also, incidentally, not a word.

 

in slowness

In slowness I hear the irritable tapping of my mother’s foot as we sit in a restaurant booth waiting for our delayed dinner. I hear the frustrated sighs of my friends when the internet lags.  I feel the clenching of my jaw and annoyance expanding in my chest as someone wastes my time repeating information I already know. I see the eye roll of the woman at the checkout line. I hear a horn sounding at the stoplight.

In slowness I feel the sun on my face as I lay in the grass and let an ant wander up my arm, tickling my skin.  I feel the breath in my lungs, easing in and out and in again, lazily, naturally.  I hear the crickets chirping in the field as I sit below the stars and let my mind drift.  I hear the gentle, steady rhythm of the waves crashing on the sand, the ocean’s breath synced with my own…in and out and in and out…

In slowness I hear the irritated yell of inefficiency and the tender whisper of restfulness.

therapy / thesis

plastic

The crumbling grave markers poke their mossy stone heads above the dirt, their faces showing their age like my grandfather’s own weathered face. Those hands that toiled in the dirt, held chipmunks, birthed calves, slaughtered dinner – they touched life and they touched death. They knew the balance at the heart of continuity. Each inhale bringing an exhale.
But those flowers. No, those flowers won’t take in his breath, won’t continue the cycle. They are unnaturally vibrant against the decay of this cemetery. They are pompous, arrogant. Unsympathetically they flaunt their immortality.

the photographer

once,
a long time ago,
there was an artist.
(call him singularity,
call him paradise)

after the completion
of his most recent,
and some would say most famous,
piece of art
(a self-portrait)
he photographed it
and made this photograph
into a puzzle.

the photographer now sits
at a table
sorting through the box
of infinite, individual pieces
working on piecing back together
the image of his creation.
(he doesn’t start with the edges
like we would
for the edges of an infinite puzzle
aren’t necessarily the easy ones
anymore.)
each piece,
buzzes with life
as it passes through the hand of the photographer,
before being placed, connected to the larger image
being formed.

the transfer of heat, they say,
makes the appearance of flowing time for the finite.

the photographer’s hand are warm,
transferring, for a time,
heat to each piece.
but when placed on the table
the heat
seeps out again,
returning to coldness.

this continues,
until the end of eternity
when the puzzle is completed.
he then
steps back
takes out his camera
and photographs this most recent,
and some would say most famous,
piece of art.