Scrapper Envy

No, 'envy' isn't the word. Awe? Inspiration? Indeed. Here is the source of my reactions: http://twinsand2boys.blogspot.com/ I've been spending quite a while this morning really studying her work. My motivation always comes from one thing: how can I translate this into my visual journals? I really struggle with page layouts. For a very long time now, I've been taking the scrapping layouts in some of the scrapper magazines and -- reversing them? The areas they use for photos, I set aside for journaling, and the small journaling spaces suggested I use for my images. I just haven't found the happy balance yet, though, and I get even more PUSHED, EXCITED, when I look at beautiful, original stuff like on this blogsite (which I'm adding to my sidebar of favorites to read every day). I've never done any scrapping, and I can see how much there is to be learned from that genre of making art. Do you ever just look at a blog site and your fingertips get ITCHY with the desire to instantly go get to work? That's how I feel looking at this one. da BOMB! There's really no better feeling than to respond to someone else's fantastic creativity with a surge of my own! I sure can't do what she does, but what she's accomplished feeds the threads & seeds sewing and growing in my head. Awesome!

An Unexpected Gift

Today I experienced something I have never experienced in my lifetime until now. This afternoon, I felt a man's neck bend, his shoulders fold in, his hands clasp tight around my neck, his sobs. When he came in to pick up his check, no one else happened to be in the office. I immediately stood and went to hug him. He is my friend. He is someone who has my utmost affection. He lost his brother less than 48 hours ago. And I felt his neck strain, then surrender. I recognized the gesture because most of the time -- no, all of the time -- it is coming FROM me. This time, he let himself go. A grown man. An adult male, over 40, with wife and kids. Sobbing into my neck, not holding it in, not editing it, for several minutes. An adult man grieving out loud, visibly, noisily, honestly, deeply. Tears ran down my face, too, I kept my arms firm around his back; I could feel that I was supporting him, his body, but also the full weight of his grief for those few minutes. The tenderness in me! The amazement! I felt a hollow FILL that has always, I guess, silently existed in me. A muscle that has always been there and always known what to do, but has never been summoned before, flexed, awakened, gripped him, welcomed his emotion. An adult man, a man who grew up in the macho-steeped culture of rural Mexico. NOT crying like a baby, NOT crying like a child -- no! Crying like a man ought to always feel free to cry when he loses his brother. And when he quieted, then stepped back, he simply met my eyes and clasped my upper arms -- no apologies, no embarrassment, no shyness. I'm touched to the center of my DNA that he entrusted me with that, that God allowed me to be the one who was there for him in that way, at that moment. And then, like a fountain unstopped, he began to talk about it all, the horrible details hounding his mind, bits of dialogue, how drastically badly Gilberto's widow is taking it. I kept my hands firmly on his forearms as he leaned on the counter and talked, talked, talked, mostly in English but sometimes reverting to Spanish. And his eyes kept finding mine, open, plainly open and raw. When he readied himself to leave, I hugged him again as he tried to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving, but choked up, and for another several minutes he leaned into me and sobbed. My shirt was drenched; my neck was soaked; his eyes and face were pouring tears, his shoulders rocking, sagging. I will never forget the sounds he made. Sounds I've never heard from a grown man, not from ANY man after they hit puberty. I've never been asked (allowed) to comfort any man, EVER! Not my brothers, not my sons, not my father, uncles, friends, no one. What a loss!!! What a robbery of potential richness, exchange, humanity, soul! All the voids in me, so ready and willing to be partaken of, utilized! I've been shown a deep solemn place within myself, in the midst of his agony of grief, completely accidentally, and it's as if having been shown an entirely new horizon of myself. All of me stills when I think of the entire exchange. I was so so happy he came in; I'd WANTED to hug him, say something supportive, but I had no idea of anything that happened. How fortunate am I? How intense a feeling to know he would let me share in that release, to reveal himself in such a way to me. My heart is just rocked by it.

Ciera does the Turkey Trot

Ciera's school had a running contest today called the Turkey Trot. They chased their coach who was dressed like a turkey. Ciera came in in the middle somewhere -- about 15th Place. She was running slower to keep up with her friend named Mackenzie P. Ciera is wearing camou pants and her Kelly Clarkson blue T-shirt from the Kelly Clarkson concert last night.

Gilberto Gabriel Perez Bernal

one of my favorite crew guys here is Jorge (his daughter is having the 15th birthday bash) .... his brother Chago also works here, who is a friend but moodier and kind of a dark soul ... his brother Gilberto used to work here (the first 2 years I was here) and a laughing, upbeat, heartwarming fella, one of those jokester/prankster kinda guys who had a nickname for everyone. Chago and Gilberto also teamed up to keep the Brown family palm trees neatly shorn. Each of these brothers has one son and one daughter, then Gilberto went and had another little boy, Leonardo, 2½ years ago.

got news this a.m. that Gilberto died last night, had a heart attack in the shower.

can't quite take it in.

His kids are all under 7 years old.

He himself was 35 years old.

They had another brother, late 40's, who did the same thing 2 years ago. Jorge and Chago are both on medication for high blood pressure.

They've got tons of family en route for the Quinceanero, but now they're thinking it's going to turn into a funeral, except Gilberto wanted to be buried in Mexico.

god dammit. I freaking really liked that guy.

Head Clearing Pages

Last night was chauffeur night in a big way (Mr. Brown came home from work sick, poor man -- for Bobby to actually LEAVE WORK under any circumstances is an astonishment bordering on a forthcoming wonder of the world -- so I knew he was seriously ILL): take David to gym, come home. Take Kevin to school for practice, come home. Do dishes, start head-clearing journal pages. Remove Zoe from center of head-clearing journal pages 12 times per page. Give up, stop working on journal pages, and brush/pet Zoe for 30 minutes. Clean litter box. Throw wads on floor for Zoe. Go to school, pick up Kevin, go to gas station for gatorade for Kevin and Diet Coke for Toni, go to McDonalds for food for Kevin. Come home. Enter studio only to receive phone call from David. Go to gym and retrieve David. Take David to La Salsita for food. Come home. Look at journal pages on work table, exhale, shrug, pet Zoe 10 minutes, go to bed.

Mom Speaks

"I read your blog stuff today. I have felt lately that you have been withdrawing...I know you are fighting the battle of "who you are," but why don't you just be satisfied to know that you are a human being who is prone to good days and bad days. You have so much going for you...looks, brains, writing and artistic abilities...you have it all, fair maiden. I agree that you should use it to satisfy yourself and what you want out of life. You don't have to please the whole world or any of your friends and relatives. But, please don't be so hard on yourself. You are a good person...one of the best. You really don't need to prove that to anybody. Just be yourself. You have so much going on in your mind that is creative...it is almost a burden to be so blessed, isn't it? But you have written and made some beautiful things in your life. You could put whole books together of the lovely things you have written and created. I can't do that. How many people can do that? Only a few chosen few of which you are one. Anyway, to make a long story short, have faith in yourself. Believe in yourself. Love yourself. Stop worrying about everybody else in the world. Let them hoe their own rows. And you hoe your row!! OK??

From:
Your Mother who just stepped off the soapbox!!

Love ya...."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NOBODY can tell me to lighten up as kindly, politely, gently, lovingly as Mom can, and still make her point. I love that.

Hot Lips (Journal Entry on Today's Posted Pages)

Journal on the Hot Lips pages:

Toni the Tiptoer, around her own thoughts. Really got serious today on this blog about arting, yet again, for an audience. Like I'll prep journal pages so I have something to post, rather than write a real entry, or attempt a creative writing focus. The blog is for ME. Not for "clap-clap." Greg's comment, 'rant' -- why rant? ERG! I asked, but he didn't respond. Because it was a charged entry? I guess. And he 'fell' for the same stereotype most usually fall for ... 'I was going to say you must have gotten your creative flow back, given your output.' Output is no sign of content coming from me, but I'm much more intimately familiar with my own neurotic knots than Greg.

Today I told two people the truth when they asked the daily, 'How are you?' I said, "I'm sad." One of them made a joke. I forced the other to hear the 'why'. But the truth is, nobody really wants to know. Toni, a 'sad' Toni, is not Toni being 'herself' -- that is, the self the other most favors. People don't want to let other people escape from their 'usual' definitions. No being real, thank you very much -- real being messy & all over the map such as it is. "Consistency, please, with the 'pretty personality picture'" [Miss Congeniality strikes again] is ever the priority. My blog behavior is me buying into that 100%.

God DAMMIT! Let me OUT! And be open enough not to label it a rant. It's a discovery! A real moment! A glimpse into my hidden depths! Cowboy up, and take it. Handle it. Look it over. Consider it as part of my range, NOT a flaw in some mental picture of me. Cut me loose from all preconceived bindings & let me breathe through frustration, rage, disappointment, impotence, disillusion -- THE UNDERTONES! THE SHADINGS!!! --

No, no! These are what everyone is in denial of, starting especially with themselves. And anyone (like me) who is willing to 'go there', to display these tonalities, reminds them of their own dark side. [Lions & tigers & bears, oh my!]

But these are my hunters; they find & bring to me the raw meat, the visceral & oozing truth. It CAN'T sustain the pretty picture but nonetheless I have to feed in order to grow, to go, to hone my instincts, my truths, my support systems. I don't want to accept the fear I see in almost everyone else -- it's safe but it's crippling & costly!! I don't want to be "safe" (caged), smaller than I will be if I embrace the fear, the ugly, the visceral, the misshapen, the soul carrion.

Where are the brave others who can help me identify & digest & assimilate my COMPLETE self? Those who can do this for/with me because they also effect it for & with themselves? Mom says people can be afraid of/embarrassed by that intimacy. So I'm surrounded by other people's fear and it keeps me columned in -- but I only LOOK like I'm standing erect. Who said I always have to be strong? I want to shoot that individual poste haste, & eliminate that impediment forever.

But it's internalized by now. And I can't just go & shoot myself, now can I? How RUDE! But I have come to some conclusions, solutions for now -- which are that I'm finishing these visual journals I've already started, and the Miss V canvas, and probably that troublesome-but-fascinating travel doll of mine. But I'm also starting a strictly-written journal & returning to my internal basics. And making the 9 millionth effort to be brutally honest. Nobody voluntarily looks at anything I do anyway -- it's not as if I have to be concerned about anyone trying to READ the pages.

// God I feel defensive. //

& here's what ELSE I have to say today: do NOT bloody ask me a personal question if you have no intention whatsoever of waiting to hear the response.

Hmm. Very little danger of that in my crowd, actually, being that my function [& part of my Miss Congeniality duties] is ever to lend the listening ear -- to be seen but not heard. What a flat, non-dimensional caricature my daily interactions make of me. Appalling, too, that none of these people require or desire more! Gawd! To be content with flatness, with superficiality, sameness, status-fucking-quo. I want to be shaken AND stirred, constantly awake, challenged. [I work in the wrong place for THAT, obviously, insofar as either exchanges OR duties.] Upstart little intellectual beotch that I am.

ENGAGE! CONNECT!! MAINLINE IT!!! Geez, this is life, THE ONLY ONE! I don't want to spend all mine on vapor & vacuousness. Enrich me equally. Give BACK. Open your lazy eyes and try, for a change, some V I S I O N. [Change is a dirty word in nearly all circles. Something I have truly tried but failed to memorize about humanity-at-large over my 46 years of life.]

ASIDE: Of course you DO understand that for me to be 'ranting' like this can only mean one thing: Miss Congeniality MUST be on her period. (This was suggested to me twice today, I kid you not.)

== I ran out of room (pretty pages with no writing space, remember?) so I had to switch to my other journal, a page lifted straight off my inspiration board. ==

This inspiration board -- another show-off mechanism? Allows for pretty blog postings, no doubt. So I'll opt to use it for myself, not share -- because it IS useful to me; it gives me such pleasure to move stuff around on it, & to push the pins into the spongey give of that cork. I don't have to share everything.

I don't have to share ANYTHING. This is contrary to Toddler Rule 101, right? BAD BAD TONI DOESN'T WANT TO SHARE. Tough shite. Bad bad Toni is 46, not 2, & not terrible, just trying to purge my terrible need for approval & attention. It someday MUST be enough if I'm proud of myself, but that day hasn't arrived for me yet. But at least I'm fighting for it, trying like hell to get it on my calendar and IN MY FOOD CHAIN. And I AM proud of me for that.

Discussion with Mom (email)

Mom said: "Wow! Your blog is very interesting today. What is it you are fighting so hard to hide? I thought the things you have been writing and arting have been expressions of things you wanted to express?"

Toni answered: "Too much self-editing goes on when I know people will see and/or read my stuff. Like: I prefer to do more nudes, write more erotically, express my loneliness and/or isolation and/or pissed-off-ness as those moods occur. So maybe it's not 'hiding' so much as just being 'kind' to potential readers who (as I mentioned on the blog) don't realize a mood is transitory, not permanent."

Mom replied: "Yeah, well I can understand that you wouldn't want every blog reader to read your most intimate stuff. And I don't think they really want to, either. Best to put that in your private journals probably. Many people are embarrassed by intimacy anyway."

Toni confessed: "I'm mostly just on my own case for finding ANY excuse and EVERY excuse not to get down to some serious journaling, the kind nobody needs to or will see ... I've been feeling like a performing monkey lately, trying to produce to post onto the blog, when that's NOT my point. It's fun when it's spontaneous, and it's an easy central way for everyone to see my art when I want them to. But it's gotta be secondary to me being able to write, or art, me-for-me."

Mom sums it up [& also leaves me feeling positive, again]: "Well, the blog was a new medium you had to try. Now you are beginning to find out exactly what you do and don't want to use it for. Nothing wrong with that. I do think you have wonderful writing skills...and also art skills. So, it is hard for you to condense down into what really matters to you. You are one of those multi-talented folks who has to deal with being too talented. Not an easy task."

Appropriate Song Lyric

To Love Her Inside
[Jeffrey Gaines]

Please do not disturb her
She's hoping to put her affairs in their place
Looks in the mirror
Not much fun coping
With all the new lines on her face
The fact is she's lonely
She makes the rules
Surrounds herself with fools
Throws 'round all her money
But that's what it takes
To whitewash her mistakes from view

Still one ambition remains
An aching hunger denied
To live life as mother and wife
To know someone loves her inside
Won't somebody love her inside

Dreams like only a child can
Beaming with light
The most wonderful sight in the world
But wakes from her slumber
More onion than pearl
And she's nobody's little blonde girl
That fact is she's never
Recognized by others
Not friends or strangers or you
But words will not hurt her
'Cause all she perceives
Is all she believes to be true

Still she sits staring alone
A prisoner of her bullshit pride
In a castle she'll never call home
Until somebody loves her inside
Won't somebody love her inside
Won't somebody love her

Still can't accept who she is
But up on the stage she can hide
From all of the things she will miss
Like someone to love her inside
Won't somebody love her inside

Output Versus Content/Personal Objective

My buddy Greg said: "Well, I was going to comment that you seem to have found your creative flow again based on your output, but then I see your rant this morning and wonder. What's up?"

I answered:

"Rant? Why 'rant'?

Creative flow being a subjective experience, what I want MOST is to be honest & fearless. I am, to-date, neither. Still doing veiled blog & journal entries, disguises, cryptic, definitely have NOT 'come out'. Seemingly deliberate about staying behind closed doors. It's EASIER to post prepped journal pages and 10-minute art than to get gritty, tell the truth about what i'm experiencing internally. It's also easier to manufacture such activities as preparing journal entries and doing 10-minute art than to get gritty, tell the truth (to myself I mean) about what I'm experiencing internally.

I've noticed that when I DO tell the truth, it's not allowed to be a transitional moment in others' eyes ... it's as if I'm on lock-down, like I've been poured into cement. If I say I'm down, i'm STUCK there. If I say I'm elated, I'm STUCK there. I think I'm going to curtail the whole blog thing anyway, because it's just one more reason/excuse NOT to do what I need to do self-to-self, and what I absolutely don't need is another place where I feel like I'm writing/arting for an audience.

My whole experience/challenge with journaling is that I want to capture the transitions of myself, mood, life, etc., and that's what they are, transitions, not ABSOLUTES. When I'm depressed and write about it, by the time others read it, I'm not 'there' anymore, but they see me frozen there. Ditto any other mood experience. It's emotional 'travel', fluidity, changeability ...

Anyway there is very little in the whole journaling experience that seems worthwhile to share ... at least I can't imagine anyone really being interested, especially if I'm EVER able to succeed in being honest, brutally so, and fearless about expressing that. Too threatening, too upheaving, for readers at large, I think."