YEARS by Sylvia Plath

They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.

O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.

What I love is
The piston in motion ----
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
There merciless churn.

And you, great Stasis ----
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful

God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.

The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.

treasure

I have been losing a lot of things lately. This doesn’t normally happen to me. I am in the habit of temporarily misplacing things, but they are usually found in my pocket or underneath papers, clothing, etc. Most recently it was my mother’s gold wristband that I wear every day. It disappeared somewhere between my apartment and the train ride home to Pennsylvania for Easter. There were tears as I resigned to it being unfound. When I returned from PA, I realized that I couldn’t remember where'd left an important photograph of my parents. Still looking.

I lost something else recently, but I can’t even remember what it is.

On separate trips to Paris, I lost both earrings given to my mother when my parents first began dating. They were tiny little flower buds with sparkling gemstones in the center. One disappeared in the shower of my Parisienne lover's flat and the other, well, I am not sure. Also, a diamond earring went missing somewhere in Europe. It appears that that country owns me at the rate of jewelry that has been collected at my expense. In any event, I have left a dainty mark in a strange state of zero awareness. This is particularly curious for me because I don't believe in accidents and can usually recall where my footsteps have taken me.

Many years ago, a tiny teacher wallet photo of my mother slipped into the vast thought jungle of my desk. The photograph will most likely be uncovered when I finally exit my Astoria house. That’s a memory that I try to forget…

It appears that my subconscious is allowing certain imagery to disappear-- provoking me to remember--not the object, but the participant. My mother. Divine woman, my founder. It appears that I am shedding. Vacated skin can be found in nature—all natural waste, excess. Perhaps the various founders of my “skin” will take ownership of the life I have unknowingly allowed myself to exit.

Larvae live and develop inside of a cocoon and eventually emerge.
Moths, butterflies…winged bugs.

Le poisson du changement.

Happy Mother’s Day, Willarena.

She's GAGA over HMI!

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REWIND

10/31/10

Riddled by insanity
And coupled with guilt
I lean towards the past
To influence my tilt
Towards something…
Other than the empty
I see
Therefore plaguing me
With questions unanswered
Floating around
Provoking me to curse the ground
That God made.
The spirit that I believe
Allows me to stand
Up and through
the great new YOU
I would like to create
However I am limited by fate
Or thought,
That’s what I thought.
Until the endings were presented.
I am aware of my mind’s theories represented
I inspect forethought with painful shores
Brought here to not RE-create
Recreate, play,
I see the clean day
Where I will determine my family.
Standing firm while listening, readily,
And free
To feel and experience the ill
Beauty denied
Before our decline.
Please be kind.
Remind me to rewind.

costumes

I think about love all the time.

Perhaps, I was born with a forlorn heart. As a child, I can remember hugging myself tightly at bedtime, longing for something I had never experienced. Intimately, the breath of another is an almost primal satiation and I have observed nuanced reactions from the affection I give, certainly unaware of my own strength. Bodies recoil from my touch, as if reacting to a tangible blessing. Or a curse. My cordial moments of acquaintance contact are mistaken, accused, and refused out of fear and assumption of distorted intention. It is a reflection of my previous life. My mother used to tell me that I "had been here before". Now after HER life, I am living within reaction.

A POST-life, sometimes not my own.

I am other wordly. Life on this soil is an infinite discovery--of how to love myself and to truly receive my spirit.

Reverie

The moment where I am able to become the recipient of my own divine love--respectful of its purity--will be the climax. I predict this as my glorified and ultimate quest. Like Lancelot, I have traveled long, far, and broken paths in search of my dragon. While continuing to ignore the only dangerous and beautiful fire that actually threatened me-- the one searing me from the inside. I was determined to survive on other soil. To experience a grand victory and have answers unlocked--like dramatically piercing the dragon with Lancelot's Excalibur. And since, I feel like a hero, I needed to replicate the story of one. The realization lied in the acceptance of myself as the author of this story. My characters laughed and indulged loudly and openly, but loved with an enormous fear. Fortunately, this was not destined to exist as a narrative rerun, it was an original reality. I was in charge of the ending, therefore I could create the love story.

foreshadowing

Italian art jovialist, perhaps?
This will surely be a future look...just need some Mediterranean sun on the regular.
Amen, to the leopard flats.
For more FAB street fashion, go to the The Sartorialist.
delicious.

SIR: style.identity.reduxxx.

You can call me Sir.

I am realizing how much character informs my own personal style-- rather than aesthetic. Or therefore, my aesthetic is readily informed by intention. I WANT to provoke a specific thought by the way that I dress. Then you can attach more opinion when engaging my swagger, and therefore my outfit is formed. I wonder if this is the way I create, the way I work....of course, of course.

images, images...

Recently, a coworker (Patricia!) and I simultaneously came to the conclusion that my style is counterintuitive. Over the past two years, I have transgressed, progressed, and assessed my ensemble evolution. I have moved from "urban ballerina" wearing skin tight jeans and varying leo/uni-tards with hi-tops, bucks and chucks...while toting newspapers and slinging lattes for about a year; to "expat dancing detective" when I ran away from home for half of 2009-- living out of suitcases in Europe and the L.E.S. and crashing in the apartments of eclectic strangers. Wardrobe must be mobile on multiple levels--oversized trenchcoats, dark tights, and layered sweaters as coat substitutes. And now, my silhouette portrays "international dance teacher"-- rooted in one spot but certainly living in my figurative "house on a hill"-- producing insight and lesson plans from boyish layers and secondhand mens shoes. The intuition countered could quite possibly be the fight for survival--all perhaps invisible. Ah, yes, but seemingly INVINCIBLE based on appearance.

I sincerely enjoy evoking "character" with my day to day apparel. Call me crazy..or just call me. I love getting dressed and relish in the mysterious results. All abstract, ecstasy pour moi. And, I rally around those that do the same. Step into your wardrobe driver's seat and gravitate towards what you want to wear-- don't plan. Form narrative around what you want to wear, if you wish...

symbols, symbols...cymbals?

The man in the photo exemplifies such. His demeanor exudes more than his white top and bottom offer. Style is just as much about personality as it is about color coordination. The photo is courtesy of the Sartorialist. I hope he doesn't mind. The man in the photo, that is.

4 years later. Stranger on the Road.

7 million dollar settlement for Sean Bell family and two friends involved in Police murder in November of 2006.

Detective Palladino called the settlement laughable and that police were performing their lawful duty.

The officers were acquitted of all charges in June of 2008. I am struggling with resolutions here. It is alarming that this monetary reparation required almost four years--and what's even more unfortunate and is how little this will heal. It ends up driving deeper, the placement and empty value that informs the belabored perspective of black and brown people in America. I am not ungrateful, I am honestly finding it difficult to feel any real pathos on a human (forget social, at this point) level, when justice continues to be impaired.

"I'm just a stranger, traveling on the road. I don't know nobody and I don't know where to go....I'm just a stranger, a long, long, long, long way from home." - Shirley Caesar

Accept loss forever. KEROUAC

murmurations

According to the accordion of current catastrophes I am to unfold as many menageries. On earth. Replicating some symbolic growth on original soil. I taste irrelevance…familiar salt as I awaken again from this non-sleep repeat. Death to the learned me and light on ancient self that remains on my heart shelf. To see in shapes is to miss mistakes and movement lies when frozen inside.

Somehow God had been forgotten—therefore involved, but somehow rotten. I have never attempted to deny and have only been in search of reply…seeking the stars to get me by, standing, MY, decay, all in evidence’s way of shadow and smoke, identifying as a practical joke and creating my own symbol of gracious shape at night I would produce the magic tape hoping to win. And even if I got in-- my story grew scarce. The frown’s just purpose is to reject plastic repairs.

And so I begin the debate surrounding how to NOT wait.
To diminish time right up to the minute is the only way I think I will again GET IN IT.

Refusing to seek some final place, I pray to enjoy my own space.

"I don't rehearse, because performance art is not about rehearsal; that's what makes it different from theater." Marina Abramovic

And, that may be the only difference.

NY mag's latest piece on The Artist is Present

Intimacy as performance--roles that we take on to please ourselves and our partners. Places of understanding. These are considered our comfort zones where we fearlessly shield connection--therefore connection as a performer is also slightly disconnected? Nothing new, but what can be removed is the unattainable shadow of abstraction surrounding performance. Interaction is perhaps a variable; and regardless of its definition, its presence within performance art and theater are consistent and reflective. An audience will applaud or will stare at you stone faced without any understanding of what might have actually occurred. It seems that an audience reaction is not necessary.

However, this is the difference between intimacy and performance. Interaction must be static to cause exchange, dynamic, and finality. And it appears that expression may exist simultaneously within courage because the advances are based on assumption, repetition, and intuition.

excerpt from cowboy