“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keep in mind fellow bloggers that hard work and determination is the “cause” and our ultimate success is the “effect”. Don’t worry about those “shallow” men, they leave more room for the rest of us. 😉
I can’t sleep, I don’t even want to. Every hour of unconsciousness is 60 minutes wasted that I could put to better use elsewhere. Like for example, decluttering my damn mind. The words float between my ears and bounce off my skull. I need to rest, I know, but my characters could care less. “I must exist!” they proclaim loudly. So, I write. I create. And the voices calm, but never really quiet. How could I even ask them to? Don’t they deserve to die like the rest of us?
The days had become longer than the nights and every minute a test of patience. People had been coming and going for several days now. Each bringing a handful of money and a heart full of sympathy and prayers.
Three women, with similar features, sat across from each other. All three had dark hair, pale skin, and high cheekbones. But the similarities stopped there. Clarissa, the youngest at twenty-three and an avid reader, had chosen to submerge her anxiety inside the pages of a racy paranormal romance. After the doctors had put their mother on life support the day before, she had gone and purchased an eight book series to keep her busy. They sat in a chair beside her. The crisp paper between her finger tips and the well written imagination of her new favorite author were a welcome reprieve to the numbing silence inside her head. Brittany, the oldest, had been celebrating her thirtieth birthday when she had gotten the call about their mother. Her voluptuous frame still wore the black strapless two sizes too small mini dress that declared to the world her eternal youth. Britt’s long black locks, once teased and bullied into a massive retro concoction atop her pretty blue-eyed head, now sagged beneath the realization of their mother’s dire circumstance. Amber, on the other hand, sat with a tender heart and steadfast hands. A sack full of purple yarn lay beside her pink and blue polka-dot slippered feet. As an avid crocheter, their mother had always taken it upon herself to crochet a blanket for anyone she knew who had been admitted into the hospital. So, like her mother, Amber wove the purple yarn. The monotony of the movements calmed her wrecked nerves. With each loop she created, she prayed silently to whomever would listen. With each yank of the yarn, she remembered the kindness and gentle wisdom of the woman who she had been blessed to call mom.
“I’ve got to get outta these fucking clothes,” declared Britt while she stretched in an exaggerated cat-like way. The handsome doctor passing by the open door to the waiting area noticed, of course, but quickly returned his attention back to the chart he was carrying and hurried past the door. Amber, totally unimpressed, groaned and rolled her eyes. “You do realize that our mother could be dying right now, right?” The indignation rode harsh within Amber’s voice. Clarissa, with her almond eyes, the color of wheat and rimmed with thick dark lashes, peered over the lust-filled badassary of her book. She agreed with Amber that Brittany’s wonton behavior was disrespectful, but she knew that this wasn’t the place and definitely not the time for an intervention. If she had to intervene she would, but she seriously hoped that her sister would just leave.
Brittany’s hooker red lips twitched at the corners. A malicious joy filled her heavily painted eyes. Using her middle finger to shove her perfectly sloped nose into the shape of a pig’s she mocked, “I’m just a fat jealous piggy that nobody wants.” The childish oinking was just the gravy on the biscuits. Feeling a little more than proud, Britt then turned on her three inch heels and headed to the door.
Amber rubbed the purple yarn between her fingers, absently. Clarissa dog-eared her novel and attempted to soothe her sister’s feelings. “You know Britt is just a biatch. We’ve known that since we were kids. Besides, what kind of selfish person takes three days to go to the hospital when their mom has a stroke? Seriously, fuck her.” Amber began to work on her blanket of prayers once more, her chubby cheeks rising slightly before she replies thoughtfully, “I know and I know that it shouldn’t still bother me. But, it still hurts. I just don’t understand how she can still act like a wild fourteen year old, you know?” Yanking more yarn she added, “When Britt stumbled in here tonight, all drunk and slutty, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. I don’t know why, but she just looked so…well, pathetic. I couldn’t help but think how disappointed mom would be if she had seen her like that.” Amber’s fingers stilled once more before she added, “ Besides, I may not have had a lot of boyfriends, but I still have so many people who love and accept me. I’m not sure she has that.” Clarissa grabbed her nearly finished book and rose to sit next to her sister. Placing one hand between her shoulder blades, she rubbed in light comforting circles. Amber sighed and her shoulders relaxed instantly. “Hey,” Clarissa said quietly, “only a beautiful person with a heart as big as yours could see the pain behind a mask as thick as Brittany’s.” Giggling, Amber added, “It is a pretty thick mask isn’t it!”
“No shit!” Clarissa agreed before adding, “I bet she has to use a sandblaster just to get all that crap off her face every night!” Both throwing their heads back in full bellied laughter, they knew in the backs of their minds that it wasn’t really that funny. They knew, in their hearts, that it was more of a nervous laughter coated in fear.
As their chuckles quieted, Clarissa once again immersed herself within her wonderful fantasy world of mystery, adventure, and lust. An imaginary place where the bad guy always lost and her mother wasn’t attached to machines and tubes working tirelessly to give her a chance for a miracle. Even though Amber returned most of her attention to her blanket, she wondered if her mother would mind if she wove a few prayers for Brittany in her blanket too. Surely she wouldn’t mind sharing a blessing or two with her daughter. So, at least for now, with each loop of the yarn she prayed to whomever would listen that her sister’s heart would find peace from whatever had made it so cruel and hard.
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
Joseph Campbell
Sometimes I sit, and find myself thumbing through the choices of my life. And I wonder, I wonder how my life must look in alternate dimensions.
“Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”
—Leslie Gordon Barnard, WD
Depression, Rage, Humiliation, Shame, Desire
These are all emotions that most people spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars trying to fix or hide from. Some go to shrinks. Some attempt to suppress their feelings with binges on food, alcohol, drugs, and even sex. And for some, the spiritual guru is the ultimate tool leading to their salvation.
I, too, have throughout my 33 years used every single one of the vices/remedies listed above to at the very least conceal my issues. Unfortunately, cupcakes, vodka, and random quotes on how to be a spiritual person have never helped. In my experience, they only lead to shame and ultimately humiliation.
No outside influence that I have found can demolish the ineradicable shell of pain that has taken up residence inside my heart and essence. I recently wrote a poem called Beauty, Hidden. It’s about how I sit and dream of writing something beautiful that will touch people on a heavenly level. However, during my poem I came to the realization that it will never happen. I am incapable of being “that” writer. As an artist, of any kind, we bring to the table our personal experiences. Those experiences not only shape us, but mold the canvases that are gifted to us. Now, I recognize where my gifts lay. The inner turmoil that has plagued me since childhood, that has manifested itself in unhealthy ways, was in reality my artistic gift. Thus, I have come to the conclusion that I will no longer fail at being something I was never meant to be in the first place.
Here, I sit, and I call to everyone who cares to read and hear my plea. Put down your needles, your half-empty bottles of poison, the cream-filled pastries, and the self-help books. Instead, pick a paint brush, a pencil, a laptop, a spray can, a chisel. Anything. Don’t hesitate to drain every lugubrious or outrageous feeling/observation into whatever canvas you can find. Don’t deny yourselves the privilege of standing before your creations, bare and hollow. Because this isn’t just a gift. It’s a calling. An obligation.
“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
—Robert A. Heinlein
“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
—Patrick Dennis
audrey lexington 