mind hybernation...everything is culminating, surfacing, everything is about to begin

Why do I write? I write because I kept my mouth shut all my life and the secret ego truth is I want to live eternally and I want my people to live forever. I hurt at our impermanence, at the passing of time. At the edge of all my joy is the creeping agony that this will pass--this Croissant Express at the corner of Hannepin Avenue in Minneapolis, a great Midwestern city in mythical America, will someday stop serving me hot chocolate. I will move on to New Mexico where no one knows how it feels to be here with the sudden light of afternoon, the silver of the ceiling, the half-smell of croissants baking in the oven

I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me and even more amazing, I don't know. Now that it's spring I can't remember what it felt like to be in forty below. even with the heat on, you could feel mortality screaming through the thin walls of your house.

I write because I am crazy, schizophrenic, and I know it and accept it and I have to do something with it other than go to the loony bin.

I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman tyring to stand up in my life. I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing then dare to write it down so you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know. I am trying to come out alive, to find the distances in my own recesses and bring them forward and give them color and form.

I write out of total incomprehension that even love isn't enough and that finally writing might be all I have and that isn't enough. I can never get it all down, and besides, there are times when I have to step away from the table, notebook and turn to face my own life.

And I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have.

-Natalie Goldberg

When you lose, don't lose the lesson

All is vanity. My friend used this phrase as the caption when posting some pictures of us on Facebook. How so very appropriate as a segway into my thoughts...

I believe everyone is their own little walking universe. Our world, everything that's happening around us, is certainly shaped by our actions. And the universe tries to tell us things. Question is, will we listen? I've lost several things over the course of this past year. And by "things" I mean both material and personal relationships. I have been so bogged down by vanity. My planetary solar system stripped me over and over, yet I'm still not naked. The fog is slowly clearing. Not with judgement or recrimination, but with a willingness to move on.

I made this realization walking to work, after a mild post-drunken depression, grappling with the idea of possibly having an alcohol problem, thinking back to the hope I'd put in that damned fortune cookie that said good luck was forthcoming, thinking it ironic, when I saw a shattered full length mirror leaning against a building. I kind of lost my shit a little. The idea that propelled this whole epiphany was initially feeling grateful for not having a full length mirror in my new apartment. I had been pondering how it was probably healthy to strip yourself of your attachments for a while, to balance things out, to add another aspect to your character and make yourself whole. Without a mirror, I had to more or less let go of the idea of looking 'perfect' before leaving the house. I battle with a narcissistic tendency when it comes to my looks. Being so attached to my vanity and needing to look a certain way every time I leave the house has impeded me professionally and financially, as I'm nearly always late and am constantly spending money on shit I don't need. It takes me forever to get ready. Ask anyone who knows me.

Shit. My face was being pushed into it.

I also realize I've probably been a wreck lately because I haven't written at all in weeks. When I don't write, I become a quiet storm. Or the incredible hulk.

Shit. The universe speaks...