Insufficient Context: Notes App Collage

I haven’t had a lot of time or motivation to write much lately, let alone release the second part to my current Past Life project.

I am using whatever time and motivation I have to grow my business and spend the rest with my son.

In small moments: at work, going for a run, or watching Isaac run around our lush garden as I drink my morning coffee on the porch, I get these urges to write things down, sometimes it’s just phrases like:

The seasons change, why can’t you?

I don't remember the context around what most of the thoughts I choose to capture in my notes.

Short thoughts like:

Puny human.

This journey isn’t over until God takes you out.

Turn on the lights and reveal to the world that you’re still a blind, naked, wailing overgrown baby.

You’re falling all over the place, you make mistakes constantly.

You are made out of pure shit.

Pretty harsh, yeah. I have no idea why I wrote all that, but damn, isn't all of that true?

TO ME: people’s notes app entries are fascinating and so incredibly vulnerable. I consider them to be a special kind of art; so much of them pack a massive energetic punch. How many times have I sat in the drivers seat of my parked car typing frantically away on my phone with hot tears streaming down my red face, desperate for relief, or grinning from ear to ear, trying my best to coherently document some special moment so I can look back and read the memory someday.

I know I cannot be the only one who does that. It's all apart of romanticizing my life, for me.

I look back on my writing sometimes, even this blog, and I'm like, WOW. I don't know where or who that came from, but it's profound. I promise it's not me. It's really NOT ME.

I have pulled some of my best lines straight from the notes app and have compiled the most interesting ones. Most of them have no context and I think there’s an art to that. I even included a grocery list because it’s mundane, everyday life stuff amid a long stream of existential consciousness, and that is life itself, isn’t it?

Short but intoxicating bursts of brief panic or ecstasy amid the boring, stuffy tasks you have to complete everyday in order to maintain your quality of life and the lives of those in your care.

Here, you only have a few parts of a picture organized into a word collage. I see it as a type of lazy poetry, I guess.

The way I have compiled them is sort of how my usual stream of consciousness is arranged.

It feels safer to admit everything in bits and pieces than all at once. Less traumatic, less fragmenting.

There's no denying the stream, no stopping it's flow.

Be my witness.

I stand before you, folding and unfolding my arms, twisting up my hands and fingers.

I believe in monsters, but I am not allowed to be afraid of them, as it gives Satan too much power.

I am supposed to laugh with the angels behind and above and below and in front of me.

So I practice a little more each time being gentle with myself

And slowly, with a little mercy, I begin to ascend, my feet hovering above the ground, light from the sky connects with my eye sockets and nostrils and mouth; I love to touch God.

Everything has to end. WILL the world end? What happens after here?

Are we stuck in an Arabian Nights situation?

What kills you? In what ways do you die?

What is wholly beneficial for us has few thrills and not a lot of sodium.

Lord! have mercy

My consciousness looks out of my body and observes.

What emotions come up when anything happens around me?

I am now aware of everything that is going on around me, here I am in the moment.

I only observe the feeling, I don’t immediately take in the thought.

Let your mind be a warm and inviting place for thoughts to come and nourish you.

Let it be a pleasant place for consciousness to exist. This is why so many people commit suicide.

But

Everything

Is

Gonna be okay.

Isn't it always?

Sometimes, I get this delicious feeling. It’s an image in my head, like warm golden light coming through a window, gently laying its light over an unlit room. Shadows bend with ease, gracefully reaching for its toes like a ballerina.

A warm feeling comes over me, starting from my very center and reaching out in union with life. It’s the feeling of love.

I laugh a lot. It’s something I’ve only become fully aware of over the past six or so years.

I have been labeled a “generous laugher” which isn’t bad, but sort of feels a little pathetic.

But not really.

I’m not actually sorry for it, I love to laugh.

It feels good, and I like to feel good, properly above most things I do, feeling good is what I wanna be doing ALL the time.

so I laugh the day away. I've dealt in extremes; in laughter and in rage, my whole life.

Make me laugh and I feel as though you have made love to some part of me. Some ice has broken between us (or glass) I am more comfortable now. We are becoming more intimate in a non-sexual way: play. We still play.

Children teach us how to be, their purity and innocence demands we show them physical love and intimacy without sex being a part of it, and it’s the most powerful feeling; what I just described is unconditional love.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you.

Is our white skin a kind of an “illumination” we are taught to worship?

We are taught to value our whiteness through culture, it’s our "good fortune" we were born with, but it adds to our wickedness.

In the human world, why do humans think we have so little sway over what happens in it? There is evil because we use our power over others to get ahead, to feel good, to throw more sticks on the fire of our own alter; it burns for a moment before going back to normal, needing more kindling to spark it up again. It's a bottomless hole. Echo chasing Narcissus. The snake eating it's own tail.

God knows we would char ourselves to a crumb if we had even a thimble full of His power; we are handicapped like that, destined to do so until we learn to humble ourselves, to accept whatever comes and to have the discipline to remain there until it is time to move.

The cliche phrase "With great power comes great responsibility," is so heavy true.

Everything we are fearful of has something behind it. Inside every person we hate there is an image of Christ. We must roll our eyes from inside our skulls and make an effort to see behind a person’s

fleshy catacomb. We must go inside through their eyes, enter their soul. This means we have to genuinely find love for them, even the monster inside them.

In order to do this, you MUST get burned. It's the ONLY way.

But

Fear not

Burns heal quickly.

A few haikus:

Winter in Memphis

Freezing fingers and ankles

The air is so wet

Food on my clothes; shit

No bed, broken sex couch

Haven’t slept in months

The snow falls heavy

It seems to cover the sun

My head is aching

Get out of my mouth

But please stay and talk to me

You have the best voice

What has beauty done?

Except break these hearts of ours

Makes me want to hide

I am bowing down

To Thee I put my trust, Lord

Save me from myself

We should be happy

We’re blessed beyond reality

We can change the lens

Divine comedy, friend

Don’t take life too serious

Die laughing, my love

Through loving you all

I have fallen in love with me

I am floating now

Making and maintaining friendships as an adult is extremely daunting; an absolute madhouse of a ride, horrifying yet thrilling. But it’s necessary; people are worth the trouble.

Sometimes in a friendship, it’s just both of you looking over every once in a while and smiling, waving, checking in with the other person, both of you with your heads on fire.

Sometimes we are just surviving.

We forget about how our friends have their own burning heads, we hold a glass of water in our hands, and maybe if you dowse me first, I will dowse you and have the courage to go and put out another little fire.

It’s spring time. Wisteria hangs from the trees, choking them out. But it is so hard to look away from its violent beauty.

At the end of each day, these days: I sink back either in my bed or the bathtub, gazing out at the sun going down on my life so far, and today especially.

And If I close my eyes

I can hear laughter. I hear my husband tell me I’m beautiful, I hear the rambunctious yodels of my one year old son. I feel the touch of my own hand on the back of my neck, comforting myself in times of overwhelm.

These days, time feels more precious.

Sometimes I forget that people love me.

There are people I know very well cannot stomach me but I am waking up to the fact that it’s not always personal.

I used to be a whore.

But no more.

A few days ago, someone made the point that

time moves faster as an adult, do you think so, too?

I can recall to my mind’s eye the memory of my wide awake small self getting out of bed in the middle of the night and very quietly creeping into the living room of our first home.

I could climb onto the couch and lay there facing the digital clock on top of the TV.

I would sit and stare at the clock and think about time and numbers. I would try and keep up with the seconds, waiting for the very last number to change. Then I would dissemble the lines of the digital numbers and move them around, build other shapes with them in my mind.

I’d do this until I was tired and go back to bed.

Need:

• Vinegar

• Isopropyl Alcohol 91%

• Big jar

• Bad keepers friend

• Sponges

• Hand soap

• Milk

• Wipes

• Pickles

As a child, we threw tantrums and barely scratched the surface with them.

As adults with power, we throw tantrums and upset the delicate waters around us.

I really wish I could remember this artist's name

Far, far away from this hell-scape, this purgatory, is a place full of pure love and ecstasy.

I grew up with such a fear of hell in me and an idolization of heaven.

I’ve always been in a hurry. It’s been my greatest downfall. Most days, I am filled with a fanatic lust for life, a spur in my side since day one, a need to lap at the nectar of life, to drink every golden moment up and

I had patience tattooed across my left wrist in order to learn it.

If you asked me if I learned it any quicker by doing that, I’d say, maybe.

Everything comes to an end.

Maybe I’ve known that for a while. Even as a child.

I was born near the end.

It’s the end of a season.

Spring and summer, full of fruit. Fertile. Groaning with birthing pains.

Now bring on the harvest, Lord, gather us together.

Reap us.

The sun has made its way back to the wild west. It hangs in the sky and drips into the river below. The light shimmering on the reflection of the water looks like piles upon piles of diamonds.

The leaves on the trees in these mountains are young, soft green. The late afternoon sun makes the tops of the trees glow like halos.

A cricket sings near me. A small yellow butterfly flits around the tree in front.

I look up at the trees above me, we are all on this hill. Only they are planted there forever on a slant.

The leaves and catkins doing a little dance, wiggling and waving above me in the breeze.

In the gold dust of the sunset, I can see bats swooping down to eat bugs underneath the bridge.

It reminds me of when Ethan proposed one July.

This place is near there.

That man gives me the world.

First man to see the the wolf inside me, choosing to feed it anyway.

He sees my fangs

yet

puts his hand on the

human inside.

I hope you never doubt my deep, devoted love for you. I’ve fought hard to bandage up my deepest cuts for you, so I don’t bleed all over you.

I hope you forgive me when I do bleed all over you anyway and

let you down.

My mother always felt wrong.

I can hear my father pleading out loud in the distance: God loves me! God loves me! God loves me!

As if it were a

question

rather than a

statement

A letter to the BOOMERS:

You forget that you also channeled a pipeline into the culture during your day, when the fire inside you was brightest

because that is the journey WE ALL take once we reach adulthood.

Each of us must shift through the TRASH in order to find our way, and we do through prayer to God, with help from our spiritual guides. We are called to become Christs, servants of others instead of self.

Don’t be so harsh and judgemental. You were once confused and needed guidance, and still need it. You haven’t even won yet, you’re just on a different path. And because of the lack of resources you had at the time, you did the best you could with what you knew.

Unfortunately for our ego, each new generation is more spiritually connected and intelligent than we were.

We learn most from our children.

Don’t remain a spiritual baby, today is the beginning!

And CHANGE IS FUCKING INEVITABLE,

HOMIE

Sit with your pain and acknowledge your faults, and learn what your thoughts and emotions are also trying to teach you, angels are always trying to contact you.

Oh.

I love the smell of pine sap and pine needles warmed by the sun.

Something I think would be cool if people sent me some of their vague notes app entries written in a moment of excitement of any kind, and I could make some kind of image to go with what I have personally interpreted it to be.

When you are a sensitive person, moving about the world feels kind of like you are not wearing skin, only you are wearing skin and people can see that, they just don’t know how thick or thin it is.

After having Isaac, I am not only sort of forced out of my shell that has significantly hardened over the past twenty-nine years, but I find myself NEEDING to experience human connection fully, which involves an enormous amount of pain

because when other people’s energy is quite literally rubbing against someone else's spiritual skin-less-ness, or nakedness without any amour, just open arms,

think of Christ

It’s beautiful: the memories of this life that flood my mind. The triumphs and the struggles all come to the forefront and hold hands.

They form the picture of us today whether we like what we see or not, and if you’re still inhaling air then all of these moments work in tandem to make you uniquely who you are today.

Along the way I’ve met incredible, resilient people full of spark and wisdom and legitimate love.

It was never the end of the world

Love people like you love nature. Deep inside everyone is a timid little baby or a tiny fawn.

Approach gently, respectfully.

God, it’s beautiful.

+++

I think I am non binary but I feel comfortable in my female body. I am attracted to women a little bit, I think. It's a spectrum, idk what color I land on.

but I don't sweat it.

Everything really IS vanity. The only thing in the end that matters is love. What you wear, how you look, what you have… what remains is who you were. Your memory will remain with those who loved you.

I am a hypocrite.

thanks 4 readin' Fam