(Note: the sky photos featured in this post were taken while I was driving. I kept my eyes on the road, Mom. I promise.) (New Feature: Scenes From a Vehicle In Transit?) (I am the vehicle.) (I have no idea where I’m going.)
It’s trying to snow. Intermittent objects that drift down from the sky. Not even recognizable as flurries. Just flakes. Here and there.
It tried to snow the first Thanksgiving we spent in Asheville, too. Why does this year feel so much like starting over?
——Original Message——
From: faithrhyne@gmail.com
To: faithrhyne@gmail.com
ReplyTo: faithrhyne@gmail.com
Subject: Thanksgiving 2
Sent: Nov 26, 2009 4:20 PM
Today we planted fifty-four pansies. Olive fed earthworms to chickens. Leo played out back.
I folded the perennial laundry, but failed to put it away.
My throat hurts. I’m taking near-expired antibiotics. Hoping that they work. I cannot be sick again. (See: DaSwine.)
I am battling pre-menstrual melancholia. I like to think of my moods as hormonally-hinged. That way, I can pretend that nothing’s wrong – it’s just biology.
Funny how well my hormonally-based mood responds to sitting on the porch drawing, watching the bright day grow cloudy. Not saying a single word.
Perhaps I talk so much out in the world, virtually bursting with stories and commentary, because at home, every chance I get, I don’t say a word. Given the noisy and glorious fact of my children, silence is precious.
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show details Nov 25 (2 days ago)
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It’s Wednesday. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. It will not invovle turkey. Guaranteed. It may involve chickens. Meaning that I will scrub their poop from the front steps, where they sneak to sit in the sun. I like to garden alone on holidays. Perhaps this year I will get to spend hours engaged in my own brand of solo thankfulness. I will have no pies to wrap. I will have no bread to be mindful of. I will not eat a dead bird just to be social, to not offend, to placate and prove I am easygoing and likeable.
No, I will be uptight about the garden. About what stays, what goes, where bulbs are buried. I will be outside. No napkin on my lap, my hands filthy. I will be in the yard with my flock of live birds.
For this I will be thankful.
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show details Nov 24 (2 days ago)
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I can’t believe, I lied. 
My fibbing about having mended dresses with the borrowed Singer just blows my mind.
The truth is, I wanted to mend dresses – mostly Olive’s from where she absent-mindedly scissored the hems in a major way.
I even intended to hem dresses. The machine sat on my table for 36 hours. Plugged in, ready to go. Then a million other things kept happening and I gave the machine back early and not a single dress was hemmed.
I guess I was flattered that the friend I’d borrowed the Singer from would think I might be in the middle of a “big project”.
The distance between a “big project” and un-mended dresses was, I guess, at that moment too vast.
So, I mended the dresses in a small lie.
Stupid. The girl who always tries to tell the truth busts a lie of compromise about sewing. What the f*ck?
I feel sort of tired and silly. Weary and uncertain. Flustered. It’s been a long few days.
I’m sorry that I lied about something. Even though it’s unlikely that such a small lie would have any consequence at all, other than making me feel like a big, fibbing loser.
I need to get over this whole truth thing. Today, being bound by truth feels like a burden.
‘Cause what is truth anyway? I dunno…but, it ain’t un-mended dresses.
I’m getting my own machine repaired soon. I’ve called around, but everyone I’ve spoken to seems to be wary of a Pfaff. It’s the silent ‘P’ that scares them. That’s the truth.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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show details Nov 23 (3 days ago)
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I was so powerless, I could barely feel a thing.
And when, finally, it was done – I slowly came back to life. I got my senses back…literally.
The world seems brighter than it has in years and everything is some simple joy. At times I am almost unbearable to be around, I feel so dang lucky. So dang…I dunno, reverent.
Mine is a life of second chances. Lots of them.
This is supposed to be a blog about drawing everyday and artistic process. I have a hard time staying on topic though. I still try to draw everyday, even though I hardly talk about drawing at all, anywhere. It is something I do in my car. Quickly and without much fanfare these days. In the early weeks of this project I became immersed in drawings that took hours. Now I am immersed in emailing myself. I am trying desperately to remember this time, because it has been so lovely. Even awful things become gilded sources of potential wisdom. I’m off the cortisol.
(The worst transition in the history of written transitions is coming up next…)
Now, why do I think sex has become an insidious force in our culture? Look around. Our biological means of procreation have become so grossly distorted by ulterior motives (pleasure, so many different forms of power…) that the biological purpose of sexual intercourse has become increasingly secondary to the cultural use of the act and its various accoutrements.
It really freaks me out that an act intended to produce children to form some sort of bonded clan has funded so many strange and awful cultural transactions. Even free love is bought and sold, bartering of subliminal selves, the loss of which perpetuates further digression.
Digression from/into what? Where? I’ll tell you where. The place looks like here. We are foolishly trapped in a sexual orbit that detracts from our humanity. Some say that what separates humans from other species in the Kingdom Animalia is our use of language. I would like to say that what I think separates us is our will over instinct. Perhaps our linguistic savvy is some contributing factor to this will, but ultimately it is our ability to be consciously self-directive in our actions and reactions.
But, when it comes to sex, we may as well be bonobos, those lusty primate cousins (?not debating evolution, not here?) of ours.
It’s actually disgraceful (or ungraceful, ungracious, lacking grace?) – the way perfectly dignified human beings degrade themselves in power transactions of a sexual nature. We lust like monkeys, but we complicate that simple lust with language and meaning. Our brains complicate our bodies’ longings, and – of course – vice versa.
The result is what we see in the United States today. A hypersexual, media-driven culture that reinforces itself to the point of possible nihilism. A sad place littered with a million bajillion broken hearts, with lesions on it’s street corners, and sexy panties in dark store windows. It scares me, scares me, scares me..
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That an act so pure in purpose and with such potential for tenderness and truth has been so tragically abused, largely in the interest of transactions of power and/or money. I would like to protest this tragic manipulation of our biological selves.
I would like to stand up against the cultural/commercial forces that make us look so sad and stupid in our fancy underwear.
The only thing I can do is not have sex. At least not until I am “in a respectful, committed relationship” with some I trust… I tell myself the same things I tell the young people I work with. These things, the pros and cons, make more and more sense to me.
Of course, I may never be in another relationship again. But, who cares? As far as I’m concerned, I have two lovely kids and thus my biological drive to reproduce has been somewhat satisfied. I can trick myself with the right hand of reason.
Of course, I am in my early thirties and it’s seeming to be an interesting time to practice what I preach. But, that’s another story.
The thing is, it’s just not worth it in the end. It’s just too loaded a thing to do. No pun intended. (Awful pun, by the way.)
Someday, with someone. But, it will have to be different than it has been. There will have to be an absence of power. I keep my ankles crossed these days. There is purity in love, but I think that love-without-power is more rare than we’d like to believe.
Sad. But, true.
PROOF OF GOD! ...and other tragedies. 