Not Ur Ordinary Consort’s blog

I lay awake, eyes shut, imagining the crackle of my ceiling. My fingers upon the keys of a baby grand, playing a melody I never could. And my mouth opens to sing, to voice a song deep in me. But I never know the words, no Greek chorus singing behind me. At times all I project is a soul shaking cry, but no words, raw emotive sound. I think myself tall, long legs, and a dress that breathes air into its thread. Walking onto a balcony, I step up, standing on the edge. I turn and fall back, into the arms of nothingness. Landing into a pool of water, feeling myself plummet like a boulder. Imagine tense lungs knowing they hold on to the last breath, and cloth and hairs flow with the waters. The cold shock, a sting against the skin. And I sit like a babe in womb, waiting. Do I drown, or do I rise?

This vision has played a hundred times in my mind. Ever since last summer. I think myself submerged, eyes open, seeing the light stream in from above, yet I find myself hesitant to follow it, yield to it, embrace it.

I think of voice. Hear me! I fight me like a beast. See me! And I refuse to take notice of the reflection. How long can I wrestle my own person. My mind wanders, lost in my imagination. Reality is a bitter bite. I live it enough to go unnoticed. But my self narration, my vivid visions and concoctions, the words, the images, it streams through me like a story haphazardly written. Linear is exiled, and I find myself leaping from planes of thoughts, concepts of time, to live in the ideas that never age nor die.

And I float six feet under, murky waters of the mind. Will I rise?

A friend introduced me to Boingboing a year ago. I found the alternative news to be unique, offering articles on topics not seen in mainstream media. However, this concept of open arms fringe media seems to have a harsh bias against religions. From my brief time as a BB reader, I have witnessed most criticism of religion through articles about Scientology. But skimming the feed today, I found an article about growing up Amish. The excerpt highlighted in BB's news involved a succinct list of positive, and precise, malicious barrage of cons:

"-The rape, incest and other sexual abuse that run rampant in the community

-Rudimentary education

-Physical and verbal abuse in the name of discipline

-Women (and children) have no rights

-Religion–and all its associated fear and brainwashing–as a means of control (and an extremely effective means at that)

-Animal abuse"

This piece seems bitterly anti-religious, and focuses on likely everything potentially negative. This same list can be applied to the US culture and society. The US has one of the highest rates of rape and sexual abuse for an industrial nation. Education runs the gamut from poor to excellent, granted the best is usually a luxury for upper middle and high classes. Physical and verbal abuse is likely more pervasive than most realize. Women and children still lack many rights. And political and national propaganda is used as a means of control. I point to the use of fear of future terrorist attacks as a way to pass such things as the Patriot Act, which strips constitutional rights and privacy in the name of "national security," as well as starting and sustaining an 8 year war in Iraq that is nowhere near being abandoned. As for animal abuse, I would examine the methodologies for slaughtering animals. This list can also be applied to other religions and cultural systems.

Another fact that is somewhat alluded to but then declared "false" is that there is a choice to be Amish. During the mid to late teens, teenagers typically go into a liminal state. Known as Rumspringa, this period usually lasts anywhere from 6 months to a year (sometimes more). During this period, teens are granted the freedom to live like the English in dress and lifestyle. I would recommend the documentary The Devil's Playground to watch how Amish teens live and cope in the English world during this limbo state. Many will experiment with drugs, drink, live outside the Amish community, drive, etc. After the period of Rumspringa concludes, teens are to decide if they want to remain in the English world or return to the Amish community. If they choose to remain in the English society, they will be considered to have chosen to live in the profane (as opposed to the sacred) realm, and will have to sever ties with the Amish community (including their family).

Granted, the choice to live in the English culture will potentially sacrifice all the Amish teens have known and the people they love, but there are those that have walked away, and a high percentage actually return to the community. This liminal period is granted because the point is to be assured that the choice to live Amish is a conscious choice and that when one returns, will be dedicated and better comprehend why they live the way they do.

And I have to say, the portion of "Escaping the Amish" that is being presented in public domain makes me quite skeptical. The examples or precise moments in life that are detailed really are somewhat generic. As a child, my father would have to take a branch from a rose bush and take it to his mother to be beaten, which isn't a far cry from a piece of chopped wood. The portion detailing a brief contemplation of suicide seems somewhat amiss, and I find it odd that a female was taught to hunt and shoot as that isn't common in Amish culture.

There can be critique in regards to gender roles and prejudices in Amish culture. During Rumspringa, females are more likely to retain traditional dress rather than English attire, and are more likely to stay at their home in the Amish community rather than live off site. But this isn't always the case.

I would hope that BB would offer a spectrum of views on religion, but religious themed articles seem to focus around a negative interpretation and perpetuation of religion. Also, these articles are often not based on academic analysis or methodologies; so, I hope BB is confident in the blogging excerpts and news they post for thousands to view. Take responsibility in offering a more balanced framework in presenting analysis and critique of religions. I would expect better and more ethical standards from a news outlet.  

Today the heavens mourned, wept like a heartbroken mistress. Do you too feel betrayed? And still I look up at the sky, gray and melancholy. But nothing comes. Rain meeting metal and road, fits of lightning and thunder.

Still I am bothered. Death, a perplexing state. Justification is a skilled art in such morose terrain. But it leaves me unsettled when I hear a death was Needed. Needed? Through this death will bring others close to god. The logic rattles me. And I peer up again, wondering to myself how it has managed to become a divine masterpiece.

She was not a lamb for your slaughter. 

I thought this over and over for two days now. I repeat it like a prayer. And each time I mouth it, this deep conviction of mine, it stirs me madly.

I saw this film in a fit of ugly mood. I wanted isolation, and planted myself in a chair, hoping this little robot could turn me.

Seeing the preview for the film alone stirred an emotion in me. Those wide eyes staring into a star speckled sky. His name a brief narration, his voice itself seemed awkward like a lanky teen, a hint of struggle and perseverance.

In a desolate Earth, Wall-E found beauty. He converted garbage, humans' pollution, into a literal creation and city, a unique progressive piece of art. And in sifting through the clutter, he found relics. Pieces of beauty that survived beneath it all. At first, I thought it almost naive nostalgia for a culture he never knew, but only had pieces to the puzzle. But in truth, Wall-E was able to extract the best attributes of human culture. The prominent one being love. A need for interaction, affection, an intimate relationship between two that is unique. And this was what he longed for, and throughout the entire film desired the small yet momentous act of having his love hold his hand.

But another theme drew my focus more. The power of Hope. Wall-E never falters in this, and his actions arise from the hope that there is more to the place he lives, more to life he lives, and with the meeting of Eve, the hope of love. This also becomes embodied within the hero's elixir: the plant. It is life that has sustained itself in the lifeless. It is the hope for a new beginning between the partners of humans and Earth. And it is Wall-E who must carry out the journey to bring life back to the culture he has only come to know through random remnants.

It seems with every encounter that a being has with Wall-E, he drastically changes their life or perception. Eve's transformation takes longer, but in the end, she comes to understand the concept of love, and the need to have Wall-E with her, to remember her, to acknowledge her as uniquely related to him in a way that no other is. Wall-E's encounter with the cleaning bots alters one bot's path. He literally hops off the track he is meant to follow in order to pursue Wall-E's steps, and to clean them up. But this act of defiance from his protocol in order to pursue a need, an obsession, leads to his eventual development to self-thought. During his time on the ship, Wall-E meets three humans, all of which he somehow disturbs or awakens from their entranced states of laziness and oblivion. At the moment that these characters meet Wall-E, they begin to be transformed. They start to be introspective, are fueled by desires they have not known. The desire for knowledge, the desire to have interaction and love, to make decisions independently rather than being mere sheep in a flock.

However, Eve is the difficult one. Rigid, meant for one mission, she fends off Wall-E for a good while. It is only when her memory is recollected that she truly sees Wall-E. The bot who watched over her, stayed by her, followed her light years away from his home, all to ensure her safety and be with her. Even then it isn't enough to complete Eve's transformation. In the hero's journey, it is typical for a death and rebirth to occur. It is necessary because only then can the new hope come to fruition, become a reality rather than an abstract thought and emotion. And Wall-E is not free of this in his journey. It is only when Wall-E has gone through a form of death, death to his memories and personality, a death or separation from Eve, it is then that she realizes Feeling, she understands Love. Because it takes the absence of Wall-E, of his recognition of her, for her to realize how much she needs it and wants it. It is at the moment that Wall-E is dying that she no longer cares about her original mission. Her mission has become to help her love. She has transformed into a being that is independent and makes choices, and knows love.

Though there are other important themes woven into the film, these are the two that are at the foundation of all the others: Hope and Love. From those will right action and right thought come. They are pure emotions that foster pure intention and pro-activism in life and in relationships with others and the world.

So it all begins with hope and love...

I got caught in reveries, memories that have yet to form outside my mind, in images of color and light. My eyes never on the road. Always scanning the texture and hues of walls, taking note in the time of day and how light hits brick bodies. Never can you know the curves of a body until it engulfs the screen and you trace it gingerly, a free lasso, steady surgeon hand, and you see how the cheek convexes, the underlying tints of skin, a smile often missed in the eye of a lens or given to a fleeting moment. It is beauty, at the core of nature, it makes this journey worth the trek.

I cried for a soul I don't know, but I heard her voice. Nothing else required but a song, and it revealed her.

And I wonder if this is the balance. For every hundred that cry, a hundred are to be laughing. For every blissful orgasm given, ten angels smile. Is that a valid quantifier? I often wonder the magnitude of emotion that constructs those few moments of sensual and spiritual elevation. Is it not a hundred souls worth of joy, love, sedation, contentment. A frozen blip where a word is unfit for use, just a sigh, a release from somewhere deep in the core, and how easily the craving arises. 

Today I have revealed my secret. I have smiled and cried. Felt assured in my path, but question my strength and skill. Slowly I carve away at the masterpiece of my soul, chiseling out the person I long to become. If I pray, it is no longer to something above. Rather, it is in hope that my words will be carried to the ear, to the heart of the one who has settled upon my mind, and perhaps tonight, they will know a moments piece, find a smile upon them, or feel the sigh that comes from great pleasure or great tears, that sweet release from the center of being that in one exhalation of air releases the body of negativity and harm. So tonight, I will pray...

I went in to use the restroom, and found this in the stall.

IMG00029

I had sushi with a friend last night. I hadn't seen her in months, and our last meeting was unfortunately brief; so our couple of hours Thursday evening was refreshing. But I thought it odd that in the same day, two people I know mentioned my lack of assertiveness. The first person is a new friend, so he hasn't known me for long, but the other, she is familiar with me. And her words basically translated into "What happened to you?" A good question...

I've debated for some time on delving into this topic in public domain, and I may not still. But those closest to me know parts of my personality have changed in the past year. Before college graduation, I was Priscilla the outspoken feminist, the opinionated writer and conversationalist, never did I hesitate to fall into a public debate with friends or strangers alike. I was the Priscilla who left what I know to travel to India for a month not fathoming the wonderful and tragic experiences and sites. If something crazy was to be done, I was usually the culprit (Exception would be Anna...she drank snake's blood after all...I'm so jealous). If someone was to be open, a bleeding heart, sharing all so that others can be at comfort or no longer feel alone, it was me. That Priscilla was a novel you could thumb through. And being such garnished me equal troubles and rewards.

But then I wove a chapter in my life that changed everything. Several weeks into the last semester of college, I began a relationship with a fellow RELS major. It was problematic because he wasn't mine to have. But it was hard not to fall for someone who intellectually I adored, conversation was never dull, and I thought him a good man at the time. Had he never kissed me, then perhaps the following months would have never taken place. The promises that he'd leave her, and the future we could share.

Having a degree that is seemingly unpractical to the majority of career fields, I had been arranging to teach abroad. And along the way he said he would join me. In my mind, I foolishly thought as if this was my skewed fairytale. To be teaching in a foreign land, study religion(s), and be with someone I love who enjoys all the same things. But there were complications...first...he never really loved me. He cared, but it wasn't love. There was not compassion or empathy or compromise. The compromises he made were based on what he thought was appropriate, but always fell short of what I openly asked for and needed. And a relationship that itself is based on secrecy, lies, and repeated disappointments made me have no trust in him. I thought if he could do this to her, what is to say he couldn't and wasn't doing the same to me?  After graduation, I saw him the next evening before he left for Alabama and I for Greece and Turkey for two weeks. But something was awry.

It was only after I returned that I knew. And it changed everything. The day I got my cement shoes and a bleeding soul. And he was useless. From then on the distance grew. I had underestimated myself. And found days where I could not get out of bed, where I cried myself to sleep, cried to work, cried quietly in my cubicle or hid in an unused office, cried on the drive home, and cried some more. One day he looked at me, my face covered in tears, and he said, "Are you done being crazy! Can we have a good day today!?" And I fell numb. If he was any good he would have known I just needed to be held.

Then he changed plans. No longer was he S. Korea bound with me, but rather running back to his parents who were in Europe. And as he left for two weeks on a Greyhound bus, I spent most nights crying, asking friends to stay over so I wouldn't have to be alone. I just needed someone to be next to me as I slept or else I could not rest. The isolation and my mind were driving me insane, deeper down into an abyss that I had never fallen before, and I had no idea how to save myself. Friends didn't know what to do. Didn't know what to say. Didn't talk about it ever again. If I didn't speak, they wouldn't dare broach it. I remember one of my best and longest known friends had called late one night when all of it began to unravel. And after we got off the phone, he had left the bar and his friends, walked miles back to his apartment, crying; crying about me, crying about his problems, crying about our lives that had steered horribly off course from the paths we had dreamed of back in high school. At least I know one person cried with me.

Before he returned, I had to decide to either travel to S. Korea alone or stay in Charleston and take the full time position my work was offering. Finding myself psychologically and emotionally unstable, I didn't think it a sound choice to travel alone to a foreign country for a year and hope that I could find stable footing again. The day I took the position, I had slept only two hours, went into work with bloodshot eyes, so dry that it hurt to cry, and my boss stared at me never seeing me in such a state the couple of years he'd known me. He wouldn't expect that state from me. And I asked for some time off, I needed to be away. He wouldn't let me go until he knew, and so I spilled it all, crying into my hands, mumbling everything that had happened in that past month. He asked if a week was enough, and I said I didn't know. It is likely the kindest I have ever seen him and ever will. My time off was dedicated to my bed, crying, and ruminations. It was as if I had been consumed by dozens of emotions, and felt them all simultaneously. My mind and soul couldn't cope.

When he returned, it was likely one of the best nights we'd ever had. We talked for hours, ate at a 24hr IHOP in the early AM, and it felt like it did in the beginning. I thought this is the man I fell for, and surely things will look up. But one night is barely a band aid fix. I wasn't getting better, and he did little to understand or help. I found myself yelling in the car one day, "I am not better! I am not getting better!" Then silence.

I think of the numerous times I thought about quitting him. How I wish I had done it before we graduated, then all that happened wouldn't have. When he left that August, I didn't cry as much as I thought I would over him. If I cried, it was because of the soul wound that hadn't healed. I found myself constantly fatigued, stricken with fluctuating emotions, either wanting complete isolation or needing someone around. By the end of September, we didn't talk anymore. By then I only cried several times a week. By late fall, I cried only several times a month. And by winter, I vowed to be reincarnate.

And sometimes I still cry. I cried today in the shower thinking about it again. But I never attempt to squash the feelings. I permit myself to feel it in all it's intensity because it is the only way I get better. But those several months and choices changed the course of my future. It made me much more introspective, separated from others, and somewhat unsociable. It is still difficult for me  to get out and meet people even now. I struggle in large crowds, and do better with one or two people. Even then, I find myself wondering if I'm boring or have anything of value to talk about. These particular insecurities I have never known before. I find it odd that I have lost some my assertiveness, and to a certain extent my tongue.

For months, I allowed myself to stay in a place emotionally and mentally that was devastating. Everything had gone wrong. And I had no one but my own mind to help me get through. I will add that this is no fault to my friends because they all will vouch that historically, I am stubbornly independent and in all honesty, had never needed help before this, or help of this magnitude. Usually, if someone is doing the helping, it's me. And I didn't exactly reach out, I didn't want to be a burden to anyone. My thoughts were very incoherent, almost stream of consciousness, these waves of emotion, it was barely enough for me to contain and digest let alone pouring that emotional deluge onto others.

So, I suppose I have lost a bit of the Priscilla I was. But in saying that, I think I have changed in other ways as well. I feel much more empathetical, tolerant of others' situations and views. I think I finally let myself feel more than I ever had before. I had learned early on after my mother's death that being emotional wasn't a state of mind I wanted to be, and for a long time, I thought emotion and conveying emotion was a weakness. Not only do I feel more, but I appreciate so much more. And I find myself wanting to live twice as hard as before, to be twice as dedicated to my dreams and seeing them come to fruition. I feel the life I lead is no longer just about me, but it's for another as well.

I've accepted that I won't be the same. But I'm also on the path to finding a balance of who I was and what I am becoming, and all I can do is embrace it and nurture it more than I have ever done before.

My ring stopped spinning. It's broken.

I wonder. Perhaps I should stop spinning my prayers and meditations away and find a way to answer them myself.

It was rare that I ever used it for such. Mostly I spun it out of nervousness. Feeling the metal, focusing on turning it quickly, it calms me. I don't think anyone ever noticed though.

This strange place.

I sat waiting in the dim corner, scholarly armchair and books abound, wondering what an odd place to await for my doctor. He came in through the side door, found me there, and confused, he asked what was I waiting for. Dr. Osborne, I said. 'Oh, well then, that might be me.' And he grabs his white coat and asks if I have anywhere to be. No, just here. Then come, help me feed the birds. So, we stood outside, and I watched him fill the feeder, seed falling everywhere, and I noticed the birds nearby, as if they had just been waiting to see him. To think, this was the man that would be my new gyno. I fed birds with him. Was questioned on why I'm not on birth control. I have ill side effects, it makes me disinterested. His eyes bearing low at me, "Funny, studies usually show it increases drive. Know why? Because there's no fear of pregnancy!" And I just laugh and brush it off, I know my body sir, read all the damn studies you want. Silly man, but I like him. If he wasn't a skewed soul, I'd think him dull. And for good measure, I was prescribed nothing but his sound advice, 'Call if you need anything, and lose some weight.' Yes, I know...working on it...in a roundabout way.

And lately, I've been ruminating on Creativity. This bitch muse I can't seem to grasp. At times I feel it fall upon me, accidental in its meeting with my mind. I thought of the evolution of me over the years. As a child, I sketched often, houses, people, hands, eyes. I was fond of drawing multiple faces on a page, aging the person over the years. My maternal grandmother is a painter, and my father has quite the unused artistic hand. But somewhere along the way, my penciled lines became words, letters falling onto the page. Poems, short stories, the eventual and painstaking novella.  How I love words. How I hate words. My tongue feeling on the tip of profound, but the feeling, the nature of a moment, seemed cheated in translation. I am always angry when I can't find the right words, and I think stupid girl, if you only knew more than maybe you'd have them. A good story is like a well woven blanket, each thread serving purpose and strengthening the whole, just like each word serves to point in the direction of the tale. But writing is my true passion, my true pain. It hurts when I write, but it hurts when I refrain. Fighting it too much makes me restless, prone to insomnia, and the ideas haunt me like hungry ghosts, how they die in my mind when I refuse the call to take the pen to paper.

But then my distraction came in an unexpected form. Photography. How it was so subtle in its presence before. And my pen fell so that I could grasp the lens. Half a year in and I think is this where I belong. The writer in me is clawing at my innards, as if I cheated her, finding another lover. And my pictures have felt absent of sorts. A link missing I'm not sure I've unearthed. But on the brink of sleep, late one night last week, it came to me. Words...go back to the words. And if I could find no photo in life current, then I can create from the conjured word. If soul is lacking, bring it the only way I know how, start with the logos, let it lead me to the birth of an image. And the muse has come forth, hidden all this time.

And so it begins with the word...but I still wonder if this is where I truly belong...

How am I to react when I hear co-workers lament about California's decision to permit gay marriage? How they use terms like "disgusted" at viewing a lesbian couple kiss on television. I want to scream from my cubicle, lash out, and yell "Is that love?! What would your Jesus say about your hate?"

Or the chain e-mails. Yes, I've touched on this in previous entries, but they just keep coming. Subject: Mocking God. Gives a list of people around the world who publicly "mocked" god, and then soon thereafter died through mysterious means or were murdered. Point? Are you saying these people deserved to die and the means in which they did so is justified? Are you saying that god is such an ego maniac that out of everything going on in the UNIVERSE that god is fretting over a person's words? Are you implying that some metaphysical force manipulated the lives of these people to bring death? Because that would be the same force that ushers in the "miracles" I hear often spoken about. Are you saying god is more inclined to intervene in a situation where s/he is questioned or mocked rather than intervening in a situation where one is suffering? Is there an implication that god would rather bring death upon a person who mocks his/her presence/intention rather than bestow a revelation or unconditional love? I'm confused. What is the purpose of your god again?

Outside of work, I read about the pope's continuation of forbidding the ordination of women. This suddenly stirred an image in my mind of Jesus standing at a Catholic altar, and as his mother Mary approaches, he raises a hand, stops her in mid step, and says to his beloved parent, "You are profane. Your body is impure. This is no place for you." I mean, IMAGINE, Jesus saying to the woman who carried him in her womb, raised a son meant to change religious history, cared for him, knelt at his feet as he was crucified...to say to her YOU ARE PROFANE. I may no longer be a practitioner of Christianity, but I do not doubt that Jesus would do no such thing, not to his mother, not to any woman imbued with such a spiritual plight. So what gives a man, an institution, the right to determine what is given divine right to serve people spiritually, to be a leader within the community through their religion?

I meet an old beard ridden gent, eyes and a smile like Robin Williams, that causes my intuition to be suspicious. He's the kind of man that I could picture saying he needs to go to the back to find something, and then walks back out into the living room wearing nothing but faded underwear and his shin high socks, grinning that freaky Robin Williams smile. ::Shivers:: Anyway, he spoke of a niece who was in a relationship with a black man, had his child, and when his sister sent him a picture of the newborn, tore it up, and vowed never to speak to his sister again. He didn't believe in that sort of thing he said. I sat appalled.

The question I deal with is the act of tolerance. I feel people have a right to their beliefs, but I struggle to be tolerant of the intolerant. I often wonder if I should bite my tongue or let the potential debate ensue. I often choose to not confront a person. For one thing, I hate confrontation. It leaves my gut in shambles, I am sick, physically ill after a fight or intense debate. My pulse feels like I've been climbing a mountain, and on the worst occasions, I not only breakdown weeping, but find my hands uncontrollably shaking.

I also have to consider the place at hand. Typically, these situations occur at work. I make great efforts to not cause tension in the workplace. Thus, I avoid topics of religion and politics unless blatantly asked. Most know I am a liberal, but beyond that, I don't make a point to broach these topics and have only been in debates about both with my head boss. I believe he does so to purposely antagonize me. I think he enjoys the debate, seeing me get fired up, and in the end, he says I am just misguided youth. It irks me a bit just to think about it.

But I wonder if my efforts to be tolerant are actually counterproductive. I wonder if these people have ever given serious thought to why they believe what they do. Must they always believe the voice from the pulpit?  I ponder if they have ever stepped back far enough to extend an empathetical mind, to wonder if put in a different position, how would they feel? Do they not realize the hate underlined in their comments and email forwards? How does their heart not ache when they read the same things I have been given by them? It boggles my mind. Does my silence further perpetuate their acts? Nothing is ever simple.

So, I vent in my writings. I discuss aloud with friends. And it is not something I alone struggle with, this fine line. But if my coworkers feel right in their speech and actions, not considering a counter view to even be present or vocal, then should I consider taking up the same mind frame to point out their lack of consideration for others? But then would that be intolerance? And would vocalizing my intolerance of these things make them more tolerant in the future?

I'm still unsure...this will require greater thought than just several paragraphs of rambling.