March 2018
Beneath tika and
wax, I am recreated
in your need for me.
575: ugly sacred (Nepal, March 2018)
March 2018
Art
March 2018
575: sleepers (Nepal, March 2018)
Kathmandu, Nepal
In the royal square,
the brick, soft and red and worn,
shelters all bodies
575: standing among giants (Nepal, March 2018)
March 2018
Mountains pierce the sky.
Clouds clot over fallen snow,
as white as penance.
We went to Nepal almost two years ago now. This photo was taken during our descent from Annapurna Base Camp, looking across to the distinct silhouette of Machapuchare, which stands at 22,943 feet. It is said to be the home of Lord Shiva (Hindu), and due to its holiness is off limits to climbing, though we talked with locals who claimed to have climbed it and have flown drones over it.
I’d like to think there are some things that are out of our reach, and sacred, but know this is a naive sentiment. Maybe we can still experience awe at the grandness in nature, in the face of the things that are bigger than we are.
Hello, Monday, you salty cur (the writing life)
Here we are. A fresh sparkling new week. The thing about newness is that, theoretically, it has none of the baggage and missed ambitions of the last week. We don’t have to drag our guilt over all those goals and priorities we didn’t get to last week into this week.
Reset.
Restart.
Refresh.
It’s a powerful and blessed place to be.
I especially appreciate a new start when I’ve been uber stressed at work, and decided to try to blog every day for the month of September, and thereby neglect my young adult novel project, which I had classified as a 2019 priority all the way back in January. Add everything up, hit enter, and the sum is a general resistance to do anything but the basics. Divide by a fierce streak of anti-social introversion, and you get the inevitable answer.
Don’t worry; this isn’t a pity party. I’m talking call-to-arms. It’s time to break out the big girl pants, reflect, and set a new course (one with far fewer cliches than this post).
I go through periods like this, ones punctuated with creative stagnation. Stagnation is not exactly right. Let’s call it resistance. Sabotage might be just as appropriate.
The closer I am to the end of the project, the farther away I am from finishing it. I liken it to being at the edge of a black hole. It will suck you in. That is undeniable. But while you’re poised on the precipice, that moment seems to last forever.
A— is going through something similar with his painting. Last night, on Sunday, we talked about it.
What do we want? What are we trying to achieve? And why is it important to us? If something is important enough, you can overcome all of your excuses and your idiosyncrasies. But it has to be a real priority to you. Like eating. Like drinking water. Like moving your body.
Last night, I decided I was the keeper of my fate. Writing is important to me, as is becoming a bonafide successful published author. I don’t expect every day to go perfectly according to plan, but I have to commit to showing up and doing my best. As I’ve written here before, you eat an Argentinosaurus one bite at a time.
A– and I made a commitment to each other last night. We will fight for time for our art, and we’ll hold each other accountable. No apologies. No excuses. You just do. Or you just don’t.
What will you do with your fresh start?
575: relics of war (Slovenia, July 2019)
The earth swells, wavelike,
frozen at its peak, never
breaking over scars.
R– and I met a lovely woman on the last night of our trek through the Julian Alps. Sitting on the deck of the hut, with kittens roaming around for attention and white stone rock faces rising in the distance, we chatted as the sun shifted out of view, and our cans of Union beer ran dry. We talked politics and gender identity. We talked home and geography. We talked history. In particular, the history of this place.
The Slovenian native shared that the Julian Alps were part of the front during World War I. Supply lines ran through the mountains, and eventually fighting took place there, too. According to her, many of the structures, as well as the trails, were built in support this violent effort.
It’s hard to imagine such ugliness and hardness in such a place of beauty, even though I know people are confronted with this contrast all over the world daily.
The knowledge added so much depth and texture to our trip. This wasn’t just nature; this was history. War machines had quite possibly carved or rolled over some of the very trails we tread. An overlapping of memories, those made and those in the making, within that space.
I don’t know if either of the photos features structures built during the WWI effort, but I imagine they looked something like this.
575: hollow on the inside
take this spark, sink
it in your soft tissue like
a shrapnel blossom.
The Prometheus sculpture resides near the Butcher’s Bridge in Ljubjana, Slovenia. Made by renowned sculptor, Jakov Brdar, this piece is one of three installed around the bridge. I love the aesthetic of his work. Monstrous, half-formed, but still infused with elegance. The line of the body, the curve of the ribs. It feels made and unmade in the same breath.
protocols for being human: stop being so precious
I was listening to a podcast, called the The Health Code, which is put on by an Aussie couple, and one of the things Sezzy (the woman) said that really stuck out to me was “Stop being so precious.” This immediately clicked with me and made instant sense in the context of my own life.
What does “being precious” mean in the first place? I can’t be 100% sure how they meant it, but I take it to mean letting go of perfection. Letting go of the expectations you build around a task or activity or interaction. It also has connotations that we need to stop whining when something is hard, and that we need to lean in when we might think we’re too delicate, and really just want to run away.
A— calls this “steering into the storm”.
Honestly, I love this notion. We can put up so many barriers to pursuing things we claim are important to us. Like only writing when we’re inspired, or only writing when we can immediately drop into flow state and stay there for hours. Or only doing an activity we’re good at. Or shying away from the next hike because the last one was 20% traumatic, 15% exhausting, and 65% amazing. Or not going for that run because we only want to go when we can crush it and put up our best pace yet.
These are all examples of being precious. And being precious gets in the way of making progress.
I feel the greatest growth not when everything is serendipitous and I have blue birds flitting about and resting on my shoulders. My growth happens when I have to fight for it, whatever the it is in that instance. Like getting up at 4:45 A.M. to write for a 5-minute microsprint. Or working out every day. Or doing walk-jog intervals for only 15 minutes with embarrassing performance because, after years of intermittent injuries, my body can’t yet sustain the 6-mile runs I used to pound out with joy.
I have plenty of moments of treating myself like a fragile object. Most of the time I know I can not only do better, but I can do more. The thing I’m kicking myself for right now is not having touched my book project since the 7th of September even though I’m so very very close to getting to the next stage: shopping the material! Why am I being so stupidly precious about it, and extending my timeline by months already?
Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you want to achieve in this life? How are you investing your energy in those most important things? Are you being precious?
575: overheard
Repeated dark thoughts,
little endemic species,
aspire to war.
The text making up this particular haiku are phrases pulled from the following podcasts: Crime Junkie (Murdered: Yingying Zhang), In Defense of Plants (Amber Time Capsule), and Throughline (the Puerto Rico episode). This is loosely based on the idea of the mash-up, where a work is created out of existing text.
575: the filling in
We gather wounds, then
small gifts of memories, like
thread, to stitch us closed.
575: the setting in
Darkness sits like veils
drawn across the body. Bare.
Waiting. But the light–
Ananke and Eos 