Docile Stream

I wrote this some days back, in the throngs of PMS. I don’t love it. But I’m sharing it because I do love that I was writing. Sadly, it generally takes me being in a dramatic emotional space to do so… Anyway, just write. Just write. Be dramatic. Let it be messy. Just write.

I can’t dance to my own broken record.
The words are too staccato to sing along.
I weave through the repetition like a fun-house-mirror maze,
trying to catch my own gaze in the dizzying reflections
and ease into a softer rhythm.
A groove.
A pace.
A consistent drumbeat to invite others to sway their hips and tap their feet.
Instead stunted by my own squelching, scritch-a-scritch turntable cacophony.
A maneki-neko — waving, waving,
waving,
so it appears I am at a rave but
I’m truly standing still,
hoping a ringing bell will bring some company
and maybe a little jazz
or Ill Communication minus the self-Sabotage.
I wickity-wickity whack myself in the face
trying to force a round hole with a square peg.
On this dizzying merry-go-round of my own design.
Always left dancing solo to my own skip-skip-skipping noise.

Time traveling is strange. You are at once then and now. The sensations of the past flood your body but you have switched prescriptions in your glasses and can see things differently.

One thing I recognize is how incapable I was, and sometimes still am, of hearing anyone else in a grounded way. In these particular historical events, it was expressed to me that I felt I was logical but I was, by default, emotional. I did not want to hear that. My ego very strongly said, “Bitch, please…”

But the deep truth of me is that I have lived an ungrounded existence. Of course I was emotional. I wasn’t taught how to process and work through stress. Everything was about suppression and appeasement.

And I do know that my airy nature is often what draws people to me. I can be a fresh breath of air. A kite. A warm hug. A tease of a laugh on the wind.

But the other side of the coin is that I can be flighty. A tantruming maelstrom. A slammed door. A crumpled red flag.

And here I am, pulling up some music for whatever random reason, and a TARDIS just appears. It’s bigger on the inside, just like the expanse of our minds and hearts — and all those darn memories, like fractals, that come rushing back to paint a slightly different picture every time you return to them.

We went to Paul’s grandpa’s funeral service this week. I brought my camera and tripod on the trip down, but on the day of the actual funeral I wasn’t sure if I should bring them.

I paced around, debating aloud to Paul. Eventually, I scrapped the tripod. “We aren’t taking group photos at a cemetery…” Paul replied.

But I brought my camera — with only one lens.

We have some photos from one of my grandmothers’ funerals when I was a pr***en, and I appreciate that those images exist.

So I brought my camera.

When we got there, Paul’s aunt encouraged me to snap away. So I tried to take photos of things I felt were relevant, like people hugging, without stalking people in teary states.

Yet, what I remember most about myself is that with every photo I took, I would look at the back of the camera, seeing the way this model that I have hated since the moment I got it poorly handles contrast, then complain audibly about how terrible the photo was, or I would state how I missed important moments. Event photography has never been my chosen field because there are no do-overs — if you don’t catch -that- moment, it isn’t recorded.

I verbalize a lot of what is in my mind, and it’s largely unnecessary. I don’t know why I do it, and I’ve worked across the years to rein it in and attempt to be more internal.

But that shoulder devil was on full display throughout the service.

There are still so many holes that need patching within me. If only we could wake up one day and feel whole — acknowledging our faults without harping on them or doing everything in our power to ensure others see them.

I haven’t even looked at the photos I took yet. Logically, I know they aren’t a representation of me, however they turned out. But the voice inside clearly disagrees with me — and worse yet, wanted anyone around me in that moment to know it.