Red
A little girl presses her face against the glass of the candy shop window. She sucks in the cold air and exhales warm breath against the cold pane. It fogs, just as it did yesterday.
She spies the goodies inside.
Hard candies, lollipops, cotton candy, strings of candies that look like jewelry…
Imagine a world without privacy. Without boundaries. Without the need for closed doors and window blinds.
I’m pretty sure I’d go mad.
I’d consider myself an exhibitionist, but I still need my privacy.
If you take that away from me– the feeling that I can say no, I will lash out.
I’m really having to re-evaluate my attachment to my readership.
I’ve been consistently losing readers since around October.
This is a welcome realization for the sake of its ability to spur me into truly soul searching about what it is that I’m doing here. Any opportunity for growth and self assessment is ultimately welcome.
Sometimes I wish that no one read this. I wish that there were just words, on a screen. A text box that I can pour my life upon, without judgment, without fear of who was reading and who knew me personally.
When I was thirteen, my grandmother died.
My heart, my soul, my grandmother.
This precipitated my relationship with my father.
I knew I had a father, and I knew what he looked like and who he was, generally.
I could pick him from a crowd if I needed to.
Facebook is rather amazing.
I’ve connected with folks I thought I’d never hear from again.
The pictures are my favorite part. I love to go through and analyze what I find. It’s second nature. So… for all of my Facebook friends, I apologize in advance (or afterwards, depending on when I did it) for analyzing the hell out of you. It’s just… I can’t help it.
Taken from a group of highly artistic people during the arts festival, “DreamTime,” these excerpts are beautifully worded answers to the question, “What is creativity?”
Thank you to all of the beautiful people who answered this question: Landon, Bryan, Ryan, Tenaya, Kevin, Audrey Katrisa, and Kevin. I miss you all, dearly.
I’m not so certan that brutal honesty suits me nearly as much as it would had I chosen to begin this path with anonymity. Seriously, though, had I considered that an option any of the handfuls of times I “started something new,” I wouldn’t have done it. Mostly because I need people I know to read these things. I guess I’m like the life insurance sales person who insists on showing the presentation to all of her friends, because why wouldn’t they want to purchase life insurance from me? Huh, Why?!
*sigh* It’s the exhibitionist in me. She’s died back a little. I no longer feel the need to drink copious amounts of cheap liquor and then take my clothes off for everyone. That’s nice. I guess.
A stranger crosses the street in front of me.
I must slam on the brakes as I realize that she will not cross quickly enough before our paths cross.
It’s raining. She clasps the shawl over her head, her paunchy arm arching like a tea pot handle to the top of her head. My head lights cut her unctuous body in half at her waist. Wet, short drips stream from the tip of her nose. Rain drops or tears? She doesn’t turn to look at me.
She tells us that we sound like a herd of cattle running up and down the stairs.
She tell us to listen to our feet, to pay attention to the clamor it creates.
But that never crosses our minds as we run and jump and fly like birds up and down the stairs. We never consider that the pounding of our soles against the steps could possibly be like a pack of wild animals tearing through the house. Why should we consider it? After all, we are only children, not cows. Let the cows worry about sounding like cattle.
Writers characterize people. That’s what I do. It’s not like I just went through nearly six years of a degree in Psychology to not study people. They’re what I love, they’re what I do. Analyze. Study. Read.
It’s funny. I was commenting to Landon just the other night that I can’t understand how someone could know another person in real life, know that they have a blog or other means of publication, and not have to read it. For every person I know who has a blog– and hundreds more I’ve never even met!!– I read their stuff religiously. I recognize that some people don’t have the time I do to sit in front of the computer. I get that… but even if I didn’t have a whole lot of time, I would still be addicted to knowing what it was that they’re putting out there, for everyone to see.
