wallacepolsom
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noise dept.
@theartofmadeline
EXPECTATIONS
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
if i look back, i am lost
The Stonewall Inn
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NASA
Stranger Things
One Nice Bug Per Day
occasionally subtle
KIROKAZE
d e v o n
Sade Olutola
Jules of Nature
RMH
The Bowery Presents
izzy's playlists!
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@ilovethethought
*sigh*
I will have to reacquaint myself with this blog, as I have been absent for far too long and my memory is less than perfect... With only certain things. Other, more significant long term things, my memory is still pretty in tune to... But, ask me what I had for dinner last night and surely my response will be delayed, if I can answer at all.
Hiatus, if it is spelled right
...and I have to write more again. I'm only truly happy when I am actively writing...or dancing.
“what is it about the weather that makes people feel together”
I know I am misquoting him exactly... but it will have to do for the moment, since I cannot locate his 10 year old senior thesis. I thought that I had stuffed it away in one of my memory boxes- old Earth Shoe boxes that I save every sort of tangible memory that will fit inside. But it must be folded into one of my journals from 2003 or 2004, which I do not want to venture into today. Anyway... until just 10 minutes ago, I thought this quote had to do with how people feel- or at least how they project their feelings, towards others- differently when the weather is beginning to lose its winter grey and the sun shines for more hours. Then, as I was washing dishes and straightening up the kitchen from last night’s dinner, a new thought popped into my head as I began to recite this quote to myself... maybe each of us individually feels more together as the season of grey is lifting?
In past years, seasonal depression was not something I had suffered. At least I cannot recall being more down during the winter as opposed to any other season. But this past winter did something very strange to me... despite everything in my life being great, I could barely get through a day without becoming anxious or depressed or crying. I am not proud of this, but I even tried taking Lexapro again for a few weeks to see if it made a difference. All it did was to make me more anxious about taking the damn drug again.
Since Sunday and the changing of the clocks, something has indeed lifted. It was like this heavy burden was suddenly gone... and I kind of laughed at myself for all of the nonsense that I put not only myself through, but the burden I potentially had been to those around me.
I know that it cannot be helped, and I know it is quite common for people to experience seasonal depression, yet I still find it personally ridiculous and infuriating. My boyfriend said that we just have to find a place to live where it doesn’t get as “wintery.” He is right. Feeling so desperate and desolate for 6 months out of the year is no way to live.
Old friend here who just decided to randomly search for you. My memories of hanging out with you years ago are good ones. I just read your entire tumblr. Hopefully you will keep posting more. Since this is an 'ask me anything', I should ask you a question. What do you miss most about NJ?
Hello Old Friend, Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me here... and thank you for reading through mine. There is something intriguing about words shared anonymously, and possibly my response here would be influenced if you had revealed your identity? No, not possibly, it would be a definite. However, after reading this post, maybe you will feel so inclined to share one of your memories with me... one of the "good ones" that we had shared?
New Jersey will always remind me of being young and carefree. Even now when I visit, I just hold this innocence that Philadelphia will never steal away from me. From playing man hunt and spud on the East Keansburg streets to driving up and down the Garden State Parkway to shows every weekend, New Jersey treated me well as I was "growing up." I put those words in quotes since I believe we are always growing up...
It is impossible to say what I miss most about New Jersey. An obvious answer would be the ocean... the beaches, boardwalks, the feeling of sand between my toes. However, the experiences in NJ that stand out the most were those given to me by the local music scene(s). It may sound strange, or even corny, to some readers... "the music scene," but to many of my old friends, this phrase needs no qualifier. For me it did not matter whether it was punk or hardcore or ska or swing or metal or emo... where there was music, I wanted to be. Driving on the parkway or on 287 in either of the two cars I ever owned with broken speedometers was an adventure in itself at times.
I can write on and on about my nostalgia for New Jersey... the thrift shops at every church and their 'bag sales,' swimming in the mucky harbor at Atlantic Highlands at the tender age of 15, jumping rope at Ocean Avenue grammar school, kissing boys underneath the Keansburg Boardwalk, watching the fire works at Point Pleasant... the list goes on and I can write a story about each one.
New Jersey will always be special to me, but I am glad that I got out when I did. I did not give it time to spoil or taint my childhood memories.
An interesting side note... eleven or twelve years after living in Philadelphia, I fall in love with a New Jersey guy who I had met thirteen years ago at a Warped Tour in Asbury Park. New Jersey just won't quit! Needless to say, he had to make his way to Philly. I love looking back, but I cannot ever move back.
surface of smiles, shaken...
I woke up this morning to find an email from an old friend... she had mentioned my neglect of my blog.
"what about that beautiful little window that I could peer through to selfishly witness your world?"
I suppose that my absence here began with a happiness that i had found in my real life. I didn't need to share my writings (feelings) because i honestly did not have anything i felt was worth sharing. Happiness can be an enemy to inspiration, for me at least. It is almost as if i feel that when i am happy, i have nothing worthwhile to say.
I assured her in my email response, of course i have still been keeping my journals. I want to write to myself of the happy moments, so that when i find myself in need of a boost, i can re-read of moments when the smiles never ceased to appear on my face.
I have been reading excessively over the past few months. I have always loved to read, but lately i think i am using these fictions to escape from my reality, or at least to distract me from the fact that the happiness i had been feeling allowed me to abandon many of my passions and motivations... This lack of creativity, lack of passion, has caused me to plummet into this realm of sadness and depression, i suppose.
So, where does this leave me? Incapable of feeling anything deeply when the surface of smiles is present? I sure hope there is a balance that can be found...
My friend had also sent me a William Carlos Williams quote in her email. She said it reminded her of me, for reasons she was unable to pinpoint.
"You lethargic, waiting upon me,
waiting for the fire and I
attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty
Shaken by your beauty
Shaken."
So, i have taken this morning's tears and have tried to flesh out something coherent here. I have always loved the quote, "after sorrow comes joy," but feel equally as strong about its opposite... joy can also breed sorrow.
There is an internal dialectic always moving through us, but at times i question any possible synthesis of the human emotions that pull us to our absolute heights and depths.
"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living." Anais Nin
I used to remember my dreams all of the time. In years passed I even have had two dreams that were recurring, and I can still recall the entire unraveling of each one. But over the past 5 or 6 years, I remember so little of my dream world... and I began to ask myself why? Can I sum it up to my memory declining? I do not think it is that simple. In speaking with a friend who values his own dreamworld... and I think it is safe to say that he values his dreams above and beyond his reality in many ways... ways that I am trying to grasp on my own, I suppose... but I was speaking with this friend and he said that he experienced a similar “forgetting” of dreams when his life was “comfortable.” When we are content with our waking life, why would we have to search elsewhere in dreams? Or does this contentness (read as indifference, possibly) stifle dreams? Anias Nin tells me “Dreams are necessary to life,” but isn’t dreaming without recollecting purposeless? Or possibly she was not speaking of the dreams that come while asleep? Even so... I fear I have lost my abilities to daydream as well... and all that follows is uninspired writing...
"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler." Albert Einstein
sometimes i just have to trust what is unfolding in life and not over analyze or second guess my choices based on what "should" be... i am typically not the type to accept all of the should says, should dos, should wants that dictate life in today's world. however, no matter how open i try to keep myself, the "shoulds" still creep up and haunt me from time to time. sometimes i listen to the wrong "shoulds" and other times i neglect to pay attention to the "shoulds" that would make my life less stressful. i have a habit of doubting situations or circumstances when they cause me happiness during a time when i think i "should" be in a different situation or circumstance. i am not sure if that statement is coherent, but so long as i understand it, i suppose it does not matter...
This is sometimes what happens when shooting expired Polaroid film. These photos were shot with a Sun 600 camera using 779 film that expired in 2003.
I didn't think anything was going to come out on the film at all, so I just kept snapping. If I was not so impatient, I could have taken some really cool pictures with this roll... but they are interesting nonetheless.
smell that air
i dipped my feet into New Jersey water for the first time this season. it is dirty and murky, but it fills me with an absurd child-like fever. i sat on a bench on the boardwalk of Asbury Park as Memorial Day tourists and locals strolled and ate and swam and strolled and spent their money and strolled. i caught myself feeling something in between a tourist and a local i suppose.
and i miss NJ most of all when i smell its salty air.
this weekend seemed like a vacation for me... but a vacation to a place that has already given me so many memories. it is strange. how can something be simultaneously nostalgic and new?
i walked hand in hand with someone i knew 14 years ago. and sometimes i cannot stop smiling and laughing over the "remember whens..." even when i do not remember. sometimes i am grateful that my memory is not as strong as it used to be...
everything must have a beginning...
finally, "things" are settling for me... or possibly they are not, and i am just getting accustomed to new "things." it is easy to define and feel a beginning when the life that you were so comfortable with and so comfortable in has jolted... not recklessly, but abruptly nonetheless. transitional periods are always filled with confusion and excitement, which battle against one another inside of your head... or at least inside of my head. but "things" are settling.
whenever i find myself feeling another beginning, i start a new journal titling them in such ways... "my story begins" or "to begin again" and even "oh no, not again." and not quite one month ago, on my first day in my new apartment, i realized that "everything begins on the floor." both literally and figuratively speaking.
no desk or chairs or tables or furniture at all really has left me time and again beginning a new chapter of my life with a notebook and a pen on the floor of a foreign room that will in good time become my home. and "things" are built from the bottom up.
read "things" as life, i suppose.
so i find myself writing really bad poetry lately... like when i was a child. the inspirations are the same, but the words are so different. or maybe the inspirations have shifted and the words are the same? or possibly it is only the feeling that is different. i am still young, but have aged more than i chose to... more than i choose to, still now. i watch the names of people i know, or the names of people i once knew come in and out, or off, of the screen. and i wonder why i do not say hello? are they too busy with life, am i too busy trying to avoid life? it is strange.
i once wrote a poem for a man, and i left it in his painting studio. it was years ago, maybe seven... or eight? it was on a square piece of paper and i wrote later about how i believed he would find it. i was young, i am still young.
i am not a poet, but a dear friend of mine is. he has a way with words that i will never have. but i have my own way with words, and this is one bond that i will never abandon.
I just happened across your Dec 4 posting. I am Anabelle's grandmother. Please touch her next time you see her. That is a sensation she can know.We love you for your good heart and your willingness to help. Come say hello on the Anabelle's Wish Facebook page please. She will be 2 in May!
Thank you so much for your kind words. It really meant a great deal to me to participate in the fundraiser/craft show for Anabelle's Wish last December. I hope to be able to come to future events and shake little Anabelle's hand.
it is a beautiful day outside. i am sitting on my back deck writing and enjoying the sun and the cool spring breeze. this tree is in one of the neighbors yards and i just thought it appeared to be as content as i am at this moment.
i will miss this deck when i move. this deck where the stray cats hang out with me on days like today.
I have a love-hate relationship with the heat. In theory, I love the warmth of the sun browning my skin. When I was younger, I remember playing barefoot on the hot pavement of the suburban streets where I grew up... and spending many summer weekends with my grandparents at the campgrounds- swimming in the lake and just running around the dirt "roads," loving the summer weather.
Yesterday it was 80 degrees in my house in Philadelphia. 80 degrees is a perfect temperature... in my mind at least. But the MS that haunts me has other ideas about the heat. It expresses these ideas to me in a very clear and frustrating way... on my six block walk to a coffee shop to meet a friend yesterday, I had to stop and "rest" twice. My legs grow tired more quickly in the heat and my eyes sometimes still blur. By the time I arrived at the coffee shop, I had to scramble to sit down before I was even able to order myself a cold tea at the counter.
When the sun is out and the temperature is warm, everything in this city comes alive. People are out and about healing themselves from their winter depressions. Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the winter either, but the summer can be just as depressing at times. So, I get about two or three good months a year where my body says GO! The remaining ten months... well, I write more I guess.