had a bad day again

have you ever looked at your reflection and burst into tears?

i'm working from home today: no makeup, no masks, just me in raggedy-ass clothes, in all my non-primped-out glory.  earlier i looked at candid photos of myself on Facebook; also, i went to an artist's website, a photographer that takes nude erotic bondage pictures of women where light replaces leather, chains and ropes.  (note: the only reason i went to his site was because he lives in the same art community complex as some dear friends of mine, and they've mentioned him a few times in the past two weekends. i never got around to stopping by his studio, and now i know why: my psyche was probably trying to protect me).

my point is that these factors--and maybe others that i'm not yet aware of--are what contributed to this feeling of disgust with my appearance.

when will this end?  will i always have these moments of terror and horror as i look at myself in the mirror?  will i always feel panic at how much cellulite i've gained or how much muscle definition i've lost in my abs?  why--with all the positive things people say about me and my work--do i still feel so crippled by body dissatisfaction?

to my eyes, my photos show a girl-woman with a protective layer around her, making her heavy and elephantine.  when i was younger, i always thought of my body as a skin that i wanted to shed in order to feel light and free.  when i see these touched-up photos of women who are young and smooth and blemish-free, i know that this depictions are not real, that the men who snap these shots think of women as cars or diamond rings, sparkly and sleek and polished and hinting not one bit at the soft, squishy, dimpled messiness of real human bodies.

hanging out with my friends all this weekend, women who are strong and fragile and REAL, probably lulled me into a false sense of security.  enter Monday and The World As It Is, or The World As We Have Been Taught To See It: yoga ads with pictures of hard-bodied women in pretzel poses, models who are "edgy" with short, spiky hair and black eyeliner who look all of 16 years old, white, upper-class PhDs who talk about healing but who have never been broken themselves, who have never been told, again and again, since the single-digit years, "you are not good enough," "you are ugly," "you are shameful," "you are unsightly."  i want to be back in that safe, warm, easy space where everyone is loved for being alive and being human...where strangers are welcome and friends are like family (the family that you really, really like).  if that space could expand and occupy the entire world, a giant heartspace where we could all just relax and breathe and let our talents and gifts and skills and knowledge shine out...

i suppose i must first create that space inside my own heartspace.  unfortunately, some days it feels like a Sisyphean task: like building and building and building and rebuilding a house on mountains of mud.

cheese/sentimentality/thinkin' about stuff

we carry so much baggage with us, the weight of our parents' stories and their parents' stories...traumas and past lives and expectations and pressures.  we change and shift and shrug.  we become stronger and we break open.

yes. ten years ago i was--not a different person--a different version of myself: the ghost of a stone sculpture not yet articulated in sensuous curves and sharp-edged hollows.  i was a dream and a spark of what i am now...and right now, i am a spark of what i will become.

do we ever really get to reach our highest form?  yes.  maybe not while we are alive, but we are born with this perfection, this blazing joyful soul that becomes veiled as we age and learn and become burdened with knowledge and avoidance--and we return to that state in death.  i suppose select few make that transition while in human form: these are the Buddhas and Jesus Christs and Mohammeds and Mother Theresas, the anonymous ones who drag dying brothers to safety and who spend their days feeding and bathing the sick.  But most of us are trying to flip the Rubix cube while we are half-blind and roaring for affection and recognition.

i am no expert in love, though i know that i crave it and need it as much as i need water to keep my body running smoothly, as i crave pieces of dark chocolate on a select few days out of every month.  i know that love has many masks...and that love unmasked is more powerful than the weapons our government spends billions on every week.  i know that i can convince myself that i have it, that i am in it--or that i don't have it and won't ever know it, not truly.

the truth is that i am looking for the freedom that comes from pairing with a person who can look me in the eye as i lay down my burden of stories.  i need a best friend who will cherish me and call me out on my shit.  someone who is imperfect and adept like a chameleon, shifting to fit a mood, a mode of communication, a moment when i am glorious and frightening.  i need a lover who can undress me, and a confidante who can hold me when my mother dies--a partner who will have my back when i'm faced with a gang of demons ready to bludgeon me to death with their stinking fear, and a companion who will play Twister with me while Tom Waits, followed by Radiohead, followed by BB King, followed by Mozart plays on and on and on...

in return, i will offer every bit of who i am.  i will be lovely and sexy and honest and jealous.  i will cry and kiss and soothe with my fingertips.  i will complain and apologize and praise and bless.  i will be there, even when i am not.  i, too will be imperfect, and i will try so hard.  and i will back off and run away, but i will always come back.  and when our paths part, i will still love you.  and when we meet up again, i will not love you less.