Rushing away from life

I often have morning dreams where I am pretty aware of the fact that I am dreaming, I have some power over where the dream goes but largely the impact my awareness has is more over how I perceive the events in the dream. Especially recurring themes. In this dream I was racing through a large building, but through the corridors, the back areas, the stairwells, hallways, service style doors. It is as if all the building is made of is these elements, not actual rooms or spaces, just corridors, hallways, stairs and doors. I am always anxious and there is this fear in me that I am being pursued. It is never definite, more menacing. It's a paranoia. So I'm racing through this space in an anxious state of paranoid fear and I begin to pay attention to my actions and patterns, all my choices tend directionally towards the right. I always turn right. And as I begin recognizing my tendency I intentionally change direction. I start going left and the first time it feels incredibly unnatural. My first "dyslexic" thought is did I just choose the religious direction? And for a second I'm scared but then I realize that the religious direction is "right" which I'd been doing all along. My pace hasn't changed, almost like I've been set in motion and can't stop, I keep going left and every choice is made instantaneously and some part of me is even concerned about the implications there. Why am I moving so fast? Why am I racing? Suddenly I'm outside the building and looking at the external structure. This is the point at which I feel most aware of the dream world. I first look at it and realize that I can get to know the inside completely and navigate it by having all it's spaces mapped out in my mind- but because it's a dream I am aware that there is no concrete internal structure, there is nothing certain to be known. When I'm inside the building it is not corresponding to anything, to other spaces, to the outside structure. It can change every moment, and to begin with it can be anything. There are no physical laws or natural truths that control it, that I can count on or trust. So I don't want to go back in. I stay outside, standing still.

I know I have been struggling for the last year with a sense of how religion, a sort of moral conservatism, has a pretty strong hold on me. I have not been able to adequately confront it within myself. It has such an old seat that it is hard to dethrone. In particular the imperatives expressed in religion with such certainty. I feel very weak in comparison. So that is what my constant, rushing panicked right-moving makes me think about. But even when I confront this in myself I still rush, rush left, force each decision by an unbroken stream of movement. I realize I am looking at my position from the perspective of being "caught" in a path. These aren't real choices, it was compulsive in one direction now it is compulsive in the opposite. But then I find myself suddenly outside and I'm stopped standing still. Staring at the external form of this empty industrial complex.

I had this same style dream maybe a week ago? It's a little foggy now, but there was something cool about this one. I was rushing through dark doorways and halls and stairwells and I was frightened, but I changed it with my mind, I thought about it all differently, I confronted my fear- why am I afraid? what is here to fear? These dreams have the benefit of building on each other, I am aware that I have "been here before". But when I confronted my fear suddenly the space wasn't empty anymore, stopped being colorless and sinister, it filled with people, with things, with life. And it turned from racing in panic to walking through something alive and good.

I think I do have a setting going that is harried, I seem to believe I must race. Must must must. Fear, anxiety, panic. It's hard to slow down. A big chant I catch myself doing a lot is, just need to get this done and I'll feel at peace. So in other words, I just need to rush this one thing that isn't done and I'll feel so much better when it's accomplished and off my hands. I'm trying to discharge my "obligations" as quickly as I can so that the anxiety I carry over them can be over. But I am always aware that there is always something else to be anxious about and pressing on me in some corridor. "What about me, I'm not done yet. I've been around for years and I'm not done yet..."

I can't get away from them. I approach _everything_ this way. What it is is the energy I bring to my projects. Arg! I do a whole lot of anticipating and carrying of who ever else may be attached to said project, I anticipate their expectations (even when unstated) and allow my fears of what they want or may want to drive me and plague me.

This started as an email to my mom when it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't talking to her but to me. So I moved the words to this forum. It's almost a diagram for myself of how I dream and getting down to the bare frame work as much as possible to wrap my mind around it all more fully.

I suspect I have just stumbled on a big key to my state of anxiety, to my issues with panic. Embedded in all those moments that I believe I must race through. I hear so often that awareness is such a major part of change... A part of me has faith in this, but there is still a deposit of fear- unbelief.

Better, but Still a fool

There are so many memories from my past that I'd like to release, for them to poof into non-existence for me. Classic one-liners mostly that have been burned into my psyche like a brand. They come from a host of authors, myself at times, but the most damaging ones have been from guys I dated or liked. "You're not very good, are you?" "You won't be like her?" And some that are so painful to me still that I can't bring myself to commit them to physical words on a page. I don't sit down and intentionally mull over them, these memories are triggered by associations and revisit me, frequently. They reinforce a voice that existed long before these things were ever said, mine. A constant reminder of my own status with myself. As hard as I perceive myself to be working on this, my self image, my personal value, correcting where it comes from, I still find these old memories so alive. I have carried them as accurate evaluations of who I am. As often as I have been able to look at the situations and recognize the flaws of the speaker and the flaws they spoke out of, I guess I have hated myself just enough to believe them. I think the core of why they stay is that I want to rectify my own past, to cleanse and purify it of all that is vile to me there. And that can't be done. Perhaps if I believed in myself now I would be able to let go, but I haven't really fully proved to me that I'm different enough. Better, but still a fool. I want to confront these men, tell them who I see when I remember them, rip asunder the hold they have on me, reject what they stand for. To value something better than what they represent,to be intelligent. And I want to rescue every little me in the making out there allowing themselves to become fuel for some beast.

Perhaps I'm still too hard on myself. My mom would probably tell me to cut myself some slack. But the reality is I'm not happy, and as long as these memories eat at my being like a slow acid I don't think I ever truly will be. I want to be free! To cast them away like the ashes of the dead, gone from this world forever.

Scattered

I haven't done this in about four months now. I've gotten out of the zone in a sense. I haven't even returned when I felt depressed, which was par for the course before.

I don't know. The truth is I want to leave NY. I've been thinking about myself a lot this past week in a certain way. A change that I think I need to go through, learning the ability to be happy under circumstances that are not ideal. I want to mature more. I think I also have a tendency to become discontent rather easily. I don't like that, it's no good. I want to meditate and stretch regularly. Find more peace.

I miss my mom a lot. I also just miss "home". It was a really nice place.

I had a dream last night that Chun-Soon (the lady from the dog walking company that just hired me) sent me this urgent email saying she needed a photo of me with a pet as soon as possible. Anxiety, because I asked if it would be okay to send it on the 14th when I knew I would be home and could take a pic with my lovely wonderful fluff-ball kitties. Or maybe just Kub, it could be very difficult to get them both in there in a way that doesn't look like they are miserable.

I've gotten really scared about the mouse pooh. I was watching a show called Off the Grid (which is about as insane as it sounds) but the thing that unsettled me was he said mouse droppings were full of diseases. Gad! My kitchen is a mouse pooh hell!

Yesterday I had a couple simple little goals, clean the toilet and get some needed art supplies before meeting Fawna and Rachel at the bus drop off. Instead I spent the day illustrating a picture in photoshop until Jeff asked me at 2:30 if I still meant to get art supplies. Oy. I was late meeting the girls.

We have a small collection of things outside the door that need to be purged. It would add a smidge of happiness to my day if we actually did. A car would be very helpful.

It's time to begin the process of purging again. A new kind, though. Bare down to only what I love. Let the rest go. So I will end up keeping things like my children's books, art, the small special things I've acquired over the years, my wool rug, mirrors, individual dishes and mugs, the slowly collected papers and fabrics (maybe not all of them, these things can be weeded). I haven't made up my mind about the piano. I love it, truly. But should I keep it? If I did what would we do with it? It has one wheel that won't stay in, the thing is a beast to move... It's hugely impractical in a life that is not stationary. Sometimes I hate thinking so practically, I really want to keep it...

I need to spend some time in the storage facility. Make decisions about what is going and what to keep. I think that needs to happen at home too. Time to get rid of some unnecessaries. Oh, how time changes us. Not time really, a force inside of us that simply does not remain the same. Like our cells, gradually rewriting, everything else does too... So that we are left with a memory of what we were.

I have a lot of free time right now. I really need to put some energy into getting myself out there as an illustrator. What ever that means, to find out what that means.

leaving...

This is it! My final day at the New School as a temp for Student Services. I bought pretty bright tulips for Anna. Such a small way to say thanks for the irreplaceable help that she has been to me in this position. Without Anna I would have floundered. She bought goodbye bagels for all the girls up front on Tuesday (which was the day I originally thought I was leaving). I don't really want to make something of leaving. I feel like I'd just like to say goodbye like I do after every shift and head home. Karen bought me a HUGE box of cookies, yum.

I had to replace my metrocard yesterday. So for that day I had two cards on me, a dead one and an active card. I took out, last night, the one I thought was dead; but when I ran my metro card this morning I got that unholy message "insufficient fare". I froze for a minute unsure what I wanted to do...walk back to the apartment and get the right card? That would add ten minutes at least to my commute. Or buy a single ride? It's frustrating, but I went with the single ride. Frustrating because after getting an unlimited pass I realized my next two months will probably be spent commuting in a zipcar to western NY. And then I further fail to take advantage of my unlimited pass by bringing along the dead one. Growl!

I'm a little split about how to handle after work. I need to redeposit the cash I took out for rent (because I learned the boys do it in check form and mail it) and I will have frozen veggie patties and open condiments on me and the bank closes at 6. I will be going to the bank, it's JUST around the corner from my subway stop, and the traffic could potentially be low. It was low yesterday, but it was also quite drizzly...

I want to pick up a book my father recommended by Umberto Eco, In the Name of the Rose, so I can read it to Jeff. I was originally going to read his On the Island of the Day Before, but when my father saw that on my shelf he informed me that it was the most boring book he'd ever read.

I've cleaned up my area so it looks more like it did when Thelma left. I'm debating about undoing some of the minor shifts I made to better accomodate my own frequent operations. I should put it all back how she had it.

When my life seems hectic and full of things that need to be done, pressing obligations, I tend to say in my head "work through them, get them done, it will be over and I will feel peaceful again and rest." But there are times when I realize that that day is still rather far off, far enough that I can't see it yet. And I wonder how I can slip rest and peace in little pockets to myself to pass through these phases more easily and to not become overwhelmed. A quiet voice tells me I have over committed myself, or that maybe I need to communicate better just how much time I really need to get certain things done. I suspect a better rationing of my time to the different things I have taken on would help, but I am not so good at that and have not made much of an effort in that direction. It is hard for me to be egalitarian with my projects. I tend to go off of how I feel, I work on what _feel_ like working on. (I was going to italicize the word feel but it's coming up in html format- or something- and I can see it posting just like that.) It's 4:45, so little left to my final day. What do I do!

Living dead

Okay, I got my girlscout cookies yesterday and I have indulged. I can't stop eating! It will be very good for me not to be at a desk anymore.

I've worked myself into a bit of a state. A combination of checking craigslist for apartments and jobs. It started when I read what people had to say about what they were looking for. Arg! I come with a boyfriend. That seems to be a possible issue. Not with everyone, but it makes me long for a more private situation. My life and my expenses are at odds with each other... The strange thing is I feel a little upset with Jeff because of this and he hasn't done anything. Maybe part of it is that I have to go through this hassle at all and having an attachment is showing a side of burden. Maybe it's that speach John gave me... But the work thing is slightly divergent. It is beginning to look like the possibility of full-time work with the offices at The New School will come up in the near future. I am split, I like my work with Jonas, I like being physical and not sitting. But full-time office means a salary, stability, benefits, and qualifying for unemployment if I lose the job. Also I would hate to have a full-time position at a reception desk like this and always be on access to the public and have no private space at work.

I rode the JMZ in today. On a whim. There is a special feature to this train that attracts me, that it goes over the Williamsburg bridge and affords a spectacular view of Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was as full as I've ever seen it, morning commuters on their way to work. I felt a little sad. The Sickness unto Death. They all have it. Wake up! See! You are surrounded by so many astounding things every minute. Don't be dead... It can be oppressive at times to be surrounded by so many people who aren't really there, who are infected with incurable indifference, the very soul within them withered and gone.

I saw something beautiful, a tiny moment that will never happen again. There is an area in the Union Square subway that is slightly elevated for a stretch of 20 or 30 feet. As I was reaching the top of the elevation, just before it levels out I caught sight of a small black button on it's side rolling down the floor. I only glanced initially to register what it was and as I was turning back it struck me to watch its progress. I stepped back to the wall and saw the button continue undisturbed in the midst of the morning commuters until it was no longer visible to me. It rolled the full length of the decline and perhaps much further as it had picked up substantial momentum. As soon as I noticed that button I pictured it having just popped off of someone's coat or sweater (unnoticed) and making that perfect fall into a roll. As far as I could register from those arround me I was the only witness.

Finding Home

March is quickly coming to an end. I spent last night in a new apartment and I can't help thinking about the whole affair like a camping trip. I'll be camping out in these four strangers apartment for a month, maybe two. Sleeping in a loft, where if I wanted to I could rest my feet on the ceiling. Surrounded by boxes and bags containing the bit of my life I decided, when leaving Maryland, to take with me. Moving does sneak in this unexpected perspective, these covert thoughts, I begin flirting with contraband ideas- to purge. Can I part with any of these things? Can I part with any of the little material treasures that carry my life in them? To become more portable. There are people in my life who would, probably, love for me to reduse the amount of things I own. Mainly people who have suffered through helping me move said things.

I feel a bit like an invader in someone elses private space. Like I have carved out a sphere in their center for my world and tread out paths as needed through their lives. In that moment last night when we fell silent, when every last needed movement had passed and for the first time I could hear beyond my time and space I felt alert to theirs. The gentle sound of someones music passing through the wall, a reminder. It was like my ears were the most active part of me, the one sense that keeps me most aware of the presence of others unseen. That gentle music was a brass orchestra to my sense of reality. I feel my little life surrounded and my actions a ripple in someone elses pool; I'm up in the tree, going about my business gathering nuts and each one that falls disturbs their water and in that moment I am frozen in a state of awareness. And I will do no more than pass by them briefly.

I anticipate the next move will be more drastic. That I will end up outside of my little Williamsburg life and into something entirely more remote and less full of youth and energy. A new phase will begin. No longer propped up from the outside by the fortune of my family I am intrigued by the prospect of living within the means I am able to support. I am attracted and afraid. Attracted because in a sense it seems right and I've never done it. Afraid because it will be hard and uncomfortable in many ways I expect. What parameters can I realistically set and achieve? Can I make a rule of renting somewhere with a dishwasher? What is the average cost of utilities and electricity? I suppose a couple months at just over 600 in rent can help me gage if that is the right zone for me.

In my dreams I never do find home. It is that most illusive of searches. Constantly repeated with largely the same results. I wander an unfamiliar world in a lost state. It represents a desire to return which is the true reason I never find home. How can we return to something that is the past? Somehow I have to make a new home for myself. In every space I occupy there is the effort to "find" home. So I found home for 9 months in Apt 303. Somehow I will find home again for a month or two off of S. 5th street in the shadow of the JMZ line as it arches over the Williamsburg bridge, simultaneously beautiful and imposing.

The oppression

I'm being followed by an old ghost. He stays close by my heels; low like a small cowering dog, living in my shadows. I have been cruel to him and he asks me for peace. Such a little thing that I have refused him these many years.

I have been loved in the past by three men and I have broken all of their hearts. Two of them I have hated, for the crime of loving me unbendingly. I found it a bondage. I write for them, especially the two I have hated. I write to put their ghosts to rest, to give them their peace.

I ran after them. I wrote a story in my mind and pursued it. I felt strong, powerful, in control. Control. That story rewrote itself before me, each moment more and more and that control I had run with had turned against me. Is that what I really wanted? It had been an impulse. I had no real imagination to picture how things would play out, all those repercussions.

Josh Smith held onto my hand like a safety net, as if that simple act could hold onto me. I could not escape it, each day, every moment, he held tight to my hand. I wanted to feel free and I didn't.

My great error, always, has been a failure to know myself. When I was young it was simply inexperience, I hadn't been alive long enough to know myself, to detect who I was in this world, what I wanted to be, what I cared about, how I wanted to live. In my early twenties I was living out the idea of who I was, rather than actually being. I still didn't know myself, but I thought I knew what I wanted and how I wanted to live. Borrowed concepts, perhaps. Things that looked pretty or sounded impressive. I am at a new impasse. I believe I know myself, but still feel uncertain of what I really want from life or how I want to live. Worst of all I don't trust myself because of who I have been and the fear of being her still.

Can I ever forgive Josh for his shortcomings? Can I let him be human again, even just as a memory? Can I forgive myself for my mistakes? Or will I always torment myself with them? Why can't I let the past go? Why do I hold onto this haunted house? What resolution am I trying to pace out year after year?

I still feel like a borrowed hodge podge. The things that matter to me seem a quiet voice that I've never been able to truly believe in. Why? It seems easier to believe and be what others already are. A path walked and proven... It's overwhelming in those moments when I realize life isn't a series of paths that we can choose from but more like a forest, field, ocean, valley, and any step is possible. I could live like a fly moves, erratic, self-crossing; completely, absurdly free! And where do I start? And where do I move on from there? I am forced to take one step at a time and choose all over again every moment. Until my life is made up of an infinity of choices that start at one point and end up somewhere so unpredictable.

I'm going out for a walk. And I don't think I'll come back again.