end of february

all day long, i am trying to help 4 and 5 year olds figure out their emotions. i'm trying to help them know what to do when they're angry, or when they're sad, or how to act when they're embarrassed or feel left out. when they're lonely, when they miss their mothers, when they get caught drifting into the darkness of some of their lives. and in the midst of the tantrums, the tears, the picking, the whining, i'm supposed to, somehow, remain calm. and unaffected. and steady. and strong. and in control.

sometimes i feel like the most powerful person on earth. because i can get 8 5 year olds to eat lunch, brush their teeth, go to the bathroom, and take a nap. if you think this sounds simple, i'd like to watch you try.

after i leave work, i often just feel lonely. isolated. terrified of my life. in a day at work, i feel so frustrated, so angry, so mean, so short-tempered, so ugly, so out of control, so powerless - and then at the same time, i feel fulfillment, and joy, and power, and kind and patient and loving. and all of these feelings combined, mixed, churning and boiling and cooling down in my body is tiresome. it's exhausting. i feel hopeless. i feel trapped. i have to open a window. i find myself staring out of the window for 5 minutes without noticing the trance i've fallen into while the kids are playing and screaming behind me. i get lost in the gray. in the tree branches. in the melting snow. in the facade of the abandoned church.

i dream of being in love. i dream about running away. i dream of roads. i dream of silence. i picture water colors moving on a piece of paper, slowly, purposefully and freely. i imagine myself wild, happy and with tears in my eyes because the power of whatever beauty i am experiencing is so big. i dream of the release of this emotion. i imagine having affairs. i dream dreams i'd never even considered before.

and on wednesdays, i leave and go to my painting class.

this week, i was supposed to continue working on a a still life. i'm the only person in the room who is not painting from a picture, except for one woman who is trying to paint some abstract shit. and by shit, i mean, shit. ugly. purposeless. thoughtless. i wanted to do a still life because, in theory, i know that it's the most genuine thing i could do. i'm not going to paint a photograph (because it's stupid. and because i take photographs. why the hell would i try to reproduce a picture i took?), and i'm not going to paint something "abstract" because if i don't know how to paint a vase well - if i don't understand the form and shape and color and texture and shadows - then how the hell am i going to paint abstractly? i struggled with reflections a lot when i was in college. so i wanted to try again. i know that being a good artist is about seeing. it's about being a good looker. a good seer.

i get back to my still life, and i don't want to do it. because it's hard. too hard. panting the reflection of a green piece of pottery in a copper vase. the material behind has all these lines and stripes. so i get frustrated. and start painting something else.

the teacher keeps pushing me to finish it. i keep avoiding him. ignoring him. until he picks up my painting, puts it on a easel and makes me move my body so that i'm in position to paint that still life. and i hate him. and i start to cry. no one sees me. or hears me. and i'm thinking to myself, "WHY CAN'T I JUST DO WHAT I WANT TO DO." i want to throw things. and scream. and break everything.

but instead, i start to paint the still life again. i'm mad. and i'm angry. and i paint over everything. and i'm fucking pissed off. and i look. and i look. and i look. and i paint. and the more i look, the more i see. the more i see, the more i understand. the more i understand, the better i get at representing what i see.

a girl, who i initially hated, like usual, for no reason, walks past me. she tells me how good the reflections look. she tells me that she's been painting for 10 years, and that mine look better than hers. and the teacher tells me that i'm really good with color (which i already knew. my mom told me that when i was 5 and used to pick out her clothes. and my art teacher told me in 3rd grade the same thing. and pat barefoot told me in college too.). i tell the girl that sometimes it's just so hard to see. and she tells me, "yeah, but, once you start to see, it's sort of hard to stop."

and that felt like some sort of truth that settled nicely into my skin.

february 02, part 2.

i went to my painting class today and spent 3 hours trying to paint an egg that did not exist. it was a study in shadows - i guess, you should know where shadows are and what they look like without actually being able to see them. my body aches from the stool i sat on. my back was bent in strange, uneasy positions. my brain was frustrated, overwhelmed. for three hours, with very few breaks, i was completely fixated on this egg. on its shadow. on its highlight. on the colors. my world became so little - my world was an egg in a 5 inch x 5 inch square. i hated the egg. i hated the exercise. i hated how hard it was. i hated how simple it was - and how difficult it was to do right. i hate how when i look at my paintings, i can't really see them. i can't tell if the colors are right, or the shadow is right, or if the egg actually looked round and alive. i hated the woman who took 10 minutes to do the exercise and moved on to paint an awful rothko replica. i hated her, because her painting of the egg was terrible. who does she think she is? you can't paint like rothko unless you know about color, and shape, and shadow. and i hated her. i wanted so badly to quit. to stop painting the stupid egg and smear color with a huge, ugly, gloppy paint brush all over the walls and ceilings and my face and fingers and canvas and under my show and in my jeans pockets and in her face. but i didn't.

i'm at home now. i can only stand to sit in the dark. this is why painting is good. this is why anything that we actually do that is hard is good. my brain is tired. my body is tired. i am tired. i am speechless. thoughtless. empty. i am nothing.

february 02

i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance. there is always circumstance. there is always circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will find beauty everywhere. i will find beauty everywhere. i will find beauty everywhere. i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance. i will be happy despite my circumstance.

february 01

this is what pittsburgh looks like.

today i looked out the window and wrote in my notebook, "gray on top of gray on top of gray on top of gray . . . " every person i've ever dated has gotten married to / engaged to the person they dated after me. a boy i used to date just got engaged. it made me sad, because i believed that he would never get married. i used to think he was too brave for that.

i used to think that summer was only for skinny white girls in flip flops and shorts who enjoyed vacations at the beach. love of hot weather i think is a distinctly skinny white girl thing - because if you talk to anybody who isn't a skinny white girl on an exceptionally hot day, they'll tell you, "i'm just trying to find some air conditioning." but a white girl, will say something like, "oh i love summer so much!' while the rest of us are sweating to death and contemplating murder, suicide or going to live in an air conditioned superstore like target or walmart.

i used to like winter a lot. and for a few reasons: i hate being hot. and i used to make myself like things that were difficult: like the hiccups and having the flu. plus, i really hated skinny white girls - so every time they said something about loving summer it felt really good to say, "really? i think winter is better. i hate being hot." it made me feel stronger than them. like - that i was better than them because winter's cold and gray and dark didn't affect me. i was stronger than them and stronger than winter. my mood and my well-being was independent of the season. so, bitch - please.

but this winter might be different. i am weaker now. i am less proud. i have less energy. i don't interact with many skinny white girls who love summer. now, i'm just tired from all this gray and cold and dark.

sate of the union address

this is the dream: that one day i'll get paid to be a photographer. it's that simple. i want to travel and see as much as i can of this country. particularly, anything west of kansas. but this will take time. and more experience and more talent and, above all us, a better understanding of how to actually use my camera and other equipment. it also means meeting the right people.

i've spent too much time lately feeling hopeless because i'm not there yet. i finally realized that not only am i not ready to be there yet, it's just not practical or possible. i think that i'm really good. and i don't care how that seems, or sounds, or if you agree. i just really believe in myself. but until then, i need to get back to living in the present.

i've spent a lot of time over the last year being unhappy living in pittsburgh. but i've kind of come to terms with it - at least for now. i think it's the best place for me to learn, and grow as a photographer and artist. since pittsburgh is such a small city, and there aren't a ton of photographers around here (i mean, there are, but it's pittsburgh, not new york city), it's easier to make connections within the area, have art shows, get experience, look at other photographer's work, learn how to use a stupid camera - you know, the great things about living in a small city. so i need to have more shows, try to make more connections, and take more photographs. and i'd like to get paid for these things. i want to try to get an internship at the pittsburgh center for the arts, or some place like it.

i don't love my job - but it's tolerable. and it's easy to get time off. and i love the kids. and i love the women i work with - they inspire me, really. i'm going to apply to real teaching jobs. because it'd be nice to get paid more, and . . . to get summers off (so that i can travel more for longer periods of time). it's what i do - and it's not the worst. and it allows me to put energy into the rest of the things that matter to me. so, for now i'm happy at work. although some days, i come close to quitting and walking out - i'll apply for new jobs and look around, but mostly, my job needs to just be a job again. the rest of my life needs to become the good stuff.

i want to write more. and better. so, this involves a few things: take a class and read more non-fiction. after i'm done with my oil painting class, i'd like to find some sort of workshop.

i want my blog to function more like a website. i still want the clumsy writing and the photography to be the most important part - but i want it to be easier to navigate through old photographs. i want prices. i want a separate tab for wedding pictures and portraits. i want a contact tab. etc. etc.

i want to get back into painting. even though i'm taking the oil painting class - i think the real passion for me is in those silly watercolors. man, they're beautiful. and it's such a spiritual act. i want to look at more watercolor paintings that aren't your grandma's paintings of her rose bush (although, i've got nothing against that!) . . . georgia o'keeffe has the most beautiful watercolor paintings i've ever seen. there's got to be more like her out there.

i want to be a better daughter, sister, and friend. so this means the same as it's meant the past year: be careful about how i spend my energy. give more of myself to less people. i want to feel strong and powerful again. i want to trust myself. i want to make decisions again - just for the sake of making a decision.

save money, so that when i can get the time off, i can travel.

remember that i'm still the 16 year old girl who refused to be consumed by work, and studying, and tests, and papers and SATS, and college interviews because everyone who was worried about these things seemed miserable. who preferred daydreaming about living in Maine. who spent all of elementary school planning her escape to Wyoming. remember that it's possible - i will, some day, be doing the exact thing i want to be doing, but for now, i've got to work towards this stuff. and that's the good stuff. the work is good.

snow day thoughts

today was my first snow day of the year. yesterday, i was feeling pretty sick. so today was spent mostly inside. around 5:00, the apartment turned blue, as the sun was almost completely down and the outside turned from daylight to twilight. i looked out of my living room window and the courtyard below reminded me of movies i've watched about the holocaust. something about the brick buildings, the lack of trees, the emptiness, the snow falling, the depressing blue color - it's like what i imagine auschwitz to have felt like. i saw birds flying in the sky above this courtyard - and i started wondering what people who are imprisoned think about birds. jealousy? or hopefulness? i'm not sure - probably a range of emotions. i watched a documentary on micheal jackson fans once who stand outside of neverland daily. they wait by the gates in hopes that they might be let in, or they might see micheal jackson. one of the women said, "those of us who wait here, we're jealous of those birds. they have the freedom to fly in and out of neverland. we wish we were birds." it made me think of this. my dad gave me this book a year ago. i read it sometime last summer.

it's from wallace stenger's book, "the sound of mountain water." the section of this book is called the coda - it's a letter. you should read the book if you can. the part i pulled out is just from the first few paragraphs.

dear mr. pesonen:
i believe that you are working on the wilderness portion of the outdoor recreation resources review commission's report. if i may, i should like to urge some arguments for wilderness preservation that involve recreation, as it is ordinarily conceived, hardly at all. hunting, fishing, hiking, mountain-climbing, camping, photography, and the enjoyment of natural scenery will all, surely, figure in your report. so will the wilderness as a genetic reserve, a scientific yardstick by which we may measure the world in its natural balance against the world in its man-made imbalance. what i want to speak for is not so much the wilderness uses, valuable as those are, but the wilderness idea, which is a resource in itself. being an intangible and spiritual resource, it will seem mystical to the practical-minded - but then anything that cannot be moved by a bulldozer is likely to seem mystical to them . . .

something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. and so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the word, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. without any remaining wilderness we are committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life, the brave new world of a completely man-controlled environment. we need wilderness preserved-as much of it is still left, and as many kind-because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. the reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it. it is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our insane lives. it is important to us when we are old simply because it is there - important, that is, simply as an idea.

skeletons of trees

ladies and gentleman, ghosts and children of the state,
i am here because i could never get the hang of Time.
this hour, for example, would be like all others
were it not for the rain falling through the roof.
i'd better not be too explicit. my night is careless
with itself, troublesome as a woman wearing no bra
in winter. i believe everything is a metaphor for sex.
lovemaking mimics the act of departure, moonlight
drips from the leaves. you can spend your whole life
doing no more than preparing for life and thinking,
"is this all there is?"

oakland and terrance hayes go together for me. he came in the mail today, "lighthead." his house, and my parent's house, share an alley together. his family trick-or-treats at my house. i see him and his wife and kids. he came to my class at duquesne, freshman year of college, and read his poems. he told me i ask good questions. he signed my book. i was probably the only person in the class who was even awake. i woke up on the morning of the 31st and decided to reconcile 2010 by a nice walk in schenley park. it was warm - like 60 degrees. i remembered that winter does pass. i took pictures of trees. i missed all of you. i missed being in middle school and high school and skipping class and wandering around oakland until i could return home. i longed for my 40-something year old self who could get an mfa at pitt and live near schenley park, and have a big window and birds in the backyard. i thought terrance hayes could be my friend that way.

i made the mistake of reading old posts from when i was living in arizona. this was a mistake because of the obvious. my words now are mush. my brain is mush. i was inspired, then. i am not, now. i was proud then. i am not, now. i can see you, skyscrapers, from my window. and tonight, i hate you. i can imagine you extending around the city like a wall. i am stuck.