05.15.09

"gemini/gemini"

he spoke in questions

for which he desired no answers

as i read his skin

traveled the maps of his life

his tongue was hungry

a hunger beyond lust

eyes that studied me, searched

for a window, a wound

unaware that this was new

his energy- electric and afire

until he fixed his gaze on me

the world slowed

through the smoke, the haze

into the mirror and back again

from the glare of the lights

to the glisten of sweat

he was larger than life

but this was not his truth

his eyes spoke in sonnets

of what he never uttered

searched, yearned

for someone to understand

a hunger no mortal thing can sate.

© 2009, inkedcupcake@gmail.com

I have slipped through to the very depths of my soul.

"And if you feel that you can't go on, and your will's sinkin' low

Just believe and you can't go wrong.

In the light you will find the road..you will find the road.."

One of the many things I love about photography is how much it coaxes deep thought of people. One photo can say a thousand things to a thousand different people. And though we can manipulate photos, at the core of a simple photograph is pure truth. A photo of a person? No matter the skill of the subject in portraying a poker face, the eyes never lie. I don't care if you're a ten-years+ successful actor. It is extremely hard to convey a lie in your eyes. One must really commit to the objective of the shot in order to make it believable.

The perfect photo can bring people to tears or inspire side-splitting laughter. A photo can start a revolution or bring calm to troubled social waters. Photos can arouse, disgust, touch, or demand introspection. 

I've always been into art and art-related media, but over the years I've become more aware and almost developed a sixth (seventh?) sense for 'seeing in photos', as a friend once put it. With this, my personal photographs have gotten better and more artistic.

I love showing different aspects of a person, place, or object (noun? ha ha..)-ways to perceive something or someone that aren't traditional or aren't the biased representation. For example, I've been taking photos at work over the past few months of my fellow dancers and bartenders. I've focused on things like hands, jewelry, subconscious habits (folding and unfolding gum wrappers, for example), shoes, cigarettes, etc. Parts of 'the biz' that aren't all glamour and glitter and silicone. Aspects of the industry that reveal that these are human beings with human behaviors, not just fantasy objects in good lighting.

What's funny about my work is that I often end up being out of the series of photos if I'm taking them on a trip with friends or at friends' houses. We went on a trip last week to Jerome, AZ, and I took three photos (out of around 150) that involved me in some way: two were of my shoes and one of my famous mirror shots. Ha. But I don't mind being behind the camera for this type of thing. I'm lucky to be in front of a camera for a few parts of my life so when I can show my perception of my surroundings, it's quite satisfying.

I've also met some amazing creative minds through this interest. A few of the photographers I've been blessed to meet are so interesting and passionate about things that it inspires me to be a better, more life-loving person. I know photographers with very different styles as well, so I'm fortunate to learn about each and why each person loves the style he or she loves. I love learning about the interests of others who are very passionate about what they like. My best friend is a huge (that's actually an understatement, italics and all) DMB fan, and I love constantly learning new things about the band and why she loves them the way she does. She's taught me so much-things I never knew I cared to know-and helped me be a more well-rounded person regarding music. I was never a big DMB fan, but seeing her passion and how certain songs brought tears to her eyes convinced me that I at least needed to expose myself more to them. If something (band, artist, animal, shoes-whatever) moves someone, truly moves them, there is something (however small) for you to learn from it. However different we are from each other, we are still the same species and we are stuck here together. It's intelligent and relevant to learn about things that scare, shock, disgust us or make us uncomfortable-these things teach us to look inward and turn the mirror back at ourselves. They force us to examine our own motivations and belief systems to see where we stand and why.

It's a little amusing how so many of my blog entries begin with a concise topic and what appears to be a well-marked path, and quickly progress into chaos and rambling, culminating in some philosophical mantra regarding a lesson learned or to be learned.

I think it's the pot.

Trouble get behind me now, trouble let me be..

I'm staring at a white screen, trying to formulate a witty or at least intriguing introduction to a grossly overdue blog. 

+++
Oh there's an emptiness inside her 
And she'd do anything to fill it in 
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now 
It's more like cold blue ice in her heart 
She feels like kicking out all the windows 
And setting fire to this life 
She could change everything about her 
Using colors bold and bright 
But all the colors mix together 
To grey 
And it breaks her heart...
(Dave Matthews Band, "Grey Street")
On days like today, when everything comes suddenly crashing in around me, and the pressure around my head from the mask I wear becomes too much to bear, it's hard to transfer anything from mind to 'paper' coherently. Everything I want to say sounds like a whine or a cry for empathy, and everything I end up typing becomes deleted shortly after because it translates completely opposite what I'm actually feeling.

The hardest part about being a former ('recovered'? 'rehabilitated'?) depressive is the knowledge that certain things are now unacceptable. One may feel dragged down into the darkest abyss of sorrow, but the former seemingly rational option of suicide is no longer a viable solution. Any attempts at self-injury, physical or psychological, are suddenly abhorrent. What was a comforting assurance (a knife blade across the skin) is now an embarrassing and irrational coping mechanism you cannot embrace. The rushing kiss of a bottle to the lips becomes an obvious escape from the reality you're just too weak to face. All of the things that used to seem such rapid and successful diversions from your deepest pain are now, being a 'recovered' patient, silly and completely impossible.

Now I can feel myself being grasped and sucked backwards into an endless vortex of emptiness and pain and hopelessness, and yet all I'm able to do is go limp and let myself be taken. I can only give in to my pain and ride out the storm, no matter how much it hurts, because I truly see no other option. What should be a happy achievement-the absence of suicidal or self-detrimental thoughts-gives me a very hollow solace. My tears, once hot, now burn my cheeks. My hands, which once searched for anything sharp within reach, now clench and unclench and claw at my temples, desperate to extract the thoughts that plague my mind. The stomach, in knots, which was once appeased by the quick punch of whiskey to its sides, now turns in on itself, searching for an escape from a nameless torment. 

And the heart....the heart. The heart that slept in silence and chill, safe behind walls that took years to build. The heart that knew so much inexplicable pain that it imploded, and died inside. The heart that felt neither stab of pain nor rush of warmth, that merely hiccuped, if that, in the presence of instability. The heart that rested on still waters, now exposed and vulnerable to the deepest, darkest sorrow..nothing upon which to lean for balance, no chemical or physical injury or liquid courage on which to depend to steer it through the storm. My heart is now forced to accept the brutal hands of growth wringing it out and strangling it in their grasp. They envelop it, gnarled and dry, made of only truth and realism, rubbing it raw when it feels its weakest. 

And this is how 'recovery' goes. One is never truly 'over' depression. You just learn new ways, sane and reasonable ways, to deal with the difficult times. You have to first accept that there will be more difficult times ahead, and just because you've managed to overcome the biggest obstacle (life), you aren't in the clear. The hardest part about not wanting to die anymore? Realizing that now, you have no choice but to live.

+++

And these are the things that flood my mind and cloud my vision on days like today. When I come home, collapse on my bed and stain my bedding with salty tears and remnants of eyeliner. Days when, sitting on my bathroom floor, my head against the cool wall, my cheeks hot and my eyes puffy, I'm forced to accept that this is what I chose. This is life, in all its ambivalent glory and raw honesty. This is the ups and downs, the side to sides, that I chose over the emptiness of death. I chose to crawl, then stand, then traipse, and finally to walk towards a future that involved my presence rather than the absence of me. 

It gets difficult, and I still have a hard time just accepting that sometimes things go badly, but it comes with the territory. In my blood is a certain genetic torment and restlessness, and I must be aware of it and know how to direct it. It is much, much easier to press a gun barrel against your temple or hold a bottle of narcotics in your hand than to step out of the darkness and stare into the mirror. However, once the ripping of your insides and the throbbing of your head subside, and you realize you're fully feeling things, everything becomes much easier with which to deal. It is surviving, and trudging onward, that display courage. The cowardice is not in being afraid to pull the trigger-it's in the belief that the trigger steers your destiny. 

You steer your destiny. 

Dark clouds may hang on me sometimes 

But I'll work it out..

(DMB, "Dancing Nancies")

+++Yes, there's a DMB theme to the lyrics accompanying this blog. The concert's tomorrow. :)