a sun on loan from summer

all is full of love

the shuffle setting on my ipod* often gives me not so random gifts. today it was a björk song {-- click there to watch it} i haven't heard in years but probably need a daily remember of the concept:


you'll be given love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you have poured yours
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

trust your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you

all is full of love
you just aint receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
all is full of love!

all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love




*my cute red ipod nano is called my little pony after spending a week saying "when i get to the end of my rope there had better be a pony on it"** and then sure enough, it appeared as a wonderful and spontaneous gift from the squirrel. he's amazing.

**i wish i could take credit for such a clever saying, but i must give that credit where it's due, which is with my fellow acting classing mate and hopefully soon to be collaborator, rebecca goldberg.

recovering a sense of safety - pt 3

as i wrap up the first week's exercises, i just want to finish up with one last activity. in slogging through all the ghosts of my past, i also want to acknowledge and honor all the amazing, life and art affirming influences i have experienced. thank you. thank you. thank you. and thank you again:

lindy--fiona's mom. she was the first person who took me, a 5 or 6 year old, seriously growing up and would call me nathania, instead of the hacked-up nick name i abhorred {and, you should note, still do}, tania.

mrs. tolsin--5th grade teacher who was the first person to encourage my writing. she selected my essay about laura ingles wilder to go to the region-wide writing competition and that was the only time i beat out anand periyadeth in anything that year.

mrs. landoni--6th grade teacher. she adored my drawings and even asked to keep my robin hood project which i saw on display years later when i went to visit her class.

mr. fram--8th grade advanced english teacher. he's here mostly for that look he would give me when i was on to something insightful. i could barely speak up in class at first, but his look...it just sparkled when i would bring up an idea from far left. we spent days on just two-pages of borges and there were only two or three of us even able to follow the ideas of the discussion. i was one of them. and i had recently skipped up from 7th grade. when did i stop being so insightful, or do i just hang out with more intelligent people now?

mr. jenes--10th grade english teacher. pretty much all the same things i just said about mr. fram, but even more so because now we were analyzing james joyce instead of borges and i was the only one speaking in class. he would talk to other teachers about me and in a good way. and, to be noted, in a simple class exercise he also helped me realize how much beauty is important to me. one of my top 3 things in life. he also strongly encouraged both my creative and analytical writing

mr. olson--the art troll. a fantastic fantastic art teacher. i had him for a few years in a row i think.

mrs. matthews--she was the first person who put a camera in my hands. she was subbing for the 7th grade science class and for some reason she picked me to take photos of clouds for the day's lesson. stratus. cumulus. they were my first photographs.

becky--she was a grad student teacher at wash u and i had her for my photo 1 and 2 classes. art school was tough freshman year but her classes most likely saved me from dropping out. they were easy in a way that the work just eased out of me. it was natural and fun. probably the reason i ended up majoring in photography.

greg--the modern lit teacher ellie and i took a class with in australia. he loved our writing, as different as it was.

my writing for film teacher--the way he never gave out compliments except the day he passed back my dialogue-less script. he mentioned how it didn't have any dialogue and i said "well, i don't know dialogue but i do know visual art and he replied "well this {and he tapped my script to his hand twice}, this is visual art..."

melody--my very first acting teacher who assumed i had acted before because i had such a presence.

nandi--for her golden, vibrant presence that believes in me from afar and i know always has and always will.

georgia--the dean of students at washington university art school. she was the sole reason i returned to wash u after a year abroad and a year off. i had so many ghosts of failure to face from that first year and she was the only reason i could could consider going back. she speaks truth so wisely and with the utmost care to the humanity of others.

richard--even though i didn't realize it at the time, he's the reason i needed to come back to wash u. he is one of my most influential mentors of all time. my photography professor even though at the time that title wasn't official. i can't begin to say enough here, but he gave us all so much. gave me so much in that gentle, quirky way of his. he changed the way i think about and make art.

jenn--his teaching side kick. another neglected rock star of the art school.

david--my dancing professor who radiates beauty. and i don't just mean he was attractive, though he was that too. it just emanates from his every movement. and he loved and encouraged how wacky i was in class. i cut loose in a way very few people get to see.

j--for thinking i was sexy and becoming a good friend, too. {<---and no, this isn't he "j" of my big ex j}.

caroline f--an acting friend from australia. she took me seriously when others didn't.

robert--an official art mentor and someone who has stood up for me more than most any other two people in my life combined. even if he did it silently. i have a debt to you i still want to repay.

mom--for always being there. always. always. always. as best and as lovingly as you are able.

ede--there are no words for how much you have given me.

oh my goodness and let me not forget robin lynn smith--my meisner acting teacher who's greatest compliment was a direct look in the eye and one single nod, and yet her love and support and encouragement for us was so present. so huge.

and george lewis--my first real acting teacher. what a character. what a force. i want to come back and be in a piece you direct. i have grown so much and i want to share that. thanks for that smile after closing night.

recovering a sense of saftely - pt 2

i want to preface this post by saying how much i love my mother. i know so many other amazing mothers and i can't think of one that i would rather have. i wouldn't trade you in for anything, mom {all of my posts automatically are emailed to her}. so, okay, i'll stop writing to her and start writing my piece.

.............................................................................

my piece. it's about recovering a sense of safety in another part of my life. and this topic is one i have been meaning to write more about. to reclaim it from the quietude of shame, which, looking back, has always been an symptom of my lack of safety.

it's late and i've just scratched all i've written because i am getting too caught up in telling a story and perfecting the words. here are the simple facts:

i have carried my mother's shame about her own sexuality for too long. i see now, how for so long i blamed it on my religious upbringing, having close family and community members being molested, a natural maternal protectiveness, etc. i have had many excuses, but now, i see how much i have inherited my mother's skittishness. internalized it. incubated it. and now i'm forced to face it down and own myself. whether on stage or in real life, i have a history of physically flinching away at the mere thought of being seen as a sexual being, or being witnessed as having the audacity to believe myself attractive {even in the humorous play, the man who came to dinner}.

shame. how much it burns. mom, how you have burned me with your own shame.

i could go into more detail, draw out all the symptoms and their parental causes, but i'm going to keep it simple, get to bed early and move on: mom, i give you back your shame. keep it. do something constructive with it, ideally move on from it yourself, but i've learned all i need to learn from it and it's time for me to be able to explore the full range of myself as an actor and a human being who is sexual in nature.

{eek...i still inwardly cringe from writing it here...what if someone reads this!?!?! which shouldn't discourage you from doing so :}.

so i affirm: it is safe for me to consider myself as a sexual being and it is safe for me to be witnessed doing so and to share that sexuality, deliberately and safely with another.

the artist's way {wk 1: recovering a sense of safety}

so, i'm on a mission to revive myself as an artist and to transition into the artistic space i have been pursuing for a long time: a space where my whole life is about my own art {not just commercial work in the service of others} and where i make this art from a grounded, productive place. i am going to accomplish this mission, or at least give it a good start, by participating in a facilitated artist's way course led by kate and carol, here.

i have done this course before, but not fully committed to it, and already in reading the intro and first chapter i came across many things i disregarded previously because my dear friend, my ego, loudly claimed that i already knew this thing or that thing so i didn't have to pay too much attention to them. now i've got enough self-perspective to see the difference between knowing something and actually living it so i see clearly how those things i skimmed over last time might be exactly what i need to hear and do. repeatedly.

i could spend a lot more time writing about all the bits in the introduction that stood out at me this reading, but it's late, well past my bedtime and one of the things i promised to do during these twelve weeks is to get enough sleep. sleep is needed for one of the cornerstones of this practice, the morning pages: three pages of free writing {don't-stop-moving-your-pen-spelling-doesn't-matter-you-can-change-a-thought-mid-word-if-you-want sort of writing}. you have to do them first thing in the morning, which is tough on days i have to skitter off to work after hitting snooze a couple of times too many.

but i did want to steal a few more minutes away from "a good night's rest" to acknowledge the first chapter's focus on recovering a sense of safety. as someone that has a set of parents that have always supported my interests in the arts, previously doing this work i disregarded the necessity i have of recovering a sense of safety. no one major has ever mocked my art that i can remember, yet all those memories from the past that hold a little {or a lot} of sting have the same effect of making my seem world less safe and me more cautious within it. i am less secure because of them, so i have to reclaim my safety as a human being before i can move forward as a the confident artist i envision for myself.

one of the exercises for the first week asks me to list three old enemies of my artistic self-worth. this has always been an easy list with the same cast of characters. but this time, i openly acknowledged the fact that there are more names i could add that didn't overtly attack my art, but somehow reinforced my sense of failure as an artist or person. that list is:

---john sabraw {my freshman year drawing teacher. the one most directly related to my art...more below}
---zach {my manager at the restaurant i worked at in nyc who openly mocked me in front of others then tried to be a fake buddy buddy each time he realized he had crossed a line. he was also really short and stood on tiptoes as he talked to people whether or not they were as tall as me}
---the mean kids in my 8th grade art class {can't remember names, but they teased me about my basketball playing rather than my art}
---my cafe manager in australia {druggie who didn't do her job, trained me poorly then threw me in with more than i could handle. to her benefit, she did try to later protect me, but she was too much of a mess to really make amends. oh, and she was taking out taxes but not reporting it. i think that was kind of dodgy}

and the list could go on. i have a good memory.

the next assignment asks us to select one incident from the above and write it out. so here it is, ten years later, something that still haunts me:

i slept in on the morning of a big art critique for my drawing class. i had stayed up almost all night finishing a drawing that i was sure {and still am sure} sucked, that wasn't nearly good enough for the astronomically high standards of sabraw {the above teacher} and i all of that topped off with waking up late. i couldn't believe it. panic doesn't even begin to cover it. and one of the bravest things i have ever done was walk into the classroom an hour and a half late.

the class was all lined up facing a drawing and in the middle of talking about someone's work. my eyes met my teacher's as he flicked a dismissive glance in my direction, and then returned to what was at hand. that exchange of eye contact, the angle of his glance, the way he didn't even bother turning his face much toward me and the way he sliced me with the breaking of his gaze...i won't ever forget that.

for a while nothing was said on the subject, which i think was worse; silence can be more threatening than words. so i don't know how i got the guts to comment on any of the work that was being shown but i assume i did because non-participation would have landed me only further in the doghouse. as things were winding down he asked how many people were left to go. i raised my hand and he said something to the effect of "you were late, you don't get to go." and that was that.

after the class filed out he and i did a one on one crit and i think i was crying two thirds of the way through it. i specifically remember how during the process he had cautioned me against putting kitschy little glows around the lights that were in the drawing, yet sure enough, somehow they got there. i didn't do it deliberately but i think he felt bad enough by the end because he threw me a bone and commented on the halos as though they were a good thing. somehow that made the humiliation worse. he had lowered his standards for me.

i finished off the year with him rather than transferring at the end of the semester, but i have always told myself and anyone that would listen that i couldn't draw realistically after that.

------------

the next task is to write a letter to the editor in your defense of the situation, or any of the above situations, but i think i can most directly reclaim myself by writing a letter directly to my teacher. i have often thought about it, but i wasn't one of the students he told "don't be a stranger" to or asked to be in contact with and i am certain he wouldn't remember me. but here, for myself, with no need to hope for an answer i can write him a letter.

sabraw,

i remember the bar-b-que they held for freshman at the art school. it was before classes had started and those of us slated to be in your class were whispering nervously amongst ourselves, proud to be included in the select club of sabraw's students but also a little scared. you made an appearance and stood and talked with several of us as we fanned around you and hung on your every word while trying to appear cool.

supplies were purchased and classes began.

i remember on the first day, to prove how little we observed of the world, you pointed out how none of us considered what color hair a fellow student had beneath the bleached and dyed layers of blond and kool-aid red. i was too intimidated to speak up and say that i actually had specifically wondered that very thing. her hair colors were just like one of my best friend's in high school and i had immediately considered whether the original was at all close to my friend's. so this was the perfect foreshadow at the start of our relationship where you had all the power, proving to us our shortcomings by what we didn't do while i stayed silent and unremarkable, possessing more answers than i allowed myself credit for.

i think it made it harder that you are a genius in your art. yes, a genius. there is no other way to describe it and i'm sure you are already aware of the fact. you are a genius in the way you think and create, and particularly your ability to recreate the world, with such specificity and luminosity and not one visible brush stroke. it's genius and so full of wonder, that rare magical wonder you have as a kid where everything is extra alive, extra colorful, extra real.

but you are not a genius teacher. far, far from it. there is a cuttingness to you and your feedback, sharp edges that wound as they instruct. what good does it do to make me better at drawing if i am too hurt to use the tools even years later? and, under slightly gentler care, could i have learned more? gone farther? i don't know, but i do know that i would have lived the next decade of my life a little easier if you had. for years after, i could track the seasons by my end-of-semester nightmares about forgetting to start my project for your class whether or not i was enrolled in school.

but i think i'm done now. done carrying all guilt of failure. i was young, and so literal minded {my ideas for the final self-portrait project still make me cringe, and trust me, i remember them all} and spread so thin across not enough sleep and too much going on, but you failed me as a teacher. you failed to give what i needed: deliver both the praise and constructive criticism in a way that valued me as a human being. because i know you saw us clearly. i know you saw how green and raw we were. we were more naked before you than all the nude models we had second semester. i saw you take care of others, so i knew you were capable of it and i even saw you stoop down to take care of me, all snotty and teary eyed, ashamed of being late, ashamed of the work in front of me, ashamed of not being a genius like you or of even being good enough to have your respect. but that care was too little, too late.

so i ask: what good did it really do me that now that i'm older, an oil painter with ideas of greater elegance and sophistication than i could have imagined for myself back then, but still too scared to paint my nude self portrait you might actually deem interesting?

sabraw, i lay this burden down at my feet, and i lay it down at yours. now, a decade later. this hefty, ugly mess of memories of drawings i couldn't wait to throw away. but even so the sad thing remains in how forgettable to you i was while you've been completely unforgettable to me.

and with this act of putting down this burden, i find that i am free to thank you for all you taught me. it was a lot, as painful as much of the best of it was. i forgive you for your shortcomings and please forgive me for mine, both as a literal minded, procrastinating-on-starting-work-on-your-projects artist and as a person unable to ask for what i needed.

so, all the best to you, and as soon as i can afford one of your paintings, i will buy one. {my current favorite is gossamer}.

~nathania.
freshman drawing class 2000-2001
washington unversity in st. louis

p.s. and the final piece, a nagging bit of irony, is how much you resemble one of the gods of my art world, another unreachable, un-impressable genius, thom yorke. even down to your own eye-quirk and spiky sandy hair. the resemblance is eerie.

gossamer and twilight

images copyright john sabraw, painter extraordinaire.

7 day forecast

at least there is sun, 90 degree temps and a pool waiting for me in vegas. yay for another business trip and vitamin d.

the jumper

i feel like i should take a moment to warn the reader the below is of a different kind of content then i have ever had or ever hope to have again in the future. i witnessed an accident on september 1st that was very graphic and i wouldn't want to surprise the reader with that. maybe it just feels disturbing to me because i have a visual aid to accompany the words, but please, be warned and read with caution.

........….....................................

my voice teacher explained to us that when the body wants to resist an experience it's having, it stops breathing. like in moments before a car accident, the one or two seconds of time before impact that stretches out to infinity become silent and breathless. refusing air, the body is rejecting the act of taking the experience into itself.

but i learned something new last wednesday while driving to the hospital to visit az in the icu. i learned that there are the times when denying the body breath simply isn't enough protection from the outside world that is forcing itself upon the spirit and one has to purge oneself of the experience, expel it out as quickly as possible.

that said, i never thought i would be a screamer. does anyone, really? people scream in movies and it almost always feels contrived and useless. but after sensing something strange happening with traffic up ahead, on this particular wednesday, i made a poor choice and switched lanes to my left instead of my right.

a mere moments later traffic opened up and revealed a stopped car in the middle of the freeway with a man walking behind it to place the first flare. and as i came parallel to the car an obstruction in the road directly in front of the car appeared and my mind speculated for a brief, innocent, second on how creepy it was that the debris faintly resembled a torso. that innocence was fleeting as the dark line in the rubble became a belt and the grey and red objects that used to mean something to this body became blood and grey matter.

and that's when all the panic and horror tore out of my body shredding themselves on my vocal chords along the way.

i screamed for long moments, city blocks, full breaths in and out, tears running down my face, yet it still took me a quarter of a mile before the voice in my ears identified itself as my own. that was when my brain switched back on as i struggled to pull myself together knowing i couldn't pull over anywhere near the site and witness any more. a hazy body lying parallel on the pavement, the crowds of watchers that were sure to come. even the emergency vehicles approaching would be too much. there was no such thing as a safe distance.

so my body continued on autopilot as i steered the car while my mind roved through the circumstances: the body's proximity to the car that was too close for having flown from it, the overpass above, all the people i was driving passed each moment that had no idea of the accident just out of sight and all the while still screaming through my hand clasped tightly over my mouth. my hand was my final, paltry attempt to keep whatever i was expelling out from reentering back the way it came. hold myself in. keep everything else out and away. far far away.

and here i was, on the way to seeing someone tied up in tubes and oxygen and IVs up the arm like full sleeve tattoos with no where to put the horror. all this i considered, my body voicing itself quietly, with shorter breaths and smaller, sadder sounds until eventually i could reach out, call e and leave a long, broken voice mail, text ross, the only one i know who knows even more about body splattered on car and pavement.

........….....................................

my throat hurt for days and the first night i couldn't turn the lights out in my room at night. have i ever been that afraid of the dark?

........….....................................

the next night i decided to spend the night in the icu with az. he was officially out of the icu, just hanging out there until a bed became open elsewhere in the hospital. we watched toystory. he got some sleep. and the thin mattress and squeaky frame was a welcome respite from the lonely, creepy sleep i had gotten the previous night with the pillow over my head and the lights on in my bedroom.

i had two dreams this night, each seconds long, back to back, summing up all the extremes of the previous few days. the first dream was golden in color. warm and safe. i was in the icu with az, but the room was filled with his brother, sister-in-law and mother, all who were there standing vigil with me. there was a lot of love for him in that space and it was comforting to me as much as it was there for him too. this dream was abruptly snatched away and replaced with another. the colors were dark, blue/grey as az and i were in my car in a full spin right through the scene where the man jumped and killed himself. as we passed the scene where it happened, time slowed down so we could get a full, elongated view of the space where he took his life.

and then the lights came on as the nurses came in to say we were being transferred to a new floor. amen.

alone

this came to me by way of my dear friend, s, who left seattle right about the time i moved into my new place. she was heading home and through her own transition, and here we are, states apart, moved by this lovely piece about loneliness.






you can also see it by clicking here.

daily prayer

i just want time.
time that isn't for work or bills or unpacking.
time for fun that isn't escapism
and time for thinking that isn't just worried about being alone.

sun after some grey skies today

matching my mood. hope the skies clear, at least internally.

az is getting out of the ICU tonight!!!

another day

i had to sleep with the lights on last night. haven't been that afraid of the dark in years.

morning and all i can do is lay in bed getting later for work by 9 minute snooze increments while rubbing my feet against each other. a soft thing to feel. i can handle that.

what a weird two days. hopefully the close up view of life's fragility is done.*

-----

*az is still fine and on the mend, by the way.

into the foreground

this song has been on repeat since last night when it came up on my ipod's shuffle. e had initially sent it to me, but i guess it was just needing the right moment to be officially integrated into my music collection, and that time is now. winter winds are blowing away our summer. the flavor in the air, moving the trees and invading my house through open windows was almost creepy last night. az in the hospital. california reduced in size to memories. the slow motion turning of a 180 spin on the freeway. life has just been a little weird in the past thirty six hours.





take on another shift
palms in the middle, hands in the middle
work out another rift
something is muffled, another juggle

this is a foreground
it is a foreground

a cross country miss
take direction, can’t connect it
i’m afraid this is
ten detected, nine in a wreck and…
a little jetty fight
pattern evolving, motion insolvent
something about this might
take all evening,
i’ll just be cleaning

this is a foreground
it is a foreground

p.s. mom, you can watch it here.

goodbye california

for now.

the suns of santa barbara {day 1}

i am in santa barbara visiting a family i have gotten to know over the past four years. we met when i taught the kids {and even the mom} at the art studio back when i first graduated from college. it's been a year of teaching and then three and a half of babysitting, including long visits with the parents at the end of each date night.

so here i am, helping them out in the transition between moving south to santa barbara and the start of school, when new things will take the place of all the old and loved ones left behind.

meanwhile, i got to spend the day with my special friend, their youngest daughter, where we chased waves and let the waves chase us, hear the crash of the island-broken surf on the beach and the pebbly warmth of sand and stones beneath my feet. driving home she simply said "i had a lot of fun today" which is high praise in her world. and later, while making fresh orange juice after hitting up the two trees in the backyard, the older sister said "you know? i think of you as family..."

it was a good day.

suns and buildings pt 2

tomorrow evening i will be in santa barbara, ca.

a-punk

it never fails to make me happy. thanks, vampire weekend, for your tasty bit of fluff.

suns and buildings

my heart is lighter today than it's been in weeks. life is good.

jealousy

let jealousy be your teacher. jealousy can lead you to the very places where you most need healing. it can be your guide into your own dark side and show you the way to total self-realization. jealousy can teach you to live in peace with yourself and with the whole world if you let it.

deborah anapol

the park

a well earned respite in the park after a good but long weekend.

we met

and she's wonderful.

finally

on her way over
a little anxious
last minute cleaning
what to wear
make up

the heart aches that i will like her
the heart worries i won't.

i am not bulletproof

preface to this blog entry:

due to the number of people checking in to make sure i'm okay, i actually am quite okay, as is az. we've been navigating tough territory as he slooowly moves toward a new relationship {with someone i would love to see him with}, but in a way that the resolution comes quickly to each of my moments of being overwhelmed by panic/grief/hopelessness {that essentially are due to my belief that i am worthless to him if someone else has value}. while my anxiety has been coming up on a daily basis, it has been met head on by the two of us to understand, and resolve them in the moment. for the most part {i can think of two exceptions} i haven't gone to sleep anything less than peaceful and secure in our mutual love and admiration even as it's evolving and changing. which is a really good thing.

...................

i wish i could write to you about what the past two weeks have been for me. pick apart and put to words everything that's happened and construct some sort of through line. a moral of the story. a happy ending. but i can't. not just yet.

and i wish i had recorded the hour long conversation i had with one of my oldest friends today as i cried in the bathtub and took her through each gritty, honest, and heartbroken detail of these weeks. but i didn't, so i have to rely on the simple sound bites that stand out in my memory. you don't have to know the answers, nathania. you don't have to know...you are strong...you have such amazing clarity on everything that's happening...and, perhaps most importantly: your life's work is to find out how to take all this compassion you have and learn to turn it inward.

i want to write it all out because i need to hold on to both stories for my own good, to remember all the strength and life i have discovered in myself during this time and the strength and life she spoke to and affirmed in me saying exactly the right things {not one word was astray} sometimes non-stop for minutes on end. it was the perfect conversation that could only happen with someone who has known me and loved me for that long.

but i can't tonight. it's late. i am tired. and this has been a solid few weeks of downright dirty self examination of my own worth. or rather, of my own belief in my lack of worth, and how that rears itself again and again in relationships between lovers and partners, and friends even. and, not excluding the most recent relationship that's coming to its close.

i would like to give you all the golden details of this man's honesty and courage, to see the right things and do them and to speak into my worth. repeatedly. as many times as i need to be reminded of it. and i want to present the parallels to the last ex i wrote here about, and how differently i get to live out a similar situation merely by being partnered with someone who truly cares and knows how exactly to handle that care and apologize for any mishandlings in the process.

but tonight, all i can manage are hazy vignettes indicating the larger story. i am worn. my heart is less heavy now than all day today, but i've cried more days than i haven't recently and i would like to lay the weight down tonight. so for now, here are some photos i took of him, my dear dear friend and lover of a year and a half. and one of the bravest and most honorable people i have ever met.

if only, darling, i could be in love with you,
and if only you could be in love with me.

it should also be noted that as i started taking photos of him tonight, radiohead's bulletproof started playing on my computer {set to shuffle}. as i am currently taking a little break from their music, i would normally walk over and hit skip, but it was just a little too perfect to ignore. here are the lyrics {and you can listen to it here}:

limb by limb and tooth by tooth
tearing up inside of me
every day every hour
i wish that i was bullet proof

wax me
mould me
heat the pins and stab them in
you have turned me into this
just wish that it was bullet proof

so pay the money and take a shot
leadfill the hole in me
i could burst a million bubbles
all surrogate and bullet proof

and bullet proof
and bullet proof
and bullet proof

the old apartment

the sunny day. the final clean. the closing of a chapter. this space was good to me as much as i hoped for better. and so was az.

finally

summer has arrived in seattle

first night home since thursday

and so much to process. shine a light inside and clear away all the ghosts.

much needed sun

first day

the photos i am taking with mark are big and white and soft, dreamy focus. i will send those when i have internet. till then, the phone will have to be my lens.

happy weekends.

and sahra, so happy to hear you are well.

almost free...

except there's a crapload more shopping and packing to do.....

thursday is the new friday

at least it is for me this week. heading into four days off, three of which will be spent on the peninsula on what will hopefully be a relaxing retreat.

in response to closure

a comment and response worth its own space {but reading the post below will put this into a little perspective first}:

from e:

Oh Nat, yes. I'm not sure if I can forgive him yet for being so cruel. Maybe when the real thing comes along, one who is not so hollow, one who is so wonderfully human and imperfect at that, but willing to share those pieces with you (instead of drive them between the two of you).

Maybe then. But this isn't my blog, its yours. And I'm sooo glad this closure has come.

my response:

ede, my lovely ede, my champion and best friend. thank you for that one word in your response: cruel. it scoops up all his actions and pins them neatly into one clean syllable. somehow i find it satisfying to have someone else find him "cruel" as well, in a way i can't explain. i guess because there are still a few dying echoes of my own belief i somehow deserved how he treated me.

i wish i could say i wouldn't be upset if i saw him in person tomorrow, or even, perhaps a year from now. but hopefully the other side of my own wedding {to that far worthier person i haven't met yet}, along with our own adventures and first kids will let me no longer worry about how some man once dropped me like a hot potato. but honestly, at this moment, i do have the last dredges of hurt. the part of me that still wishes for him to come to me with that apology he knows deep down he still owes me.

but all of this is really so small in comparison to having my own faith in myself restored. faith in my ability to make sense of people and emotions. i'm not a genius at it, but i do have a sense about things and an intuition i have come to trust. and that is what he destroyed. by doing one thing, yet always saying he was motivated by another, he completely shattered my ability to make heads or tails of what happened and shook the trust i had in my intuition. and now the picture makes sense, and my inner senses and i are fully reunited and forgiveness is no longer an issue so much.

bigger things are happening.

closure

i have a confession to make. one that many of the social networking generation is guilty of:

i, nathania tenwolde, confess that every couple of months, in a fit of restlessness or boredom, i'd google my ex.

and not just any ex, but the big ex, and really, the only one that matters in terms of ex-ness {all the rest of the ones worth mentioning i am proud to say are still great friends}. and even after a rather dull pull on the first, and second, and fifth googles or facebook searches, i still found myself prodding at the bruise, looking for something long after i have stopped looking for or even wanting anything from him.

and last night, somewhere around midnight, i finally found it. it wasn't the recently updated relationship status that confirmed what he told me a year ago, but rather the anniversary date of his relationship with his current girlfriend, which was something he never EVER could come clean on. because, you see, that anniversary date lands during the time we were still together. in fact, just a mere day or so after we ended our last clear and connected phone call with the standard, and at least on my part authentic, i love you's.

what's more, that was the weekend everything fell apart and he changed pretty much overnight {after not returning any emails or phone calls for a few days--later justified because he had been traveling}. and in the unnecessarily long and drawn out disintegration of the relationship, he did absolutely everything but admit to what had really happened. i even asked point blank: did you sleep with someone. to which he responded {after a one...two...beat pause}. "no." that was a long pause before you answered. {slight pause} "what do you mean?" i mean, if you asked ME if i had slept with someone, i wouldn't have to pause and think of the answer. i could just say, no.

a year later he still threw out some rigmarole about this reason and that reason that it didn't work out, but even then i saw how clearly they were sad little excuses that danced to a tired little tune trying to distract me from the real reason that was hulking silently in the corner. something i could always sense, but wasn't allowed to see.

but i closed that book long ago and walked on, in large part knowing i should be happy i didn't end up with him but haunted by my own inability to understand exactly what had gone so wrong. as much as i knew that no one makes such an abrupt shift without something changing, particularly if that something is in the shape of a female in the bed next to you and more effortlessly enjoyed than the one a hemisphere away, but i couldn't be sure i wasn't fabricating his guilt at my own need to make some sense out of it all.

so after a good night's rest i woke up today finally free of the burden i had carried for two and a half years. free of guilt for the ugly, drawn out nature of the break-up, free of the frustrations of not being able to trust my own instincts about what had happened, free of any remaining daydreams about ending up together. because while all he had to do was say i've met someone else {with maybe even an "i'm sorry for cheating on you" thrown in there for good measure}, i blamed myself for holding on too tightly, for trying too hard, for being too needy, etc {trust me the list goes on too far}...now i can finally give him back his fair share, both for the infidelity and for the lies afterward. and whatever you can say about attraction, you have a choice to move forward with it or a choice to be loyal, even if loyalty is extended merely to the point of ending things openly and honorably, neither of which was done here.*

shortly after finding out the one thing i've been looking for, i was able to cheerfully block him on facebook and be fine with never hearing his name again for the rest of my life.

free at last, free at last. god, almighty, i am free at last.

--------
an eloquent example of the situation as illustrated in the movie closer:

dan: i fell in love with her, alice.
alice: oh, as if you had no choice? there's a moment, there's always a moment, "i can do this, i can give into this, or i can resist it", and i don't know when your moment was, but i bet you there was one.

the color of my relief

i put a heavy burden down today. one that i have been carrying
unnecessarily for two and a half years. more later, but this is a
start for you.

fire suns

sahra, i know you know more than you want to about sunsets near forest
fires, but here is my less than spectacular photo of a spectacular
evening sun turned bright red from some forest fires happening.

little perks

or big ones, depending on how you look at it.

first bath in the new space and i finally discovered that my tub is
long enough for my legs to stretch out in. all the way. even
slouching. this is quite a feat at my height and a perk of the new
space not to be underestimated. i can already tell i am going to make
it through this winter with a double dose of baths.

expectations

this time i expected it, waiting for it in the pause of the conversation that followed the progression of topics from inception*, to christopher nolan {the director}, to the dark knight {his previous film}. that's when it came--the space where the pause sat and cooled its heels, and i strolled up and joined it there, counting down the moments it took for the other person to make the now predictable comparison and say "you know, you look a lot like maggie gyllenhaal."

and i don't know what any of this means, but it does mean something, somewhere in me, to be constantly compared to someone i would love be like in a lot of ways. and i know she's a quirky beauty, but at least she's considered a beauty in her own way and that's something too.


*which deserves its own entry

getting practice

it's been so long since this space has been a part of my daily life, i have kind of lost the sense of when i have something cooking that needs to come out in words and pictures and that need not only be written down for me, but arranged and presented for you, too.

i think living alone will give me more time. at least, i hope, but this first week has gone by and there is still so much yet to be done for my new apartment, and there is always work to be done for my job. which is frustrating. my job should not rule my life. and i feel the gaps in my productivity, i know i'm not doing things as efficiently as i can and would like to, because i NEED more time for myself. i need time to make my own art, not just be creative for the sake of an income.

i want to write blogs again and emails. i have so many emails to write. long emails. months of updates to distribute. in-progress paintings that are aching to be worked on, walls that are begging to be adorned with yet un-realized work. and i want. need. must. make the leap and start making my life about my own art.

so this space is for that. my little sanctuary that surprised me in asking for white duvets and towels accented by light greys and steel blues. i'm not one for neutrals normally, or at least not a predominance, but my bathroom and bedroom are mostly whites. light. airy. free. even the walls are this soft beige that is a perfect color alongside the pristine white molding and details of the rest of the space. the ceilings are high. the southern facing windows, soft and constant.

this is a good place to start. more soon. nighty, night.



currently listening to: pandora radio - skinny love radio

listening to vampire weekend's white sky

but busy making mine golden.

green/iceland

had a dream last night i was traveling though greenland, but often
confusing it for iceland (and i think in the strange way of dreams it
actually was iceland). it was just a short plane right north and the
land was beautiful and magical. at one point i was actually flying
over the land giddy with the rich colors (but at the same time
desaturated) below me. i felt strong and adventurous and flying was
amazing as it always is in dreams. there were others. we were on a
mission. but details have faded.

i've felt for some time now a pull toward iceland. maybe this is
another push in that direction.

l{one}liness {pt. 2.}

this poem by e.e. cummings is one i used in a freshman year project and one of the few pieces of my art i am sad i no longer possess. it didn't fit in my suitcase coming back from freshman year so it got folded up and put in the trash. it was a 2-d project that involved inking in these strips of 1" by 4" pieces of paper with black pen to create these bands of black and white graphics that were then rearranged into a design somehow linked to a piece of writing. mind you, we filled in all the strips without knowing what the final result would be, so i was delighted with how easily i could create this vertical design that elegantly mimicked the zig zag descent of a leaf.

is a little lost on modern keyboards where there is a visual distinction between a letter 'l' and a number '1.' so for the sake of preserving the integrity of the poem, i've made all the number '1's into l's.

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)

one
l

iness

l{one}liness

getting used to being alone again. it's a funny thing how much i wanted my own space, yet now i find myself sad and feeling rejected left and right and just overall mopey despite the fantastic step this is for me. asking for exactly what i want. getting exactly what i want. and being available to the other things that haven't arrived yet and will be just as wonderfully perfect yet perfectly flawed as i can and can't imagine.
am i making sense?
or not.
i don't know that i care either way, but the house is starting to take shape and i hope the heaviness of spirit {that is probably exhaustion parading about in emotional form}
will fade.

see you all soon. thanks again for your patience.

..........................................

i revisit here a quote from winterson's stone gods:

'loneliness isn't about being by yourself. that's fine, right and good, desirable
in many ways. loneliness is about finding a landing-place, or not, and
knowing that, whatever you do, you can go back there. the opposite of loneliness
isn't company, it's a return. a place to return.'

i want my home to be a place to return to.
soon.

last commute from the old place

And not to worry, new address forthcoming. :)

packing

late nights
going through the clutter
finding a few things from the past that still resonate.
old art work {by the way i found an emotional/space compromise that includes keeping those few high school pieces}, photos of an old ex on some random cd, and art supplies i still want to make something out of.

this piece is from a late-college self portrait shoot {the final product is also below}.
it was the only time i would appear in front of the camera semi-nude {only the tops of my shoulders appeared}, despite all the other students having done {tasteful} self-portrait nudes of some form or another.

i am still shy.

anyway, the sleepy, meandering point i'm trying to make is that i like the way my hand is illuminated. the hand.

long awaited details

well, not quite as long as some other things {like how the thom yorke shows went: too much for my tired mind, body and spirit to articulate at this moment}, but still long enough.

so without further ado, here is my new place. it's the loveliest place i have ever lived in surpassing even my darling studio at the new mcdermott. this apartment is the grown-up and matured version of that studio, and i am over-the-moon excited to start living here.

here we go:

the entryway with kick ass columns, a little nook that will perfectly fit one of my little wooden tables, and a walk in closet that will become the home to all my canvases and art supplies.

the living room, hopefully/probably large enough for at least one of my red couches and will definitely be a home to my new bookcase from my great-grandpa that perfectly matches said wooden table as well as the dark wood of the doors.

the formal dining room with an amazing light fixture i didn't noticed until the trip after i took these photos. this room is the reason why this apartment is perfect for me size-wise. it's got plenty of room for not only by table and chairs, but also a full studio and painting space for me to spread out and be creative. i just can't tell yet which of the two spaces will be closer to the window and which will be by the interior side of the room. oh, and notice the picture ledge that is about eye-level around the circumference of the room...

the kitchen with its original cabinetry, counter top space and storage galore, window and gas stove. i am in heaven. and not pictured here is the built-in book shelf normally for cook books but will end up being a colored selection still to be determined.

{first self-portrait in space}

the bedroom, with two windows, a second walk in closet, and space for my queen bed & desk. note: the blue tape around the windows is due to a painting project they are about to complete on the well-maintained exterior of the building. oh, and i get to keep flower boxes outside all of my windows. it will be my little dahlia garden except for outside the kitchen, which will be herbs.



the bathroom with its hardwood floor, window {every room has at least one window!}, and the only space with not enough storage, but i'm already on the hunt for a particular kind of cabinet that will be just perfect for storage as well as a little counter top for my jewelry.

a long shot from the kitchen through the whole apartment. kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom and bathroom & walk-in closet at the far end.

oh, and to be noted, 1. the managers are splendid folks with a charming sense of humor. they work in the graphic design field in the medical industry and do things like take note of the sexy-smooth finish of some of the lease papers i was signing {mohawk paper}. definitely my kind of people. and 2. when i brought the first load/s of boxes {about 2/3 of my books} yesterday i met three people in the hall and each one not only said hello, but also introduced themselves. i met melody, my neighbor and she has a husband, peter, who was down the hall. melody helped me get my door open the first time which was a bit problematic. then i met wendy, the vietnamese lady who used to live in my apartment and just vacated this month to live with her daughter down the hall until mid-month when they move into a house together. perfect timing, wendy. and then i met jeremy, the nice bloke downstairs who was taking some food out to the yard waste/food composting bin {which is proof that it can be done in the city without attracting rats}. i now know almost as many people in the building after one day as i know from my building from ten months.

welcome to my home.

i may have found my new place

humility

going through my possessions as I prepare for this next move. I have
slowly pared down my collection of college, high school and even pre-
high school art and am never sure if I will regret it at a later date.
this is the last of it and I am on the fence. thoughts?