clock winder

clock winder is on repeat tonight–a beautifully wrought piece embracing the uneven nature of time: the staggered rhythms, the dissonant chords. the poignancy. the beauty. the uneven descent into silence.


this song is on repeat tonight as i stay up long past my bedtime, to pass the time, kill it, and now, finally, to mark it.

time.

yep, time.

what's to be said about this thing we understand so little about? we think we've caught it all, scooped it up and held on to it possesively, assigned a set of sequential numbers to it, occasionally a second and a minute hand, and viola, it's ours. we think we know it, that we get to control it, and we are comfortable in that illusion we blindly clutch to our chests as we carry on through time. yet all the little symbols we bring along with us, trapped inside cell phones and adorning our wrists, they are just that: a symbol. nothing more. and yet, nothing less.



i am so ready to be in my 30s. so ready to feel the passage of time mark itself on my age. because this is not just another hash mark in a row, this is the start of a new row. and while age doesn't mean everything, i feel like i've earned my stripes this past year pulling myself hand over hand, dragging myself through the mud a lot, just to cross this line.

......................................................................thirty......................................................................

i feel clean at the moment.
baptized from so many tears fighting even more fears.
but they, too, are the markers of progress. milestones of terrors i can now turn my back on as i continue forward boldly into the fog of uncertainty and confusion and growth.

and that is something else i have learned {and by learned i mean my body is feeling the truth of what my mind has known for years}: this thing i've been fighting to get to the other side of, it never ends. the other side doesn't exist. the imbalance of change, of growth, of being challenged: it never, ever gets comfortable. yes, i have my days like everyone else, where i can navigate my limitations gracefully, where i can articulate my frustrations clearly and with kindness to myself and others, but similarly there will also be the days when it all breaks apart and things spiral out of control into a temporary and usually overwhelming chaos.

but now i know.
i know.
i know.
this is just part of the process. part of time passing through me, unerringly delivering a new part of myself to understand, breaking open a new space i never knew was there.

so with that, here is a toast to another year, another decade, and to the realization that i never will arrive anywhere but here and now, the only place time has no effect on.

here

i am here, less than five miles from my childhood home: that small, beaten house that was the first place i lived in this world. my life began there. my memories. my first words. i was given my first book there wrapped up under the christmas tree; saw the moon through my grandfather's telescope there out in the front yard with all the weeds.

and now there is here again and the three of us, myself, my memories, and my home, meet again to compare notes on what exactly we each have experienced in the eighteen years since we were all in one place together.

i have the hardest job of the three. the other two just have to show up and show themselves off. me, i have to work, to write, to perform and construct. assemble the piece converging into a story worth telling. a story with meaning. a story with beauty and truth.

and as much as i fear there is no possible way i can create a net of words and images big enough to contain what will happen here, i know in fact, my job is actually the same as theirs: all i have to do is show up. the words and ideas are already here, standing at attention, waiting patiently for me to look back at them as i sift and sieve through this world i am navigating. and so far, my memories are generous in return, loaning out freely from the vaults of my childhood so i can admire the patina added from the tender care of my later selves, polishing my young understanding of the world during the past two decades.

already i am filled.

driving through mobile tonight was surreal. the darkness of 9pm obscuring things i might otherwise remember, but even so, familiarity curled around details. moffett road. bel air mall {which i knew was coming long before the sign announced itself}. winn dixie. padgett switch road. half mile road. two mile road. mostellar medical center {where my blood was drawn on my birthday only a few weeks shy of exactly 24 years ago}.

the most haunting of all was a mysterious building with two white silo-like towers. the writing on them didn't make sense to my sleep deprived and road-tired brain and as i peered at them trying to place what they were for and whether or not i recognized them, i felt the curious gaze of a child step into my body as a sense memory returned. i feel the boredom of being in a car, unable to make sense of this building and strange letters all belonging to a foreign adult world. and as i drove onward tonight, wondering if the memory was real or imagined, i realized it didn't matter if i actually ever stared at that particular building. the truth of the moment, the truth that came surging back to me while passing this one building, that wash of curiosity and loneliness and awareness of the adult world around me, that was real. that was an undeniable marker of my childhood. and, here, tonight it was given back to me in full color and surround sound. and for now, that is enough.

tomorrow, the first thing we film is my home at 33 adams street.

i can hardly believe it: i am here.

suspended

i can't seem to get my head around what time it is. this is most obvious when i {hand} write an entry in my journal. miswritten dates since the new year include: 12.04.2012, 12.05.2011, and 01.02.2010 {really!? 2010?!}. i am not sure exactly where my mind has been these past few weeks, but it certainly has not been keeping track of the linear progression of time.

i am on vacation time where i don't rush myself, take a long morning runs and then later enjoy the process of getting dressed, applying lotion, earrings, whatever else i feel like doing or drinking or eating to simply savor the time passing. and in a rare space of grace, not account for and qualify it, merely observe and interact with it.

or not. often times i just spend an evening completely ignoring time, eating another piece of freshly grilled meat, having that other glass of wine, turning down that curious alley way in some strange city's streets to find something unexpected, something beautiful or merely nothing at all.






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

it has been a good few weeks so far and i owe you several posts, but in the meantime, here is a piece from the modern art museum in center pompidou, paris. it fits in quite nicely with this idea of being suspended in time.

things i love about this piece: 1. everyone stopped in wonder when they saw it. arrested, often for several minutes. 2. it filled me both with awe and delight walking both the realm of play and intellectual genius simultaneously. 3. i could get right up to it, feel the air blowing on my face, almost get brushed by the digital tape as it would dance about. 4. there was danger involved: those moments the two loops would almost slip beyond the grasp of the air. so close so many times, but always caught and returned. 5. the metaphor of interpersonal relationships that is implied in the image. the way the two are looped about each other permanently, but still have the places they are separate. the moments they are so tightly intertwined you think they will knot up, and then moments later, they are free and dancing separately again. just beautiful. 6. that the invisible becomes visible.





flux 2009
zilvinas kempinas

the first thunder of the season.

it's here. freshly arrived tonight on the heels of biting rain.
now it's gone. a few flashes later. a disappointing display of prowess.

i'm ready for summer storms.

preservationist gone wrong

i still have my old day planner from 2007.
but not even the planner but rather a stack of loose sheets
that i have been holding on to for two moves.
first to ballard and then to capitol hill.
i packed them up and lugged them
to each new location in the offchance
i would have time in my busy life to go back
and record all the events of the year in my
sorely neglected ten year journal.
it's a journal where you write 3 or 4 lines
about each day. sum up the events for future reference.
each day (march 4th, july 27th, october 26th)
has it's own page so you can review each day
and what you were doing for the past x amount
of years. it's surprising what the mind recalls from
just reading a few lines. and it's surprising the
patterns that emerge. but, you have to use it.
you have to open it and write. each day. or at
least once a week to get the highlights. and i
have not been doing this. and the guilt
is weighing me down. and these objects
i hope to use to help me nail down these moments
passed and unrecorded are weighing me down too.

i just pitched the day planner.



i'm seriously resisting the urge to go back and fish it out of the recycling.







still.






still.



nathania,
you won't find hidden meaning in those moments already forgotten.
you haven't lost anything important as the significance of the events doesn't disappear.
and,
you are whole even without all those filler memories committed to permanence in writing.

i missed the bus to work today.

taking the bus to work will do wonders for my sense of punctuality because i can't just be on time for the bus, i have to be at least 4 minutes early in case she decides to pull away a minute or two early. again. my penance for being late was sitting on the freezing metal bench while waiting for the next one 36 minutes later. seriously, who puts metal heat-leaching seats at an outdoor bus stop?!?! this isn't hawaii, folks!

i did get my three pages of free association writing in for the day. that was something. and then i nodded off for the rest of the trip to work.



something i did run into this morning {further proof that the way we do the little things is the way we do the big things} was this reluctance to change course once i had missed the bus. i had decided to take the bus this morning and take it i would. even if it made more sense to walk back home and drive myself so that i could bring my sister this large plastic bin i don't need any more and maybe clear out some boxes to boot. i could have taken the bus tomorrow instead and been on time both days.

but.

i couldn't. i sat on the freezing cold bench in this state of perpetual indecision and finally realized i couldn't change my plan because that would have been admitting a failure. a failure for me getting up in time in the morning, a failure of setting boundaries the night before so i could get to bed on time {oh, i'll unpack just one more box of books...after this next one...}, and perhaps most of all, a failure of something i had already invested my time and interest in: taking bus this morning.

and that last bit really is the key. i don't like letting go of things where i have invested something. anything. because i want the investment to prove worthy. i want to have my input reciprocated. i want to see something come back to me forcing this other thing/person/event to be a mirror of myself, and if it reflects a failure then i'm a failure too.

i see this most often in relationships. things i should let die but can't because of what will that say about my ability to understand and empathize with others. i have left myself high and dry in some pretty destructive situations because i didn't want to break away from someone and forever be a terriblenogood sort of person. and even in the case of casual friends, i find myself maintaining several very...uninspiring "friendships" with people i don't connect with on a significant level out of some misplaced sense of obligation. not that everyone who i interact with has to be able to relate in these deep and meaningful ways, but merely that there needs to be some form of kinship and delight that i share with another person, even if it's just that this person has good taste in shoes, loves the red tree or possesses a quirky sense of humor.

so in a way, missing the bus provided an illuminating dilemma. my radar is now trained on these things in my life that have passed their pull date, even by a few seconds, so that i can begin to make some adjustments and let things go without threatening my sense of self worth. i've got a great sense of momentum on this task already since i just went through all my possessions while packing and let go of the things that no longer have significant meaning or potential. actually, i'm still going through things as i settle in to the new place. every thing i recyle or take to good will or trash takes a mountain off by back.

bit by bit i'm sloughing off this old skin.

what a glorious start on my 27th year. all because of a move i didn't want to make. funny that.

today i was named.

a mentor finally put a word to what it is i seek through my fascination with memory and personal/family history.

i am a preservationist.

as soon as he said it, my whole body took the word in for a split second before saying yes. this is right. this is good.

preservationist.

these five syllables strung together in a line articulate the underlying current connecting so many themes in my life: my ability to recall so many details from my first memory onwards {i believe the beginning has now been identified at around 9 months?}. the way i tether a finite period of time in my life to a certain object, image or place. my compulsion to use the objects i have from my childhood in artwork {most notably appropriating family photographs}. my relationship to journaling and blogging - to possess, capture, savor a particular event, emotional or physical. the list goes on.

all these things are about holding on to things. preserving. possessing. i can see that i did these things. i lived in these spaces. and the results of living the beautiful, expansive, vividly colorful process of my life is contained in these objects {be it writing, art, photographs}. it's a way for me to take the ephemerality of my internal experience of the world and make it physical.

this serves a dual purpose:

the physical presence acts as a conductor, transmitting the energy of my experience outward. to share it. to establish connections. and to create resonance in others.

it also serves as evidence. i was here. i lived and felt things things. and. it was beautiful. it was good. it was true.


the irony of this revelation is that just last night i was going through my closets, redistributing boxes, and in the process putting away some photos of myself that i had torn from family albums earlier in the week. in the process i went more carefully through a few of the albums and found a particular place in myself for these stories. a newfound attraction and curiosity to the memories. then suddenly: a desire to have jaimini sitting next to me and hearing my earliest and most tender stories flooded to the surface. and i was able to think of him with a softness toward both him and myself in relation to him that i haven't really felt since the breakup. and most surprisingly, even in the face of such a hopeless desire to have him there with me, i maintained a softness for us both.

as i let the feeling fade, i realized that at the core i just wanted someone significant to share the stories with. eden. a newer friend. someone who could resonate with me. before me was the elegantly battered pages of countless vignettes: the magic of the many pets we had. the loneliness of our living room. the smell of the simple pine furniture. the feel of alabama winter from inside my blue coat with embroidered flowers. the sound of water falling from the hose into the pool and the lines of my father's record collection standing at ease on the shelf.

i want to share these stories, expose their hidden poignancies that a casual observer might not see. and i need to have someone else resonate in my stories with me. prove to me that they are what i feel they are.

somehow, resonance on my own is not enough.

which isn't always true though. when i truly am living a moment of vivid existence, i never feel lonely or that it even needs to be shared. the whole sigur rós event, from the drive down to the concert, was alone. i chatted a bit with my neighbor (who's name i never learned) during the break between the opener and the show, but that was it. i was on my own and when the first surge of sound completely enveloped me {song three}, there was only self and the sound. no breath. no thought. no movement {beyond a smile splitting my face}. no distinction even where i ended and the music began. just a simultaneous being that filled the entire concert hall. where is the emptiness/loneliness in that?

but at the end, i need someone to decompress with. in person. a person to mirror. and again, the idea is to somehow confirm my experience. and celebrate. maintain the rush. and when i don't have a person, writing about it is the next best thing. actually, in the case of sigur rós, i think i would have preferred to have had an hour or two writing on my own before speaking about the experience with others, but at the same time, i recognize the benefit of the conversation in the midst of the post concert wind down. but always, in the end, i have to write when things move me so that i can capture {preserve} the things i lived. the cycle continues....

the importance of nailing my {still} work in progress radiohead blog and also of finishing my sigur rós entry are now laid completely bare, particularly the former. i've said it before, but the way i navigated the three radiohead shows is the biggest story i'm carrying. still. and the fact that i can't materialize it makes me angry. desperate. longing-ful. i must get a hold of it. own it. put it in a frame and hang it on a wall. for keeps.

preservationist.

and what is the threat if i don't tell the story? who will miss out the most? you? hardly. maybe. me? excrutiatingly.

and it all loops back eventually to loss. fear of loss. fear of acknowledging loss {grief}. etc.

but that's a topic of another night's musings.

currently listening to: forgive - burial; the great escape - patrick watson; candyland - cocorosie; the storm begins - jennifer haines; grey - ani difranco.

where did the summer go?

it went by like this:

conflicted {part two}

allow me to chase my tail for a few moments.

{and let me say before i begin: i already know the answer to my musings - the frustrating punchline of patience in the face of so much restlessness.}

i hate being conflicted. well, really, i hate when the conflict is not about what i want, but because of how i judge myself in the face of it. how it rests and is restless in me. do i move forward and throw myself into the internal fray, hoping to come out more at peace with myself and these specters -spectators?- of inadequacy vanquished? or do i pass this by, knowing i'll find exactly what i want further along and leave the ghosts for another day? even if/when i get what i want with zero concessions and compromises, this thing in me will still be hunkered down underneath the veneer of satisfaction if i don't do something about it. but is now the right time and is this the right thing?

in the end, i know it's not really up to me and my intellectual machinations, and all i really need to do is just keep breathing and moving and living and being {patient and kind to myself, among many other things}.

currently listening to: radiohead on shuffle - down is the new up & where i end and you begin

photo credit: imdb.com - the village movie stills

heart. solar plexus. navel. repeat.

the other problem of being single: not having someone to warm your feet each night. i abhor cold feet when trying to fall asleep. and it's beginning to turn winter already so that not even my flannel sheets make a significant difference on the icy exclamation points at the end of my legs. i put the heater on in the bathroom for the first time today before my morning shower and space heaters have manifested themselves in the foyer to be taken upstairs for their winter residence. the season is breathing down my neck.

one of the pieces that really stood out for my in the inspiring impressionism exhibit i saw this weekend was a dutch {?} painting of a winter landscape. there were a few ice skaters in the scene. a small village. lots and lots of grey sky. it was a monochromatic piece of brown/grey with delicate line work and sweeping space. standing in front of the piece i felt like winter.

what a lonely season. we wind up our windows, keep the doors closed, our bodies inside and bury ourselves in layers. it's isolating compared to the stripped-down and naked-armed freedom of summer.

and somehow the painting had it all.

thinking back to my experience in front of the painting i realized that i experience the seasons in specific parts of my body. spring and summer ride on my shoulders curling around my heart. i feel open and light. autumn moves down to the cavity just below my rib cage and seems to extend behind me to all the other autumns before. it's a nostalgic season of endings and internalization. winter moves down farther still to the space just behind my navel. a little black hole of hibernation and potential energy that shoots up my body and back into my chest as soon as the first warm{er} day has come. repeat.



currently listening to: radiohead on shuffle - {the songs that stand out - fog, down is the new up, like spinning plates (kid alive)}

kairos

kairos (καιρός) is an ancient greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment". the ancient greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. while the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies "a time in between", a moment of undetermined period of time in which "something" special happens. what the special something is depends on who is using the word. while chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.





{the above is from dictionary.reference.com}