Luna wx 94%v
I remember the day, the moment when I dug in and said NO.
When I looked at felt through all the things I had chosen to do with the time I had had so far, and wrenched myself away from the judgements WASTE OF TIME, WORTHLESS, LIVING IN FANTASYLAND, POINTLESS, CRAZY and said FUCK NO…I’ve done things in my life and seen things and know people the likes of which 99.9 percent of the population never will. Fuck, they make movies and write books about people like me. My road has been windy, sideways, and unique. My needs and goals have drastically changed, but that signifies the completion of a path not the devaluation of it.
I remember the day when I picked up the disk and it was HEAVY. For a long time. So heavy I got so depressed I couldn’t leave the house or eat properly and thought frequently that maybe I’d be better off dead. I also remember what it was like before picking it up. It was better to pick it up, though it had FAILURE and WORRY written all over it.
I remember listening to a coworker on a touring show go on and on about how anyone who doesn’t own a house (like she did) is stupid and basically a loser, and how bad that hurt and how deeply that went in. Ditto for rants about people without college degrees. Or “real” jobs. They only wounded me so deeply because somewhere inside, I agreed.
That sort of thing would now only piss me off and make me all the more determined to dig in and do my work. “Dig in” is the perfectly appropriate way to put it, too. The part that needed addressing wasn’t the worth of my doings but the reckoning with the reality of the World, with the way things work in the material.
I remember being told no, I can’t go to school like I had hoped. Which at first felt like the punitive voice of God saying “you fucked it up the first time when you didn’t know what you were doing, and now you don’t get to go when you really want to”. I may never be able to walk in through the front door like everyone else seems to get to do. But I’ll be damned if that will stop me. And the right people keep showing up, and a way to keep going to the school even if I’m not “in” school is found. And if not that, some other way. Fuck you, God.
I also remember the day that the pilot light came back on. It’s a complete mystery why it did, and though that lamp is in a camp I travel away from now, the important thing is that it did come back on.
I remember the day I learned what the names of the sphinxes pulling the chariot are, that big ol’ fixed square in the kerubic signs in my chart, the parts of me that keep me forever in the doorway and never quite passing through. The parts that seemingly at best immobilize me and at worst pull me all apart. Like that librarian. It was a good piece of time between knowing their names and being able to coordinate them in actuality to make the whole thing move. But now it’s a wheel.
I remember leaving that piece I made in the Museum exhibit, with the fake tag and artists ID, and I remember the Museum giving me the six of hearts in return. Literally.
And now the whole balance is still fragile, any number of things could happen to blow these things I’ve built away, tender and green as they still are. My heart still teeters on the edge of doom and despair even while I’m breathing the air of the rare heights for the first time. I can’t help but be afraid of the great motions going on on the world and my country (though I have to admit that I have a little instinct that being well-set up materially is no guarantee that a person will come out of this one allright, so maybe I didn’t completely mess up by not having that already).
But I can stand with that.
I am a needle of many Norths,
A kingdom of many Kings
I know where my holy places are,
And where to go for refuge.
I fear the wastelands, but I keep going.
V.I.T.R.I.O.L.