Single In New York...
Little Girl in Solitude.
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Childhood memories are lost in a maze that is the brain. A kaleidoscopic filing system where nothing is in order. Not chronologically, not alphabetically, and not prioritized. Some cabinets don’t even open. Keys have been lost for years. And I would imagine that the number for the locksmith is locked in one of those cabinets. Because that just seems to be the way it is.
Images are stretched and skewed and colors are accentuated. Even the lack of color is sometimes emphasized. Pictures are not filed like everything else, they float aimlessly, and as if without gravity, around and around in the cluttered space that I have been enslaved for too long.
*************
Not all the visions are real. Some are dreams, some memories, some thoughts, and some nightmares. Stumbling upon such a picture in my mind can often take a moment or two for the filing system to pull up archives on it. “Did that happen?” “Did I see her?” “Where was that?” A series of multiple choice questions frantically surveying database after database on a giant server of jumbled information until I can conclude when, why, how, and where that image came from. If it ever even existed at all.
A giant room filled with computers, files, paperwork, paintings, portraits, and digital images flying fast and slow in circles ‘round the room with no set course over the head of a little girl cowering in the corner. Afraid that the things she sees is all a dream, she prays that her photographic memory will not document the events and be kept with her always. Haunting her. What she does not realize; it’s not a dream. It’s her life. She will forever be trapped in what looks like an abandoned classroom. The door slightly ajar, windows broken, and a damp feeling taking over the air.
She does not dare leave. For fear that what lurks beyond that door is far more devastating that the eternity she has already been sentenced in the messy, chaotic, dark room, eternally lonely.
She curls her knees into her chest and fights with all her might to hold back tears.
The little girl deserted in solitude.
Circle of life.
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I will paint until I die.
I will write until I die.
I will sing until I die.
I will think until I die.
I will feel until I die.
I will breathe until I die.
I will love until I die.
I will mourn until I die.
I will cry until I die.
…Even if only on the inside.
—–
A new series of paintings I just finished.
“Sun.”
“Always.”
“Sets.”
The Anti-Shoe.
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The grass blades tickle between my toes and remind of what it was like to be a kid and carefree. Sometimes they’re cold and wet and I imagine that walking on clouds wouldn’t feel much different.
The streets are flat and hot and warm my entire body with every single step sending chills up and down my spine as my feet adjust to the new temperature. What I love more than walking on a warm street is running down it. It’s almost therapeutic for me.
Something magical happens when I wander the sandy beaches. My feet pressing firmly into the soft, tiny grains of sand with hints of broken shells scattered about sometimes digging into the bottoms of my heels reminding me that not everything is perfect, not even the beach, but it is all stunning. Sharp shells or not.
*******
Months ago, as I was departing a birthday party some twenty blocks from my apartment I commented to a friend how much my shoes were killing my feet. I mentioned that I was looking forward to just taking my shoes off, letting my feet breathe, relax, and enjoy the night as much as I was.
“The sacrifices we make for fashion” was her response. It didn’t make sense to me. I want to feel beautiful, but I want my soul to feel beautiful too. And bare feet do that for me. As she and I were headed towards the door, accompanying each other on a walk to the nearest subway I removed my strappy heels, the ones I bought specifically for that dress, because they belonged together in a world where shoes and clothes should be married for all eternity. Fashion soul-mates.
“You’re crazy! You can’t walk through the upper east side barefoot. You have no idea what you might step on.” And she was right. There was no telling what objects my feet might encounter on the busy sidewalks of Manhattan (both visible and undetectable). But as dangerous as it was, I couldn’t resist the temptation to allow myself to feel free.
As we made our way the four and half blocks to the nearest subway I smiled at the thought of the cool, cement sidewalk my bare feet were pounding against. Every step was more refreshing than the last and I wished that my journey could go on forever. Passing hundreds of other pedestrians, not one even batted an eye as my shoeless feet strolled down avenue after avenue. My friend, on the other hand, couldn’t help but shake her head at what she perceived as insanity. (I don’t necessarily blame her. But I did it nonetheless.)
Feeling the sandpaper grips on the balls of my feet as I made my way down the subway staircase I wondered what the subway floors would feel like. Anxious to learn if it would be cold or warm, I lightly jogged down the steps and leaped onto the platform.
The floor was cold and smooth and I found myself lost in thought. Was it from the air conditioning that was pumping to relieve it’s passengers from the heat that suffocated the city on that still August night?
*******
I smiled serenely the whole way home.
Barefoot is bliss.
–Note–
It was not the safest thing I have done in my life. And I do not recommend it. I as lucky enough to make it home fungus and disease-free. Please do not attempt.
A glimpse at book #1.
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Chapter Nine
The feeling of being lost was becoming unbearable. She dreaded the day. The morning when she would have to open her eyes and start her life. The uncontrollable act of being, breathing, thinking, seeing, believing that life, her life, had a purpose, a meaning, for forcing her to exist in a world she couldn’t help but hate. A life she wished she had never had, a feeling of abandonment that she could not escape.
Still, she woke on time as usual. She took a shower and got dressed as usual. As always she took the same subway to work, the same dreaded C train uptown. And just as predicted, she stopped at the local coffee shop for her usual.
“Large black tea. Two bags, one sugar please. And I’m going to grab a Times on the way out.” $1.62 for the tea. $1.25 for the Times. $2.87. Perfect change. Just like everyday. Because every night she laid it out on her dresser so that she could easily slip it in her pocket just before walking out the door ensuring that she would spend no more than 1.87 minutes in the coffee shop in the morning.
She found herself preoccupied all morning. Ignored phone calls and procrastinated attending her weekly meeting with her boss. She couldn’t focus, didn’t want to focus, and didn’t even really try that hard. She decided that she couldn’t be there. “They wouldn’t blame me” she assured herself. So before 10:30am she had left her office and found herself sitting on the subway. Not really wanting to go home, she decided to let her heart choose for her head for a change. She figured she would just get off when she felt like it, because something made her feel that way, because there was no reason not to.
Before long she found herself at Central Park. She had been there so many times in her life. It was just a park. Just grass and some trees. People, couples, babies, dogs lying on blankets soaking up the last of the summer sun. There was nothing different about the park today than any other day. Except the fact that she was alone now. Abandoned and deserted.
But still, the air was so sweet, the sun was warm and she felt like if heaven could exist on Earth, even for just a small glimpse in time, she was walking through it right now. The world was at peace and it caused her heartbeat to cease so that she may take it all without being interrupted by the slow beating of her broken heart. With eyes closed, face towards the sky, she took a deep breath and beamed as bright as the sun. She knew she would be alright, now matter how hard it was. She was strong and willful and there would be nothing to hold her back. Because, she wouldn’t let anything hold her back, because she was sick of being held back. Because something always held her back.
**********
She thinks back to the day they met. While they were together she wished she had a romantic story to tell of the time they were first introduced. It was nothing special in anyone else’s eyes, but it was to her anyway, because that was the day she met her first real love.
She remembered what it was like to go home to someone every night. She remembered what it was like to smile everyday because she wanted to smile. She recalls how it felt to be envied for having what others perceived as the perfect life. She knows what it means to belong completely to someone else. How it felt to give her heart, beating fast then slow, fast then slow, and place it someone else’s hands. To watch as they carried it around and she carried their’s. She understood that her life was not just hers anymore, it was a “theirs’” and she was accepting of that. In fact, she had welcomed it. She willingly gave up many things that she loved. She acknowledged his faults and their differences and paid no mind to them. She was happy. She was happy.
Now is a different time for him and for her, for them. But she agreed, after many hours of trepidation, she decided that now was her time. She would live the life she always wanted to live. The one she gave up for him, for them.
“This is a new beginning, a bright new foundation with promise and potential!” She thought to herself. “Who am I trying to kid? I’m never this god damn optimistic. It’s a new beginning. That’s about it. But I’m going to make it a great one. Because I don’t know how many other beginnings I’m going to get.”
Second Avenue.
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I will admit that I do have a problem showing emotion to people. Even the people I am most close to. I don’t know why, or where it stems from, but I have always just been afraid to let people see what I was feeling.
I hold myself to higher standard than I do everyone else. Feelings of sadness and lonliness are not acceptable in my book. At least not for myself. But you cannot always control what you feel. For me to show feelings like to these to another person makes me feel weak, and makes me think that people will perceive me as weak. And that is intolerable for me.
But, here’s where the contradiction comes in. When people express feelings of sadness and lonliness to me, I am envious. I admire them. I think about how strong of a person they are for being able to express those feelings to someone else.
I walked up and down 2nd Avenue last night. And I wished for health and happiness for my little nephew that I love more than anything. I wished that my sister’s wedding would be everything she always wanted it to be. I wished that my dad would not feel restless and worried anymore. I wished that my brother and sister-in-law would get the house of their dreams. I wished that my friend’s job interview went well today. He wants that job more than anything. And I wished that he would get it. I wished that my step-mom would let go of the angry things from her past and enjoy everything and everyone she has today.
And then I stopped. Because I realized that I had wished for things for everyone but myself. What did I want for myself? I was feeling sad and lonely, but could not pick any one thing to wish for that would make me happy. Because really, I am happy. I just didn’t feel it at that moment. And I don’t need anything right now. Nothing worth wishing for anyway. Anything that I need, will come, in time. All in time. And I thought there was no need to waste a perfectly good wish on something that I have been living without, and can live without, and will live without until the time is right.
Better to use those wishes on those who need something. And deserve something.
I turned around and I went home. And I stood in my studio and painted a picture that expressed every emotion I have been feeling for the past few weeks. And looking at it now, I’ll bet that anyone who sees it can guess what I was feeling, and maybe even feel what I was feeling.
And without realizing, I had gotten exactly what I needed. Without wasting a wish.
So I looked out my window. And I wished for the sun to rise.
…And I got exactly what I wished for.
