Haunting Angles;Side long glances

Angles

 

You would not believe how much my life is controlled by Angles. [And yes, I am referring to Angles, opposed to Angels, despite the confusion caused by my uppercase use of “A”.]  Angels – side long glances of the reflection in a passing window or car mirror.  The well know Angels at home that seem to take pleasure in pointing out my every flaw, each misplaced hair, each skin imperfection.

 

Really, I don’t want to look but the Angels get the better of me. A quick glance as I make my way from the living room into the bedroom and back.  Not a real in depth analysis but just an odd Angel of myself, seen reflected back to me as I pass the partly closed bathroom door.  Is that who I am right now?  I must say the most jarring part about the Angels – partial images appearing everywhere around me – is that they return a ‘me’ that is at times drastically different than the ‘me’ I am in my head.  My conception – my perception – of my outward appearance is always off.  This, in truth, I feel I could reconcile myself with if it were not for the eyes.  What do you do when the eyes staring back at you, reflected in the bizarre upward Angle of a car mirror –or what have you- don’t seem familiar?  And even if they are familiar, do not seem to possess the inward passion, desire, bravado and confidence you have come to know as YOUR eyes, your SELF.

 

It’s funny how the Angles have the power to alter my day.  They say every mirror is different, each reflective surface slightly convex or concave, and therefore portraying a more or less agreeable version of that which it reflects.  I know this.  I know they can’t be trusted, but as I exit a mirror containing room I do so with my sense of self completely confirmed – bravado, confidence and charm ablaze – or I don’t.  If not, I exit dejected, lost and somewhat confused, occasionally depressed, trying to build my sense of self up from scratch.  In the meantime feeling an imposter in my own skin – no, that’s not right – an imposter in someone else’s skin.  It’s only an Angle; it’s not to be trusted, yet its confirmation or denial of me through its ability to align some ‘inner’ me with some ‘outer’ version is unbelievably alluring.

 

Can I wash my hands without looking up?  Can I exit my car without a quick glance in the rear view just to make sure my hair is not doing some sort of Alfalfa ‘thing’? Can I look through windows and never at them? 

They say near death experiences change you.  Make you less superficial and more to the point. I must say that I have had more than my fair share. However after abandoning such a lifestyle, my life seems to slowly be filling with such banal, minor trivialities.  Sometimes we may just need bigger fish to fry.

A Real Hurt; An Earned Pain

I do not normally do this.  Bike ride I mean.  Even a couple of months ago, after convincing Casey [he requests his name be put in full...] to take the bikes out, getting around the block was a struggle.  Okay, it was more than a struggle and I had to get off and walk uphill (by ‘hill’ I am referring to the slight rises in the pavement) more than once. So please, tell me exactly how it is that two days in a row I have taken my bike on a solitary trek through the hills (real ones this time)? As the miles fall behind me it is as if I am being projected forward.  Yes, the hills still hurt like a son of a … Well, needless to say they are not very easy, but the fact of the matter is that I was able to get past them.  I have found there is an indescribable feeling as the bike passes the high point and starts its plummet down the other side.  With legs that simultaneously burn and feel like jello, all I can do is hold on and hope, in desperation, that whatever steering I am able to do will be enough to save me from hitting a rock or bump in the trail - sending me, as my mind pictures frequently, catapulting through the air and down the hillside.

The green.  I am a slave to the green of the hills.  As I wind my way through the hillside, it steals all other thought from my mind until all I have left is an awe at the beauty in life.  The surreal.  The smell of being outside – the smell of dirt itself.   Connecting with the smells and sights that for me, recall a childhood connectedness with the outdoors.  Becoming in tune with life…with myself.

Alone.  Yes, I am aware that this is contrary to anything remotely advisable (especially in mountain lion terrain), but it cannot be helped.  Okay, the first day it could not be helped. Casey was at work and I was off early.  I needed something to do and a ride around the block simply turned into this grand adventure.  The second day?  By the second day I figured out how much it means to me to do this alone.  The entire ride was me against myself - conquering, learning, coping, surpassing.  I do have it in me to get over this incredibly tall, rocky hill.  I am brave enough to go speeding down the side of a mountain.   I can take the trails I am not familiar with and find out where their tiny, winding, barely visible paths lead.  I want to see the lake such-and-such a sign tells me is three more miles up.  And lastly, something equally significant as the rest, I can do all these things and then make my way back home.  The return trip where all the pedaling hurts so much more, the hills seem so much higher, the distance greater.  I can do this too.  I can make it back to my door.  Sore.  Utterly exhausted.  Spent. What a feeling.  Yesterday morning my muscles hurt in an uncomfortable sort of way.  Then I took my bike out and went longer, further, harder.  This morning my muscles are sore but in an almost pleasant way.  It seems that this is how I am supposed to feel. That this is how you feel when you tell your body to do things, and it responds by accomplishing what you ask of it.  This feeling is completely new to me.

Last fall I could hardly walk.  Could hardly get out of bed.  Between the smoking and the complete absence of the thyroid hormone T3, I was hardly able to function.  I still did it all [caffeinated to an incredibly high degree mind you]. Still commuted to work and school.  Still took on way more than I should have and still managed to somehow get it all done.  But it hurt. I hurt.  Walking was a challenge.  Lifting.each.leg.up. was a matter of will because at about 100 pounds (which, by the way, is counter-intuitive to hypothyroidism) all my muscles were atrophied to practically nothing and my lower legs were so swollen I could hardly pull a sock over them.  And the stairs at school? The ‘Jans steps’?  They were my personal hell.

Quit smoking.  New medicine.  Health(ier) eating.  A bit of time.  Now I almost feel REAL.  At least in a physical way.  Today, I am sore.  I can feel the muscles over my stomach contracting each time I take a breath. My body hurts, but simply put, it SHOULD.

Music; or, A Soundtrack of Thoughts

Music.

 I am not a die hard fan.  I used to be. I used to know all [ahem, okay, a lot of anyway] the ‘up and coming’ artists.  I used to be one of those people with an IPOD forever sticking out of their pocket and a white cord attached to an ear.  If you wanted to talk to me, you had to do so loud enough to make yourself heard over the background soundtrack that I refused to turn off. 

IPODS break.  Things get busy.  Charging units hide themselves around the house and in the bottom of a car’s center console.

 I haven’t had music keeping me company for quite some time.  In the car, yes, but with a sound system that is forever on the fritz - that’s iffy.

So I go about listening to the only thing I have left.  My thoughts.  They have stepped up to the plate, magnificently, to fill the void left by music.  They question, confuse, muddle, ponder.  They SEEM to have their own agency but the ultimate goal of such a plan (scheem..) is something I am utterly in the dark about.  I listen.  People still have to talk loud enough to get through the background soundtrack - there is just a lack of melody these days.

 Today I woke up feeling a bit ‘off’.  In the head that is.  Probably due to a series of consecutive late nights studying and writing for exams/papers etc.

Sitting at my computer, working from home mind you, I had the bright idea to minimise my tasks for the day and go in search of a long lost ITUNES application.  Found it. Picked a song at random. [Put it on repeat because this is just something I DO - always have, and yes it annoys everyone but me].

Now I am sitting here with a long forgotten friend.  It’s this somewhat glazed, far away look in my eyes.  It’s not sadness - far from it - just this distancing from myself.  Not really escaping my head - but looking at it without the ‘ZOOM’ turned all the way up.

So now I wonder if I will make the effort to find that pesky little device…

Shades of Ourselves; Unformed Friendships

Shades of ourselves. Shades of others.

 We meet people and say things.  Try to get some point or another across while skipping over a thousand other equally important things.  No one will ever really know you but yourself.  We go through life trying to understand the people around us - impressions forming about those we meet - from the most limited of interactions.  It is like a figure giving off a hundred thousand shades of itself.  The figure is the mystery.  It will always be.  If I don’t ‘get’ me, who am I to ‘get’ you? 

 Sometimes I think that I don’t think/act/behave in a certain way that seems prevalent in those in life I encounter.  I don’t understand why people lie or deceive.  Oh, I understand the aggressive tendencies we have.  I understand OVER REACTING and being TACTLESS.  I understand saying something malicious as a defensive maneuver.  But why lie?  I watch so many around me fabricate these complicated entanglements for no clear-cut reason.  They seem to be stuck on dive and evade mode.  Is this a form of self preservation/protection.  Is the truth a place of vulnerability? 

I build my own type of walls.  I distance myself from others.  I have my intense lonely moments but always justify them with an inner desire to remain relatively solitary.  I think this ties into my sense of loyalty.  If I form an alliance, which for me constitutes anything more than a remote acquaintance, I give myself completely to it.  I will do anything for my family.  I am engaged and to be honest, (even as my sense of self rebels against my writing it…) I would do anything for him.  Maybe that’s why I don’t form true FRIENDSHIPS anymore.  In my youth I did.  And true to form, I would have done anything for them and expected the same in return.  Back then it didn’t dawn on me that we don’t all work in this all-or-nothing fashion.  I wound up hurt, used up and ditched.  They always lied too.  Time and time again until finally the point started to sink in. 

That was a long time ago.  I don’t have any steadfast reason for my lack of friendships these days.  I look to my parents (hell, anyone for that matter) and I see them surrounded by these beautiful, lasting friendships.  I understand that, at least in theory, I can form friendships without 1.becoming dependent on them and 2. investing too much in their worth.  In theory.  In the meanwhile I am sitting back from it all.  Searching for myself and what that means to me.  Learning to live honestly - especially with myself.  Trying to ‘get’ me (at least a little ;-) and perhaps at least a few of the shades I am casting.

 Listening to: several but at the moment: Goo Goo Dolls/”Black Balloon”.

Flash Mob versus Flash Individual

Doing my best the other day to waste as much time as possible, I was browsing through the school newspaper and came across an article on Flash Mobs.  Apparently I was a bit behind the eight-ball because I had never heard of such a thing. 

Flash Mob:  ”A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.” - courtesy of Wikipedia

[The example given by the article was a group of people, gathering outside of some retail environment or another, "holding bananas up to their ears and chatting as if they were on cell phones."]

Since reading the article I can not seem to get the idea out of my head.  Not only do I expect to see a “mob” around every corner, I WANT to see them there.  Why?  Perhaps I am just sick of the day to day conformity I feel surrounded by.  I ‘expect’ and ‘WANT’ to believe that everyone else around me is inwardly as fed up as I am.  Why does everyone go from one task to the next - from one day to the next, from weekend to weekend - without really noticing their life blurring by.  I do understand the whole ’society must abide rules, laws, and morals to avoid utter chaos’ thing.   Still, every time I drive on the freeway, jammed with cars, [and yes, maybe this is a Los Angeles thing...] I can’t stop imagining every vehicle using whatever off-roading capabilities they posses, driving up curbs, sidewalks, hillsides - making their own roads - and actually getting to where they have to go. It is the unending lines of break lights that do me in.  I can’t stand them.  I can’t stand everyone going about their day, caught up in whatever triviality they are currently obsessing over, standing there, obediently, ‘in line’ - metaphorically and literally.

I expect and want to see flash mobs wherever I go, and to be honest I don’t understand why we all seem unable to think outside the box which is our life.  The reason this bugs me - I am sure - is because in a large part it reflects the aspects of my own life I most abhor.  Some of the things I do - I DO - because society sets them in front of me and I mindlessly succumb (or at least I am unable to think of and enact an alternative).  This begs the question of why, if I so abhor the continutiy and mindless flow, do I not start my own, one-person-flash-mob?  Because that would be ‘crazy’, and because it would seem that it takes numbers to say anything sanely.

What place in line was I again?

A Scary Situation

Throughout my life I have been in various ’scary’ situations.  Situations when one thing or another has lead to some unsafe circumstance.  Why is it when someone we love is in such a situation it is SO MUCH WORSE?  The feeling of helplessness increases exponentially…but it’s more than that.  I can block out my own memories, fright/flight impulses - I can glaze over the top of them as only quasi-real moments in my life.  With someone I love it’s a different story.  There’s no forgetting.  It happened, it was scary, it was real, and it is not going away anytime soon. 

Something Out of Nothing

I am sitting here staring at this blank page, WANTING to write something.  Nothing. I look over at the “Categories” column and the the word ‘inspiration’ that I put there at some time or another.  That’s it.  That’s what I feel like I don’t have.  Not that I am really complaining, it’s just that I only truly feel inspired to write when I am distraught over something - anything really.  Why is this?  Why can’t I WANT to write about the good times, the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky times?  Their banality is overwhelming.  Who the hell cares?

It’s this ironic?  I’m willing to bet that a large majority of us are tired of reading the same old complaining, irritable blogs - yet the only thing we write on is that which attempts to incite some pathos or another.

When my day goes without a major hitch I avoid my blog.  I don’t want to face it because in someway I have not experienced some blog worthy, traumatic, or contemplative event.  If I’m not distraught about something, how the hell can I write anything meaningful? <–How can I think this?  Whats wrong with the pleasant, day to day experiences?  If you think it’s their frequent appearance that makes me shy away from them, think again.  More often then not I can - FIND - something to complain about. [This search is not a conscious, purposeful endeavor yet I inevitably find something nonetheless.]

It is as if my nature is a brooder - a melancholy dweller on the trivial - and I can not accept the persona of someone who can just BE.  It’s the ’Oh wait, I happen to be in a good mood? Give me a second and I will come up with something that is bugging me’ idea.  How pathetic.

An Endless Production

So I sit here mindlessly waisting time as I push the ’scroll-to-the-next-random-blog-button’ over and over again. Why? Probably because I have a ton to read by tomorrow and an essay I really should be working on.  What’s driving me nuts right now is not the reading or the essay.  Well, I guess it is the reading - the blog reading - that’s getting to me.  As I click from one site to the next I am searching for something - anything really.  I just want to read something that is a part of the person who wrote it.  I want to read some insightful observation or a blatant honesty that will remind me of the vulnerability of the AA meetings I used to attend.  I want to read something that will make the day feel real.  Apparently, this will not be happening.  It feels like I am reading the same nonsense - or sense rather - over and over again.  Give me pain and struggle - but not of the everyday variety.  Give me something that hurts and feels real. 

 Have you ever had that moment when you are in a phone conversation, telling the other person something, and you realize that the responses you are getting are fake?  Filler or auto responses.  You hear the ‘un-huh’, ‘oh yeah…’, ’sure’s’.  Suddenly you realize that it all is a sort of production.  Your telling them something - their listening.  Why?  As I read through random blogs it is gradually dawning on me that they are all essentially the same.  Filler or auto blogs.  People writing because they haven’t said anything for a few days and they feel obligated to do so.  I guess this is okay, who am I to judge?  It just doesn’t make anything feel real…

A Quoter at Heart

I am a quoter.  Have always been and will, in all probability, always be.

 It doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be reading, I will find passages that stick out so strongly I feel compelled to copy them down. Why do I do this? I’m not exactly sure - I don’t want to forget them but that’s not the whole of it.  It is as if they hold some key. Some deep meaning that I will need to be reminded of at a later point.  - - - Well, that sounds a bit confusing.  I suppose I have no precise idea why I am driven to copy them down.  Mind you this is always in my own scribbled hand - never typed. 

The result? My life has become inundated by tiny scraps of paper bearing interesting insights, philosophies, perspectives, and revelations of others. [No, no, a list would be too simple...] My life is so infiltrated in fact, by these jotted down glints on life itself, that they are rarely, if ever, revisited.  I have no distinguished place for them so they tend to travel with me - tucked into the bottom of my jean’s pocket, disintegrating in the depths of my purse, populating the pages of my organizer as I try to mark some relevant date or another.

All in all, they tend to stick around with me until their ink fades and becomes illegible, or they become indistinguishable from the various scraps of trash that also surround me - receipts and the like - that I eventually throw them out. 

The need to pause

I quit smoking on December 14, 2007.

 A couple months smoke free and I still feel the pull.  I will be the first to admit to the relatively short time it has been.  What they say, for the most part, is true.  The first week is the hardest (getting over the hurdle of nicotine cravings and addictions cold turkey…), then it eases up a bit with the occasional intense desire spurred on from long practiced habits, such as lighting up the moment you get in the car for the long drive home or seeking an escape from a stressful situation.

It’s not the smoking itself that I miss.  It’s the solitude, the quiet, the pause from life.  It’s going out on the patio at five or six in the morning - breathing in the biting cold air - feeling a somehow comforting detachment from the rush, the hustle and bustle of things - taking a moment to breath and think about life’s bigger picture.

 This is what I miss about smoking.  It’s un-replicable.  I’ve tried.  I’ve tried going outside or opening the windows when I drive in the car and it’s never the same.  Always too cold to be worth the effort or otherwise too inconvenient.

I crave these pauses in my day and it’s learning to function without them that is where the difficulty lies.