This morning, I am just sitting quietly with music, my own voice, and memories of the past. Ah, and rich enjoyment of the present.

Lars and I noticed themes in our art. His reflect the tension between control and freedom; mine reflect the battle between adventure and peace. "Well, it is pretty much my fundamental conflict," I said, and likewise, control vs. freedom seems to be his. "Conflict" in visual art = something I would like to study in grad school if I get in which hope-hope-hopefully I will.

This time of year always changes my life. Always. For the better. It is, in fact, perhaps, my favorite time of year. I always think it's summer, but really, summer brings chaos and confusion. Winter is the time of year when all the really good stuff happens, even if it's dark and gloomy. Perhaps because in summer, vacation and The Unusual are optional, but in winter, like it or not, there are holidays which you can't help but acknowledge, and excuses to get together with friends and family, and parties, and rituals, and different foods, and extraordinary weather, and therefore, The Unusual injects itself into your life no matter what.

Kyle and I spent a lovely day yesterday engaging in the Bohemian Revolution*. (Lol.) We coffee-shop-hopped and planned a dystopian novel. We ate sushi and Indian food and vegan baked goods and drank soy latte and yerba matte. Oh yes - and vodka. We watched the rain and laughed and mused. He gave me a symbol of forgiveness. And we wandered in book stores and played Killer Bunnies. Seeing Kyle and Lars together -- two of my favorite people -- warmed my heart. My friend of 11 years is here at last. I kept saying, "ahh, I want to take you to Kate's, but I want to take you to Kai's, tooooo..." or alterations on that theme and he kept saying, "I live here now. There's time. We can do both." I'm so used to being on a time limit when I'm with him; it's nice to know we are not bound by that constraint for the first time ever.

Lars and I threw a most wonderful holiday party, and last week, I got to read a fairy tale I had written aloud at a bookstore with several of my peers. Jenny and Jenn are coming into town at the end of the week, and then, just like that, it'll be Christmas. How time does fly when you're having fun.

*Lars: "Catherine lives in the Moulin Rouge." It's kiiinda true.

My mother has given me an ultimate gift of love: wool socks for my cold, cold feet. She is staying with Lars and me while she participates in the fashion show the Wallingford Center (an old schoolhouse-gone-shopping-center that includes the boutique I work in) is throwing. It is COLD and foggy this morning, so I am happy to have these little socks.

I don't really want to go to work today. I have to be there from 11:30 to 8, while participating in the fashion show myself. I wrote up all the descriptions (in corny fashion announcer tone) for all the outfits of all the models, because, quoth my boss, "I like to write." Which is true. But now my face has to turn beet red as I hear, read over the loudspeaker, all the lesser adjectives I had to resort to once "gorgeous, stunning, dazzling, radiant, striking, bold, beautiful, charming, delightful, shimmering, sparkling, gleaming, fabulous, fantastic, eye-catching, feminine, graceful, delicate," and probably a few more I'm forgetting were all used more than twice. (Read: "winter diva?" Really?)

In any case, it's all right. Kyle has finally moved here. My mom is here. We are all in good health and fine spirits. I could reeeeally use a "real" vacation, but at the same time, you gotta make money to spend money, so...

Today was a day of coming back to old selves.

Once upon stepping off the ferry boat on the Bainbridge side. There I was, so composed, thinking about how I could look and be even more so. I have cut away so much, as of late. The bright colors. The hair dye. The craziness. Even my ability to get properly drunk.

And my ability to fuck up joyfully? I am not sure.

And then, there, coming towards me, was a young girl, about twenty, with bright purple hair and brighter blue eyes. She wore black and had her hands in her coat pockets. She strode with long steps. I looked at her. She looked at me. We followed each other with our eyes 'til we could no longer. And I thought how uncannily she resembled my younger self. My purple-haired, age twenty self. And I wondered if in me, she saw something of herself. Her future. Who knows?

Then, riding home on a strange bus, which I hopped on out of impatience (how ironic!), I realized it was the bus I hopped on another time, only one other time, when I was chomping at the bit to get away from a disastrous date. So I said, "Oh, that's my bus!" and got on it even though I had no idea where it went. This time, I was riding that same bus line, but from the other direction. We pulled up to the spot where it had picked up my former self so many months and months ago. I came in the caravan that rescued my former self, from a perspective I had never seen before.

Does this mean anything? Yes or no.

I meant to go to ecstatic dance the other night. Instead, I bought a steamer. Oh Catherine. Go get yourself back. Welcome the new and the mature, but for goodness' sake and the sake of your soul, do not relinquish the past as easily as you did the dead tomato from today, that symbol of a daughter disowned. Remember. But do not simply remember. Continue.

today,

while modeling nude for an art class

on the island where lots

of things

happened

someone uttered,

"she looks like a heroine

who just found

her long lost

love" and I thought

abruptly

"I will carry those words

with me

for the rest of my life."

Today, let's run free with ribbons in our hair.
Let's talk about philosophy. Let's fall down in the grass and get grass stains. Life isn't any fun without grass stains.

Grass stains! Those imperfect perfections. Those little blots on the spotless record. We need them. My friend came to me last night and told me of a bittersweet love. Bittersweet love! How we, the members of this species, need you.

We need the grass stains. Or else, we won't have any stories to tell.

Stories to tell. I like to tell, and I like to be told. Your story, my story.

"Tell me something of importance from your heart," I wanted to say last night. Tell me something, something of importance. Tell me what is making you tick.

But I didn't. Instead I just stared at the ceiling with too-open eyes that saw too much. I wanted to close them. To rest. But I didn't. They stayed open.

Now I am very hungry.

(For grass stains?)

This morning I felt like a dried up plant.

There is something I am realizing, though...

though...

I can't quite put words to it yet.

I'm pretty sure it has to do with talking. Talking well. Ably. Heartfully. That's what sustains me. The heart to hearts. Are what I love most.

Now,
I feel okay. Like I got a transfusion. Did I?

Or did I just get watered?

I think I should paint this.

Yee-haw! Now to finish the grad school applications...but after a hard-earned day's rest. :)

10 of the many things I am thankful for:

- my wonderful boyfriend and our sweet, sweet love.
- my funny, quirky, loving family.
- my job. The fact that I have one when so many others are unemployed, and the fact that it's lead me to meet some of my dearest friends. Because of it, I have financial security. Thank you, job.
- my friends, near and far. I love you all.
- access to technology and education. I'm stressing about grad school, but I am also keeping in mind how fortunate I am to even be able to APPLY to grad school.
- my ambition. This is the time of life when many kinda find themselves straying off into dead ends. I'm grateful that even though I have my listless days, I won't let myself forget my dreams.
- my art studio, and my beautiful apartment. I am so, so lucky.
- my health, and the relatively good health of everyone I know. This cannot be overlooked. It's so easily taken for granted.
- All the good people everywhere who are striving every day to make the world a better place.
- Language and the written word. Where would we be without it?

There is so much to be thankful for! Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it, and happy Thursday to those who do not. You guys are awesome.

In the words of probably a million other people on the planet right now,
"HOLY SHIT THE GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATION PROCESS IS AN UNGODLY PAIN IN THE ASS AND MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE FROM ALL THE STRESS."

The end!

Tomorrow I take the WEST-E, the final one of the standardized tests I plan to take to supplement my grad school applications. I haven't really studied. But it's much easier than the GRE. So I'll just take my best crack at it. It's a pass/fail, so keep your fingers crossed for me, eh?

The short stories I am writing for NaNoWriMo this year have proved tres interesting. Cathartic. Healing. But in a very quiet, creative sort of way. My own writing seems to be playing tricks on me. So many heartfelt stories morphed into fantastical fiction. I may well seek to self-publish this one, with illustrations.

Jackie says, "One thing that sets you apart -- you really feel things." Yes, that is a blessing.

I miss Lars. It's been a long day without him here.

Chandra says, "Live bourgeoisie, think bohemian." Today I cut my hair -- one, because it was getting too long, but two, because I had tired of the blue tips I dyed in last summer. Some part of me revolted against my revulsion with the blue tips. "No, those are my bohemian parts!" But no. As Katherine Emily says, "Why should Keith let green hair speak for him at his age? At this age, we let our personalities do the talking." Why should Catherine let blue hair speak for her?

Every time I cut my hair, I think of the scene from Wild Arms when Cecilia severs her hair with Jack's sword, symbolically cutting away her past. I know better now, though, than to cut it super short. I've made that mistake a few times, and learned that I cannot rock the short hair look. So I said, "leave it as long as possible while getting rid of the blue." My long hair is a part of me. I've experimented with other styles, other looks, but long hair is what suits me best. And, probably, non-dyed hair is what suits my idealized image best. The classy, professional, brainy grad student who also illustrates graphic novels, writes new allegories, and paints fairies. Yes? Let's see if we can make that happen.

I swear too much, again. I go through phases. So. Out with the cussing; surely I can do better than that.

Okay. "Procrasti-journaling." Must study. Or NaNo. One of the two.

Kyle O, when are you going to move here?

Turning one's head to the side is such a very, very bad idea.

JUST focus on what YOU are doing. This is one of those, "everything I ever needed to know, I learned in kindergarten" rules. Don't compare yourself, don't measure yourself by other people's standards, because they don't freaking apply to you.

Just focus. Just focus.

Just go eat a sammich and some chippies, and focus.

Oh GRE Lit Test. How you have made me remember the joys of flipping the **** out.

Today, oddly, I am once again feeling reunited with my younger self. Not just one younger self, but a few.

Last week, I drew a kind of morbid picture. In it, two younger selves are dancing in color on one side of a wall that runs straight down the page vertically, and a thin, lightly sketched, more contemporary pencil self stands on the other side, cut off from them, thinking, "something's missing." This was how I felt last week, on a very visceral level. Cut off. Limp. Colorless.

Oddly, oddly, I happened to put on some dance music this morning, via Pandora radio. I meant to pull up Boa, the UK band who has a rather melancholy/rocker girl sound, but instead, it pulled up BoA, the famous Korean pop star. Her music is very techno-y and vibrant, and suddenly, something clicked. The day before that, I had been on...what...Dave Matthews radio, or some other equally melancholy rock station, and suddenly Pink came on, belting out, "So what! I'm still a rock star!" ...and I wondered, "where did my attitude go?"

My "attitude"? Is that my "energy"? What sets me apart? That which I had lost track of? What's been missing, for some reason, so that every time I tread into the underbelly of my thoughts, the devil on my shoulder tells me there's nothing there but muck? That all my experiences with my soul are discredited?

My attitude. Hmm.

I have no more time to write on this, because I gotta get in the shower. Lame. But I'll be thinking on it, for sure.
 

Somehow, I just got back in touch with the kind of music I've been missing. Damn. It feels good. I had lost sight of the fact that in order to be inspired by music, you have to listen to inspiring music. Doy.

I want to ^&$%#%^ GO DANCING! WHY DO I KNOW ZERO DANCING PEOPLE. GRR!

Preparations for AWESOME GROUND-BREAKING grad school writing sample are a go (I am stoked about the essay idea that graced my brain this morning).

Preparations for awesome chocolate chip zucchini bread are also a go.

Preparations for going to see "Where the Wild Things are" tonight are a go.

Preparations to purchase tickets to see "The Nutcracker" ballet on December 18 are a go.

Preparations for writing final draft of original fairy tale are a go.

Ho-kay, now time to stop preparing and start doing!

Oh LJ ads. This morning I got, "Everyone needs clean water. Not everyone gets it. Together we can solve it," followed on the next page by "Not happy with the way your dishwasher is running?" Yeah...

I woke up this morning full of left-brained purpose. In my head there appeared a list of the things I need to do in order to complete/strengthen my grad school applications, along with the desire to just get all the application fees out of the way NOW so that they don't "slowly add up."

Last night was lovely. I had the overwhelming urge to cook something elaborate (such urges tend to overwhelm me about once a month, but no more), and since I had been, uh, "experimenting with my latent negativity" (read: being snarky) in an attempt to rid myself of its nightmarish, subconscious expression, I also felt the desire to do something nice for Lars. He <3's vegetarian lasagna, so I whipped one up (read: spent 45 minutes shopping, 20 minutes walking home with my arms being stretched to incredible lengths supporting the pounds and pounds of groceries, then spent 2.5 hours in the kitchen), along with my homemade vegan Caesar salad recipe and that amazing rosemary bread they sell at the *nice* bakeries with olive oil and balsamic. And red wine and dark chocolate, of course. I had never made lasagna before, but I'm happy to say it was a success! Lars arrived just in time to mention that he likes nutmeg in the ricotta/mozerella blend, so I even got to use the adorable little spice grater and shave some nutmeg in.

Then we basked in the peacefulness of the coming-together living room, and he drew me in charcoal. And then I finished my chapter in Traveling with Pomegranates, read a few pages of Clover, and went to sleep.

It's funny -- sometimes I dream the most wonderful dreams, too. They're rare, but when they occur, they're always vivid and beautiful and dare I say symbolic, in that way dreams are "supposed" to be. Recently I dreamed of attending a school in the clouds. At some point, I saw this huge triangle (just the outline) made of clouds, and jets of air rushing upward through its middle. Strange, but beautiful, and accompanied by a feeling of exhilaration. I woke up immediately with an absolute knowing that it had been an image of God. Don't know why my brain went with the Catholic Trinity slant, but I fell back asleep feeling very happy.

A few nights ago, I dreamed I was swimming through vast, open waters, though there was land near enough and I did not feel unsafe. I was singing my heart out in a voice that is not my own -- this was like an operatic voice. It went on and on...just swimming and singing in this rich, melodious voice that stayed in my head even after waking.

Last night, there was something about a Tree of Loss (like a pine tree shaved of branches 2/3 from the top all the way to the bottom) and a spider who spins her web at the very top. Traveling with Pomegranates has a lot to do with loss and synthesis, so that makes sense, but I liked the image nonetheless.

And on a final note, my fairy tale class is AMAZING. I already drafted one story that I definitely want to polish and send out, and I have a feeling that more are on the way.

With quiet realization, lately, I've been seeing that this is the time of the deep work I had wanted to do a few months ago. It truly is wonderful how the soul manifests its own needs.

Dude...

Job hunting is hard.

I wanna be in grad school.

Mrr.

On the plus side, the first session of the fairy tale class was rad!

My six-week-long fairy tale writing/reading workshop starts tonight. For homework, we read two versions of Snow White (one so modern, it's hardly recognizable). I'll be off in just a couple of minutes. I have great expectations for this class! :)

A nice line from the newer S.W.: "I did not mourn for what I did not have." Good thought for the day.

I'm up so early, though I was up late last night and today is my first day of "vacation," because I had an awful nightmare that I just can't get over. Nightmares are nothing new to me, but they still affect me every time. In this one, I was taking my little brother on a camping trip of sorts -- backpacking is more like it -- out into the wilderness with our old (late) family dog, Blue. We were in a desert-like environment. We hadn't been out for more than a few hours before an alien spacecraft descended from above, opened a hatch on its underbelly, and dumped a torrent of yellow-green liquid down on us. Our dog was caught directly in the blast, dying instantly, while Will's leg got caught and so did the right half of my face and my entire right arm. I don't remember feeling any pain in the dream, and when I went to check on Will, he seemed unscathed. But I emerged with light green scales/scabs all over the places where the substance hit. It was like a line was drawn precisely down the middle of my face, reminiscent of Two-Face from Batman, with one half normal and the other all green and bumpy. Same with the arm. My hair was intact, but part of my eyelid had apparently burned off, giving me that creepy normal-eye-big-eye look. Some other crazy shit went down, and then I remember being taken to a doctor's office. The nurse said I was pretty, not condescendingly, but obviously out of deep pity. I remember being in the examining room for a second before "waking up" in a campsite next to Lars and a few friends from high school and work and being relieved that it was just a dream. Then I looked at my hand, and indeed, no, the marks were still there, though lesser. Lars stirred and I began to joke about it; "I knew it was too realistic to be a dream!," "I hate those goddamn aliens!" etc., and he seemed very loving and supportive even though I was, to put it bluntly, disformed and ugly. I did tell him that the marks were going away quickly, though, and that they should be gone in a few days. However, several small brown hairs were growing on my wrist, so again I joked, "Oh geez, I hope I don't become the wolf man next!" He laughed and I woke up (for real this time) completely freaked out. My hand went immediately to my face, which I am happy to report I found smooth and normal, then took a few breaths and tried to go back to sleep. As I started to drift off, but was not totally unconscious, the dream started to resume. My dad was saying, "Oh, my poor baby. I heard what happened. Oh no," and I jolted myself out of it, waking up entirely again. I did not want to go back into that dream. Afraid that if I went back to sleep, I would re-enter it, I snatched up the computer and came out here to the kitchen table.

I hate nightmares. Last week, I had a dream I was stabbed in the back with a scimitar during some kind of blood ritual while my mom and grandfather watched, wringing their hands but doing nothing. Earlier that same week, I had a dream about a massacre at an iceskating rink. Oh, and then there was the one where I had to cook a herd of tiny cows in a pot of boiling water for a tribe of war-like Natives in the Amazon Rainforest. In the same jungle in which that one took place, there were pits lain about to capture intruders, and those foolish enough to fall in were met with falling blades that were triggered when the trap sprung. Always death, always blood, always suffering, often mine. I don't get it.

We're supposed to find meaning in our dreams -- little messages from the Unconscious. But I can never find much meaning in these, and frankly, I don't dream about much else (or technically, I suppose, rememeber dreaming about much else). People say it's because I hold in my darkness -- I feel ashamed of myself any time I whine, rant, talk negatively about someone else, listen to nasty gossip, exhibit laziness, or express anger, and therefore all that resistance to darkness has to be countered somewhere.

I have been reading Iron John, by Mr. Robert Bly, and the chapter I read most recently talks about the time of ashes. He talks about the golden flying children, who only want to focus on the light, the good, the ambitious, the optimistic, and the positive, and therefore, like Icarus, eventually have to tumble by force. We all have to do our ashes work, apparently -- that is, sifting through the brokenness in our lives and allowing the sadness and anger over things lost to fill us. Not to resist it or tell ourselves, "well, that's fine, I'll just do better next time." Simultaneously I've been skipping around in an anthology about American pop culture and our national myths/values, and I have to wonder how much of my attitude is based on my own personality, and how much is "America speaking." One of the American myths is that we cannot accept defeat easily. We have to be the best we can be against all odds; if we stumble, it is on account of some character flaw, and if we only remedy that flaw within ourselves, we can succeed. In fact, real life teaches us that sometimes, of course, the good, the just, the wise, the patient, the cooperative, the compassionate succeed through their exceptional spirits and right choices...but that equally if not more often, in fact, it is self-service, money, knowing the right people, and brown-nosing that propel one up the social ladder. Will being a "good person," or at least a sincere-and-genuinely-striving-to-be-good-person, increase my chances of getting into grad school? No, probably not. Then again, will knowing the right people? I don't know. I don't have great letters of recommendation because they are all from teachers I only had for one or two quarters at best, because I'm not good at the social networking/endearing oneself to a powerful mentor figure thing. I don't know.

At the same time, we talk about confidence. Confidence confidence confidence. There's a line from The Darjeeling Limited: "First, let's stop feeling sorry for ourselves; it's not very attractive." Right. Nobody likes a sulky sonofabitch who can't stop bemoaning her own sad fate. At the same time, ISN'T IT IMPORTANT NOT TO RESIST YOUR DARKNESS? *pant, pant, wheeze* 

Anger is much more attractive than self-pity. Don't tell me it's not true; think about it. Someone all fired up and ready to knock down gates to get what they want is more appealing than someone who quietly tries to make the best of a shitty situation while sniffing into a tissue. Anger. Kali-energy, destruction. I'm not good at it. You have to push me pretty far to make me truly angry. No, then -- maybe what's truly attractive about anger is action. But then again, you can still be taking action while buttering it in self-pity. I don't wish to be a whiner; as a friend once said, "whining is so undignified!" That and it's annoying. But it's often the only way I can conceive of to blow off steam or release tension. Talking; telling someone; being heard; being comforted. There's a difference between whining and expressing your feelings. I would hope any friend of mine would feel OK coming to me with pain or a dilemma.

We can't be happy or pretend to be happy all the time -- that's the too-narrow path of the sun child. But we also can't wallow in self-pity; that is not true ashes work and moreover, it's not constructive. Yet even in action, there is something missing from the equation. It ignores the problem and just focuses on the solution. So what is the best, healthiest way to deal with darkness? With self-doubt? With disappointment? With the dreams that come and throw rocks at your window trying to tell you about the anguish you're refusing to feel?

I think about this dream and I think about it's "two-faced" nature. What immediately came to mind is that I feel guilty -- "two faced" -- because I'm slowly beginning to seek another job, without having told my boss. So are a few other people, though one of them is right out there in the open about it, and I suppose I feel as though perhaps I should be doing the same. I'm so afraid of losing my job before I have a new one to rely on; I don't want to say anything. Yet it does seem more honorable to be upfront. But the deeper interpretation of this dream is, perhaps, the dream within the dream. As always, (as Lars said) "you pick the two extremes." As always. On the one hand, the smooth skin and light hair of my conscious nature. On the other, these ugly, horrid dreams, the things lurking in the underbrush -- what are those things? Maybe that's the real problem with tackling my own dark nature. I don't even want to acknowledge it. I don't want to know it. Robert Bly says there's a part in all of us that wants to be healthy, and another part that wants to be sick.

I want to be a vegan. No! I want to eat fish.
It's important to me to help out around the house and keep a tidy environment. No! I hate doing dishes!
I want to go to grad school and make something of myself. Fuck it! It's too much work!
I want to find a better job. Fuck it! My friends are at work! My job is easy! It's fine!
I want to assume responsibility for my own transportation. I FUCKING HATE DRIVING!
I want to start a sacred circle for women. No one will even come. It'll just be embarrassing and disappointing.
I want to write books. What if it's not good enough? What if they're full of cliches?
I enjoy being productive, thrifty, sober, cheerful, and dependable. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Well, that was kind of theraputic.

Often, Lars and I discuss the theory of Life as One's Artistic Masterpiece. I always think of it as a painting. Maybe a more apt analogy, then, would be that in each of us, there is a part who wants to paint the painting, and another part who wants to undo the work of the former. Imagine such a painting: the healthy part would paint a streak of color, then the unhealthy would take up a brush and paint over it in white. The soul is strong, so...well...let me rephrase that. Depending on the strength and resolve of one's soul, the unhealthy would be more or less successful. If we're going to believe in any qualities to bolster, "American Dream" style, perhaps it should be simply resolve. Imagine it: the result would be a smattering of color -- ideas, dreams, attempts, expressions, longings -- and slashes of white, trying to reduce it all to blankness. Or maybe black -- the destructive, chaotic energy. Maybe negative traits take on either one of these colors. Apathy, lethargy could be white, and self-destructiveness or excessive self-doubt could be black. Self-sabotage, I should say.

That might just make an awfully cool painting.

After making love
Summer nectarines in bed
This is my haven.

Picking out paint colors, planning trips to the Olympic Rainforest (staying at an inn with goats??), imagining all the tea parties, dinner parties, women's circles, book club meetings, foreign film nights, and jam sessions I'll host, looking at train tickets to see my mom and OSF's production of Don Quixote, spending good time with good friends at favorite restaurants in town, envisioning paintings I'll make once we move...

This is a good life. It has been a good morning spent dreaming.

I talked all day yesterday. A good day. By the end of it, my throat was sore. All the day were spent talking -- to Lars, to Amanda, to Jackie, to Alex, to my mom. That's my kind of day -- a day spent tending relationships. Sharing ideas and communicating. *Sigh* My inner golden retriever wagged her tail, then walked in a circle three times and curled up with her chin resting on her front paws. For yes, I am learning more and more that if there are dog people and cat people in this world, though I have always dreamed of having kitties, at heart I am a puppy. My happiest days are the ones where I can feel the wind in my hair and be with my loved ones. They make me giddy.

I am seeking to cultivate a heart even more full of love. I've been making a conscous effort to open my heart up, to care for all the many many humanitarian and environmental causes again, and yes. It feels so good to care. I only hope that this time, all my caring will amount to something -- that the organization I am seeking to help out will accept me as a helper. I got so burned by wanting wanting wanting to volunteer for a nonprofit last summer, and being again again again told that the hours weren't compatible, they were full, so on and so on. Please send me good vibes for this internship I am applying for, because I reeeeeally want it!

This world is full of miracles. Today I'm going to set off and hope to encounter some.

*Remind me to tell you about the tears and the ovaries, though.