Biten and Bleeding

Last week I discovered True Blood on my HBO on Demand. Within three days, I devoured season one. Despite its often gruesome explicitness or maybe because of it, I felt deeply connected to it, addicted to it. There were so many themes, I understood. Most left me feeling raw. Death, sexual boundaries, the unexplained walking out of people. None of these connections are pleasing, all are immensely complicated and personal. While I would not ask to go through this (like people who sign up to watch Schindler's List on a Saturday afternoon) it is healing in its assault.

There were some demons I communed with, threw salt on and put back in the box, but others, others are out and about...

I bought the first book in the series (note the obsessiveness) and I lay in bed reading last night until midnight. I admit I was skipping ahead to all the good parts (after all I know what happens).

There was this portion where the central lovers are getting together for the first time. It's hot an steamy. It's romantic in its dark and twisty way.

They are all hot and heavy when the man stops and he looks at her. He's realized she is a virgin, that she is vulnerable and breakable.
So he stops.

Pauses.


Waits


to make sure she will be ok. And when he stops, he says one word:

"Darling"

I burst into tears.

I was reading, I was happy, I was fine. But here are the sobs and tears and I don't really know why.

"Darling"

The author noted that it is an old fashioned word. I think to myself of the last time I said it, because its a word that i use. I used it last with college lover, slipping up as he told me about his dog dieing. So intimately I had used it. "Darling" as if it was secret code for "I love you, my heart breaks with you. I want to heal you."

I flash forward to a time when I needed to be healed. Having a panic attack, Will holding me. I was naked in every way possible, stripped to core, cowering on the corner of his bed in a ball. He pulled me close to me, held me, rocked me, "its going to be ok, its going to be alright, we'll get through this" he said until I was calm again.

And there, I think, it is. I have no one to love and no one to love me. I feel empty in way I can't fully explain. It is not that I'm unhappy in my life now or that in my almost two years of singleness I haven't grown or learned to love myself. I don't need a man.

But frighteningly, I think I do.

I need to love, Deeply, passionately. I need to be loved to know someone is there to hold me, to sleep by me. Although, I am fine without it, I can live my life just fine. I'm not sure that fine is full. Even more scary is the thought that I'm not sure I'm really me.

I mean, I am the girl who feel in love at 13, at 18 and again at 21. I have more "in serious relationship" time than some people having marriages.

My biggest fear is that God has already given Love to me, and I can't have it again. If I don't believe that then I am simply impatiently waiting to find someone (A move which guarantees I won't find someone, by wives tale logic). I hate that wanting a relationship is seen as a weakness. I hate admitting that I am weak.

But let's take a reality check, who else is bursting out into tears from a vampire book?

Wanted: Must have Experience in the Fine Arts

There is no specification on which of the fine arts, although performance fine arts are highly valued and music experience is optimal. The craft must not necessary be in current practice but must have at one point been a pivotal portion of your life.

Why fine arts?
The are two main reasons, compatibility and life view.

The first is simple, compatibility. From the time could talk; I sang. I was in a choirs from 6th grade through college. I went to literary competition, all-state choirs, honor choirs, and auditioned for even more. It was something important to me. Something that has span more chapters of my life than any other actives, so I want you to be able to grasp that, share that, and love that.

The second is life view. Art is transcendent. It is a sacrifice. To love art, to be art, you must step outside of your self. Become a vessel for the paint on the brush, for the notes on the page, for the words that you say. You are here to make people feel, to show them what you are feeling, to bring them to another place and do that you have to leave your self behind. When you lead them, you can’t show that you are worried about your laundry, or your boyfriend you must focus on the journey. Its not that you abandon those things, but rather you weave them into the path. When you share the sunny melody, you give them a glimpse of how you felt after your first real date. When you weave the Irish ballads into song, you share the loneliness of when you first moved away.

To love is walk along a journey, to make it through all the mundane parts of life is like learning your craft. Holding the brush and learning the symbols, so that you can finally paint, finally sing. Love takes patience and giving. It takes time and effort. You may bleed for your craft. You may be tired but you are driven because the rewards of art, like rewards of love, enlighten and brighten your soul.

photo credit: Mel B.

Official

It is official now, college-lover will not be attending my Ga. birthday event.

I had been silently preparing myself for that. That his girl-friend would oppose, that he would make other plans so not to attend to please her. I didn't want to be right. I wanted to be proven wrong. I wasn't though. When i told him of the event he said he wanted to come and would probably be there. Then he paused asked the ever-present-girlfriend a question and said that he would not be able come it was her little brother graduation. He has to go meet the family, all the grandparents would be there ...

To be honest i stopped listening. Eventually I cut him off. "You don't have to defend yourself to me, perhaps i will see you at Christmas" I said. Trying to sound nonchalant, even handed, like it wasn't a big deal.

He explained agian about how he wanted to come, about how maybe he could see me before.. 'when was i flying in again?". But all those plans were difficult and unlikely. We wont be anywhere near the same places at the same times.

He circled back to Christmas. They'll be time then. It was bitterness when i said I hope so, but then you'll have you family to spend time with and you'll want to speand half of Christmas with her family. I'm rethinking old arguements. I'm remembering how hard it was to make plans at Christmas when we were together and when we had a month between school semesters.

He hasn't thought of this yet.

I shouldn't be so harsh, we are all busy and my birthday in all its early June glory has always competed with graduation and first summer vacations.

And honestly, He doesn'e owe anything to me. He has a life with out me, and a new lover. What am i but a complicated person who is always to much work defend or too much memory to be around?

I have lived my wholelife this way, always striving, always working to befreind them. To not lose them. But they are lost either way aren't they?

Bocci Ball in Braynt Park

Seeing bocci ball always makes me think of being at the Kholer's.

Missing the family we grew out of need for each other, the stress of calculus and making our first life decisions. Those times in life are rare as are the friendships forged by them.


Sent from my "grown-up phone"

The Wanted Series

Hi again Blog,

So I wanted to start a Meme/theme/writing project. A wanted ad.

Once upon a time a good friend of me advised me to make a wanted ad for the kind of man I wanted. At that time, I wanted someone desperately and it reminded me that I need more than what I might have settled for in the desperation.

Now is not one of those desperate times. But I thought given my singleness for a year and half. Now might be a good time to reflect on that.

Since a lot of the things I want tie back to people and stories. I’m going to do them one at time or some at time.

Ok that’s all,

Xoxox