Lately, July

There is an indescribable hurt that lives inside me.

I can try to give it awareness, I can feed it attention.
She still hurts, and this fear is so vivid, she wants me to hide.





I drive on this road. It's familiar. I enjoy its curves. I enjoy the speed it lends me, the speed I'm willing to push in the dark when there aren't anyone or thing awake to see me. I put my focus out to the distance. I pull it back to the 300 feet in front of my headlights. I put it back out. Suddenly, a figure in the next lane catches my eye. I swerve. Another is caught in my headlights and I swing. I see red eyes. Brown hair. Long legs. Antlers. Deer. They stand still on the highway, nonchalant, unaware that my speeding car can easily fling their sinewy brown bodies into oblivion, which in this case, is the reservoir nestled around the corner of 92 and 280. They surround me, but I cannot slow down, my car will not stop. Eventually, I'll hit one. I scream. As scared as I am, I cannot close my eyes, and I cannot stop my driving. I will kill someone, and the regret captivates me before the action that will cause it happens.





I feel it. These mornings I wake up anxious, my heart beating louder than the hummingbirds graciously visiting my dad's garden or the sunlight spilling at my feet. When the people I want to love in my Imagination love me back, and by God, I will do anything and Be anything in order for them to love me, I wake up and they return to not seeing me, not feeling me, not there. I usually crawl out of bed, my body sustaining these visions of hate and disgust for myself. I try to be practical, I try to reason, but as soon as I try, my stomach turns itself, and nausea keeps me flattened on the bed or floor. The terror rushes blood into my brain, so I sleep, and if I sleep, I have these bad dreams, and if I don't, the visions from those dreams will replay.

Even as I write this, I admit to appreciating my Depression. He said, "I appreciate all of it, even when I don't." I wondered if he saw my gurgling self-pity, even as I connected, and smiled, and Appreciated. But he didn't see me that night. He saw past me. I wanted to give my love. He didn't see me.

I think I see a change coming, and my mood compensated before I did. That change will slow my life-rate down, so instead of playing Hurricane Cindy at 150mph, I am seeking the summer wind when I can finally just feel and do what I want to do. Oh God, as I write this, my hands tremble. Before the hurricane ends - my show opens in a few days, I still have upcoming events - I tremble with this anxiety - anxiety over a stagnancy that I have always, always equated with not being proficient enough, too much processing, TOO MUCH INDULGENCE. That as soon as I get here, I will be in the darkness that scares me, TERRIFIES me! I soften my approach: I will still be creative and occupied. All the little projects that I have been wanting time for, all of my writing that needs attention, my photography, refining my craft, attention on the Technique, I fucking NEED my life to slow down in order to be BETTER. Joni reassures me, "I am on a lonely road and I am travelin', travelin', travelin'." Mmm.. I crave that romantic darkness. I miss traveling, moving, excited, - not this one place, this goddamn town and its water tower and its huffin' and puffin' occupants. But. BUT. I cannot carry on at this hurricane, fire-lane tumble. I am not taking care of myself, and my body reacts, she tells me that I've been sick for a very long time.

I must... Muss es sein. I want to slow down. I want to let people love me, and I want to learn this painful process of loving myself. I cannot love when there is fear.





I turn the corner. San Jose heat make the cars glimmer in the sun. I signal and make another turn. I feel like there has been a car that turns with me. I check my rear view. A burgundy Lincoln. That's rare. What is even rarer is that there are no occupants in this car. I cross the intersection and the Lincoln follows. I suck the air in my cheeks as it passes in shadow and sunlight. No hands hold its steering wheel, no face checks its mirrors. I am being followed by a car, just the car. I make a final turn onto a freeway entrance and rejoin a gaggle of traffic. I look back for the burgundy Lincoln. It disappeared, probably looking for its driver.

This happened in daylight. I drove to the city, sick to my stomach, and clenched to the seat. I don't need cars without eyes following me. I feel like a fool.