Make Up and Meditation

I was never a particularly still child. Except when I was reading, I was a little twitchy, a little all over the place and a little lost in my own head (not much has changed).

So, for as long as I remember, I have been told that meditation would really benefit me. To be honest - I make it a few days of guided meditation and then it goes to shit. I get bored real easy and I know that is something meditation and mindfulness is supposed to fix but I don't think I have the patience to let it. At least, not yet.

My mental health has not been at the best of places in the last few years. To put it simply, I am not as happy and as self-reliant as I used to be. This to a part, I feel has been pathologized by the people around me. Yes, I am not always very happy and yes I need to be healthier in a number of ways but I don't think I quite on the brink of anything terrible just yet. However, I have learned (obvious though it may seem) that you don't need to wait to be on the brink of disaster before you do something about being happier.

So I am learning to be more mindful of my moods, my feelings and my days. This does not come easily to me. I love to talk and I especially love talking about myself but I am not a very introspective person. I do think a lot of my troubles do stem from a subconscious refusal to look at myself clearly.

This is where my 3 shade days come in. I have spent months and years rolling out of bed at the last possible minute, putting jeans and a sweatshirt, brushing my hair quickly and running out the door. So on the days I look somewhat put together and actually put on some makeup - those are the good days. I woke up early, I wasn't rushed, I had time, I had space, I could breathe. And on the rare days, where I pull out my Naked palette and use not one, not two, but 3 shades (experimentally and like an absolute novice), you know that day is going to be good. Or at least, it started real good.

Doing my makeup is kind of like meditation for me. It forces me to stop and breathe and actually take a minute and only do one thing at a time. I have to stand in front of the mirror and just look at myself. I can't watch TV, I can't talk to someone. It's just me and my face and my hands and the mirror. It's more mindful than you would think.

It also forces me to look - really look - at my face. I live in so many parallel worlds in my head ( I always have, always will: Maladaptive Daydreaming) that being forced to look at the reality of my physical existence - it's very centering. It forces me to look and see what actually exists, what actually is. It doesn't usually come with self-loathing. I look at my face, with all the flaws and strengths and I just have accept it and accentuate it as much as I am able.

Doing my make up is a reality check. Mirrors are important. I realize I live my life as a series of what ought to bes. In some ways, that is grand. I believe it makes me a very aspirational person. But it also leaves a huge gap between what is and what ought to be and a lot of my sadness and anger and rage emerge from that difference. People ought to be kind because I am kind. I ought to look better. I ought to study more. As a former IR student, I cannot resist in making the comparison - I am very a normative person, always obsessing with what ought to be - both in myself and how people around me treat me. Doing my make up, it forces me to be more empirical. I have to work with what is there, not what should be.

Sometimes, I am not happy with what is there. That is alright. But I need to know what is there before I can figure how to change it. I don't how to change a lot of things in my life right now. In parts, I am lonely, broke, anxious, unemployed and unfit. I want to be none of those things. But I am recognizing some of those things are symptomatic of my age and my place in the world. So makeup does help me realize what really is. I already know what ought to be. If could build a bridge of 'how' between the two and traverse it - I think I could be happy then.

For the moment, this is where I am. This just is. Today was not a 3 shade day, but today was a red lipstick day. It's tiny bridge from what was (unbrushed hair and a guilty lie in) to what ought to have been (decent outfit, eyeliner and lovely red lips). It's a bridge. I'll learn to build others.

Till I do, I look forward to my 3 shade days.

I hope you do too.

Poetic Returns - NaPoWriMo2017 #3

Poetic Returns

The last entry 

On my blog

Is dated June 2015

If unposted, then unwritten

I was always 

An exhibitionist. 

So, Is this

A triumphant return

Wiser, Better, Brighter? 

Hardly. 

Scared-er, Quieter, Softer

Befitting, for poetic returns. 

Winter Edges

This winter
Has been a rather
Drugged affair,
Honey slow
Molasses thick
And snagging edges,
Catching and cutting.
This winter
I learnt
To flick Kohl
To create wing tips
Honed to razor edges.
This winter
I learnt
About the armories 
Of sharp eyebrows
And the defiant shield
Of jutting Kohl.
This winter
I broke myself
But left my heart in tact.
This winter
I picked up pieces
Of a girl
With hairline cracks
 She denied
All her life
And I broke her
To prove a point.
Then I remade her
With the perenniality
Of sardonic smiles
And perfect Kohl flicks
And recklessness.
This winter
I learnt
To love the winter
In more than just
A blurry, watercoloured way
I loved the winter
In harshness, bitterness
And cruel ice edges.
This winter,
I said, 'Devil may fucking care'
And I meant it.  

Autumn Dresses

Autumn will come again
And I will see it

Amble by

Unlike the Summer Sprint

That broke my heart

The tiniest bit.

I will look forward

To wind and clouds and manic laughs

Thick woolly scarves

Hot Chocolate with marshmallows

With a side of Essays

At the Library café.

I’ll pick a bench

At the Meadows

And freeze

Yet determinedly

Sniff the grass and trees.

I’ll discover

That dresses look good

On me.

I’ll discover

Looking in the mirror

And thinking,

‘Pretty’.

I’ll discover

The world is bigger

And smaller

Than I perceived.

I’ll learn to live

With wanting someone

I’ll never allow myself to have.

I’ll learn to love

Myself more than
I already do,

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Be damned.

I’ll learn to be me
More completely

Less apologetically.

All this and more

I’ll take from autumn

As recompense

For what Summer

Took from me. 

Dysfunctional

Once, just once

One time only

In this short life

I would like

To be in love

Dysfunctionally.

Once, just once
I would like

To be in love

Selfishly.

Once, just once

I would like

Very much like

To create a space

A world

A universe

Meant for two.

Just for two.

Me

And

You.

Once, just once
I’d like there to be

No space

No air

No nothing

For anyone else

Just a sacred

Hallowed

Part of time

Cut away

That is

Ours.

Just ours.

And no one intrudes.

I would will it

If I could

That I would be

All you see

All you dream

All you breathe

All you need.

Once, just once

Let’s shut the world out

Too loud, its too loud.

Let’s be in love.

Once, just once

Let’s be needy

Selfish

Co dependant

Stupid

Just a for a little time

Just a moment

One moment

Let me love you

Dysfunctionaly.

Photographs of My Mother

See now.
There are things
Easily understood
And some
That are
Beyond
Comprehension,
Human or otherwise.
Photographs
Of my mother
Fall into the
Former category.
My reaction
To them
Falls into the
Latter.
Is there a word
In any language
That combines
Pride, Bittersweet
Melancholy, Helpless Love
And a longing
Forever unfulfilled?
If there is,
Tell me
For I need
Words
To describe
How I feel
About
Photographs
Of my mother.
They catch
In her eyes
Serenity and Wildness
Together
A siren song
That isn't
My inheritance.
A pull, A magic
That alas!
Isn't mine
To inherit.
There is only
A Kindness
That was
Passed on
To me.
Perchance
It will be
Enough
But youth
Is greedy
For aesthetics
And so
I haven't
Words
To describe
My feelings
And my bleeding, torn
Adoring
Heart
That so loves
Photographs
Of my mother.

Vigils in Noise

She sat on a settee and looked on. There was an odour of an intangible sickness that dried her mouth. She looked on. The clock clicked on to strike half three, quarter past, four in the morning. She looked on. Her charge lay on the bed and tossed and turned and mumbled and grumbled.

 
‘But don’t you see, I must talk….what was I talking about..The AC, the AC!...where are the syringes, what about the syringes..there are syringes….am I going mad, I am mad, pleasedon’tleavemeIloveyoudon’tgoamImadwhatishappeningIdon’tdunderstand’.

She looked on and mused. Perhaps they should train budding psychotherapists by sending them out to bars where the drunken dregs of society swirl and twirl and perhaps that is the best way to prepare them for the truths of their profession. What is madness but another form of drunkenness- The figure on the bed began to weep, a cry for attention. She lifted a hand to caress a hand. Her voice was patient and soothing and jovial. But it was empty, empty, empty.

‘Don’t let them send me away, I love you….what is happening I can’t remember…what is happening, no listen to me, no I will be quiet, I promisejustletmefinishmysentenceIwillbequiet.’

That was then.

Then was an hour, a century, eons ago.

Then was a second ago.

This is now.

She thinks her charge will never stop talking and the noise is grating. Noise is what grounds her to the present and the reality of it all. Silence is golden, silence is blessed, silence will let you float away. She is scared of floating; she is scared of the future that waits on that bed. A crook of her fingers brings a furred head against her hand. Words are useless. He sits next to her in quiet contemplation, he has never spoken a word – has never needed to. The sweep of his tail is drowned in the noise. 

‘Close your eyes and sleep now. I can’t stay with you all night, you know I can’t.’

There may be irritation in her voice. It is not directed at her charge. Perhaps this is a lie. She is flawlessly human and so she is full of flaws. She shifts on the settee. She looks on. There is a lull in the fumes of the air.

‘I am going to go now- No, I can’t stay. You really must sleep now. Yes, I’ll wake you at 6. Yes, like I promised the last 37 times. Yes, I promise. Yes, I have an alarm. Go to sleep now. Close your eyes. Now.’

She opens the door softly, pauses for a last look and goes outside. The house is hushed and silent and heavy this early. Madness, no cure for madness. The great ones are always the mad ones, everyone says. Perhaps she will be lucky and she will be great. Math doesn’t lie. Probability says she will have a bed of her own to lie on one day. She climbs the stairs with madness at her heels. It is a slow climb, there is no point in trying to outpace madness. It was ingrained to win, it was written in secret, mysterious twists of DNA. She shuts the door on madness. There could be sleep if she chose, but when the bed is an all but certain future and sleep is for the condemned- there will be no choosing sleep just yet. There will be no choosing madness just yet. She sits and waits for the sun to break the sky. There is silence in her, around her. She breaks it with unnamed music and dances and dances and waits.

Shelter

Believing in higher powers or just myself.



Would you take
Me in; Tonight?
I am a little lost
In the big ol' world
That they tell me
Was made by you
It's not always
Too nice
Or
Too kind.
This world
They tell me
You made.
Tonight
There is rage
In the wind
And the world
Is red edged
In pain.
I have on
Good authority
That you made
All of this
Just so.
My mother said so
In hushed whispers
In the quiet night
I don't know
If I believe
All of it.
But believing
In something
Bigger
Is keeping
The storm at bay.
I am a little lost
In my head
Tonight.
Could you take me in
Just for tonight
And then let me go?

Your Weakness- NaPoWriMo Poem 22

Written mostly out of frustration.

Your weakness
Is not my weakness
Your sorrows
Are not mine
To feel.
Why they ever
I can't be sure.

If you took
Responsibility for
Your weakness
You may find it
Easier to Deal
With your
Multitudes of Feels

Transience- NaPoWriMo Poem 15

Again, inspired after yet another conversation while sitting in an airport with Emma. I am beginning to sense a theme here.

'I like airports'
I mused.
Sitting the McDonalds
Of a nameless airport
In a nameless city
Of a nameless country.
'They can't judge you
In an airport.
'Who's they?'
You asked.
'Everyone'
I said.
No one belongs
To airports.
Everyone is transient
A puff of smoke
Melting to the sky.
There is no belonging
To an airport
So there is no possession.
If there is no possession
There is nothing to defend
If there is nothing to defend
There is no fear
No fear
Means
No judgement
And that is why
I like airports
They are transient
As am I
And so,
I feel at home.