La colère algerienne

Sounds like something by Camus, maybe even Duras. Good title for a book. I've been thinking of them lately. Although I don't know if I want to write a book....

Here is a poem: Anger

Forever isn't what it used to be, or is it?

I'm sure someone was eating pot roast on the bus this morning. The smell was unmistakable. What else could smell like that? It smelled like pot roast straight from the oven....But, the question is, who would eat pot roast on the bus? I know I shouldn't even ask that question....

Anyway, here I am. Hopefully nearing the end of these journal-ly type of posts. I am less venomous now, if only because I am completely empty inside. I saw my ex, I need to think of something better to call him...Trick, perhaps? No, ex will do, because I won't be writing much more about him again, ever. When I saw him, I felt nothing, not even contempt, it was like he wasn't even there. His existence didn't matter. His existence didn't register. I'm not sure what's worse, hating someone, or feeling nothing. I can actually answer that. For me, feeling nothing is worse. It means that someone doesn't matter to me anymore and that they will soon slip from my memory, as if they never existed. I am sure that in the days to come this will make me sad. After all, he was my 'home'. He was the one I wanted in my life forever. It's hard to accept that there is nothing in me for him, that he could put me at risk....I guess, foolishly I thought that no matter what happened between us, we could put those differences aside, and still be there for each other when it really counted. I thought that we were friends. I was wrong. That's what hurt the most. But it doesn't anymore, it's over. No more of this....forever.

Today...(revisited)

Today I am angry.

This is the first real chance I have had to sit and think and write, not in private, of course. But, it's better for me than not doing it at all.

But, I am angry. There are many reasons, but first, I am angry that I have let someone so weak and emotionally-retarded make me angry. Then I am angry that I gave myself (and was ready to give even more) to him. I don't regret having loved my ex, and I did with everything. When I realized I loved him, I cried and cried because I couldn't be with him at that exact moment. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe normally, I had this crazy nervous feeling all of the time. And then, when I finally saw him, everything was okay....It felt like home. But only for a little while. He didn't like that, me being happy, him being happy, us being happy together. Maybe if I had been a prostitute or something, he would have preferred it.

Anyway, I don't regret that I loved him, I regret that I didn't see...I didn't see him for what he really is. And, as I said, I'm angry. I'm angry that he never told the truth and that he played games with me. That he took advantage, for the second time, of my love for him and what that meant, and that he used things against me that he knew would hurt the most, and that he lied. I'm angry that he took from me and never gave and then blamed my gifts (of love and tenderness) for the demise of whatever it was that existed between us.

And for more than any other reason, I am angry now because he has made me hate him. He has taken the beauty of what I had to give, thrown it at my feet and trampled on it. He has behaved as though I am nothing. As though my respect, my admiration, my love was nothing. I am angry that I let him. I am angry that I've cried and that my eyes fill with tears as I write this....

And now, I hate him. I never wanted to; I tried so hard not to. I know that it is wrong, I believe that it is wrong, to hate anyone, that is. But, I do. I hate him.

Meu nome é Rachel...

Today, in spite of all of the craziness, the homelessness, and the venom I'm feeling right now, I forced myself to go to my first Portuguese lesson. I have always wanted to learn, I think that it is the most beautiful language. So sensual, so fluid, so....mmmm, I don't know. I just love it. I can't wait for the day that it flows freely from my tongue.....

My fantasy is to someday sing Jazz or Bossa Nova in Portuguese. I think the timbre of my voice (if that's the correct term) would be perfect for the Brazilian style of singing. Of course, I have to learn the language first. I'm very excited about it. It was a bright spot.

One of my favorite days....

Happy Birthday, Jesus!!!!

Today....

It was not easy, today. I'm not sure why, I think everything is coming to a head, all of the changes the crises, the joys, the pain of the last year. I am tired. I may have said this before. I want to curl up and take a nap, but there's just not time for that right now. Soon....

I want someone to be nice to me unconditionally. People always think I don't need that for some reason. I want someone to see that I do need that and then, miracle of all miracles, do it. Yes, there are violins playing in the background as I write this....Today is just one of those days....

Anyway, In the midst of this fairly emotionally-charged haze I am walking around in, I found myself engaged in a conversation about love, soul mates, lust, pornography, depravity....Huge, I know. Please don't ask me how we managed to cover all of that and more. But, when I think about it, these topics occupy both ends of the same spectrum and it's really not so broad.

One person asked us all if we had ever found our soul mate. I had to think, because, as I may have mentioned previously, I have never necessarily believed in this concept. But when I did consider it all, the events surrounding my boy, who is no longer my boy, I came to the conclusion, that, in fact, he, despite the craziness of our relationship, is my soul mate. This person, with whom I was speaking today suggested that the person who makes "you feel like home..." is your soul mate. Hmmm, what a nice thought.

Something that recently hit me like a ton of bricks is that just because you love someone (and maybe they love you), just because you are connected to someone, just because they may be your soul mate, it doesn't mean you will be with them. None of that is a guarantee. Which may not be so sad after all, maybe it can ultimately provide a sense of peace. Knowing that there is the 'other half' of you out there, and I don't mean this in a whiny, overly romantic, 16 year-old sort of way. It also does not mean that you or they will be ready or able to be with each other or even good for each other. I knew all of this but, knowing something and living something are two vastly different things....

More life lessons, enough already....

So, I trudge on through the rest of this day, realizing that I need to make more money so that I can finally get my own apartment, that I need to call my grandmother , that I need to have more contact with my parents, that I need to pay some bills because they are late, that I need to find a yoga class, that I need to write something to try and get it published, and that I need to sleep. Right now this list seems never-ending. Everything swirling 'round and 'round in my head. "Just take one day at a time..." my boy told me not so long ago, when he was still my boy.

There is a misty rain now, all of a sudden. Seattle. But, I have to pick myself up and go out into it, go home, read more, write more, take the next step.

Inshallah!!

Dare I say am enjoying life?

Despite being broke and effectively homeless, I feel good. Inshallah!!* I'm not sure I've ever been able to say that. Even when those around me are not, I see clearly and I am even, GULP, optimistic about the future. That's not like me.

For the last year or so, life has been chaotic, or at least that's what most would say from the outside looking in. When all of it started, I set out with a very specific plan to find the place where I belong. It has taken 9 months, my life savings, the disintegration of a relationship I'd built up in my head for years, and a trip almost half way around the world, but I am good...able to smile frequently, laugh easily, and believe there are possibilities....

No one has understood why. Certains** close to me have commented on what they consider my immaturity, my naivete, my lack of focus, and even my selfishness. I have found that when you cease to fit into the role you have traditionally played in the lives of others, it ususually doesn't sit well with them. You end up forcing change, a new way of being, on people who never intended it. Today, the cutest cab driver (Orange Cab in the house) asked me if I was a trouble maker. I told him it depends on who you ask. Ain't that the truth.

That's not my intention of course. I once came across a horoscope that something like:

"You live too aggressively and love too obssessively
and you always demand the impossible. That's the glory and
the terror of being you. Don't ever change, babe..."

This is true. Although I've tried in the past to suppress this particular way of being in the world, to no avail. It went on to say:

"...there may come a time when living too aggressively and loving too obssessively
will be just the right amount and demanding the impossible will make
perfect sense. On that strange and happy day you will achieve all that you thought
would secretly elude you forever, think you can handle that much success?"

I saved that one. (find more horoscopes like it here)

I am wondering if that time is coming now. I am beginning to see that while I haven't gotten what I wanted, I've gotten what I needed. That is really the trick, recognizing that at any given moment, you are where you're supposed to be, even if it seems wrong or painful or depressing. Everything happens for a reason and is part of what you need. In the end, on a deeper level, what you need can also become what you want, if you let it....inshallah....


*It is also not my intention to offend or diminish the importance of this phrase/concept by using it here. But I began to say it in France, where Arabic and Muslim expressions, words, phrases are creeping into French popular culture much like, Black culture has come to dominate populare culture in the United States. People use Inshallah quite a bit , Muslims & non-Muslims alike, not always in a religious context, I noticed. It's the perfect phrase to express a sentiment of something that will happen in the future that you have very little control over. It kind of like something my grandmother and other people from the South always say: "God willing and the creek don't rise..." but not quite, it's hard to translate. I find myself saying or thinking it here (in English) sometimes....

**The people (family members and friends) I'm referring to here happen to be all of the things they accuse me of being, strangely enough.

For art's sake...

I am beginning to see myself as a writer, feel like an artist -- although I think writing is more of a craft than an art -- more than ever before. It is good. I am feeling better about everything despite all of the changes in my life. I regret nothing of the last year, not even leaving Paris. But, I feel the need to return there and I will. It is the only place that I've felt, for a long time, that I really belonged. Being there was an amazing struggle, but I feel like she (Paris) was preparing me for her (I think Paris is a chick, a Scorpio chick). I know that places have astrological signs, like Norway and Algeria are linked to the sign of Scorpio and I want to say New Orleans too, I'll have to look that up. I don't think Paris is actually linked to the sign of Scorpio, but I'd like to think she's like me...but I'm getting way off topic here.

For the first time this week, my writing got me into real trouble, so I was thinking that maybe now I have the right to begin calling myself a writer or a journalist. I know it will take so much more. But maybe I can call myself an artist, it's just waiting to come out. So much inside waiting to come out through words, images, etc...I don't say teacher anymore, though, when someone asks me.

What happens when people don't do the things that make them whole and feel like they are really living? I don't mean professionally, although sometimes the two -- your heart's desire and your professional life -- meet and I am imagining that there could be nothing better. But what I'm saying is, what happens when an artist doesn't do his art or a cyclist does ride his bike or a born teacher doesn't teach? When I had money, I bought lots of greeting cards, I had a big box full of them for every occasion and I found one once that said: "Do what you love and the money will follow, do what you hate and be like the rest of us." It was a quote made by a waitress in Florida. She is a font of wisdom, don't you think? I think about that a lot lately, especially after this week. Fortunately I am able to do this. Some people cannot. I am not naive in realizing just how fortunate I am...

I love writing, I need to now. What if I was still standing in front of a classroom in Chicago? What if Paris was still a dream? What if Seattle was not in my life now? What if I was not writing? I ask again:

What happens when people don't do the things that make them whole and feel like they are really living?