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 A new year, a new blog, same mess of a writer. |
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It's been a while, but since the world is a mess, I might as well take a crack at this writing thing again.  I Write in 2019 ▼ 12 Stories in 12 Months ▼  |
| Date: 09.29.17 -- Day 56 Music: "Killing Me Softly" / Fugees If "he" is writing or autumn, then yep, I'm dying. OctoNano Prep is here in a hot minute. I'm excited and nervous and slightly losing my mind because I think I'm going to ditch the idea I was planning on and start something different. Sure, it's less than two days away, but the previous story isn't sitting as well as this other idea that my mind wants to play with. It's a little daunting to ditch the date you came with, and I'm not saying I'm actually going to ditch it, but there is a real possibility I'm going to try something different at the eleventh hour. It's kind of ridiculous to participate, but I love OPrep almost more than NaNo itself and it's been a couple of years since I've participated, so I want to do the thing. So grind meets grind, and thus true NaNo season madness begins. I have two writing assignments due tomorrow and only have the rough bones of either. Which is why I'm not working on either one of them and just blogging instead. Haha. Part of the stall is work, not going to lie. I have a student in crisis as she applies for grad school last minute, and I'm taking on a new student this week. Plus, an EMG on Monday, which might take my right hand out of commission again depending on how deep they wish to prob my hand. Onboarding a new student is a task. I know her family well though as two of her siblings are/were my students, so saying no seems wrong. Unfortunately, I won't have a day off until Sunday, and then not again until the following Friday. My body already regrets this decision, but things need to get done. One foot in front of the other and all that. Now I just need to blaze through these writing assignments and focus so I'm not working from behind like almost always. Old patterns are starting to come up again, but it feels like adding padding to the slow descent that is autumn. I'm trying to project six weeks ahead with an overnight trip to BC in a couple of weeks and then my annual trek back to Cali in November; my body is already tired at the thought of it all. One in my predicament cannot not think to the future. There are too many moving parts that need to be covered for me to just let those things go to chance. I use daunting a lot on this blog, but it is daunting. It's killing me softly. Still, autumn is my favorite time of year, especially in the Pacific Northwest. My bones and muscles hate the change of seasons, but my eyes crave the dark rain clouds, the lush dark green trees, and the misty mountains in the foreground. It is the pleasure with the pain - one I do not how to live without. |
| Date: 09.27.17 -- Day 55 Music: "Take Me To The Next Phase" / The Isley Brothers This is far more upbeat than I actually feel. Why? I head back to university tomorrow. It probably is a sign that I feel more dread than actual joy going back to class. I think I've been away for so long, part of me wonders what the hell is the point even though I've been hacking away at this degree for over a decade of my life. I need to finish. I need to go back. But my body and my brain are just not quite there. Part of the dread is this weird idea that the universe pokes me to go in different directions or tries to help me make decisions. If I'm struggling, I subconsciously wait for a sign. Which, as a scientist (kind of), is kind of ridiculous. As a person of indeterminate faith, but semi-heavy religious upbringing, that sounds about right. Instinct. Mojo. Signs. I roll with it as much as I do empirical data. It makes life interesting. So imagine my brain when I sliced open my hand taking out the trash Saturday afternoon. And by slice, I mean fully gauged. Just shy of stitches as it slid more long than deep. My first thought as blood is rolling down my arm was, "I don't have time for this". That is to say that's my response for any medical emergency that happens to my person. Last time I was going into full anaphylaxis, that was exactly what I said as I tried to argue against going to the hospital. My lungs were closing up, but I had things to accomplish still. I didn't have time to die. Granted, most people don't have time to go to the hospital. Alas. So my dominant hand has been somewhat out of commission. It heavily bandaged and is sore and vastly inconvenient, but I can kind of type and can get a few minutes of writing in, but the idea of sitting through two classes with a massive amount of note-taking seems unbelievably daunting. After a weird appointment with my rheumatologist that ended in a referral to Seattle, my mother telling me for weeks that two classes was just too much, and my friend gently suggesting that I need to chill, I took the hand accident as a sign from the universe that maybe they're right. I dropped a class. Gonna start slow. I'm not necessarily good at taking it easy, but I need to if I want to make it to 30. So this is new. And strange. And tiring even before I begin. Here's to the next phase. May it be kinder than the last one. |
Contest Entry for "Invalid Item"  Continuation of "Every Shut Eye Ain't Sleep" .Word Count: 793 There are many things that I regret. Contemplation comes when all that surrounds you are slabs of concrete and infinite silence. I was war made, and turned everyone I met into the same until there was nothing left, not even the cause. All I have to show for it is a cage. They have me locked in the basement of a prison somewhere out in the wastelands. Twenty-four hour solitary confinement with only one shaft of light to tell me that the world is not dead. The dust winds howl like ravenous wolves sometimes, sending little pieces of red sand through the grates up above. That is my only connection to the outside. I’ve had worse. It didn’t take me long to realize that the currency of imprisonment is treason to my principles. I am a model prisoner. For every bit of information I give them about the outfit, I am given a little something for my effort. A blanket for the coordinates to a holding space out in the deserts. Books for the name of an off-planet smuggler. A comb for old bases. Confessions of past crimes in order to bathe. Dignity at its finest. It took my darling older sister two years to visit. My only visitor. Dressed to the nines with her trademark impassive expression, she was always the best of us, and she never let us forget it. The first visit was to feed some question she needed answered in my failure. She had infiltrated the cause that she had left behind. She had taken the lives of everyone of that cause. She had taken our mother. And in the end, she had taken my freedom. Karen needed to see me locked in a box, her last discretion buried under miles of concrete and wires. Whatever it was she was looking for, she found, a flash of cruel satisfaction written all over her face as she left. When Karen comes back the second time, I know she’s there to kill me. A full tea service was provided with foodstuffs that could only be found from contraband hauls. The irony doesn't escape me. Tradition would have me serve her as she is my elder. Traditions that are ingrained in my very marrow. In practiced hand, I make the tea. I pour her cup first - one lump of sugar and a slice of lemon. Mine I take with nothing, savoring the rich flavors of smoky brew, the backnote a sweet tang that could only mean poison. She tells me that it’ll be alright. She made it painless. I was just a loose end that she needed to tidy up. Some things, she says, never change. Which is true. Some things would never change. Which is how I knew she wouldn’t come out of her protective tower unless it was for something she needed to see with her own eyes like capturing a loathsome sibling she had been hunting for years. Which is how I knew she would use the same poison from when we were young, and that she would kill me herself because she couldn’t trust anyone else to get such an important job done right. Which is how I knew she would need to add to my humiliation, have me make and serve the tea; and how I slipped my own poison, a mixture of book ink, red sand, and fibers from my prison-made blanket, into the teapot as the leaves steeped, only activated by the acid of her customary lemon wedge. As the realization of what was happening dawned in her eyes, her lungs began to fill with fluid. I held her as she gasped for breath. It had taken me years to get to her. A last-ditch effort for the cause as there was no one left but me. I did not take pleasure in watching the life drain from her eyes, so much like our mother’s, only a sense of relief as the medics and guards flooded my cell. The kill switch that protected her since her betrayal was triggered the moment her heart stopped beating. And with her death, every misdeed and hateful crime we had ever committed was released to the planet’s nexus. While they investigate her death, the guards took away everything but this book I write in and a small piece of pencil I had tucked away. They say the inquest should over soon. It doesn’t matter. I did what needed to be done. The price is that I will spend the rest of my days in this cell. The exhaustion in my bones has left me. All that is left is solace that it is over. There are many things I regret. Killing my sister is not one of them. |
| Date: 09.15.17 -- Day 54 Music: "When I Reach The Place I'm Going" / Wynonna Judd What's home? Is it a place? A town? A memory? I have no idea, to be honest. It's one of those things that I keep coming back to this week, and one of the things that's eluded me most of my life. My hometown is a state - California. That's my opening sales pitch whenever I start a workshop where you get that kind of question. It's easier to say than telling people I have no hometown or a handful of hometowns depending on your preference. Most of my childhood was spent on the road, in one form or another. Countless hours, sometimes days, in the backseat of a some four-door sedan. In that sense, I've never really had a constant or a touchstone to come back to when things got rough. As I've gotten older, my time staying in one place has lengthened, but that feeling that nothing will remain for long still lingers with me. I still have a few cardboard boxes filled with things from my last move five years ago. It's a peculiar type of mentality. Why unpack when you just have to repack later? Why hang anything on the walls when you're just gonna need to patch those holes later? Why get attached to an apartment when you're going to leave it behind in a year or two? Honestly, I don't know why I'm still set in that mode when I haven't lived that life for a while. Maybe it's too ingrained in my memory to turn it off. I think the thing that scares me the most is the idea that those roads are my constant. I felt safest there as a kid. Life was chaotic enough when my family stood still. Walls meant fewer places to run and hide. But tires on the pavement meant that there were possibilities as long as there was pavement underneath the tires. I often did homework in the backseat while my mother and I delivered medical reports for my dad before the age of the internet and we were too strapped for cash to hire a service. It was during one of those trips that I saw the prettiest sunset of my life on near barren field when the sun blanketed the sky in golden hues. I slept there in the front when we had to go visit my grandfather in the hospital on weekends after he was diagnosed with cancer or when we'd check on the house bore our name but was no longer ours. The most boring trip was always the one from Kern Valley to San Francisco. Nothing to look at but endless brown hills. The clouds, however, would put on a show if you looked up at just the right time. Driving into Owens Valley was, and remains, a time for existential crisis which can be mimicked by staying at any Best Western hotel. Many a road trip down Lancaster way has convinced me that California City is most likely haunted. Like the entire town is haunted, no joke. Crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco is like exhaling normalcy and inhaling the bay saltwater, The City, and all that it entails. The most beautiful and potentially deadly drive remains taking PCH from its southern point to its highest point. It's lovely having the ocean as your wing man. I know all these roads by heart, having driven them multiple times, with a multitude of company. The problem is...you cannot build lasting dreams on the road. So what is home? If it's a house or some place to set down roots, I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's one of those lifelong pursuits where the journey is more than the destination. I think I'm closer now to that answer now that I'm away from California. But the state will forever be in my bones and on those roads. I can recall them with almost perfect clarity, each ride and each song on the cassette deck. Those roads made me. What they made me into, I don't know. But I imagine when my body breaks down and nearly turns to dust, you'll find bits of that Golden State asphalt floating around in there. Maybe finding home is accepting that as my truth. Or maybe home is still out there and I just need to search a bit longer. |
| Date: 09.09.17 -- Day 53 Music: "Diamonds" / Laura Mvula Sometimes the grass ain't greener on the other side Maybe the sky is clearer in another place It rained yesterday. That is usually not a big deal in the Pacific Northwest, but there have been a series of fires that have made the air quality dreadful. There was ash in the air and the smell of smoke everywhere, and I live north enough where that shouldn't have been a problem, and yet... So yesterday as I was out running errands, it began to rain for the first time in months. For a moment I just tipped my head back, eyes closed, and let it fall on my face. I didn't know how much I had missed the feel of it until the droplets were landing on my skin. It did wonders for the air. The rain came only for a short while, but it was enough to make it feel like autumn and bring some people out on the town again. It also cleansed me as well. It was only for a moment. But for the wondrous moment I felt somewhat whole again. A small breeze came through, bringing in the scent of salt water from the bay. It's those sudden moments that make putting one foot in front of the other a little less daunting than before. Waiting for a day of change to come And you're beautiful, dancing in a gloomy storm For the last couple of days, there's been this barrier between me and my emotions. Not quite numb, just like I've piled everything into a mound and threw a makeshift blanket over it to not have to see the mess anymore. It's an odd feeling, this disconnect from everything. There are moments when things peek through. The sensation of wanting to cry. The sense of peace while in the rain. The muted frustration of being up another night to watch the sun rise. I don't know why everything is behind a cloud. I mean, I do. But I don't know how. The thing that kind of worries me, in a foggy sorta way, is what will happen when the cloud passes. Will it be this big crash? Or just a sudden sinking feeling? Shame? Anger? Sadness? Will it happen sooner rather than later? I have this weird idea that maybe I'm just this raw mess of a person, but I have no emotional lexicon for it so my brain just defaulted to this abstract state. But you got diamonds under your feet But you got diamonds in your heart She was buried yesterday. I think, on instinct, I knew the moment it happened. Or maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part. Before the cloud, I was angry. At her. At my brother. I was mad that she didn't get the redemption she needed to go through to make things better. This isn't one of those films where the person hits bottom, realizing the work they need to do, and makes it out the other side. Sometimes bottom is just death. And I cannot help but see this countdown clock on some of the others around me. That want to beg them to get help now. To make that leap now. It's a disease. A curse. It shreds and destroys me every time. And the only way it works is if the person wants the help. That's the most difficult part. Because it could be years, decades, before they're ready. A large part of me thinks I should be thankful for the cloud. I've been able to function. Lost in grief is just lost in grief. The cloud keeps me moving. Keeps me functional. Maybe that's what I need right now. My hope is that the cloud isn't like the rain yesterday that only stays for a fleeting moment. For this second, muted is good, and I'll take it. |
| Date: 09.05.17 -- Day 52 Music: "Bright Morning Stars" / Abigail Washburn My house is still in mourning. A soft kind of mourning that lingers in the bone like a morning damp mist. Her funeral is on Friday, but my mother is too unwell to travel and as her caretaker, I just can't. So the old songs come out. "Bright Morning Stars", "The Parting Glass", "Down By The River", and other laments from former deaths past. It is in these times that I am reminded of my mother's mother's people. While I grew up in house both firmly steeped in Filipino and Black traditions, it is my maternal grandmother's traditions we use to mourn, the roots of our Irish and Scottish Catholicism peaking through. These were the first songs I learned as child - laments, gospels, and three-part harmonies. It was one of the few times it seemed acceptable to grieve if you didn't have whisky in your hand. This morning, however, all I have is a cup of deep red hibiscus tea and the sound of a hymn at the back of my throat as I wait to greet the dawn. There was little sleep for me last night and have been up since 3am. My mother woke up with a deep cough in her chest and the inability to breathe. I have an ear for a cough like I have an ear for music. The wrong sound and I'm up from sleep in a flash. I don't sleep that well anyway, so being up with her isn't bad, although she hates waking me. In truth, it's just the life of a caretaker. One just sleeps with one ear open. This August marked seven years from my transition from part-time to full-time caretaker. She's my best friend, so any hardships are mitigated by my love for her. She's helped me through everything, so the least I can do is do the same. The one thing I fear about doing this work is seeing my future. My mother has been battling her illnesses since she was thirty; she turned sixty a few days ago. Even trying to do the best to stop the ravages of my genetics, there's a very good chance my own illness might progress to the point she's at now. It frightens me. It's not the death part; it's the dying part. Years of muscles and bones breaking down into nothing. Not knowing which organ system your body is going to fight today. Struggling to breathe. Struggling through thick mental fog. Struggling to stand. Struggling through unending pain. It is one my biggest fears. And yet, I get up every morning, and try to tackle it once more. I'm so tired though. I'm not even thirty yet, but I'm utterly exhausted of my broken body. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the sun does not wait on broken bodies. There are errands to run, calls to the doctor, post office drop-offs, funeral flowers to buy, pharmacy pick-ups, and so on. So I'll finish my cup of tea as the sun rises, and somewhere along the way, begin again. |
| Date: 09.02.17 -- Day 51 Music: None On the 29th of August, someone close to me died. It's hard to place grief into the right words. I'm not even sure there are words to express how I feel. I find myself in a combination of sorrow and angry and regret. G was like the sun at times, both as someone who made you smile at her warmth and would scald you when her anger overflowed onto the others around her. For years she has been battling addiction, and in that time, she burned many bridges as she refused to seek treatment. One of those bridges was with me. In many ways I loved her and hated her in equal measure. There are some things that no one should let slide and G did many of them. I've been preparing for her passing for years, and yet, with her passing, I am still in shock. It's hard to admit that a part of me thought there would be time for reconciliation. Maybe not with me, but for my nieces and nephew. With her mother and sisters. She had this impervious nature about her. No low was a low for long. She fought back death so many times. What should have been wake-up calls became inconveniences. It would have been easier if she had been a malicious person through and through, but she wasn't. Not always. There was a shine to G that drew people in. She was witty, artistic, and loving when she was sober. In the end the alcohol and the anger ate her up. Her heart just gave out. That's the part I keep coming back to. Her heart just couldn't handle it anymore and stopped. The biggest fear I have is for her eldest daughter, my niece. If there is sunshine personified, it's B. She's gone through so much, more than anyone should have to endure at such a young age. So much loss. So much pain. Yet she laughter and smile continues on. She's in that place of mourning where anything like sympathy feels like pity and she cannot stand pity. She's angry, rightfully so, and in so much grief. I want to fix it. I can't. I know I can't but that doesn't change the want to take her pain away. All I can do it wait for when she's ready to talk about it, and be there for everything else until that time comes. That's the hardest part of being away from family. When things like this happen, I'm not there to be with them. Grief is one of those things that just kind of confuses me. It's not death that scares me. Nor is this the first death of someone I've loved. It's the hope that a path to redemption is now gone. And I miss her. I missed her before she died. I find myself crying at the most random moments thinking about her. In grief I get this kind of frantic energy to work. I cleaned. I cooked. I built a bed from scratch. I caught up on paperwork. It's this kind of need to keep moving so I didn't have to think about the fact that she died. It was somewhere in the middle of building the bed that I lost all composure. The tears kept falling and I couldn't stop the sobs. Then my brain seems to freeze, resets, and continues to find more work to plow through. I just cannot seem to process the emotional ramifications of it all. My mother and I will start a novena tonight. It's one of those things that brings her solace, and I know the prayers to provide her that comfort. I don't know if it does for me anymore. It did once, the ritual of it. Now it just seems hollow. I can only hope that G is not longer in pain. That she can finally find the relief she spent her whole life searching for. I'm trying to remember the good days when her smile came easily and there was so much life ahead of her. Trying to remember moments that were not clouded with anger and disappointment. One day, I imagine, it won't be this pit of emotion. One day. To my sister. I will always hold a part of you with me. I'll be seeing you in every summer's day. May you find peace now. |
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Week 1: December 31st - January 6th:
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