personal past, present personal.

When we spoke in our conference together, she told me how profound my writing was—how it was absolutely lyrical, but difficult and abstract. She explained that because of this that it did not fit within the genre of personal essay because it did not attempt to tell or share an experience in a straightforward nature that others could understand at ease. She seemed proud and confident that she had untangled my metaphors and had begun to deduce my suggestions with clarity. But she still believed that I had never intended to tell a personal story, She remembered the first day I met her, where I pulled her aside and asked if I could do something different—do something that shook the standards of the genre. I’m not sure I ever did though. My essays read like poetry—there were revelations but they were symbolic and not concrete—it was necessary that they be decoded because the language in which they were told was with a voice that was for myself alone. It followed the belief that poets are the most genuine—for their voice is spoken only with their ear in mind, and not the audience of the world that could assume and relate only a fraction. Later I termed the voice the essays spoke with as, the language spoken in the interior city. After our talk, I felt dissatisfied with my performance—as if I had been acting safe—not wanting to be emotional, repetitive, obsessive, personal or in other words, labeled as an self-reflective, self-deprecating female. I could go on and on, finding new reasons why I avoided the subject of myself, my stories and the responsibility of the two. I did, indeed, tell her many—if not all that I could think of at the time. When I left she told me that she felt like she knew me more than she ever had—more than she had expected she would. Those words—though simple and possibly contrived—inspired me. I wanted her to know me, I wanted my readers to as well—I felt like I turned my back on the group who read my work and candidly said that it felt like it was philosophical essay and not a personal essay—that it was beautiful, powerful but after reading it they knew nothing about me. Somehow—someway, I did not expect, last night I finally wrote a personal essay. A political personal essay, which I was convinced was the furthest topic I would want to try and feel toward. But I did—I wrote and wrote and wrote twelve pages—and the political became the story of my struggle as a person, my existence on the Internet and what it became through the years, how I suffered from emptiness my first year of college and what that combined with my prior history did to my physical presence. There was something invigorating about just telling it as it was and as it is. Not letting language get in the way—and not letting an audience either. It took me back to those years when I wrote to tell my story, to explain myself and with the drive to have other people understand what it was that had happened—what it was that was being felt.

Tonight after a day of feeling absolutely terrible with shopping. Side note: this is precisely why I never shop. I fear clothes. I fear the mirrors. I fear the shapes, the sizes. I fear being so close to my reflection in a space that is lighted. But I tried because I am going to Miami and want to feel good—but this almost feels pointless, especially when knowing my past, of never feeling good in clothing. The bottom line is I can always feel my body on me. I think I feel its substance more than most people do. No one ever said living in your skin would be easy always—but it has never felt easy for me; not as far back as my memory goes at least. That story aside, tonight I began packing and reaching through my towering “things” I found seven pages in a summer journal I had written. It was what I bought for my summer last year in Europe. I had promised myself that one thing I could accomplish while being there was to begin writing again. Unfortunately, I did not. Writing a mere seven pages does not qualify as writing while being there. But as I read through them just a bit ago, there is something there—there is something candid—and because I chose to write like that I was actually able to write on the go and be able to understand myself even a year later. It reminds me of the personal essay—and how important it is to not over think your thoughts—how necessary it is to just let them go, let your words be less ideal and a bit out of your control. When you don’t try and feel for the words, they remind you of your being.

July 29 2007 BERLIN

At this restaurant/lounge, Intersoup, in Prenzlauer Berg (“Cool District Spotlight”). Alone, alone. Lifted on top of this Asian platform, sitting with my back against pillows that outline (my own) three walls. Shoes are off and I hear the flutter of German voices that bounce off the two separate rooms I am wedged between.

Amazing where you—singular—can place yourself. All it takes is a curious mind and a vibrant eye. We lust for others with the assumption that they (he/she) will provide the extra hand and/or the comforting shoulder AND the soothing voice that together will help you both, collectively, have The Experience.

Well here I came to Berlin alone and newly single...certain that [unfortunately] it is just you that you need to do these things. If the desire is there, then be your own driving force.

If it is some other thing that is needed to do, to be, to “live in love” (yes, Stephen, that is your phrase) it is a peaceful mind. A mind—a state—that encourages you, supports you, allows you to be here and not there or just anywhere alone or with others inside the experience. The partner is yourself. The self you love. The self you do not forbid. The self that you applaud for exploring and experiencing with no shadow, but her/your own of self reflection, to follow her/you about. That is good. Try not to examine this shadow though. Think of it, look to evaluate, to observe and understand. But try and examine less, Chelsea. When one examines one anticipates a problem/an offset. Look to find less problems within the self and, instead, expose the joys of your dynamic being. Enlighten yourself from this exposure and in doing so enlighten all the others that admire this decision to love what you have, instead of walking through life hating the self you are not and need to be.


August 4 2007 TRAIN TO AMSTERDAM

“This is an exaggerated spectacle, and it makes me comfortable. I was always an exaggerated character because I was trying to create all by myself a climate which suited me, bigger flowers, warmer words, more fervent relationships, but here nature does it for me, creates the climate I need within myself, and I can be languid and at rest. It is a drug...a drug...” –Anais Nin, Seduction of the Minotaur.

After a long chase of finding my sister to get to the train station (miscommunication, livid and dramatically not wanting to talk) we arrive and I stare in disbelief that I have read or, rather, not read the tickets. The arrival time in Amsterdam was indeed not our departure time from Paris. How could I be so unaware? So dumb? There is no word/adjective for my state. After getting $1600 stolen the 1st day in Paris and then my cell phone stolen two days ago...how could I be so removed from something that should have been easy to not mistaken. My mind is elsewhere. On my self inflicted pity? So I had to spit out over 240 euros to get Allison and I to Amsterdam, hours after anticipated arrival. I need to be slapped—but worse I know I am doing the slapping, and thus it is harder to bare.

Regardless, I am terribly happy and in a state of bliss riding on the train now. I sit alone...Alli passed out with a family to my left. I filmed our departure and the open fields, read the European newspaper (articles on Salvador Dali, Warhol and literature turned cinema), finished a novel by Anais Nin, now I have started another, drinking wine and had a lovely meal of fish and veggies. The sun is making my right side glow, but I feel (regardless of earlier, my stupidity and unspoken need to be taken care of) like my whole body is glowing inside out. I am happy to be moving and in the midst of all that travels in the chapters of the story of our lives.

Quickly Speaking: There is a little girl to the left of me...so vibrant, filled with “the” energy, greeting everyone with “Hello the most beautiful” in such a Parisian Princessa voice! [But] she has a bit of a lazy eye, I’ve recognized. And coming from America, I want to shelter her from the harshness in/of life. The others she will be faced with that may soak the energy and vibrancy out of her because a “lazy eye” is different, freakish and not perfect. I loathe the prophecy.