Found You

Incredible day. Woke late. Went to laundry room. Someone had surprised me by wrapping all my clothing in a plastic bag. Ha, I'm lazy and they are proactive, thanks. Walked down St. Marks. Met a man who has been changing shades since the 70s. Super cool. Friendly man. I enjoyed his personality and I just went along with his ideas. A collaboration of sorts. In the end, I've realized, I have to make decisions impulsively. Yes or no. Do or don't. This is about living in the moment. Not leaving and dwelling that I should have or fibbing myself into the future. Ate Indian food. Hysterical. Strange. Ornaments crouching over my skull. Food fell all over Jim's lap. Got a rub down. Strange. Hysterical. Talked box cameras. 3D film. Ate and finished with mango ice cream. Short skirt. High on the navel. Men under awning: She looks athletic. Whether to me or not, I'll take it, I guess. Bookstore. Sat on floor. Copied down poetry into notebook. Modern Life by Matthea Harvey. Darkness Spoken: Songs in Night by Ingeborg Bachmann. The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn (zuihitsu form). Bought The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley 1975-2005. Nice and thick, filled by a word chopped and changed. Walked from Washington Square Park back to East Village. Stopped in to see for my glasses. Entered with a loud, obnoxious curse. My sister and I. We aren't getting along. Two men trying to calm me. Together, the three of us, blow it off. Given a card. Pay $50. Shake a hand. Wave a thanks. And I'm onward. See Mr. C.D. himself on the park bench, crisscrossed legs, writing. We sit together for what felt like a good while. And I laughed - calling attention - to all the memories I have of ourselves, the weird reality of Manhattan together. It was nice. And I have much hope that he will be happy doing everything he will do in film. I was happy. I think it was how things should be. We (people) come in and out of lives. But there's no reason (unless harmful) to not open your life up to both him and you talking on a park bench in a different season with a change of mind. Long long long splice forward and it is after dinner. I've open boxes beneath my bed. Packed high with different cards. Brown envelopes filled with letter stamps and banging inks. All in all, it inspired a few projects in me.



Then I found an old written journal. Only a few entries. I think I was 18, moved to BOSTON for first year in college. Here is what it says:

A Brave New World
www.fashion.arts.ac.uk
FIT - > 7th avenue @ 27th St.

Be the change you wish to see in the world -Gandhi.

Walk in the rain, smell the flowers, stop along the way, build sandcastles, go on filed trips, find out how thinks work, tell stories, say the magic words, trust the universe -Bruce Williamson.

I get driven down streets I've never been on and more than likely will never see again. I do it just to stare into windows, peer into the lives of others. Knowing that we all are experiencing more pain than pleasure. But why? Because the superficial tunneling of advertisement tells us we need more and are incomplete until we acquire? The past sketches we desperately try to bury in memory? We are on a quest, a search for obtaining a rode we may never be so lucky/fortunate to drive down. Down to happiness.

I watch people eat sandwiches and chips. White bread, I almost can remember the way it tasted. But it has been too long. I think how lucky they are. To not care. Or to not care at the apparent moment and that's all I'll ever know of them. I grab my things and buy coffee. I anticipate how I'll regret the cup of coffee. I use to be addicted and then out of nowhere it makes me feel really really sick. But I need something and I'm prolonging my vegetable drink.

As of February 2006 I live off of oatmeal and tofu. Sometimes spinach, tomatoes, broccoli with tofu. Apples, oranges and always grapefruit. One would assume I'm withering but I'm just a block of mass. I only get to eat so accordingly at college. That's pretty much because I don't do anything. I don't go out and drink or have lovely dinners.

I don't know what the answer is. I refuse starvation, throwing up, or drugs. I'm anti-signs of weakness and I could never succumb to such cries for help. I guess why I care so much is because I remember what I was and what I was able to do, my liberation and having no self-conflict. I assume that it is the only factor preventing me from my dreamed of life.

I walk, I sit...people stare. I use to always turn my head to the ground; insecurely. Now I stare them in the eye. People tell me it seems like I'm looking through them. But really I'm just trying to find a connection, even if it is only for a brief moment.

I don't believe I wrote this, that there was no filter. I had no intention of being a writer at the time of writing. The page was just a secret, a space where I could speak to myself. Whisper. Scream.