I talked to a friend yesterday. She was telling me about my being an inspiration for her. She sees me as a wonderful being, it seemed, so free, so creative. I listened to her and thought that she was so wrong.
It felt so wrong that she should think so well of me when I know how messed up I am, when I know how many days I spend unable to move, unable to function, because of my fears, of my pain. It was so not right that she should think me so present and creative when I know that most of the time I sit in a corner with my hypochondria smashing me to the ground, when I know that I spend weeks at the time doing nothing but imagining another type of cancer I surely have and will die from, and being terrified into absolute immobility. [click to continue…] Being God
I talked to a friend yesterday. She was telling me about my being an inspiration for her. She sees me as a wonderful being, it seemed, so free, so creative. I listened to her and thought that she was so wrong.
It felt so wrong that she should think so well of me when I know how messed up I am, when I know how many days I spend unable to move, unable to function, because of my fears, of my pain. It was so not right that she should think me so present and creative when I know that most of the time I sit in a corner with my hypochondria smashing me to the ground, when I know that I spend weeks at the time doing nothing but imagining another type of cancer I surely have and will die from, and being terrified into absolute immobility. [click to continue…]
I’ve heard Brooks saying that ever since I met him. The statement felt right, seemed right and made a perfect sense, so I agreed with it and took it as a fact, but yesterday, for the first time (as far as I can remember), I realized that the world truly is not like this, this is simply how I see the world.
I was walking back to my drawing class from a lunch break and looking at myself, and I realized that my life has fallen into the orderly pattern of work and time off, of not working on weekends, of worrying about being at my computer on time every day, of fulfilling my duties and meeting my obligations. [click to continue…]
“How do you make decisions?”, someone asked me today, “what can you say about how to make decisions?”
“Do what you want”, I said, “and don’t do what you don’t want”.
It was all that I had to say about that, but I continued thinking about it, and looking, and considering, and I remembered an episode of a TV show I watched recently. In this episode a woman who has a wonderful husband, great and loving marriage full of romance and attraction, fantastic job, amazing son, is cheating on her husband. When the affair comes out, the husband asks her why she did it. And the audience asks the same question: why would she do it? She had everything, and everything she had was perfect. She had what others can only dream of, she had everything that makes people happy – and she messed it all up, she blew it … why?
Because it wasn’t enough, she said. Because once she had all of it … there was nowhere else to go, there was nothing else to do and, as her life became more and more confined to the perfection of her marriage, the marriage started to become a golden cage.
Any dream, no matter how beautiful, turns into a nightmare if we can’t wake up from it. [click to continue…] 
The cedar grove is very quiet. Not silent – there are birds singing their songs, there is wind playing in the branches, little furry creatures scurrying through dry pine needles and pieces of bark, but all those sounds do not disturb the quiet stillness. Old trees, trees that stood there for hundreds of years, with their massive trunks scarred by burns and cuts – they are quiet, they communicate, they relate in the quiet, still space. They hold it and create it. This is how they are.
And when you sit under those trees the quiet sips into you and enfolds you, and you become part of it. You become the holder of the quiet space, though not a silent space. There are sounds, but there is no noise anymore, not inside. Trees speak to you, and you become like trees. Quiet. [click to continue…]
My husband told me today that I have an incredible life.
“Pausha, you have an incredible life” he said, “you work very little, and when you do, your work is the making of pretty pictures. You have a husband who loves you unbearably much, and you are an inspiration to your friends. You live in the most beautiful place, right in nature, and you have an access to a cabin in the mountains, and you have a horse. Your life is incredible”.
“Life IS incredible, for everyone”, I said, “only people make too much noise to notice”.
“You make plenty of noise”, said my husband.
“Yes I do, outside”, I said, “but I don’t make much noise inside”.
