Sunday, July 1, 2012

SOMEONES GOT WISE BLOOD BLEEDING RIGHT NOW


I remember my Mama telling me many times to rely on myself then I also remember her telling me to rely on God.  Yeah, a long time ago in a Georgia far, far away' - my Mama called me on the phone and said in her Southernly shake -you -up kinda tone, "One day the shit's gonna hit the fan, then what 'cha gonna do?" Her words, at the time, didn't really hit me like a kiss cause I had already kissed the hit and, I certainly didn't need no cooling cause I was on fire inside.  Things were going according  to plan, my plan. My minds eye was set and that was it.  I was a hot young red headed sass of a Southern girl full of life. I had a business that was thriving after the three year test zone and I was living my life to the fullest. By fullest, I mean working, and, working a lot. Getting my hands dirty, working fingers to the bone but no one knew. I would never let any one behind the scenes, in fashion you had to create a scene that everything was easy and beautiful even at times surreal.  Loving , and, loving my work, my creations I knew what I was doing and I did it well.  I knew I was born into a country that allowed me to pursue my entreprenarual dreams and as a proprietor I was always grateful and seizing the moments of what America meant to me. America has changed, things have changed....what next? Will orange knickers be bleeding soon?

Wait....lemme start over...Once upon a time, I owned a clothing salon or as I like to say I birthed a child I named "Kate."  She needed all the attention a child needed and all of the emotion lived in her womb, until someone saw something they wanted to carry out of the womb...It was a very emotional time indeed, when the womb had to shut down. 11 years of life that I will never regret but as far as I was concerned, Mama was just preaching her own truth, not my truth. So...we all got our truths, right? We are all standing and delivering but lemme tell you something Mama knows best, well most of the time anyhow and once you think you're truth is the truth you find out there is no truth, so I've decided to write a little story about the way of  finding out the 'truth'  or at least what has been true for me....there is no real truth besides this very moment, know its your own. Own it. So lemme start over...

A long time ago in a California far, far away (although I still reside here) I owned a clothing salon, and yes, sir-ri,  she was my baby! Kate I called her. I breathed life into her and she grew and grew and grew and grew into full bloom, she wasn't even a flower but she grew and she bloomed and god she was my favorite fragrance. I was the caretaker, the mother and  the  one behind the curtain of her existence.  She was my pride and joy, I didn't have much else, except my blood, sweat and tears from the years. No, I didn't realize then when Mama asked me that vital question you know the one "what ya gonna do when the shit hits the fan?" and I didn't realize that 'that' question was full of love and knowing either.  I just 'thought' Mama wasn't being supportive of my dreams, my creative endeavors , my far-out No. 9 dream. I 'thought' that I was living it, action is always better than words and I was always in action so I had no words to understanding of  her words. The dream was  alive and well in America for as long as I had known until it shape shifted reptilian and forced me to fall down on my aching knees and begged me to look deeper into the abyss. Nothing went right then, it all went against my nature.

Ya see, Mama just wanted me to have something stable, rooted, founded and certain....afterall this is what the  country as she knew of  was built upon. Something that would provide certainty for me as she knew uncertainly was a dark, dark shadow.  She had been there but never told me about it, never wanting to let me in , or rather wanting to protect me from the world as some Mamas do. Anyhow, it didnt make much sense to me since I liked dark shadows, I figured without the sun nothing was possible, not even a shadow and bring the shadows on if that was suppose to be my destiny. It was all talk from me cause I was always fascinated by the dark end of the street, until i actually my life sorta took a turn and  I wasn't thinking so much about the light...I always liked SPF 30 anyhow.

I was a single, thirty three bright young thing and living the American dream but then things took a shift, the earth cracked open and just as Mama said 'the shite hit the fan' -- I was swallowed whole, like an oyster, straight into the gaping mouth of planet earth and its burning core, twisting and turning all the way down it's spine but I was still alive.

Needless to say Mama made no effort to tell me waht her statement meant, although I knew...but its not as though she prepped me for my death, she only warned me. No one want s think of some they love dying, or maybe they do, but my Mama just came with a message that was undeniably true and she always spoke cryptically - in her  her own ghostly way and rhythem- to let me know that she knew. There were all the signs, codes, speaking in tongues and all of that but what did I know? Oh, I knew I just wasn't in tune, then.  It's true, even if there is no truth that you have to prepare your intuition to rise to the occasion or you're gonna get lost at some time or another. It's up to you to see the writing on the wall of your mind and decipher it any way you choose but I was still a young girl then...full of hope, blood, sweat, tears that I poured into my American dream on the platform. What did I know about Armegeddon? I had never loved this deeply, ever and although I had already endured life circumstances that broke my heart, nothing had come close to this, especially since I had not prepared. I had only read some words about Armegeddon and after all things were going good, real good until 'the shit hit the fan!'

My world quickly became shaken and stirred to the bone and  I soon came to find out I was sleeping or perhaps I was just thinking that disaster could never touch me. I was independant and self-sufficient and I had created something so beautiful on my own that there was no way it could ever die. It was then, when I thought that and felt certain in that mind  that I turned into a pillar of salt. That was back in 2008 and there was no one there, Mama lived in a land far, far, away called Georgia and I was being broken, destroyed and incredibly frightened.

Thank God for the handful of diamonds (meaning two or three as my hands are small) who loved me through the darkest hours of my life, they were the brightest lights in my dark world and there is never enough gratitude, but mama she knew...she knew what she had to do. A warning was enough for her, and she knew she couln't stop what was going to happen, what was already on it's way.

So I found myself alone in the night in a constant state of weep and  I didn't tell my Mama what was going on for a very long time. I was ashamed, looking back I was ashamed with myself not for losing my business but for all the pride I had and how I never trusted or asked her back...what would you do IF 'the shit hit the fan?' I took no interest in her words back then. Something I regeret, that's why today I always ask questions. I have learned to honor and welcome the knowledge of loving souls who have 'been there before.'

Anyhow, I just wanted to die but instead of taking my living to escape the pain I started taking photos to document the lonliness I felt inside, the shame, the sadness, in hopes to soften the waves of my broken red-beating heart. I found myself somewhat alive again during those moments but I knew I was dead ...I was just a heart beating waves crashing upon the shore.
It was the only thing I knew to do, although I'd never done it. I also added alcohol as I thought the liver must be punished and in-between that I slept for what seemed almost a thousand years.

When I wasn't sleeping or consuming large amounts of alcohol or documenting this lucid living   I would read books. Lots and lots of books. Books became one of my only friends as the diamond ones I had mentioned earlier had their own lives to live, they were all going through the waves too..I wasn't the only one.  True friends after all, never abandon you but in the darkest hours you are called to come into self. I wish it was forty- days and forty-nights in the desert but it was longer, much longer and I longed to come out of it to shake what felt like a disease off, but I couldn't. What I had to do was live through this and know I could and would come out when I was ready. God, the hours...the hours!!

Waking up into this  I was no longer the girl that I knew. I had lost my child, my identity, Kate. Who was I? Who am I? Who will I be? Will I be able to live to tell the story one day? Who will care? Do I care and if so why? I just wanna sleep!! Wait...Will my story in some way help others? All questions I asked 'the stranger' along the way. I was my own reputation now, no one knew me, not even myself.

Heart-broken, beaten and incredibly depressed the blue-eyed girl named Wendy, was still alive, but barely and, I still had not told my Mama what was happening. How could I?  I was intoxicated  beyond belief most of the time, incredibly bewildered and extremely devastated unable to rise from my own bed for moons! I knew it. I was dying for sure and the black cab of death was on it's way, in route.

I'm not sure how you can tell your Mama that, in fact I'm not sure I was even aware of it at the time and I know I couldn't find the words, let alone speak to anyone. I just knew I was wounded like a solider in the battlefield, bleeding without a tourniquet and the words didn't work anymore , there was no flow and there was not sweat....only tears, I had so hoped to win something for the common good and bring it back years later when my Mama needed me but I was uncapable and I had checked out after that so I sent her photographs of me instead. Silent photos as I'd always loved the 20's and 30's and that era. I thought she may connect my silent way, see me and come out to lend her shoulder after all I had learned to be cryptic, it was my up bringing.
It was a curious thing though as the photos didn't document suffering.  Instead she told me I was beautiful and I didn't know how to tell Mama I was broken and that broken wasn't beautiful to me, it made me ache to the point of no return. I was a so lost that even a Chet Baker song couln't do this place justice.

Surely that ache I had wasn't comprable to her beauty queen, JFK days and the  pagent photos of her at my age.  How would she understand what I was going through inside? Nothing made sense. I didn't think she could understand putting my child, Kate, to rest. After all she had never had to put a child to rest. My brother, me and my lil sister were still alive, didn't matter that I was drinking an entire  bottle of Jameson every night and that I was swollen in the womb of depression. All those beautiful photos, they were so far beyond the beautiful...and, it wasn't a lie I just let her see whatever would make her feel proud of me, feel good.

I could not have prevented the series of events that took place but I sure would of been strong enough inside to have slayed any tsunami that came my way or at least prepared to stand tall in the spirit world, so to speak,   It would have been much easier if she had broken down what the word Armegeddon meant in a worldly sense but I was sure to find out according to her sooner or later. Heaven help us all!

How can one find ones self without seeking out what's inside and how can one find out what's inside without being called* to look deeper? So as most of you know the shit hit the fan for many of us during the economic collapse of 2008, and some got hit harder than others. Their whole lives as they knew it in the material world went down.  probably a lot of you did start waking up, I know I did. If all those photo I captured of myself sleeping weren't a sign then I don't know what was. I'm not saying look to God on a cloud but to your soul and the very breath you're breathing right now. A lot of people don't go on that treasure hunt though, they are too focused on the outside. They forget we are spirits in the material world. I mean would you just look around? Right. It seems everyone is paying attention to the deep, wordless conviction and spark that is living within. I mean how do people shut that voice off? I tried to run, run, run one time, too when the shite hits the fan, you better listen up. Trusting your inner voice is incredibly important, fine tune it if there's static then you know somethings off. You should be able to tap into it if you've done the work. The soul knows more as it grows and sometimes it may just take a few life blows to get 'into the know'...

Independence. Individuality. Self-assurance. Self-awareness. Self-determination. Self-esteem. Self-reliance. Self-respect, Self-sufficiency. Self-trust and solitude are all things we should be working towards. I think we all have a light that is  wired into the heart & soul...no one is really special but YOU are.

This brings to mind what Flannery O'Conner once said in the book Wise Blood, " In yourself, right now, is all the place you got."  .... The power of listening to what, you don't want me to know.