Passing Thoughts
(spring) Spring fell in three days of relentless rain. Soaking the first sprouts and turning yards to fresh mud. While we waited for the leaves, the birds filled the trees instead, with long awaited song. Soon the colors will wake from their long sleep, and we will believe that hope is what made it all bloom once more.
(crone) I had a revelation last night about how I've gone through life never feeling good enough because I have based my worth on whether or not I'd be seen as attractive to a man. Last night I was like, fuck this. I want to be a wise old crone with waves of grey hair and mala beads wrapped around the skin of my crepe paper arms. I want to welcome people to come sit and talk and be comforted. To perhaps spill some wise words. I never again want to give a fuck if someone finds me attractive. What a shallow way to think about men as well.
(holiday eats) You can make all of these delicious Christmas/holiday foods anytime of year. Just sayin'. Pumpkin pie on the 4th of July. Christmas cookies for Easter. Cranberry sauce (as long as you freeze some berries) on a random day in May. There is no need to feel pressured to make green bean casserole or homemade rolls only in December. The realization that you can enjoy these things at any time of year takes some of the pressure off having to make all of the things at a time of year when your body may be craving rest. It allows you to nourish your body with what it is actually craving instead of stuffing it full of foods you believe only come once a year.
(writing) Sitting down to a blank page is like going to work in your underwear. People may like what they see, or they’ll laugh or tell you where to buy a better fitting bra. When we write, especially when we share, we open ourselves to the harsh reality of standing in a room, exposed.
(artist's statement) Kelli tells poetic stories that examine the connection between nature and human nature. Stories of love, rebirth, and longing. Stories of secrets hidden away in seashells and cottages of madness. Not content to limit herself, she rambles through themes and styles with the quiet voice of a conversation at midnight. She hopes her poems of solitude can give the reader a place to rest, away from the noise and chaos of the world.
(aesthetic) I wish I could invite you into an aesthetic. We could sit in a white room on a blush couch free of crumbs and random letters. Drink sweet tea in matching cups, served on a wooden tray without stains of other lives. A perfectly neutral space where you could rest your feet on a plush pouf, instead of regrets. There would be order & the perfect border of white space hiding closets full of autobiographies & sharp knives. I could invite you into an aesthetic lie, but really, where’s the fun in that?
(a happiness collection) I once bought a silly, realistic-looking, plastic rooster. I thought it would be funny to set it by the front door of our new house. As people visited, they obviously noticed the rooster. And thought that it meant I had a love of roosters. Pretty soon I was getting roosters for gifts. Rooster prints, rooster doorstops, ceramic roosters. Before I knew it I had a whole collection of roosters.
The problem was, it really wasn’t my thing. I didn’t have any great love for roosters. Sometimes life can be like that. It starts throwing things at you that you really don’t want. You find yourself spending your days doing things you don’t enjoy. Your life becomes a collection of things you didn’t choose. Don’t live a life with a bunch of roosters you don’t want. Clear out all of the things that don’t bring you joy and live a life that makes you happy.
In 2023 let's choose to live. Let's choose fun over fear. Let's create for ourselves rather than for likes. Let's make terrible art. Let's laugh at stupid shit. Let's love and be open to others without the fear of rejection. Let's choose people who go out of their way to show us they care over the assholes who treat us like burdens. Let's make the world a better place. Let's promote what we love rather than giving space to what we hate. Let's look at each other with compassion. Let's be vulnerable. Let's be soft. Let's realize that each person is inherently worthy of our love. Let's realize that we are the people inherently worthy of love. Let's create a circle of acceptance.
I love you all. I hope you carry that love and just a dash of hope into 2023.
Happy New Year!
(4 Am) - It's almost 4am.
4am is the hour when we admit all of the feelings we have that we tell ourselves we shouldn't
All of the truths we swallow down when the sun is up and everything seems like it will work out
4am tells us were fools to believe any of it
4am makes us face ourselves in the darkness like Luke facing himself in that cave on Dagobah. We realize we are really Darth Vader even though we thought we were a Jedi at heart.
4am is the hour of facing our dark side and realizing it's who we really are. 8/7/22
(fuck off) To the "agree to disagree" crowd I am respectful of your beliefs and your way of life until those beliefs impact others.Human rights are not up for debate.
Whether they be reproductive rights, or Igbq rights, or equal rights for people of color or women, these things are not up for debate and I will not agree to disagree with you on any one of them.
If you try to shove your beliefs into my vagina and fuck me over with them, I will not "agree to disagree."
And don't come at me with your mask and vaccine mandate false equivalency arguments. My unplanned pregnancy does not affect you. Your covid breath affects me.
Just so we're clear on this.
(gendered sports) I have a solution for the people who are so pressed about trans women in sports. If it's a sport like swimming or running where people are timed, stop dividing people by gender and instead make time categories regardless of gender. Your average time in whatever race is however many seconds? You're in whatever category for that time. Gender doesn't have to come into it. Only speed.
There. I solved that problem. Stay tuned for more of my very wise solutions to invented problems.
(on taking advice) Read all the booklists you want. Take all the suggestions, keep up to date on what's on the bestseller lists - but in the end, leave room for what you enjoy. If a book isn't speaking to you, no matter how well reviewed, how often suggested, then choose to put it down without finishing it. There are not enough years in a life to read all of the books and if you spend too many of them reading what's on other people's lists, you may never be able to compile your own.
I would say a similar thing about any kind of list or advice. Read all of it you want, take what you need, but in the end you know yourself and what will work for you best. Reading a writer's list of what worked to get them writing may be a great place to start, but in the end only you know what works for you. Maybe they woke at dawn to write 100 pages before lunch. Maybe you sit down after lunch and write 20 pages. So, you decide to start waking at dawn, only you're not a morning person so you're falling asleep and not writing anything at all. Listen to your mind and body. It knows what works for you. Someone who has never even heard of you can't tell you how to work or play.
(media consumption) How many corporate slogans, jingles, live rent free in your head? How much are you affected by the ads you see without even realizing? How much do we allow advertising and corporations to decide the things that bond is together as a society? TV shows we watch, movies we've seen, songs chosen for us to hear on the radio, jingles and ads that are the glue of generations. Products we all remember from the specific point in history that was our childhood shared with our cohorts. How much does this shape our collective experience? How are we united by things we never chose? How are we divided by them?
How much have I been altered by the media I consumed as a child/teenager? All the books, movies, TV shows, and love songs? How much of my dialogue was written in a script in the 80s? Are my expectations of relationships based in a scripted, unrealistic ideal?