Life Or Something Like It: February 2015

23.2.15

letting

pause.

peering back at the world

peering back at self.

pause.

the past week since my birthday came in some ways with a pause button and in others with a chaos button.

but i am finally reaching balance and pause and peering is slowly starting to be a possibility.

to pause.

to watch self and the world.

to listen to self and pay attention to patterns and discern clues about what is coming next in my life.

my energy therapist keeps stressing the importance of being in the now and of being in a state of love and firmly within the light.

my frequency therapist keeps stressing the importance of being in the now and of being in a state of love and firmly within the light.

so the only things (are they clues?! i think they are obvious facts that we lose sight of) i am sure of in this particular moment in my space-time continuum are:

- to be in the now.

- to listen.

- to look and pay attention to self and to those who matter (they will always reveal themselves to you).

- to love.

i made a decision last april and renewed my intentions last august.

and then i made another decision to embrace my.self and choose my.self first and foremost.

to work on balance before throwing myself in harm's way.

i chose to work on learning to be in the now.

to find my way back to meditation and deep listening.

to pay attention to a state of love.

to pay attention to my.self.

the journey has been hard ... the past week threw me for a headspin and yet at the same time people who know my inner core looked at me and did not see the chaos, they saw the serenity within, the commitment towards a journey to a different shore.

the difference: i see my.self in old ways. and they see the newness in me.

this just hit me in a flash (we.are.the.light.) and i suddenly realized how perspective (or lack thereof) is everything.

i can focus on my [old] chaos and assume i'm in the same place or i can celebrate all that i worked so hard to change within me and all that i *know* i have achieved since august.

i have been easing into a life in the now. learning to let go of a past that can no longer be changed and not worry about a future i cannot control.

i have listened to my.self more than i ever have in my entire life.

above all, i have respected that voice and that has kept me safe.

i have loved and been loved.

i have paid attention to the inner.most.light.

perhaps because this feels still such a remarkable feat for somebody like me who knows what it is to break and shatter into a million pieces that it takes me so long to acknowledge my own most exquisite and deepest, lasting changes.

this also happened when i was in therapy.

i was told i had changed and i only noticed it myself when it was an inescapable reality.

but this is also not remarkable at all.

this happened - and will happen always - because that is always possible when we allow/let things happen and embrace both the process and the journey.

not for others, but for our.selves!

saturday night i made a decision.

last night i made a decision.

today i made a decision.

i am letting.

it's all i can do.

more importantly, it is what i want to do.

i am not perfect.

my life is not perfect.

some things i can pull off brilliantly.

others not so much (i tend to not care about those to be honest).

i am my own absolute worst enemy.

and i just realized that i've had it with fighting my.self.

life is too short.

i know that, i am lucky to be here and i know that with each passing breath.

i want to be in the now.

i want to love.

i want to pay attention.

i want to keep in my mind's eye the newness of things, the moments of pause and respite, and the beauty surrounding and within me.

and it is plentiful.

i want to celebrate that, and - as unafraid as i was when i made the far reaching decisions i made last year and early this year - to continue to let go of all that drags me down.

there's a glorious beauty in that.

it is the beauty of the unbound self.

i remain a work in progress that is doing life in all its ups and downs, twists and turns.

and i think i need to remind my.self every day that there is so much that is possible.

but so much.

if i allow it.

if i let it.

it is one of the few things that is truly within our hands.

to do life.

18.2.15

a lesson in self awareness and presentation

this post is seemingly a life lesson of Tim's

this post is seemingly an in memoriam of Lee

this post is seemingly a tiny revelation of Lee's character

but ... you know?! no!!

this post is really something else about each and every one of us and how we conduct our.selves in life and before others both from the perspective of Tim's actions and Lee's reactions ...

"I learned a big lesson from this picture. I haven’t properly met Lee McQueen before and I always thought he had a dark, gothic personality. When you do a portrait, you spent a lot of time researching about that person trying to understand them without knowing them. And you think how can i get to the core of who they are and capture them? We worked with Andy Hilman, the set designer, and we came up with this cross-bone bow tie, and the skull we fitted it to Lee’s head. So basically the skull was supposed to be on his head and he was going to wear the bow tie. And he turned up and I told him what we wanted to do; and you know who you don’t want to force someone into a situation that isn’t comfortable for them because then it’s an irrelevant photograph, because it turns out to be more about you than them.

He tried the bow tie on and he said: “This is crap, I don’t like it. This is awful. I’m not wearing this”. He ripped the bow tie off, took the skull off his head, lit a cigarette and took another cigarette and stucked it in the skull’s mouth and said: “This is how I am, this is who I am.” I think when someone gives you something like that, they are meeting you and revealing something about themselves. This was the last picture taken of Lee and I know that he really liked it. There was the rebellious aspect cause he was a rebel. This picture became particularly significant because he died a week later after this picture. I think is hunts people because of that. Because of the motif of the skull and his youth and his arrogance and his performance and his rebellion."

-Tim Walker

on boundaries

[Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless]

on joy, movement and self

“—how enjoyable to be in motion within oneself.”

Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or)

[Karlie Kloss, Chanel Coco Noir 2014; photography: Sølve Sundsbø]

Notice

"Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing"

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs—
how much of this place is yours?

Notice what this poem is not doing.

Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch the sun. The carving
says, “Not here, but called away.”

Notice what this poem is not doing.

The sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
The crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.

Notice what this poem has not done.

by William Stafford

[stills from 'Never Let Me Go']

not there

“You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.”

William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch)

the extreme

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

Iris Murdoch

11.2.15

Lee

5 years without Lee Alexander McQueen ... one stil gasps at the weight of the loss at his own hands (his.hands.) in the wake of a crushing depression ...

fashion designer does not suffice, i believe the term does not do justice to the enormous complexity of both his clothes as well as his shows ... and anybody who think he just did clothes fails to grasp the work which still today stands so far ahead of what is being done ...

last year when i thought i was going to crumble, disintegrate and shatter into a million pieces in august i turned again to Lee's body of work (and Daphne Guinness) ...

i worked through my own layers processing the layers in his shows (the chess board show was of paramount importance) and his constant commentary on feminine power and voice ...

i connected with a version of me that grew leaps and bounds in the wake of some his shows ... i fell in love again with the body of work and i *missed* him ... again and again ... i missed his voice, his talent, his genius ... and slowly, i found myself in a new playing field as the old one did not apply anymore and i kept and keep moving forward ...

seeing recently Tim Walker's next march editorial for Vogue celebrating McQueen's work was both elating and devastating ... the clothes and their commentary still current and undeniable, the artistry unique, the materials out of the box, all the things that made me instantly love his work when i first saw it ...

and then i remembered ... 5 years ... and i saw how much i changed during the first 5 years of therapy and felt so grateful that i pulled through ... it's not always possible and not guaranteed for life. the loss of potential and stories ... the world that is forever fractured ...

recovery is an ongoing affair for life! and there is reverence and love for those who did not pull through as we know how dark and terrible the battle can be! you are missed Lee ... your art did not fall!