I started to write about a dream last night. Setting two tables. One table with the chairs all facing the wrong way. But I’ve suddenly lost the energy and deleted everything and mostly I wanted to write about/remember the part where we ate in a Mexican restaurant, supposedly a famous restaurant, authentic in a nameless town where they sell guts and internal delicacies and if you aren’t careful or know exactly what to order, you’ll be eating unidentifiable flesh covered in mole. Which is what happened to a girl in my dream, I’ve never seen the girl before, atypical americana girl – dark hair, plain face, friendly and bubbly like americana girls should be and she didn’t know what she ordered, something just came out on her plate. A glossy mound of flesh. Fat, pink meat, sweat, bone. Two tiny teeth poking out in the front. And before I could tell her not to put that in her mouth, she dug her fork in and took a bite. I swore I could see the thing’s brain. Pulsing gray inside. I knew if she kept eating she would discover she ordered something’s head. But she spit out the bite, pulled the thing’s teeth out of her mouth.

Not entirely sure what to think about that.

I woke up and wrote another draft and almost fell asleep in my half hour cool down. I had a quick semi-conscious dream. A woman sinking into sand. She was laughing. She was happy. Something would pull her up again, but she’d sink back down in the sand box. She didn’t mind.

I’ve been feeling exposed, lately. This morning, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write much on the blog this week. But here I am and we’ll see. What I’ve been writing is unarmored. And I only say that because I feel like I’ve been writing on bone, on nerve and I’m not used to giving that a face in the world. I’m not used to posting and framing and slapping it on walls in bright lights, a marquee. It’s terrifying for someone like me. It’s more than being judged for wearing pink boots. It’s my insides on the outsides.
So, I may be in and out. I’m trying to learn how to fill myself with things of myself. Yesterday, I watched a dark-headed finch come back to the feeder over and over again and only for sunflower seeds.


Comments

4 responses to “In and out”

  1. Hi RachvB – I know just how you feel as I’ve been feeling similarly. I feel as though IF and WHEN I write (whether on the blog, or elsewhere), I’m at risk of exposing brittle bones, nervy nerves, squishy brain and soft tissue. . . and there’s no knowing what else. I’m lighting a loooot of candles these days (bought 200 votives home from The Warehouse the other day and they’re going fast). They help. The lighting ritual helps. Hang in there – this too shall pass.
    Hig bugs to you, Erialc/A Relic xo

    1. rachvb Avatar
      rachvb

      Faithful Claire,
      I am there with you. For this poem, I think I need to be on the bone and oddly comfortable sitting on that bone, on that nerve. Calm in the torrent. I do know when I get like this I tend to run around to every person I know like a lost animal looking for food. And I’m trying to learn how to do it myself. It’s not easy for me.
      Maybe I should invest in more candles. There was one at IKEA Pat and I were looking at a while ago that was probably 3 feet tall. And we wanted it and for some reason didn’t get it. IKEA run soon?
      All I can say is it’s terribly uncomfortable and I hope it passes soon. I was able to take a couple breaths above it today and then dove back in.
      Light one for me, if you would =) I like thinking about lit candles by the sea.
      xo

  2. Dear Rachel, I know how you feel, the exposed feeling I mean. It is most likely something happening in our own heads, which we project onto others, a habit of harsh self-judgment maybe. I don’t know. I just know I love coming here and reading you and you make my world richer by far. Hang in there, friend. Something is bubbling up from the depths. You’re getting ready. Maybe.

    Love,
    Angella

    1. rachvb Avatar
      rachvb

      Thank you, Angella. Small encouragements are HUGE! And I’m glad you come here and come back and find something to take with you. There’s a lot going on in my head that usually has nothing to do with the reality of things. I’d call it a rich imagination except lately it’s turned into a rich lashing. Very bad habits of self-judgment.
      Sometimes, I call these moments growing pains – the feelings of exposure. It’s almost as if I need to shed something, a shell, a bad habit, an insecurity. Perhaps not shed, but understand? But that may also play into the “something happening” in my head part, the self-judgment part, the not good enough part. I don’t know either!
      Bubble, bubble…
      xoxo

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