Mark On the Wall

Switch

2007-01-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

I made that switch. Find me here.

The Meeting

2007-01-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

“You aren’t normal,” he bluntly states.

I am caught off guard and shift awkwardly in my chair. He doesn’t notice. Instead he proceeds to speak, “You know this, of course—that you aren’t normal. You don’t want to be normal. Honestly, normal scares you. You naturally think outside of the box, which isn’t a problem—except for most everyone thinks inside the box, and they want to put you in it….”

Nearly twenty minutes roll by before he is done analyzing me. Twenty minutes of frightening, unbelievable accuracy which renders me speechless. All the self-denial in the world could not shield me now, and I saunter back to my desk wondering why it is-- why now, why these last two weeks-- have I been forced to face my own worst enemy?

I sit down with a burn in my face and reread the quote he handed me as I walked out the door:

“If we do not rise to the challenge of our unique capacity to shape our lives, to seek the kinds of growth that we find individually fulfilling, then we can have no security: We will live in a world of sham, in which our selves are determined by the will of others, in which we will be constantly buffeted and increasingly isolated by the changes around us.” (Nena O' Neil)

I swallow, set the paper aside, and hear an echo of earlier words, “Kenzie, don't be a sham. Don't waste your potential. It will be very disappointing if you do.”

I grit my teeth and get back to work.

Care vs. Care

2007-01-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

There are people who care; there are people who care.

I have come to find the difference between care and care. I have noted the distinction not only in people around me but in myself, the moments of casually caring vs. sincerely caring, of caring because one has to vs. wanting to care.

1. Care: One cares because a.) If they act as though they do not care, they look self-centered, b.) They have needs and wants to be fulfilled from the person seeking care, and without an act of concern, these needs and wants may go unfulfilled. Basically, the person cares because it benefits them to do so. This sort of caring is conditional. Once assistance of care is rendered, (rather this assistance comes physically or emotionally), the care-giver demands something in return—be it time, money, etc. In truth, the only real caring going on is for themselves.
2. Care: This sort of care is unconditional. The person is not seeking self-righteousness or other demands, but genuinely has concern for the one in need and desires a way to help, rather by lending an ear, giving space, being completely honest, or providing something tangible (e.g. money, shirt, etc.). It is perfectly unselfish.

I find all of us guilty of both.

I find (now recognizing the difference) that it is stupidly easy to detect people who care and people who care. I find that I want to be the person who cares and not the one who cares, because I know all too well what it is to have conditional friends, conditional relationships, conditional associates, and conditional confidants.

Conditional hurts.

Because of everything happening these past weeks, I worry if I have shown a great deal of conditional and caring, and pray that I have been more unconditional and caring. Whatever the case, I know what I want to be.

Writers

2006-12-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

A fellow-blogger posted about his favorite philosophers. I thought to do the same, though just about two of my favorite writers. Here goes:

Virginia Woolf

“A woman must have…a room of her own if she to write fiction.”

Woolf made a permanent dent in literature by using the technique known as stream-of-consciousness. My first read of her work, A Mark on the Wall, left me unmoved and bored to tears. This later changed as I delved into her personal history, and later, read the book, Mrs. Dalloway. Since, I have read every biography, journal, and letter about Woolf that I can get my hands on, as well as extensively researched her writing.

Sylvia Plath

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”

I learned of Plath on my own. I had never heard of her, until the book, The Bell Jar, literally fell into my hands. After reading the story of Esther Greenwood, a girl who suffers severe depression (and parallels Plath herself), I came to appreciate the genius of her writing—especially after examining her journals and poetry.

A Merry Little Christmas

2006-12-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

Dear ----,

Christmas is near. Garland is wrapped around the staircase; the tree is festooned in white lights and snowmen ornaments, while a glut of brightly wrapped presents sit beneath, waiting to be opened. The scent of pine and berry radiates from the candle on the dining room table, and a fire, bustling golden-orange, warms the house. There are Christmas cards, mint chocolates, and candy canes-- not to mention the other knick-knacks decked about to celebrate the holiday, but with all the bliss, I still feel that something is missing.

I sit on the sofa, and moments like this-- when I am quite alone-- are moments made for sipping wassail and burrowing into the thickness of a comfy blanket. It requires a book, too. Woolf, Plath-- maybe Lawrence. I am undecided. Mostly caught up in thoughts that have nothing to do with anything, but the slight twitch in my stomach, the uneven cadence of my heart says that maybe…maybe it has to do with everything.

I want to tell you.

If you sit here-- just right here, next to me, I will, too.

I will tell you everything without saying anything, because all you will do is look at me, and you’ll know what I cannot form into words-- what does not feel right to utter out loud. We will smile and laugh, and whatever dialogue finally breaks the surface will be indistinct, as it has always been…coded to our sole understanding.

You are not here, though.

You are, in fact, what is missing.

The Neverland Days

2006-12-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Do you recall the Neverland days?
I do. We used them so freely,
thinking they would never fade...
sailing cool, summer evenings
aboard the Jolly Roger
and dancing moonlit nights
with the Aborigines.
Once, the mermaids snatched you,
another time they did me,
but we escaped and flew, flew, flew
until our shadows ceased.
And then we grew a little taller, a little wiser,
and somewhere a fairy fell dead.

Books

2006-12-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

My favorite book, Mrs. Dalloway, is looking rather pathetic. The cover is worn at the edges, spine dull, pages highlighted and dissected with small blots of red ink in the margins, and when I lift it from the table, a slip of paper falls out-- it is the ‘bookmark’ I used, (a bit of paper from a pad at the Palazzo Sant Angelo in Venice), when I had nothing else on hand.

Books.

What would the world do without books?

The Label

2006-11-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

People like me should come with a label.

WARNING: May cause permanent damage.

I jest about this-- say it should come in the form of a business card, but it has been said that to every joke there is some truth.

I wonder at my willingness, the ease of landing face first into self-ridicule and disapproval. I hate that it happens. I hate even more that you recognize this diffidence, that you catch sight of it without even seeing my face or hearing my voice.

I don’t mean it to be here. In a perfect world the insecurity would melt away, never exist. The idiocy of yesterday, too, would ball up and bust into a million pieces of nothingness. I would stand alone-- the me, the girl beneath the ugly chalk mask; she is happy, ambitious, hopeful, and loving-- a fighter. You may not believe it, but she breathes more often than not.

It’s just that we don’t live in a perfect world, and I certainly don’t have a perfect life. (None of us do, of course, which makes me laugh at my own self-consumption.)

I thought about what you said, though-- about accepting a person for who they are entirely, not just the “nice” part, but the flawed, nicked-up bits, too. I realize that my walls have shot sky high and fortified thick, making those flawed, nicked-up bits hard to share, which makes more of a mess than anything, and I appear like an arrogant, selfish individual.

In the end this is all so trivial and silly. In the bigger picture, that grand scheme of things, none of what happened matters, rather what I allow myself to become. I know this; I feel it beat mad into my brain and heart, and pray frequently that I can just let go because…

Letting go, that is my biggest weakness, but know that I try-- know that I recognize the elusiveness, the specks of obscurity that riddle you, and the tearing up of that business card happens day by day.

You and I

2006-11-29T23:11:00.000-08:00

"Friends have all things in common." - Plato

People never would have guessed we were best friends in high school. In fact, people would have never guessed we were from the same planet-- you and I. Your social-wings and my refusal to take flight situated us in entirely different (as it were) lunch tables. I had Shakespeare to memorize, while you committed to memory football games.

We were best friends, though, and long before high school.

In our younger days (because we’re such adults, now) before a fairy fell dead, we stood atop the monkey bars of your swing-set , and set sail into the summer evening as adventure seeking pirates. (It was silly to play the part of a damsel in distress, of course, when we handled a sword so well!)

Even when our interests started to differ, a common bond (which even today I fail to touch) refused to let us part. Graduation came and went, and life pushed forward, and through the muddle of everything-- her, him, them, it, that-- we hoped for each other, confided, yelled, cried, and finally (always) laughed.

Today we are as opposite as ever. Happily situated on your left hand is a diamond. You run to and fro after a little one, while preparing for another come January, and speak about scrap book clubs and finishing the laundry. I work nine to five, still grabble to finish my education, travel, and live the life of a twenty-three-year-old singleton.

But no matter our opposites, here we are-- twelve years of friendship.

New Beginnings

2006-11-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

A moment comes where you must shed yourself of yesterday.

I can do this a thousand different ways, but a new blog will suffice, and it will symbolize whatever you want it to.

As a writer, I know the only real way to write is by writing. I am committed to throw out my inhibitions, and do exactly that—write. I suppose my reserve comes from all the nitty-gritty of these past four years: changing majors, serving a mission, traveling, and the chalk-mask, and then surgery. In the muddle of it all, (the spinning, groaning, and colliding of the merry-go-round), I became afraid of the pen, afraid of revealing myself, even under the guise of a fiction—because, as they say, we are often our own worst enemies.

But here I am. And that’s all you need to know.