my life is my art

I have made a decision to live fantastically, phenomenally, ridiculously.  There is not enough time, there is simply not enough time.  So many words, so many thoughts, so many visions that jolt from my body, that rattle my brains and veins and bones.  I cannot type them fast enough, I cannot count the lose papers, ripped and bent, that litter my school bag, that carpet my floor.  They are covered in sketches and scribbles, notes for the future and reflections on the past. 

 

I have dreams of rooms where the ceiling is simply a billion balloons, held up by lace.  The left wall is covered in mirrors, and the right wall is covered in televisions. The televisions will be playing a continual loop of people checking themselves in the mirrors, and people staring at the ceiling, wondering when the balloons will fall.

"My life is my message" said Gandhi, and I will write that on my arm until I remember. I can't get everything inside of me, that is throbbing and pulsing and aching and crying, out fast enough.  A lifetime is a blink in this sea, where I am beating against the tide, swallowing the water, coughing up salt and vomiting sea glass in the most beautiful way I can.

Catherine Campbell, “In Our Nature” 

I can. I can. I can. I can.

There is not enough time to give birth to all I see.  And so my life will be my art. An ever evolving, growing, changing, wonderous, terrifying masterpiece.  I am at a frightening moment where I feel as though I can physically shape my world, create it.  Life is an experiement, one of those fantastic explosions of light and color so magical you want to froget how you got there and just stay frozen in that heat, in that feeling. 

You must create that feeling. I must be that feeling.  Be the light, the heat. People will want to be frozen in your moment, in the time you shape when you are around them. Look at your life, look at it in the expressions on the faces of those around you.
Realize what you can create, who you can become, who you already are.  

 

Existence is influence

She dances.

dear world,
i would just like to say that i love you.
i love the way your people smile and laugh, i love the way glasses fall to the ends of sweaty noses.  i love the feeling of burrowing under layers of blankets, wool and cotton and fleece.  i love the sounds in a forest, walking on dry leaves, birds wings when they leap from branches, a flower pushing out of the earth. i love the darkness, the still silence of the night when only the stars are screaming. i love the feeling of your toes entering the freezing ocean water, the momentary shock and the seemingly infinite numbness. i love the feeling of hot sand burning the soft skin between my toes.  i love hot chocolate with cream, and coffee when it's scarcely past the point of burning your tongue. i love people who aren't afraid to open up, and make you a part of their life. i love woody allen movies and their awkward romances. i love falling in love.  i love walking in chilly morning air, and the refreshing scent of dew. i love mint leaves in my lemonade. i love learning new things.
i love you.

Madness

illuminated

Her eyes were glazed over even though her heart was illuminated.  When she opened her mouth she could hear the words falling on the floor, hitting the ground with a dull thud.  The candles surrounding her made tiny pinholes of light in the darkness.  Like the stars! exclaimed her little brother, and she smiled half-heartedly. 

I'm sorry I'm so broken, she would apologize feverishly to her therepist.  His eyes would glaze over as he replied in a facade of comfort, That's why I'm here.  I just don't know, I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying, saying here to get better, you know?  She would ask, feeling the sweat in her palms. 

There's nothing you're supposed to say, he would repeat each time,

just tell me everything.

But she could never tell him everything. Because she always felt drained, beaten, torn when she left that sterile place.  As though she had lost a part of herself.  Walking into the sunshine was physically painful, she was dizzy at all the stoplights on the way home.  The more of herself she gave away, the less she had to call her own.

And it wasn't fair at all, she thought to herself one day after their session.  He wasn't even excited that I made guacamole for my neighbors, and he didn't care about Timmy's 7th birthday.  He said he wanted to hear everything, and he's taking everything from me, but it means nothing in his hands. 

If it meant nothing to me, I wouldn't need to see him at all.

It's the meaning that hurts, that shivers, that is cold and hot and pulsing with thought. It's the meaning that devours, that leaps and stretches and worms it's way into conversations with strangers. She couldn't help herself, she had to talk about it.  The sessions took away the shards of broken glass she felt had been lodged in her skull, but she still carried their ghosts, imaginary friends that haunted and taunted, lounged around her in long white gowns. He could never see them, he could never take them away.

After everything else was gone, they were all she had.

STAY GOLD

don't stay up too late. don't fall in love. don't fail any tests. don't drink. or do drugs. don't forget. don't worry about your hair. don't think about running away. don't talk back. 

 don't stop believing in dreams. or fairytales.

stay golden.

Model: Anja Rubik

Make-up: Diane Kendal

Photographer: Nathaniel Goldberg

Source: Vogue Nippon, May 09

Fly

Sometimes you have to start anew.  You have to wake up and not put your right foot down first. You have to set your alarm ten minutes earlier, and go outside when the sun is just beginning to burn over the scaffolding of the horizon.  You have to squint at it, and feel the pain as your head pounds with the light and the wind and the strange sensation that comes from breathing morning dew.  You have to go out to a fancy restaurant for lunch and splurge, because you deserve a treat.  You have to look at your life and look at your priorities and decide if they match up.  And if they don't, you can't allow yourself to shrug your shoulders and sigh with disapointment. You are not a failure, you are never a failure.  You are a work in progress, a beautiful, horrific, lovely, awkward, shameful, fabulous, glowing, dramatic work of art.  Some days your colors are like the rainbow, shaking and trembling with their conherence.  Some days they all drip to the bottom of the canvas, a brown puddle.  But you can always start again.  You deserve a life you want to live, you deserve a life that makes you crave the daylight so you can begin again, you deserve a life that makes you smile, but you deserve a life so full and true that you cry as well.
So open your eyes, open your heart, open your soul,
and live that life.

Belonging

Breathe deeply.

The love particles in your lungs have come from another

another life you do not know

but

they gave you life.

The peace particles you shed will go to another

another life you do not know

but

you gave them life.

With that knowledge

how can anyone be a stranger?

the greatest thing you'll ever learn....

A teenager once asked an old man,

"in a relationship, which is more important:

to be loved or to love?"

then he replied,

“which is more important to a bird? the left wing or the right?”

(as seen on tumblr)