"Across the gardens, across the schoolyards
Across the chapels where lovers have leapt
Across the table in our old kitchen
Across the cities where our future slept
It’s the light that’s changing
It’s the light that’s changing
It’s the light that’s changing
It’s only the light"

Hello, friends…

I got my dental work finished today.  My teeth are now as fixed up as they are going to be (I do have a back tooth missing that cannot be replaced with a partial, because I went to long without one, and the surrounding teeth have begun to close the space).  Just talked to Ace.  He can be incredibly helpful.  I am lucky to have such loved ones, even if my circle is quite small.  At times, I feel undeserving. 

At one point, Ace and I were talking about communities (he is about to student teach on that subject to little kids – what a community is, and what it means, and all that jazz), and how people seem to need them – the hierarchy, the structure, and the sense of belonging.  People used to be much more communal.  The preoccupation with "self" is a fairly recent development in the span of human history.  There is something natural about people banding together in this way.  Maybe, I am just thinking about my own people (the Menominee), who once lived in relative harmony with the earth, the way other creatures do.  Or, about the friends I kept as a teenager, who sought to create the hierarchy and stability within our group that was lacking in their daily lives (in a place like Columbia Center, you feel rather removed from the rules and order of polite society, and many of my friends came from very troubled, and fractured families). 

In any case, DT is a community that has meant a lot to me.  It reminds me of the sense of community I felt when I was on the AIDS Ride, where everyone was bound together by a common purpose – a common good that we were all seeking to serve.  We all rode 500 mi on our bicycles, and camped out in a giant tent city every night (1,700 people, two per tent), and it was the greatest sense of good will and comradery that I have ever sensed within such a large group (of relative strangers).  It was a powerful experience, and a defining one (I was 17 at the time).

Returning to the subject of my loyal and generous friends – Jordan bought me a Pro Flickr account, so I can now put my whole portfolio on that page (I actually already did – including all my favorite pix from the Dominatrix shoot).  If anyone wants to check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40827162@N05/?donelayout=1

I am pretty proud of my photography.  I may not be all that good in reality, but I like my work, and I feel good about it. 

I have been trying to decide how to decorate the jar that I am going to use for the cloud collection.  I have the pix – all four by six prints, and they look pretty bad ass, in my humble opinion, but I want to present them in a cool manner to whoever finds them.  Next time, I may get wallet size shots – that could be very cute with the whole jar set up.  I want to get cracking on this guerilla art work – it’s nice out, today, and I might just get started with that.

Or at least try…

Everyday, there’s a lot that I want to do, and just not a lot that I am able to do.  I get so paralyzed.  But, I need to do these things.  I need to make myself MOVE.  If I don’t, I will choke on my own stagnancy.  I don’t want to feel like I cannot move.  I don’t want to feel useless.  Maybe, if I fight hard enough, I can knock myself out of this.

I don’t know whether it’s the knowledge that certain people I am close to really need me, or cowardice that keeps me from killing myself when I hit the depths of these awful thoughts and feelings.  Maybe both…  but, either way, if I am not going to off myself anytime immediately, I have to try to get on with things.  I have to figure out what that means for me.

People expect things of me.  Things I may or may not be able to deliver.  I have to try.  The people I love deserve that.

But, sometimes…  it I just feel like…  all I want…  is a way OUT.

I guess, I had that for years.  And, by the end, all I wanted was a  way out of the escape that I had forged.  Maybe I am not equipped to live life on it’s own terms, but at least I am no longer at the mercy of heroin.  I kick my own ass plenty – I don’t need a chemical to assist me in that task.

I try to remind myself that, even if I am moving slowly, as long as I’m headed in the right direction, and managing to put one foot in front of the other, I will eventually get where I am supposed to go.  It may take some time, but…  even in this dark place…  part of me still believes it’s possible.

"Across what’s left of these old places
Across the playgrounds where old friends play
Across the lines on familiar faces
Across the nothing that we say
It’s the light that’s breaking
It’s the light that’s breaking
It’s the light that’s breaking
It’s only the light" (Mason Jennings, "The Light")

I’ll catch you cats later. 

It’s time to start trying.