Category Archives: Writing

Character, Experiences, Writing

Forgive Me

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Yom Kippur is a Jewish Holy Day also known as the “Day of Atonement”, which occurs soon after Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). There is a lot of ritual and tradition surrounding the occasion, but my bastardized overview concept is about atonement for one’s sins. I once observed a Jewish friend of mine apologizing to various friends for hurt they had caused, to take responsibility for their actions and to move on from that in the new year. Despite not being a practicing Jew myself, I felt it was a good enough tradition to adopt, and try to recognize it every year with a “moment” of repentance.

I have no deity to confess or repent to, nor any arbitrary moral requirements besides those of basic ethics – to not harm others by my actions.

So this is for you. And my sins are those against others.  Continue reading Forgive Me →

Adventures, Experiences, Past, Writing

The Move That Made Me

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I sat at a computer all night trying to find the emotional zone that makes me tell a story. I got distracted by the typical aspects of the internet, and suddenly dawn arrived and I had no words yet, despite having spent three days telling myself it was time to write it. Finally, I grabbed a pack of clove cigarettes and a lighter and headed to my porch to watch the sun rise. I don’t even smoke, I just love the smell of burning clove, the way the tendrils of smoke rise off the ash at the end of the cigarette. I listened to birds sing and the neighborhood wake up. I started talking to someone who wasn’t there, I started telling them the story I was trying to tell in written word, and suddenly it poured out. I do this a lot. I tell it like I’m a character in a movie, like every dramatic scene that’s quiet in which a character tells another the truth. Dramatic pauses, a drag from a cigarette and thoughtful sighs. It makes it so much more artful, and suddenly those spoken words travel down to my fingers and allow me to walk back inside and type them out. It’s always this damn cigarette that brings it out.

Three years ago, on Memorial Day weekend of 2010, I left New England for my new life in Los Angeles. I was twenty-two and ready for an adventure. Many friends confessed confusion as to why I would leave, and why I’d choose Los Angeles, a city I only knew three people in, a city so much different than where I was from. Once I moved, and still to this day, I get asked by people in LA why I chose to move there.

I often laugh and say, “it all started with a boy”. Continue reading The Move That Made Me →

Adventures, Experiences, Past, Travel, Writing

Love (Found & Lost) Along the Road

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So, the context provided in the entry before this one should explain that I’d followed love to a strange set of life-decisions. After having planned for over a year to move from Boston to Los Angeles, I finally did, and a year later I left to drive haphazardly across the country. Because of a Boy. Seriously, read that damn entry first.

So I left Los Angeles on June 3rd. It was very hard to do. My stuff was in storage, my birds were in their travel cage, there was less money in my bank account than I’d hoped, and I was very, very, nervous. I had just moved to LA a year before. I’d been so excited to start my life there. I kept looking at my favorite restaurants, favorite haunts, thinking to myself that I’d be back in two months, that I’d just settle right back in, hopefully bringing the Boy back with me.

The only way I was able to leave was by reminding myself I’d be back soon. Reminding myself that I had an adventure to go on, and that I’d be home again before I knew it. That the time would fly by.

So I drove to Las Vegas. I checked into my hotel room at The Artisan, a hotel I’d stayed at many times before and have stayed at many times since. I spent the next two weeks working – booking tables, selling bottles, hosting parties, Go-Go dancing, bar-tending private parties, gambling even, all cash and quick. The plan was to make as much money as I could fast, and to head East.

A few days before my expected leaving date, I met Ghost. Ghost has a real name, but I don’t feel like using it, as few people know it and by keeping it close I feel it makes him still belong to me in some way, even though I’m giving away this story.  Continue reading Love (Found & Lost) Along the Road →

Adventures, Experiences, Modeling, Photography, Writing

A Valentine

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Photograph by Judd Weiss.

So I love. I’ve had so many great loves, so many butterflies and wide-eyed moments of trying and failing and hurting and giving. I’m not afraid to feel, not afraid to enjoy and embrace, but profoundly appreciative of how rare I find those sparks and subtle wants to please and need.

Things are great sometimes, with cuddles and kisses and irresistible trysts. I’m rather non-possessive and attentive and affectionate and all of these things come naturally and preemptively for the right person, the right dynamic. I’m passionate and careful – with my heart and others’.

I try to be the best for someone, the best that I can be. People deserve the best from one another, and I love the song in my soul that serves to remind me I deserve someone who inspires the best of me.

Maybe love is for a short time, or a long time, or a lifetime. In this instance it is, so far, six months of laughter and dreams and adventures and late-night stir-frys, and reflecting on the distance we’ve come and the hurdles we’ve climbed and the things we might wish to do. Six months thus far, and if this were as far as it went it’d be perfect as it was, and if it continues, it’s perfect as long as it lasts. We learn from one another, we give and we hold and we provide safe space to grow and be, tender and gentle, dominant and submissive, and everything, anything, together. It’s not exclusive, it doesn’t have to be, it lacks the resentment I tend to find in binding myself to one, and yet there is no disrespect, just compassion and courtesy, trust and openness. I’m very grateful for it, tremendously so.

I don’t grasp at love, fleeting as it can be. I just bask in it.

I’ve got so much love to give, to share — I love you, Valentines. All of you. And him.

Poetry, Writing

Three.

The lover of another covered me in kisses, her specificity dismissed for the bliss that we could witness. At first glance I was coy, but the division was elusive, my submission to the substance and her heart was most profusive. I watched skin touching skin and those satisfying sounds of lovers giving in to their passions all unbound, and the test was passed most surely by each in their own way, as the girls we felt emotions that came strong and held some sway.

Curves of bodies, moans of pleasure and disappearance into dreams, I can’t say it wasn’t lovely and heartbreaking at the seams, as you learn the look your lover gives the other all undone, and you cling to what you have because it’s all you’ve ever won. Still experience is effort, and we gave it as we got, the openness was awesome, battles won but never fought, for there is nothing gained in grasping at the fluidity of love, just some souls all pressed together, hope as pure white as a dove.

November 7, 2012

Poetry, Writing

The Tree & The Kokopelli

So, I’ve been doing a bit of a personal creative writing project for myself. I’ve been slowly rewriting stories of mythology into poems, and writing personal stories and histories into the sort of childhood fables/mythologies I recall from years ago.

This study of “personal mythology” is a process for me – one of trying to let go of the complications of our society, to take pieces of my family stories or self-stories and turn them into something far simpler. It is through this process that I attempt to exercise compassion towards people who have hurt me or been hurt by me in the past. It is a therapy, to some degree, and an exploration.

My first story ties into the tattoo upon my back. It’s the secondary meaning of my wings, the first meaning is for a different blog post.

The Tree & The Kokopelli
Once, long ago, a Kokopelli was dancing and singing his way through a great green forest, when he spotted a young tree. She was beautiful, small, with bright leaves and rough bark. He greeted her with his charming voice and asked if he could sit in her shade, to which she graciously affirmed. He leaned against her cool bark, and she asked him about what he’d seen in the world, and the Kokopelli told her. Continue reading The Tree & The Kokopelli →

Character, Experiences, Humanity, Past, Philosophy, Writing

Evolving

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The other night, I decided to listen to two of my favorite albums by Fiona Apple. She was one of my favorite musicians throughout my teenage years. Her turns of phrase, melodies and contralto composed a soundtrack to my development into adulthood – the arrogance of adolescence, the catapult of indignation, the soap-boxing, and that threatening but necessary lurch into realizing you fight for independence only to find you’re not quite sure what to do with it. Listening to the songs I loved tremendously – still do – brought back all those emotions and ideas that permeated my thought-processes from ages 12 to 20.

I’ve been keeping blogs for more than 10 years. Looking back, I want to hit myself sometimes, realizing my ideals, my half-formed concepts, my passions and my pains have been posted publicly in a place that doesn’t really have an erase-all option. Even if I went back in, deleting where I could, Google’s got some unforgiving caches, and in the arena of wish-I-hadn’t-said-that, I’m pretty screwed.

My generation, and the ones following us, have this to worry about. My parents might’ve had some wild ideas in the ’60s and ’70s, and a few regrettable Letters to the Editor might be located if one were to dig. The fact remains, however, that the witnesses to those developmental years of paranoia, self-importance, confusion, rationalization and opinion-forming are generally human, anecdotal, and aging. I don’t mean to pick on my parents specifically. Both of them may read this and send me indignant e-mails expressing their certainty that they never had bullshit theories or ideals that would come back to haunt them if they’d been armed with a blog address and an internet connection. I already know they did – they named my brothers after characters in epic sagas of idealistic political philosophy. It’s okay.

The fact remains that young people today are growing up in a world where, by the time they’ve hit college, they’ve already been exposed to political opinions and social ideals that may run contrary to their own. Chances are, through Facebook, message boards, Twitter, or a blog platform, they’ve already had a few things to say right back. They aren’t just reading the newspaper and crafting a carefully worded Letter To The Editor – which may or may not be published. They’re capable of quick-posting everything from “First comment!” to “[the writer] is an [inflammatory remark]!” to “the media is biased!” to “legalize weed” or, well, anything.

I’m not saying that isn’t awesome sometimes. There’s not much that is more satisfying than seeing an intelligent 16-year-old lay down the facts on some idiot online, by giving a well-reasoned reply to a inflammatory comment. But it’s still tough when I see my own commentary from age 15 regarding [insert pretty much ANY political issue here]. Though I’m happy to report I was generally using correct spelling, grammar and a thesaurus, I was also full of a whole lot of bullshit. Not to say I’m completely clean-and-sober of the bullshit now – I just try to cut out the logical fallacies, mass generalizations, and character attacks I used back then.

But, here I am, 23 years old, and thus far reasonably unscathed by the very public and sometimes obnoxious diatribes of my less humble youth. Although, it’d be interesting to run for President some day and see how much of it comes back to haunt me.

Over the past few years, this realization has made me a less active blogger. My 12- to 20-year-old self had a lot of dramatic ideas, especially philosophies of the religious, romantic, and political kind. Heck, I wrote a lot of bad poetry that is still lingering around on the Internet.

I’ve become convinced that no matter how thoughtful I attempt to be in my writing, I’m going to look back at it in five years and think, “Who gave that girl a blog?”

Despite my self-doubt, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on me, and where I am in the world now.  If I were to compose a letter to my fourteen year old self (which I’m certain 14-year-old me would scoff at and ignore), it’d warn firstly that I will encounter love, loss, heartbreak and lies between then and now.  Secondly, that nothing can indicate exactly what my response to these events will be, just to maybe save my most passionate reactions for the paper-journal, not the digital one.  And thirdly, it’d remind me that I am small, the world is big, and the world revolves around this thing called the sun, not myself nor my generation.  There’s a lot of notes I’d leave myself.  And 10 years from now I’ll be telling my 23 year old self the same thing differently.

But here goes.