Mess and Transcendence II: My mom and furied etching
(The story begins here.)
Fuck. I guessed I was going to have to get over that "can’t talk" thing. Big-eyed I got up and took the phone from him.
"How are you feeling?" my mom asked. Oh, right. The flu.
"Oh, uh," I became instantly aware of the black plastic thing I was holding to my ear and of the sound that was coming out of it. My mom’s disembodied voice. The room shifted 90 degrees and took on a reddish-orange hue, and then spun, and spun, and spun. My eyes wouldn’t settle on any one thing for more than a nano. The voice was still going. I shut my eyes and the room in there spun too.
"Sara?" That voice from the plastic again. "Yeah? oh sorry mom. I’m a little distracted. Friends over. And I think that medication is still making me feel weird." "You should really write to Heather. She’d like to come to…" "Ok." "should do that" "Yeah, I should get going. Friends. Not feeling up to talking right now."
Christ, I never lied to my mom. I knew that because my mom was psychic she knew something was up. I told her pretty much everything. I took note of the transgression and eventually decided there was nothing I could do. Clearly it wasn’t appropriate to tell her I was tripping. Yet I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong, so it was as it was. This conclusion took hours to get to, however, past paranoiac looping.
I returned to the living room, picked up a notebook and pen and began drawing with a fury I didn’t know I had. At the time, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d drawn any sort of picture. Fifteen years maybe. This night, page after page, my hand moved furiously. I couldn’t stop it. At one point I sat back and watched it. My brain no longer seemed connected to it. (G) pulled me a tarot card: The Scientist.
We walked down the street to our friends’ house. Spread out on the floor and table in the living room was paper and color. I took some paper and pastels and went to task. After an indefinite period, I saw I’d pasteled myself: pink, purple, green, blue, orange. It was all over me. The pants again, stained. I freaked out for a few minutes, then quickly felt embarrassed for freaking out over something so insignificant. Nonsense details gone askew had tugged at me most of my life, mommy-dearest-like, and this felt like dregs pushing their way out. Muddied sandals, curried jeans, color outside the lines.
I drew no less than fifteen pages of pictures that night. Mostly faces done negative. I scratched in the background black until a face appeared in the white left over. Something from inside me thrust out.
(G) and I returned home around three in the morning. A walk through the snow. I was coughing again, so I drank some cough medicine, the over-the-counter kind, not that with codeine which I'd been taking. Nevertheless, dire mistake.
Or not.
Whichever the attitude, the night never ended.
(to be continued...)
Fuck. I guessed I was going to have to get over that "can’t talk" thing. Big-eyed I got up and took the phone from him.
"How are you feeling?" my mom asked. Oh, right. The flu.
"Oh, uh," I became instantly aware of the black plastic thing I was holding to my ear and of the sound that was coming out of it. My mom’s disembodied voice. The room shifted 90 degrees and took on a reddish-orange hue, and then spun, and spun, and spun. My eyes wouldn’t settle on any one thing for more than a nano. The voice was still going. I shut my eyes and the room in there spun too.
"Sara?" That voice from the plastic again. "Yeah? oh sorry mom. I’m a little distracted. Friends over. And I think that medication is still making me feel weird." "You should really write to Heather. She’d like to come to…" "Ok." "should do that" "Yeah, I should get going. Friends. Not feeling up to talking right now."
Christ, I never lied to my mom. I knew that because my mom was psychic she knew something was up. I told her pretty much everything. I took note of the transgression and eventually decided there was nothing I could do. Clearly it wasn’t appropriate to tell her I was tripping. Yet I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong, so it was as it was. This conclusion took hours to get to, however, past paranoiac looping.
I returned to the living room, picked up a notebook and pen and began drawing with a fury I didn’t know I had. At the time, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d drawn any sort of picture. Fifteen years maybe. This night, page after page, my hand moved furiously. I couldn’t stop it. At one point I sat back and watched it. My brain no longer seemed connected to it. (G) pulled me a tarot card: The Scientist.
We walked down the street to our friends’ house. Spread out on the floor and table in the living room was paper and color. I took some paper and pastels and went to task. After an indefinite period, I saw I’d pasteled myself: pink, purple, green, blue, orange. It was all over me. The pants again, stained. I freaked out for a few minutes, then quickly felt embarrassed for freaking out over something so insignificant. Nonsense details gone askew had tugged at me most of my life, mommy-dearest-like, and this felt like dregs pushing their way out. Muddied sandals, curried jeans, color outside the lines.
I drew no less than fifteen pages of pictures that night. Mostly faces done negative. I scratched in the background black until a face appeared in the white left over. Something from inside me thrust out.
(G) and I returned home around three in the morning. A walk through the snow. I was coughing again, so I drank some cough medicine, the over-the-counter kind, not that with codeine which I'd been taking. Nevertheless, dire mistake.
Or not.
Whichever the attitude, the night never ended.
(to be continued...)
2 Comments:
for me, nights that never end are like lackluster lives lived behind desks and ringing phones and bosses that natter like old nanny goats. or it could be the stress talking. anyway, this story is picking up quite nicely. looking forward to the next installment.
desks and ringing phones! that's a whole different sort of endlessness. damn the stress and nanny-bosses. thanks for being my audience.
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