House where the mouse lives…

Gen-X returns to college… some ten-odd years after some of our first shots, right after high school and full of ideology and substance abuse, left those same colleges with the promise of travel or romanticism cemented with early children. And so it goes and today, mid-to-late thirties and you are a student. Then the awkwardly-placed “ETHICS” course emerges and questions and papers ask time and again your “critical thinking” ideas on the concepts of morality. Here’s where it gets, ahem, interesting; I have crossed -scratch that, “strode past”- the very fine line between pleasure and immorality several times during the course of those ten years. The actual study of ethics has become too abstract and without higher education, too random as life lessons to ignore on my own. Reading in a textbook different ethical theories, from the too familiar aspects of utilitarianism (and without delving into its political background) to a seldom mentioned idea of nonobjectivism -the idea that there are no true ethical norms to follow, I find too secular- confuses and beffudles me. The ethical connotations of my actions manifest in simpler forms, whether I deep down do it for myself and yet it benefits others, or whether I actually commit a truly selfless act, it is all a matter of “doing good.” Regret, shame, and everything in between, are consequences in the best sense and I try to avoid them as much as I can, deal with them when I cannot. So I read and discussed, almost over and I feel as if I have absorbed very little, almost nothing to apply to the rest of my life. Sure, I may be asking too much from a lower-level course but I am sorry… I have waited a while for this opportunity and may have been expecting ethics to be more elaborate than “doing good” and no theory or ethical fact could disuade me from such conclusion. However, the concept of pleasure as we minimize suffering, for ourselves and others, has a way to resonate with some disenfranchised with the american dream… I am just, saying. So as christianity tells me I’m a sinner and my morality is not always attached to reason, Immanuel Kant -who would say otherwise- said it best:
“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”

She will be going to school in three weeks… yikes!

Your pants, my friend, are indeed on fire!

It has become quite clear to me that people lie. And before this turns into an atheist’s confessional I will get this over with and say that I have lied and recently; I lied to my daughter about coming back to her bedroom and laying down with her… she fell asleep and I was off the hook. I will say this: I consider myself a good person who has made a lot of mistakes and has a lot of regrets, I have hurt people but, by all means, I have never done so intentionally. I lie to myself every single day but in the end, the positive things come true and some of the negative ones get refuted. Nevertheless, I have found myself lying and even as recent as a a year or so ago, I told a pretty big lie to someone for reasons that truly do not matter. Now I find myself in a position I have placed myself in for the sake of soul-salvation and because they deserve to know. From this very moment to the actual minute I face him and say it could be a lifetime in dog years (do you know that EVIAN is NAIVE spelled backwards?); It has bothered me that I have gone through labor twice, go to school with two children at home, decided to make a serious commitment with another human being and yet that “actual” minute will not happen anytime soon. While the feelings are mixed and complicated, the fact that I lied is quite simple to understand. Am I sorry? Of course and every day, things could have been oh-so-different and you, the one lied to, have no idea…

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish it’s source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” -Anais Nin

I took this pic early Sunday morning, first piece of sky I saw. Later on that evening, my son became ill… he is slowly doing better now. This shot, simply peaceful… coffee & cigarette!

Picture Book…

The death of Michael Jackson marked the beginning of a personal photo project, a simple P.O.V. “thing” that makes me believe I am more important than the average creature. I am, just ask my kids… not my son, he’ll drool on you! And so, the idea is to look back on these as I have my escapades of the past, yet this time what I do matters, and the most mundane of situations are relevant enough to capture. If my life has become simpler, if my world has become smaller, if my view of the universe is still eschewed, at least someone else can bear witness. And so, on June 25, 2009, the King of Pop Michael Jackson died… I was working on a paper regarding merit and affirmative action for my Philosophy of Human Conduct class and my world kept on spinning. Still had to feed my son every three hours, still did some puzzles with my daughter, still had to figure out the positive points of affirmative action in America (yes, found some!), still had too many cigarette breaks.

Above are two great reasons as to why my creativity has taken a catastrophic hit. I honestly do not believe I will ever recover and yet, I consider myself quite a creative person still. At least I would like to believe I still “got it,” understanding how lucky I am for the opportunity. Happiness comes in the most ambiguous of packages, while philosophically, happiness could be just an over-inflated sense of accomplishment alone. I did nothing but inconvenience myself, these kids gave me some validity, while I had been walking around with too little of it. However, having young children gives you the opportunity to look at life with a wide lens and so I have found the limitless possibilities for creative intention… through their eyes and sometimes at night, through your own, fresh and clear.

Last Saturday, a few friends got together to help Aubree and John move into their new place. She is about six months pregnant with their second child, having been married almost four years. They are a great, young couple I have admired for a long time. Making marriage work, watching great indie films and raising a beautiful child, I once felt rather clumsy around them. Cynism tells me couples like them do not exist and most people go through life either never finding each other, or worse, unable to “get together” (trust me, the experience still fresh… *smile*). But I am not a cynic and truly believe it will happen for me, the holding hands so long they sweat and handwritten letters for no reason. I have never married and at this point, will NOT settle for anything else but the butterflies; I am 32 years old with two children, too much to lose and the hopes of full self-reliance going strong… so close I once lived it! My friends are in love, are yours?

Tomorrow? More pics and finding some idea as to what I am trying to do here… with the pictures, not my life!

“There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.” -Thomas Hobbes

To start over and to look back sinister…

I cannot shake the past any more than I can look towards the future with relentless enthusiasm. I refuse to believe that everything that has happened to me was just random, personally, it has been a matter of surprise and reasonable joy that has guided through most of the decisions I have made within the last two years. If I can slowly put more words together, maybe my brain has not mushed yet and the rest of the world still spins with an axis based on fear. I am not afraid, I am physically tired and emotionally hopeful. It makes sense to many…

Love

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the
perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;
how did your lips feel on mine?
Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten
your eyes.
Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of
you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will
do me irreparable harm.
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every
window.
Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because
of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting
stars, falling objects.

-Pablo Neruda

Random

If I fell in love more than once it was only because I met the other by chance. If I wore heels and made my face it was only because the memory needed painting. If I laughed too hard, slowed the wine, waited to call, or wrote a story it was only because it happened at random. This, all of this that encompasses my life, has all happened at random, by chance, lovely accidents that have changed my life in pieces of different shapes and sizes to create a whole person they may see. Children and tears and songs and corks are pieces of the life we have lived, the roads we walk on with the pebbles and potholes.

I’ve always liked basketball, played it on high school for a year and now I have become a true hometown fan of the Orlando Magic. Before anything is said, I will have you know that we are third seed in our conference and while the team is starting to get some recognition (read: Seven Reasons to Fear the Orlando Magic), we are a long way to go in order to be mentioned alongside the Celtics or individually, the great LeBron James. I am currently watching our last game before the playoffs against the Charlotte Bobcats (up by 16, three minutes left on the 3rd quarter) and not only am I rooting for them, I am actually putting in perspective what is like to be a sports fan. Eh, I will ask Meli and how she deals with the ups and downs of being a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan… I have seen how rough it’s been for her the last few years… so, GO MAGIC!

… and it dawned on me!

I just finished reading this amazing article from the Huffington Post written by John Mellencamp. Read it!

“My understanding is that someone is listening to what I like, to what my friends like… I mean, they like Sonic Youth too!” -me @ seventeen.

I realize the difficulty of having to please everyone and yet, easy enough to please yourself. Money was tight when I fell in love with music and tighter now that I know why. Believing in the concept of talent and lacking a price for it, takes the kind of mind that enjoys to wander. My understanding is that I know what I like and it crosses the boundaries of time and genre… I mean, I still like Sonic Youth! This is part of growing up, either you take the time to get to know yourself or spend the time you have left restless and pondering. I found that out yesterday after accepting the image and before my first cup of coffee. Life is better than I expected.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” -Aldous Huxley

A- for accountability

Sleeping is for sissies… eating is for grazing cows… dreaming is for sleeping, when we rather rest…

We change when we grow up and when we fall in love, when we move to another town and when we become parents. Knowing this does not make the process any easier and while we expect it, drops like a bomb when it actually does. Processing my son’s birth with little sleep leads me to believe I was destined to be his mother, along with the fact that my daughter needs someone else to torture. My expectations shrunk like little old ladies while my hopes still soar, it’s just I can see them, not touch them. My entire pregnancy I spent in silence and as far as I could from electronic equipment… except from this here laptop and only for homework. How could I possibly ever reconcile earning a degree in psychology while dealing with life as I do? I could find out more about myself if I looked in the mirror more often. I enjoy being as flawed as I am… today.

“That’s what she said”

“Why is this so hard?”

I now understand how important confidence is. Nah, I’m kidding, I have always known! My son will be a month old this Friday, while my daughter on occasion believes she’s Peter Pan. If I never wanted to be the type that spoke about her children in every conversation, at least I know how parents can be driven to such personality flaw. One day I will be older and these moments I will remember. In the meantime, I’m hoping for my energy to return, my ambition and passion for all of it that separates them from me. Why is it so hard?

If I say I have returned, then in the next few posts I must face what has happened in the last year with some form of redemption-seeking acceptance. I must realize, once and for all, that youth is fleeting and responsibility is natural. I must allow the children to cry and myself to make mistakes. Get rid of the blogger account and stay here, face your fears, face what you have been running away from and look at yourself in the mirror with love and acceptance. Write a few people and tell them that the core of you is too exposed to hide anywhere. You are the mother of two children, a student, and an artist. Everything else is written in carbon.

Someone’s life… in stages

My name is Mills and I used to write. What made me stop? Pure laziness and physical drain. Through life and what happens, through the truth and consequence, we have decided to resume. And to the best of my abilities I will do so. I miss this all and I wish all of you to return… i have things to say and facts to twist. I just want to see who is still looking… more to come.

Argument and pretty people

I reject the idea that two plus two equals four, there, I said it. I also reject the concept of dying flowers and the change of the seasons. A few people have rejected the concept of me, or just me entirely. It is never a surprise when it happens, but that never really cushions the blow, it hurts and it bruises. Incredibly beautiful people can walk away from quality because they have the aesthetic right to do so; when those of us with a few qualities, lacking the complete package (as judged by the media) happen to reject another, the idea can be downright baffling. Then again, even those of us with the wrong idea of self-worth (“it’s okay to beat yourself up a little…”) can see where the criticism is coming from and take it in stride. Who is anybody to rate anybody? I wonder how many people have been told how beautiful they were, believe it with all of their worth and made a system of how many others were allowed in their handsome universe? If you look good and know it, how is it that personality gets in the way and intelligence becomes a prerequisite? Then you find out how hard it is to find it all then give up rather than lowering the standards set by the artificial desires of other gorgeous people. How awkward would it be if one of these “normies” walked past you, actually believed they were as beautiful as you and waved goodbye? How is it that some of us are okay with what we’ve been given, imperfections, vices, and lack of time? He looks good because pretty girls tell him so, it allows him to become the bouncer of an exclusive club… finding out neither the music nor the ambiance were worth the hassle. Worth… as a pretty girl I can tell you that assholes aren’t worth much, maybe a few bucks for the cover charge. I have nothing else to say…