Wait for me!

How did this happen?

Mills — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:22:39 +0000

In reality, were we not set up for this? If we fall in love with the image of it, juxtaposing the nearest poet and wrangling dead emotions out of silent drives around town, then the fantasy must turn the stomach of most skeptics. Years ago I wrote and felt the words bleed out and it would have made sense then that, as a human being, I would run out of blood to spill… and I did. And yet, the heart pumps it, fresh every day like peaches and a tongue fabricated out candy; I was new, I had more of it, which I intended to save because the rest of my life would have lead without a drop spilled. But the knives and the papers as it takes place and hold of all that are too weak and searching for nothing, if you are fantastic, then where did that single drop come from? On my drive over I saw it, sneaking next to my arms and legs driving, then the drop became two. We walked arm in arm, trying to catch the rhythm of some distant song we could hear faintly… I was fucking bleeding. I held on, to your arm as if we were being rescued, misinterpreted what I heard as a bandage and supposed my ability as to make forever happen; I am that strong. Still, speaking to each other as victims, finding that nothing could save me, resolute to the fate of being held in contention that which lead me to you in the first place, would be the one thing that dropped me. I have a lot to say, but who really cares? The love she felt was as genuine as imported leather, carefully selected to meet his standards. In redefining love as an observation in futility, we limit its capability and undermine its powerful nature, for those in love look in the mirror and find that the reflection which stares back refuses to believe in finality. If I fell in love with the image of it, keeping it in my pocket, sweat and wrangling of pants with the physical intervention of every skin cell in awareness, would have damaged the image as it was given. Every night after, before a shower and after goodbye, the love remained intact and I knew then that it was possible… I now understand that possibility was based on very little, on what I believed to be fateful. The idea is to choose our words carefully, to take control of impetus and become friends because it would just be a shame. Until then, because it will happen as we cut our losses, I will stop the bleeding and suture for good, laying blame on the heart as it repairs itself and then… none of the miles we drove, then and now, would bear witness to all you poured into me. But… this is all a fantasy, an image of you I supposedly fabricated out of necessity because of the scores you settled; I find this fantastic. The truth is that I blame you for the best of me…

Hey! How long has it been?!

Mills — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:11:43 +0000

No one reads this blog anymore, the very few people that actually read and -hopefully- enjoyed my posts have given up on me. It is true what “someone” said… inspiration sinks in the best when it comes from sorrow… must quickly interject and let everyone know that at this precise moment I do not feel sorrowful and yet, the worst kind of “lost my way” because I have absolutely NO TIME to ponder about how much it sucks to feel like there is a lot to do and your desk is a mess. I am not sad, I am not doubtful, I am not scared, I am not tired -eh, a little bit, maybe? I just need to fall asleep here for a few minutesssss….-, I am not dissatisfied -for I understand that if you don’t go to that floor, you do not have to buy vintage candy again-, I am not faking it. Maybe if I called myself more often, I would know I was still whole. This message will self-destruct in…

House where the mouse lives…

Mills — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:48:47 +0000

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!

Mills — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:25:15 +0000

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…

Mills — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:32:34 +0000

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…

Mills — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:15:57 +0000

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

Mills — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:58:10 +0000

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!

Mills — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:09:10 +0000

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

Mills — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:44:37 +0000

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”

Mills — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:14:11 +0000

“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.