New Paints

Trish feels heavy against the pillow. Her limbs are weights too heavy for her bones to move at this moment. Through the haze of exhaustion, her skin registers the breeze from the ceiling fan pushing her deeper into the mattress. She's trapped. Her brain is betraying her, making her a hostage who is conscious but unable to move to freedom. And, like the hostage, she watches her capture through bleary eyes. Her brain is going about it's work, indifferent to her needs and focused intently on sorting the materials in it's hands. Abandoned in this world of flickering images that she can neither slow down or sort out, Trish lays helplessly and waits for mercy.

From her spot, Trish watches the strange process before her. Thoughts become a physical form, ghostlike images that cloud the air around her mind. Images, smells, thoughts, and experiences are rushing to report to duty, answering an inaudible call that had gone out earlier that day. She can hear flickers, clicks, murmurs fill the area; her brain plucking each of them from the air to sort them into piles. It plucks an image, turns it, tries to fit it against another, discards it for another. This process is repeated until the fit is seamless. Unrelated words are answering the call now, creating a chaos of noise that is colliding with the whirs and pops already coming from the complicated process before her. Trish witnesses her mind pluck them quietly from the air and sort them into the appropriate piles. Detached and distant she considers the process; she can't seem to figure out the ordering system in use here.

Her brain pauses briefly, Trish pushes the advantage and rolls onto her other side. Her eyes are trained to search out the red numbers on her alarm clock. By the time the numbers register her mind is back in control and is focused intently again. It's moving through the images and sounds now, traveling around bodies, tunneling between relationships. It grabs moments from years past and swirls them with minutes from the yesterday. Trish watches the moments spin so fast they finally merge and become a new color. Sounds are ground with words creating a glittering substance. Her brain plucks more and more from air around it, tediously clipping, matching, merging them into miraculous new substances Trish has never really seen before. It seems to be putting together a new pallet - a new stock of paints to work with. Textures are being recombined, resorted, reassembled - her brain painting a new map from the ragtag army of new and old images and thoughts.

Hours pass. Her brain frantically continues it's work and Trish begs it to just let the day end. Can't her mind understand that she needs to function in the morning? Does it think this is productive? She grows frustrated with the endless shuffling it seems so intent on. She wants control of her body back. She needs to be allowed to sleep or at the very least be able to get up and distract herself. Instead, she's being forced to lie here and watch this insane alchemy. She whimpers quietly and her brain coldly rebukes her, like a scolding parent who is trying to think and will not tolerate any distraction. She's been confined to her room and has been commanded to stay there until it is appropriate for her to come out. She cowers back and surrenders.

The flickers continue to arrive. They pour in and are tossed up, then crushed into one paste or another in her brain's mortar and pestle. Her mind's fingers reach out, snatch a bit of this and a pinch of that. Dazed, Trish lays and just watches, long since giving up figuring out the reasoning behind the process. Her brain seems to appreciate the ceded control and whirls double in it's efforts. Finally, a tornado of tugs, pinches, aches, pains, wounds and victories all twist together violently. They shudder for a minute, the mixture is alive and trying to determine if this is a stable match. Finally it heaves itself into stillness and becomes a calm pool. The breaks and tears that have occurred in years past are settling down. They fit against each other, one void accepting the excess of another. Her brain steps back, seemingly satisfied thus far, and begins to paint a salve over the new images and thoughts, soothing them back into stasis. The new colors seem to be a perfect match though Trish can't quite make them out; the vibrations coming from the new mixtures heat her skin, lulling her further into complacency. She is being seeped in things she doesn't yet have a feel for. There is an unfamiliar coating of recombined understandings - strengths and weakness are mixed together to create a new salve for her new wounds.

Trish's brain stops, panting and weary from the intense focus. The silence is mind-numbing after the chaos that preceded it. Trish wearily regards her mind with a measured look when she feels it letting her go free. The hostage situation ends with the sharp bursts from the alarm by her head. She rolls, hauls herself up out of bed and forces her way into the shower. She recognizes this familiar feeling of trust. Her job is to go about her day and trust that this new skin will become comfortable. As time passes, the newly combined elements into a new fine wine. Her brain will step back and the two of them can relax in her patio chair,sipping on wine and enjoying a new view of her life.

But first a shower. It's gonna take a while to get used to this.

Treasures

Shelly smoothed her hand down the length of the dress. The sleekness of the garment translated to a cool silky feel beneath her hand. Grinning and eager, she reached up for the hanger; she was ready for tonight.

This dress transformed her into someone sexy and confident. Rationally she knew she was still the same person she was each day; the shape of her legs and the texture of her skin were the same as they had been yesterday. Sure, her hair had been dried and styled after her shower today rather than left to dry but her core was no different; her desires, secrets, and goals remained unchanged. She pulled on the dress and when her head appeared at the top of the dress the shoulders the dress settled on were the same shoulders she'd seen in the mirror yesterday. As the hem rushed to its proper place, Shelly relished the snapping of the material as the length fell into place. The zipper was ushered quickly up her back to the top of its track and a hand smoothed down the front, laying the dress against her. Shelly stepped back to take in the final product. She was giddy with the difference she felt.

She twirled and twisted, encouraging the skirt to dance with her and the waist to skim lightly just above her hips. The dress teased her mouth into a smile and she felt the blood in her veins with an awareness that had been missing lately. This was the dress she chose for the nights where living and playing seemed lighter and easier – the nights when the mundane tasks could be forgotten – the nights when indulgences of pleasures and laughter were encouraged. The clean lines, heavy silkiness and seductive movement of the dress coaxed a bounce into her step. Shelly treasured this dress, immersed herself in joys and treasures in this dress, escaped in this dress.

She stepped into her heels. Then allowing the spin in her head to spin her body, Shelly threw one last glance at the mirror. She quickly closed the closet door and snatched up her purse. When tonight was over, she'd carefully clean the dress and store it once again. There, it would hang, silently, patiently, until she could indulge herself again. But that was later and this was now.

She grinned, locked the door and tripped towards the waiting car.

*

Shelly pushed her wet hair back from her face, smoothing it with a practiced gesture. Her mind wrestled with the order of the day while she blindly reached for her jeans. Thoughts of necessary chores rolled through her head as she performed her unconscious dance. First the right foot went in. She straightened halfway up with the first pull then bent again. The left leg raised; the left foot went in. That was followed by a rise onto her toes as the waistband was pulled up and a quick small twist to settle everything into its proper place. An efficient twist of the fingers and a slight flick of the wrist would secure the waist band and complete the process. Shelly completed all of these steps as she stepped out of the closet and glanced around.

Shelly felt the comfort of the pants hanging from her waist. The jeans hugged her thighs with just the right encouragement, reminding her that there was protection from the variety scrapes that one can accumulate while pulling weeds or mowing the lawn. As she headed to the kitchen to finalize her plans, she picked at the signs of wear the jeans showed - a string here, a small tear there. Today was yet another day of small tasks and mundane chores.

She stood quietly next to the kitchen counter and finished her coffee. Staring blankly at the wall in front of her, Shelly's mind worked quickly through her plans for the day. She blinked it all into order, set the cup down and turned for the door. This was her life. Small tasks of grocery shopping, vacuuming and folding laundry hardly seemed glamorous. Taking the recycling out and washing the car didn't require more from her wardrobe than comfort. This was the pair of jeans that proved that. This was the pair of jeans she lived her life in.

Test of Time

We will stand like the trees. Bend when we must, break when it's too much, grow tall and strong, patient enough to wait out the droughts. We will lift our faces to the sky and drink in the rain with joy and enjoy the lightening with quick fear. We will dig our feet into the ground and hold on with all of our might.

We will remain silent when we should. Tall, proud and humble, beautiful.

We will take your breath away.

*This is a re-post of sorts - from an old blog hidden in the memories of the internets. This is a beautiful friend that taught me many things over a series of trips to the west coast. He never failed to be exactly what he needed to be. This is my only way of introducing him to a new friend.

Telling notes

Laughing a little, we rolled over. I settled back against his side and nestled my head into his shoulder. Light breathing filled the room and he stroked over my shoulder. Small comments drifted between us and I could feel a laziness settle it. Grinning, I propped my head up on his chest and looked at him.

“Why don't you play the piano for me,” I coaxed him out of our bed and shooed him towards the living room. My piano lay ahead – I remembered him commenting on it a few nights ago. I was eager to hear someone else play. The piano always seemed to speak to my secret place.

“Just so you know, I'm not playing for you in return.” I joked, popping his bottom, warning him not to expect me to perform for him in return. I never played for anyone – playing the piano created a path to a secret place of mine – not many were invited down that path.

“That's fine.” Confidently he sat on my piano bench. I stood slightly awkwardly by the piano. It is an upright and I didn't want to curl up next to him on the bench but I did want to be where I could see him as he played.I was eager to hear him play, watching someone play pieces that they love is a treat.

His fingers pressed the keys and I was startled. They weren't soft. They weren't slow. They weren't light. They didn't ease over the white keys and tease the black keys forward. Instead he ran over them, mashed them, forced them. I shrank into my seat I beside the piano.

A mass of sound waves pounded over me. It could be described as nothing more refined than that. From the waves hitting my ear I did not need a visual to know his foot sat heavy, foreboding on the pedal – forcing it down ruthlessly - trying to draw out more sound but not realizing he was choking the very sound he was creating.

I couldn't bring myself to look at his fingers which carelessly pounded each note from the keyboard. They were quick and uncaring. They didn't bother to draw out each note or caress it to fullness, leaving some heavy and some light. There was no acknowledgment of difference between soft and hard, quick or long. They ran over each sound as if each note was no different from the one before or the one following. I sat, shocked, as note after note rushed towards me, calling out for help as he ruthlessly ran each one down without notice.

I barely managed to glance up at him, feeling horror course through me. He looked over and smiled, confident and happy - slaughtering note after simple careful soft note as if they were no more than an incidental happenstance in his life. My horror must have not made it to my eyes.

“Do you recognize this? Beach Boys” he said, continuing to ram notes through the air between us. There was no distinction in his fingers, no thought or coaxing in his hands. My body wanted to withdraw, rushed and undignified, into a ball – retreating from such lack of awareness. It couldn't imagine itself next to someone that could not imagine slowness. It couldn't understand someone that didn't dwell in the quietness between notes...someone that didn't understand the beauty of the rest, the value of the silent breath, the quietness of the slow coaxing of a simply melody, the importance of drawing out a soul not crowded by a sustaining pedal.

He ran over it all, covering individual voices with a heavy foot that refused to let up enough for a single thought to catch a breath. Oblivious, he choked the life out of each line of melody.

The war on sound halted and silence filled the air. I heard the heat in my apartment cut on – loud and hissing – insistent that we pay attention. Realizing I was frozen in place, I jerked my eyes towards his face and form. For the first time, he seemed only like a mound sitting on my piano bench, a hideous formless mound, not defined by anything – not even his own skin. He appeared a mindless lump that trumped through wild life and failed to notice delicate Violets he probably trod upon without notice or care.

“I'm sure you play much better than me,” he said, leafing through my sheet music that I stored on the piano.

To him I'm sure I muttered something quiet like “Definitely not – how long have you been playing?”

To myself I whispered, “I may not play as quickly or as many notes – but at least I don't commit murder.” I knew later I would need to caress my keyboard back to life.

Seat of the Soul

My experience of my world starts with the skin – is absorbed physically into my body and spread out to the rest of my consciousness. I gather bits of information seep into my skin and read vibrations that pound my body; then, when it is all collected, my brain begins the translation of what is happening. The translation is needed for the future, for the time I will be required to speak about my experience and my life. The time between the first sensations and the beginning of the translation is pure – a time when I am able to communicate with myself with intense intimacy.

My soul resides just beneath the skin, instantly translating myself outward and interpreting messages coming inward. The soul is caressed by both my skin and my muscles, massaged between them with growing strength and smoothness as I evolve. I’m wrapped in a give and take of soul and body – each one feeding off of the other in a symbiotic relationship that moves in perfect harmony. Within this exchange, no words exist; not once will my soul misunderstand me; I trust it implicitly to understand without the need of language. I am greedy for that silence in which everything is wholly understood; where nothing is fragmented into understandable pieces. I wallow in that space that is swollen with no need to speak.

Itch

Shelly’s skin itched something fierce. The insistent irritation invaded her thoughts and tore her mind from her task. Her skin had developed tiny needle pitched voices that pierced her brain directly, demanding attention. Shelly’s finger muscles began to rebel her brain’s command to remain at ease and began to twitch. She knew this was a clear sign her fingers and the voices were winning.
Telling herself that she was just providing minor relief, Shelly’s hand drifted to her forearm. Blessed calm blanketed her at the first light scratch. The voices stilled and everything inside her focused on that light touch scrapping over her skin. Nothing had ever felt better against her body; no silk could be have been more luxurious. For a few minutes, she lived in a world of perfect; perfect sensations, perfect sounds, perfect calm.

Then, her fingers became a bit heavier and the scratching became a bit more intense. The change was almost imperceptible and Shelly didn’t even register the shift at the beginning. As her fingers continued to move, she slowly became of their weight and the shape of their nails moving into her skin. She started to become alarmed when she felt the bite sinking into her arm deeper than she had intended but she couldn’t stop her scratching. She watched as they continued to dig and scratch at the irritated skin that had been screaming at her moments earlier. And then, as slowly as she had become aware of the increasing intensity of her scratching, she became aware of prickles riding the rest of her skin.
Her thigh wanted attention so badly it started twitching as if it were trying to make the journey to her hand instead of waiting for the hand to come to it. Her back flinched in anger when its itch was ignored. Her ankle begged her reach down and treat it to the same rough treatment her arm had received. Shelly’s hands flashed over her skin, scratching and tearing into each itch. They lighted like butterflies and dug in like plows, never quite quick enough to sooth one spot before the next bellowed for attention.

Shelly’s body rocked with the violence, moving and arching under the nails that provided both a salve to the itch and a slight pain with the pressure. As her hands answered the prayers of other parts of her body, the greed slowly began to be quenched. Her back no longer pitched and heaved seeking attention. Her thigh quieted down and lay content along her bone. Her hands still moved to answer smaller requests but instead of violent sweeps they were now hiccups. Shelly became quiet stillness broken by a small jerky motion that lapsed back into stillness.

Gathering her body around her, Shelly stood and moved softly toward the bathroom. Perhaps a glass of water was in order. Perhaps she just wanted to wash her hands because they felt as if they were coated. She wasn’t quite sure why she moved. She just knew the storm was over and that she could now return to what she had been doing a few moments ago. She leaned in and picked up the glass. Her eyes drifted up with the glass, she met her eyes in the mirror and froze.

Her skin. It was gone. But it was still there. She blinked and looked down at her hands. The fingertips were crusty with sloughed off skin; cells packed the recesses of her nails. Beneath this grime she saw new skin covering her palms. Her forearms blinked back at her in the healthy pink hue that appears after the last of a scab has fallen away. Shelly turned on the water and washed the last evidence of the old layers away from her hands. Drying them, she noted the sensitivity that hadn’t been there before. She ran her hands over her stomach, feeling the freshly exposed nerve endings flicker uncertainly, new to the feeling of touch. Her calves were tender to contact. The newness of her skin was smooth, baby like, but the muscles beneath the new covering remained as firm as they had been earlier.

Shelly stepped back from the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Before her was a new woman, fresh, unmarred, and vibrant. Her skin shone with eagerness and freshness. Yet, she wasn’t new. She felt the years of experience and hard work supporting this new sheath. She would still be able to run as fast; she would still be able to lift as much; she would still remember everything the years had taught her. Those lessons ran deep and clear to the bone. But now, it seemed, she had a new way to sense the world around her. Here, coating her body, were new sensations to replace the spots that had been dead. There would be new touches and new scratches. But for now it was just new. Shelly looked over this new suit calmly. She breathed in slowly and grinned, accepting the gift. She was prepared and eager to start again.