To live instead of exist

Hey, kids.. Life is beautiful.

And I guess it comes down to the little things; starting out with nothing owning only our art,
Fresh fruit and veggies with every meal,
the sounds of a waking world, all this color,
roasting marshmallows over bonfires by the tide at sunset,
indie radio stations, cups of green tea in the morning, never ending hot showers and long baths together, incense burning,
Immersed in my sketchbook at a cafe window with local art on the walls,
Struggling to solve crossword puzzles,
Scavenging through free book piles,
Never owning a TV again,
Still having long conversations about every and anything that matters until we fall asleep mid sentence, never running out of things to say, and enjoying the silence when it comes.
The way, here, between the earth, and bluest sky everyday strangers on the street restore my faith in humanity if only slightly.

It�s not all kittens and rainbows, but I�m happier than I�ve ever been, maybe even for the first time in my short, complicated, little life.

A couple months back if you’d asked what I thought would come of leaving Vegas I wouldn’t have been able to tell ya a damn thing except that not knowing was better than a slowly sinking ship,
that I felt like Washington is where I should be SO, duffle bag over shoulder, I journied to the ocean…

I’m learning a lot these days;
*About what family can be,
*The pros & cons of communal life,
*The blockade ego is to spirituality,
*Letting go of my past,
*Reconnecting with ‘god’ in a sense,
*Tripp’n on love and trust,
*Tear’n down defense mechanisms..
*Drawing, meditating, strumming my 12 string, getting a feel for Spanish,
*Making new friends,
*Talking about life & what it is to live between kisses over coffee with this gypsy I waited 9 years to meet..

I just want a pedestrian friendly town where my blindness doesn’t cage me surrounded by a populous who gives a damn,
a lil, one bedroom apartment with a herb garden on the balcony,
art supplies and books sprawled across the floor,
easle in the corner next to my guitar and my boyfriend’s typewriter,
murals on the walls we’ll paint over later,
philosophy scribbled on the fridge,
everyone chill’n in the living room sip’n green tea, The Boy working on his novel while I put together my portfolio and our friend chooses what rhymes he wants on his first album.

There’s a lot going on these days, and maybe Bellingham will be the place I plant roots for a while,
maybe build something beautiful?

I noticed the Vegas First Fridays going down hill once it became a place for the upper class suburbanites to go slumming in their nicest “Aren’t we cultured” best..

Then the after-hour raves drew too many minors until the whole damn thing was reduced to a block party with promotional glow-in-the-dark bracelets, mardi gra beads and vendors set’n up shop.

Really, it was only a matter of time before they started an entrance fee, none of that profit going to the artists..

Sure, it’s just $2, but it’s the fuck’n principle..

Fuck that..
I’m glad the kid at the gate couldn’t give a damn about charging anyone.
I’m glad the streets that used to be filled with musicians playing on the side of the road, the kids making murals with crayola chalk, the hippies home sewn clothes, the booths upon booths of amateur artists were nearly deserted.

Across the country, the world creative communities struggle to thrive in the shadow of corporatism, especially here in a city with nothing of substance to offer.
I say if they insist on milking the one event that brings artists of all walks of life together then let the fucking thing die, strangled by its own greed.

Art is by the people for the people.

Don’t take their shit.

Fight for your right to express yourself.

Fight for your right to experience life.

I recently saw a car commercial that went something like this;
A man’s driving pondering our society of instant gratification.
He says,
“Don’t like your nose? Get a new one.
Don’t like your job? Get a new one.
Don’t like your spouse? Get a new one.
What ever happened to commitment?”

I don’t know, Hyundai..
Why do we live in a culture that perpetuates an unachievable aesthetic then shun those who succumb for compromising the flesh and bone casing of who we are?
Why do we have an antiquate education system that thrusts us into a corporate workforce that exploits its employees into submission until they’re grateful for scraps?
Why is the ‘nuclear family’ shoved down our throats rather than the pursuit of self discovery that leads to deeper connections?

See, the truth is that nearly all our ‘obligations’ in life are self manifested, and the moment you’ve had enough, the panicle where you stop killing yourself is the moment you can start living.

I’m 22..
Granted there have been inconsistencies, but I’ve been actively spiritual since I was 9 years old.
In my 13 years of exploring I’ve noticed something I find disturbing; Middle America has it in their head that spiritual development is a novelty we outgrow.

What kind of culture believes personal evolution is just a phase?

I never really know where the time goes..
Over the last year, year and a half I…

♠ Intervened my parents’ suicide attempts a couple times..

♠ Got out of a 4 year abusive relationship, stayed friends cuz hey, he’s like my big brother, but burned bridges with anyone stupid enough to take his side.

Took over the apartment

♠ Fell in love with an idea, melodrama, social politics, was cheated on with his e-friend visiting Vegas, received a “take me back, it was all a mistake” call as she packed for their flight in the next room, crushed his ego by mentioning I’d been with someone while we were broken up, next morning found out from his myspace comments he immediately ran back to her and still tried to string me along once they got back, but baby, I’m just not “That Kind Of Girl” and I wish her the best.
Consequently, we did not stay friends.

♠ Let stress fuck up college

♠ Hiked at the Grand Canyon for the first time

Lived off tequila and enough pills to taste the rainbow for a couple months

♠ Thankfully, had my first miscarriage

♠ Broke away from the 2 year push, pull, intimacy obstacle course romance with my muse because.. the backlash finally outweighed how much I adored who he was as a person.

♠ Made a few trips to LA selling gay hentai, lettered graphic novels for a bit, and got turned on to Indian food

♠ Was date raped twice

♠ Went through some roommates, took in a few couch hoppers.

♠ Got hit by a car, and walked it off joking with my friend the whole day

Kissed plenty of silly boys & girls who kept me laughing

♠ Became really good buddies with a fair whether friend’s ex

♠ Dyed my hair blue, went blonde, then back to red

Had someone lie about screwing me for the first time and made him look like a fool for it

♠ Had a cancer scare

♠ Had my nose broken and a funny conversation with a cop
“What happened to your nose, Miss?”
“Door attacked me”
“Want me to take the door to jail, Miss?
“Yeah, that door’s nothin’, but trouble.. Take it off its hinges and get it outa’ here”

Also tried anal that night..

♠ Turned down an opportunity to be a rich couple’s slave and heir because.. I’m no one’s sidekick..

♠ Visited a boy in Long Island..

♠ Scoped NYC..

♠ Went to Live Earth in Jersey mostly for Smashing Pumpkins…

♠ Took a fairy to family in Connecticut..

♠ Crashed at a mansion for a while..

♠ Posed nude for an art book

♠ Got my first piercings and tattoo

♠ Had my gradeschool best friend find me on myspace

♠ Saw too many bands to list

♠ Flipped a coin after not getting the motorcycle shop job I wanted, decided to throw all my life into storage and go backpacking

♠ Hopped on a plane to meet a gypsy boy I’d known online for 9 years thats become.. 2 months here in Seattle, happy, sad, crazy, up, down, ready or not.

♠ Got back into art, spirituality, and have a novel plot floating in my head.

♠ Chopped 6, 7 inches of my hair off with construction paper scissors.. It now hangs a little past my collarbone.

♠ Reevaluated my life, who I am, and what I need, but hey.. I do that everyday..

I keep hearing that every generation has it’s war like that should somehow comfort me that we’re a society of desensitization, fear, and impressionable minds, everyone with their nifty tracking code on a grid sweating our ever stacking debts while the whole world is strapped to a bomb, a series of little red buttons we can press thousands of miles from the scene of the ..humane.. genocide to be played back on the 5:00 news.
But hey, we’ve got bills, houses that aren’t ours to buy, to furnish and refurnish, fashion, daytime TV and families to feed we never see.
Maybe I should just buy an iPod to drown out the debates over gay marriage for the insurance benefits rather than every individual’s right to health care or the life of an unborn fetus while entire nations suffer perpetual collapse.
Oh, I don’t know.. I’m just frustrated that at 22 I’m unsure if I should be blowing years of my already short life being exploited by academia to earn a degree I can only hope will get my foot in the door or preparing for WW3 taking in everything I can that hasn’t been robbed of us yet.

I always wanted more of my art than to be hung over a deco couch in a trendy living room even if that meant leaning against a closet wall collecting dust because “Art is whatever they want it to be” is a standardless copout that has depreciated expression to mere novelty where anyone will be praised for jerking off across canvas if the market is right and audience can’t decide what 3 shades of splattered red “means”.
Oh, it’s not that I’m comparing Surrealism, to Impressionistic, to Pop necessarily.Crime against humanity I question the huge, red dot on white backdrop….
I just wonder when it was the virtue for intent behind what we create was lost?
I don’t know..
I’ve never had dreams of becoming a staple name in the art community. In my mind if Celebrity status defines accomplishment then art is dead and we are all slaves to ‘god’, ‘the devil’, or Coca-Cola..

The only thing I ever truly hoped to achieve was the ability to convey empathy, to evoke in others what it was beating wild in my heart at that moment.
I feel like at some point I managed that, and like some right of passage I can finally call myself an artist and writer, but all this introspection has become a plateau.

I want to create something that matters beyond myself, want to open eyes, ensue waves, spark life in the walking dead, remind at least a handful of an existence that surpasses what we’ve come to accept.
I don’t know.. I just don’t know..
I want to fuel the flame,
fight like mad to preserve our freedom, our self actualization
our humanity.

I’m always searching for the perfect song, beyond language and era where cryptics collide with existence and capture a moment that transcends us..because I’m trying to live for more than what’s fleeting and believe maybe something can last more than an instant in a reality of raw transition.

This city just doesn’t become me, and god knows I don’t want to become this city so earlier this year I set out to find my way knowing what I need;
Freedom from my blindness, and a sense of soul in the streets.
I guess you could say I’ve done my fair share of jumping around for being 21 via starving artist.

I wandered 3,000 miles back home to Connecticut, but being surrounded by family and familiarity clips my wings.
There’s no peace found in cages.

Rhode Island was beautiful, the ocean a lovely shade of teal, but terribly expensive and touristy.

I wish I’d had more time to explore Boston. I’ll head that way again soon.

Long Island reeked of suburbia and limitations.

I considered New York, so much energy, but squishing a handful of roommates into a closet sized studio to scrape by didn’t exactly appeal.

Main and New Hampshire’s slow pace was soothing and yet maddening with the deepest nights I’d ever felt.

Heading back west LA was intriguing, wild, frantic, but the grey skies and mentality wasn’t much of an improvement from Las Vegas.

And nothing Arizona could offer would compensate for the life sucking heat where not even insects can live much like where I already am.
.
.
.
.

Soon I’ll be flying to Seattle.
Fingers crossed.

_{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~}

A Place Called Home, Kim Richey
Well, it’s not hard to see
Anyone who looks at me
Knows I am just a rolling stone
Never landing anyplace to call my own
To call my own

Well, it seems like so long ago
But it really ain’t you know
I started out a crazy kid
Miracle I made it through the things I did
The things I did

Someday I’ll go where there ain’t no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

I had a chance to settle down
Get a job and live in town
Work in some old factory
I never liked the foreman standing over me
Over me

Oh I’d rather walk a winding road
Rather know the things I know
See the world with my own eyes
No regrets, no looking back, no goodbyes
No goodbyes

Someday I’ll go where there ain’t no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And I dream of a place called home