i get the feeling that i’m saying the same thing over and over here. and that’s ok with me. for one, my memory is slipping. i repeat things. jumble words. need to see things to see them, need to remind myself of certain things all the time. so maybe i’ll just write this entry over and over til i get it.
or til i do what it is i think needs doing. there’s something i need to address here and yet, i don’t think it will end where it gets written because these thoughts and feelings of mediocrity that go along with it (that feeling of needing to do something) never cease to weigh on me. (will they ever?) i need external validation, proof in the pudding that i am that i think i am, and what i want to be… i’m goal oriented. things, no, plans and notions and goals come to me and i attack them in the order of my abilities and frequently, in accordance with my income. i like to check things off my mental and paper lists. and i like to feel (know) that i have accomplished both the minute and major things that need doing as they generally add to my or my daughter’s comfort and well-being. and yet, there is something else, no, much else that has not yet come to pass–no matter how many things i’ve checked off the list in the last 5 years. though i didn’t freak out when i turned 30, i became increasingly aware of the swift passage of time and with the swift passage of time, i became increasingly aware of the things i’ve chosen to focus on and the things i’ve chosen to place, ever so carefully, on the black back burners of my mind and my time… i will send my manuscripts out after i get around to those revisions. i will get around to those revisions after i find a new job. i will find a new job after–wait. i just spent what feels like a quarter of a century in hell post-graduation. and yet my hands are tied when i try to rationalize why i haven’t edited my stuff or written anything new, short of insanely long emails to my constant confidantes and lovesick chats with my manfriendray. but i know all too well, i actually have to respond to the calls from within. they are what have always lead me to my tomorrows.
end this relationship, hold on to that one; resolve this, challenge that; leave my hometown, find a new job; go to graduate school, refocus my energy; change my diet, limit my intake; change my mind, change my life and so on. i generally feel and know when i am supposed to do a certain thing and there is a big certain thing weighing on me now. every time i look up in the faces or pasts of barack and michelle, oprah, cave canem fellows, valerie jarrett, susan rice, ernestine shepard, tyler perry, basquiat, west, pac, dyson (who has a surprisingly short wikipedia entry…), malcolm x, slaves who ran–there are far too many people who worked tirelessly to perfect their crafts, their game, their names. far too many who never gave up, never gave in, never went down without a fight, kept on pushing and kept on keeping on to name. there are too many who became something more than what they saw, more than what they had, and more than what they knew for me to make excuses. some were guided, coddled, led. but most of the aforementioned simply (courageously, endlessly, persistently, eventually, divinely just) worked their asses off…to produce excellence and to reject mediocrity. scrappy lot, they were. worthless lot, i am. i know i shouldn’t say that because truth is my mantra and that simply isn’t true. i should say, currently, i struggle with rejecting mediocrity. and with producing excellence. there is nothing more to it than discipline and hard work, i believe. such simple concepts. yet so elusive in my practice. and i’m harder on myself then my brethren and sistren and often feel alone, out of sorts with the ones around me, out of my league with the ones further off, swallowing judgments of the shoddy lately (unless asked). little tolerance for their mediocrity and stagnation and yet, i float in between these two worlds of theory and practice, of death and life, of ascencion and pragmatism. it’s like living in a coma, or being on life support–(t)here, but not quite…and thus, not really living at all. (existing) and this is how i know there is something else for me. i’ve never felt such a strong pulling toward something that ended up unsubstantiated.
(All photos in this post are artist, Tamara Natalie Madden. Photo Credit: TNM Photography)
and so, i will (i must) keep toiling away here, as a way of stretching out. warming up. getting these rickety mental limbs of mind in shape to get in shape. there is something still, just. over. there. and i know, here, in this blog (read: fugue) state, i tell only partial truths. leave a lot out, write these thoughts cathartically, desperately clinging to my future perfect state of past and ever-present aspirations. i am and was and will be, always, a literary artist first, with far too many things to write down before they announce me (dead).
Nonfiction Woman 