I always fear that my readers will stop reading me, I love you are still with me 

hello my loyal readers, glad you’re still with me 😘

finally getting some work time progress

 

 

 

near ingleside

Centerville 

 

Bloomfield Hills by car

Berkley 

winter gear

 winter 

 

non-haiku falling autumn winter

the odd incongruence 

of a shatter of golden, ochre, autumn leaves 

upon a near foot of white snow 

illuminated under the lamppost 

Fritz

The first day Daphne arrived she was thrown into the whirlwind of the WB Ashbridge universe. “Fritz” apparently was Daphne’s assistant; he handled scheduling her meetings and prioritizing her duties to focus on how to comprehensively rebuild the site.

On Saturday she learned all the secret lock combos and how to navigate their security codes. Then given a tour of the grounds which were vast and they had even supplied her with a map to help get her bearings. The detailed tour took up most of the day with Fritz making sure not to leave out a single detail. On Sunday Daphne was introduced to the entire headquarters staff at a Sunday meet and greet that took place for the entire day. She was exhausted by the time the evening meal was through and fell asleep fast by ten o’clock. 

Which was a good thing because Monday started bright and early with a nine o’clock meeting with her new immediate staff.

And when had she the time to even sift through and organize all her own decades worth of physical paper notes they had specially flown in on a temperature controlled carrier, when the meetings never stopped? She had tried on Tuesday evening to start the work but the room where they had all the sealed boxes of her work had a coded lock they had forgotten to share with her. By Wednesday Fritz said he’d find out the code for her.

Fritz ? It was a nickname he said that stuck as it didn’t quite suit him.

“Fitzgerald —I don’t know why but the former ceo never got it right so it sadly stuck, but— do you see me complain?” he gave her an odd wink, “I’ll answer to whatever they call me, how about you—are you just Daphne?”

The Ashbridge Headquarters

From behind the mirrored glass she watched the meeting take place in the east wing reception room. When the meeting was over the parties dispersed but one walked to the heavy velvet draperies afterward and slipped through the secret door 

“What did you think of her?” the long time friend from Flintlock Publishing House asked the stately elderly woman who sat on the other side of the glass. She was an intimidating woman, despite her age, with sharp glassy pale grey eyes that missed nothing behind her wire frames that, with her upswept and elegantly pinned hair gave her a remarkable appearance of resembling her mother whose well known face always graced the backs of her famous novels

Celest Ashbridge Rathbone, only daughter of the great author but not the only product 

“Hmmm….” the elder woman looked back at Simone with a thoughtful glint before she said, “she will do….now come sit by me, we have much to plan.”

<<I’m sorry I can’t get away until later in the week, I have meetings every day until late in the week.>>

<<why don’t we meet up later? When is your last meeting at?>>

It is awhile before the reply comes 

<<I have two days they owe me for holiday—I can get away by Wednesday night>>

<<then meet me then>>

modern day angst

      i find myself disturbed by the surreality of life—the filters of self images of a fictional fantasy; of false representations of selves; those claiming guilt for how well they reap the backs of their followers/their slaves

who is real? nobody is real so why not put on a costume you? what does it feel like to be fake too? Try it on …. It’s bullshit armor …. she cannot move her face for the pounds of make up and filler ….a mask to hide behind that you are a miserable tool pandering to the big guy

But isn’t it the best way to navigate —what’d they used to call it…. the internet highway…. low-way, subway, underground lowest common denominator dinosaur mind

Be fake at all costs because they will laugh at your frailties 

these prisms I speak of, look at life today 

Nobody is real

I just want to meet just one person who is real 

marginal scribble

Today, with full intention, I choose to think about my time at the art suppliers on Hempstead Turnpike East Meadow New York; just off the Meadowbrook Parkway 

I choose to on purpose— no, not because I became nostalgic about it 

No …. it is more that I want to look at it with fond objectivity but also cruel eyes 

Cruel? ….yes

     because I fear to admit this but I guess it always persists that I walk as an outsider yet again

   like the comic book hulk —I just meander through cultures and observe in search 

     Remember that book “Are you my mommy?” 

maybe it is like that exactly —like a scientist I wish to observe some place I’ve been from the vast distance of time and other experiences in which to compare things to 

My first self posed question is ….What did I like about that art store—or was it more working there?

That art store was like Mecca to Long Island artists. 

It was like a super store just for artists. 

For scale? Now it is an actual supermarket. The building, I mean.

When I was there? When I was its worshipper? It was the second incarnation of their store. 

Their first shop on Ling Island was also in Hempstead Turnpike East Meadow. Or was that Levittown? The borders there overlap and then there is Bethpage and Wantagh 

But no, this was paradise to any true artist. 

I loved the original shop before the one I ended up working at. That one was such total grunge. It was awesome. Buckets— literal buckets— of things like pastels and charcoal ….drool….  You go firm isles like a museum and it could be the jewelry bead section with unbelievable variations of colors and textures could capture you for hours …. or the art paint brush isle with soft brushes that make your lips tingle when, with closed eyes, your rub it upon them; I know 

the sound of your boot upon the hollow floor as you go further into the recesses of the inner domain and step down into the dungeon below 

All clearance of …. more drool …. things people passed up at original prices 

and here I nearly always would faint ….. 

I loved that place …. it was sanity. It was calm. It was the beach after a storm. It was …. me

Back in those gritty days mom was still alive and I’d tell her about what I’d bought as she knew the famous original on Canal Street in Manhattan where even Stieglitz shopped 

Today, by choice, I choose to recall …. 

on this autumn day that is frozen in a polar winter storm in the mountains ….

If I went by expressway, I’d take the exit off the Meadowbrook Parkway passed the architecturally cool shaped Snapple Tea Corporation Headquarters building; a fun way to approach my job from further south the island at sunset, about 6:30 pm when the sunset turns such a lovely orange pink and the way it hits the cubes on the Snapple building is worth the moment to look

That began my work shift day; dinner at home sorted; child got from school, sorted at home, set to work when other parent arrives at 5:45

drive the Southern State to begin— but go against traffic —the New York City commuters returning to their suburban Long Island homes —as I was leaving Cedarhurst, by the City, to work in Long Island ….at dark

The shift officially started at 6:45 pm

      My then “boss” ….a twenty year old Italian American boy graduate from Pratt

I confess looking back, I loved that place— and? I knew it too— I knew it then ….and so did everyone who worked there 

   It was the worst of times in my life —but the best of times too

Worst as — I’d just lost my mother 

                    I’d just lost my custody battle 

                    I was sleeping on the floor in the living room of my ex husband who’d win custody and I had to pay half the rent —and? I had to pay Child Support 

But —the second incarnation of that Art Shop on Hempstead Turnpike that shall have to remain nameless because of touchy exposure; I loved it fondly though and I knew the family connection despite the shocking scandle there — doesn’t it just go with the whole wild life Art thing anyway? Scandal? Embezzlement ….? that just gives them more validation as artists in this oligarch world anyway — no, I’m joking but just slightly 

I’d arrive at the art store — the size of what had once actually been an airplane hanger!— to give one a sense of its hugeness! And it had every related imaginable type of art craft that could exist …. Isles and isles devoted just to art crafting 

That I pick today why? Why pause in this glass globed snow globe day to think on there —an Art Topia …. Now a supermarket ….

It was the chance to …. be among other many other artists who also were struggling ….to eat and survive …. though different from myself ….we celebrated this and —it helped get through the day because there was actual visible beauty we shared and in the —moment—created 

    so I bonded with …. my most valuable counterparts whom for such a utopian moment of bliss gave me a great …. moment to —whilst working until 3AM— pause and know ….i was not alone in the universe 

And I’d leave by 3:30 AM — return to a sleeping apartment at home in Cedarhurst and settle on the living floor; relax for a few hours before getting Persephone breakfast, then ready for school ….

I guess how I managed to not fall into depressive misery was that Mecca ….itself …. Art…. became my strength…. my faith ….and all my recreation 

Precipices of time;timepieces

I think often of that precipice of time — where you don’t know it, but you stood at a certain moment between twin worlds; a past and future 

it is weird to me…. so very very weird to me …. how I remember how Michigan first looked to me the late night when me and my boyfriend, at the time, pulled up to his mother’s house. After a long drive from East Meadow and Huntington New York thst late night road  was endless fast. Ohio and Pennsylvania went on forever but there it was, a right left right and down a winding drive 

My very first impression of Michigan was that house. You see. It was late and so dark out with nothing open. And then I met my boyfriend mother, as we’d be staying there.

I’d never thought one day years later I’d be writing invitations for my wedding reception at that address. 

Or that the child I’d one day have would be living there now 

If I could go back to that cold winter day we first stepped out his volks wagon golf and freeze time…. 

Id just pause for a long while ….walk out into that road and look down the way we’d come and just look at who ever it was she was ….because she would no longer be her again 

then look at that house and realize why I felt the energy that I felt that day when I’d stepped over the threshold 

That house more than any my parents lived at —has known all of my heartbreaks and transitions and ironically, been longer a part of my history. Isn’t that strange how even this grandmother of my child has known me longer than my own parent 

Daphne & the Prism Cells/Cloudy thoughts

And as she looked out the window of the air plane and stared into the clouds, the mimosa seemed to swirl Daphne’s thoughts into such a brilliant sunny, sun kissed tint of orange blossom 

Daphne was on her way to the isles of folklore and fairytales where the ancient ways of memory brewed thick among the ruins and Daphne had a few lost ruins of her own 

Those dreams she cast off 

What was it that her dream of Tolkien was trying to tell her? He stood in a swirling wormhole of time in an underground tunnel that looked like coal mines and he stood reaching out to her, his cost tails flying in the sweeping wind sweep of the time warp currents …. “before it’s too late ….”  he reached out with his hand for her to come with him …. what was it he said again ….?

She said it aloud to the airplane window,

“something has gone wrong with the time lines of history ….”

  but whatever could that mean ….anyway? and why in her right mind would she still be asking herself what a dream meant? It was a dream. Just a dream. Dreams don’t mean anything. 

But then the Ashbridge thing happened —isn’t that interesting? As if —as if ….she was meant to become involved in this —no! That’s silly! What a thought….how crazy she was to even imagine such a wild idea, as if! Meant to ….

And she stared into the clouds and let her mind instead think about more tranquil thoughts, like memories of Father. 

Yes, thst day when everything got better. It was a long drive in his shiny silver car and she fell asleep several hours into the journey. He had been telling her about his work but all that she understood was that he helped people and was very important and could marry people in a church; maybe that was why he was Father. 

She had not been well at first. It was hazy to remember. The bad memories would come often. The scars on her spine that would never go away. Sometimes in the middle of people talking she would —go to sleep with her eyes open. She would hear things. But could not move. 

What she remembered must about the drive to New York was his voice. It somehow made her feel that everything was going to be all right. He kept talking all the way to New York. He told her about the sermons he wrote and what they were about, he told her about the poor people in his congregation that he needed to help by changing laws in Washington and he told her about his two sons and how he was sure they would like her.

She remembered she asked him about school with trepidation and with relief his reply was unexpected,

“no—I’m not sending you to school,” and st first this fell cryptically without explanation 

After quite a long time on the drive, he had sighed,

“education of life—nothing better than travel; I’ll take you straight to history, we’ll go to Europe —and I’ll hire a private tutor for when congress is in session—you’ll like the city, I’ll show you the good spots of old New York, the old jazz joints ….”

She stared into the black and cloudy grey past the window glass and then her head got all cloudy too making her fall asleep against the glass 

Detroit again

Thanksgivings, Christmases, New Year’s Eve there in Michigan—yeah, I worked all the holidays there and twelve hour shifts those were with Christmas Eve and Christmas morning bright and early thank you. Do I know hard work? They were open every day of the year. And nobody liked to work holidays but I always got stuck with them. 

Customers were really nice to me on those days, though— and would apologize ….as they bought things which is always that strange moment of gratitude and something else on either side but always more positive unless I think about the holidays I didn’t get to be with Persephone. I missed them all. Even Chris got to be at them but I was working. He was usually unemployed but nevermind that(I have been the breadwinner for two men, isn’t that interesting?)

yeah I do deserve more don’t you think

put my feet up, go to Tahiti and not feel a pang of guilt 

more thoughts like of thanksgivings of past

I’d head out early as the sun was coming up as the store would open at 7 in the morning. Those mornings when the ice covered the sidewalks and there was no sun at all and walk past Euclid stree with the old cemetery all along the way till the corner. The winds always picked up right along thst strip. I split open my hand falling on the ice on the way one morning. That was such a cold day. 

There’s no time before you walk in. Throw your coat in the locker with your stuff. And this is the last chance to pee until seven hours from now when the relief girl arrived. Punch in on the big grey machine then out the rubber double doors past the refrigerated cases of beer and milk

Mornings were gruesome. The store manager grumpy. The pharmacist always made me feel better which ever one it was; they were the wise chiefs who stayed in the heavenly glass cage 

If there were stacks of films to do and a line all with people asking for lottery or money orders—it was a nightmare morning. In separate bunches it was ok. All st once was the worst. And the ladies waving their sales fliers at me—which is better have memorized because they have— and always out of every item on the ad. And the wall of cigarette brands which you better know quick because ten more people just got on line. All with very heavy things to put into bags for them. Whatever you do, don’t call the manager for help. 

I still remember all the customers by name. There was Jim who always got three cartons of Misty’s light even though he laughed it was a ladies brand. But he was a tall Clint Eastwood older man type; his wife was Doris who sped around the shop in her motorized wheel chair he was so proud of.

    Jim was a funny man. I’ve written about him before here. I hated him st first. He put me through the steps —military type, you know; snap too it. I dreaded him at first when I saw him walk in. Barking orders st me. I’d make sure I had the stack ready for him before he walked in because he always showed up on day one of the sales at peak hour— and guess what?—eventually he specifically went to my line because I always had his stuff ready and I became his favorite checkout girl. He’d walk up to Margie and yell at her to not leave me with a long line 

Michigan is a lot like that even now because they choose to be different and odd there. Even their driving laws are different 

Thoughts of the legend today

I need better things for myself than this

I

find I am so bored 

of games with people and their inconsistencies 

I want to be happy and people keep smearing it; they pretend to be friends but they really don’t care; they just use with no conscience and it gets boring and it leaves such an empty feeling

I want to get out of here, a change— yeah, I have to think hard about this

Assess where I’ve been 

I guess you might say that I have the total immersion kind of life adventures. That is, I mean; I do go places; I do travel; I go to a completely unknown new place each time; I go there from a long distance 

I guess how mean this is, it’s not for a week or fortnight —when I travel from one location to the next, I really get to know the new area. I stay a couple of years. I go alone each time. I know nobody each time. I go with almost no belongings too

I have been to so many weird places. 

But I was just reflecting on this year. I arrived just over two years ago which is my average as I’ve said here before.i do these journeys. It seems. And then I go. 

I looked at my date book and realized how it’s been only a year since I had to dump my car. Just one year. Weird. I mean—in the US, unless you are lucky to live near public transportation, having no car is like walking death row for the human or someone knows someone who has a car.

I’ve managed to live in a lot of American towns without a car where this again holds true and I don’t recommend it. I don’t. It’s dangerous for one thing. And it’s not fun. But I’ve done it— like in this case, I have done this for a year here where I guess I still know no one (to ignore the predators) and …. 

I don’t recommend it but I have learned a lot about this town where I am its stranger. I have learned what most people who live here couldn’t know as they drive around. I have learned the most here about Americans as I see it as the perfect microcosm to witness what’s going on in the country right now— and me? I’m just Jack Kerouac watching it through my poet’s lens 

And what.  

My mom didn’t understand why I left New York to live to Michigan years ago. “Why Michigan?” she asked me and turned the question to all her New York friends —those from the Madison Avenue life 

No, they didn’t get it. How did I go from Southampton Long Island to ….

Long Island was interesting in and of itself; also impossibly hard without a car and a million times more fun with one; especially speeding along the beach on ocean parkway and breathing in the sea air with the windows down in summer 

Traverse City will always be magical to me where I as an outsider having only just moved there (that instance with a boyfriend)gave birth without drugs and just a midwife ….was an adventure. Ann Arbor I would do again, we lived outside in Ypsilanti 

What did I think of Detroit? I was the checkout girl on 12 Mile Road at a busy general drug store where hold ups occurred but never when I was scheduled. But I knew the locals well mostly all by name and they knew mine.

What did I think of Ashland Oregon— I had a gig at the famed hippie shop there (I’m not giving them publicity, she was a witch) but only stayed (record breaking) six months, I’ve never been so bored in my life. The town is beautiful. The mountains beautiful but only until August then the landscape turns to Mars. Lithium is a street name. And a nearby place. It flows in the water through public marked fountains. Everyone and everything about it there felt spacey and surreal. 

What did I think Of Colton New York ….?of Poughkeepsie….of Henderson Maryland ….

sentences and I’d call that unanimous 

I think looking objectively on all those adventures, I’d never have gotten the gist of any of those places until I sunk myself in its walls and walked their streets through the seasons 

I’ve been looking for something you see

But it hit me that it feels this one year has been more like two or three but no —there it is; the day I was stranded in the mountains when they took that beast of a burden away. I wanted to know the locals. What is middle America really like? Thoughts like this. I did that in Henderson too. 

it’s research, I guess I’ve been at and I’m glad of all I have gathered. It’s made me more aware what I want and need and it has helped me to see how each of those places reacted differently to me as an outsider.  

*metaphor for/more existential thoughts

Platonic dialogue with myself 

If the experience of life is the evolution of the soul (that each incarnation we choose our lessons to elevate and purify our souls through knowledge gained by experience whether high or low road, elevates or drowns us through life’s tests and choices)

   than we may consider that the chosen time in which we incarnate into 

     ….is part of the soul’s evolutionary experience 

     so …. 

how much does identity factor into the importance “of being”?

to reconsider the question 

To further consider now, absorbing our cultural and timeline history as a unit and individual and how the two play together in the soul’s living body experience in a carnation …. 

    would thus shape an individual 

shape experiences and perceptions; shape outcomes and fates….

   

   but— what if one is made ignorant of their dna identity?

How important is that ….

    this one may find ethical cause to pause 

    I can tell you ….the fingerprint footprint of being of another background than was told you are 

    can be hugely influential upon how they see themself. What they see and how they are seen. In the physical mirror. How people react to more what they see than what lies are said. His those very things are part of the soul’s journey, yes …. but also …. 

pause again …. and again ….and yet again ….that Easter egg you click on again ….later after you forgot about it now …. and every time you go back and rewind back the years ….abd click again the Easter egg ….you never got to click —and then 

go back up to the attic and find that dusty mirror; drag out the trunk; pull the light and open Pandora’s old box…. let the light through the window 

Identity ….is as much part of the soul’s journey as their personal experience and their personal truth during this revolution’s evolution and to mesh together both the denial of the knowledge of a bloodline as its connection to your temporal experience is —an invisible soul ‘trauma’. I see it as. It internally pokes at the individual as freakish flaws that make one an outsider where they should be ‘at home’ —two fold as the denial of knowing where their dna identity lay would enhance personal meaning and connection to the current world around them is ….another invisible soul trauma —

that disconnection ….among society; not in synch with inclinations or interests 

but it is part of the experience of the soul —it is its own experience 

To examine then —identity …. and the meaning of a soul’s existence 

    indeed there are layers of why all of this does beg to humor the Greek chorus to listen to some of my stories— my thoughts …. my metaphors 

no, indeed— this (how does the choice to pick any cultural identity as your soul’s revolutionary mission befall the individual’s future road) should be examined and —dive deeply and our apparatus? This is the quiet stage in the back of the theatre that nobody goes to where we can try out all the costumes out of view of the critics 

*Prism Cells ….is a metaphor for ….

how much does identity factor into the importance “of being”?

WB Ashbridge & the Prism Cells continued

*(See this Story for your recap in screenshots below at end of post)

Leaving from DC is always such a nightmare; that airport was the worst of airports but the Winifred Brook Ashbridge foundation had paid for Daphne’s flight and they booked her in business class so, Daphne was allowing herself to luxuriate in the comfort of spacious seating and a few glasses of mimosa to ease the residual tension that still lingered leaving from where she was coming from RR Washington had left its slimy film upon her and the Orange medicinal helped.

For a moment a flash of the hunting lodge came before her inner visuals recalling so many miserable days feeling trapped on that barren property, her only friendly companionship was one of the several dogs who liked to follow her around, but even the dogs had all been prepared for in case of the property owner’s demise. 

What wild luck this foundation wanted her help! 

And Winifred Brook Ashbridge’s, no less!

Who says that obsessions can’t pay off? All her hours spent in chat group discussions correcting other fans about literary details of the story and the author on the website had come to their attention. That is —when the main frame motherboard for the website which also contained all of all the author’s cited publishing notes and references crashed and with it all the information. 

At first, Daphne was a little embarrassed to mention how much she herself had as far as detailed research. When she hinted that there were boxes in a temperature controlled unit that she rented just for her WBA research—well, it was at that point (though through emails still, but) they were clearly desperate to convince her they wanted to make it worth her while and prompted a phone call from them with the discussion of a salary and a rent free apartment on the foundation’s property to keep her near the work.

What they needed was to completely rebuild not just the website but, as all the years of detailed research was now lost even the foundation itself no longer had any reliable resources for referencing WB Ashbridge—and they were the definitive foundation!

How many boxes exactly? Oh dear! Well, they spared no expenses for the crates and were being flown with their own special temperature controlled shipping freight company, which was set to arrive just slightly before her own arrival. 

Had she stopped to ask herself how long this job was to last for? Had they even mentioned this? Daphne had been far too excited to stop ….to think ….that question. 

Whoops. 

Well, for now it was a gig.

And it got her out of being jobless and homeless—and it was her favorite subject so, for now, she decided to look at it as an exciting new adventure which is what Ashbridge’s books were all about; having an open mind about taking a (reasonable and well planned) chance (as the book’s wizard liked to point out before each adventure) into the unknown which always somehow wound up involving time travel in some small or big way.

Time travel. 

As though the layers of time could be traversed….

     and now ad she looked out the airplane window into the clouds, this made her think about time …. it made her think of her Tolkien dream but it also made her think about parts of her own life she wished she could travel back to. Maybe fix some things ….that she got wrong 

It made her think now about things she forgot for many many years ….like the wicked man with the polished mahogany valet where he hung up his leather belts and ….would beat her 

No, was that a dream? She had forgotten …. It was so so long ago and she was only about five ….but it was there in the dark recesses of her memories.

She leaned her head into the glass window as she stared into nothingness….and what happened next? After she left the yellow house? 

She never looked back and she never thought about that house or that wicked man with the belts or that life ever again. It was the day Father came. Nobody said he was coming. It was after the last belting and the illness that followed. Father arrived one day—but she didn’t know him as ‘Father’ before then. But he came one day and knelt down to her; he said,

“I’m taking you far away from here and that man is never going to hurt you again.”

It was the mimosa. 

She normally didn’t like to drink. It brought back memories she thought she’d long snuffed out.

But after they left she never had to think about that place or that man because everything got better then. 

Her mind went back to those happier better days at the Evans affluent home in the heart of New York City ….her mind went back there now to those beautiful memories in her childhood with Father and the day he first got her; even as it brought tears now to her eyes, she was glad of them just now.

 

the question do I miss my ex…. it is the family we were that I miss. it is as if some tragic accident took that family away and I am the widow 

Daphne & the Prism Cells

There was time to think on the flight over for Daphne; the flight made her recall so many other times she had crossed the ocean and it made her recall so many parts of her life. 

Winifred Brook Ashbridge ….had been a turning point author in her life. Often a crutch, if you will.

Through bad times ….those characters and stories held her from the great big deep abyss of ….darkness where all her fears lay 

The stories were time travel stories and she had read them too around the time she had read Lord of the Rings and often in dreams the stories mixed 

What made her think of that now? It was the dream she had had of Tolkien just the other night ….Prisms …. and layers of time 

Daphne thought of time now ….and looked out into the ocean as she remembered the time she saw the gulf stream as a child from the airplane ….the colors ….it made her remember the man ….

   ….and the day that she left the yellow house in Miami 

Who will stand beside you when your world falls apart?

mental studio

 

 

An artist’s existential crisis

I have found moments often where I lapse silently 

   internally, though …. 

           I have been reviewing life 

but not just my life—

    life ….

those trials we face …. and then do we grow? do we learn? do we just keep doing the same old dumb thing ….?

I don’t know ….do we promise to be better people only to sink right back into unchanged and still repeating blindly, foolishly walking the plank of self delusional doom 

for me I am just too tired of the same broken brick road that still goes no where 

What does anything mean? I have desperately find I wonder. And ask the darkness for just one answer 

Being here now as it is has bewildered me as to how ever any success could have come from the product those two made —what a mess; their mess, yes, alas but whatever that’s irrelevant when the product has to live it….and philosophy is where I’ve reached for any comfort. The mind where reason lives. Where I hide. Where the riddles blow smoke at the mirrors so they see what they think they see

But somewhere I matter and exist 

somewhere on some other plain —I know but here right now I have so often asked why such a futile impossible mission fell out of my fortune cookie —pushed out the hatch, there you go, have a good life!

How? Like, give me a row boat and some oars would be a good start…. 

But Life …. I feel as though everyone is so completely tuned out; programmed into their summa lulled form of pretending 

I don’t care then if that is what’s out here

I’m always reviewing it lately; the meaning of etc because the juxtaposition of news of the world and forms of popular entertainment lately are so removed —so living forms are existing now but only physically here; their minds are looped into their systems of whatever matrix they pick….but where the fuck is mine? always these neo moments witnessing the crops for the first time 

 

 

before the storms hit

 

Side Street Mystery/Best Sellers Sheets & pages

It had been a busy day at the bookshop; lately they had been getting quite a lot of traffic because of something someone said on TikTok (mystery bookshop owner’s deaths) and what with Halloween around the corner ….

“I say we go with it,” Sheila had said raising an arched brow at the sudden addition of shoppers that walked through the shop’s antique double doors all with hiking backpacks 

And this was the sort of town where strange stories are glorified 

So Sheila picked one store window and Faun another and they decorated gruesomely using horror fiction books the store conveniently always carried. H. P. Loveceaft, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker ….but they might have got carried away with the extra special effects to bring the books to life

“Surprise! Fake blood!” Sheila pulled out of her giant handbag 

So the bookstore was busy and so was the street with curious onlookers hanging around.

“We really have caused a commotion,” Sheila remarked, looking natural and beautiful as a trans Elvira as she peered out the shop window, “look— they’re taking a group selfie in front of the store with two of them faking they’re dead!”

“Oh that recent news story,” Faun rolled her eyes and felt fed up about it, “they just want to sensationalize to get views and will stoop at making up stories ….”

Sheila turned from the window knowing this was a touchy subject. What with Grant …. and suspicions surrounding him

****

And it was later back st her place— the Victorian lavender grey house with the now slightly less overgrown front garden and her place behind it —when she thought she heard someone at the door. It was the middle of the night and she was in bed having a disturbing dream. A knock. 

Or was it in her dream?

And heading down the stairs she went through to the kitchen to look out the kitchen door window. But no. No one there.

Yet she heard it again. A knocking. 

But it was coming from upstairs she now realized. Faun went back up the stairs back to her bedroom and now heard it again. 

She smiled. Sat on the edge of the bed and knocked back. 

She heard through the wall,

“are you awake?”

“Well now I am!” she said back through the wall 

And for whatever reason her phone alerted a message as a text came from Grant:

<<come over>>

<<Im half asleep>> she replied 

<<bring your own pillow>>

***

he didn’t bother to put the light on but he did move over on his bed for her 

“Took you long enough,” he said but he opened his blanket to let her under and into the warmth of his bed cave 

“How long have you been back?” Faun asked but then forgot the question because whatever she’d arrived in was adeptly removed and tossed onto the floor and at the same time his mouth everywhere, demanding, kissing her 

And not a whoof out of King Leopold 

1001 shades of violet; dreamcatcher

For the vaguest moment it seemed all rational thought had left the building. Or was it just the residual hangover? 

There was this feeling as though none of this was really real. 

Like it wasn’t really happening. Like those dreams where things happen out of sequence or in the locations make no sense. Suspend belief. Just go with it.

So it must be an elaborate dream— and those shots ….shots? hadn’t they done them? He looked so good standing there looking at her in that way, he looked different. Not like how he looked when he was a student …. 

Not a student ….what gave it away? The facial scruff ….

“Diandra ….” his expression was impossible to read but he moved closer to her but stopped himself and half laughed, “guess you’re not ready to get your things at the hotel?”

He could very well have been speaking Swahili for all she knew what he was talking about 

And he moved a bit closer still,

“maybe that’s because all your clothes are back there—haven’t we done this before?” Greg moved closer still until he had reached the bed where she was now sat up looking at him, just the vaguest modest awareness to lift the sheet across her already exposed nakedness 

But it’s a dream right ….? Like her losing her job and Imogene’s wedding ….

wait thst was ….that part was real …. And Greg? —he looked so good standing there looking at her in that way he always did on the playground when they’d meet sometimes by chance there and her still inebriated mind told herself: this was not really happening 

“How funny,” Diandra said in reply and reached for the edge of his shirt to pull him closer 

“What are you doing?” he said as he pretended to lose his balance and fell on top of her 

“I thought you’d never ….” she said undoing his trousers 

And it was the feel of him in her hands that awoke Diandra to the realization thst this was definitely not a dream 

Xxinzæe lė Gheillră~the Majique Realm

Introduction

Xxinzæe lė Gheillră~the Majique Realm, the works of Winifred Brook Ashbridge, had been the only source of sanity keeping her going these last several years while working at the commissioner’s estate. The long retired commissioner Alex Westmoreland, from by gone years. He was a native from the sleepy little farmland town of Henderson; not anctually a town really; but outside of other town-like places, Ingleside and Barclay, Maryland—on the border of Marydel (the border town between Maryland and Delaware marked by a gas station with a store inside and four roads intersection with a traffic light on the corner of the church where huge bucks liked to surprise drivers).

Alex Westmoreland, how best to look upon the now former employer? An ornery, scrappy man whom Daphne had had the ‘pleasure’ of serving as grounds keeper? And whatever other extra tasks the demented bigot demanded with barks and expletives…. Some biting angry adjectives sprang to her mind as those questions loomed 

“Now now,” Daphne said aloud to the dusty room, “do not speak ill of the dead.”

The estate was being donated to Alex Westmoreland’s Amish friends, which, in Daphne’s mind was the one endearing detail she could think of about her former employer. The only twist was, Alex Westmoreland had not bothered to leave her with any provisions should something have happened to him during her ‘indentured servitude’ to him. 

Alex Westmoreland had not planned on checking out. His hunting trip and the three day camp out had not been recommended by his doctor. 

Daphne turned back to her phone to study her favorite source of escape— the internet website dedicated to the magic world of W B Ashbridge, the late renowned author known for the famous literary sci/fi tales from the 1920’s and whose cult following was of a particular select few. There were sorcerers and mystical prophesies with complex riddles connected with cultural legends in the world of Xxinzæe lė Gheillră~ the magic Realm 

Even as this was really not a good use of her time, Daphne knew, instead, she should be using all her time on finding where she was going to live now that her employer had suddenly and unexpectedly met his death on his last hunting trip. Of course there were still details to take care of, her own relinquishing of paperwork and keys to the property’s new owners, rather awkward changing of hands as mediator between the Amish and the electrical transmitted information that needed to be relayed to them at times. But soon, even this small task would be defunct once everything was processed. 

Daphne had reached out to relatives asking if they knew anywhere she might stay while she looked for her next situation. While they were all encouraging, nobody had any useful resources. It was hard to think positive after several days of searches and stooping even to the National Craige’s List for every state and random searches for anything…. there was nothing that seemed lucrative never mind legit or safe so panic was starting to build for Daphne on ideas of where to go. 

This was why the escape to the magic realm had become her ‘go to’ as it helped her to forget her anxiety; every day she would spend hours signing onto the website and involving herself in a puzzle, an article or an ‘adventure maze’, it helped get her mind off her problems and focus her mind on other things. 

Admittedly, recently, she had been spending perhaps too much time on the site. Sometimes writing pages long comments on things posted because she often noticed errors in things that were posted. It’s not that she pretended or wanted to be an expert on W B Ashbridge, it was more that she wanted to make sure what was being posted was accurate about her personal role model heroine. She’d been a fan of the literature since she had first heard of the works as a teen, long after the author had lived, of course, but this did not keep the life of the person vibrantly alive in Daphne’s young thoughts growing up. 

Today she desperately needed the safety the feeling of visiting the site gave her, with its familiar maps and its familiar characters to explore and discuss or what morals came from the adventures to explore —anything to get her mind off of the misery of fruitless clicks on webpages to find a place to go and a means. 

But no!!!

      —oh dear! 

What’s happened?!?! 

When she reaches the website a terrible message comes up: WEBsite indefinitely down!!!!

“Oh what the …..” at which point Daphne stood up and stared at her phone, “no no no no no!!!!” 

It seemed the news was so upsetting she had to pace several times as this hits her. 

And logic does not guide her when she decided trying the site via a laptop hoping that it might give her a better reality. 

“NO!!!!” She shouts in horror at her laptop screen

An Amish voice from another room at this point is heard from below and shouting up asks if she’s ok

“Uhhh—just fine—just a mammoth spider ….” and sunk back into the chair she had just jumped out of

Without much thought, more automatically, she opened her emails but without bothering to look. She only stared vacantly at nothing out the window. Or rather she stared at a herd of deer peacefully eating grass without fear of being hunted.

Daphne stared at them a long while with this very thought and a vague sense of freedom 

Had she looked at her screen with the emails, she’d have seen an email from the Winifred Brook Ashbridge foundation…. asking her for help.

But she didn’t look at the screen and shut the laptop, her mind rebounding to anxiety over options for her circumstances. It would not be until later, after other emails piled up on top of that one and —hours of packing up dusty belongings of Alex Westmoreland before it would even occur to her to check her emails.

That would not happen until much later and late that night 

safe harbor

Existentialism it seems is the underlying obsession of my Celf but the actual secret it hides is the thread it hangs from for why it does strive and that is….the need for acceptance but only once actually understood for the whole of the Celf 

Symbols become the most reliable language but not the letters kind— more the archetypes created within the individual inner stage with the marked tabs from whence they germinated; the experiences they were born from 

No words ever say what is happening inside 

the very nature of an artist is individual 

I am stuck upon this thought. Within the context of the sense of the conflict of what that statement means. 

and broken fingers. and dyslexic words that are nonsense acrobatic symbols that dance in three dimensions off the screens and paper.

where to put thoughts. In the light? To be defined and misunderstood; to volunteer the self as target?

that is simply illogical and a terrible waste of silent years in search of ….purpose 

Can you imagine a camouflage artist? Can you imagine camouflage art? Like Magic Eye with the secret codes hidden ….?

I met a six foot seven man once who liked to paint miniatures and asked of my art— as one over a foot and a half smaller than him I paint huge mural sized art 

it is somewhat funny but I mean my point seems that I am demonstrating that my need for self expression seems to be a clear need to …. be seen —in a huge way but also only on my own terms. I can stand behind a six foot canvas and hide with no problem and whatever the mural shows is enough to tell the universe that I exist 

with broken fingers and dyslexic literacy a chasm and sound proof walls dull the voiced screams, choked with tears never shared and fast suppressed once recognized and categorized 

Nothing to see here, 

           but lift the veil and there ….

 where shall we put our worlds?—perhaps we just need a spot in some tucked away unassuming place we can imagine to be all we need to let the celves come out 

think of Middle Earth

Today I think about how it was the need of it to write of “Middle Earth” for J RR Tolkien

I dwell upon the visual landscape of his world then 

Do not mistake my silence for complacency. It is just pragmatic to not throw away energy. Throw away in such as it starts to feel like the quest for the holy grail. Or some crusaders’ lost dream. 

And here like Orlando, I step away from the maddening crowd and 

     think of Middle Earth

I think, what might have been on his mind:

       “Middle ….. somewhere safely far from here. A place not like but similar in some ways to earth. Some magical place to command. Some place to vomit out the horrors of my nightmares. Let them rage with fierce violence assuaged by some renewed hope of heroic justice and let us hope —let us hope ….together —through magic —that will deliver all back to the faith that the greater good will out for kindness not greed nor supremacy” 

With a back to World War I and facing another ….gas masks and trenches on the landscape and there germinates Orcs and Ents

ghosts

I slip into anonymous and then find it brings me to a world I never knew was there  

is it easier to find one’s voice when the audience is glad you speak in a whisper 

and listen better 

if they cannot see my face —how do I say, I’m not ok, please do not come too close to me….. don’t ask so many questions ….. don’t look at me so closely ….sometimes I wonder if I’m a zombie but here when I say I’m a freak to a faceless virtual room 

   it starts to get eerie when you wonder if the echoes are real or just the tubes in the matrix farm 

she wolf

come howl 

at me 

    don’t 

leave me lost 

come howl 

your predator call 

having said

seen but maybe 

now lost words upon  

   my

 walls 

& tell me

to you do

I 

matter

oh come howl

& say you

see

me

still

on this whirling planet 

    we spin 

and we hold on trying not to let go the grip 

as it flings us 

it flings us 

   come howl

howl at me 

and drag me back to your cave

do you see me 

changing in the distortions of life, the distortions of light, changing yet ever constant 

in the moon’s changing light

do you hear me howl ?

 

waar ben je gebleven? Net als de ridder. woorden. Ik zou jouw magie kunnen gebruiken om me weer te laten geloven. Het pantser is te veel. Waar resoneert het?

as much as I like being on my own

this isolation is killing me

Elan/ somewhere in time

It was as if time had frozen for her; Elan was so still for fear of moving to cause anymore noise to reveal what could be amiss behind the shut market stall. What felt an eternity of time was no more than half the time it takes to run to the shoreline from there. But also time froze in her mind even as it was time was still continuing in reality. 

After awhile she moved slowly, testing her limbs as she trembled. Tested her ability to soundly move well enough to disengage what was left of the dead weight upon her. By sheer will, eyes closed, she released the weight soundlessly and forced herself to move away quick, to search for the objects she had dropped during their scuffle….then to get her mind focused on what to do next. 

The sun would not be rising for awhile. She could tell by the moon. Her plan had been to change her clothes into the disguise she had now stuffed in her travel bag that had a long strap. That had been what she had first meant to do. Until the noise had awoken Gwydion. It occurred to her that now was the time to change her clothes. 

She had repaired enough of Gwydion’s trousers to fashion herself a similar kind, and once free of her long robes and the trousers secure, she slipped on one of Gwydion’s old shirts she had recently helped herself to and had altered to fit herself and on went the black overcoat robe and having watched him enough, knew how to mock the movements of a Druid in meditational prayer.

She tested herself now. She started to walk the width of the shut up market stall. But then she tripped and she let out a cry.

When she turned she saw someone come through the drape by the stall door. It let in the moon’s light and illuminated a giant burly man carrying an ax, hair like a white horse’s mane and a thick beard.

He stared at her and took in the scene

Elan had the sense she had seen him somewhere before 

“Wat is der bard? Bist ferwûne? kom! gau! foardat jo fûn wurde! Ik bin Willem!”

Elan/intro to An Alternate Story; port of Le Havre

The Market Stall

At first Elan stood there with a kind of horror looking at Gwydion ….it was an accident. But who’d believe her?

They had a struggle. He had caught her trying to escape and things got messy. They were by all his potions. It was the middle of the night. 

She had planned it; things packed; traveling light and it was a full moon with just enough clouds for cover. Only….something unexpected happened. There were sounds coming from the harbor that were loud and carried across the market stalls and things happened fast. 

Gwydion, her Druid stepfather awoke and lit a candle illuminating her plot to escape. He caught her by her long dark woad mixed with indigo blue robe. And as they struggled, she fought with the might of desperation to be free of him; if not for herself than she told herself to fight for her mother whose fate he had doomed by her own eyes. 

It was the kick. Part caught in the robe but twice as hard of a kick which sent them both flying into the table with all the glass potions and she fell forward onto him, and they fell backward with him below her, her robe caught and forcing the doomed impact to the Druid. 

And afterward…. she stared a long time wondering what to do no longer seeing the shrouded prone shadowy outline of her nemesis 

* yes, update of Druid’s name is now to be canon to the story loge (Gwydion)

Electra’s dictionary Noir/a coffee déjà vu

I suppose I must have got lost in thought staring into the vastness of the street, how fast things move— don’t they?

why must they?

Josef shocks me out of my fugue by appearing suddenly next to me. The Viking ambush again. But he holds a cup of coffee and offers it to me,

“sorry, it’s not instant, he’s dragged out the French press, but there’s honey in it, you see I remembered—and some of the almond milk I saw in there, but—no, Jörn made it for you.”

I don’t look at him right away. I feel guilty and smile and take the cup…. Folkmoot ….? I get that feeling again …. Like that time—the first time in Jörn’s kitchen; he handed me the cup and ….I felt it…. that sense of an overlay of ….lives…. Josef ….he was there —then ….that’s what ….it was that day at the barn house—I forgot I saw it then too

I shudder but manage to suppress it and sip the coffee and look up at Josef 

“We never had that conversation,” he tells me in that wise old voice which he exaggerates because he can’t resist the drama 

“Which one?” I ask him

“You have been angry at me,” he says this as if no time passed since he’d last said it

Had I forgotten? 

His eyes, when his twinkle, are not the same as Jörn’s —Josef has a more Father Christmas about his whereas Jörn’s twinkle is always —well, noir ….

“Because you pretended to like me and it was just to get me legally hitched to your son for your opera house,” I tell him this without any drama at all. I state it because this is what happened. 

I hear Jörn laugh from the coffee pot as he brings two more cups over to the table; he places one in front of Josef who has settled himself at —the head of the rectangular table. Of course. Folkmoot, I think ….

But blurt,

“Jörn, did Gerald tell you I was back?” turning to Jörn as he—presumptuously— sits beside me on the kitchen bench that parallels the full length picture window 

But now it is Josef who laughs and says,

“you think he needs a psychic to tell him you’re back when he’s an international spy?”

“I’m an ‘intelligence decipherer’ not a spy, papa —is that what you went by?” Jörn replies 

Josef laughs,

“I’m a respectable symphony conductor, that’s what it says on my tax papers….pass the socker.”

Electra’s dictionary noir/Vad är det här för sorts kaffe?

….but no I am not ready for this 

      still spinning from ….everything 

          But I don’t have the energy to fight two Vikings so, I step away and let them pass and by now even Josef knows the layout ….so we go without saying to the kitchen where I was making myself coffee 

I look at it and walk away and go to the window instead. I sit in the window seat and just stare out into the vast abyss of the city but I do hear Jörn exclaim over my coffee. I hear his indignant Swedish gasp and say,

“Vad är det här för sorts kaffe? Jag kom hit i tid, hon dricker snabbkaffe – hon har verkligen sjunkit ihop, stackars duva!”

It just sounds like a scene from Fanny and Alexander to me so I just sit there staring as I hear him rummaging around in the kitchen. I put my head into the glass and close my eyes listening to Josef and Jörn bicker 

and …. just whisper to myself, “tack så mycket….”

Electra’s dictionary Noir/ let sleeping bats lay

Electra’s dictionary Noir 

It seems as though I confuse Dream with day dream because I am sure that the light flares that stain my eyes are real and alive and glowing bats 

I sit bolt upright in bed in a sudden cold sweat staring at the walls as ….the dream image ….fades and subsides ….into shadows ….shadows with wings 

What is that? I find I wonder as I follow the winged black shadows that infest my night walls —as I feel the floors vibrate 

I get up and walk to the window that overlooks the city street from the vast distance above. The window is old with the French door arches that reach up to the ceiling. There are two sets of these that are covered in heavy mauve velvet drapery; I pull these back along with the Belgium antique lace curtain sheers 

The moving lights come from the cars and trucks but what causes the bat effect? It must be something else down there, I think, and move closer to the glass to look down. 

It is not possible to see the cars, they are dots from here and the dashes are trucks 

I open the window a crack to look out. There is a small ledge; a very narrow balcony not really meant for standing, but I can open the window enough and lean out

But the air is damp chill and now so is the bedroom …. but …. 

No I do not imagine music —I hear it and it strangely catches me for a moment as I had not expected it. And not ready for it. 

I go back to the bed 

I want to hide. From games. I just want real ….

    The shadows that move like bats mix with the music and I say to myself —not ready; not now—and maybe never 

I get up and shut the window and find my silk blindfold to shut it out

****

It is some time after eight in the morning when I hear a sound I don’t recognize 

I go from the kitchen where I am making coffee to find where the sound is coming from; I’d thought it was my phone but I don’t have a tone like what this is. I go through the lounge area and down the long hall to the entrance and slowly realize the penthouse has a doorbell! I’ve never known cause for it until this moment. 

It is still going too ….it is not a classic doorbell sound, you see, this has a techy sound amplified to sound like Tibetan percussion. I knew about the peephole in the door; again, never had much need for it as no one has access to the penthouse unless it’s someone like Illya 

I carefully lean to peek through it

“Shit!” I whisper aloud and jump back —there’s a mirror by the door and I look like I just rolled out of bed, I fix my hair and straighten my shirt and jeans

“Duvan?” I hear through the door 

Josef 

I take a deep breath and open the door 

“Josef?”

He also looks slightly like he rolled out of bed but chipper and healthy despite that in his Nordic blue bathrobe—he’s holding something in his hand which now appears to be a measuring cup 

“Urm—“ he says

“What’s going on?” I ask him

He raises the cup,

“could we borrow a cup of honey?”

“You came up to the penthouse to borrow a cup of honey?”

“Elsa is making honey cakes,” he tells me

But it is an obvious lie and I try not to laugh —and then what? 

The elevator opens and —Jörn sweeps out,

“Papa! I said to leave it! Why must you always interfere? I was giving her time!”

“And you think serenading her through a soundproof floor will conjure her passion?” Josef turns to Jörn 

soul/searching….

the original meaning of the emotional term “depression” involved the disconnection; the absence of feeling; connection to; 

so the absence of any emotional connection to …. anything 

an emptiness —anomie 

    and I realize this is what I am experiencing 

           as …. I’m searching how to navigate through this terrifying chasm 

Electra’s dictionary Noir

Electra’s dictionary Noir

What I love about New York City is how you can be among a crowd and be anonymous; you can dress outrageous and no one will notice; you can walk for endless miles and forget even that those androids buzzing by are actually humans 

The penthouse has become my fortress. It seems. I hadn’t realized until the urge and the need of it compelled me to get away from all the things that are cold and unfamiliar that too lately became my life. 

It is possible to find solitude in a New York crowd. 

It seems natural to return to Ethan Rhys Jones’ last address; never mind it is partially a museum. And even that has become familiar to me; you don’t realize until you miss something what things mean to you

I like the connection to my father; I suppose this is why I return. It removes that sense of feeling lost

I do stop to see Gerald. He has been busy—back from Tibet and his (with Kaylee) twins with them. We have tea before his client comes, so I go to the Met to look at art

I spend hours there, getting lost then in thought ….

Later….

The bath is bigger than I had remembered. I keep floating up when I fill it ….there is an knack to staying wedged if it’s not too high …. it is one of those original antique ones ….I watch the city lights move across the walls and think I hear music —until I realize it is my own mind creating it 

What do I hear? What do I play …. some theme to some mystery drama perhaps 

I get out and let the water, walk naked through to the bedroom dripping and throw myself on the bed. And again watch the city lights 

I have been doing the books for the artist, having altered my title to ‘privileged character’ —instead of that notion of bimbo and doing the website too for the penthouse’s museum. It takes up most of the morning and the replies to emails takes up the afternoon. So a long walk to Gerald’s was in order, and a good excuse to be re-inspired artistically. Of course, I made sure to stop to see Edward Burn Jones’ The Lovesong, and why I got lost in thought for hours 

And late returning in the dark

I think about that painting as I lay in bed watching the lights move across the walls…. those lights that turn into bats that fly across the room….it puts me to sleep 

Bran/Beth Studio thoughts

It has occurred to me, as often I know I have said; but then I forget…. but I desperately need my walls. Whatever the form they may take; mural or physical large work …. or even a heavy knife 

I start to open the large pre-stretched canvases that are sealed in protective wrappings and for hours I stare at them. I am thinking. About so much. And I do not have words for my thoughts lately. 

I feel like a bumper car stuck in a corner at the fair. I think about this. And the still life’s or scenes in my head to paint as I can see them. And even as I see them. Watch them. My inner eye is turned elsewhere 

So I don’t even see the blank canvases anymore. 

I sit on the floor of this fresh new art studio he has built just for me. I think. And wonder

 ….

So many things form your mind. Some things you accept but others you do not. 

What am I doing here? I wonder ….to find out our ‘WhatIf’ story after? ….we closed that book so long ago

Do I really matter to him? I wonder. Actually matter

Notes of a Notebook

 

inset is my favorite Rossetti drawing, torn off a psychology book that wasn’t as good as its cover. This notebook was given to me by the office staff manager st “Pearle(Art Supplies” in East Meadow, NY), the Waterhouse to the left and my mangas have been stuck on there for years—since I took it home; and it has traveled everywhere with me, starting with NY, then MI, Oregon, MD and back to NY….and I just can’t stop staring at the stars 

*Another personal note on PRB

So upon considering why I had first been pulled under the poetry of the PreRaphaelites, the tragic loss I’d suffered, I could never fully embrace Dante Gabriel Rossetti —even as he was the driving force of the brotherhood I was disturbed by his sense of ethics. Especially as it felt to me hypocritical of what he claimed for their vision as artists, but deep down —a poet who digs up his wife’s grave to retrieve his poetry which he claimed he wrote for her….coupled with stealing William Morris’ wife around this time just is not garden variety immorality but something near a supreme sense of self importance and it comes across in his art 

while I love his use of red and his earliest drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, I find his inability to get his perspective right (Ecce Ancilla Domini to name one instance) gives me motion sickness —but his peer John Everett Millais was a most brilliant member; his work has always been among my favorites, especially ‘the Order of Release’ which I had framed and always hung everywhere I lived but got lost somewhere in the ruins I long left

Branded; howl at the moon

….and so, it is a long time that I stare at the wall. I sit down on the floor and look up 

 and I think about his words how does he do this to me? just when I think ….no, I was just dreaming…. he proves himself ….and another one of his—some kind of mind blower moments and, me, like a moth to a flame …. like a magnetic pull to him his strange innate proclivities are at the exact polar place of all mine that in the middle it is like some exact balance 

I almost fall off the earth and it seems there is …. I stare at the wall and think I think about all the paintings he has put there…. and his quiet …. silent …. way ….of reading me —memorizing my in between the lines that I only attest to as poetry but still my utmost ethically true ….but there he follows ….behind the doorways and I guess if it is worth the tedious but intended misdirections to him then I am more than glad to entertain whatever ideas he has in mind 

So I sit on the floor and think— they are all elan …. the same story…. I look at the celves and think about the fossil I found that day After awhile I get up