Wuffis; Bran & Beth/starting to break the ice

“That dog missing an eye or that cat missing an ear, I always felt I’d be better off giving an animal like that a home,” Bran says to me now when he finds me with ‘Wuffis’ the said dog with, while not a missing eye but a blind eye. 

He has become my friend unexpectedly as he settled himself among my shoes. He is a mutt but so cute! He is brown with floppy ears; a mix of some kind of terrier and he’s playful!

“When did you get him?” I ask 

“When I knew you were coming,” Bran says now and looks around the newly constructed bedroom where I have been hanging my dresses and folding sweaters in drawers. “How do you like it?”

I look up at him as I’m petting Wuffis—he is nuzzling my hand 

“Him?”

Bran smiles and then shakes his head,

“I mean…. here?”

But you know, I haven’t let myself think about that. I just want to take everything in; the newness of that I’m really here with him after everything…after so much that —wow it takes so much to absorb but happy —I feel happy with him only I just got here and it is tooo soon to say

I say instead,

“To be here with you knowing that — you are the kind of man who would even say that about a dog or a cat ….the rest almost doesn’t matter,” but then my stomach growled 

“Oh—that’s what I meant to tell you—I’m taking you out for dinner— dress up!”

Notes of a Celf’s journey

notes today….

There is something about being around water around a full moon for me. Especially if there are waves. It is something about the rhythm, the four elements, and that ….thing about myself that I guess some might have accused me of being a witch, but I don’t know what it is or why I have it only that I learned long ago that it was best to accept it and ….keep it on the down low. I’ve worn the moon stone all year and whatever fragmented part of my inner eye that was reaped in these last few years has found the spiritual glue to mend that part within. That part. 

So to mention. Something cryptic I still don’t get. In a passing moment before, I got one of my visions. But it is confusing

I sense that I’ve been pulled from the habit of meditations because —from ….where I was last. You know, you don’t always know the extent of your own inner wounds until you’re faced with the issues they give you. I forgot just how to let my body muscles relax. How to go limp. I was always listening to hear my name shouted and for two years I slept about three hours a night. I know how that messes the mind— so, lately, the meditations have returned. On their own. So…. what does this vision mean thst I got —on one level it was to heal but there was something else. Having to do with either saving someone, or no…. it had to do with elevation of —something to do with a soul’s journey. Only if I’m to heal, what is this to do with saving someone else when I’ve been doing this most of my life it seems. My mother was one. 

The strange thing is, I don’t sense I need to search for it, that it’s a work I’m somehow already involved in, so maybe it will appear; person or event but mostly I feel me returned almost to another me but without erasing the difficulties. Maybe they fade ….when you get enough time watching the waves during full moons….its funny, people lately are so drawn to me, I think it is this coming back

An Edward Hopper Mordor

I don’t know why, what it is, there is just something about this that always stops me— is it the industrial realism? it’s bald, raw simplicity? —and yet, it is the vines that always draws me here; I like how well the shapes of the leaves look like hearts crawling up cold walls like arms of embrace that colors with its photosynthesis the lifeless stony-ness under its complimentary shade to soften the stark edges away ….the corrupt twin tanks become decorative like Grecian vases and as I sink into my quiet artistic shyness thinking I disappear among the streets behind the length of hair —someone calls out to me, “I love your hair! It’s so pretty!” And realize, the longer it grows the more I stand out….but I say thank you. And think more about the industrial ….feeling ….seeing Thackary on the shelf when I was searching for ….and bumping into my name everywhere next to ….the outside me —the inside me ….only some ever get past or let ….into ….This wall is my great muse —it may symbolize more than just one of my many walls but joint —or an opening to A Way to Escape Our False World
 

thru ev’ry beating of events and every season

I find on my way

still there  ….

 

the burden of an eternal sentence of regret i do not want…. Beethoven —you understand 

   

awkward not awkward Chapter 14 Bran and Beth

 

Chapter 14

 

For a moment he stands there between myself and the heap of my baggage and it isn’t awkward, it isn’t like that. It is something else. And I look inside there in search of …that familiar thing –that thing, you know, that would tell me…tells me within the moss what I …

“I haven’t forgotten about your other project,” he says instead of what we both know he was really thinking

And what we both are really thinking. I guess it may be the years; how many have gone by …too many to wish to blow any moment on something stupid or to presume some notion that –some notion that… and here I just get stuck

“my other project,” I say repeating his words

“The …about the family history you are tracing,” he hesitates

“It’s …it’s for a story I’m working on but actually, it is about another area even though the family name is Welsh somehow …it was connected to an area where the Vikings invaded, there was a family and a theory from my dream about a man from the village,” but I babble.

I babble for normalcy. To take the pressure off of our more pressing present

Only now I fear I trivialize the present by even saying this now and it confuses me as to what to do or say but mostly because of his eyes; the seaweed that wraps around and pulls, and wraps you inside its hypnotic sappy embrace of its fire-kiln, brilliant glaze.

I say,

“um.”

He looks silently at me reading my eyes. He slowly smiles,

“a man?”

I look away,

“it was…” I laugh feeling stupid as I have to tell him the rest now, “something that old psychic told me. Before the boat…. You know the life about –”

“The one from your painting, I know, and forgive me if I don’t want to make silk screens of your vampire whatever the fuck he is because—”

I reach for his hand without planning to. It was just the instinct to --and the impulse took over. And my hand melts within his large one making me aware of how much bigger his is. But his hand is warm and familiar as it closes around mine

“Anyway, it has lead me to a new story that takes place sort of connected to the industrial revolution, so it is exciting that the paint pigment comes from an old coal mine. It feels like a sign. I think the two projects can work together as I will be getting more ideas but I may want to explore other areas closer to say—where the history calls… so it’s cool, right? Win win, I do what you want for your business and I can work on my thing at the same time.”

“Would you like to see your studio?” he still holds my hand and smiles as he begins to pull me towards the hallway that leads to all the doors.

And so I let him. I like the feel of his hand on mine. Around it. It fits so well in his. And as he leads the way down the hall I do not ask myself anything about what anything means, I go blind as one about to jump

 

It is a studio. A very large and very functioning studio. He stands in the doorway and with a shake of his head urges me to walk in.

And as I walk around, I see the perfection of the layout. The area for screen printing; the area for paint mixing, deep sinks and counters. Several long work tables and sectioned cabinets for different mediums.

 

Once I have inspected everything he walks in now and goes to a door I had not noticed. It is white like the walls of the room. But he stands outside it and just opens the door by pulling the handle and uses his head to suggest I go in.

It confuses me when I go inside because it is a private apartment. Fully finished and fully furnished with a kitchen, a dining room that lets out to the back courtyard, a bedroom and private bathroom. But nothing has been used.

I feel confused and look at him,

“I don’t understand…”

He glances behind where we stand to suggest the older part of the house,

“to get the boys used to… things… and for us as well. I thought –you might enjoy a new space for us to work in together on those long project nights…” and only now does he move close and stand near enough and long enough—

 

 Or so I thought until a very loud voice shouts something I don’t understand with a great deal of vehemence

 

“Ioan,” Bran looks at me regretfully, “that’s his animal starved boy cry, I’ll bring your bags and get him sorted,”

 

he starts to go but –something surprising happens without warning; he kisses me fast on the mouth …unexpected as I realize he stops himself stunned in mid kiss and looks at me,

“I didn’t mean to assume, sor—"

But I kiss him back before he says more and I suppose it would have lasted longer if another bellow had not then occurred