I Am Free To Write Complete Trash

An Invitation

What I am missing is writing for me. Bring my body in and stop trying to say fancy words (the book said). You wore navy blue socks. My eyes are dry and red all the time, and my hair is falling out. It gathered in the pools of sweat below your collarbones, and I tried to pull it out. But it was depressing. At least I have enough to spare right now but am considering getting one of those pellet inserts under my skin to regulate whatever havoc has been unleashed in slow drip form from an underactive thyroid. I should stop diagnosing myself. Perimenopause though. I know I’ve got that disease. 

Maybe I should do more throat lock poses in yoga or just on the floor of my apartment. Manage my thyroid. Bring your body into it she said. “Writing Down The Bones.” It made me cry. There’s enough wisdom there to sail a hundred fleets. The article I wrote for the publication isn’t that great. I’m obsessed with a lot of things. The cave between my legs still aches of you. I like the way it feels. It makes me come alive. I'd forgotten for so many years that it was there, or mattered. That it could be used for good. I still struggle with the evil of it. Is it ok to date two guys at once? If I’m not sleeping with one yet but thinking about it. Is it creeping in like an obsession - like a drug or am i keeping them right-sized in proportion to my life? It’s hard to keep everything I’m obsessed with, everything I want my life to be filled with in motion all the time. Like they each have seasons I have to honor and know. I can’t be obsessed with sex every minute of the day; there’s too much work to do, and plus, I’m a mom. I want to make art for myself, but well, that flew out the window at least for now. I want to learn to cook, but that never was - that would be like starting from scratch, and I don't have the strength. I’m obsessed with being sober, and that seems to be taking precedence and seems to be working for good right now. I want to put all that smut into a pile and make it something. So some of these are obsessions, and some are to-do’s or wants and desires. Not everything has to be done now, but I feel if I don’t make time for myself, maybe in the mornings like I used to - to write magical realism essays or what’s going on every day and get my creative juices out, nothing else will come. I hate this thing I’m writing now; what a fantastic mess. Flaming Lips with all your power. Maybe I learn to write without blocking. Without saying no. Just write what it’s like to have a brain wired crooked. No fancy words, just what jumps out. 

Maybe it’s ok to publish terrible writing. I could call it something like - I am free to write complete trash and it could be an invitation for people to know they are good writers after seeing what I’m blowing into the wind: torn paper from a 12th-story window. 12 is close to 13, and I should have said 13th story because yesterday was Friday the 13th and India was born on a Friday the 13th and I went for a walk and took my teevas off and patted the dry dirt with my Amazonian feet - that have never made sense speaking of proportion. The footbinders of middle China would have had a field day with my ham hocks. I can’t imagine my feet as more like hooves. I should be more thankful for them. More surface area to draw up earth energy. Earth energy. Root chakra: I’ve got to write my slides for next week. You will. You just had to get through this first. What if it doesn’t have to be perfect? What if I just published this like it is? Will my face be too swollen today since I ate three meals yesterday? Will I look bad in pictures? I wish I didn’t think about these things anymore. I should have graduated long ago from beauty school or not giving a shit about beauty school. But it’s still there because old habits and well-worn neuro circuits. It’s just a matter of science. The chemicals just want to expend the least amount of energy solving a problem like feeling triggered and they want to go the same way they’ve gone forever - which is pathologically fucked but also understandable. Just beasts doing their animal dance. 

But I don’t stop thinking about sex still. It’s not the act of it, it's how it feels on my skin. Like electricity that zaps me awake for days after. The way his fingers grazed my back and made the sound of my voice uncoil in needy whispers-  which I didn’t realize my back was an actual sex organ but when his index traced a circle onto my i dont’ know which shoulder i came alive like an animal. It was primal. An ancient knowing - maybe I had been here before. Maybe as a wolf before I evolved into an ape somehow which I need to look up or read a book on because I don’t understand and should have paid attention more. We evolved from fish? So how come geese get to look like brachiosaurus’. Whats the plural on that. But after the dinosaurs were all extinct, was it sea amoeba that started pushing out antennae and eventually grew dorsal fins and walked out onto the beaches and started climbing trees and growing hair and the fins went but the dorso vagal nerve stayed back there and now controls our lives and nestles into our subtle energetic systems which I’m discovering might be the key to helping moms who want to get sober. What the ACTUAL FUCK. But if anyone can explain the origin of the species. Ohhhhh wait that’s the book I need to read. Ok so I think this writing does a few things. First it has cleared a path to do my actual work today and second it has given a behind-the-scenes view of how my brain works, which I don’t think is unique to me. I know so many other women whose brains work like this. But maybe are not quite so spasmodic. I start too many sentences with conjunctions gotta work on that. It’s just the way I talk though, so maybe it's a little ok to write that way. 

Anyways the book said bring your body to the table. And I have. It’s messed up but real. 

Love Rosie