Today is Monday
The sunshine feels good on my skin.
It is picturesque – driving along with the music playing like a soundtrack, the sun warming my face and making me almost pretty. It feels like a scene from a movie.
I start to wonder about the women in the movies. The beautiful, simple characters, the glamorous, the thin, the artistic and the troubled ones. They are each unique and interesting – compelling people with passion and purpose.
They are intense and desirable, sometimes detestable and jaded.
I wonder if they ever do their dishes. I wonder who cleans their showers and whether they wake with sleep collecting around their eyes. I wonder if they ever wake with bad breath, undies caught up in their crotch, saliva on their pillow. I wonder if they are ever so ordinary.
I never feel compelling – I never feel complete enough as a person to warrant being a movie character. Most of me feels buried under a layer of plain. I am another average, buying milk – whose husband said i look ‘fine.’
Somewhere deep in me, i think I am full of art, of images, music, poetry and beauty. But I have no talent or technique to bring it to the surface – and less time or means to gain either. I am going from dishes to washing, from not wanting to get up in the morning – to not eager to meet M in bed. Anything unique and precious is sinking further from my grasp and I wake every day more and more exhausted. Too tired to dive down to get it.
I have desires – but never great enough to invade those around me, I have no unique passion, style or personality.
I see the mannequins dressed up in the shops and they seem to wear my style better than I do. Hmm – how do I do it so wrong? Why do I walk around everyday feeling like I should have a disclaimer “this isn’t an accurate representation of all of me?”
It is picturesque – driving along with the music playing like a soundtrack, the sun warming my face and making me almost pretty. It feels like a scene from a movie.
I start to wonder about the women in the movies. The beautiful, simple characters, the glamorous, the thin, the artistic and the troubled ones. They are each unique and interesting – compelling people with passion and purpose.
They are intense and desirable, sometimes detestable and jaded.
I wonder if they ever do their dishes. I wonder who cleans their showers and whether they wake with sleep collecting around their eyes. I wonder if they ever wake with bad breath, undies caught up in their crotch, saliva on their pillow. I wonder if they are ever so ordinary.
I never feel compelling – I never feel complete enough as a person to warrant being a movie character. Most of me feels buried under a layer of plain. I am another average, buying milk – whose husband said i look ‘fine.’
Somewhere deep in me, i think I am full of art, of images, music, poetry and beauty. But I have no talent or technique to bring it to the surface – and less time or means to gain either. I am going from dishes to washing, from not wanting to get up in the morning – to not eager to meet M in bed. Anything unique and precious is sinking further from my grasp and I wake every day more and more exhausted. Too tired to dive down to get it.
I have desires – but never great enough to invade those around me, I have no unique passion, style or personality.
I see the mannequins dressed up in the shops and they seem to wear my style better than I do. Hmm – how do I do it so wrong? Why do I walk around everyday feeling like I should have a disclaimer “this isn’t an accurate representation of all of me?”
I wonder why those close to me don’t notice the swirl of confusion I feel when I face the mirror. Is that me? It doesn’t feel like me – I shut my eyes and imagine her dissolving into my self-portrait. Who are you – eyes and lips, cheekbones and hair? Where are you hiding all the beauty? How do I get you to fade away?
I want to express something – I want to create and show and master.
So we get home, unload the children into the backyard. They rush off to create and imagine. I feel a pang of jealousy, i want to create. I look around the house and the materials are slim. I don’t have any knowledge of even where to begin. Frustration drives me outside to kick at sticks, to lust over the beauty of trees and flowers, birds and skies.
Why can’t I create anything? I have so many creations in my mind that are imprisoned by the ineptitude of my hands.
If I close my eyes I see a sculpture.
It’s a tiny bird. I am a small tiny bird – a bluebird or a wren? Somehow I always assumed I would red though? Hmmmm. Oh well. A wren. I am a wren.
Each feather is a photo of me – small and slightly warped. They are photos that i dont like, all the photos other people take, and keep. That i look at and think
wow....is that what i am walking around looking like? Is that what people see when they meet me?
The bird is in a cage – but the cage is a head. My head – or M’s head?
The cage is made from torn sheets of books. Novels. Chapters of romance.
The Mr Darcy’s, Rhett Butlers, Henrey DeTambles, Mr Knightlys.
Their words trap the little bird. Words that were written by authors, adopted by readers, impressed upon daughters, passionately encouraged by friends and promised to brides. Words based on characters.
Characters much more compelling than me.
Who are loved with greater reality.
Actually yes...I think the cage is my head.
This is a familiar prison.
I want to express something – I want to create and show and master.
So we get home, unload the children into the backyard. They rush off to create and imagine. I feel a pang of jealousy, i want to create. I look around the house and the materials are slim. I don’t have any knowledge of even where to begin. Frustration drives me outside to kick at sticks, to lust over the beauty of trees and flowers, birds and skies.
Why can’t I create anything? I have so many creations in my mind that are imprisoned by the ineptitude of my hands.
If I close my eyes I see a sculpture.
It’s a tiny bird. I am a small tiny bird – a bluebird or a wren? Somehow I always assumed I would red though? Hmmmm. Oh well. A wren. I am a wren.
Each feather is a photo of me – small and slightly warped. They are photos that i dont like, all the photos other people take, and keep. That i look at and think
wow....is that what i am walking around looking like? Is that what people see when they meet me?
The bird is in a cage – but the cage is a head. My head – or M’s head?
The cage is made from torn sheets of books. Novels. Chapters of romance.
The Mr Darcy’s, Rhett Butlers, Henrey DeTambles, Mr Knightlys.
Their words trap the little bird. Words that were written by authors, adopted by readers, impressed upon daughters, passionately encouraged by friends and promised to brides. Words based on characters.
Characters much more compelling than me.
Who are loved with greater reality.
Actually yes...I think the cage is my head.
This is a familiar prison.
