Wednesday, April 8, 2015

my words


The words of others
have been far too distracting.
I cant right my own.

..............


Overwhelmed. Its a word I would like to talk about. That, and satiate--but only because it is one of my favorite words. Satiate, voracious, ephemeral, stoic--because I just learned how to pronounce it--tangible, Coeur--"heart" in French, except the e and the u are written all squished about against eachother; I don't like the word squished--and precocious. I adore precocious! And adore; adore is a lovely little word. I digress....which is yet another word I like to use.

Overwhelmed. That last paragraph is a testimony to how scattered my mind is. So is the list of unedited bits of writing I have yet to post, and wont, because the thought of editing them is overwhelming. I am, just now, reminded of the particularly stressful and tired time in my life that one morning I turned on the coffee machine without putting the pot underneath and took a shower. I came back to a percolated mess--percolate; another favorite--and rather than get upset or even clean it up, I simply turned around and went right back to bed; rather than clean up my over-caffeinated messy bits of writing, I press save instead of publish and spend some time in a forward fold.

If you are reading this, then, it is because I am trying to deal with my overwhelmedness--not a word at all, but you get it. You see, this is where I process all that is going on in my head and Coeur, and try to make it into something tangible that people might empathize with. Something more than ephemeral, not at all stoic, that could satiate the most voracious of word appetites (hmmm, couldn't quite squish precocious in there...). As I explained to a friend earlier this morning, words are what I use to encapsulate--what a word!-- what I am thinking/feeling/learning/trying to understand about the world through my head and heart. Basically, writing is my way of sorting out what I believe to be true, and my voice to express it.

And that's where the overwhelmed bit occurs.

I just spent the last two weeks all up in my head. Everything that is up there is at once terrifying and magical, and everything that was making me ache was in fact joyful; everything that made me want so so badly to cry was so so beautiful. These dichotomies existed because as a dear friend's young daughter once said

"you can imagination anything."
 
 
and that is all that anything is: our interpretations--what we make something out to be. And while manipulating words to create stories out of thoughts can be delightful, when we forget that they are just stories, we get stuck in trying to sort through what is true and what is not. But all of it is both.

Time and circumstance change the truth behind things. We can only do our best to feel something in a moment and then let the world hear it. In the form of music or art or simply telling someone, including yourself how you feel without the use of a delete key; without being able to choose between save or publish.
 
The only way we can feel the truth of our stories is to be in the immediacy of our reactions to them. We cannot save our emotions for later. They show up in the most cunning of ways; the inexplicable dramatic outburst, the fatigue, the clumsiness, the dis-ease in the body. The inability to make a decision could perhaps simply be because you do not want to have to choose. The inability to explain what you are feeling could be because nothing you feel needs an explanation. The inability to make sense of your thoughts could simply be because they don't make any sense. That's allowed. Feeling overwhelmed is allowed.
 
Overwhelmed is not a word that I like. I don't even know what "whelmed" means to know if I am over or under it*. I do know that to use it means to admit that you cannot handle something; that you are not in control. That something, whether it is a thought or action or the permeating--mmm, love permeate--energy of someone near you is just too much. Our stories can be overwhelming when we are not allowing them to pertain to what is happening presently, but instead connect them to ideals, to a person we have been or whom we want to be. What is really happening is we are getting lost in all that is possible...which is actually quite a beautiful thing to be overwhelmed by.
 
So I am writing to tell you something that I have been thinking/learning/feeling/taking a bit of a guess at: feeling overwhelmed correlates with our perspective. We see a puddle of enough coffee for eight people and think of all the towels it will take to sop it up, the time, the waste, our lack of caffeine induced energy, how all we want is a damn moment to recalibrate with a cup and some cornflakes, we notice the spill as an indication of our lack of self care, our mindlessness--and it is fucking overwhelming. Is it though? Or is it an opportunity to change how we see the world in one moment that is as significant as it is insignificant--as over as it is under-whelming. Most things are not something that "happened to you" nor are they something you "need". Moments do not need to be dealt with, edited, made perfect for publication. They are simply reminders that you are alive within it: everything is an opportunity to simply feel.

So feel overwhelmed.http://iconosquare.com/viewer.php#/detail/958152880865946598_243715521 I do. And it feels good.

 
..............




Thank you for being a part of this creative process; of getting to that good feeling.
 
Only love.


Also, these are some of the other words that have been distracting me from my own lately.
AW quote via MC
thanks J
 
 
 
 
 
*Well, I do now, because in writing that I realized that I should know it, so I looked it up. Whelmed means to come up with a force, like a gust of wind or an ocean wave smacking at a boat or a surge of joy; over whelmed, then, would surpass that. Though I should note that, interestingly, whelmed can be to be engulfed or submerged; so at once your forceful comeuppance and plunge you deep into your feelings so that you feel trapped. Ooh lala. 

    



 
 

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