Behind the mask

"Behind every mask there is a face,
and behind that a story."

-- Marty Rubin

Self portrait 9-25-13

"I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm --
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

"We were not meant to mask ourselves before our fellow-beings, 

but to be, through our human forms, 

true and clear utterances of the spirit within."

-- Lucy Larcom

"Because the mask is your face,

the face is a mask ..."

-- Faith Ringgold

Across the great divide

"Man is not truly one, but truly two."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Self portrait 8-24-13

"I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; 

I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, 

even if I could rightly be said to be either, 

it was only because I was radically both."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"The red man divided mind into two parts, 

the spiritual mind and the physical mind."

-- Charles Eastman

Laid to rest

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,

Know you why you cannot rest?

'Tis that every mother's son

Travails with a skeleton."

-- A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

Self portrait 7-30-13

"The longest way must have its close --

the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning."

-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Self portrait (2) 7-30-13

"Might there come a time

When we stand over a grave

And mourn ourselves?

Mourn the past, a previous life?

Shall we weep for the passing of time?

Shall we grieve for unfulfilled dreams?

In my naivety; in my belief

In immortal youth, 

I sleep walk through life.

Someone ... wake me up.

Please.

Wake me up.” 

-- Samantha Young, Slumber

Today could potentially be kind of a big deal.

Today I am driving to a city about an hour and a half away, to a hospital with a sleep disorders center, to meet with a specialist who deals with chronic insomnia, to maybe, possibly, lay my sleep troubles to rest.

I am cautiously, tentatively optimistic.

Today could be the start of something good. 

It could be a step towards living again, towards reclaiming my life, which feels like it has been circling the drain for months -- dying a slow death, too exhausted and too wasted from sleep deprivation to do much else.

I've read and learned enough  about insomnia to understand that a permanent, non-pharmaceutical solution won't be easy and will probably involve a lot of hard work and effort. 

I'm prepared for that. 

The bright, hopeful side of me is, anyway.

I think.

   

I am also realistically, skeptically wary.

Today could big a big flop.

The specialist could tell me that a permanent, non-pharmaceutical solution is an impossible dream as she hands over a prescription and laughs like a cartoon villain. Bwaaa haaa haaa!

The specialist could simply say "You're fucked."

I'm prepared for that, too.

The darker, cynical, jaded side of me is, anyway.

Either way, I have to at least try.

And I will. Try.

Because I want insomnia to be something I once had. 

I want it to be a memory.

A bad dream that I was forced to stay awake for.

A visitor that came and way, way way overstayed its welcome, but ultimately left.

I want it dead.

A ghost.

A skeleton.

I want it, and me, to rest in peace.

Faking it for real

 

“Since you can't touch me, you made something that could, didn't you?"

-- Jessica Verday, The Haunted 

 

Self portrait 7-27-13

Gus:  Pretend that she's real? 

        I'm just not gonna do it.

Dagmar:     She is real. 

-- Lars and the Real Girl

 “To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other 

as the real master's painting and a forgery.”

 

-- Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

 

Twisted sister

"The face and body may be perfect,

but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters,

may not the same process produce a malformed soul?"

-- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Self portrait 7-22-13

"Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty;

we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection

can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind."

-- Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas

Self portrait (2) 7-22-13

"The more fucked up you are, the more I like you.

As long as you've managed to hold onto your identity through all the shit,

then it won't matter how twisted you are. 

I will love you more for it."

-- Ashly Lorenzana

Self portrait (3) 7-22-13

"The truth is not distorted here, but rather a distortion is used to get at the truth."

-- Flannery O'Connor

Eye-eye-eye eye of the Zombie!

"It's all fun and games 'till someone loses and eye,

then it's just fun you can't see."

-- James Hetfield

Zombie self portrait 7-18-13

 "The eye altering, alters all."

-- William Blake

 

Zombie self portrait (2) 7-18-13

"I look very different on camera compared with how I do in real life.

On camera, I look my best when everything is enhanced,

especially my eyes."

-- Martine McCutcheon

Zombie self-portrait (3) 7-18-13

 "I have scary eyes ...

I remember coming home from school and asking my mum

if I could get an eye transplant, 

and of course she declined."

-- Tim Ferriss

Hoo! Oooooh!

Shadows on the mountain, and the night begins to fall;
Gather up the children, 'fore the darkness takes us all.
Tribe has come together, standin' naked against the night;
Twenty feet from the fire, the evil waits with zombie eyes.

Eye-eye-eye eye of the Zombie!
Eye-eye-eye eye of the Zombie!

-- John Fogerty,  "Eye of the Zombie"

OK, OK.

I promise.

Not every post and portrait is going to be about my stupid twitchy eye.

But it is my blog, so I'm afraid you'll have to indulge me for at least a little bit while I deal with it.

Because if you haven't already noticed by now, that's how I cope. It's how I deal with stuff. By making pictures of it.

A couple people have told me that, from the outside, my eye twitch isn't that noticeable.

I don't believe them.

Because from the inside, it feels like it's flapping and flopping all over my face like a bloody, dangling zombie eyeball. Well, maybe it's not that bad, but I'm exercising my artistic license here to make a point.

Did I mention that it's my blog?

Also, can I just say that when it's too hot to be outside, you might want to try making yourself up like a zombie!
It's a fun indoor Summertime activity the whole family can enjoy.
Although there is something even more fun about making yourself up like a zombie when the whole family is off working, or watching TV, or drinking iced tea, or whatever families do when it's too hot to be outside.
.
Because then you have a fun little zombie secret to keep in your pocket all day. 

The icing on the face

 “They laugh at me because I'm different; 

I laugh at them because they're all the same.”

-- Kurt Cobain

Self portrait  7-14-13

 “Don't dare to be different, dare to be yourself -- 

if that doesn't make you different then something is wrong.”

-- Laura Baker

"What you're doing by being yourself is you're keeping it real, 

and you're being really brave.” 

-- Adam Lambert

It's my birthday.
It's also Bastille Day, the French National Day of independence.

So, Vive la France!

I like it that I was born on a day of uprising and rebellion, even though I'm not much of a protester or a demonstrator.

I'm not planning to storm any fortresses any time soon.
I probably won't break down many doors in my lifetime.
It's unlikely that I'll ever free anybody from any kind of oppression. 

I'm a quieter kind of rebel.

Mostly I'm just hoping to someday break down my own walls.
Mostly I'm just trying to free myself.
If, while doing that, I can help somebody else feel a little bit freer, that's just a bonus.

It's the icing on the face.

Freak show

“We’re freaks, that’s all ... 

We’re the tattooed lady, 

and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, 

the rest of our lives, 

until everybody else is tattooed, too.”

-- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey 

Self portrait 7-11-13

 “I was always an unusual girl.”

-- Lana Del Rey

“Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. 

If you have a single-minded need for something, 

let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected.”

-- Chuck Jones

“All forms of madness, bizarre habits, 

awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, 

are justified in the person who creates good art.”

-- Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

I may not be the bearded lady.

I may not have a conjoined twin dangling from my chest.

I don't have the face of a wolf, or an elephant, or a bat.

I am not missing, nor do I have any extra, body parts.

I am neither unusually large nor unusually small.

I don't swallow swords or eat fire.

I am not "half this" and "half that."

My "deformity," my "biological rarity," is insomnia. Chronic sleeplessness is the thing that makes me feel like a total freak of nature. Insomnia is the thing that has shunted me off the bright, happy midway of life and into the murky shadows of the side-show tent.

It may sound like I am exaggerating, but I don't think so.

Lying awake all night long, night after night, alone, physically and emotionally and psychologically craving sleep that evades and eludes, nerves jumping, followed by days where I am useless, strung out and rattled from the exertion of exhaustion, when all I want is to semi-regularly experience a basic, biological, natural, normal human function ...

Yeah. 

I should sell tickets. 

Step right up! Step right up! 

Maybe a few strangers gawking at me through the tent flap would lessen the loneliness. 

At least there'd be witnesses to my fabled sleepless reality -- people who could confirm, awestruck with jaws on the ground, "She was awake, the whole night!" because they'd seen it with their own eyes. 

At least I'd be earning a living from the very thing that, right now, seems like a midway pick-pocket intent on stealing my life right out of my hands.

For now, I guess the best I can do about it is to make art out of it, hence today's face.

I'd keep company with the other side-show freaks, but they're sleeping.

Hold on

"I like to use my hands and make things ...

It might seem pretty stupid or  pointless but that doesn't matter ...

Some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that --

out of a raw need for activity."

-- Bruce Nauman

Self portrait in polymer clay 7-7-13

“I don't want to be the one who says life is beautiful.
I want to be the one who feels it.”

-- Marty Rubin

Shiny happy Jesus

  "Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple -- to be happy. 

Maybe it's this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. 

Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get -- 

to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. 

Instead we just keep smiling -- trying to be the happy people we wish we were."

-- Meredith, Grey's Anatomy  

("Shiny Happy People," Season 6, episode 2)

Crucifix with a stick-on smiley face 7-6-13

 

"That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don't know if I can do it

Oh no I've said too much

I haven't said enough."

-- R.E.M., "Losing My Religion"

Turn, turn, turn

“Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope 

-- a slight change, and all patterns alter.” 

-- Sharon Salzberg 

Kaleidoscope self portrait 7-5-13

"Our days are a kaleidoscope.

Every instant a change takes place.

New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort."

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Kaleidoscope self portrait (2) 7-5-13

“There are patterns which emerge in one's life, 

circling and returning anew, 

an endless variation of a theme.” 

-- Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen

Kaleidoscope self portrait (3) 7-5-13

“Perhaps we can recognize our way out of patterns 

rather than repeating our way out of them.” 

--Patti Digh, Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up,

Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally

My paternal grandparents didn't have many toys for me to play with.

What they had was a little collection of vintage toys leftover from my father's 1940s childhood. 

The toys lived on a bookshelf behind my grandfather's recliner: a barrel of monkeys, a ViewMaster, a floppy cloth clown that did flips on a wind-up wire contraption, a metal Slinky, jacks, a red and black musical thing that was kind of like a horn but with piano-style keys, a jack-in-the-box, and a kaleidoscope.

The kaleidoscope was my favorite, by far.

It was just a simple cardboard tube with an eye-hole in one end, and a few colorful bits of plastic in the other. Nothing fancy. Until you held it to the light and the magic happened. 

It was like a montage of intricate stained glass, or jewels, but all in shatters. Turning the tube made the shards tumble and fall and reassemble and morph and bloom and collapse. I was captivated.

"Grandpa, look at this one!" I'd say, holding my breath, carefully trying to pass the kaleidoscope to him without disrupting the little miracle that had assembled itself inside. But by the time he held it up to his eye, the pattern had shifted. He oooh'd and aaaah'd, but at another view, no doubt just as marvelous.

During my 2012 "No Day Without Art" 365 days project, I did a little research and learned how to make my own kaleidoscopes. On the outside, they don't look like much. I make them from cardboard mailing tubes or PVC pipe. Inside is an arrangement of cheap craft mirrors duct-taped together, and at the business end, a handful of plastic beads, marbles, plastic bits -- whatever I can find. They cost pennies to make.

I've made several, mostly for me, but I've given a few to my most special friends. I love that moment when they hold their new kaleidoscope to the light and look through it for the first time. They see something magical made from almost nothing. 
 

The thing about looking into a kaleidoscope is that only one person can look through it at a time. You can't really share the experience. So I figured out how to take pictures through my kaleidoscopes so that I can capture the fleeting images before they shift, so that I can share them.

As an experiment, for today's face I tucked a tiny self-portrait in with the beads and marbles of my newest kaleidoscope (look closely). I could have shared a hundred views, but that seemed like overkill, so I am only sharing three.

 

It's my first kaleidoscope that looks back.

The morning after

“The simple truth is that you can understand the way you are. 

You can know and love and hate it. 

You can blame it, resent it, and nothing changes. 

In the end, you're just a part of it.” 

-- Brenna Yovanoff, The Replacement 

 

Self portrait 7-4-13

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.  

I learn by going where I have to go.”

-- Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"

This is a self portrait of exactly how I feel on a morning after a night of no sleep.
A morning like this morning.
You'll have to take my word for it when I say it's a pretty damned accurate likeness.
Weird, but accurate.
Seriously.
I mean, yeah, I know it's a plastic gumball machine monkey wearing a C-3P0 mask, but ...
Trust me.
It's like looking in a mirror.

A one-way ticket on the Self Express

"There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. 

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost."

-- Martha Graham

 

Self portrait 7-3-13

“Be yourself -- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.”

-- Henry David Thoreau

“There are only two styles of portrait painting: 

the serious and the smirk."

-- Charles Dickens

Layered look

"A grownup is a child with layers on."

-- Woody Harrelson 

Self portrait 7-2-13

“... sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret,
sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts,
cunning or powerful or even marvelous, beautiful parts,
just locked up away at the bottom of their hearts.
They do this because they are afraid of the world and of being stared at,
or relied upon to do feats of bravery or boldness.” 

-- Catherynne M. Valente,

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“Everyone was made up of infinitely layered petals. 

And everyone had something indescribably precious at the heart of their being.
No one was shallow. 

Not really.” 

-- Mary Balogh, A Secret Affair

Moody blues

“The memory has as many moods as the temper, 

and shifts its scenery like a diorama.”

-- George Eliot,  
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

Self portrait 6-26-13

“...trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression 

is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. 

A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work.”

-- Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half

Self portrait 6-26-13

“The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious.”

-- Gregory Maguire, 

A Lion Among Men

Feeling all kinds of everything, all colliding all over me, all at once, all the time. 

Dark circles

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?”

-- Bill Watterson

Self portrait 6-21-13

“The girl in the mirror wasn't who I wanted to be 

and her life wasn't the one I wanted to have."

-- Francesca Lia Block, Pink Smog

“... the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror --

we all have it -- that shadow self -- that dark heart ...”

-- John Geddes, A Familiar Rain 

Killing time

 "Again time elapsed."

-- Carolyn Keene, The Secret of the Old Clock

Mixed media self portrait 6-20-13

“The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks ... ”

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five 

Clocks--that's the problem.
Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours.
Clocks strap us into their shape.
Instead of heading for the nearest star, 

all we do is corkscrew.
Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel
riders of us all, lug us round and round
from number to number,
dice the time of our lives into tiny bits
until the bits are all we know
and the only question we care to ask is
"What time is it?"  

-- Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl 

("The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building)

Sleep deprivation chamber

 "... night brings me many a deep remorse.

I realize that from the cradle up I have been

like the rest of the race -- never quite sane in the night."

-- Mark Twain

" We wake in the night, to stereophonic silence."

 -- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook

Self portrait 6-19-13

"Beware thoughts that come in the night.  

They aren't turned properly; 

they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, 

deriving from the most remote of sources."

 --William Trogdon 

"Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night."

 -- J.M. Barrie, Little Minister 

Escaping the labyrinth

“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.” 

-- Oscar Wilde

Polymer clay face with maple tree seed wings 6-18-13

“It seemed as if he had been falling for years.
Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness,
but Bran did not know how to fly,
so all he could do was fall.”

-- George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."

-- Mel Brooks 

“Oh No! My wings are effed up!” 

-- Tammara Webber, Between The Lines 

If you haven't figured it out by now, I enjoy mythology.

Greek. Roman. All of it.

I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology in a high school world humanities class and fell in love.

Zeus. Hera. Apollo. Mercury. Icarus -- the danger, the adventure, the deception, the romance, the gods and goddesses whimsically exercising their grudges with each other by fucking with humanity.

I was the only student in the class who was totally into it, I think.

Yep. 

I was that kid.

I was an English major in college, but I took a heavy load of classics, as well. My final thesis was a comparison of literary styles shared by the Odyssey and the Aeneid, titled "Virgil's Dialogue With Homer: Artistry and Vision."

How pretentious does that sound?

Jesus, did I really do that?

 

There is something about those old myths that still gets me.

I think it is the truth.

The truth about human nature in relation to unpredictable forces beyond our control.

 

Like Icarus.

Icarus was the son of Deadalus. 

They lived on the island of Crete, ruled by King Minos. 

King Minos had an elaborate, inescapable labyrinth where he imprisoned the Minotaur, a deadly monster. He threw his enemies in there too.

 

Deadalus (with the help of a hot chick named Ariadne) betrayed the king by helping another guy, Theseus. He gave Theseus a thread so he could retrace his steps out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.

 

Minos felt betrayed, so he imprisoned Deadalus and his son, Icarus, in the labyrinth.

Being a crafty guy, Deadalus knew the only way out was up. So he made 2 pair of wings from osier (willow) branches and wax, and taught Icarus to fly.

It worked. 

Deadalus and Icarus flew out on their new wings and escaped the labyrinth.

Deadalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or his wings would melt.

But Icarus got so carried away by the amazing feeling of flight, that he didn't listen. 

And, well, his wings melted, and he crashed and burned.

Technically, I guess he burned and crashed, into a lake. 

 

Lots of ink has been spilled about what the lesson of Icarus is, much of it having to do with the consequences of youthful disobedience.

 

My question is, is it better to stay trapped in the labyrinth, with no way out, waiting to die someday?

Or is it better to take a risk and cobble together a pair of homemade wings so you can fly out of that fucker and feel freedom, even if it's only momentary?

 

So what if you fall?

You are probably already falling as it is.

 

For me, the lesson is simple. Get out. Whatever it takes. You might stick the landing.

But if you don't ...

 

I'd rather die free than imprisoned.

 

Whatever your "labyrinth" is, whatever imprisons you, whatever confusing maze hems you in -- depression, addiction, chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia, all of the above -- with the right people helping, you can get out.

They might sneak you the necessary thread.

Or they might just build you some wings.

Take the wings.

Don't worry about the potential crash.

Just fly.

Have a nice face!

 

 

"The smile did not mean that he was happy." 

-- Michael Cadnum, Flash

     

Smiley face balloon with a knife 6-17-13

 

 

“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face 

conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.”

-- Greta Garbo

“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”

-- Mineko Iwasaki 

It's hard to smile when everything hurts.

If I don't sleep, I can pretty much guarantee that the next day is going to be painful. 

Today is one of those days. 

If you have chronic pain, like me, whether it's from fibromyalgia, or an injury, or some other ongoing  condition, then you probably know how restful sleep can function like a "reset button."  

A good night's sleep can miraculously switch off the pain. Not permanently, but it can provide enough of a break for me to catch my breath, relax and remember, if only for a short time, what "normal" feels like.

Last night I didn't sleep, so I didn't get the "reset." All of the pain I went to bed with stayed, and built on itself, and this morning it is still here --  mine to keep and to carry with me for the rest of the day.

Yellow smiley faces tend to pop up here on the blog from time to time, usually when I'm feeling anything but smiley. Smileys don't happen on my good days. They usually coincide with "those days" --  the ones when I have to try real hard to grin and bear it.

The yellow smiley face became popular during the '70s. It was on coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually coupled with the phrase "Have a nice day."

I typically place the smiley faces under some type of duress. Unlike me, they keep smiling through the pain, whether I've trapped them under a jar, taken a bite out of them, or stabbed them with a Ginsu knife.
 
It's how I deal.

Grin and bear with me.

Oh. And have a nice day.