Sunday, March 14, 2010

A forgotten page and a strange flat basket

I found this page 5 pages back in my journal...

March 26, 1987

Why is
this empty
page
sitting her in
my journal when
I tried so hard not
to leave any
loose ends lying
about?

March 26, 1987

I am the stupid flat basket that you put under your paper plates in. My reeds are woven so that I cannot bend. They are loosely woven, you can see through me. I am hidden, forgotten. I was lost and now desired. I am precious and valuable, not materially but as a ghost, or as a gift. I am not transferred from hand to hand but I am kept and lost and returned only to be lost again.

I cannot see anything while I am lost. I have no awareness. Only when someone possesses me, do I become aware and can contribute myself. I am not used for my original purpose. Why am I flat? I do not know I must not retain much. I can only retain information while someone possesses me. When I am lost, I hold nothing and must be refilled when I am found again.

I am the gift of creativity. I am longed for but I cannot be aware. I must be found, for I am hidden beneath piles of mechanical rubble - the logic of today. I must be found and only found while those who seek me are not looking for me. I am not visible to those who look directly at me but only to those who let themselves be unaware as to give me awareness. Then I can enter them and become one with them.

I am not here to gratify grandiose desires but I am here to give those who are meek the creativity they so desire. I am elusive. I am not on call. I will not come when beckoned or sought. I do not wish to make those who seek me re-known. I want to stay close to the rubble so that I may be lost and found and lost and found as a wish for I am a gift, but I am not permanent.

Gifts must be given away but I am a gift in itself. The giver and the gift. I belong to Sue and only Sue. I am her own unique creativity. Right now a soldier seeks me with violence. He would kill to find me. That is why I am hiding. I will not come out under threat. Only when he is mulified and forgets that he is looking for me will I come out and in doing so, I will transform him into a prince. For awhile at least, before I am lost again. This is my way of life.

I have no idea what the heck this is about. Maybe it is a "free-association" writing for class. Maybe I was analyzing the strange crazy dream I had. I am not sure. It seems at first that I am talking about my tendency to become those who are around me. A basket that holds another person - thoughts - ideals. A basket that is nothing unless it is filled with another. 

But then I go veering off into the "I am creativity" stuff. What? Maybe that was the writing prompt. I was comforted when I went back to my original idea of being the giver of the gift. The basket that holds your burdens. That is who I am. That is who I became to survive. I am mother, provider of my children: Must Keep Them Alive. I am wife: Must Keep Husband Happy. I am never just me. Just Sue. I was never enough for myself. 

I was always uncomfortable in my own skin. I was always awkward. Clumsy Spaceship Sue - riding around in my head, behind my eyeballs - seriously - that is how I felt when I was an adolescent. How else could I explain my clumsiness? Why else would I purposely break my little finger on the brick wall outside the gym upon hearing we would be playing basketball for two weeks? Did that hurt? A little, but not as much as the humiliation of being picked last. I couldn't hold the ball, much less bounce it. I didn't understand the rules. A broken finger meant I could sit on the side and stare into space and be alone. Spaceship Sue. 

No comments:

Post a Comment