This Stone is a Woman

February 14, 1987

This stone is a woman. I can see her delicate features her chin and nose, perfectly shaped head, long neck, wonderfully curved breasts. She has been formed of the earth and water, yet remains, rising above the massive weight of the past and into the unknown future. She has the past to turn to for help when she needs it. Her life was built upon the lives of others before her. They imparted in her the gift of life, of hope and love. She is alone yet there is no fear. She is ready to face the vast emptiness of the future before her. She has grown of this mass. She struggles to be free of it yet she never will. The past is always there, someday she will turn and face it.

February 16, 1987

How do I feel today...

I feel like a skeleton in death thralls. Contorted red pelvic area, where life began, must be where life would end last. Pelvic bones, skeletons, smaller bones for male, larger, wider for women, make room for the babies.

Chris (not Cris - this is a classmate I am speaking about) stole my Mr. Buffalo. He's bugging me, sitting against the wall - not writing - making me laugh. Doing Mr. Buffalo tricks reminding me of playing pigs: snouter, oinker...

General comments fly, "She's Hawaiian."
I say, "Who cares?"
Phebe Hanson says, "All Hawaiians are Americans."
Jimmy says, "She's a Communist."
I say, "She's Catholic."
Jimmy says, "She's an Existentialist."

Who Bloody Cares? Labels, Labels, Why all the Distinctions?

I have, all my life, carried around small trinkets, usually animals. Now-a-days, I have cats. I have real cats - four of them: Nivek, Gaz and Gir, and Sammie - but I don't carry them around - I have stuffed cats to carry around and squeeze. I take "Mrs. Norris" to the hospital with me. My husband, Anthony, will bring him to me unbidden with my toothbrush because he loves me. He knows I love my cats. Mrs. Norris is a weird gray cat that looks like a little old man. I talk to him when I am alone in the room - give him "airplane" rides on my feet. Nurses give me an odd look if they walk in on me playing. It never occurred to me before my diagnosis that this was uncommon behavior. I thought everyone played when they were alone.

I lived with Eeyore in my early childhood. My grandmother had sewn him for me out of a pale yellow lingerie fabric. I loved that donkey. His tail was held on by a button. By the time I was five years old, my mother had grown tired of sewing the button back on. She taught me how to thread the needle. She taught me how to tie a knot. She taught me to catch the knot in the fabric before I began. She taught me how to catch the fabric and move the needle through the button holes, back into the fabric, around, around. She taught me to tie off the thread. I sat in my little rocking chair and sewed. I sewed that button back on, sometimes more than once a day, sometimes even more than that! I attribute my sewing skills to that little donkey. 

Soon Eeyore was so filthy that my mother could stand him no longer. She took it away, maybe I was asleep, maybe at school. I think I was six or seven. I went into a deep mourning period. I was filled with such a deep sadness it was paralyzing. I remember singing a sad song with many verses about a pony. The chorus went like this...

My pony is lost to me, to me.

My pony is lost to me. 

He ran away one day, one day.

My pony is lost to me.

I think my parents realized I was not going to give up looking for my donkey. Where could he possibly be? Then suddenly, I found him! The "Easter Bunny" had left Eeyore under the cover for the typewriter. I was reunited and happy again, until Eeyore disappeared again in the same way a couple of months later. I was once again plunged into despair. I looked and looked for him. He must be hidden somewhere. I had found him once before...

When I was 10, my mother asked grandma for the pattern. Even though years had passed, I had continued to ask where Eeyore was on a regular basis. It must have driven her crazy. She sewed me a new Eeyore. He had gray fur and a black mane and hair on his tail. He had beautiful sad eyes. I danced with him in circles, in the backyard. I held him by his front legs and sang him a song. A song of rejoicing, of wonder, of joy at his rebirth.

 

Eeyore, Reborn!

Stones

January 27, 1987

I used to look for stones as a child. Dig them from the asphalt if I thought they might warrant a rescue attempt. My parents had a rock path that curved from the backyard along the side to the front yard. The backyard path had small sharp stones that we would pile up on our laps to feel the warmth of them. They hurt to walk on occasionally but the front yard path had larger, smoother stones. Round and smooth mostly. Although the backyard had a few hidden agates and a multitude of quartz, the front path had mostly granite and hard black stones which always eluded a name. Some rocks were sandstones and limestone which we would hunt up to make a hopscotch board on the sidewalk - other specially selected stones served as our markers to throw. We would look for flat stones that would rest and not roll when thrown.

Odilon Redon "Ophelia"

I am drawn to the painting called Ophelia. It is beautiful and daintily painted in muted colors. It was painted in 1905-06, oil on paper, mounted on board. It seems to be a dream that Redon painted. He must have worked in a dimly lit studio and danced while he painted. Ophelia looks down. She appears to be in love. She is in the lower half of the painting. She is cut off mid-waist. The dress below her breasts loses focus. She is wearing a blue dress over a white under-dress it is falling from her right shoulder. The white dress appears trimmed by lace. Ophelia has long blond hair falling behind her left shoulder and in front of her right as she is leaning towards and shyly down in profile.

She has a ring of delicate flowers in her hair. In the background it appears to be a vague landscape. Reddish tones to her left and cooler greenish tones to her right. Yellow and red flowers behind her body and an abstract tree limb - very thin rises from the slope of her shoulder and titled head to the top of the painting, the sky to the left of the branch is grey-ish blue, while the right hand sky is a peachy-green color blending orange at the midpoint of the painting near Ophelia's face reminding me of autumn.

The title, Ophelia, gives the work - or rather reinforces the mystical, mythical beauty of the piece. Upon walking towards this painting, I was distinctly satisfied by the title. Ophelia seems to be of another century - possibly the 16th century. A worker, or servant, well dressed but not splendidly.

Ophelia appears to be awaiting (or possibly seducing) her lover. She at times looks a little sad and forlorn - maybe he is never going to show up.

The lines that Redon used in his painting of Ophelia are delicate and pliable. They are softly and irregularly placed about her outline and dress. Small bits of color brighten up the composition - small, thin, areas of excitement within a soft and subtle painting. The blending of the oil colors helps give me a sense of peace. Had they been used without blending, placed side by side, the feeling would have been totally different. Ophelia seems to be outside - the light having a blueish tint to it, it must be during the middle of the day in the shade of the woods.

The composition seems flattened. She does not seem to be out in the open. This adds to the cozy feeling of the painting. Very few cast shadows are present - Redon used shading on the contours of her dress - her armpits, and behind her neck on her left where her hair is falling. This shadowless-ness increases the feeling of her being in a shaded area.

Although I say she looks as if she is in the shade - she appears well lit and the picture is bright, if not a bit muted, not quite pastel. The color of her hair and skin are very much the same - reminding me of warm butterscotch but chalky.

We seem to be on the same eye level - Ophelia and I. She does not appear as much as a goddess or villian. She is someone we can relate to. I want to know her.

Both of these entries are from school. The first a writing prompt. The second an analysis of a piece from the visiting exhibit at the Minneapolis Art Institute. I find it remarkable that one day, I could be in a physical fight with Cris, and the next day, calm and relaxed. 

My feelings have always been short lived. I feel "calm" as my default when I am alone, or in a comfortable place. The week before I was diagnosed with Asperger's, I made a Mood-a-Meter in my classroom to visually represent my state of mind (because students are often afraid of me at first). I have my "normal daily moods" Calm-ish, Manic, Tense, Nauseous, Snappy, and Irate. On the fringes, some less common moods - on the calm side: Numb, Hopeless, and Despair; on the irate side: Crazy-eyed-Serious and the least common of all Dangerous. My students kept asking me, "Where is your Happy?" I was confused, "Calm-ish of course, aren't you happy when you are calm?"  After my diagnosis I realized why I had no "Happy". I have a limited emotional "vocabulary". It had never occurred to me that I felt anything different than those around me. I have since realized that I actually FEEL emotions - I mean I physically feel them - as a sensation. I feel the adrenaline released from my pancreas, I feel hormones secrete from my thyroid. Do you "feel" your emotions? or are they more intellectual? I bet you never thought about it before.

Satyriasis - the male counterpart of nymphomania

January 19, 1987

Dart thrown at Cris's forehead
Dart in the Penguin's hat
The back of my neck is all tingly
Doing dishes
Listening to Roxy Music from the recorder on the wall

January 25, 1987

A Story

U stood in the hallway of a dimly lit apartment building, listening, straining to hear the conversation within the apartment before her. She held her ear close to the door, hands outstretched as if to balance herself and not fall forward and bump the door. She held the keys to the apartment in her hand, wondering if she should use them. She heard sounds of kissing, laughing, and the low mumbling of conversation within the door. A man and a woman were in there - or was that a television?

U thought the man belonged to her. This was of course a delusion because that was not the case at all. She is feeling very threatened. She thinks of the time when she was the one laughing and kissing, having a conversation with this man. She had caused these feelings of having your "prize" stolen from your grasp by another woman who now thought of him as her own.

They had met at a party. He had been warned not to have contact with U because this woman believed or thought somehow that U was a threat.

The man was inclined to do things that he was forbidden to do, so at the end of the party, he had taken U home, much to the dismay of his present woman, who returned the next day, questioning the man in the kitchen, "What is she still doing here?"

Through the years, U had become too secure in her position as his woman. This assumption had driven the man away, seeking out another woman who might not assume such things.

U felt anxiety. Her heart was racing. She jumped at sounds she heard within. A moved chair caused her to quickly run down the hall and hide around the corner in terror. What would happen if she was discovered? Noticing that no one was coming out of the apartment, she walked down to the door, again putting her ear close to listen. This was futile! She decided to go outside to see if anything was happening.

Outside, she scanned the surroundings for elevation. She decided to climb a tree that was nearby for a look. This view was not sufficient and she gave up after 5 minutes or so.

She was in the same place: she could hide out somewhere and wait for them to come out - but what door would they use? If she chose the wrong hiding place, it would be too late.

U decided to go back inside. Within seconds she was in the hallway, at the door again. Taking the keys from her pocket to fiddle with them, she struggled with the decision to either use them and discover the man in bed with his lover or pretend she knows nothing.

U had pretended a lot about not knowing about the man and his others. She had dressed up to look like someone else and watched him with others.

She decided she might as well get it over with. She knows it will destroy her relationship with the man, but she has had enough pain. More pain than she thought anyone could bear. It had changed her.

She thought she must be quick as possible in order to catch him in his betrayal. She tried clumsily to put the key in quietly, but her hands were shaking too much. It was too late. He was aware and had rushed to the door. U turned the key, he on the other side, tried to prevent it. The door is unlocked. Push. He pushes back.

She does eventually have the door open. She is insane with rage. She wants to get inside. She uses her body as a tool not caring what becomes of it. She squeezes in and sits on the floor,  her back to the closed door, emotionally and physically unarmored. She is a rock. She is not going to move.

The other woman has fled to the other room so as not to be seen - or is that the television playing in the background?

"I expected this U", the man says, standing before her like she is the plague. He wants to get rid of her but knows not how to go about it.

U sits. She is staring madly straight ahead. She has accomplished her mission. Her heart is beating fast. She is sweating and shaking. She is not going to move, ever again.

This is an actual account of me breaking into my husband's apartment after we had split up. I had stolen his keys while he was making breakfast for the kids one morning and walked to the corner hardware store to make copies. I slipped them back before he noticed. I would break into his apartment when he was at school to read his journals, to snoop around. I was looking for more salt to rub into my open wounds. It was painful, and undeniably wrong, but I did it. I own it. 

The actual event described in the story above ended in the hallway, a physical altercation. I flicked my burning cigarette at his chest. He shoved me back. He took my keys. He ordered me out. There was another woman in the apartment at the time. I never climbed a tree to look inside.

 Below is a shot list for my video production class I was taking at MCAD. I was planning on filming this story. When it actually came down to the video shoot, Cris had come home in the morning after spending the night with another woman. I was angry. He attacked me. Cris picked me up around the waist, bruising my ribs as he threw me down on the bed. He choked me. I used my legs to kick him off. The children were watching. They were crying. I called my sister to come. I called my friend Halle to come. 

Halle took me to Stillwater to visit a friend, whose husband ironically had just took their kids and left that very day. I filmed her talking. I had to shoot something. I had the video equipment checked out. The assignment was due. I called the video "Halle Driving". I earned a "B" for the project - oh well. If I can find it, I will post it.

Video Shot List

1. Walking down street, turning into apartment building. Using keys to open doors.
2. Walking upstairs to the door - listening intently - she is going to listen.
3. The man and woman (or watching a television) inside unaware, laughing, kissing, talking.
4. The woman listening intently.
5. Inside the apartment, a chair pushed back, man gets up to get something.
6. The woman in the hallway leaping away to hide. The woman freaking out.
7. Vision of man coming out and finding her.
8. Woman hiding, decides to go back to the door.
9. Man and woman talking, kissing, laughing in the apartment - or is it a television?
10. Key in hand.
11. Vision of man and woman in bed.
12. Key near lock.
13. Another different version of man and woman in bed.
14. Open lock.
15. Man leaping to door.
16. Woman's struggle.
17. Man's struggle - as woman flees.
18. Woman gaining - leg getting crushed in doorway.
19. Woman getting in, plopping down.
20. Man staring at her.
21. Woman staring straight ahead insanely.
22. Vision of man and insane woman happy together.
23. Man confused.
24. Woman staring.