Issara Simone Edwards's Blog, page 12

Choice.

Friday 18th of October 2019

I am my father’s daughter.

I see it in my eyes, my hands, my feet, the texture of my skin.

I am my father’s daughter, a rusted pair of scissors, used but still sharp,

Cutting any visible thread of connection with the ease of breathing in and out.

I am my father’s daughter,

A disconnection from self and feeling,

From anything or anyone that can break me.

I am the lies I tell, to myself an others,

The booze that numbs the pain and the music that drowns it out.

I am giving up.

Giving up is so easy I don’t even notice I’m doing it anymore. It looks like rest, like stopping to catch my breath. At first it feels good, like this is how life is supposed to be, easy. And the rest becomes longer and doubts of anything other creep in and stay. Life isn’t meant to be hard, it isn’t meant to be fight, the rest is better, the rest is how things are always meant to be.

Then I wake in the night and realise I’ve given up and standing again feels like too much, the fight seems worthless, the battle seems endless and pointless.

There’s no time in rest, time is the first thing to go, the first thing let go of. The spear and sword rust regardless, and the armour becomes moth eaten, too damaged to put back on, and the holes in it I punched in myself.

I could get up and fight without it, use the broken pieces as a shield and believe the reason I’m fighting will come to me, reveal itself like a name.

Luna burns sticks until they turn black and smoke rise and I can’t remember if she’s real or not.

“The smoke is to cleanse the space.” She says. “To chase out the bad spirits and ill energies.”

That don’t like the smell of burning wood, I guess.

The smoke gathers in my nose, coats the surface of my skin and I feel the weight of something heavy in me. My mother’s fear, her voice carrying. Her fear of men and all the evils that men can do. The fear of women and all the evils they do to each other. I feel her fear, my fear, I’ve carried it around with me like a lead ball in my stomach. It keeps me heavy and dense, a helium balloon with a weight attached, a kite with a string tangled in roots.

The fire burns out, it’s dark without it, nothing but the memory of smoke. My skin feel rough and leathery, my feet dry and brittle against the ground. In the dark my father’s voice whispers my name. It sounds like a question, like he’s never heard it before, like he never understood it. It sounds like he’s asking, why one and not the other? There’s a choice in his tone, in my name. There’s a choice. I can change it. Is this name who I am now?

My throat feels sore as though I’ve been screaming. Is that what I’ve been doing? Have my dreams been screams that my body thinks are real?

My mother has a fear of mirrors, she never looks at herself in the mirror. I don’t have the same problem but I do have an issue with mirrors and my reflection especially. My problem stems from the fact that I live in my head too much. So much that when I see my reflection it never matches up to what I imagine, to what I feel. So, I look in mirrors a lot, maybe to cement my vision of myself, but it doesn’t work, it never works. I’m still never exactly how I remember, I still see my reflection and it feels… off. It isn’t me, my face is not my face, my body is not my body, but that’s a whole other issue isn’t it?

My body is preparing to turn against me, I can feel it. To clarify, my period is coming, and as usual, I am going to completely shut down until it’s over. I am not a functioning human. I’m 33 and I don’t feel like a functioning human. 33 is meant to be career age, settled age, about to have your third kid age. It’s not unemployed, trying to figure yourself out age. Not can go a whole day without talking to anyone age, not living in la la land age. What are other 33 year olds doing? What are the people I went to school with doing? Are they happy? Are they contributing members of society?

Time.

Thursday 17th of October 2019

I am my mother’s daughter,

I strip down to skin and that’s all I see.

I am my mother’s daughter,

My fear is inherited,

A pendulum that swings out further and further,

Back and forth through generations.

I am my mother’s daughter,

I am the fear she placed in me.

I have cared for this fear, nurtured it, cultivated it.

I have never laughed at it or chided it,

I’ve loved and protected it.

It in turn has whispered, shrieked and bellowed.

It’s protected me, kept beasts at bay,

Or so it says.

My fear has kept me afraid, kept me isolated, kept me apart. It’s made it so that my whole life has been looking out at people I admire, things I want to be a part of. It has been the voice in my head telling me I don’t belong, that I will only disappoint. It tells me that I am wrong, that how I feel is wrong, the things I do and say are wrong, everything about me is wrong, and everyone sees it and hate me for it.

I am my mother’s daughter,

I am a black woman born into a world

Where neither of these things are valued.

I am my mother’s daughter,

I am the fears given to me and held onto by me.

I am all my failures and all of hers,

I am all the blame she has taken and all the blame I have given.

No one told me to hold these fears so tight,

To fold them into my bones and blood.

Only I can take the blame for that,

Only I can fix this generational hurt.

Only I can walk the history in my blood,

The maze, the labyrinth at the centre of it all.

Is it too late for hot chocolate, being 11:40pm and all? My mistake, 11:41.

Give Yourself Time.

Wednesday 16th of October 2019

Have I ever done anything that wasn’t out of desperation or depression, out of fear of being left behind?

It’s sad to think the answer is no.

Is there anything other than fear?

I was born into fear, I think all my mother has ever felt is fear. Even when I look back at my grandfather’s rage, all I see shining through is fear, fear that he had to disseminate, fear that he had to put into all of us. No wonder I hate him now, and all the people who stood by and let him do it. Doesn’t that mean I hate myself? Didn’t I also stand by and let him do it? Yes.

How do you release fear that’s in your bones? Is it possible? Is there a trick to it, like exposure therapy? Facing what you’re afraid of until you realise it’s nothing but a whimper in the wind. So, what’s my core fear?

Art Star.

Tuesday 15th of October 2019

I love the sight of ink or dyes, paints, colours on my hands. It makes me feel witchy and superior, connected to something, to the earth, to the air, to fire, seas.

I spent the day doing nothing and releasing any guilt I might be feeling from doing nothing. It’s been one day and it’s made me realise that nothing is as important as I make it out to be. I add the importance and I can easily not. What more needs to be said about that? There’s still guilt but it’s like a residue, a habit, a voice in the back of my head saying: “Remember to be guilty.” and “Remember what other people expect from you.”

It’s a need to justify my existence. A person can only be here, on this planet, if they’re constantly productive, or at least, if they look like they are.

I know what I want to o do with my life, I’ve always known. Painting feels right, it always has and it isn’t about anyone else, it’s about me. The world falls away and I feel happy, purposeful, connected to who I am, free from everything else.

But then come the questions, how will I live, how will I make money? Artists are notorious for not being able to support themselves, and I become what everyone already thinks I am. I become the imaginative loser, living in la la land, making ‘art’.

But these are worries that I don’t want to care about, thoughts from a world I don’t want to live in.

I’m here, surrounded by art and nature, love, and that’s all I want to feel. It’s lonely here, but peaceful and painting calms me, centres me, roots me. I’m free, I’m myself and nothing else should matter. The importance of my fears is the importance I add. I’ve always been a creator, let me create, let me be me.

Ask the Moon for Answers.

At some point you just have to admit you’re lost, sit down and ask for help.

Am I living in denial or am I believing in myself? Is there a difference.

Hello. My world feels like chaos yet my life is still, motionless even. It’s an internal chaos, too much energy being directed nowhere. Nothing seems to fully fill the void and I should stop pretending otherwise. Maybe, instead of resisting the emptiness I should fall into it, see how empty I really am. But that’s giving in, right? That’s fully embracing the depression, right? Or maybe there’s something on the other side of it and I have to go through it to find out. How do I know? Who do I have in my life to tell me? There’s no one, there’s really no one. Just me, and the moon, and all the saints surrounding her.

My life isn’t moving forward. I’m stood in the mud, staring up at the moon, wishing. What do I do?

Fall.

There’s a lighthouse in the near distance, just across the grey stony sand, on a little craggy rock. Its lights flash across the water. Its red and white striped body stands against the night.

I’ve found a little cottage by the water. I take some time to quietly bathe in it, in the pebbled beach, the slick green ocean water of rejected seaweed.

The cottage is small, but homey, full of paintbrushes and inks, dyes of every colour. There’s an easel under the window, a sofa near to that. A small kitchen to my left, a bedroom with a comfortable double bed, a window above it.

“We can be safe here.” Luna says, “We can rest.”

She puts a big white bow in her hair, it reminds me of Minnie Mouse and it comforts me.

We’re safe here. We can rest. Do you believe any of this to be true?

Stories.

Thursday 10th of October 2019

I’ve been thinking about stories, the stories we tell ourselves, the stories that make up who we are. Also the stories we don’t tell ourselves, and how they form us to.

I’ve been painting a lot and drawing a lot because it feels natural and it’s been helping with my loneliness and the chaos in my head, and, I’ve been asking why. Is it genuinely helping or does it simply distract me? Does the madness happen when I’m not creating or does creating help me ignore it? Either way, why am I complaining, why am I asking? I should use art like a drug and just keep using, it only hurts when I stop.

Back to stories. I’ve been trying to rewrite mine. I realised the stories I’ve been telling myself, the stories that have made me are holding me in place. This isn’t what I want anymore, that’s not who I want to be.

Bad things have happened and I’ve told myself the stories of these things over and over until they’ve become cemented. I haven’t allowed myself to make new friends, to connect with anyone, I haven’t allowed anything into my life that might put me at risk again. Then I complain that I’m alone. It’s ridiculous. I realise it’s also been punishment. It’s been me blaming myself for things that have gone wrong and treating myself appropriately. What if I don’t take all the blame anymore? What if I put the blame where it belongs? Some on me, yes, but not all of it, not anymore. Easier said then done, right? Torture can become a habit.

Here’s another thing about the stories we tell ourselves. How much of me is reality and how much of me is what I’ve imagined or wished?

What’s the weather like outside of Bristol? It’s been raining here for weeks, I mean it, two weeks. I know I like the rain but come on, stop being a cliche, England.

I like myself when I’m painting, I feel like I know myself, not that I can put that self into words. It’s just a feeling, it’s like the reality of a dream, it knows itself, it knows everything it needs to know and that’s it.

There are crumbs on my bed and I don’t know where they came from, I don’t eat upstairs so how? They feel like biscuit crumbs. I don’t even h ave biscuits. The mystery deepens. Where was I? Oh, yeah, between nowhere and nonsense. Time for bed I guess. Thanks for the chat.

Irony?

Wednesday 2nd of October 2019

Do you want to hear something funny?

My mother once told me that she didn’t want to end up like her mother, just sleeping and watching TV all the time. Now, all she mostly does is sleep and watch TV. I see it and I hear myself saying: “I don’t want to end up like my mother.” and I think that by thinking it, I’ve sealed my fate.

In the meantime, however, faced with inactivity and nothing else now that my sister has moved out, I find I’m, frantic. I’ll doe anything to not be still, to not be confronted by silence, by the emptiness and nothingness of my home.

Am I lonely because I’m lonely, or am I lonely because I was told I would be without my sister?

There’s just this stillness everywhere, a stillness that would feel peaceful if there was anything else to compare it to. I feel alone in it.

Last night, I wrote in an obscure book, that you will never see… you should have a name, don’t you think? A name I can refer to you by throughout our chats, as one-sided as they may be. What would you like to be called?

Anyway, I wrote last night, on a page nicknamed ‘explosions’ for how the pages look once I’m done with them. I made assumptions, had epiphanies and revelations, thoughts, plans, ideas and I’m tired, I haven’t been sleeping. A woman in front of me has nice shoes, I told you there would be shoes, their blue brogues.

Something needs to change, in my life, like directly in my life, to me, for me, change for me, not the people around me or close to me, me. Got that. I’m tired of watching changes, or suffering from them but not having one of my own. Change please. Do I have to do something drastic for that? I feel like I do. I fear I do. What would I do? Shave all my hair off? Cliche. But I did it and I’m hating it. Start seeing a therapist? Doing it, nothing’s really happening there and it’s me, I know it is. Therapy relies on truth and I only tell the truth here. Any other suggestions?

I realise that I’m just searching for control… over something. That’s what I want, a little control.

Trigger Alert.

It’s raining. Interesting fact, I know.

Some people find rain depressing or inconvenient. I find it peaceful, reassuring, calming, even when I’m in it. I know this breaks the black and female rules, but I love rain.

If I have an umbrella I like the sound of it hitting over my head, the feeling of warmth and safety as I shelter underneath, the cocooning an umbrella provides. If I don’t have an umbrella, I like the cleansing feeling of the rain, the washing away of anything and everything that I don’t need and don’t want. It’s a baptism, every time.

This is probably why the last umbrella I had lasted me ten years, it was barely used. Eventually I had to throw it out though. It didn’t break, I think it just got rusted from under use.

I made a plan to kill myself yesterday. Don’t worry, I talked myself out of it. I don’t even know where it came from.

My day started off fine, then around twelve my mood started to drop. By two I was sobbing my eyes out and coming to the conclusion that I don’t belong here, that I was never meant to exist and that I only had one solution.

Ugh, the sun’s coming out. What was I saying? Yeah, so I don’t know where it came from. Yes, I’ve been depressed for a while but not that level of depressed. It’s worrying that that can just creep up on me. Now I’m lost for words. Maybe I should just end this here and try and write something happier like… ponies, ponies are happy, right? I know, shoes…

Or I can take a few minutes to be helpful, share a little something.

When I said I talked myself out of it, I didn’t really. I talked myself into postponing it. I basically sat myself down and said : “All you have to do is make it to January, that’s it. That’s your goal.”

When January gets here, I’ll set another goal. That is what’s helping me.

Now, January is a big thing to aim for. There have been times when it has been “make it to the end of the week” or “make it to the next hour.” Little goals. Making plans is a good things too, things to look forward to… that’s a lot of to’s. The point is, there are always journey to finish and new journeys to start.

‘The Murder of Miss O’ is not actually a murder mystery, everyone thinks it is but it isn’t. Do you want to read it and find out what it really is?

The Art of Not Asking.

Sunday 22nd of September 2019

I have a real difficulty in asking for what I want, and this could even be concerning really simple things.

For example, if someone asks me what I want for Christmas, I won’t ask for what I really want, instead I’ll think of all the ways asking would be inconvenient for them. May it’ll be too much money, or difficult for them to find. Maybe they just want me to say something like a box of milk chocolates because they really don’t care and are just being polite. Maybe they’ll see what I want as a luxury and think I’m taking advantage of their generosity. (By the way, I don’t like milk chocolates, but I always seem to get them for Christmas, I wonder why.)

There’s also another reason I stopped asking for what I want. There have been moments when I’ve been clear about what I want and I’ve ended up with something not even close to what I asked for. Every time it feels like the other person is showing their hand. It feels as though they’re revealing their lack of thought and care about me. (Which is really self-centred, I know.)

This has led me to not asking anymore, and relying on myself for a lot of things. Which doesn’t help my isolation or connecting with people. Do you want to hear something really sad? I’ve started buying my own Christmas presents. I did it last year and I’m doing it again this year. I make it less pathetic by numbering them and making my own advent calendar.

So far this year I’ve bought myself a weird hat that I will probably never wear, but I really liked it, so I bought it. A book and a serpent pink from this online Wiccan store, it’s cute and creepy and I love it.

Anyway, I’m feeling as though being scared to ask for what I want, more than that, feeling as though I don’t have the right to ask for what I want, is contributing not only to my isolation and loneliness but to my overall depression. I know I’ve brought up gifts a lot but this was just an example, this not asking runs through my whole life. I’m not getting what I want unless I do it myself.

This could be seen as a good thing, as independence, toughness. But I’m not any of those things. Truth is, it just makes me push people away, I keep everyone as arms length. Why do I need anyone when I can do everything myself?

I’ve realised I’ve become like this because I want the exact opposite. I want to rely on someone. I want someone to buy me dark chocolates instead of picking up a box of Dairy Milk they spotted when they stopped to fill up their car. I want to be selfish and say: ” I don’t want to do that right now, how would you feel about going to see a play with me instead?” Or, let’s keep it simple. “I would like a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon for Christmas. I know it’s a little on the pricey side but you asked. And unlike the coffee liquor you clearly palmed from a hotel mini bar last year, I’ll actually drink it. I don’t even drink coffee, why would you think I drink coffee liquor?”

‘The Murder of Miss O’ a novella, I wrote, that’s available to buy or download or whatever, from booky places, like Amazon and Kindle.

Babies?

Saturday 21st of September 2019

Question: Do people have children so that something has to love them unconditionally? If so, wouldn’t a puppy do?

Answer: Some people don’t like dogs.

I’ve written before, somewhere, how some people believe that having children is the end of narcissism. Honestly though, I think it’s the continuation of it. People call their children ‘mini-me’s’, they shape their children to ‘take their place’, some people even dress their children like themselves. It’s often not just a continuation of the genes, it’s a continuation of a regime. Ideas and beliefs are passed down and it’s called religion or culture. Practices and patterns of behaviour are passed on and it’s called tradition. Careers and paths are passed down and it’s called inheritance.

All of this is because I’ve been asking myself, do I want children or do I just not want to be alone? And I know the answer. I’m lonely. I want something to love. I got a plant, named her San-Gwen, and it’s just not filling that void.

I don’t think loneliness is a good reason to have children. I don’t think there are any good reasons to have children these days. There are plenty of good reasons to adopt or foster, but no good reasons, that I can think of, to procreate. So, why does it feel like my body is screaming otherwise? Is it just biological? Is this just what the body needs to do at this time?

Or is it more than that? Is there a deeper, spiritual need? It’s probably just biological, a primitive body that hasn’t caught up with the mind. After all, we all know kids are great. The best part is when you give them back to their sleep deprived parents.

I’ve had my kids names picked out since I was fourteen. Is that programming? It makes me want to cry when I think I’ll never have children. Life is confusing enough without two warring idiots raging inside me.

‘The Murder of Miss O’ a novella, available from booky places.