HastyWords's Blog, page 4

FOG OF WAR

I painted this dancer and I messed up her arms. But I rather like it. I can relate.

My body has its own rules

Hidden, not written down

Vague and unclear

Very fog of war and unfair

And when I make progress

The rules change again

Some things I get ya know

Wrinkles come with time

Hair changes consistency

Metabolism slows down

Your bones lose density

But I knew all that

So I planned for them

So I could shrink gracefully

I didn’t know however

How it would all feel

The wrinkles marking time

My hair has an attitude

My metabolism didn’t slow

It fucking up and died

And my bones…

Are whiny bastards

But its okay

More than okay

Because I’m here

Rules or no rules

I’ll keep playing

If it means I get to stay.

This is a NanoPoblano post.

TIME FOR THINGS

I just stood up from working on my website. It’s dark out. The day just faded away without my notice.

I planned some cool new things and started around 10 am to get to it but as sometimes happens I clicked the wrong thing and good freaking lord it took this long to fix it.

One good thing I loved was being able to look up and see my boyfriend doing his work while I did mine. We don’t always get so much time together dating long distance. I’ll take what I can get.

I can’t manage any more screens today though so this is my #NANOPOBLANO post.

Hopefully my website is working. Maybe you can check it out and report back here if it’s still showing PAGE NOT FOUND anywhere.

I need more time for things.

HASTYWORDSART

SOLAR CIRCLES AND MELTED CANDY

I entered a few pieces into a gallery show. Ya know to test the waters. See if I could handle the social aspect of it. And… my friends made all the difference.

I didn’t feel deserving of their love but I do feel immense amounts of thankfulness.

Meet Melted Candy.

A room full of colors

Sticky sweet sugar

Dripping down walls

Smooth toffee love

And cherry kisses

Melt briefly into

Butterscotch skies

Meet Solar Circles

Colored liquid bubbles

Squirming in puddles

Slippery and gooey

Ordering chaos and

Reflecting circles

Into a system of solars

Both pieces will be showing at the Paseo Art Center for a few months and then they will go and live in their new homes.

HASTYWORDSART

LET ME REINTRODUCE MYSELF

A NANOPOBLANO POST

Hi. People call me Hasty.

I’ve changed so much since I started this blog. I barely recognize the person who came here trying to find myself. It’s amazing what you can learn about yourself when you start stringing thoughts together using words.

I’m amazed at how much can happen in a few years and looking back I’m so happy to still be here.

First, I want to say the people you choose to keep matter. Community matters. Kindness, patience, and grace all matter.

Second, don’t underestimate the power of art whether written, danced, sung, or splattered in the world of communication. When the world got too wordy I found another way to communicate. I found a love for painting.

A few things have changed since I wrote this artist statement with the help of my boyfriend but it’s a great place to start. Over the next month I’d love to share my new passion with you. I hope it inspires you.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I started painting when my daughter was young as a way for us to bond. This grew into an ambitious journey of pure joy for both of us. When she moved away to university to study graphic design, I was left with a room full of art supplies and an insatiable need to create.

Specializing in mixed media, I never know where my artistic journey will lead me. Each one is like a child in a way, with mysteries and contrasts and individuality. I’m always so curious what they will become. Sometimes you make the art. Sometimes it makes you. 

You can’t even call them paintings anymore really. They demand inclusions of beach glass or sand, or sometimes real or fabricated crystals. Epoxy, plasters, inks, woods, sometimes even things like toys or shells or fabrics.

And every now and then, my daughter brings over a coffee and we spend a lazy Sunday doing what we’ve always done. I’ll make an ocean, and she’ll paint a dolphin jumping out of it. Art makes my life beautiful. Let it make yours beautiful too.

Visit my website HASTYWORDSART

THE END BEFORE THE END

Shhhhh

See that thought

The one swimming around

And around and around and around

The one growing bigger

Gaining speed, spinning faster

It has you in its teeth

Has you hogtied

Chained to the train

And you sit frozen

No motor skills

No verbal gymnastics

No other thoughts

But the one

The angry one

The hurt one

The desperate one

The lonely one

That wants to end you

RABID DREAMS

I had another nightmare last night. Wanna read it?

Crickets are extra loud and despite a sky lit up with stars it’s extra dark. I’m driving an old yellow pickup truck that has seen more generations than god. I smell like onions and I’m wearing a nice vintage pizza flour and sauce uniform.

Wonky headlights flicker over an old dirt road as I speed past barbed wire fences and crispy country weeds. A small critter runs across the road in front of me and I slam on my brakes to stop. Heart pounding I look around. Nothing.

I being to drive again when another critter skitters across the road too fast to tell what it is. I stop, turn off the engine, grab a flashlight from the glove box, and get out.

“Here Kitty Kitty”

At the front of the truck the headlights turn me into a tall and skinny shadow. I do a silly shadow dance.

I continue down the road when I hear a rustling to the left. I go to explore the shallow ditch when my flashlight catches a little bunny.

“Awww just cute little bunnies. Stay out of the road okay?”

Flashlight off I go back to the pickup and another bunny hops across the road. They are really fast! I open the truck door when another bunny runs hard into my food and scurries away.

“What part of stay out of the road don’t you get?”

I threw my flashlight onto the bench seat but it falls between the seat and passenger door. Another bunny hits my ankle and it actually hurt so I jumped into the truck and hand rolled my windows up.

The road in front of me is now covered in bunnies as far as the headlights shine. I’m a bit weirded out. I can feel blood trickling down my ankle.

I drop my keys on the floorboard and reach down to find them. I keep barely touching them. The over head light won’t turn on. I scoot over to find the flashlight. It won’t turn on.

“For fucks sake”

The truck is now covered in rabbits. Up close they are all too skinny and have overly long teeth. Like fingernails that start curling when they get really long.

I start to panic. Honking the horn does nothing. They are photograph still. I resume trying to find my keys. Find them.

The truck won’t start. Something is walking toward me at a Michael Myers pace. It’s big but I can’t tell how big because it’s melting into its own shadow.

I try the engine again as the rabbits part for this gigantic shadow and it just won’t start. It’s a man dressed like a rabbit? He has really long bloody rabbit teeth. Headlights go out and I wake up.

INTERPRETATION: I miss my daughter (she is grown and moved and I’m so proud of her) and her rabbit Hot Dog. I’m always worried he doesn’t have enough bamboo sticks to keep his teeth healthy.

I AM PROCESSED

My life is a process

Of inhaling and exhaling

Of grieving the passing of

Rejoicing in the newness of

Feeling the wisdom of pain

Wearing the comfort of love

Hiding from myself

While searching high and low

Before finding myself

Being fearful of what’s to come

And being proud of what’s behind

My life is a process

Inside a process

Becoming another process

For me to process.

LOVE LETTERS

Since he’s been around

The words don’t spill out

They live inside me

They grow stronger

More colorful, joyful

A changing vocabulary

Positively charged

And full of hope, dreams

A kaleidoscope landscape

Of endless possibility

And like waterfalls

The words fall

Effortlessly, beautifully

Onto a canvas

Where I paint them

MEMORIES

Like shadows they follow

Sliding past bare bushes

Over broken concrete

They are born inside

Tears and laughter

And given life inside

Pain and joy

Shape shifting, floating

Like a buoy in water

Bobbing rhythmically

Over waves of experience

They live in the silence

Inside the dark quiet

They hibernate paralyzed

Morphing for years

Feeding on those small

Twitchy feelings we foster

In our gut, in our heart

Until we recollect them

And like a bouquet

Of helium balloons

We let them loose

To float away

Or we chain them

And torture them

And turn them all

Into the monsters

We need them to be

To explain the pain

We don’t understand

To keep the pain

That makes us… us

Experiences are at the most accurate the first time around. After that… the moments we remember are puzzles with missing pieces. With extra pieces. With pieces we shape and reshape with emotion, with temperament, with motives, with fog, with unease and pain, with joy and contentedness.

Memories have their own life in a world wholly owned by us. Each of us artists living inside our own genre. Our own stories that nobody else has a right to.

Accurate or not they are a part of the experiences we have yet to have.

SHE IS JUST ANNOYING

Sometimes I read Reddit and I ran across a question a guy asked. He was annoyed by his girlfriend’s playful antics. For instance, she liked to splash him with water when washing dishes together, put cold hands on his chest, goose him in public, slap his buttocks, stick her tongue out when he moves in to kiss her. He said he loves her but wants to tell her to stop doing all these things. He asked if it was okay to ask her to stop?

I kind of related to her. My ex hated pda so I was trained out of that early. I’m flirty and playful but if I don’t get a positive response from something I make note of it and try not to do those things. If you love someone you want positive interactions so my question to this guy is… are you reciprocating in a positive way? And yes you should gently say I don’t like it. Always. No need to vilify her or hurt her just make sure she knows you are serious.

Give her some time to adjust her behavior because it’s hard to change your own expressions of playful. For me I want my person to feel playful so I’ll explore new ways to do that. And no it’s not asking someone to change who they are because there are lots of ways to be playful and NOT cause negative reactions.

Ask for what you want and then let that person accommodate you. Let them show you they want to love and respect you in ways that make you feel loved and respected. If she doesn’t then maybe it’s more about compatibility and that’s a harder beast to tackle.

This conversation made me think of a friendship where I was always doing the work to adapt to who they wanted me to be but they never gave me credit for it. I was always that person that did this one thing they hated as of if I always did it. I couldn’t sing or tell jokes around them because it was embarrassing to them. They hated how I chewed my food. They called me stupid and laughed at me in front of people. Sometimes my response would be to repeat it or double down so I felt like I had autonomy in the moment and/or maybe I’d also laugh at myself but both responses were to offset the hurt I felt at never being good enough. I no longer have that friend.

I still annoy people. I still get it wrong sometimes. I still get embarrassed and double down in the moment and get defensive and hurt if my intention is misunderstood. But I always listen and always adapt to the people I love. I’m not changing who I am I just change how I express who I am in ways that are more conducive to the feelings I hope to inspire.

This poem is how my friend made me feel about myself. And why depression used to cling to friends like him.

I’m always just

Worst case scenario

Always or never

Just one way

Stuck in historical

Never listen

Never learn

Never improve

Never ever grow

I’m a repeat offender

I’m just that one thing

Forever and a day

I’m not playful

I’m not silly or fun

I’m just annoying

Or better yet

I’m that monster

You should run from