Dear Briar...

2/28 - Inspiration
Dear Briar -

This should be the last day of February, but it’s a leap year. Weird. Who the hell ever decided that every four years there should be another day tacked onto February? It boggles me. I wonder if you’re outside right now, Central Park, perhaps, romping around with Pup. If you are sitting up on the rocks, you know the ones that I mean, you can probably really feel impending March; in like a lion, out like a lamb. Truly, the only solace that I found today is in the wind. I sat down on my parent’s balcony and listened to March. It’s craz ... I can hear the seasons changing . Really. If you listen closely, you really can hear grass unearthing. Even in New York Bri, I bet that you can hear impending spring, too. Just listen to the space between sounds; spring is there. It grows like a crescendo, and tickles the senses. Spring air activates the melanin in our skin, new freckles emerge like onion grass and hair becomes a bit more unruly.

The sun is higher now. Did you notice? It washes us in light; no more long shadows. Soon the bullfrogs will be back again, but I won’t hold my breath until summer. This year I will enjoy the transition. I will dance on the Solstice, experience the green moment, taste April‘s rain and hug Mayflowers. I am an existentialist …today. It is so beautiful here in June when the green is still bright, and the day is long. I swear that it is enchanted. There is this whole fairy world that lives around the pond; it is fantastic. It is so lush, green, and the fragrant wisteria climbs the spiral staircase to my apartment. I cannot believe that you haven’t been here. I’ve had many glasses of wine out on my patio, and cheered to you and the moon, Bri. It’s magical in summer. I want to share it with you someday, soon. I think that fresh air and green grass is going to help me through this.

Bri, I am so inspired by the fabulous creative enthusiast/existential writer/artist, Sark, who wrote “A Creative Companion: How to Free Your Creative Spirit.” The book is fantastic, hand-written and has wonderful illustrations. I want to give the author a huge hug and let her/him know that this book has been a source of contentment and inspiration for me. You would love it. There is a tree illustration in it that reminds me of the Shell Silverstein book that you gave me once, “The Giving Tree.” That was one of the most thoughtful, beautiful gifts that I have ever received. Thank you. Here is a passage from Sark that I want to share with you entitled, How to Be Really Alive. I know you’ll dig it:
“Live juicy. Stamp out conformity. Stay in bed all day. Dream of gypsy wagons. Find snails making love. Develop an astounding appetite for books. Drink sunsets. Draw out your feelings. Amaze yourself. Be ridiculous. Stop worrying. Now. If not now, then when? Make you’re your favorite word. Marry yourself. Dry your clothes in the sun. Eat mangoes naked. Keep toys in the bathtub. Spin yourself dizzy. Hang upside down. Follow a child. Celebrate an old person. Send a love letter to yourself. Be advanced. Try endearing. Invent new ways to love. Transform negatives. Delight someone, wear pajamas to a drive in movie. Allow yourself to feel rich without money. Be who you truly are and the money will follow. Believe in everything. You are always on your way to a miracle. The miracle is you.”
Love, Ana

3/1 - Realization
Dear Briar -

I have a whole lot of time to think, but I don’t mind. And when I don’t want to think, I read. I read a lot. I actually cradle my books like I used to covet cigarettes. It’s weird, but I’m learning, I guess.

I wonder if the psychomeds are altering my brain so much that I am actually retaining everything in some other portion of my head. Perhaps they have inadvertently made space for a my new found perception of old files.. I don’t know, but I do know that many of the books that I am rereading for the sake of not thinking are having a profound effect;

I have a new understanding, I think. For instance, Sylvia Plath so eloquently referred to it as living within the vacuum of a bell jar.
I used to think that being bipolar was much more violent than that. My depression was more torrential, less predictable. I would do outlandishly generous things one minute, and would spiral into tears within a day ... drowning my confusion with wine, or Guinness, or pot, whatever was available. Definitely pills. My mother must have wondered what happened to her supply of Xanax. They were my solace, washed down with red wine. And then I would wake, function, and start the cycle all over again. The worst was if I didn’t have any drugs at my disposal, then food became my tool and my comfort, followed by the same pattern of complete elation, then a vicious downward spiral within a day. I would sink to seclusion, tears, anger, food followed by guilt, . . . then hours of puking. Psychedelic yawn. Tossing my cookies. However you would like to refer to it, it was painful and gratifying in tandem. Sick. Depression was torture; underneath my guise of happiness, my soul screamed and choked for air.

But now I understand the bell jar. Lithium is a vacuum. I smile, but I feel nothing. It’s like I am in a vortex of my life, and the film called my reality dances across the screen surrounding me. I can see love, hate, fear, sex, passion, longing, truth, and touch slowly move down through my film credits, illuminated by the red sunrise, and the setting brilliant moon; I can appreciate it like a painting, but I can’t feel it like music. I am in the jar.
XO Ana

Ana's Downloads of the Day

"A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" - Bob Dylan

and
"Workin' on leavin' the Livin'" - Modest Mouse