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I own this terrible home, or rather, this terrible home owns me.

It takes at least 3 generations to break a family out of the poverty line. Something like that, I recall during one of my recent late night “reading” or “scrolling through my phone in the dark” sessions, the modern day equivalent of what one may have imagined as flipping through a book or a magazine even just ten years ago.

This  one little tidbit of information, as inoffensive as can be, brings me such great anxieties. Do you ever live in fear of repeating the same exact mistakes you were born into? I’m constantly at ends with myself, wondering if it’s just a self fulfilling prophecy, and then at the same time longing for the irresponsible pastimes that I know would get me in the very same spot i’m so afraid of being in to begin with.

What matters in life? Is it being comfortable, having something people would be proud of?

Is it something else entirely, some other random thing that brings you personal joy? Is it a number of things, the variety of experience itself that lends to you your happiness?

I’ve been so tired lately, and so sad, I am missing things. Im working my life away, and when I am not working I am trying my absolute best to turn something terrible into something beautiful- which can sometimes be a simple task but it gets quite complicated when that terrible something is a ruined home, and that beautiful thing is a restored, beautiful home.

I feel that I cannot rest and I am overwhelmed. I am 26 and I didn’t know this would happen to me and I am wholeheartedly overwhelmed.

I own this terrible home, or rather, this terrible home owns me.

I miss myself.

 

 

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a hop, skip, and a jump away: Florida girl goes to the mountains

A few years ago, probably about two of them to be exact, my mother moved up here to Hendersonville, North Carolina. I haven’t been here since I was 19 and I came for a visit on Friday after work in a very unplanned roadtrip from Tampa, Florida.

Driving through took 9 hours split between two days, and I took . It feels so nice to be in a mountainous area, with flowers in bloom in this gorgeous closing of the month of March.

It’s been a very lonely few months in Florida, and coming to the wilderness surrounded by kind strangers is doing me a world of good. I drove through clouds so thick that water droplets and mist were collecting on my windshield as I carefully rounded the mountain. to get to Jump Off Rock.

Jump Off Rock has an old Indian legend associated with it. The legend says that a beautiful young Cherokee Indian maiden jumped from the rock after hearing that her loved one had been killed in battle. This is so beautiful to me, I really cannot wait to go back in the evening to look for her soul. I’d have to walk there, because the drop and the fog is just too daunting for me to drive in at night just yet. Maybe, soon..

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every day life ( in a series of gifs)

I’ll be honest here: I’ve been on a gif binge. 2016 is the year of the .gif, after all. I know too much to turn back, now!

This year is becoming ideal. A beautiful combination of all that has made me happy in previous years, coming together to grow from a seed into a plant into a tree ( and thus, albeit small, a difference!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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millennial new year new me bullshit post

I admit it. I barely ever make art anymore and even less frequently do I write..I miss it. The clicking of my fingers to the keyboard and the same 15 bands I’ve loved for ten years now because I’m actually old enough to have loved a band for ten years.

I like to live in this fantasy land and pretend art is my only love in this world and the driver of all of my decisions but at this point in my life at age 26, I’d be totally full of shit.

I care about having enough money to pay my bills and developing skills that are going to be growing in demand and surrounding myself with all these things that are so hard and  exhausting that I cant even step outside and have a cup of tea with my creative side with a brush in hand.

Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s that I really don’t feel tormented or like I have something that hurts me and that’s what creates the inspiration for making art for me most of the time, after all.

Whatever this new year -2016 (not two-thousand sixteen, as my close friend Jake would have it) intends to bring to my life, I accept it open arms. I doubt I will paint more, with a budding career but I do hope to meet an support my art communities locally and internationally and hope to at least meet my idols in the space one day. For now, I am just happy to exist and to be able to write and engage with the word in all of the interesting ways the internet allows us to do so.

I am going to work hard, build my garden home here in Florida and hopefully have many more fulfilling experiences this year traveling and being in love.

 

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social media: capturing your fleeting feelings

Do you remember that mood you were in when you took that photo or posted that status update?

That’s the point of it all, I thought. To capture some fleeting memory of a specific way you felt. That’s the point of applications such as instagram and Facebook and twitter. That’s the reason why humans do anything. We are so important and everything we’ve ever felt should be documented and shared, what other point could there be to existing in the first place?

I remember all of these little moods. These little things I captured, and never put anywhere. They are private and matter only to me- not to anyone else.

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feel weak

You. You are just standing there, and you feel weak. There are loud noise around you in echoes because you don’t want to feel the loneliness of quiet. Not today.

It is abrasive and sounds like the banging of trashcans in the rain. Head hurts. Heart hurts. Eyes are dried open. No coffee today, just watching the fog lift from the lake out back and letting noises take over.

“ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, this is going to be ok.” you reassure yourself. “It’s just annoying, nothing more than annoying”

 

 

 

 

 

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earth-ship baby on the trash mountain

“The nasty parts of things are important to keep in mind in order to better appreciate the beautiful.”

At least that is what I have been telling myself every time I pull up into this mass of trash pouring out of the front porch, like some sort of a monster just waiting to suck up the entire yard and planet. It’s a sort of a funny representation of the state of the earth and it’s mine now. A lot of mess, just junk. In heaps. I’ve been overwhelmed by things, this non stop accumulation of physical objects I just cannot keep up with.

This week, the trash will be gone. The roof will be fixed. This week welcomes a new level of decency to this raggedy  piece of shit, my empire of dirt. This trailer that I cannot seem to figure out why I care so much about. I bought flowers, already giving more consideration to the environment of which this property lies that the property itself.

gorgeous purple flowers

All the while working away every day. Getting older and more tired. My mind so busy, never able to sleep. Crying often, reading constantly, I feel unhealthy. Unbalanced. I don’t know how I became so stressed within the span of 8 months. So many things fell into my lap at the same time, life disregarding my comfort. Every decision feels like a tragic mistake lately, but at the very least its a decision and I was never good with those. I’m posting this is my first “before” in regards to the moon lake earth ship. I want to create a beautiful space with the help of my sister and her boyfriend and brother, TJ. I want to share this experience with you. It will probably take me a year, but this is hopefully going to be the most rewarding thing I ever do in my life. a butterfly garden, a fruit and vegetable garden, a beautiful home with bamboo floors and enough food to feed for a month. A chicken coop and a reading nook. A tree house and a koi pond and a spiral herb garden and butterfly visitors and bee visitors and art everywhere!

But in order to best appreciate that future dream, in 12 months, no matter what happens I need to relish in the fact that it looks like absolute shit right now. It’s elegant in a way, seeing the house I spent most of my early teenage years in complete shambles. A mountain of trash. This is poverty. Even the biggest pile of trash can be rebuilt, and I believe that.

Expect

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An ode to my beautiful cat

:3

I love my cat.

As many other artists, scientists, authors and people have loved their cats before me. This is my cat. I haven’t had her very long, just a few short months but I really like her. Her name is Duchess, and she was adopted at 8 years old. She doesn’t like to sit my on lap, but she’s always nearby. She’s got white fur and big green eyes and she doesn’t like other animals at all, just me. She likes neck scritches and meows like an old woman that spent many years smoking cigarettes. She has a sensitive stomach and dislikes dogs. I picked her because she rubbed her head against the phone when I started playing the Velvet Underground in the room she was in when I was at the spca. Little did I know she just rubs her head on everything 🙂