archereation

[archereation]

Participating in Nanowrimo! Are any of my followers? I really want to do it this year!

[archereation]

Sheeple and the Robotization of the American Public - Part 1 -

Everywhere you go the people have changed from the loving, compassionate, God-crafted individuals into the sheeple. You can see them in your local Starbucks on a Wednesday morning at 9:04 lining up for their lattes. Their clothes are nice, striped sweaters, vests, hoodies, some still sporting sandals with their scarves. What you cannot see from their colorfully clad exteriors is the robot that dwells within.

They woke up to an alarm that blared at 6 am. They got up, made their coffee, popped their joints, elbows and knees, slid into a hot shower, straigtened their curls and sudded their pits. They applied their eyeliner and lipstick, tied their ties, slipped on shoes of many varieties, started their tic-tac SUVs, and drove here, in a tube, windows up, talk-radio news on.

They now line up for their first daily-dose: caffeine.

They will head out in their tic-tac vehicles to their tic-tac offices where they will sit in tic-tac cubicles next to Stacys, Susans, and Steves, and they will type reports, input data, numerals lining up that will create graphs and charts that they will input by 5 oclock to their bosses.

In between the input, they will routinely check their social media accounts and communicate through posts, memes, and status updates with carefully crafted robot friends that show their highlight reel.

"Hey, this is from my trip to Maui: missing the beach!"

"Here is my beautiful" (robot) "husband and my perfect" (robot) "baby. They are too sweet!"

Some are realer than others. "Fuck you, fuck your house, and the fucking horse you road in on!"

Unfriend.

They will edit the people that will interact with their lives and carefully craft their highlight reels like the barista crafted their latte, quickly, without much though; it kind of all tastes like burnt espresso doesn't it?

On a Thursday night in October, they will return to (tic tac) homes in (tic tac) apartment houses, box after box lined up on top of other boxes where they will stroke a cat that has more humanity than them and sleep next to a dog with more emotion than they.

Then, replay, repeat, no pause, the day will begin just like the last. Thursday, then Friday, Saturday, no alarm will blare. They will visit their local breakfast (craft) joint where they will enjoy? bottomless mimosas and giant, fat-filled biscuits, stacked with bacon, cheese, and avocado. They will hike on a sign laden trail in a fabricated wild that only exists inhabited by the sheeple. It wraps through a once beautiful and wild land called Colorado. They will return to their homes where they will cook dinners, sip on (craft) beers and drink (weak) wine that was on sale at the Tipsy's or Wally's Liquor World.

Sunday, church day, they will not sing in a gospel choir, they will be preached at by a young, hip Christian, and be filled up with the air that will putter-putter-put them through another week.

And then Monday, Tuesday through Friday. Saturday sips and Sunday preachers, again and again until December. Then the new decade will begin.

[archereation]

Look and see, truly

forevercustoms.com

and

foreverperformingarts.com

[archereation]

Yesteryear

Yesteryear, well that friends

It's bout as clear as ..beer

And, this I know now that we have been through it

It has been murky as the lake on one of those mornings

That your sister screamed at the top of her lungs:

I DON'T DO DARK WATER I don't either, sis

Just whiskey and rum,

but those can hardly be compared to the murk of this fall lake

filled with fallen leaves

prisms in their cracking veins

A clear morning once told me the truest truth:

Wait for love,

wait for it

and show that you are waiting by focusing on something that sets your soul on fire

It, this dewey daylight beginning,

breathed the truth into me

I said, briefly,

I spoke in a voice sounding like butterfly's wings

speak to me more

I begged! The morning was silent

So sipping on murky morning coffee,

I breathed in a truth I knew also

The voice that spoke with the morning wind

Came from within

[archereation]

Funk

Skunky, crunky,

never schrunky,

sometimes with a scrunchie

bent knees really wilin it

funk dunk in (n) the trunk

never knew that you were doubting

me

Happiness, brass horn shaped

Where is the form shaped?

I never funked like this funk it bumpin

Baby your voo doo is porn-paced

Hold the ringer,

Singer,

May I request,

a Blow from the lungs

That I listen to best

Hold your golden honey

In a pot made of stars

The funk circle vibration through me

And I see bubble cars

Floating overhead

Bumping in the trunky that funky tune

[archereation]

Butterfly woman

Oh, butterfly print

Inked on my tanned skin

will I cocoon?

Will I become a change again?

Will transition trace me through this transcendence yet again?

[archereation]

“My heartbeat finds the music I swallowed. I close my eyes & welcome splattered hues. At the beginning of a high it’s important to remind yourself you did this to feel good.”

— Raych Jackson, from Even The Saints Audition

[archereation]

A “wild” world

Wild and wild is wild it’s true

There’s a wild for me

And a wild for you

A tree here

A stream there

Flowers all in between

What a beautiful, wild world I have seen!

(pause)

Now all cheesiness aside

All this false and this facade of cheer

The wild I want

Is not the wild I see:

 When I was growing up,

I lived in a valley that laid on its back stretching its toes to brush warm and guarding mountains

Reaching its arms out to lay its open palms against cliffs

In a state where these mountains meet at a divide

Where the rushing waters flow east and west.

In the summer, emerald ruled

The winter meant white absorbed the noise

Fall brought brilliance

And spring meant that the wild was its wildest

And I believed,

My bones’ center flowed with this knowledge,

in my heart, and surely in my mind, that all

This beauty was free

It was made for me, and it was made for us-

If I wanted to eventually live on some land somewhere that no one owned,

(Which had to exist),

I would be able to

There was not a single question cemented  in my mind

My brain fibers knew with certainty

That such a thing was a given

It went with out saying that there were at least portions of this land that I gazed at daily

In love

That just simply were

That simply existed

Free to the people to do what they wish

To camp, to hike, to swim,

Even to live

Why would it matter to anyone

What I chose to do

With the land I loved?

It’s a wild world surely out there,

Every acre can’t be owned

Every nook, every brook, in every forest, below every peak

There were places

Where our wild hearts could roam

And should roam

In order to be whole

In a world that so often

Slams a fist into our center

And shatters us into bits

Busy bits or

Sad bits or

Indifferent bits

Frantic bits

Bits of bits of pieces of us

We need the swirling air to cascade in between these pieces and become a glue

And I knew

I KNEW

That this was how it was

Because what other way could it possibly be?

 And then I learned

There are ways that things are that I would have never imagined

In my mind that was molded by a country that claimed freedom at every turn

That had me imagining

(and again knowing)

stretches of beaches with a single tent

And a broad night sky where I could glimpse our solar system

Dark forests where the deer roam

Swimming holes in between hills-

Where I knew without question that I was free

That freedom was also

A given

Given that fact

Waaaaaasn’t I shocked

When I was hit

In the face

In the brain

With the ways

Of this world

And they are as follows:

There is a beautiful heaven that stretches before us

A paradise at every turn

That has been taped up and signed out and BOUND

Why are they trying to put boundaries on the boundless?!

Sometimes, now, that I have learned

I believe one day I will see a bird flying

Soaring through the crisp morning air

And then TZZZZZ

Suddenly it will become crisp-y

As it flies into an electric boundary in the air

That was put up by some organization somewhere

That binds the atmosphere

Because the land just wasn’t enough.

When I realize and know now that

The only thing truly boundless in this world I am seeing for the first time

Is their greed

Oh…and one other thing

Our spirits.

[archereation]

Release

“I Feel Like I’m Holding my Breath”

Release-

I begged the hole that pierced through a thin universe

The hole that pierced through me

Could I let go of what I was holding?

What was I holding?

Pale knuckles with purple rims, shoulders up, tongue blended with my soft palette

Mouth: contorted into versions of a line

Corners simultaneously turned up and down

Line shrunk small and wide

In a way that no average relaxed person could accomplish

To accomplish “weird facial expressions” as they have been unendeared

What I wouldn’t give to be an average relaxed person

Average so therefore relaxed

Or relaxed so therefore average:

Who would I be if I was such?

Who would that relaxed person be?

What would their face look like?

And I know, I grasp at a time, when I was this person

I was smaller then,

When laughter came easily

And I was carefree

Who took that from me

Who gave me so many cares for free?

I shudder at a night or a day

That one may think was the time when over thinking was thrust upon me

A day or a night when I became the tin jointed woman with sun-dried leather muscles

In simple words

It was an attack

It was an assault

That is when you may think I became the person who would sit staunchly upright with my butt barely touching the very edge of the chair and

speak to no one

The kind of a person who would go to a party and hardly talk

When words were pulled from my lips

Both pairs

On a steely barbed wire

That cut with each thrust

When innocence was robbed from a child

Was not the time when that child became

The tin woman

No

Because it was in reality the self-conscious air that was mistaken for snobbery

The discomfort that was mistaken for stuck up

Was the reason

That the assailants heard

Take from me! Rob me!

In the first place.

That is what they mistook for a castle that was built high

With walls that begged to be burned to the ground with flaming arrows

So I say to them now

I was simply self-conscious

Was that what put the target on my forehead that begged for you to break me?

I was simply uncomfortable

Is that what tugged at you to make me speak

To make me scream

Any choice can splay out indefinitely

Into so many outcomes

No matter how small the choice was

Anything can happen

The solid metal ball can roll down any indentation in the mountain

Like a spider web

With infinite spindles

Stretching out and sparkling

So delicate in sunrise rays

So how do we not let fear paralyze us

Into not dropping the ball

At the peak of the hill at all?

Into not letting the water droplet choose its path down the spindle?

Well I will tell you something

And the story will not be very clear to you at first. I will tell you something and you will have to try with all your might not to believe it.

Because in some ways, believing it will terrify you more than never believing anything, which

You may have thought

Was originally the most terrifying thing

That could ever come about

In a world where believing

Is not seeing

We are actually here

I can’t believe it

We actually fell for it.

I have been sitting and waiting in a cage for years

A cage made of bricks

And a cage made of the walls I have built around myself since you first

Broke me.

[archereation]

⁂Reasons⚛

⁂Reasons⚛

photo credit: Android Jones

Archereation

/ARK-uh-re-ay-tion/

Verb, noun 

derived from the words archetype and creation

1. Exploring how what each of us creates affects and contributes to what creates us

2. The act of creating, becoming, or fully understanding and/or feeling an archetype

 Creation: taking where there was once nothing and making a something; morphing the mundane into the unique. What is it that makes humans want to create? When we create, what changes about us? This blog will explore what it takes to create. It also will delve into less common questions: what happens to a person when they create? How does what we create in turn create us? The main creative force in question will be a film project that my partner has been working on for a lifetime. These questions will help us share the project with the world.

Building a home, composing a song, cooking a meal, writing a poem, creating a film- each of these acts takes first a spark of inspiration and motivation, then the drive to work through the challenges of the creation, and finally, most importantly, and hardest of all: the ability to follow through with the idea so the creator is not just a dreamer but a doer.

We all have a favorite musician. As we get older, we may not have a specific one, but we connect with music in a way indescribable and specific to the sense of hearing, and we can at least pinpoint a time in our life when the music was the moment, or to some, like me, it was everything. To the fortunate few, that is still the case. There are people who make careers out of it. Lives, passions, moments that most of us can only dream of.  What must it feel like to not only create something, but to have even one other person connect with it on the level that people connect with songs? Or, take it to the next level, to perform on a stage, on the stage of an ampitheatre like Red Rocks and have the entire crowd swaying back and forth to a song you created, or jamming out to the beat you wrote. What must it feel like? What happens to our souls when they speak and people hear it? Feel it?

I have experienced this in the audience. I have looked behind me while standing in the fortieth row of Red Rocks, lyrics flowing out of my lips automatically because my car stereo had somehow manifested itself in front of me, my friends surrounding me, thousands of them, people I never knew but now knew better than my own siblings, while the rain was pouring down, the lights were creating foggy beams into the night sky. The Denver skyline peaking over the stage, the stars-the only moment in my life where the stars paled in comparison to the spectacle below them. Every single person feeling the energy, all moving the same way as if we were part of some being, the rocks engulfing us, I have looked behind me and seen the crowd, the being I was part of, and realizing in that moment that that would be the moment that I would remember forever, even though I didn’t understand the full power and meaning behind it until now, as I try to explain it in simple black and white. That night, my youth was embodied. It’s indescribable, and I was just an audience member. How did the people on stage feel? I would give anything to know, because if I knew I might understand why we are even on this rock in the first place.

This film will help to describe this feeling and maybe even this reason why we are here because it is intertwined with music written by the screen-write. Without the music, the story would not be able to be told because of the life and storytelling properties of music. In turn, this film will become a piece that people will connect with on a level even beyond that which they connect with music. It will change their lives. With each person that watches it, the world will change for the better. This feeling that music makes us feel and this film will help us to be a changing force for a better world.

I can understand this feeling on a small scale because I used to choreograph dances. I say use to because it has been, and I hurt to type it to make it a reality, almost ten years since I have choreographed a dance that has gone into production. And, fellow dancers, yes, it hurts, that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that said production was in…wait for it…I’m embarrassed to say it, yes,…h-h-…high school.

So am I still a creator? If my last true creation that connected with people was in a high school auditorium, can I still claim the title?

           This is my journey. This is my white-knuckled struggle.

           Am I worthy? Am I still able? Am I skilled? Will they judge?

I must create. I also must help my best friend follow through on the project of a lifetime and share it with the world.

And so, here I sit, with keys under the pads of my fingers, I write. I write, and I wonder, and yes, I dream a little. Can I create again? As I create, can I help to share a story of great proportions, weight, and power?

This blog will document my journey back to creator. First and most importantly, I will write, because after all before even I was a choreographer, I was a writer. I will create poetry and whatever else develops over time. Then, I will create a milleau of things from crafts to songs, to yes, maybe if I can bring myself through the forest, to choreographing a dance. Our final goal is to create the most epic and world changing film in our, or any, generation.

Of course, sometimes I will write about other things going on in my life, but for the most part, I want to explore creativity and all of the themes that come with it.

I will also interview other creators. I will explore the creative space in a way that I have never imagined because I know it will bring me to places and discoveries and experiences I haven’t thought of.

Join me.

Learn from my journey.

Learn from this film.

Let’s begin to understand

Archereation

For ellaboration and collaboration:  ⚛foreverperformingarts.com  ✮forevercustoms.com

[archereation]

Twisted Tree

A tree twists up to a winter sun

The tree is thickened by the jaded wind

The snow piles on its branches

Not decaying

But growing more

Fervent from the storms

I bring you a short poem tonight. Check out my Blane post tomorrow, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, let’s Archereate. Check out the page!  ⚛

[archereation]

“Blane Series” 1: -What IF?- The Story of Blane

Photo: Empty

As an adult living in modern society, the most naive of us, sheltered of us, innocent of us, unhindered of us, is nonetheless weighed down with baggage in two forms:

1.The collective conscious of what humans have learned over the centuries, passed down without us being conscious of them, woven into the fibers of our being, brain, body, and all systems that connect them. This notion includes archetypes that we all recognize automatically. When we are born, we have certain instincts and knowledge.

And

2. What we learned through observation about the world from the moment we exited the womb. Our reality was and is shaped by those early observations, unfortunately (and I say that not to be pessimistic but because we had no choice in the matter of what we observed, so many of us learned a reality that we, now being who we choose to be, want to unlearn).

 Note: I say these things are baggage or hindrances instead of advantages in this case and line of questioning alone. I think from another perspective, they could be seen as advantages in life, but my question today is how a truly “blank” human would be, and I am taking the stance that it would be more positive to be “blank” vs. how each of us is “scathed”.

 An example of the result of the H1 (hindrance #1) is the “lizard brain”, fight or flight response that can be such a problem in life. It causes anxiety and panic attacks among other emotional disturbances, but it was developed in early human days as a way to survive. We carry it with us as an evolutionary trait developed over time. This is only one example.

H2 is a little more complex to explain the consequences of. Think about it. How detrimental could it be that only your sphere of a family unit was how you experienced the world and learned what the world itself was? In the most extreme cases, an abusive, violent family would be detrimental, but what about simply an isolated family that didn’t have a broad world view? How about an, unintentionally by anyone, unstable family so the child learns the world is an unstable place? What about a family full of fearful, anxious people, no matter how kind? How about judgmental and/or cruel people? How are children’s worldviews then shaped? Too often, we are convinced that a child is only damaged by a truly, intentionally abusive situation. This is not the case.

 My question is this:

What if a grown, adult human was unscathed by either of these hindrances, 1. or 2., that every actual human carries?

What if they truly were a blank slate to the world around them, as if just born but yet with the knowledge of how to carry out the fundamentals of life, in other words, simply survive?

How would they create a reality and existence without the mentioned hindrances?

In this series of writing over the next few blog posts, I will imagine such a human. I will call her Blane.

In this case, the human will have a knowledge of basic survival (they will know how to acquire food and shelter and be a social being that can interact with others, among other subtleties of survival that I couldn’t possibly express all of, but will delve into in the posts). Because I am female, I will have the character be female because I’m not sure how to do such a work without having a gender assignment, and I understand being a female, because hey, I am one. Gender won’t be a focus of the piece. She would have been in early adulthood, after adolescence, whenever you imagine that may be.  

We will not discuss how such a human came to be or where they came from. Simply, it will be like a case study of what each of us is born with and learns, and we will discover it together by trying to imagine a human that doesn’t have such preconceived notions and realities that in reality every human must have.

What would it be like to be a human stripped of every preconceived notion, of the unspoken rules that society has us follow, no matter how rebellious we, mistakenly, may think of ourselves?

How would such a fresh human perceive the world around them?

Let’s follow Blane on her journey into modern society, specifically America, and learn through imagination how such a human would create their reality.

[archereation]

And then she realized, ideas evolve

As I have come to research over the past few days after posting the first post of the “Blane Series”, I have decided, with my partner, that writing this series would not be complete without a male to illustrate another aspect of this idea of an “unscathed” human. Gender, although originally I did not want to play a factor in this experiment of imagination, simply does. It influences both how the stories will be written as well as what issues will be discussed, but it also is important to include both genders so people understand that whatever I’m describing doesn’t just happen to women or men. This part will make more sense once the second writing of the series is released. Watch for these posts, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the last blog post here on Archereation.

[archereation]

“Blane Series” 2: Blane Arrives in America

“Blane”

“Blane, eh-em,” slightly more annoyed.

Still, no response, the girl was looking out the window, as if thoughts were loud, and she simply couldn’t hear the woman’s voice over the sheer sound of them.

“Blane!”

Snap. Now, her head was in the passage that was created between the woman’s mouth and her own ears, clicked into place as if part of a Rubik’s cube.

“I don’t take kindly to yelling, I simply don’t like to be forced to do it.” Curtly, as if she was still yelling, ironically, even though her voice was quiet.

“I’m sorry, ma’am”

“You can put your things in here,” The woman gestured to the closet, small but sufficient, and a large bureau painted white. How pretty must it have been before it was whited out, Blane thought fleetingly.

“You know how much I appreciate this job, I hope. I want to experience America, and this is my chance to do it. Plus, your children seem so sweet. It will be a joy to work with them,” Blane said, with a wide, genuine smile. The words were almost cliché to the woman. She had heard them countless times from previous nannies that didn’t work out for one reason or another.

“You’re welcome, Blane. I hope this works out.” She this time, was genuine herself, as she truly did, and not just because she wanted it, but because she wanted consistency for the kiddos.Walking out of the room, the woman turned and smiled with closed lips. Her muscles in her face were turning the corners of her mouth down even as her brain and heart tried to get her face to convey her meaning.

This is it. Blane thought. This is my new life. She looked around. There was a patio door made of squares of glass separated by white paneling. Outside, there was a yard, mostly kept except for patches. There was a pergola with triangular-leaved vines twining up it. Beautiful. She could hear an announcer of some type in the distance, even through the walls of the downstairs bedroom. Blane sat on the bed and smoothed her white linen pants. She seemed to blend into the room, her white pants, her fair skin, her blonde hair, almost white itself. She seemed, from a fly on the wall perspective, she was on the brink of something, teetering on the edge, but unsure of what next step to make. She glanced around, unsure herself of what to do. She went to her suitcase and pulled out a notebook. There, she wrote:

Day 1, America.

12.30.18

I feel as if everyone I have encountered is on edge today. Maybe it is the date, maybe it is the weather. I just can’t imagine that this is how people are all the time. They are either on edge or they are cut off from everyone, each in their own invisible sphere walking around, being sure not to bump spheres with someone else, scared. Then there was the aggressive ones. They weren’t aggressive in their actions though, more in their way. They would get all close to me with no patience to get by me, but not really realize or maybe not care that I was affected by them. How strange the feelings that came over me. They are foreign to me as I am foreign to this place.

I tried to smile, make friends with people around me on the plane, but no, everyone is as I stated. Everyone except for the woman who sat next to me. She had dark eyes, but when she smiled they gleamed with friendliness. She was friendly yes, but when there was any silence between us the air became taught and murky, an uncomfortable tension, so she continued to talk nonsensical small talk to fill it. That was until I said what I would be doing in America. She was short with me then. I didn’t understand it.

I think it must be the date. The holidays are strange. In between Christmas and New Year’s, everyone is exhausted and anxious. This must be it.

On a lighter note, I made it! I’m here. I have a comfy bed! I have a job! The kids really do seem sweet, and I will be an influence on their life. What a joy, what a responsibility!

Here goes, I am ready. I will write more tomorrow. I want to go into town before the night is through.

Blane

12.31.18

Day two, morning, America

Last night, my footsteps went to the beat of the music playing over, well I guess it must have been speakers embedded in the actual sidewalk. How strange. It’s like wherever I go, there is music playing. I love music. It is one of the true joys in my life, but music that I don’t choose, wherever I go?! It is so distracting! Maybe my sense of hearing is stronger than I thought? Or maybe, maybe it really is loud and obnoxious. 

I don’t understand peoples’ need here for constant input, input, input. Plus, I like to choose what is fed to my brain. Good music is nourishing, but this - it was as if the people surrounding me didn’t even notice what they were hearing. I tried to clear my mind as much as possible here and enjoy seeing the sites.

I hoped for cobblestone, for people being friendly- what I got was pavement, strip malls, and a sense of dense… isolation. I returned worn out and immediately fell into a somehow simultaneously deep and restless sleep. I’ll write more again this evening. I won’t start work until the new year. See you soon, journal.

Blane

This post is the 2nd of the “Blane Series”. For an explanation of the story, please see Blane Series 1. Share your thoughts below!

[archereation]

“Blane Series” 3: Blane Meets the New Year

1.1.2019

Day 3, America

I write today, the first day of a new year, with the potential of hope in my heart like a flower bud, stamped out by the shoe. What I have witnessed over the last twenty four hours has been too much for me to understand and too much for me to process, so my goal here is to do just that with something that has worked for me in the most stressful times of my life: put my scattered, frantic thoughts to paper.

It started with the arrival of my brother yesterday. He has been planning on joining me since last month. He was going to be here today, but got a last minute early flight. He arrived, and typical of Brody, was applying for jobs and hitting the streets looking for work within an hour of being here. He amazes me, in a beautiful way. They amaze me, with disgust.

He decided to apply at an auto parts store. He worked as a mechanic before, so we thought for sure he would get hired here and could work while he looked for a higher paying position. He printed his resume with my help, and we walked into the nearest auto parts store to where he would be staying.

First of all, the store manager was shocked, and almost appalled, that we went straight into the store to apply without first “applying online”. Since when can you not shake someone’s hand, meet them, and get a job? Wouldn’t it make more sense than to turn everyone into a number and pass them through a series of electronic tests before accepting them?

This didn’t sway Brody. OK, let’s go to the library then, he said calmly. We went, he filled out the online application, a very strange questionnaire that seemed to be using some type of software to analyze his personality, and then we waited.

  I’m just going to call them, he finally exclaimed, slightly frustrated. Just to let them know that my application is in, and that I’m still interested.

So he did.

And the man said he didn’t pass through the initial filter. There was no way that the manager could hire Brody according to company policy.

Well…well, what do you mean the first filter? What is the filter?

The manager seemed to like Brody, so probably breeching another policy, he told him that the HR manager has to research people online before she can go onto the interviewing process. She did this, and Brody came back with a negative rating.

Sorry bud.

So now, in this world, there is a technological blacklisting?

Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance at a fresh start? Redemption even?

Not according to company policy apparently.

Then the night came. The night that is supposed to be a celebration. And we decided, whole heartedly but with sickness on our tongues from the day, to make the most of it. We saw a poster earlier at a coffee shop for a gathering at a local café for people new to the area who didn’t know anyone to spend time with on New Year’s Eve.

Perfect! Brody shouted in the quiet shop. Everyone stared with sharp eyes.

So we went. We met some amazing people. Students, entrepreneurs, and the greatest part for me is that the party was not about getting all messed up. The most anyone had was a glass of champagne at midnight. And that is when it started. Brody and I began to sing. It just came over us. The day had been so disappointing, but this moment and the night had seemed to redeem it. This year was going to be great after all. And the people joined in. Everyone laughed and sang at the top of their lungs. People embraced. People shouted, laughed, and cried, and alcohol was not the cause.

And then the police showed up

And they bashed a girl’s head with their baton and then claimed it was because we were so out of hand.

A group of people singing.

Celebrating.

Was it because we weren’t drunk? Was it because we were unique?

I don’t understand.

Forced order is not peace.

With great sadness,

Blane

This post is the 3rd of the “Blane Series”. For an explanation of the story, please see Blane Series 1. Share your thoughts below! 

[archereation]

“Blane Series” 4: Blane and The Technological Turmoil

1.3.2019

Day 5, America

I woke up this morning, slightly still dazed from the last few days and all I had been…learning? I made it through the fog between the downstairs bedroom and the upstairs. I walked into the kitchen, happy enough that I was finding joy in the squish of the carpet in between my toes. I was looking forward to the coffee that seemed to be the morning ritual here. Then, I came across Diane. She was sitting at her computer, glowing blue with the screen light in the dim morning, but raging purple beneath its light.

“I need this to work! This needs to work now or I am screwed!” She yelled with no awareness that I had entered the room. “If I can’t log into this account, I can’t log into any account! I’ll be locked out! Then I’m locked out at work! That means I can’t download the files I need for my clients today! The mental health of a portion of this whole city is reliant on this damn connection!!!!!” I cringed in pain at the tone of her voice and the true pain behind it. I couldn’t help to be mad at her somehow, even in her helplessness, and I didn’t understand why.

The way she screamed, you would have thought that her life depended on this password working. And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe it did. The more she talked and panicked, the more it seems like everything she needed to access for work and her personal life was all linked together, like her success was controlled by a force that she didn’t even understand. I pitied her and thanked God for my flip phone and simplicity of my life as a nanny, independent from technology to function.

The more I walked around today, the glow of screen on face was the motif. Whether it was on the train, in the café, the supermarket, even window shopping, everyone seemed to be “in their phone”. They were all hunched creatures. Even their body posture was affected by their little pocket screens. The epidemic spanned generation and paid no mind to difference in culture or socio-economic status.

These devices are their masters, something told me, but I shook off the creeping I felt up my spine as the thought crossed through my consciousness. I looked around at the people and was given a vision:

A man, old and crippled, sets down a screened device on a plastic counter and steps outside into a sunny day. It’s as if he is seeing the world around him for the first time. He looks up and begins to cry. “I missed out on life,” he sobs.

Almost crying myself, I was reminded of Brody and the words of the manager telling him that he hadn’t passed through the first filter because of an online search of his name. Who’s to say that the information they found on him was even real? There was no fact checker on the World Wide Web! Someone could be sabotaging him for all anyone knew, and he would have no repercussions for that person.

Furthermore, what if someone could broadcast a message over all these devices. A negative message, something that the people would believe and would somehow follow. This person who had control over the screens would truly have ultimate control.

What was this world? What was controlling it?

Signing off,

Blane

This post is the 4th in the “Blane Series”. For understanding, see the first post in the series, and explore some seriously important and fundamental ideas to what it means to exist in the modern world. Leave any thoughts, comments, or even confusions below. Thanks for reading!

[archereation]

“Blane Series” 5 : Blane LDT

1.4.2019

I start the real work today. Not that settling in hasn’t been work. Clarification: I start the nannying today.  I am still exhausted. I am feeling upbeat though about the possibilities of today. Kids are always refreshing to me. They have a perspective on the world that I can relate to. Caring for three all day today will surely tire me out, but I will write when I am done.

Write soon,

Blane

1.4.2019, afternoon

Today, I feel promise. Not because everything went like I wanted it to. More because I have seen the problem. I think, after only this week or so of being here, and one day of work, I have been downtrodden and stamped out and already risen back up with awareness of the problems and therefore hope to rise above them. I have the faith that I will find the people that are like me here, somewhere, wherever they are winning. Today, I feel that I have won myself. Here is why.

My first interaction was with Lila. Her name is pronounced like a mix between Lyla and Lilly. Of course I kept pronouncing it LIE-la. She did NOT like this. This was the first of a few problems.

Lila is a tiny thing with a head of red hair that is bigger than her. It is tangled and curly and BEAUTIFUL. Although she already hates it.

Then there was art time. I thought this was always a favorite with kiddos. Lilla informed me that she hates art. HATES? Yes, hates. She claims that she hates art because it can never be perfect. This is where the beauty lies, I tried to reason to this very sophisticated little woman. It was as fruitless as her trying to tame her hair. She threw the crayons because of her frustration with perfection.

After her outburst, I felt sympathy for her, so I did something I NEVER practice at work especially on the first day. I flipped on the cartoons.

I was then informed that she didn’t like cartoons. She preferred “law or doctor shows.”

What do I do?!

It’s not like I was just interacting with Lilla alone. No, she has two, yes two brothers. They were no easier.

First there was Ditto. Yes, that is his name. The thing is that he is indeed the second child. So, his name is kind of a pun. I felt bad for him immediately.

Ditto is a spitfire like his sister.

The last, eldest child is name Treston. He is completely different than his siblings. Quiet, but not shy. He is laser focused on the actions and projects that he assigns himself throughout the day. I think these might be a product of him trying to cope with the intense energy he feels from the other two. I tried not to psychoanalyze him as much as possible though because I’m SURE he gets this from his mom who has already described him to me as odd.

I find him sweet, kind, sensitive, and honestly, he has a well of sadness that I can see when I look into his eyes. It crushed me when I first saw it. He has so much potential.

So those are the three: L.D.T. I call them. Limited. And they are a challenge.

I am ready.

At first, I got caught in a swarm of thoughts after working with the kids all day. It’s because I realized that they, for the most part, already struggle with not being genuine because guess what? In this place you can’t be! Unless of course you want to be perceived as naïve and therefore get taken advantage of! Being fake or whatever you want to call this guard, this skin, this wall that hides genuine feelings, is used as a survival technique. I am more naïve than Lilla, and it’s scary.

Meanwhile, Diane is at work all day working with people with “mental disturbances” as she refers to them. No wonder she has so many clients. How could anyone hide their true selves daily and be “normal”. And another thing! Normalcy, what is that even?

So at first, honestly, I was freaked out by today.

Then, I realized that I am different.

I love these kids already, but I am different than them.

I will help them, but for now I find solace in this realization:

Thank god, I am different than this! I have a chance! I can break through, maybe even change some things! I know there must be some people out here like me. Tomorrow, I go out to find them. Of course, I have to work first. I’m sure I will have more to say about the kids, but then

I find my tribe.

Until next time,

Blane

This is number 5 in the Blane Series! Check out #1-4 for understanding, and leave your thoughts below! Thanks, klc, archereation.

⚛ Check out foreverperformingarts.com for elaboration and collaboration of the above themes. Super impactful new page is up now ⚛