artvisualdiary

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I have noticed all my posts start with I, it used to annoy me how selfish I was. I began thinking up new opening statements... Then I said FUCK that. I realised that it is OK. The blog is MINE. All MY secrets, made by ME and I love it!!!!!

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I always wanted to be a Disney Princess, even in my twenties I was studying medicine but planning my life as a princess. I did end up personifying a Disney character but not Bell or cinderella I became Marry Poppins. I went from broken heart to broken heart... rescued it and left. I am not created to be the one who goes flying a kite into an eternal happy ending: I am the unsung hero that created that ending. In many ways it is more a privilege.

[artvisualdiary]

I am a doctor... I can save your life... I don't know how to live my own!

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As a doctor in training I am taught to ask questions and write down the chaotic chunks of fact the patients spit out at me. I keep asking and writing, asking and writing, until... Suddenly the thrown up information on the page reveals a pattern and I connect the dots to a diagnosis. Now I sit with a broken heart. I ask and write. Ask and write. I keep on asking and writing knowing in my heart that the feelings and questions I throw at these pages will soon reveal a pattern, the picture will become clear and I will receive clarity.

[artvisualdiary]

Have you ever seen that cool experiment where you take a rose and freeze it in liquid nitrogen? It is stunning the rose becomes reflective glas and looks like the rose of Beauty & the Beast. The frozenness highlights the uniqueness of each petal and saves a moment in time. I remember seeing it done on a church camp and finding it enrapturing. The pastor lifted the most beautiful object I had seen to date, looked at the room of innocent girls and told us how it represented our virginity. A stunning metopher for feminity being complex intriguing and perfectly timeless. But then: he smashed it and asked if anyone of us could put it back together once broken. No one else tried but I did. I sat there crying at the brokenness of beauty. I held the fragments and my heated hands melted the rose petals into mush. A disgusting sloppy mess was all that remained of that rose. Over the years I went to many camps with the same message performed differntly. One held up a tempting, Snow White apple so red that my lips were envious of it's hue: "Your virginity is an apple, every time you sleep with a man a bite is taken" crunch. Munch. Crunch Crunch crunch. "Would you like to eat this apple? Do you think a man would want a whole apple or a left over apple core" Another used the analogy of pulling threads from a knit until only strands remained. Another used valcrow that accumulated fluff after being ripped off various garments. Others used a white shirt that had different stains of dirt rubbed onto it forming a colourful shirt )perfect for a bad Omo washing powder advertisement). Another used the idea of wearing socks. He got five volunteers and gave the first boy a pair of socks and instructed him to run around the room then he had to take it off and pass it to the next boy etc etc until one boy refused because the socks were gross. The pastor asked; "Do you want to be like used socks or do you want to save yourself for marriage?" For as many Sundays as there are in 21 years I have heard that many such stories. You may think: "Oh good kids will abstain and behave," but let me enlighten you as to what actually happens. Half of those girls will marry at 20. Of that, half will be happy and half will become judgemental bitter women trpaped in loveless marriages who take up the flame of propigating this message of usedness to young girls. Then you have the half who won't marry the first man they sleep with, of whom some will run away from the church and live experimenting to a point of excess, some will have sex and feel guilty, eventually cowering back to the church begging to be told they are not dirty. The lucky ones transition into secular culture and marry after a few years of exploring and live happy lives. I don't write for those people I write for the girls who find themselves where I did. I went to every church camp, I knew every line by heart. I believed and obeyed them. Then I fell in love. No not fell, I exploded, every part of my heart that had love in it wanted to display that love to this man. The love I had for art; I used to paint him into my future. The love I had for writing; only knew how to create romantic poetry. The love I had for family; made room for a new member. And the love I had for my body and who I was; I wanted to share with him. I wanted to give heart and soul to him. But in my mind I saw socks, roses and dirty shirts so I resisted. I couldn't risk losing God for a man. But love doesn't get supressed it grows. It grew deep, the roots of love burrowed through the walls of my heart into the soil of my soul and broke all my foundations. I made love. I held nothing back, I gave him my every part of my being. He kissed away the fear and made me more whole than I had ever been. No moment in prayer made my soul atoms vibrate with such joy. No embrace at church made me feel as welcome as his arms. No conversation made me feel as heard as the moans of my body that synchronised to his power did. I never felt as alive, as loveable or as perfect and pure. There is no going back after that. . That period of my life is locked somewhere in time as a blur of happiness but then it happened. The world came to wake me from my sleepy dream. Stress and time changed him into a rusted weapon. He became abusive. He hurt me. He hit my body, mind and soul. I tried to leave but he was by no means stupid and he knew my deepest fear and insecurity. He knew how to use them. He would say "Go, I'm sure the church will welcome you back" "Go. But remember you are used now, I can't speak for other men but I wouldn't want to marry a non virgin. Even though I am not one I wouldn't want the mother of my children to be used." "Go. I wonder if your family will forgive and accept a whore." "Go. Don't worry I won't tell anyone what you did." "Go. I am sure the pastors misread and God doesn't actually find you dirty. Although you did know what you were doing, is that one of the unforgivable sins chosing to deliberately defy God? ... I don't know that much about God but if you loved him at all you wouldn't have done it." He even called me a second hand whore. For two years I heard those 21 one years worth of sermons and saw a smashed rose every night before I went to sleep. I left him. I got out. I saved myself but to this day there are moments I feel like a used, dirty, frayed, smashed, left over, smelly unwanted sock. That hurts more than any of the bruises ever could. I hate the church for creating and giving a psychotic man keys to an invisible cage that trapped me (and still traps hundreds of other beautiful innocent girls who just wanted to love) in an abusive relationship.

[artvisualdiary]

A relaxed person will struggle to relax a stressed one. A stressed person will easily stress a relaxed one.

[artvisualdiary]

The world may try steal my innocence but I shall remain Defiantly Naive!

[artvisualdiary]

I am torn between labeling this the safe/logical option (a part of growing up and realising that some dreams won't come true) and calling it giving up on a dream that might still come true.

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That is the thing though those moments will never go away. In twenty and sixty years time you will have moments when you remember and your whole body tenses and feels broken all over again; as if it happened today. But my darling that is the beauty of it. That is what she left behind. She left you those moments when you feel her loss with your whole soul, they are the gift she left you that remind you to honor her life. she left her mark on the earth not by what she left behind but those moments when those who knew her feel the emptiness of the space she left in their lives. Her life echoes through the holes in ours.

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"That is nonsense it is just in your head!" Does it matter? I'm the only person who lives in it!

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I avoid relationships at the moment not because I am scared I will find another awful one. I am quite capable of walking out of those. They are opportunities to change and there is nothing you can do to me that hasn't been done already. What I am terrified of to my core is entering an into "enough" relationship. One that is technically perfect but lacking that passion worth sacrificing life for. I am scared of comfortably settling into a good relationship where my needs are met and complaints are few. I am scared I won't be brave enough to leave that familiar comfort but settle into the boring couch and live life. Live a life without any opportunity, possibility or hope out of my future for that indescribable love that consumes.

[artvisualdiary]

Every time I go away with a friend/lover I reach a point in time when I pray “God stop me from killing this person” and then I freeze. I say a more spine chilling prayer: “ God help me kill the part of me I hate.” The very qualities over which we bond, the qualities we both share and I love about you I start to hate, friends have a powerful way of being a mirror, they show you how you need to grow. What you need to kill to create space in your being.

[artvisualdiary]

I will teach my children this: love people because people teach you lessons. Lessons grow you. Growth is life and I want you to live a good life so always be receptive and welcome new people and experiences ... even if all you learn is "not this" you are the better for it.

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At a funeral there is never only one speech; this is because the idea that all of who we are and what we have done can be shared with a single person is a Hollywood myth. We are a mirror ball mosaic of of lives we have touched reflecting beauty into the world.

[artvisualdiary]

Before I say yes

Before you drag me into the eternal cliché Before you catch me and I fade into obscurity Before you blind me with promises Let me look around and see Before the white ending Let me be Before you believe your own compliments Get to know me Before the clock of time alarms with age Let me run free. Before demanding a future blessed by the gods Dig and discover my history Before writing sonnets about my smile Come sit and comfort me. Before you ask so much from me. Before you steal what is left Ask yourself honestly if you are ready

[artvisualdiary]

The Secret

If you wish to walk the halls of life without the colossal columns hearing the echoes of your empty heart: You have but one option. Should you tiptoe: you will trip Should you hide: you will inspire curiosity Should you freeze: your statue will be admired Should you whisper: unwanted words will flow Should you run: your energy will terminate before the corridor There is but one way to keep safe your secrets... Share half of them. -Divide your core truth -Exclaim some fractions in jest -Slip some in rhetoric -Declare halves as wholes loudly -Direct quarters as questions -Dance around eighths for infinity Only silent halls echo Only concealed facts are discovered To enshroud your true self, you must confidently make a self known as an offering on the altar

[artvisualdiary]

Sometimes I forget the severity of my soul's need for art. Art is my chronic medication: it isn't a psychedelic addiction it is the drug that tames my psychosis.