A New Experiment
So I have received feed back from numerous people I respect and trust that I really should begin writing– creatively that is. One of my greatest mentors told me I was a “great storyteller”. I think that was a covert compliment. One part is lovely, I understand how to engage people and take them on an emotional journey that is exciting. The other part to that is that I also, like Pinnochio, lie. I lie all the time… about silly things!
Have you ever caught yourself doing that? It’s so ridiculous. Like, why not just tell your friends you ate the chocolate cake? Why lie about the way you lost your front tooth? Somehow the story is so much more compelling than the truth. Lie. What are the implications of such a habit? No trust from anyone. That is one.
Huh, so to transition lies to storytelling… maybe I use my powers for good rather than evil. I will practice telling stories. I bought a book. Yes, I believe there is a book for everything, and I bought one for a daily writing practice.
It is called “A Writer’s Book of Days“
So September 1, I started.
I thought I would share what I write with you all and if you like, you can write along and post as well! Sort of like an online writing group! Yay community!
Here goes:
September 8th, 2009
_________ is the color I remember.
Orange is the color I remember. Burnt orange. Burnt, vibrant, deep rich orange.
I remember cutting the flesh of a vegetable that reminded me of skin coated in iodine.
The smell of iron overwhelmed anything having to do with the banana bread baking in the kitchen.
I was 14 and I had just gotten my belly button pierced and iodine was the answer to infection at that point.
So every day I laid down in the living room, and poured the metallic liquid into the button on my belly so as to ward off evil bacteria from the new hole I chose to impose upon my body.
It was back to school time. Autumn in Los Angeles is a time of clearing skies and smokey sunsets.
The Santa Anna winds rush the overly dried desert with fires across the coast line for weeks in the end of August. And everyone is always so surprised.
It happens every year, and yet we have no memory of the past.
Why is it that certain things stick in our minds, burned into the folds of our brain, never to be forgotten, and other things we repeat as though we are on a loop track?
I suppose the enjoyment of living in Malibu supersedes the annual fires that blaze through the properties there.
I think of these things as I enjoy the burn of air that floats around me and twist my belly button ring in and around the internal and external portion of my soulful carrying case.
“I am such a rebel”, I tell myself. “Blake Heron is going to think I am so hot!”. Oh yes, the puncture wound was an attention strategy for a boy. I wanted desperately to be dangerous. To be desired. To be mysterious. And so I had a human pin cushion jam a needle through my abdomen and called it “cool”. Several years later I would repeat this patten with needles and ink. Scarring myself with pigment and indentations on my chest and ankle as a way to disprove my own value and confirm the value I found in the approval of the man next to me.
Just like the people who refuse to acknowledge the annual fires that dance along the Los Angeles coast line. So do I refuse to acknowledge the life time commitment to consistent abnegation of worth or trust for the next cool, confident, powerful person in the room.
Permission, permission to learn, permission to move on, permission to grow.
Permission to explore other places to live that may be equally as beautiful, but without the fires.
Hmm, that’s a thought.