I just watched PIE IN THE SKY: THE BRIGID BERLIN STORY. Watching this put me in touch with the depression I have been fighting off for the last month. Now I am tired and worn out. Despite the vast differences in our backgrounds I could really relate to this woman. The addiction personality (mostly hers was food, but also drugs) her refusal to sugar coat or hide bad behaviour (I think a hallmark of families like hers), even her creativity. But here I become really depressed because of course, she really did a lot of ground breaking things, and while I plan to do some boob painting, she invented it! And can a "trip book" be done when one is sober? Is there hope that blogging will one day be as revolutionary as she was with her polaroids and tape recordings?
Plus she hung out with Andy Warhol and all of those famous New York artists. I mostly hang out with the dog at home and crazy bums at Starbucks. At the end of the film she mentions that it is just as well that she never had children. And the main theme of her life seems to be her struggle with her mother. I felt bad for her because I realized that she was still judging herself the way her mother judged her, in her mother's context, and from her mother's life. Even after everything she had done to rebel and having had her Warhol films come out from the underground (her mother actually went to see CHELSEA GIRLS in a theatre! With disastorous results, of course!). All of that and she still couldn't find a context for her life. A context that was supportive. She never broke with her background or created new core beliefs.
I wonder if any of us ever finds a context for our lives? Are there people that are born into an environment that nurtures them? They grow and thrive and recreate that environment and hopefully they have children that fit into their life as well. Maybe these people do not have problems that warp them or make them want to take drugs or runaway or eat 16 key lime pies in one day. Or does everyone cram the damage deep down inside and some just do a better job at hiding it than others?
I don't think I was born damaged, but I think it began so early in my life-- simply by how at odds my nature was with my early environment-- that most of my life has been trying to heal my eternally wounded inner Fisher King. Constantly bleeding, and constantly questing, and constantly fighting. There must be a way to truly heal.
I have been thinking alot about what I want from the next forty years and I have so many conflicting desires! Watching Ms. Berlin I realized that part of it was that I have lived so many different lives. I ran from the husband and kids and the dog so hard and so fast and so far away that it is (mostly) gone forever. Especially now that I want it. There are certain choices that cannot be reversed, that have unalterable consequences. I am trying to learn to accept this.
And I did have a lot of adventures, but I was always in so much pain and so angry and anxious that I could never really appreciate anything good when it happened to me. There was always fear. And alot of "good" things that have come to me have come in evil packages. And I never did the big things that I said I was going to do. The things that I said were the reasons I didn't want a "normal life." I remain unpublished, and worse, right now, I have nothing that I want published. Nothing written that I am happy about. Ms. Berlin, for all her struggles, does have her art and her career.
Who am I? Who have I been? Where am I going? What do I need to thrive? Is it possible to find a life that fufills all the parts of me? The old and the new? The damaged, the repaired, the broken, and especially, the new growth?
I have never felt like there was a path for me to follow. Very few stories or real people have mirrored my life. I get inspiration from a lot of sources, but rarely do I find someone or some character where I think "she is so like me." I always feel like the outsider.
I found these pictures that represent the parts of me that I think I need to integrate and really listen too. Over the next few days I am going to try to find out what they need to have a fufilling and wonderful life. I need to validate them and see all the parts of me good and bad.
I FEEL CLOSEST TO HER MOST DAYS. I KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO HAVE BREAKFAST WITH TRAVIS BICKLE.
HER MOTHER WAS CRAZY AND HER FATHER LEFT HER. BUT SHE WAS VERY AMBITIOUS AND VERY BEAUTIFUL. THE DREAM OF HER WAS ALWAYS TOO FAR AWAY. I STILL LOVE HER THOUGH.
A CHILDREN'S BOOK ABOUT A GIRL WHO DREAMED OF BEING A WRITER!!! I LOVED S.E. HINTON, AND SHE WROTE ABOUT BOYS THAT I KNEW, BUT THEY WERE BOYS. THERE WAS BAGNOLD AND INGALLS WILDER, BUT THEY WERE FAIRY TALES TO ME. EVEN THOUGH HARRIET WAS A RICH, FULLY PARENTED, ONLY CHILD, SHE WAS A WRITER!!! THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE BOOKS AND I STILL WRITE ALL OF MY JOURNALS IN MEAD COMPOSITION BOOKS. I NEED TO REACQUAINT MYSELF WITH MY INNER HARRIET!
SHE IS THE BEST PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION I COULD FIND OF MY PUNK ROCK, POLITICAL ACTIVIST YEARS. I ADMIRE HER ALOT AND SHE IS ENTERTAINING, BUT MOSTLY I JUST LIKE THIS ANGRY, BARE BREASTED AMAZON ROAD WARRIOR LOOK. AND SHE IS NOT "PRETTY." THAT WAS A BIG BREAK FOR ME, CUTTING MY HAIR OFF. AND I TOOK MORE SHIT FOR MY PUNK HAIR THAN MY POLITICS!
PHOEBE WAS JUST TOO BALANCED AND CHEERFUL FOR WHAT SHE WENT THROUGH. I THINK BECAUSE SHE IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER FROM A TELEVISION SHOW. BUT I ALWAYS FEEL AMAZED THAT PHOEBE HAD THE BIO SHE DID ON POPULAR SITCOM. SHE MADE ME FEEL LESS WEIRD AND GAVE SOMEWHAT OF A CONTEXT FOR THE JODY FOSTER GIRL/PSYCHIC/COFFEEHOUSE SINGER PART OF ME.
I HOPE I CAN DO BETTER THAN BUD CORT WHEN I AM A DIRTY OLD LADY! GODDESS GIVE ME HEATH LEDGER!!! HOWEVER, I PLAN TO LIVE PAST EIGHTY, BUT I AM NOT MAKING ANY PLANS FOR MY REMAINING YEARS OTHER THAN WATCH THE SUNRISE AND SET, AND LOOK AT THE STARS. I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO LIVE IN A TRAIN CAR SURROUNDED BY HOOKAH PIPES, MANDOLINS AND PLAYER PIANOS, AND PICNICS WITH GINGER PIE. (MAYBE SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN A GARBAGE DUMP THOUGH!) MAUDE GIVES ME A LOT TO LOOK FORWARD TO.I already know that I need a red umbrella. I need to do more cartwheels and nonsense laughing. I need a more active social life and I need to begin writing again seriously. But there are some other things I need too, and I can't tell what they are yet.
MAYBE JUST SOME MORE WENDY O WILLIAMS IN MY LIFE. MAY SHE REST IN PEACE-- SCRATCH-- MAY SHE RAISE HELL IN THE AFTERLIFE!!!
OR MAYBE THE MOON KNOWS.And I need a vacation. Seriously. I need to go somewhere beautiful and quiet and no rush hour traffic or smog or shopping malls! With lots of interesting people and fun things to do. (Or is that interesting things and fun people to do? hehehe ;o)
"MASTER I GROW WEARY OF THIS PLANET! WHEN WILL WE RETURN TO TRANSEXUAL TRANSYLVANIA?"Ah, Magenta, that is exactly what I was thinking!
UNTIL NEXT TIME, TOODLE ON!!!
** Another children's author I liked a lot.
9 comments:
I hope you acheive the fulfilling life you deserve and want. I'd certainly like to go on a holiday too, haven't been on one for about 6 years.
I like your blog. It seems to be full of energy or something. I don't know you but you seem to be very talented. Hang in there.
as i was reading, i was going oh, i liked that..oh that was good, i loved that movie...that book...etc...i loved your post...so fine..so funny..so real...thanks....
plus i loved tina in thunderdrome and when she played the acid queen in movie pinball wizard...ahhh...the real queen...
Hey, some great writing in this post Toodles. I particularly like the bums in Starbucks contrast to Warhol, et al.
I wonder, whose eyes do you judge yourself so harshly with? Knowing that some choices cannot be reversed, now how will you live your life?
I've also struggled with some pretty weighty core beliefs. But instead of vanquishing the beliefs that didn't serve me, the struggle seems to have given them more heft.
It's not so easy to replace core beliefs that keep us from being who we really are. Maybe the trick is to stop listening to the beliefs and to simply be.
I have never believed that life is pre-determined.
Circumstances happen, and what comes next is determined often by our individual reactions to them.
I think we have the ability to decide how other people view us by the way we respond to them, and this often again changes what can happen next.
Creative people often suffer from self doubt, and, depending on their individual personalities, can adapt this self doubt into a destructive force in their lives.
I have many artist friends, some are victims, and unfortunately, will always be, and some are survivors.
Those who are victims have made themseves that way, as they have wrapped their problems around themselves like a comfort blanket, and wear their status as victim like a badge. When someone acts like a victim, others immediately treat them this way, and so it continues.
It`s a self-destruct switch which has been turned on.
Everybody out there has had really bad times in their life, artists and non artists.
It`s the ability to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down which is the major difference.
I have an artist friend right now who I know will be more than likely, dead this year. He is beyond help, and it is a tragedy. Everyone has tried to help at every juncture, and all help has been rejected.
When he dies, as he will, there will be only a small band of us there to say goodbye. His work will be forgotten, as will he.
It is a tragedy beyond all reason.
But no-one will glamourise his life, it is just too dirty, smelly vomit ridden and beatings ridden.
He is just a poor soul who switched on his self-destruct switch and wrapped his suffering around himself like a blanket.
And I, for one, will miss him, it was a wasted life for one with such talent.
An excellent post, I am like Turts, I read a little of all of the images when I visualise your inner self, a very attactive mix I might add, and it is packaged in a 5 star bundle of talent and energy, I allways FEEL better after reading your blog. That in itself says a lot about you.
Ah girl...there's so much in this post I understand it's almost painful to read because then I have to look at me -blah.
But I have no ambition to be famous. I want to remain unknown, secretly touching lives of others.
Part of me wants to watch this film now, part of me is afraid to....
maan i loved "that was then, this is now...the outsiders and rumble fish". funny just the other day i remembered another book that i had [no drama in that...love to] read in high school..."my darling, my hamburger"...buggered if i know why i was thinking bout it exactly. but hell we do that sometimes huh.
anyway hello tood! i believe we once met in sooners...yes pretty sure you the only 'toods'
i must be regressing...heh heh...i been listening to toni childs and now i have broooce on.
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