isolation – Page 2 – Quixotic Mama

a community does not like an individual.
in both nature & society you can see what happens when one of these things is not like the others.
i don’t know why i am different.
nurture?
nature?
something entirely else?
why was is so easy for my sister to conform why i simply could not?
i remember trying to conform once.
just once.
it didn’t last long.
& of course i have tried to join communities…but i always feel like i am wearing a skin
that is not my own
a badly fitting facade.
i am happier alone.
however…
a community does not like an individual.

and then i’m going around raising four more individuals. what will happen to them? they seem happy to be who they are. i am glad they are happy, but am i setting them up for disaster?
is there a community out there that celebrates individuality? (the island of misfit toys?) i’m sure there are some that believe they do…however, i have yet to find one.

it never surprises me to find i am unpopular…aye…unliked.
i think it surprises me though to find i am liked.
i does surprise me…but i know if i sit tight, the madness will pass.
likewise, i won’t even believe if someone tries to tell me i am loved.
such a thing i cannot fathom.
love is impossible.
i am comfortable amid neighbors who will not even make eye contact with me.
amidst a community who seems to value me, i know one day they will realize their error,
grab their torches & pitchforks,
& punish me for my perceived deception.

i have moved from a liberal town of people whom i did not trust to a conservative town of people who do not trust me. why am i more comfortable around people who openly judge me? i guess because i trust them more than i trust the people who are quietly judging me–which is what the liberal communities do. they are nice to my face, but what are they hiding?
i grew up in a small town of rednecks. i couldn’t wait to get away from them. but after a lifetime of community jumping, i have come to realize that rednecks, at least (even if i don’t agree with them) tell it like they see it. people who claim to be progressive, often pretend things are something they are not.
in my experience.
so i put myself in the blatantly hostile environment where no one pretends that i fit in–that way i can know exactly where i stand.
does that make sense?
it does to me.

being the embodiment of earthly punishments
used to bother
inez malstrom
but now she gets a slight high
just thinking of it
a case of the giggles even
sometimes
she thinks it would be nice
for once
to be an earthly reward…
but that is probably reserved for someone named
jillian.

i have written so many beginnings to stories. you never know. i might finish it…turn it into a comic, a short story, or even a novel, but for now it lives as a journal page.

i think i recently read in a book a quote by a poet to the effect of: i write instead of screaming
for the life of me i cannot access where i read this. i have been reading a lot of books lately.
nevertheless–this is true for me. my writing & my art are what i do to keep from losing my mind. so i take these dark little thoughts and try to make something beautiful (?) out of them…or at least something interesting.

a ninja
doesn’t want
an entourage

i thought this when i was walking somewhere with my minions. sometimes it is very difficult for me to go anywhere knowing i will have an entourage if i try to leave the house.
so this made sense to me.
i am totally a ninja.
after i had this epiphany, i arrived where my entourage & i were headed and announced that a ninja doesn’t want an entourage. the millennial man with long hair & talk of veganism at this get-together turned to my 12 year old (who is SO NOT A NINJA) and asked him, “are you the ninja?”
like, what the fuck, a chubby fifty year old woman can’t self-identify as a ninja?
ack.
this contributed to my current state of no longer socializing.
(i am a ninja)

on a completely different train of thought, as i drew the seal in this inking, i realized that my cattle dog looks just like a seal (you know, with pointy ears & four legs.)

in the dream
it was a lonely house
on a hill
shrouded in darkness
foreboding
terrifying
until i was forced to enter
to save us all
from a greater
danger…
the house was
beautiful
on the inside
…but haunted…
a specter
rose up
threateningly
behind my companion
i wrestled it to the ground
only to realize
it was just
a child
“tell me why
you have so much
anger?”
i asked the child
&
the pain
was
released.

so this is a dream i had. it was pretty profound & felt really meaningful. i laid in bed pondering it. what do i do with this?
am i supposed to help other people exorcise their demons? or is it just another pat on the back from the universe for doing all the work to wrestle my own?
of course, i am still wrestling my demons.
case in point, my inking today is heavily borrowed from the artist david mack because i am going through a thing where i think my own work sucks & what is the point?
today, while on a walk, i started asking my frowning face–“why so stressed? what is there really to be stressed about?” and for a moment i let myself smile again.
but i can find reasons to be sad & even woke up this morning to a dream of my telling someone that sometimes i just don’t have a smile inside me….

so, yeah, still wrestling some demons….

Tag: isolation

on dreams, demons, & being haunted