Daily haze.

Mist.haze.humidity.moisture.molecules.

nestle into the sometimes cozy,

sometimes rocky

curves and crevices of 

Mexico's landscape.

Daily this haze

comes and goes,

hiding sometimes,

and revealing sometimes

the beauties,

the maladies,

always the realities

of the land.

In one look it is there,

and the next,

it is gone.

What is writing to you?

The physical manifestation of my inner voice.  It is the questions, the taboos, the mistakes, the discoveries that happen all the time, all at once, in my mind.  It is the deafening white-noise that needs silencing.  It is the phantom pain that needs treating.  

It is the hunting and gathering, the trapping and holding of these ideas.  

It is also the planting, nurturing of a beginning, of an itch, and the watching it, helping it, encouraging it to grow into a developed and complex being, ready for harvest, for consumption. And then it is ready to compost and begin again.  

Writing is a way to make real, to make tangible, the invisible--but paradoxically, more real--existence that is all around and within me.  

Culture

I am worried that this is lacking, in this country, but more importantly, in me.  So many times I find myself and those around me looking to OTHER cultures to identify with.  We are fascinated by THE OTHER. 

Latino cultures seem to have such vibrant color, such spice, and that steaming hot salsa running through their veins.  Black cultures--African Americans, people from the Caribbean, and sundry other places--have blues, jazz, and hip-hop; slavery and repression fueling them, pulsing through them.  The gay culture has banded together under a flag filled with rainbow colors and togetherness.  Some bigot calls them a fag, and the community owns it, turning that defamation into an affirmation.  

I am white, really white, blue-eyed, upper-middle class, and I grew up in Small Town, CT.  

Boring.

I long for a culture to call my own.  Culture, which seems, in so many ways, synonymous with color.  Flavor.  The spice of life.

Judging by my hometown and my skin, I am the nutrition-less, flavorless, over-produced and empty slice of white Wonder-bread.  

But if I identify with my italian culture, my irish culture, I can be feisty, worldly, culturally rich.  It doesn't matter that, in truth, I am mostly English--and my blaring, white skin shows it--I want to be more like my spicy side.  

It has more depth.  More flavor.  More color than the bland little ol' white girl from Little Town, New England.  

When I can't see myself sitting down to write a real, written-just-for-this-purpose, post, I look through random notebooks and scrap papers to find some snippet of my thoughts.  Here are a few recent ones, until I can get my act together.  For real, for real.  

I know this place too well.  All of my doubts and my mistakes haunt me.  Whispers of heartbreak and ambiguity follow me everywhere.  Songs and memories decide to arrive at my doorstep at this moment of uncertainty, taunting me, reminding me of possibilities lost.  These ghosts precede every step and echo every word.  The strength that defines me is draining out of my core.  All of the certainties are broken into a million shards of worry and doubt.  

Who is this person?  This timid, meek girl?  Who is that?  Part of me knows that all of the decisions, all of the mistakes, all of the hurts have made me stronger, have made me more ready for the future that awaits.  But loneliness and guilt are tough adversaries.  They seem to have taken up residency in my brain, and they are going to be difficult to eject.  

I know this place too well; it feels like home to me.  

But I don't want to live here.  This won't always be my norm, my touchstone.  This won't always be me.  

In another moment of weakness, one of my other weaknesses said, "You have more going for you than anyone else in this room.  At least you have options."  Then he asked me, "How can you regret a decision that was right for you?"  Out of all of the things he's said to me or not said to me over the years, this was one of the most poignant.  

I think he's right.  At least, I hope so.

I've been trying to sit down and write, for days and days.  

Some part of me is stopping the other part of me that wants to get. going.  

I'm sick of that part.  She sucks.