Hope's like that

(CAI 2023)

Sometimes a wave of hopeful certainty washes over me 

like a sun-warm current brushing by in the lake, like 

 a warm breeze catching my cheek 

 on a cool day; like a loving ghost 

and I realize that this feeling is the closest I have come to peace 

so I savour it and I ask my spirit and body  to memorize it 

how it tastes and smells and tingles through 

how it swells and lightens too 

a glimpse to recall later when I need it most.

Coping. Hoping.

Hope to Cope (CAI 2023)

 I think we often lose sight of the point of this game. 

Peace. Peace on Earth. A happiness resort. An enjoyment park. Earth, the life-giving planet, a place to experience Heaven on Earth.

So why are we building Hell?

It's a choice. The 8 people in charge of the world could, together, use their billions, their power, their so-called genius, to force the world into a Heavenly state. Or a place where life matters, at least. Where we care about each life as the precious, one-time experience that it is. 

I cope. I cope by regular reset. I just got here. Just now. Everything I know, remember, feel, is Back Story to this avatar I inhabit. It feels so real. But it's only immediate, it only exists in my programming, in my character. And these people around me, most of them are NPC's - non-player characters. They are not even aware that they are in the game. But some of them, everywhere, there are people who are also me, also the same player I am, but playing thousands, millions of us, at once. So some of us are me. And some of us are the Other Players. Figuring out who is who would be a lot of work, so I just play. I look for a reason to love you. I look for a reason to show you me, to work our purposes together into something helpful to Peace. The goal. The only point. Peace on Earth. A beautiful celebration of life, every life. Not in the lifetime of this character, for sure, but since that's the focus of my play, what can this character do, from here? Maybe 20-30 years left, in a body going downhill. What will I do with this play? How many Karma Points will I earn for my Entity, my Team? How much experience will I add to the pool of Being that Being is Doing by Doing this form of Being?

I cope. I hope. 

Daily cry

Grief's Tender Hold (CAI 2023)

Every day I cry.

For a short time, in a controlled way, in a private space 

I let myself feel 

all the things about all the things

I lower the shields, allow

confusion, anguish, frustration, futility

grief

the straightjacket free-fall of life on earth

lava-burning tributaries searing through me

roiling and boiling over into moans and groans and whimpers and growls

and tears

facing the state of hate and fear of the world

seeing a future of pain unfurl, knowing

inside me is just too small to contain it all

without killing me.

I make time and space to move it through, expel what I can

because you know what they say:

better out than in

The taste of medicine

Power is as Power does (CAI & Midjourney, 2023)

I never promised I'd be sweet.

Maybe I am the taste of your own medicine
dosed by the universe today 
through the play on words that is our exchange
maybe
your experience of me
is what you asked for, what you need
and I am just a tool of your subconscious evocation
the me you see not real at all
not even me, you see, not at all
just what you called, what you need someone to be

right now

If I've allowed a confrontation

what a gift! what a cost to me. 

You're welcome. 

Working through something

Early Days (CAI 2023)

When words are as exhausted as I am

When even paintings seem too verbose

When the people with the most understanding misunderstand substantially 

and like their version better

Does it even make sense to express? 

So it must be for me, I guess

I must want to for me or I wouldn't be here, typing

I wouldn't be here, trying 

when trying hasn't gotten me as far as one might expect. 

I'm working through something, that has nothing to do with anything

but my own experience, my own gut, my own integrity 

in a body of limited lifespan on a planet at a moment of history 

in a place I've chosen

cloaked and hidden in my warren

expressing through the illusion 

my own little versions of truth

Not for you, but maybe for you

if you're here, if the universe sent you.

Out loud is the price of my privilege to speak. 

Disappearing

Negative Space (CAI + Midjourney)

Disappearing seems to require

some kind of announcement 

because it's not about disappearing

it's about our absence

being

noticed

Breadcrumbs

A perfect day as envisioned by Midjourney
and also my nightmare

I never re-read what I write. You know my aversion to backwards. 

But I imagine if you happen here unexpectedly

for no reason I can think of but Chance 

you might wonder at my wallowing

which makes sense, after all

this is where I wallow 

Wallow and push. Wallow and push. 

Like Labour, which taught me more than just how much pain I can take, like

anything is possible 

achievement comes at cost

with grief and loss and gain

everything ends 

but it's just a change of the same

pain comes in waves

relief demands sacrifice but commits to no promises 

just dangled potential that glimmers in and out of focus.

dignity is impossible.

having literally no choice is the best driver when 

what I am doesn't cut it and

who I expected is still a stone's throw away

but now is happening today and everything is nothing

like I thought and I couldn't have guessed what I would do

until it's done. And that's what I did. 

Here is where I bite and tear and chew and swallow and expel

leaving behind

the breadcrumbs and excrement of my cored self

in case they are ever helpful for you. 

Listen to Happy Rhodes. Here's a familiar song to get you started: https://youtu.be/WoNGpa9tJkg?si=azfqeWSjVT4nhV1n

Advice to the young and to myself

Ya Comin'?

What I try to tell my kids

what I wish I could tell myself, is this:

pay attention to the glimmers where you feel most free to be

where you draw yourself in, what you're doing when

you forget the day the week the planet and just do it

the thing you're doing - that's it, that's something

you can learn to see

like a formula or constellation

build your life around them 

center them and focus from that hub

learn the landscape of others on your hunt

don't be deterred because you can't see what job will own you

don't be deterred when doubted by your friends

don't be deterred by skipping common milestones 

don't be deterred because you can't see around the bend

just centre what calls you, what you melt into, what feels like purpose

get curious, play, learn the soft edges and sharp curves 

imbibe what it takes to embolden your nerve

find and learn the tools that let you shape and express back

into the world. 

and if you can avoid the longing for things you might never have wanted if you knew what it cost to get them

and focus on staying with what matters to your heart

a living will follow the art you inevitably build through 

focus and 

practice and 

pure curious intent

a living as secure as, and maybe more secure than, an eroding traditional path

and a life, oh, a life that's full of what you love most, most of the time;

if you must strive, strive for sublime.

An Open Letter to Michelle Visage

Dear Pretty Lady,

In all the hype you are probably one of the smaller parts of the Drag Race machine but for me, from the first moment, you're the biggest. I love you because I found you so weirdly pretentiously annoying until, like a veil lifted, I saw you DOING you, and you do you so precisely. I love you because you go from inscrutably icy to suddenly vulnerable and back again in a blink, so quick most people probably miss it and have no idea why they love you. I love you because you are blunt and scary but not scary because you are never, never unkind, and your words are gifts you give even when it's hard. But mostly I love you because from the moment I saw you I thought I saw HER again, my best-friend-on-our-way-back-again, until she died from a deadly combination of bipolar and the patriarchy's hatred for "the crazy bitch." She's been gone for two years and I still don't believe she left me here. But now, there's you - the way you hold your mouth, your brash vulgarity, your gorgeously knowing how gorgeous you are, your next-to-brutal honesty that feels like a rough caress, your several laughs, your bold gestures, your affection, your flattered smile. You embody so much of what made her, her. You conjure her. You help me conjure her back, for a moment, as if she made it to where she could have been, if only, just where you are. 

Thank you for showing up out loud, and giving me a taste of who you are that wafts a scent of her my way. I painted a painting for you, if you want, I hope you're one of the 8000 people in the world who might like it. I think she would have gotten it too. 

with love and gratitude. 

CAI

CM Simard 1971-2021

Just be logical

The Inbetween (CAI)

If you just look at it logically, leaving feelings aside - 

leaving feelings aside? 

just look at the ground, ignore the sky?

Feelings are a huge part of who we are. Separating from our instincts, looking only at logic and not valuing the information of feeling, is what prevented us from making decisions that would benefit all life on the planet at every step through every generation that tried it, to the tip of destruction, yet we still worship at the alter of logic, or instead, ignore logic to worship at the alter of feelings; either way we fail fail fail fail to see the ground and the sky and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN WHICH IS WHERE WE LIVE. 

But then, I see it, so you see it, so everyone sees it and still here in the inbetween we are told look up or look down but don't see what's in front of our eyes. 

It's time to take the gun out of life - Badly Drawn Boy https://youtu.be/qYdLoCt3tRs

Helping Hands

 

Help Yourself (CAI with Midjourney 2023)

When a person offers help it's natural they

imagine they know what will help;

imagine what the person receiving help  will feel when they are properly

grateful 

and from that deceiving entitlement

to a nebulous outcome they may feel

terribly affronted

by any deviant end to their well-intentioned, oh-so-generous

help.

You have so much potential!

Raw Potential (CAI 2023)

Why not tap into your greatness?

What do you fear?

That's clear. I am afraid

that opening myself to what's in me

will break my heart with impossibility

rendering life an intolerable 

mundanity 

the resulting explosion maiming all those around me

leaving them broken; leaving me 

with nothing at all.

It's not small, this fear

It's not nothing and it doesn't lie

I know all too well how truly committing to I

explodes the world. 

Wretches Gone Awry (CAI 2021)

(ps. potential has a shelf life - CAI)

An Open Letter to Martha Wainwright

Martha Wainwright, 2023 Northern Lights Festival

Dear Martha,

I keep thinking about how I let myself not meet you, and now we never met. 

How I didn't consider that meeting me wasn't just for me, it was for you, too. That if I had nothing else to give I could have given you my stone

that my heart-sister brought from Vancouver Island when she improbably came to renew me, the stone

that I carried when I travelled alone for the first time since
my body failed me, no cane, triumphant to the heart of America where I swore I wouldn't go

to attend a show that I thought would never happen, the stone

that I gripped when the airplane stifled, the stone

that I held warming in my hand through Happy's every song, gift after gift, my tears streaming I never thought I would see her live her music changed me and still unlocks my soul, holding the stone

that I thought I had lost at the airport

but found again at the bottom of the bag that holds my horizon and grounds me home;

and you probably wouldn't have thought I was some deranged stranger handing you a rock from the ground and wanting it to be special

you probably would have understood that I was giving you a thousand songs

and the heart of my musical heart

you probably would have been very glad to meet me, after all. 

But I held that back from you. I played small. 

Twenty feet away and I let myself  be washed out with the crowd into the mundane nextness of the day after you sang your soul away to a mediocre crowd with your family and your wholeness and even still I didn't make myself known, I didn't offer you my service or my smile

I thought I was shy but I was nervous and playing myself like a quiet instrument that doesn't deserve to be heard 

by someone who has made themselves you. You. As if Me is no one at all. 

It's my habit, to seem small, nothing special, pre-empt the presumption I'm not worth the time I'm taking. 

Still, and all

I want a second chance to let you know me, take what is here in me that's for you, to agree that I can be of value too, to you, as you have been to me. Your music and movement set something free. Maybe something in me could have done that for you, if I'd stepped up, come through, if I'd passed the test, been there for you

who knows but even so, I want to give you my stone 

that stone, and my promise that you are not alone

while I'm here. 

Prepared

Running through Life (CAI & Midjourney, 2023)

To say I walked into the world unprepared

would assume there was a way to prepare me

to prevent me from mistaking me

for human

from expecting me to be like them, and 

- the true blind side -

expecting them to be like me;

that there might have been a way for me 

to hide; 

to spare me 

from reducing me to please;

from pulling my skin to pieces trying to make it fit better

for the ease and comfort of literally

anyone else but me;

that I could have been more ready to face them

to face me, even thrive if I'd gone in expecting

knowing and prepared, to be

an alien in human skin

playing to stay alive,

trying to have some fun

a million to one.

(Listen to Happy Rhodes: One Alien )

Stepping carefully

 

Watch where you step!

In the field my giant feet wreak havoc

each step trampling more unseen life than I can count

be accountable to

accountable for

more than I could ever pay

back.

So I give more care in how I go

place heel to toe, nice and slow

apologizing as I go

giving everyone plenty of time

to get out of my way.

And, hey, isn’t that just how I live?

I’d sure love to play 

in your meadows

running roughshod with the glee of being me

with you

but I’d trample your tender wings before you even had a chance to fly

so I try to be careful

I try.

In case you wondered what the hell they're thinking

People are animals with a temperament to match so we shouldn't be surprised that they behave in ways we don't like. However, there is the expectation of those engaged in the "civil societies" of humanity that we learn, develop, grow, strengthen, and exercise a certain level of self-control, of restraint, to maintain peaceful co-existence. Some people really resent that expectation. They see any request about learning or strengthening or growing their self-discipline as a direct attack on their humanity and their preference that they be allowed to react and behave just as they feel, authentically, in line with their temperaments. It feels like an attack on self to be asked to hold oneself in check. They already resent that they are expected to be polite to the bumbling cashier, not shout at the annoying children, choose more careful words when addressing some people, put aside their distaste for others and act like everyone is equal. When they do begrudgingly try to conform to the constrictions of "civil society" they are told it's not enough, more is required, ongoing learning and developing and growth and exercise, more restraint across more categories. They feel overwhelmed, attacked, unvalued, and afraid, because if they can't live up to the required level of "civility" that keeps shifting and moving further from comfort, they may face social consequences, and we are trapped in the social systems in which we live without alternative, with those systems increasingly controlling and starving us. So they go on the attack. They demand their right to be just as they are, human in temperament, and act just how they feel, and be accepted without any work or modification on their part to accommodate people whom, when they are truly honest about it, they don't really care about and in fact, disdain for needing "special treatment" and resent for highlighting yet another way that civil society can demand a constriction and a growth. So they forget, in all that, who they really are, what love looks and feel like in their hearts, and empathy is banished unless it applies to them and their own. And from that context they believe and act in the only ways that make sense in that context, and cling to that context because it encompasses their identity, now, and is required to allow them to feel okay. 

But people do better when they are not in scarcity and fear. That is what needs to be tackled first. 

Right Here

CAI (a self-portrait with Midjourney)

So much of love is proximity

would you love me

if I were closer
if I were right there
would you care to know
me deeply truly madly as I am?
Would you see what no one sees and
BAM!
be mine?
Or pass me by as too familiar
not quite special
close to home?

Is it me or opportunity that keeps us so unknown when we both contain the multitudes of being in our bones and it's calling calling calling us to join hands and walk home

together?
What if I were right there?
Would you love me then?
Here I am. 

Too much

Filled past full, overflowing a dance between nothing and over the top, a constant ensmalling, perpetual dousing, ongoing constricting, trying so hard to be enough but not ever please never 

too much

 

Pretty enough

My Mirror (CAI with Midjourney)

The body I got is a middling model, nothing special. Normal. Pretty enough to stand out in a room with only a few pretty girls, but overlookable if there's a beauty or two around. Prettier than plain. So I spent the first half of my life feeling average, not unattractive but nothing special, imperfect in unattractive ways, while at the same time, finding out I was still pretty enough to attract the unexpected and unwanted attention of Men. Not the prettiest girl in the room, but maybe the prettiest one he thinks he can get somewhere with. Or, a colleague who suddenly notices I'm prettier than he thought, and changes how he sees me to sexualize me. I felt like hiding whatever beauty I did have, so it wouldn't be dangerous, while simultaneously wishing to feel desirable, beautiful, attracted to. Being young really sucked my life force in so many ways in a woman's body.

Now I am not young, not pretty. I'm beautiful in a way that shocks me in the mirror. Not because I am more beautiful now than I was, when I was young and pretty enough, but because I am better at seeing beauty, my beauty. Better than most people. I can see it, now. I'm startling to myself. I see myself like I see a photograph - the humanity, the unique structure, the expression. My eyes meet my eyes. 

Maybe I feel the safety of the cloak of age and imperfection - for most men, I have strayed beyond comparisons of female beauty or sexualization into a neutered territory of aunt, teacher, "older lady." Maybe I am not as afraid to be "maturely beautiful" as I was to be pretty, because I know most people won't even see me at all. 

Maybe I just stopped feeling like other people's opinions had any relevance at some point. Maybe I shifted my standards, shifted my view from my deviations from the beauty standard to just seeing what's there. And what's there is more than enough. 

Pretty enough for me. 

The Universal desperately wants to know itself through life. That's the purpose of life. As me, as you, as them, as grass, as molecules, as bacteria, as dogs. Desperate isn't the right word - passionately? encompassingly? yearningly? The Universal is being itself. We are cells in that body. 

The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being. 

The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being
from Midjourney

Earth is a tender morsel, a tiny delight that fills the mouth.