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.