But My Dear Girl, You Cannot Exist

Seems the very most frightening thing about being a female creative is daring to exist.

No. That is the second most frightening. The first is daring to create. And as another post reminds (Dark Tales from the Other Side of Identity), that terror is not merely a female thing. But one could say (and not be so far from the mark) that it is primarily a female thing, and/or, resonates with Particular Cruelty in a woman.

To be sure, 'audacious women' are the Present Seeking of a particular foundation (A Room of Her Own) which does indeed put its money where its - err, mouth - is.

I am not an audacious woman.

In point of fact, several might disagree. So perhaps I should reframe. I have no desire to be an audacious woman, nor sympathy (at the present moment) with those who are.

And in point of fact a.m. n.o.t. o.n.e. AND not will be, ever, ever, ever. (I tend more toward enfant terrible & sorry I am of that but what can you say.) (Enfant terrible & audacious are not at all the same thing.)

And for all those who Think Otherwise (regarding how audacious or not said woman might be)...something there is about an inability in men to - umm, receive - certain things from women...let's reframe that one, too...to receive Certain Things from Certain Women and the rest manage to be received quite well & exceedingly easy...

Until they Transgress the Same Way.

O woman!

And as is Pointed Out Often by Daughter of the New Generation, it is just Some Men... (hmm. Seems I visited that point just recently, too) (Random Notes from a Wayside Café) (err, ...and those who are not lucky enough to be in said group NEED TO CHANGE.)

Umm. Pardonne. One does not borrow the use of All Caps in present century. But the Point to be Made (in lesser capitals) remains she is young; they are young; the men in question are young. Mere pups. Have to lift the tail (A Favourite Image) to see which is male & which is female...

Oh for a new generation that made it past the bedevilment of the old. (And we will ignore that Significant Person from above link is in fact - umm - not young.)

But - it remains that they won't. No good trying to hope they might. They won't. And in point of fact (it is a pointy sort of morning), I don't really want to see them doing so.

I like the old ways.

So we have now introduced another point.

Oh well. Wander at will is a motif of mine, in the event you have not yet read so far into me as to know this. Some pointy finger at the Current Read of the Educated Class...that the universe is a Random Creature.

Which, to be sure, it is.

Only not quite so random as certain folk would like us to believe. Nor quite so un-ruled. I am eating sweet 'tater fries this morning (for it is still morning to me, though, 2b sure, the clock no longer considers it so), for those of you In Need of Further Randomness. And I could easily toss the Above Randomness (the one prior to the 'taters) in Doctrinal Divides, Enlightened Church, Ontological Christianity - or none of the above.

I perhaps need a new label: Tired of It All.

Hope in that one, you see. After all, it is only good to be tired of everything when something else beckons. Something else replaces. Something else reminds of hope, and youth, and once-known.

Bad place to start, anyway, to be sure. Audacious women. And it's only Sunday. Have the rest of the week to trot my Lack of Audaciousness about, limping along to That Job (Part-Time Though It Is) that doesn't even begin to Hold Said Life Together...yet becomes all a drifting woman can be consumed by...night...day...night...day again. Work.

Which tends to be the problem.

The day world is not what the creative world is and certainly more audacious women might find it easy to dangle between the two, each foot firmly placed [my Very Favourite Image: that place wherein two worlds are spitting distance, and each has a door - perhaps the worlds are the size of a four story building (perhaps merely two or three), in my imagining, and the door (neatly set right there at the equatorial line - the doorknob, what - a latitude or two below that equator - and opening - both of them - to the inside of said world) the size of a regular door...all that black night of space - do you see all that black, and that almost eiree green-and-blue of earth, glowing, perhaps, like a computer screen photo in a darkened room - all that expanse, above and below said door and do you think you could comfortably stand stretched between the two?

Thou'rt made of better stuff than I am.]

But to be sure, that is where we started. Because that voice always resident in the inner portions does indeed occasionally have a sense of humor and today at least it is 'my dear girl-ing' me. One wants a bit of my dear girl here & there.

But I am dangling between two separate topics, as is my wont (& faithful readers know too well). The one, that great 'how dare you' of both identity & creative identity. The other - that impossibility for the creative (even in the necessity) of living in the day world...

That necessity [as the venerable Woolf (for those who do not know her actual biography) (and I for one seem to love to Read Biographies of Creatives) (and inevitably Wish I Had Not) reminds us (it having been Said by Others Before Her, in one form or 'nother)] to a room of a woman's own to write...

But of course (as my side bar notes), the actual quote by Woolf states a woman needs money and a room of her own...and as my own commentary on said matter notes, an alarm clock to waken when sleeping...

Because once you get that place of Great & Necessary Solitude Wherein One Can Close Out the Whimpers & Needs of Others - can, as we might say in an ADHD world - concentrate...the fact becomes that, without the solace of others in your room quietly breathing (More Notes from that Other Side of Identity), you end up--.

Sleeping.

Because, for women, as for Most of Us (and Resident Blogger is indeed a Woman), it is what we surge against that gives us power. Not what we surge towards. What we try to reframe, to rethink, and/or to rebut, defines.

I don't think too many of us necessarily notice that, however. Standing as I so often do stretched out between two worlds - one foot just barely toeing the jamb of the other one - and you do know the two worlds are spinning, and unfortunately, in opposite direction...I have Too Much Time on My Hands & randomly (umm) pick apart the milli-seconds that divide...

But exist? Dare I exist?

Nah. That part requires, I am thinking, more courage than Resident Downtrodden (& Lacking in Audaciousness) Woman dares.

Now what in the name of goodness could have prompted all this on an otherwise rather well-behaved morning fully intent on finally washing those dishes & Cleaning Place Wherein One Resides...

Posting something.

Posting something from the heart.

And posting it with all the intensity - umm, resident - in said heart of a woman with too much heart, and too much intensity...

After all, when you do dare to put all of yourself on the line - right out there, drying in the sun (and that breeze that is the only thing that makes the thought of line-dried garments palatable)...when you dare...the exposure is Not Very Pleasant.

And the where/who/how of my fictional & fictional again self (because, 2b sure, somewhere, a real person resides, complete with life & family & facebook page & social security number, etc., etc., etc.) is - umm, never quite revealed.

All that turtle inside the shell stuff. Or crab within same. Or, as the tiles borrowed from Isobel (Dreaming) note: how can we be hiding, even now - even now...

(And by the way, the sweet 'taters were...sweet.)

ADDENDUM(S) 15 (& 16) Sep 08: For those faithful readers who know passeres well, I am uncertain whether to apologize or cheer. That vitality one must repress and/or doubt and/or allow with all the madcap overeffusiveness a wee bird can sing...

The safety thing. Said bird has a Distinct Problem with Things Changing So Much (and So Often) in this very un-safe world in which we all live & roost & have our being.

But sometimes a day needs a mite of colour.

[Err. And for those of you who are Not Faithful Readers (which would be Most of You) the reference above is to the transformation from Wren to this Bejeweled & Bedecked in Such Colours Tropical Bird that passeres has undergone.

Almost hurts the eyes to peer at her. The blog used to be so - properly brown wren. Brown, blue & grey it was, wasn't it - all the titles and texts and borders (and even the 'illustrations')in such staid colours...

Sort of beaten down wren colours...sort of 'I am still hiding' colours. The visceral quality of the New Tropical Bird quite has the power to undo said Wren, even now.

How dare she? But the Very Proper Tendency of the creative to Examine the Self from a Safe Distance leaves said bird watching as the colours work their way out from the shell...pecking, pecking...

Yet so very visceral, one must almost shield the eyes from the impact...

Must shield the Self...

Is that bird trying to fly on the back of an eagle again?

Who can say...]

[But what can be said is this: that chatter of the 'whimpers & needs of others' will always be the easy part to screen out...it is the overpowering lurch of Identity that cannot be withstood...]