control yourself.

I should be sleeping I should be sleeping I tried to sleep I laid my head down, listening to this fairly sappy Irish music crooning softly in my ears, I closed my eyes and sighed deeply, I thought about what I might wear tomorrow, I thought about what I might eat tomorrow, Tomorrow tomorrow how I wish it was tomorrow. It is tomorrow it is tomorrow, it has been tomorrow for three hours already. Quiet the mind, hush your thoughts, drifting from conversations to interactions. I would go to the studio and paint but busses don't run this late, I could walk across time but by the time I got to the studio I would just want to sleep. Walk across town. That was Freudian, I expect.

Emotions, sensations run up and down my body, ride deep into my belly, wrap themselves around my thighs, touch my toes and make them warm. I don't want to sleep, I don't care to do that now. I want it to be tomorrow, and then the next day, the next day is Feast day, it is Thanksgiving, it is wonderful food and strange conversation, mulled wine (too much wine) and vague flirtations. Oh, if it were tomorrow I could paint, I could paint, I could sit in the studio and paint and drink tea and eat oatcakes and watch the day turn to night before the afternoon has even had a chance to stretch its legs. If it were tomorrow I could paint I could paint, it's been three days painting the boring bits, getting them done so that I can save the best, the best (the decapitated pig, the orangutan) for last, like the best bite of thanksgiving stuffing gently soaked in beautiful glistening gravy saved on the plate, in the corner, the best bite after all the turkey and potatoes and beans and cranberries have been devoured. Oh and if it were tomorrow I could eat the leftovers from my tandoori chicken dinner for lunch, succulent discs of bright red chicken drenched in a sauce of garlic and lentils.

Oh EMOTIONS! Who was it tried to convince me that art soaked in emotion is bad art, is female art, is low art, populace art, public art, trite and boring art, unchallenging art? Who told me these things, while I listen to music and view films and these things are FILLED with emotion, and the best ones are filled with as much emotion as the worst ones, the only difference is SINCERITY, purity of vision, the only difference is in the amount of SKILL used in the seduction, and doesn't that so often just come down to effort and intent?

And I feel joy, and I feel sorrow, and I feel pain and anticipation and apprehension and I feel and I feel and most importantly I feel. Here again I come back to one of my favorite dichotomies, one of my trickiest choices – shall I be a romantic, or shall I be a cynic? It is only these extremes that interest me, it is only these extremes that I understand. The in-between is so terribly uninteresting, but how do I chose, NO how do I accept this rapid cycling back and forth from complete romance, filled with EMOTION (in capital capital letters) and total detachment, dry, CYNICAL (clinical?)???

???????

I remember now, I remember my mother telling me "control yourself, control yourself control yourself." I remember now, I remember my lover telling me "control yourself, control yourself, control yourself." I remember now, I remember my own voice screaming in my head "control yourself, control yourself, control yourself."

I remember now, I remember throwing books against the walls, I remember throwing shoes against the walls, I remember throwing punches against the faces, I remember throwing myself against the floor, I remember throwing tantrums, screaming, shouting (control yourself, control yourself!), I remember punching walls and carving lines in flesh, breaking windows, bawling (control yourself), I remember driving too fast and too far without any gas without a map, I remember drinking too much taking too many drugs going mad, going mad, going mad and coming back again.

It is not in my nature (control yourself control yourself). But . . . it is the entirety of my nature (Control yourself. Control yourself.).