did you do it with respect?

My mindscape's like Piccadilly Circus during tourist season. There's so many things going on at once. So many thoughts whizzing by. Neon signs everywhere, looping ideas I haven't worked on yet. Thoughts move around. To-do lists run on stock exchange ticker tapes.

Thoughts move in and out, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Some are slow and lumbering, like the old double-decker buses, getting appended with slivers of insight hanging off the back like a hitchhiker. Some thoughts move like quicksilver, like the pickpockets who've just scored a wallet. Some thoughts are suspect, destructive, selling vice and depravity. I have to admit, sometimes I follow these thoughts into dark alleyways and into basements. Other thoughts make like tourists, and just hold wonder.

I'm blogging right now because I'm in an interesting state; I'm observing my mental scenery, amused and surprised at what's going on. I'm trying to make order of the chaos, moving through the crowded thoughts like a policeman conducting random ID checks. Trying to just figure out what's been going on in my head as I've been focusing my consciousness on other projects. This is what happens when I've been on auto-pilot.

1. I've been calling myself a writer for years and years. Probably since I was three. Following last year's personal growth, I've been rearranging my perceptions and looking at how I define who I am and what I do. Personally, I can't separate writing from being, but I'm retracting both "writer" and "artist" as self-descriptives. I still write - I will always write - but I am not yet a Writer. Neither am I an Artist. I'm not discounting my achievements, I know for a fact that I am more accomplished than a large majority of people out there who call themselves writers. I simply looked at the achievements of individuals who would almost inarguably be called writers, and I'm not one of them. Yet. If I carry on along my path, I have no doubt that I will get there soon. But until I do, I'm disavowing "writer" and "artist", choosing to see them as honorifics that deserve to be earned. (I will still hold on to journalist and producer - those are roles, not identities).

2. Community. I'm a drifter, a transient, a nomad, a mover, rootless, and homeless. And as a result I'm private, reticent, defensive, and aloof. But no man is an island (peninsula, maybe?), and my idea of community has been growing more and more important to me. And from a personal standpoint, I'm trying my hardest to build supportive networks around me, ones that I can draw strength from, and more importantly, see how my strengths can contribute to it. For the past month, I've been having conversations about the idea of community almost on the daily. Local communities, friends and family, and global communities. As a result of the conversations I've been having combined with what's going through my head and what I see around me, the word that comes to mind when trying to explain my own internal processes is tashkeel. Which, roughly translated, means "the process of forming".

3. "Take care of yourself." An elder asked me if I was taking care of myself once. I said yes, of course. She disagreed. I didn't understand what she meant then, but I think I'm starting to get it now. I whisper it to myself when I walk out of the door every morning. I'm looking out for my mental and physical. Because I was this close to losing it all. More than once. I don't want to end up there again.

4. I'm learning patience and tolerance. I needed to. I get angry too easy, disappointed too easy, frustrated too easy. In other words, I'm too damned sensitive. And that's punk-ass, because while I'm not discounting what I'm going through, I remember what I have gone through in the past, and what other people around me have gone/are going through, and I count my blessings.

And enough of this crap. I'm out.

PS - If you're in the Toronto area this week, you should go here.

PPS - I really strongly feel that this is for some reason a lot bigger than you or I will ever know.