Dear She

She wondered if she was dreaming again. Like the bad nightmare she had many times before. She could feel it coming back to finish off what it started.

side note:  Have you ever had a horrible dream? One so frightening, that when you woke up you were drenched in thin layer of sweat. And even though you're awake, aware of the reality around you, you could still feel the veil of darkness all around you?  

Even though the faces in the dream have changed, the year is no longer 2007 but 2013, the nightmare clings to her like a wandering soul in search of a lonely host. Its hold was even felt in 2009 and 2012. It doesn't know how to let go.  

It finds her in valleys where lonely souls roam, souls who are famished for comfort, food and love. She does all she can to thwart their tangled arms that keep taking her good dreams away.

She knows she cannot give what these wandering souls yearn for, though she understands their needs. And every night She fights again, swearing she'll never allow the nightmare to take over. She continues to fight with all she has - to keep such visions at bay. She hopes a peaceful nights sleep will soon come to stay.

But every morning she awakes to the same empty feeling.

Some days while basking in the daylight, a time when most dreamers are awake, She looks within herself and wonders if she is to blame. Perhaps she is the dreaded author to such  visions...

Now the question remains...why?

Why, dear She, do you allow them to play? In your heart and in your mind, I see you're beginning to fray - your grace is too abundant. Don't let them take all of you away.

http://youtu.be/kbOHumzGEP4

Un-Pretty

I recently watched the Runaways (2nd time), a film about the girl rock band from the 70s called The Runaways.

Side note: Dakota Fanning was amazing in this film. So out of her comfort zone.

Near the end of the film you see Joan Jett, played by Kristen Stewart, strumming, trying to hash out lyrics. She's in a dirty room, on a dirty mattress, dishevelled, worn out and struggling to make the lyrics flow. Make it work.

The scene solidified how awful it can be...the grim process of creating something from nothing. Creating a finished product whether it be a song, a dance, a novel, a script...etc.

It's brutal. Torture. Messy.

You doubt, everyday. But what's the alternative? Settling for a 9-5 job that'll rot your insides, where the banter in the lunchroom is enough to make you want to cut off your own ears? To engage and swap insincere smiles, and happen to catch the latest gossip between the washroom stalls and it's about you?

Then there's that dream - that damn dream you can't let go of, cause if you do, every good and precious thing within you will die. Where after some time you'll conform and become one of them. Them that gossip, tearing through Us Weekly/InStyle/The Newspaper, tearing at anything that is positive or hopeful, cause deep down inside they're terribly unsatisfied, pissed to high-hell that they let go of their dream.

I've been around bitter people. It ain't pretty.

I think the most awful feeling is to know you could do something about it, but you don't. You talk yourself out of your dreams.

Yeah, the road sucks crap, totally. It's covered in broken glass, goopy sludge where for days you feel stuck, as stabby fingers tell you to grow up, all the while a raging storm  hovers above, hellbent in not shedding a glimmer of light. You're broke, alone, and sometimes just plain bored with yourself. Nothing feels like it's moving.

But what's the alternative...

Dancers sweat, bleeding on the dance floor. Just steps away from failure or that big break. Actors, man, actors are a special case. Trapped in the mirror, trying to look and sound the part, hoping the next audition will get them closer to paying their rent and not resort to living in their car (Matthew Perry lived in his car). And then there are writers - yep, the saddest of the lot. It's all in your head, stuck, and it has to come out. Come out making sense. You're always alone, watching life pass you by from within your jail cell (Starbucks), observing the other writers typing away - writers who are probably more successful than you. The blank page, ice cold, looks up, begging you to drop a word, cause you haven't written a thing a for 20 mins.

Or you're at home, not having changed your pyjamas for days, and with that washed your coffee cup. You numbly watch TV, cause at least there's some action going on there, unlike your computer screen. White as snow.

So where's the light at the end of Un-Pretty... ?

Who can say? Not everyone makes it out. Most surrender, becoming a part of the "normal" working world. But a small handful do make it. They're the ones we all know and hear about. They make it look easy, but I betcha it was a damn hard road, continues to be.

Me. I can't accept the alternative just yet.

Wait...I hear someone calling....

Int. Starbucks - Day

It's crazy packed with people. Not a chair in sight, except for a seat next to a group of loud, annoying teenage girls. Damn! Their coffee cups look full.

BARRISTA
What would you like today....Oh, right. Tall Blond, 3 pump white mocha, right?

ME
Yeah, thanks, so cool that you remember.

BARRISTA
Well, you're in here all the time, writing something.

ME
I know, it's sad, isn't it?

Permanent Record

Somewhere, somehow, and sometimes in the strangest places, everything we say, think or speak is jotted down. Whether in the safe house of our mind, in the hands of a loved one, or God's listening ear - You've been recorded.

The satisfaction of sharing your life with world is everywhere, being fed to us by the truckloads in commercials, movies and social networking websites. Even amongst close friends via smart phones or the old fashion game of Broken Telephone, words and images travel within seconds.

Just hit send.

I was speaking to a friend recently of how I missed the rotary phone. She laughed. I shared that through the agony of dialling someones' number, which at times felt like a century, it also gave you a chance to decide whether to go through with it. Unlike now where we just stroke a key - Done.

Actually, it's too easy. So easy in fact that few can handle the warped speed in which it flies. Some of us are sadly, too slow and dim, too excited to see what's about to happen. That such an impulse could later follow you like a menacing shadow for the rest of your life. You see, there are some things we do in life that will never be erased. There are some things that can never be explained away.

You've been recorded. Permanently.

In recent months there's been a disturbing amount of teen suicides. Girls who could see no hand of rescue from their plight, no way out from the quicksand that was trying to snuff them out. The love of family and friends wasn't enough to keep them afloat, because no matter how much love they received, something so precious within them died.

Dignity.

I couldn't imagine the amount of sorrow those girls went through. Their most vulnerable moments, being abused and laughed at, treated like a useless rag, then tossed, and on top of that used as a vehicle for others to parade as a joke or a badge of virility.

There is no joke. Men don't rape. Monsters do.

The carnality of a moment could make someone blind. I almost feel sorry for what those under age perpetrators will go through all their life. Stamped with a permanent record. Every job they apply for, every potential mate they come to marry, even behind the bars of a prison and later within their own heart - they and the world will know of their actions.

Maybe we have media to blame. Or should we blame the parents...NO. Let's blame culture. I don't care who is to blame - I think a re-education is in order. A re-education in morality and ethics. Of humanity and the God given knowledge that you can't have everything you want, in every given moment, no matter how carnal the desire may be.

Whether rape, murder or slander - it's permanent. And most perpetrators commit all three.