Oh, I wrote my previous E and D posts. They just never made it up onto this blog. Either written in my journal or in "unfinished" posts, they were done enough for me but not enough for public. Except all three were done in a manner that I eventually decided wasn't meant for public, that the need was to write them at all.
Also, in case this wasn't clear. I'm trans, FAAB, and will refer to my youth as a girl and my present existence that isn't binary.
I hate crying in public. Not to say I haven't ever shed tears in public, after all, how would I realize I hated it if I had no experience with it? I hate crying in public but I've certainly done my share of it. Hell, I spent my last semester of high school crying almost every day through class. Or before class. Or after. Yeah, lot of tears then. A lot of tears that summer too. Tears from stress, tears from pain, and especially tears of heartbreak.
I never used to cry in movies. I was one of three girls in my seventh grade class who didn't cry when we were taken to see a (truly bad) movie that involved some pretty gruesome and depressing deaths. I just found the movie tedious and badly done. I never cried at/in a movie until I was 18. And that movie I went to see alone. Opening night, I sat in the theater, surrounded by strangers, glad that no one I knew could look over in the dark and see the tears on my cheeks. Outside of the movies, I cried far too easily. I cried when people yelled. Not because of any particular emotional response actually, just a side-effect of the way I grew up. Despite being good at handling pain and fear, they still made me cry. And tears made me feel weak.
I don't cry much anymore.
Tears don't come to my eyes. They haven't in the last three plus years since I started testosterone. My emotions express themselves without tears falling from my eyes and it is a massive relief. Pain can lace my face, fear or hurt lining my eyes without a tear falling. Shaking, trembling, shouting, whispering, I can chose my preferred methods of expression. Excepting movies.
At first, I thought it was just that the Star Trek reboot movie happened to have incredibly powerful emotional associations (to events that some of my closest friends are still coping with PTSD over.) Until I realized that the tears sprang to my eyes and my throat closed up at more and more movies. Films done right induce massive swells of emotion. Music and lighting can evoke so much, even when I don't give a shit about the characters. Maybe it's the bombast, or the sudden silence startling you into the realization of how much something has gone wrong... but movies bring tears to my eyes all the damn time.
Each time my throat closes up, each time my eyes start leaking, it hurts. It doesn't hurt in the sense that I'm in emotional pain and this is some of that pain leaking out, it hurts in that I am out of control.
Every tear is an ordeal.
I cannot control it. I do not always understand it. I am stripped of control and the masks I have so carefully constructed. I am stripped of defense and the armor of pleasant amusement that I have cultivated as my default expression. I am at a loss as to why I'm crying. I'm not brought to tears from a powerful scene exactly. It isn't the gut wrenching, knife twisting, moments that tend to do it. I'm just as likely to cry at a overly bombastic ridiculous action sequence as a class Joss Whedon tear-your-heart-out-and-chop-because-he-lives-on-the-tears-of-his-fans moment.
Every tear is an ordeal.
It may be witnessed if I'm watching something in public. It may be a private ordeal, alone in my room before I fall asleep. I cannot let the moment rest. I can't let it just be. And maybe that's why it keeps happening. I cannot let it rest until I understand, and I have yet to understand it. Maybe I'm supposed to be learning a lesson and failing.
Every tear is an ordeal.
One that I don't understand. I don't know what I'm supposed to be learning. Maybe even just to be more open and expressive. Maybe to let things be. I don't know. And, maybe there is no point. It isn't that I'm insisting that this comes from Someone. That this is because of Something. That this ordeal must be caused by the Universe for some purpose. I can learn something without all of that.
Not every ordeal is set up for you, not every ordeal is expected. Not everything is a path set before you, sometimes you trip and fall on your face, and end up breaking three ribs. Those random accidents, those genuine coincidences? Those can be ordeal too. The difference is in how you look at them. So, I chose this path.
I chose to make each tear an ordeal.
The alternative is for it to mean nothing. I've been an existentialist for longer than I can remember. The fact is, in the long run, none of it matters. Which is why all of it matters to me. Every tear, every tremor of my body, every coursing stream of self-hatred I feel as another tear slides down my cheek is of meaning to me. I inscribe each tear into my body and mind. I ask why. I search for meaning, for cause.
And so far, I've failed this ordeal. And that is okay too.
Showing posts with label personal bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal bullshit. Show all posts
Friday, March 8, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Pagan Blog Project: B is for Bard
Bards. Oh Bards.
Inevitably, my mind jumps to the (usually) least consequential member of an adventuring party in a game. Such as the spoony bard from Final Fantasy IV/II fame. My mind goes to the stereotypical useless class of bards in 3.5, except that the one time I did play a bard, she kicked so much ass that it got ridiculous. Bards, useless, lute-toting story tellers.
And all of those associations are full of shit. Yes, my associations are bullshit.
The Immortal Bard is Shakespeare, a playwright.* Stories are ridiculously important to me, as is music (even if my singing is painful beyond measure.) They speak to the kind of truth that isn't about facts, and that is something I hold dear. Allow me a digression (because I do love my digressions)...
Last May, I was in a discussion with a friend about my beliefs as a polytheist. Pretty sure this friend is an atheist, but not the proselytizing, anti-religious variety. Rather, she deeply and profoundly wanted to understand. And we spent a lot of time on the subject of mythologies. I said that myths could be true without having actually happened. That truth wasn't about factual instances, but something more. She truly had no idea what I was trying to say. No idea what I meant by separating truth from fact. I told her to read The Little Prince. A day and a half later she came to me and said she understood, though her precise words were thanking me for making her read that book.
Bards don't report facts. Facts are much like statistics, they can be twisted to mean just about anything. Bards are truth tellers. They speak to the truth of the matter, but they do so through the performance and written arts... the non-visual arts. The art of music, of dance, of theater, of poetry, of stories... and maybe too the visual arts but we don't call them Bards. Maybe we should. Because if you stand in the Musée d'Orsay in front Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone, I defy you not to see the truth in his work. Or more contemporarily, Bards are found in film. Casablanca is a fictional story, made during WWII in 1942, and it has became a classic. More importantly is the scene where the cast begins to sing the French national anthem, drowning out the nazis's own song. What most people don't realize is that extras and minors roles were filled with many refugees and exiles. The fictional film brings to light the truth that could not be otherwise felt deep in one's gut.
I have a deep and abiding love for art. Honestly, my deep and abiding love for art is especially true for those forms that are "traditionally" in the bardic arts. Written and spoken word, music and performance. Yet, my associations are so dismissive. I'm not saying there isn't frippery and really really BAD shit in those fields (I hesitate to use art to describe anything Katy Perry has touched); however, even in the shit-tastic land of pop music charts we get gems like Cee Lo's "Fuck You." And if you have ever been dumped, no matter the circumstances, you most likely can relate to that one.
The specific word "Bard" has been on my mind for over a year. Since a professional divination reading (in regards to a ritual I did that year) turned up the word, it has been on my mind. But it came up in connection to another word, and that to me is a large part of why Bards differ from other artists.
Community.
Bards serve communities. They speak for a people, even if that people has yet to emerge. Shakespeare wrote for England, and though he did write for royalty, his main audience was the average worker. Today's high brow art form is literally yesterday's flipping the finger (or even fart jokes.) It spoke to a community of people.
I am lacking in community these days. I have been remiss in establishing a spiritual network, or any sort of local network for that matter. My social systems are scattered around the country. Texas, Missouri, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Washington, District of Columbia... Yeah, I'm not so locally based, and none of that community is spiritually based.
Which is something I've seen the need to change. And I'm beginning to. Slowly.
Except that word keeps ringing in my ears. Bard. Bard. Bard. Each time like a clear bell tone, cutting through the cacophony in my head. I am a writer. I am a story teller. I am occasionally even a poet. I've been a musician, and perhaps it is time to retrain that as well. That word ringing between my ears, and after over a year of marinating, I'm pretty sure it is something I need to become. At least, for now, as who knows what tomorrow shall bring. For now, though, it is an archetype to work with, to contextualize experience, and to give direction to my ever present learning.
None of this even begins to touch on the power that the bardic arts have. Words have power, and language is a spell, a magical system, even before we start down the path of us spooky types. Words the ingredients, grammar the structure, the rules to follow and break as we so choose. The power of practice and focused rehearsal, of the repetition of edits and hammering out that sentence or rhyme. But... I've rambled for long enough. The innate magics of Bards can be a subject for another time.
*Throughout this post I use and reference Shakespeare, and another dead white guy here and there. I actually am not a fan of how "big" such works are and how thoroughly canonized Shakespeare's plays have become, nor am I a huge fan of using yet another dead white dude; however, they are convient examples because of all that jazz, since most people are familiar with such works and general attitudes about it. Maybe one day I'll post a rant about the literary canon. My old professors would be so proud. (/sarcasm.)
 |
| A small, heavily armed Bard from the D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook. |
And all of those associations are full of shit. Yes, my associations are bullshit.
The Immortal Bard is Shakespeare, a playwright.* Stories are ridiculously important to me, as is music (even if my singing is painful beyond measure.) They speak to the kind of truth that isn't about facts, and that is something I hold dear. Allow me a digression (because I do love my digressions)...
Last May, I was in a discussion with a friend about my beliefs as a polytheist. Pretty sure this friend is an atheist, but not the proselytizing, anti-religious variety. Rather, she deeply and profoundly wanted to understand. And we spent a lot of time on the subject of mythologies. I said that myths could be true without having actually happened. That truth wasn't about factual instances, but something more. She truly had no idea what I was trying to say. No idea what I meant by separating truth from fact. I told her to read The Little Prince. A day and a half later she came to me and said she understood, though her precise words were thanking me for making her read that book.
Bards don't report facts. Facts are much like statistics, they can be twisted to mean just about anything. Bards are truth tellers. They speak to the truth of the matter, but they do so through the performance and written arts... the non-visual arts. The art of music, of dance, of theater, of poetry, of stories... and maybe too the visual arts but we don't call them Bards. Maybe we should. Because if you stand in the Musée d'Orsay in front Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone, I defy you not to see the truth in his work. Or more contemporarily, Bards are found in film. Casablanca is a fictional story, made during WWII in 1942, and it has became a classic. More importantly is the scene where the cast begins to sing the French national anthem, drowning out the nazis's own song. What most people don't realize is that extras and minors roles were filled with many refugees and exiles. The fictional film brings to light the truth that could not be otherwise felt deep in one's gut.
I have a deep and abiding love for art. Honestly, my deep and abiding love for art is especially true for those forms that are "traditionally" in the bardic arts. Written and spoken word, music and performance. Yet, my associations are so dismissive. I'm not saying there isn't frippery and really really BAD shit in those fields (I hesitate to use art to describe anything Katy Perry has touched); however, even in the shit-tastic land of pop music charts we get gems like Cee Lo's "Fuck You." And if you have ever been dumped, no matter the circumstances, you most likely can relate to that one.
The specific word "Bard" has been on my mind for over a year. Since a professional divination reading (in regards to a ritual I did that year) turned up the word, it has been on my mind. But it came up in connection to another word, and that to me is a large part of why Bards differ from other artists.
Community.
Bards serve communities. They speak for a people, even if that people has yet to emerge. Shakespeare wrote for England, and though he did write for royalty, his main audience was the average worker. Today's high brow art form is literally yesterday's flipping the finger (or even fart jokes.) It spoke to a community of people.
I am lacking in community these days. I have been remiss in establishing a spiritual network, or any sort of local network for that matter. My social systems are scattered around the country. Texas, Missouri, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Washington, District of Columbia... Yeah, I'm not so locally based, and none of that community is spiritually based.
Which is something I've seen the need to change. And I'm beginning to. Slowly.
Except that word keeps ringing in my ears. Bard. Bard. Bard. Each time like a clear bell tone, cutting through the cacophony in my head. I am a writer. I am a story teller. I am occasionally even a poet. I've been a musician, and perhaps it is time to retrain that as well. That word ringing between my ears, and after over a year of marinating, I'm pretty sure it is something I need to become. At least, for now, as who knows what tomorrow shall bring. For now, though, it is an archetype to work with, to contextualize experience, and to give direction to my ever present learning.
None of this even begins to touch on the power that the bardic arts have. Words have power, and language is a spell, a magical system, even before we start down the path of us spooky types. Words the ingredients, grammar the structure, the rules to follow and break as we so choose. The power of practice and focused rehearsal, of the repetition of edits and hammering out that sentence or rhyme. But... I've rambled for long enough. The innate magics of Bards can be a subject for another time.
*Throughout this post I use and reference Shakespeare, and another dead white guy here and there. I actually am not a fan of how "big" such works are and how thoroughly canonized Shakespeare's plays have become, nor am I a huge fan of using yet another dead white dude; however, they are convient examples because of all that jazz, since most people are familiar with such works and general attitudes about it. Maybe one day I'll post a rant about the literary canon. My old professors would be so proud. (/sarcasm.)
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