isolation station
woes of a woman who would normally just leave but is sorta immobile
what a thing to admit that when someone looks at me with real love i don’t like it very much. kinda makes me feel like i’m being crushed.
is this something that you would like to discuss?
-florence welch
it’s happening again.
i am waking up between 3-4 am every morning unable to go back to sleep.
the last time this happened was during 2020 lockdown when i was living in nyc. this was pre apartment fire. i couldn’t figure out why i kept waking up.
lol
i’ve since learned that it was/is an activated parasympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight zone, waking me. uprisings, lockdown, unemployment, pandemic, politics. strange i found it strange i was having trouble sleeping but you know what they say about hindsight.
when i feel trapped i experience stress or anxiety. my shoulders and neck have been tight for years now. another thing i’ve learned is that this tightness is emotional tension. yep, that is where it’s held. *tip* an acupuncturist told me percussion massage (beating on the affected areas) helps break up the connection to your nervous system.
your hips hold all kinds of fun stuff, too, like frustration (!), grief, loss, fear, etc so when you stretch your hips, be sure to roll your neck & shoulder around a bit afterwards. the information travels upward.
i can’t move my body to it’s full capacity. i feel stagnant, my stomach queasy. outside, the overgrown holly bush claws at my window in the night. i claw from inside. the temperature drops low and i wake up freezing in the middle of the night, right on schedule. the power is out but when i awake i’m AWAKE. my fight or flight response is no joke; i’m wide-eyed and alert, immediately. i am fascinated by those who can fall asleep anywhere. haven’t they ever been hunted?
lately, any minor frustration or inconvenience has the potential to bring about tears. i do understand that the overflow of emotion happening within me is due in part to not being able to physically move my body like i’m used to. i haven’t been climbing, farming or even walking in the forest as my knee is still healing. i don’t particularly like being indoors so yes, my mental health is suffering but this runs deeper than some temporary injury. it’s not a new development, i’ve just been repressing it.
it’s a peculiar thing, feeling the most isolated in the place you were born and raised. all of the same people are here- family and friends- but i rarely see them. i’ve never understood how people cultivate community in a place where you don’t have access to anything. unless you have a car, i suppose, but why is a death machine that is harming the planet the solution to my needs? sitting in traffic surrounded by a sea of clunky metal vessels, most of them transporting only a singular person, the driver, who is obviously texting on their phone. you’re driving at least 30 minutes to meet a friend and pay $15 for a drink at bar in a neighborhood that you used to love before everything that you loved about it was displaced or destroyed. careful not to drink too much because you will have to drive that fossil-fuel burning baby at least 30 mins back, or anywhere else you may need to go. all the sacrifices of living in a city- too expensive, too crowded, aggressive cops, gentrification, crime- and none of the perks (CONVENIENCE, fun stuff)? sounds like a scam to me. none of these thoughts are new or revelatory, but my body is letting me know that she’s had enough.
“i’m sorry you feel like a bird in a cage,” my partner says to me. as i am responding “me too” he continues, “and i’m not totally absolved from that.”
i smoke weed to suppress an urge to break free. it’s a futile attempt at taming my wildness and it’s not working anymore. it’s clouding my ability to see a way out but it is also the only thing that helps me, eventually, sleep.
i don’t really like being relationships. is that something people in relationships are supposed to say? i feel the most isolated i can ever remember feeling. my years of hermiting have caught up with me, i’ve known this for a while, yet i’m still not free of it. i am prolonging the process for some reason. i am traveling the world but i am tired of traveling. and when i come home it is only okay for about a day or two before this bird feels caged, again. i explain to my partner all of the ways that this city, where i’m from, has never felt like home. i’m sure i have friends here but sometimes i wonder. i sincerely have no idea what people get up to here. no vehicle. no ideas. no desire. this place feels paralyzing to me. i seem to only find solace in the forest and they’re always trying to take that away too.
south river forest
defend the atlanta forest
stop cop city
donate to legal fund here or through (2 days left) south river forest’s ig
i’m straining to fit into a cage that i don’t belong. i’ve been here before. leaving was always the answer because i only learned how to take care of myself. i was raised by 2 strong, gentle single women. then i went off and let experience raise me. this is how i’ve ended up.
i never learned to express my needs to men and never felt the need to, but now when i find myself in heterosexual relationships they can be triggering as hell. i never handled disappointment well, at all, so i taught myself to eradicate expectations of others and rely only on myself. i extinguished fear, sick! but i also snuffed out excitement, passion. i don’t want to take care of a man, and i don’t think i want one to take care of me. as an Aries Venus I want a partner in crime, no fawning bullshit.
What Venus in Aries wants most of all is not a weight to their scale, someone to balance their talents and flaws, or someone who murmurs over their wounds or even someone who waits for them. What Venus in Aries wants most of all is simply a partner in crime. This isn’t a Venus that is concerned about doing good and making sure that they are seen doing good. This is a Venus that moves with action first. Venus in Aries wouldn’t be caught dead talking about their good works. Venus in Aries acts and then wonders what it all means later. They need to be able to move and thinking about things before moving means wasting valuable motivation and time. This is why Aries Venus is so hopelessly attracted to mischievousness. Embodying mischievousness gives them the permission that they need to move at the pace they need.
Venus in Aries doesn’t care about how they are seen. This is the Venus with the rumpled collar, with the bed head, and with the mismatched socks, sloppily dressed with shoes always worse for wear. Even as artists, Venus in Aries is anti-aesthetic. They have an instinctive derision towards aesthetics. They sense that aesthetics are a kind of bureaucracy that they have no time or patience for. Just get the thing done and how it looks is how it looks. Who gives a shit about anything that is more than what is absolutely instrumental? You’ll notice that Venus in Aries doesn’t usually have a lot of stuff.
is this whole Anti-Experience making more sense you now, sweetest Anti-Reader?
my partner loves rolling open fields where, if you’re quiet enough, you’ll hear the wind travel. pastures of clover and soft green grass where you can run for miles. i prefer the shelter of a cave, the sanctuary of a forest. a little over a year ago, we were camping atop a mountain somewhere in the lush jungles of puerto rico. we took mushrooms on empty stomachs and as the trip was winding down we sat around a fire and he began jovially exclaiming his revelations about the things i would often talk about. “I now understand why you hate grocery stores!!” “my phone IS gross, keep it away.” “it really is All About Love!!” “did you hear that?? are those MONKEYS in the distance?”
i must admit that i will go to great lengths to avoid people when i’m in the forest, or really nature of any kind. if it’s unavoidable i will simply contract until i am distanced enough from their energy to feel ease. sometimes the interaction is pleasant but it always feels like an interruption. my partner doesn’t understand. i think he finds it quirky. i’ve tried explaining that for me, seeing people when i am enveloped in nature is akin to seeing “other” people when you’re tripping. it sort of takes on this us against them feeling. a wariness, a cautiousness washes over me. frankly, a momentary buzzkill. we have this theory that my base line internal state is similar to that of a person tripping— magic in the mundane, intuition overload, Sensual City developing my cognitive experience, deep observations of immediate environments and figuring out how they fit into larger ones. the macro in the micro. my partner is more overtly curious; he likes to pick things up from the ground and wonder about them aloud, asking questions. he says i am the least curious person in the world.
he seems fascinated with my “presence” as in my willingness to be present. it isn’t profound or anything, it’s actually quite simple- quality time is a “love language” of my mine and i don’t like being on my phone. i’m painfully analog and not in an ironic, post-modern way that Max Bemis would ridicule me for. i am convinced my life would be easier if i was able to embrace more technology, however i am also convinced that that is only because we are living in late-stage capitalism. fixating on the future is silly to me because the future doesn’t exist, but right now does so that’s where i’m at.
my partner is indulgent, neurodivergent, addicted to his phone, and yes, subscribed to this newsletter. his love language is touch and he will temporarily obsess over various hobbies- which will subsequently turn me off from them lol. i call him a gadget guy. he brought all 5 of his cords to the top on that puerto rican mountain where we slept in a canvas tent without *gasp* electricity, but forgot his jacket. he is caring and always willing to help. he is shocked by my ability to quit things cold turkey. he operates under beautiful Abundance Law but i’m Stuck in Scarcity. i am intolerant, hyperaware, and difficult to please. in my scarce state, obsession & indulgence seem like dangerous weaknesses.
as i write this, i hear a deep, loud constant buzz and then a disconcerting tearing sound. it will continue all day. a ruthless machine roaring in the distance. i know this sound. frustration slowly rises up like heat in my body at how we continue to further harm an already wounded land. the sound continues, someone across the street is removing trees. buzz, kill, buzz, kill.
i know there can be power in fighting, but always at a cost. i hear there can be power in staying. my knee is healing now, and i’m moving more. in my notes i wrote self doubt is selfish in bold. i’m not sure how i expect my needs and desires to be met if i am unable to express them. when i hold it all in it still comes out, just in a much more unattractive way that leaves others feeling helpless or worse.
a man at a brewery tells me i should take up more space and he’s right, but i get the feeling that he’s never been hunted. all of the hunters i’ve ever known looked exactly like him.
please have a look at Ski Lex before you go, in case i never go skiing again!
the face of someone who doesn’t have to see another Godforsaken Gift Guide for a whole year.
love you bye