on this New Year

Why do we celebrate new years? New Years.

We are blessed with existing on a planet that revolves around a star in a definable time frame. 

That is all.

I took a class on it. Scientifically, we could be on a planet that ends up crashing into our star before we EVER evolutionarily make our mark on this universe. 

But out genetic sprawl ended up HERE. 

On earth. With a capital E. 

We are here.  

And on this Eve of our Revolution we are meant to REDEFINE ourselves. 

How can we make this UNIVERSAL mistake (or blessing) better with our own existence?

So many of us can make things better. It's not up to the Divinity of God. Or the blessings of genetics. We are meant to make this Earth, our given home, OUR space. Without mistake. Better.

THIS IS OUR SPACE TO DEFINE. 

 

Heart-breakingly, my beloved loves, this is our space to define. 

In this, "2014"th year I ask that you, my beloved loves, define this space with artistic endeavor. I plead with you, my Loves, to sprawl this Space with all that you have to Offer.

Music. Art. Image. Word. Dance. Your own poetry.  It is all SO needed in OUR Space.

My loves, I only ask that you bring more love into our Unloved Space. 

Because, in this "2014"th year... my dear, we ALL know this universe (this space) is worth SO MUCH MORE that what has been received.

Give back with all your heart, my poets, my friends, my family, MY ARTISTS...

With the strength in which you helped define one broken individual...

please, my loves, define this Beloved Space with all that you have to Offer.

Back to School, my darling.

I am hugely frustrated by my break from school. I have no way in which to feed, modify, or expand my brain. 

People, tiredly, told me I should enjoy my "vacation" after the accident. I made the mistake of confessing to doctors, nurses, family and friends that I was unhappy about having to stay at home, not being able to work. "Don't worry about that. Enjoy your vacation." 

No one, of course, offered me a week in Tuscany, a month in Tibet, or a winter in the tropics. 

My darlings, this is no vacation. This, my recovery, is an entrapment. A cage. A hearty death throttle of substandard expectation. It swells heavily in my heart. Sinks into abandoned and yet to be reworked neuron space. You do not want me to send any holiday treasures of where I have been and what I have seen from this place. This is no vacation. 

Spring semester starts January 16th, 2014. I have never been so excited to go back to school.

That must be the brain injury talking. 

With nervous luck, I'll be taking graduate level courses this coming semester. In a great effort to recover from a humiliatingly low undergraduate GPA, I will be taking masters course work- hoping to create an academic profile for my MFA applications in the fall of 2014.

In three years time I hope to have a Masters in Poetry. A MFA is a dream I stopped chasing after my graduation. My reasoning- I cannot financially afford yet another degree that cannot help me achieve some semblance of American financial security. I had already passionately followed my love of literature to a Bachelor of Arts in English. With a broken heart and a broken bank account, I worried that I'd followed the wrong love. 

I flirted with the idea of falling in love with a mastery of Public Administration. But there was no guarantee that the "right" non-profit or NGO was going to want me once a degree was awarded.

My mother and many friends harped the usefulness of a Masters in Curriculum/Education. But upon research, I predicted that I would find myself in a sea of instructors looking for work- damaged, neck snapped by the ferocious dogma of school districts criminal "education" expectations. Already, in Nola, I'd been served a heaping, steaming pile of "you're not the right fit/we can't shape you as we need" disappointment. 

And then I almost died. 

Cheating death. Cheating irreversible damage is immensely liberating. A person has to relearn so much. Of the many things one has to relearn- Value of Self. Because, honestly, if you die tomorrow are you going to die happy that you didn't try for what you loved but had at least grasped monetary security? Or would you rather happily die poor and full heart sure passion? 

What is my happiness worth? I have decided it will not be bought. My happiness cannot be housed and husbanded. It will find no satisfaction with mate or genetic multitude. Childlike tantrum intact, my happiness was meant to fuss and fit no standard. My happiness does not leisure. It does not linger in a dictated space of earned achievement. My happiness isn't waiting for a big pay check. It's not waiting for paid time off or a tropic sphere issued tan. 

Happiness, jokingly, was waiting for me to grow up, get brave and get over the idea of being "successful" as defined by a society that still (after three decades!) hasn't grasped my individual worth. 

In my life before the accident, I feel that there were many things I missed because I hadn't calculated my self-worth. My Value. Jobs I never cared for. Classes failed because I'd pre-deemed myself a failure. Men who dismissed me because they felt they could find better. 

Loves. Love lost. 

Since the accident there is no excuse for allowing others to treat me with disregard. 

With that said and done, I regard myself as one with exceptional quality. 

Quality. 

The type of creative quality that was eventually destined to grow up, get brave and discover happiness and success doing something that I love. 

Artists. We're fucking STRANGE that way

Just following Instructions

Lately I have had great bloggable thoughts. Tiredly, I tell myself that I will blog them tomorrow. The next day shows up and I have to remind myself to compose a new name for a new blog. The process turns into a collapsible obligation weight that brings me to a fit of tea drinking, TV watching depression. Because being a writer, on any level, is fun.

Don't let anyone lie to you. It's not fun.

Naming the damn thing turned into a damnable chore. Tonight an old writing buddy cleverly came up with a perfect damn name suggestion. It was just a little unreal. I was testing the idea of shifting from nomi-in-nola to nomi-in-nm. I felt it was a weak start to something that was eventually going to mean a lot to me. He casually types in my direction, "The NM in New Mexico could be NeverMind instead. Or Gaiman it up. NomiInNeverwhere."

Gaiman it up. 

Huh. 

Gaiman, in the past month, has been a great comfort to me. I struggle with reading novel length since the accident. I get impatient. I forget events from last chapter. I forget details from the last page. It's painfully frustrating. I want nothing more than to open the virgin spine of a book, sniff delicately and devour for hours. New books and I no longer have the relationship we used to.  

New novels make me feel... dumb. 

I tipped my toe into familiar territory. Non-committal to "Fragile Things."  I'd been reading new poetry all semester, only struggling with Alice Notely. I thought I could allow myself the comfort food of Neil Gaiman poetry and maybe he could make me feel recreationally smart again. 

And he did. He reminded me, through one of my favorite poems, that on "The Day the Saucers Came" I was paying close attention to every detail of drunken angels during Ragnarok cleanse because I wasn't expecting a phone call at all. He gave me "Instructions" on how to stay polite, to always trust in dreams, and how to go home. Or rest.

I was accidentally but intentionally reminded that I am a "Strange Little Girl." 

Gaiman's short stories from the collection rattled irritation in my head. His sort stories have always rattled in my head. They have no girth. No length. Climax crawls or comes to soon. In his defense, my first taste of Gaiman was quietly accented when I fell in love with a king. It takes exactly ten trade paperback novel lengths to fall hazardously in love, be informed of the pending death of your love, and heart crashingly go to The Wake. 

True story. The Dream King taught me how to wait patiently for Death. 

I moved on to re-reading "American Gods" for maybe the fifth time. Blissfully I knew that I would not fall in love with Shadow. I also knew that the slow stroking of climax that moves to the end of the book will not actually be an ending at all. 

It'll be just another day. 

Peter says, "Gaiman it up." 

Neverwhere. If I had a key to a door that would return me to my old life would I be utterly bored by it? Would I want to be Old Naomi instead of New Naomi?

I would be earth shatteringly bored by my old life. Maybe Old Naomi was lovely. I think she was naive. It doesn't matter, because she's dead. 

I'm tired of holding her damn vigil.