exsisto memor pro vestri professio
Exsisto memor pro vestri professio.
Translates roughly into: ” to emerge mindful [of] your art.”
(To quickly progress, I was awake a few days ago at an ungodly hour, walking among everyone else. For a moment, it felt good. Then I scribbled this, re-posted exactly as written. Fuck word count. Fuck headers. If you can’t read barely 1000 words your attention span will never last among my many ruins.)
To digress, and progress into the past.
Early morning at the gas station, everyone’s scrambling in what they think passes for office wear, but really just looks quite ridiculous considering; a woman in a shiny, hot pink top tied exactly in the middle where it shouldn’t have been tied, as it drew attention to her (and most other women for that matter) problem areas. It bunched at the shoulders and was “tastefully” unbuttoned, meaning a bit of white, industrial bra strap was peeking out. This creation was layered on top of a pair of brown plaid pants, which also hit mid waist and tapered down toward the bottom, where they were then greeted by a pair of black ankle boots no one should be caught dead in, considering its the year 2009…
I pour coffee like the rest of them, waiting in line for the biggest cup. I needed my 32oz of “wake me the fuck up” just like everyone else did. But as I looked around me at the various sad excuses for 9-5 wear, the drooping stockings, awkward hem lines, wrinkled dress shirts, mismatched ties–I thought to myself how lucky I am that I am to go home at this hour, possibly write in my white notebook, possibly edit a bit of rough poetry or prose, to drink tea until 3pm if I wished. Nearly every person I saw was yawning or stuffing doughnuts into environmentally unfriendly plastic bags, 3 and 4 at a time in an effort to pass as breakfast for themselves at a grey work table, or their kids on a last minute dash for school, since, of course, no one got to eat between mom getting lipstick on her teeth and jr. staying up way past his bedtime to watch Adult Swim and thereby sleeping in until the last possible minute, having learned the snooze button just like his parents. Dad sneaks a cigarette on the way to work. I know this because I saw him walk past me, 2 packs of the cheapest cigarettes artfully hidden in his shirt pocket, looking around like he’d just stolen a pack of gum or talked to a hooker for the first time. He looked like one of those types who works in nuclear reactors, only never gets his hands dirty, just provides the numbers…
And even now, as I scrambled for my phone to type this, (My PHONE! How absurd, amazing and yet delightfully handy.) there have been at least 10 people come and go on either side of me, thrusting their various sized cars in and out of the spaces beside me. I’m sure at least one has scowled in seeing that I am “just” sitting here when they could have had a closer spot, not realizing that for one of the first times in my life I am vaguely aware of the inspiration all around me, sparked first by that sad woman in the hot pink shirt, and second by a man yawning in his car. That right now it feels GOOD to be going home to write while these people are going to jobs they hate or are ambivalent about at best, by the looks on their faces and the dim light in their eyes, as if they’ve spent years in the factories only to have every bit of it taken away by life…
I have worn my art on my sleeve since my large hands have been capable of committing it, but now, as I approach my mid-twenties and am supposed to be looking for a “career” I have already found one, and in fact have had one for many years now.
At the moment I’m staring at a large, corporate sign, bright red and white. The world is waking up, though much of my work ended at 2am last night, the creative process never stops, even when I think it does. It takes the smallest realization to recognize that all this time I’ve been storing things up, saving them for later, my brain continually saving even as it beats me up along the way. Its a funny thing really, this cycle of abuse. They say many women stay because they are weak and afraid to leave but in this case I think the benefits are worth it.
I will go home, flip to an infomercial and blast music at a loud volume. I will cook some breakfast. I might nap a bit. I will gather together some money, go to the store and buy useless facial products, the kind for oily skin, though I probably don’t need them. This is where I fit in. The consumer in me, mindlessly wandering and buying shit she doesn’t need, another sad face in the checkout line because she knows she doesn’t quite have the money to support these habits.
But I’ve digressed. I will go to the post office and mail some much needed items. I will go find a tanning salon and slightly ruin, yet beautify my skin, yet again. I will go back home with the windows open, letting the post-rain soaked air seep into my stuffy living room and play a relaxing game, while letting my recently bought facial products marinate. I will drink more tea. I will try very hard not to think about my weight, for no matter how terrible I am I will never wear tapered cobalt blue pants paired with a jersey knit top with an off-the-shoulder cut that stops right below the belly.
And, most of all, I will write.
