I mean, it's true. Somehow, that's actually true. Even though they're Tori Amos's words, not mine. But I'm taking those words and making them mine today. Even when I feel like it's really not okay, my heart knows it is. I guess that's what faith is. I guess that's what hearing yourself and listening to and heeding that self feels like. Even when angry chaos is outside and knocking at, or trying to beat down, my door. Sometimes I just have to ride it out on a trusty blanket. And pull the blanket up to envelop me and just let the wind blow where it will. And keep focused on the stars that center me again and again.
I sorta think upside down is part of my fate. And maybe it's also just what my 41 looks like. And, again, that's okay.
That song. It keeps playing in my head today. No matter how sophisticated a person becomes in the real world, and how experienced a person grows to be through the complexities and intricacies of climbing ladder after ladder, hill after hill (thank God some of them have cliffs we can see at the top)... we still all started out the same -- a little blue and upside down in the hospital, when we first began, knowing only our mothers. And I suppose despite all the growing, learning, stumbling, succeeding, and aging, each prior stage of us never leaves. Like a mother's love. And like a coat of paint underneath that you can cover over again and again with different colors. But it remains as a priming surface. Including the upside down blue one after being thrust out of the womb. And there's some solace in remembering that I, too, was an upside down baby once. And felt like one other later times in life when I wasn't. Because I know I'm stronger than that now. Smarter than that now. Understand the nature of love now. Feel the deeper forces of the universe and revel in them now rather than letting them destroy me. When I see that I was able to weather that upside down and become the me that I have, I am assured I can weather this, too. Because it's all part of a larger whole that I know is beautiful.
And that kitten, kitten, kitten in my hair line. That feeling. Giving in to the tangled mess that is determined to just... keep... fucking with you when you've grown so weary of it. In fact, I painted a large oil painting long ago when that line got stuck, a record skipping in my mind, in another upside down chapter of my life. Turning round and round. And that one, inspired by this song, was red. And around the same time, I also painted this other blue painting with birds picking me apart. Back when I first got brave as an artist. And didn't care what people saw on the canvas; I just needed to pour things out. I had no choice. These two paintings pictured below were once hanging in a gallery and have adorned the walls of many homes I've had, but they are currently in my attic, at least for the moment.... They're the first two paintings I made that were real, and I mean that in the Velveteen rabbit kind of way. The way that real means messy and worn... and broken and not particularly shiny... but also feeling genuine, essential, and found, all at the same time.
My little blue world is turning upside down. That may be a good way to put it. Not like the Stranger Things Upside Down. My nightmares can be haunting, with images so hard to shake in the daylight, but thankfully not in the demogorgon kind of way. And I don't have nightmares that often these days, but when I do, mostly they're manifestations of my latent fears of death or disease befalling a loved one. I think our dreams give us the keys to life we need; they tell us what's important to us, in secret but confident whispers.
There's certainly an upside down-ness to life these days. I am using the strength in the reserves I've saved for a rainy day (or more likely stored up on a rainy day when I've been revived by the rain). The kittens in my hair and birds pecking at me in those old paintings remain, but they don't feel quite the same. I know more. I've learned more. I have faith now. And I have more warmth inside that is simply incapable of being chilled. And the blue has faded... I'm not a dangling blue newborn, and my blood is circulating mightily because this beating heart of mine was meant to weather all of this, I know that. But I'm not fully right-side up just yet.
For now, I'm gonna go listen to that song again and stare at these old paintings for a little while more, as I quietly continue to resolve to do the work of turning myself the right way round.
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