A mostly hidden blog by Mechanical Grace.
When I was 8 or 9 I did a messy, free-form painting, the type that starts with beautiful colors but ends up a brownish tragedy. Still, small flashes of color remained. When I looked at the abstract mess after it had dried, I noticed a tiny shape that looked remarkably, precisely, like a small house, perched on a ledge. Suddenly the chaotic whorls became a cliff face, balancing this little house, and the grayish yellow strip across the top of the page, an odd-colored sky. Looking more carefully I found people, other little buildings, a horse. I marveled at having created such an objective reality, not because it was an accident-- on the contrary, I tried to forget that-- but rather because it seemed such an accomplishment to have achieved that impossible magic, verisimilitude. I kept the painting in the closet and would look at it in private, feeling unreasonably proud, and engrossed in the story I'd hidden in my own painting. I never expected anyone else to see the things I saw, and I still don't, but I work more intentionally now, so you never know...
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I haven’t posted here in two months, for a number of reasons, but tonight I suddenly feel the need to break my silence and shut myself up at the same time.
If you discount a few brief hellos while out walking the dog, I’ve gone more than 48 hours without speaking. I don’t know what it would be like to speak right now, whether my voice would crack from disuse, or whether I’d need to clear my throat, or what. At the same time, I feel I’ll go insane if I can’t shut off the sound of my own inner voice: that ceaseless inane chatter that echoes inside my skull, making it seem emptier than ever, and the worryingly unstoppable litany of ritualistic exclamations (I love you, ___; I hate you ___) that has sloshed inside me like a sick tide for more years than I can count.
I’ve been alternating sleep and television for days, just trying to escape, but now neither will work, and if I had sleeping pills I would take them just to get a little peace, and to feel less alone in the world.
