a little note to some of the anonymous commenters out there. (and this will be the one and only time i address this).

there were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.

anais nin



i've been thinking about words lately.

words versus experience. words aiming at experience. and how words do not always fail, but they are never the thing.

a photo of an apple, let's say (first thing that came to mind, must remember to have one later) is not the apple. it is an image of the apple. and a compressed image at that. and because compressed, inherently distorted.

words convey an image. compressed and distorted. aiming at truth, but not the truth itself.

when i first went to see tom many moons ago (to deal with that nasty case of bulimia) we talked a lot about weight. a number. weight is a number. but it isn't, not really. weight is a constantly changing thing, contingent upon countless factors--many of them unknowable. tom told me that even with the very best scales the world has to offer, taking my weight at the same time each week, after many weeks all he would be able to give me was an approximation and an idea as to whether my weight was going up, down, or holding steady (well, holding as steady as weight ever can hold).

but we americans we like to know things. we like things in black in white. we want the concrete. and a number, well, that's concrete.

i began this blog as a way to tunnel out of a very dark period in my life. a way to focus on the good and identify all those things that fill me up and fill me out. as a way of cataloging progress and change. but after the last three years with this blogspot lover of mine, the only thing i can say with any certainty is this: i am not what i wrote last week, nor what i wrote two years ago. but somewhere in the space between--if you could subtract the one from the other--somewhere in the weeds of all that muck, you'll find me.

this is all an attempt. an attempt at truth. an attempt at my truth. and i tell lies and omit things and twist the facts to aim at a larger truth. but it is not truth.

there is a buddhist expression: the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.

 everything i've shared here, it is not the moon, it only points to it.

but i'm trying. and that's something.