Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Dizzying, Dazzling, and Tragically Beautiful





I know this Vevo video is ten minutes long so, but the opening includes a poem/intro that I adore. I have a bit of a Lana obsession because while yes she's the singer and songwriter, but she makes some beautiful videos to go with her words. They're haunting, enchanting, ethereal, melancholy..there's a beauty in the sadness. I think sadness might be the wrong word, too. (Forgive me for sucking at words sometimes)


When I watch films and I know what fate eventually befell the great actors in the scenes...well, it's almost....I can't describe the feeling I get, and hopefully I'm not alone and someone can help me expand my lexicon. It's like the feeling I get when I'm laughing and crying at the same time. The feeling I get when I accept the absurdity of life. The feeling I get when I watch the sunrise by myself, or lightning in the night-time rain. There is so much beauty around us, so many touching moments in the natural world that we may catch glimpses of, every sunrise will look different and so will every sunset. The clouds, the trees, you, will never be in quite the same position, the light won't refract in quite the same ways, the color combinations wont be quite the same... Beautiful but fleeting. Shining then gone.

 I'm learning to notice beauty, and I don't mean that in the shallow, put-on-makeup, posed portrait type of way. It's the behind-the-scenes, candid-photo type of way. We can always put on make up and dresses and fake smile until our cheeks hurt and get some pretty pictures, but a candid picture can capture that ephemeral moment of joy.  
There were times when I was struck with an urgent need to memorize everything about a moment, commit it to my treasure trove of blissful memories before it ended. It's like I knew I would need those memories to sustain me someday. 
This is a double-edged sword though, because I can't control which one of those scenes play out in my dreams. They're too real, too good, too happy, and my mind makes up new scenes that never happened and they feel so real. When I wake up I actually do have a few seconds of stillness, before that feeling in my stomach returns and I want to roll over and die. This is why the sharpest objects allowed near my bed are....cat claws? Archer takes the task of not letting me roll over and stab myself to death with his paws very seriously. He's waiting with fresh cat snuggles instead.


Having to remember so many changes, so many losses, and deal with all of it all over again whenever I get out of bed....that's why I loathe going to sleep. At a time when I needed my home more than ever to cope, there was no home to go to.  I knocked on all the doors I knew, and there was simply no answer. 
So I mourned all the reasons I had to want to be a good person. I mourned the feeling of having roots firmly in the ground. And I mourned the future I had meticulously laid out.
 I don't think many things can feel worse than this, and I certainly do not wish to live through whatever IS. Before you waste your time typing, just keep reading. Yeah, sure, this is totally like that time your dog died and I should be over it. Got it.

Yet...the worst I ever experienced prior to this, I was 16. In the aftershocks of that event, I was in a mini-freefall. After years of being a vegetarian,
I ate burgers again for the first time. I went to school with smirnoff in my coffee mug once or twice, I may have skipped a class or two, embraced the black nail polish, dyed my hair magenta, and just stopped caring what people thought. Rock bottom, looking back, was apparently not turning in an essay for Karen, and dropping that hard-won A.
I would be lying if I said that back then, a small, dark and twisty, integral part of me wasn't kind of relieved when some innocence or naivete was chipped away though. Falling can be exhilarating, freeing. It's when it happens all at once and I just hit the ground that's a problem. But I wouldn't be me without those falls, even the really bad or embarrassing ones. 
Anyways, some of Lana's words and videos capture that a feeling of chaotic change for me, a feeling that's tragic and beautiful, between hope and despair. The feeling that anything is possible and like nothing matters at the same time... 





Edit on September 5, 2013 @ 3:56 PM.