Relationships; Growing Through Solitude

    Despite being single, I've experienced ongoing relationship growth including the awareness that with or without a significant other, I've had the same problems. I've gone through the good and the bad all by myself. the difference is I know that I get total credit and blame. I have responsibility and ownership for how I feel, and I've felt the same things. I've felt 100% loved and accepted, even cherished.... alone. I've felt undesirable, like I was in the way, abandoned, unloved...all of the feelings that lead to breakups, except I was alone. I've felt sexy, powerful, intelligent, helpless, confident, and terrified both in and out of relationships. This lesson for me has come in layers.

   A few unfortunately obsessed strangers triggered this latest realization. Apparently, they first saw me on my Youtube channel, and developed a fixation of sorts. They've written a lot, and a few have, but some are more tenacious. I try to take the Lady Gaga approach, in that I'm not angry about it. It's not about, "Me," but more of a, "Celebrity" thing, and if I could, I'd send them sandwiches. They've no idea if I've even seen their notes or not, and I haven't read them all. In truth, there isn't enough time in the day even if I wanted to do so. We've never had any exchange whatsoever. Still, they have had the whole range of relationship experiences through these emails. They've been, "In love," in hate, they've judged, blamed, bargained, tried to be understanding to, "Make it work," and they've seemed to get hold of themselves, and let go for periods of time, then fall right back into the obsession...with a person they don't even know other than a talking head on some videos.

    For me, those videos are something I've done, something of acting, and something of myself for those moments in time but not, "Me" on the whole. At the very least, time has passed, and people change and grow. The writer has been stuck there like falling for a photograph in a magazine. This is why I don't take it personally. 

  I once imagined Peter Tork and I would fall in love and live happily ever after, and he too had no idea. The difference is, I didn't think he needed to know, and I didn't take it that seriously that I thought to stalk him. Still, I've written posts on celebrities pages, but not one after another or for years on end. The point being, the writer went through this range of experience without my input.

    Now seeing that I've had those similar feelings within relationships, and outside of them. I have to wonder how much of my relationships was real. Just because I can touch you, that doesn't mean that I know you. When I blamed myself or him, maybe it was just life, and we were sort of one another's fans for a time. Now, within the relationships, I dropped the word, "Blame," long ago, and was just working on things that hurt as they came along, but eventually, I did need his help, and he couldn't be bothered. I didn't expect to never have problems, but if I was the only one working on them, or trying to hold it together, it didn't and wouldn't work. You cannot have a working relationship on your own. 

  I gave out from exhaustion one day, trying to hold something together that was draining me at best, when it worked at all, by then. He just wasn't willing, until we broke up, but I'd heard that song for so long, and I couldn't take one more injury to my heart at the time. I was just too broken by then. It seemed we both stood a better chance at survival and maybe even happiness alone, and I think it worked out o.k.

   Last night, I had the same revelation when I watched the movie, "Her." She, the female lead, wasn't real either, in the conventional sense, any more than a recorded memory of someone on a youtube screen. It was all in his mind as he was only interacting with an Operating System. I thought to myself, "Isn't that what we're all doing, here on Facebook, Instagram or elsewhere online where we are having the, "Real" experiences with all of the faults, flaws, joys, tears, and laughter of friendships, while, I cannot put my arms around you?" I really thought about how much you all add to my life while I am, "Alone." 

   Of course you're not Operating Systems or Artificial Intelligence, even one that grows and learns and adapts according to the people you interact with, but humans do that too. I am malleable to you, and you are to me. We affect each other, while remaining ourselves in the healthiest of circumstances. In the movie, the male lead character fell in love, and who, wanting, has not wished we were hundreds or thousands of miles from where we are? Who has not experienced the very real heartbreak of rejection when our love interest found someone, "With a body," nearby...someone to hold? Who hasn't looked at other places and cultures and thought they'd fit, perhaps better there? Who hasn't moped over goodbyes, or felt fear when the beloved didn't sign in online, the same as if a spouse didn't make it home?   
  
  Is it all the same; one colossal gorgeous mind-fuck? The activities are different, but the feelings are the same. It doesn't seem to matter which way you choose. This all comes down to the most profound question my spiritual mentor asked me long ago. 

    What do you want?

  Perhaps we are that basic or amazing that the answers are all in our instincts. Our desires or chemistry, if you will, might be the deciding factor in where and how we experience our particular glorious mess of a life.

   I have no answers. 

tinajonesart
 

I Believe in RED

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”

                                                                                               Audrey Hepburn

Probably one of the sweetest quotes I see fairly often, and read it always with a smile. There's an elegance and innocense to her in words and visage that becons the "girl" in most all of us. 

  I can't help, when seeing these words, reflecting on what "I believe," and if it might have any use to others in their own self searches.

  I figure I might as well give it a go! :)

Ahem..Is this thing on?  Testing, one, two...and

   I believe in RED, Pink was o.k. when I was two, but I want a color that, by God, will commit to being a color. Stand up and say, "I am Red! Deal with it!" I believe that if I've stopped laughing for any calculable length of time, someone needs to hit me with cardiac paddles or toss dirt on me. I believe in kissing. I believe in kissing here, here, here, and here and here too. I believe that the strongest people are those who fall apart on a regular basis. I believe that happiness is about being true to ourselves, and if that means lipstick or sweating in a garden, working at a factory, nursing a child, teaching the deeper meaning of haiku, or pole dancing, you are probably absolutely beautiful doing it!. 

  I believe in passion. I believe that potatoes, pasta and rice were invented by people to cunningly take up space on my plate where bacon is meant to be. I believe in one inch thick steaks without trimming the fat, and I believe in salad mostly so people don't yell at me. I believe I'd better plan for tomorrow, but live here and now, and now I'd like Sam Elliot to be here. I need a cook. 

    I believe there are secrets in dandelion fluff. I believe that amazing paintings are waiting in paint tubes, but they are not going to squirt themselves out on to a canvas. I believe in cutting the elastic tops off of over-sized sweat socks, so they slouch properly. I believe the best part of the day is that thirty minute stretch thing to find the right spot that I have to do when I climb into bed at night. I believe that mustard and pickles should be a food group.  I believe that the sky shows off every evening in colors just to make me envious enough to dream of painting them. I believe in cheese. 

     I believe Robin Williams is probably the best lay on the planet. I believe in wearing big skirts and spinning around to watch them become aloft. I believe there is music in the stars, and that it's blasphemy not to dance to it. I believe in feeling the artist's being in a clay bowl that I can hold. I believe sometimes when I don't know what to do, my spirit leaps from my body to silently tell some gloriously wrinkled and tired woman or the man that pushes his back to feed his children, "You are beautiful!" I believe when I put my fingers in running water, it should always be with reverence, and the water enjoys touching me. i believe in never using hair spray, lest I miss the combing of a breeze.

     I believe in cruise control and loud music in the car, and singing poorly. I believe the sound of whale's song is beautiful but nothing compares the sounds of my children and grandchildren. I believe in acting sillier than my grandchildren. I believe that, because that's not too much of a challenge, it must mean I'm gifted!
 I believe sometimes cookies and pickles make a great breakfast. I believe it's simply better to love, and you don't have to wait for a person or circumstance to do it. You're already right there waiting to be loved by you. I believe, "Witch Hazel" is a funny thing to say. I believe cursing is necessary to maintain the dignity of a conversation at times. Knowing those times is a challenge. I believe that everything and everyone I see is mine and part of me, and loving you taught me how to love me. 

Finally, I believe in knowing when to stop. I just haven't learned it yet.

tina jones

R.I.P to Mr. Steve Jobs

 ‎"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." Steve Jobs
  I'm baffled and quieted why some of us survive cancer, while others go. Laid in our laps, the survivors is to me the duty to enjoy life. Worry is no longer an option, nor resentment. Such privilege is best relegated to those who've not walked with death. Responsibilities like doing exactly what is meaningful to the individual, be it painting, playing, enjoying, lifting the spirits of another are no longer negotiable. Seriousness has, at last been abandoned for the duty of ingenuity, fear abandoned for the responsibility of unbridled joy, and insecurity abandoned for freedom to live in full expression of Life. It is short, our time, and at end, may I say, "I have lived fully, felt every emotion, helped where I could, played in example, and loved life with relentless, voracious passion!"

Passion

"Nude 10"
11x14 Acrylic on Canvas



Passion

“Hot” he says so innocently without notion.                            

Careful where you stand. Guard the seething cauldron.

Flames lick, and stretch, caressing in soothing stings

“Feels good” he says warming by embers that softly sing

With ferocity temporarily tame kinetic tombs.

“I love you” he says. Don’t let it consume

Unless you want it, Lest your tempted to open the gate,

Be forwarned. You tread the territory of fate.

Then there’s no return to cavernous space.

 Watch your heart and guard your face,

Yet I can tell you, it will not harm in it’s throes                     

It protects, feeds on its own and grows,

And you are the flames as much as I.

Dive if you’re brave. I rise dripping, meet heart to eye.

Flames lick wet whips in unquenchable screams.

Tongues in heat froth erotic creams.

Breath burns on skin, sweet acidic warm

Touches dissolve towers built from harm.

And walls fall like so much silk

In a gentle kiss, one another’s milk

Be us both lost or found by the liquid sun in me

Who only asks for all, whose All is all of me.

All of me, and all of you melted, to one that began two.

Unchain, reveal me. I beg, unleash me to you.

I am more than a storm of raining fire

I am more than me, reborn of simple desire.

A third is made, an Us created that is more powerful

Than any singular beginning or awakening hour, full

And mercilessly loving. The monster gloriously untethered

 Viciously entangled and ferociously surrendered.

I don’t know that I can survive this, and I cannot find a spark of care.

Stay with me close, Let me become this. Come with me trembling there.

Let me be more than what you see

And only who I am when I am free.

Sweet insanity, this longing without mistake,

No cold threatens, no isolation and no ache.

Arms hurt for now to hold. Sweet kindness cools and soothes

Through bitter nails and hungry bites with will-weakening  moves.

Sweet hunger starved for satiation,

Primal mind, writhing contemplation

Of single kisses and madly thrashing waves

Of willing partners, each others drenched slaves

It wakes, and cries, walls torn apart,

Dare you look, the cost... is but your heart,

For this passion no eyes yet see,

The win is love, and the prize is me.

Still I understand eyes that in fear cannot bear, .

I’ve seen the hidden places that souls cannot share,

I know fear, and I have compassion

For existence long since in silenced passion.

 I know the heat within, and I know the door.

I know how to close it, and I know that I want more.

The sadness of it is, I know how much I have to share

and crux remains, How much can you bear

Of love?

Tina Jones