Writings From A Would Be Beatnik
the dirt of our hurt.
it’s a phrase that’s been running across the mainframe of my brain on repeat ever since it came to me a week or so ago.
i’ve been sitting with it, knowing i have something i need to process and write involving the ideas around it, but i've been running away from doing so.
distracting myself. thinking of other things. or not thinking at all.
evolving is a balancing act.
to both hold contentment (without being stagnant and stale) in one hand and a desire to grow and experience new-ness (without being restless and unappreciative of where you are) in the other is hard for me.
shot with ektar 100 35mm film on almost-exactly-this day last year
i wrote today.
properly sat down and wrote.
sheepskin in lap, strong black coffee in reach.
long rushing, flowing paragraphs of tangled, jumbled vine-y thoughts, which became a little less entwined once translated into little orderly black characters of text.
and how good it felt.
i write on my phone a lot.
in my notes. in instagram captions. in far-reaching-grasping texts to loved ones.
however there is a lack of freedom sometimes in those outlets.
i am learning to love things without being them.
-- an entry from my writings in november 2016
a piece i wrote on November 9th 2014 and still rings true for me today, over two years later.
Read Morerevisiting words from autumn 2015 today.
it's startling how relevant pieces i wrote years ago, in a different place, in a different time, can still apply to knew places and new times.
what a beautiful journey this life of mine is.
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love breathes in two places.
sometimes more.
it is not a just here thing.
but an also-over-there thing.
gif by Meagan Abell
the definition of a beatnik is:
a usually young and artistic person who participated in a social movement of the 1950s and early 1960s which stressed artistic self-expression and the rejection of the mores of conventional society.
————
this is me. this is so me.
sometimes i feel like i’m doing it all wrong.
things don’t add up.
mistakes are made.
problems come up.
stresses arise.
but i recently had this thought: what if i’m not doing it all wrong. what if, actually, i’m doing it exactly right?
for isn’t it these moments of indecision and frustration and problems arising and choices going wrong that most often shape, mold and create us into being better and more solid beings?
after all, without challenges and having to figure out problems, we’d never have a chance to grow.
so then, wouldn’t all of the wrongness, all of the mistakes, all of the this-isn’t-rights actually, in fact, be the opposite?
think about it.
give yourself some grace.
you probably deserve it.
because even though you feel like you’re doing it all wrong. maybe. just maybe.
you’re actually doing it all exactly right.
