Dec.19, 2000 cont.
It is difficult to describe life here, one reason being there just isn't a lot to describe, only the endless proscession of hard and breakable days, one upon the other. I have the world inside my mind to occupy and entertain me. That is enough sometimes.
Across the creek and up the bank, a train track runs along the other side, and where the bank was cut into to lay the tracks there are two openings in the rock. Like cave openings. I look at them a lot and wonder if they are caves and how deep they go, and where they might lead. I wonder about the breakable dark, and the soft dirt there, and whether or not anyone has spotted the caves other than me. That bank is very hard to reach. The train comes by suddenly sometimes and it is dangerous as well.
I would love one night, to go to them, and take no light, and stick my head inside and smell the damp air and wait to see, if something there, could see me. Something.
I wonder sometimes if I have become invisible and that is why no one sees me anymore. Perhaps the darkness can see me. The still and breakable dark.
Dec.20, 2000
It is so cold today. There's just enough snow on the ground to make it look like the inside of a freezer. The sky is that outer space blue that seems to go on forever.
My father sent me a hundred dollar money order for christmas but I can't cash it. I have no I.D. and no bank account or anything. It was a nice thing for him to do though. I won't tell him I can't cash it. Living an outsider life does have it's drawbacks I guess.
I was thinking about this site today, what I'd like to do with it, where I'd like for it to go etc. I think I will leave it much like it is for now. I won't fill it up with ads, you know, click here and make me a nickle type things, I think I will keep it as it is.
Dec.21, 2000
Afternoon. It has started snowing again. The flakes are the size of children's hands, floating down waving, falling into the churning waters of the creek and sinking out of sight. The sky is steal and solid dark. It seems never to be bright here and when it is, it is a mocking brightness.
The holidays are fast approaching, so I am told. Celebration is for the financially successful, the secure ones lapping happily at the edges of abundance. Their credit cards shining gaily in the blue light of Proffits, or Sears or J.C. Penny's. Roaming the malls in herds like cattle grazing, they mindlessly fatten themselves. Sometimes it saddens me to think of the roads I have not taken where I too may have become a consumer of goods, a cog in the main wheel of the main stream. Then I wake up.
Meanwhile, back at the mill, I have my two rooms amazingly warm today. The wind is calm so the warmth can accumulate and stay in here and not be savagely sucked away. I have the afternoon, and the evening, and much of the night to spend alone. Daniel has gone to work at the factory. I miss him when he is gone. He is often gone. He does not really like it here.
He wants to go to his parent's for Christmas. He wants me to go with him and I will go, because he wants me to.
Dec.22,2000
There is a WalMart near here that is open 24hrs. a day and this
evening we went shopping to try and find some presents for Daniel's
niece and nephew. I very rarely go shopping, I very rarely have
money, so the sight of WalMart at 10:00 P.M. literally elbow to
ass-hole with people shoving buggies heaped with screaming children
and giant boxes of junk was a startling sight to behold.
It was a nightmare. I don't understand it at all. It seemed more
like a group torturing than a joyous happy thing. Everyone was mad,
rude, screaming at their kids. The checkout girl looked like a
poster girl for work-place violence. She wanted us dead so bad. Just go away and die her eyes were saying. LOL
I think the economy of America would collapse if it weren't for
holiday shopping. People are angry about doing it because they know,
deep inside, that they have been manipulated into doing it.
It was bone-chilling cold tonight too. Back at the mill the wind
has shifted and my store of warmth has been sucked away. We are
hovering over the little heater with hats and jackets on wishing
the wind at least would die down. Daniel is off for the holidays
now so we will have a little time together this weekend.
Dec.30,2000
Christmas is finally past and now we are facing a new year. The holidays went well, they are gone and that is a good thing. How many people say that I wonder? Why is it such a burden? I wonder about that too. At any rate, it is early afternoon now and I am by myself here. Daniel has gone to band practice and won't be home till very late, if at all. It is snowing and I don't know if he'll get stuck at his friend's house tonight. I don't mind being here alone all night, it's like being in a cozy cave far away from eveyone.
My God, it's cold in here right now. Must be the thieving wind again.
I have my feet tucked up under me so they won't get so cold. Snow is blowing by the window in pale gusts. Nothing is moving outside but the wind in the trees.
Someone was in the mill last night. I had gone to sleep and woke up to hear the sound of footsteps. It was coming from right behind the wall next to the bed. I lay very still. I was terrified.
I remember being wide awake and hearing it quite clearly but I know it must have been impossible. Outside the wall next to the bed, the mill there is literally packed with old machinery, and what is not filled up, is just plywood laid across the holes that are in the floor from when someone set the mill on fire years ago. I just don't know, at this point, what I could have heard. It seemed so real at the time, but now, I don't know.
Jan.2, 2001
I can hardly believe it is 2001. That sounds so very futuristic to me for some reason. I don't feel as though I have caught up with the date, I still live somewhere in the dim and misty past.
According to my faithful computer clock, it is 7:09 p.m., that seems about right. The mill is dark and quiet, I hear the cats outside the door picking at their dinner.
I have built a web site in honor of my mother. It is a cooking site with some of her recipes on it, a picture of her from some happier time, and my family has all signed the guest book. I don't go there now very much, it seems contaminated. I get uneasy there, like I have to hurry in and out before I get caught. This is my secret place, where I go and feel safe. I know if anyone from my family found it, I would delete the site and hide again. Does that sound as strange reading it as it did writing it? No matter, I think that may be why I live here in this dreary empty building. I'm hiding. To date, it has been uncontaminated by family.
I still have not recovered from the recent visit to Daniel's family over the holidays. They were very nice to me, every one of them, and I think that may be what was so disconcerting about the entire visit. I hope to believe that they were sincere in their kindness, but I do not trust kindness as it so often hides some vile trap or insult or injury. It's all about upbringing I suppose. We look for what is familiar.
I am mostly exhausted from the exertion of wearing the outer skin of cordiality. Do you ever do that? become someone you don’t know in certain social circumstances because you realize that you, as you are, just don’t fit the requirements needed for the situation?
I once took pride in being able to do it, change forms so to speak, but it is tiresome work and has gotten much harder through the years.
That is the main reason I don't have contact with my family, I don't have the strength to become the person they expect me to be anymore. She died somewhere along the way. I have lost that "glamour." Now, it is easier to stay hidden here, in the endless dark expanse of the mill and remain unseen than to take on those forms again.
Isolation has its price however, you become confused sometimes when the different aspects and roles lose their solidity and you scramble about for a "self" to wear for the day. Sometimes, without the reflection of "self" upon the mirror of another, you become invisible, even to your own Inner Light. That, is a frightening situation. You can become lost that way.
I think we are what we are told we are by those around us. That may be why we seek out the company of others. Keeps us anchored in the real world, and not adrift in the void.
I have Daniel in my life, and the computer, and tv. Although I don't watch tv often. I feel like I am watching people on another planet most of the time. I relate less and less to persons in the real world. Sometimes, I wonder if I am even forgetting how to speak their language. Sometimes, I am not human.
