Dreama’s Journal–October 16
It is cruel to crave membership in the “learned” society. I’d never belong. I don’t have the right clothes, the right home or the right degree. Can you see me inviting classmates home to study philosophy or the fine arts in my mobile home? I’m supposed to be simple and uneducated. Maybe I’m just afraid of not being accepted. Is it that I’m my own worst enemy who won’t allow myself a chance?
I desire knowledge and the smell of bookshelves polished with a hint of the scent of lemon. I want to hold faded books and imagine the well-lined hands that turned the pages with anticipation or even trepidation. I want to disappear into a novel while planning a thesis and still be able to catch the faint odor of cigars and gin from a world that cannot welcome me.
That is why I visit museums and have cappuccino at the bookstore. I want to expand my experiences even if it won’t expand my earthly horizons. I want to pretend for a moment that I fit in. I want to matter.
I could have gone to college. I could have worked hard to achieve some foundation towards a dream. The reason I didn’t do it was my fault. I have no one else to blame. It was self-sabotage. I couldn’t risk becoming successful and then find out that I couldn’t play the part. I don’t know how to be a whole person. I was afraid that the world would look at me and find out that I don’t belong in its realm. So, there you have it–the truth. I am where I am because I allowed no other option and the bitterness is eating me up inside.
I still dream of finer things and not necessarily materialistic. I pour my attention into beautiful art. I sometimes cut out artwork from catalogs and paste them in my diary. A few, I frame. It stirs my passion, consuming me with primordial longings. I thrust my soul deep into the swirls of desperate hues and dissolve in portraits of mythical love. Its arms gently encompass me. Each piece of my shattered spirit understands itself against the thread of an ancient memory. I can find a new sense of beauty no matter how minor. Art is a source that moves me into action.
My favorite pieces are by J.W. Waterhouse. He gave form to forgotten sorrows and the plight of doomed lovers. Each haunting nymph, caught in a web of destructive yearnings, became a symbol of fragile hope. Art is a reminder that I possess the fire of life within me. It is a breakable portrait that needs delicate hands to bend it towards my yearnings whether real or yet a dream.
And what about my dream of seducing Stefan? I can’t, no matter how alluring it seems. He might find out that I live in a trailer. Then I won’t feel good enough in his eyes. All that I cling to would be destroyed.