Living in a Trunk of Spirit

It’s amazing how much you can collect in a few years of living. I have only been in this apartment for a little over a year, and yet I managed to throw out almost 8 trash-bags full of STUFF. Some of it was stuff that I was holding onto for no apparent reason. Some of it was leftovers from old relationships. Some of it was stuff that I assume I had a rason to keep it when I kept it, but at this point I have no clue why I still have it. A LOT of it was half full notebooks and journals that I have not touched since I finished copying old poems & stories into, the originals of which I still have.

Well, I have managed to reduce the memories & writings of 23 years of life into a single trunk. From the letters I wrote to myself at 12, to the stories & plays & novel I have been working on for goddess knows how long...it's all in this one trunk. The letters from old lovers, my friends, my family, my fathers, it’s all tucked away in corners of this trunk. I wish that it was cedar lined, and had delicate padding all around the inside, something to signify that the contents repesnt something important, that most of an entire life is in there. *shrugs* Ah well… I guess my great grandchildren will find it in the attic one day and find out all about GreatGramma Jazzy and the twisted conflicted woman she was.

Oh yeah… happy 4th of July & all that Jazz. *rolls eyes* The only wonderful part about this holiday is the fireworks. I was supposed to actually go to Centenial Park and watch them, but as time rolled by and I got caught up in other things, and my hair started looking crazier & crazier I decided to just stay home. Then I started hearing the booms & rattles, and I looked out of my back door, and there, framed ever so nicely by the trees, were the fireworks. I had a perfect view from the ‘backyard’ from the start to the finale.

There is something so sad about fireworks. They are created and designed to basically blow themselves up in a few seconds of beauty. Their deaths are their lives. Okay, I need to stop anthropomorphizing the fireworks...but there is something in them that is just…unsettling.

Shall I even get into the utter absurdity of African-Americans celebrating the Fourth of July? *shakes head* Or even women for that matter? Ugh…I suppose if you celebrate it in the ‘spirit’ of freedom, and allow yourself to ignore the historical reality of what the day means…then in the ‘spirit’ of freedom there is nothing wrong with a big ole shindig for the Fourth after all…rather like the Confederate flag. Those who want it to stay up claim they are looking at the ‘spirit’ of what the flag represents, and those who want it down are looking at the historical reality of what it means. I suppose one would have to balance the two views and see which one is more representative. Humph.

Ugh. I am unsettled. I think I rather understand how amputees feel. Even though the limb is no longer there, they act like it still is, until they do something that sharply reminds them that the limb is no longer there. Ugh. I would like to stop stubbing my ‘ghost’ limbs against bits of life. And the radio is NOT helping.

Stay Jazzed.