The Earth, Further and Further.

In 2 days I leave for Brazil, to paint boats for 2 weeks with my beautiful friends heading FlutuArte, a floating open-air gallery that can be seen from both land and sky, of murals on the rooftops of fishing boats in the Quadrado da Urca, a harbor framed by the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf mountain in Rio de Janeiro. (Pictures to come, obviously!)

But, silly or not, I’m super sad about leaving my kitty. I love her and I’m going to miss her so much. I will especially miss the nightly spooning.

permanent life schedule

self-portrait with a necklace of shadows

me, last night

Reduce, reuse, recycle, relax. 

I added the petals of a wilting bouquet of roses to my bath today. I also added a scoop of coconut oil. You haven’t lived until you’ve felt your own skin with handfuls of rose petals. Or just one over a single finger. I stretched and massaged my every muscle this way, through the slipperiness of the light oily water, my “Classical Piano Favorites” playlist in the background. (Fauré, Brahms, Schubert, etc.) This bath was one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve ever had. I really felt my body. I love feeling strong and fit and healthy. It baffles me how so many people confidently consider themselves good lovers when they don’t even have a relationship with their own body. 

Lucky me! I am spending the holiday with the VEs. This is the closest I’ve felt to being a part of a family in over a decade and I can’t believe how empowering it is to feel wanted and loved in this way. 

Of course I bought the toddler a lil Easter bunny, but since he is the sweetest boy in the world he will without a doubt ask “What about baby?” In an effort to encourage sibling equality, I’ve crafted a faux Easter bunny puree! ;) 

Some days life feels so beautiful it seems like a screenplay I could only dream of being my real life. 

Poetry, chocolate cake for breakfast, des lettres, le Francais! Schubert and all that. 

Some photos of my aerial performance this Valentine’s Day.

This morning in the midst of a nightmare, I achieved lucidity, as I am wont to do in the midst of nightmares. Something about the absurdity strikes me as so irrational I realize it must be a dream, allowing me to wake myself from the unpleasantness. 

I dreamt there were snakes crawling into my body through my feet. At one point my feet were stuck together by these awful things worming their way inside of me. I tried pulling them apart like the two pieces of bread stuck together by a stringy mash of melted cheese. Once I was free to walk, I found a doctor, a beautiful woman in all white, she stayed calm and pulled from a jar a glowing white worm which she told me to swallow. She said its presence would “overwhelm” the others and they would leave. Then she held a lantern up to my body and my skin appeared transparent, revealing the squirming shadows inside of me, writhing around in my legs and sides, but she said, “It’s okay, they won’t harm the baby.” At this I realized there was something small growing in my womb, it rested peacefully, unaware of what was going on all around.

Soon, these snakes began coming out of my every orifice. The beautiful doctor stood behind me as she pulled them from my body, and I was calm and not afraid, though also not fully present as I put all my faith in her. Then she told me, calmly she told me, “grab that one and pull it out” and I suddenly saw a tiny hissing snake head before my eyes, emerging from my mouth. I grabbed and pulled on it, but it bit my hand. “Smash your fist into the wall” she told me, still calm, and I did as she said. It was just after this that I became lucid to the dream state and I took it all in for one more moment before opening my eyes. 

Most people wake from nightmares upset, but I was delighted! What a dream to interpret! What a wonderful gift from my subconscious!!!

THE INTERPRETATION:

The snakes: I kept referring to them as snakes in the dream, but in fact they were parasites. I once watched an episode of House where he made mention to these parasites that live in desert sands, and if you walk over them barefoot they will crawl into your body through your feet. This information was filed away into my brain and therefore accessible as material for dreamstuff. 

Those parasites are all the bad feelings, all the toxic feelings that have been feeding on me, depleting me, stealing my energy, all those parasitic things, etc. 

And what’s more—“everyone in your dream is you.” That’s a staple of dream interpretation. This beautiful doctor, she is me! My inner strength. The one telling me, “No, these feelings don’t have to be inside of you.” Remaining calm and positive in the face of a troubling situation, shining her light and making me transparent, seeing, not ignoring but acknowledging the bad things inside of me and casting them out. 

And the baby? My future self, perhaps? My better self? Rebirth and all that. Becoming a better person, growing, changing, ridding myself of what’s unwanted and nurturing and protecting that which is. 

In light of recent events, this nightmare gives me great hope. 

I have the loveliest friends <3 

(but only check the mailbox about once a month)

Hey, so I noticed one of your posts on my dash. After getting lost for a bit in a nerdy post about economic theory, I decided to peruse your tumblr directly, to see what else you’ve posted lately. Eventually that led me to click on your ‘personal’ blog. I’ve checked it out before and, to my surprise, actually found myself a bit disappointed that you had set it to private.

I had only previously looked at maybe a half a dozen of your posts before, but remember being literally startled by your beautiful intellect. Normally I come to tumblr to escape intelligent thought—a kind of meditative dumbing-down. It provides a little outlet for my own personal ennui and I get to express what I like to call ‘ironic faux irony’, but I’m lazy about it. However, your writing provided a rare exception to this. I normally wouldn’t have given it much notice, but I guess without realizing it, I did.

Anyway, I just felt a little compelled to say thanks. It’s nice to know that there are people out there like you. (And I hope I don’t sound like too much of a creep for saying so). :)

— stolenpony

Hey! Thank you so much for your message. I read it with much surprise and delight! I password protected my blog in a reaction to learning that its existence had been brought to the attention of someone I would not want reading. But…I’ve since decided that to be a vain decision. 

There is nothing that uplifts me quite like someone else appreciating my thoughts and ideas, and more specifically my expression. It’s hard to put into words, it is a unique feeling of happiness: not exactly pride or validation but not wholly unrelated either, though perhaps more closely related to acceptance. I’m not sure how to explain this feeling you’ve given me, but I thank you sincerely for giving it to me. 

Please find blog.cassiemclean.com returned to open access. I hope you might continue to enjoy the things I write and post. Certainly you are welcome to message me anytime. 

Thank you. 

Lucy/Lulu : alarm clock/cat

I bought my dear friend (and talented photographer) this macro camera lens that attaches to the iPhone, for Christmas. Above, he used it to take a picture of my eye (while on a moving subway, no less) and within my pupil is the reflection of the lens. You can also see the outline of my contact lens, and this was taken with a cell phone camera! Technology… goddamn. 

My life is essentially as good as it is ever going to get. I am swimming in a sea of golden hearted friends, I am well-liked, excelling in graduate school; I am well-fed and well-read. I dress myself to express my inner mood, which I am allowed to feel and nurture and coddle and cry about if I feel like it sometimes. I recently wrote out my gratitude epiphany (below), but where I’m going with this is not quite as positive. 

My life is full as a soap bubble filled with tremulous light, and yet I feel as though constantly quivering on the cusp of the instant it all bursts. I am aching for someone to love and share this light with! My life is filled with love, but it feels like a belly stuffed with grains when the body aches for nutrients. Food is food and love is love but nothing compares to fulfilling the craving! And what I crave is so precise, so rare, a delicacy.

I’m thinking of receptors and molecules, how they fit together like lock and key. Some locks are better than others, binding only with the perfect match. Others are more easily confused and deceived, such as by drugs. Me, I do not get intoxicated with the generic version of my desires; I wish that I could. I wish I could be as these girls I know that always have men around, all of whom make them equally happy.

And why am I inculcated with guilt and shame to confess these feelings? Feminism has had the very unfortunate effect on romantic love of making us believe it should always be of secondary concern. We regard the thirst for love as a gluttonous lust, even as pathetic, as some symbol of dissatisfaction with the self; it is not a respectable ambition. When someone aspires to succeed in sports or academia or their career, we say they are dedicated, committed, passionate! Why don’t we give the pursuit of love the same honor? We all know that love can make us happier than all else, so why not devote ourselves to finding it, developing our techniques and strategies, studying ourselves, seeking mastery over it? Instead we turn our attentions to our appearance, our possessions, our resumes, our bank accounts.  

Well I speak with conviction and confidence when I repeat that I am brimming with self-satisfaction. Yes, I have a fabulous pack of friends who care for me deeply, and yes all of my needs are met: my emotional needs, my physical needs; they are beyond met, they are indulged regularly. I sit on the throne of my cozy bed swathed in silk and down and I feast on the banquet of life. And I am grateful for every morsel, yes. But without a love to share it with, without shared romance I do not feel truly full, fully satisfied.

Sharing. Sharing is a gift, it is an act of giving. I want to share my life, my treasured life, my very life with someone. But it cannot be just anyone, and I don’t even know who it can be, I’m just hoping I’ll be able to recognize him among the throngs of ordinaries. Not only am I hoping he’ll be there, that there is such a he, but I am trusting myself to find and identify him, based solely on intuition. This is absurd. Love is impossible. 

I’ve made offers to share my life, the life I find so beautiful, with men I’ve thought I could love, and I’ve had this, my most esteemed of gifts, rejected: a most disabling dismissal. I can’t bear how disappointing it was this last time. I have post traumatic stress. After my car accident, I was jumpy for years anytime I found myself in a car. I had anxiety around the stimuli associated with the past trauma, and now I will have that same anxiety with what is supposed to be the best feeling a human being can experience. No feeling is more satisfying, more elating, more thrilling than that and now I question if I could ever again relish those thrills. I will be cautious, I will be suspicious, I will be on guard. Because I can not suffer the trauma of that disappointment again.

I fell from too high. I broke my heart like a bucked-off jockey might split his skull. I won’t get back on that horse I’ll just walk beside him from now on. And should he knock me down again? Will I abandon him forever? Is this how it goes, giving up on love? A fall in several steps, each one representing a disappointment of unrealized hopes and beliefs and dreams? 

Or I could be like that madcap jockey who gets thrown from his horse but continues to climb back on the wild thing to see where it takes him, regardless of the consequences at risk. How committed to love am I, really, if I allow the setbacks of injuries to dampen my courage, to constrain my ambition? I remember when Keri Strug injured her ankle during the 1996 Olympics—she kept going and she won. That is my inspiration in the savage sport of love. 

In fact, I wrote an analogy of love and sports around this time last year. Upon review, this may be one of my favorite pieces of my own writing. 

Me practicing a simple aerial hang from a silk cloud swing last night.