Tag: Home Sweet Home

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Uncategorized Writings

No Home

I shouldn’t be sad. I’m having the “You have no place in this world to call home” transit and everything is happening as God intended but still….

There is no place in this world to call home.

The weird part is in the absence of any home how much my life has expanded.

I just got ‘home’ from performing on two different stages and walking around downtown by myself at night. Walking thru sketchy areas at night has become a slight addiction. Why do they say you’re not supposed to do that? So far I haven’t found out.

But I wonder if this growth is leading anywhere or if life will be a never ending series of random events and people. I should be patient since it’s only been a month and a half since I moved out and the first month was spent trying not to die of heartbreak.

It’s just that there is no one to tell anything to. Not that there really was before since James didn’t like me to talk. But even writing in journals to yourself feels different when you are part of a home and a family. I can’t really write in journals anymore because I’m too unsettled and at the same time have more happiness than ever before.

If happiness means a high and fluttery feeling.

But I also had happiness in my old life when I would cry in bed everyday. It was a different kind of happiness though, like the way you feel in a soft pink egg. Even in sadness there was a feeling of peace.

Our spirit is made of fire and air. It propels us outwards & forwards, towards people and the future. Our soul is made of water and earth, a soft gooey dough that absorbs all experiences. Happy or sad, all experiences become meaningful when they encounter the soul’s soft body.

In my old life my spirit was trapped. Now it’s free. Yet my soul is nowhere to be found. Friends are not family. You can’t cry around them and if you do it’s some big fucking deal where you have to apologize afterwards. You can’t share the minutia of life that is the soul’s food. You can’t gorge on donuts and sink into a coma. You have to be on and up. Fire & air.

And I’m grateful for the newness. But it’s hard to settle down. I dance all the time. Sometimes I run rather than walk. Without a soul, you have so much energy.

But this is my predestined time of wandering the earth like a spirit. I need to make the best of my “There is no place for you to call home” transit and have faith that life will eventually congeal.

I used my EBT card to buy Twinkies. They are good but more spirit than soul, unlike fresh baked pastries.
An egg pauses for his moment in the limelight.
He had his portrait painted too.

In astrology, the sun is your spirit and the moon is your soul. My moon lives in the house of marriage so getting unmarried was disruptive soul-wise. However, there is a little trick with this placement where it can also mean having an emotional relationship with The Public, a gooey blob of unknown minds.

So in the absence of a James, I started sharing minutia from my life on facebook. Which caused people to attack me for being an attention seeking whore. But I blocked them for being stupid. Because it isn’t attention the moon craves. It’s ooey gooey connection.

I had to take a picture of myself with a guitar for some gigs.
This picture sums up my previous life. There was a lot of crying but damn…. doesn’t that bed look firm and plump? I miss it.

It’s not so much circumstances that are bugging me out as the questions… is love real, is home real, is anything real? What is there in life that weighs more than paper? I thought I would have a family in eternity. I even thought my house would be with me in heaven. When I was painting its walls, I felt I was building something permanent.

Oops.

Categories
Astrology Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Uncategorized

Sad

Well the thing I had been dreading happened. Neptune finally hit the bottom of my chart (representing home) and I had to move out of my house with James, Patton & Slippers into an apartment by myself.

I don’t know if I can talk about this yet because it is too painful. I poured all my love into one person and by the end he would not even allow me to speak in my own home- the home I spent one million hours painting & cleaning, the home where I served him food every day, made him 5 coffees a day, always did what he wanted and tried to please him. But no matter what I did his view of me kept growing darker and darker.


One wrong word from me had become so powerful it would derail his brain for weeks and force him to stay in bed, missing important deadlines. This is why I was no longer able to talk. So I stopped. But that wasn’t enough. In the end he said my very presence terrified him. He wanted me gone. And so I had to move out. That is the bad part. The horrible part. I can’t even process it or figure out what it means.

Based on what others tell me he is narcissistic & discarding me because of his upcoming domestic violence trial. I no longer reflect positively on him and it is easier to get rid of me than to own some mistakes and move forward. Some people tell me he has borderline disorder or might be experiencing psychosis. Sometimes he would scream at me “I’M INSANE- DON’T YOU GET IT!!!!! HOW STUPID ARE YOU!?!?! MY BRAIN DOESN’T WORK!!!”

Some men ask what I did to him to make him this way. Some say he must have just stopped loving me. If there is one area of life in which I applied myself it was as a wife. I did everything I could for him. He used to yell that his stress was due to the house being in foreclosure. “THANKS TO YOU WE ARE GOING TO BE HOMELESS, DON”T YOU GET IT!?!? HOW STUPID ARE YOU?!?!” So I got us in a covid relief program that paid all $18,550 of the debt. It took me 9 months. It didn’t even make him like me for one minute.

He said he couldn’t afford food so I got us foodstamps. He didn’t want to be bothered, so I didn’t bother him. If he wanted cookies at one am, I made them. I *wanted* to make them because I liked doing things for him. He meant so much to me.

He wanted me to run for office and I did. He wanted me to start a cardano stakepool so I did. If he wanted me to do astrology readings for him or his stakers I jumped at it. I would have done anything for him. I enjoyed it.

When I try to think of why he hates me these are the only things I can think of…

  1. I’m not capable of sleeping in the same bed. I just can’t fall asleep. For a long time, anything hurtful he did would be attributed to how I hurt him by not sleeping in the same bed and he needs that.
  2. I can’t swallow his cum. This makes me want to throw up. It’s nothing personal to him I just don’t believe in eating things that aren’t foods. Just thinking about it I’m starting to gag.
  3. I turned him into the police. I didn’t know he would get arrested. I just wanted their help and didn’t know where else to turn. It had been 5 years of him hurting me and in those situations you have little recourse since you are supposed to keep the whole thing private. Him going to jail was my greatest nightmare. I didn’t want that. But he will never forgive me for it. He says I did it out of spite.
  4. I had a mini-affair. After he came back from jail, he was darker than ever. I didn’t know what to do. He loathed me. If I tried to talk, he would twist a blanket into a rope & hold it over my mouth.

    I didn’t know what to do. I felt I’d exhausted all options on the side of good, so decided to try to the dark side & went to second base with a psychopath. In some ways, it helped because it diverted my mind from James, so I could leave him alone more. But it wasn’t long before this other guy was also threatening to kill me and I felt maybe I didn’t want to be a lying cheating whore anyway.

    So this could be why James hates me. But he hated me before I did it too. He hated me before he went to jail. He would scream at me that I was a stupid fucking cunt who had ruined his life. He didn’t say how.



If people had watched the last 6 years they would probably not understand why I miss James so much. But I really loved him. His essence and smell, not necessarily the way he treated me. Now that I’ve met more humans they always say I’m funny and that James must like how funny I am. This makes me laugh because, no, James does not find me amusing. At best, I’m a stupid cunt. At worst, a terrifying presence. “PLEASE STOP!!!!! STTTTTOOPPPPP!!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!!!???” he would scream on repeat while covering his ears, crying and rocking back and forth if I tried to talk to him about anything. He does not find me funny.

But its more than his essence… I liked how caring and protective he once seemed. How loyal I thought he was and how much I thought he loved me. I liked that he wanted to put down roots with me and create something lasting. I liked collecting things with him and having a house and dogs. I liked it when we cooked together. I liked how he used to help me solve my problems.

When I first met him, I was pretty insane due to living in isolation with a husband who had me be 28 different people. James’s love & his encouragement to listen to myself helped me untie many knots.

But even in the beginning, some problems were there. About every third day would be spent in the closet crying because he would go into rages. I can’t remember what the rages were about. It seems like they didn’t make much sense. My first husband also went into frequent rages about things that were hard to understand. But with James I would block all the bad things out. Because he was True Love. I saw him as perfect and those were the feelings I had towards him. Absolute trust as well.

It was only when he started getting physical that the fog started to lift a little. Because I felt that was crossing a line. As a kid I heard that if a man hits you you must leave immediately,. So I felt I had to draw a line there. But I couldn’t. After jail I stopped trying to draw that line. Cause it felt like me drawing lines was the problem. The problem was that I was a bad wife who had got her husband in trouble. So I wasn’t going to make a deal about it anymore.

But in the end, he wanted me to leave. I was so malicious, so psychopathic, such a lying gaslighting spiteful cunt that he needed me gone so he could function. No amount of silence, service, tolerance, anything made me better in his eyes.


Now when I go to the house to visit the dogs he is neither hot nor cold. Neither happy nor bothered. I’m a janitor wandering in to clean the toilets. No longer a psychopath. No longer a malicious cunt. Just a nothing.



Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story Writings

No Words

Well, it has happened. My worst nightmare has come true. James is gone. I don’t know if he’s coming back but it’s not likely to be soon.

Let’s start with the practical. I’ll break it down for you.

No money. No access to his money. No knowledge of money. Never paid a bill. Don’t even know what bills exist. No phone. No car. No family. No friends.* Two big dogs both stronger than me.

Water gets turned off. I panic and start opening all mail. James didn’t let me open mail before. Realize internet and electricity are about to go. Facebook friends come to the rescue. They send me money. I get water back on and pay just enough of the other bills to prevent disaster. I’ve never dealt with these things before. Had facebook friends not shared money (and knowledge), I would be doomed. Who gives people money? They did.

Had no food but a facebook friend drove over with 5,000 pounds of raisins, pistachios, canned salmon, canned pears, macaroni & cheese and applesauce. She just dropped it off and vanished. Crates of food so heavy I couldn’t lift them. I won’t starve.

Another friend brought me elderberry juice, the only thing that relieves the weakness in my kidneys that can make it hard to move. I didn’t know how I was going to get by without it. So my body will survive for the next few weeks.

But house is in foreclosure. In two days, someone comes to appraise it. But how can they appraise it when Patton will try to bite them? I couldn’t lock him in a room even if I wanted to. If he hears a bunch of freaks roaming around he will bust a door to get at them. I used to feel ashamed of having the meanest dog in Charleston, but now he makes me feel safe. He is the reason I sleep at night.

And if the house does get foreclosed, what do I do? Move all my possessions onto the sidewalk and sit next to them?

Still, the immediate crisis has been cleared. That itself is a miracle. The amount of skills gained has been insane. I found a phone in the house and managed to activate it. I went to court. I learned about apps. I discovered porn of myself online. I picked up dog turds with a bag. I made decisions on my own without considering what James would do. I’ve even made a few decisions he would disapprove of. Because I thought they were the right thing. I wish I’d done that sooner.

But the future remains foggy. I can’t remain a charity case much longer. I’ve been listing everything I own on ebay, hoping to make money while reducing the number of items I’ll need to place on the sidewalk. I’ve ordered business cards for astrology readings and plan to start promoting myself.

People are cheering me on. Others are critical, as though I’m getting my just desserts. Was I a slacker before? I cooked, I cleaned, I tried to fulfill my purpose. Yeah I got screwed but so did Jesus. Is that always a sign you made the wrong choice?

And why do I sound so crisp and glib while facing utter ruin? I don’t know. I keep switching into practimode where I feel nothing at all. Then I can’t stop crying. An ambulance came cause I couldn’t breathe. Losing James is not something I can wrap my mind around.

But I don’t even know if I’ve lost him. I’m not allowed to talk with him for six weeks.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Writings

In My Head

I think my claim to fame is being the least practical person who spends the most time obsessing over how to be practical. 65% of the dialogues in my brain go something like this…

“Fuck. Shit. I’m one step away from being homeless! What should I do?”

“Something practical!”

“Like what? Jump off a bridge? I can’t live in a homeless shelter full of fleas!”

“Well how tall would the bridge need to be?”

“I don’t know!”

“Google it!”

“If I google it, will google alert the cops and then they show up at our house?”

“Shit- we don’t have makeup on!”

“It’s a bad idea anyway. It would hurt. And I’ve heard people regret it halfway down.”

“Ewww… that would suck. Maybe we could get a job at McDonalds then?”

“That’s practical. But what shoes would we wear?”

“Maybe getting practical shoes is our first step!”

“How though? We don’t drive.”

“Well…. Let’s start smaller. Maybe we could put more practical shoelaces in these shoes?”

“We do have that ball of brown yarn… brown is a practical color! We could make shoe laces out of that!”

“Yeah! And with the left over yarn we could make a bracelet!”

“Oh- and tie some around our finger as a ring! Everytime we see the ring we will remind ourself to be more practical!”

“YESSSS!!!” (Runs for ball of yarn & gets to work. Two hours later, the shoes are too loose cause the yarn isn’t strong enough & the bracelet & ring are soggy.)

“Fuck. I can’t keep wearing these. They itch. This doesn’t seem practical anymore.”

“It was a dumb idea.”

“What can we do then? We have to do SOMETHING practical or we’re gonna die!!!!”

“Maybe we could start by sending friend requests to people who work at McDonalds!”

“Oh- that is practical symbolism. Wait- how will we know if they work at McDonalds?”

“I don’t know… maybe we could start by sending friend requests to people whose names begin with Mac?”

“Yeah!!!”

“Wait… what if these people think we’re trying to have sex with them?”

“We could send them just to women?”

“They could think it too.”

“How do you have sex with a woman?”

“You stick your arm up their hole. It’s called fisting.”

“Fuck…. Everyone thinks I’m trying to fist them when really I just don’t want to die.”

“It’s embarrasing.”

“So what should we do?“

“Maybe first we should have a snack and think.

“Yes. A practi-snack!. Are pretzels practical?”

“Of course. They’re dry and crunchy.”

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Videos

Second in the Line (Video) (& my desire to drown in brown)

Recently I have been obsessed with the color brown… in the past few years, my life has been so immaterial… always using the internet & social media to escape physical reality… now I am hoping my life can become all about the physical world and I can crack it open like a big fat nut.

I just want to go to restaurants and buy clothes covered in little flowers and meet people with physical bodies that don’t smell bad. I want to have a big red car and drive around to see the mountains and coal factories without worrying about the price of gas. I want to drive all the way to the ocean and buy a house right next to it. I want my houses to be glossy & historical, like lacquered chestnuts. I want to spend my time wondering if I detect notes of blueberries in a bottle of wine. I want to eat sushi. I want to pay people to massage me with their elbows. I want to stop at gas stations and grab red bulls for the road, checking to see if they sell pink t-shirts as well. I want to collect Fiestaware from the past, when they made it in earth tones and pastel colors. I want to deck my dogs out in expensive plaid collars & take them to the salon to get their hair puffed up like a couple of politicians. I want to buy them takeout from expensive restaurants. Eat lobster rolls with them every Sunday. I want arch supports for all my shoes. Pictures hanging in frames from my walls. To buy expensive jewelry and keep it in a pink safe. To panic if the scent of my body lotion does not match my shampoo. I want to be a lady who lunches & worry about whatever they worry about. AHHHH… this is a great dream! Being buried alive in the material world… I want this so bad!!!



****
Oh- this has nothing to do with the song though… just my thoughts of the moment. Here are the lyrics….

To adore me you must
Go before me
Build a path for me.

Laying stones down you
Must prepare the ground
Build a home for me.

Remember when you fall so far
Remember I was there for you to give you something more

Softly touch me we’re noplace now- this is just a dream.
Fingers through your skin- you were never just a friend.
We are family.

Looking your eyes
All the lies
Beautiful to me.

You say you won’t hurt me no more
Well what else are friends for?
Someone to believe.

Remember when you fall so hard
Remember I was there for you, always safe and warm.

Softly touch me we’re noplace now- this is just a dream.
Fingers through your skin- you were never just a friend.
We are family.

Closing my eyes, I
See it all unfurl
I know how it ends.

Dark things fly towards me
Still you walk before me
Vanish round the bend.

And all the stars that beg for you
To sparkle in your time.
Remember I was there for you
Second in the line.

Softly touch me we’re noplace now- this is just a dream.
Fingers through your skin, you were never just a friend.
We are family.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs

You Are My Home

When I don’t listen you hold a pillow over my face til I do.
That’s why I don’t think you will ever love me now- you’ll find somebody new.

And I swear I wouldn’t care so long as you felt it was wrong
to just grab me by the neck and throw me up against a wall
but when i ask you bout it you tell me that you don’t want to pop
but the crying noise just has to stop.

Sometimes I close my eyes and see a world that’s black with men as white as stars.
Just like a globe that I could shake and shake each time that things have gone too far.

Something I could hold just like a globe inside my hands
So I shake it and I shake it- oh look here comes a man
But he is trapped inside the globe- he’s only one inch high
There is no place to run and hide.

Give it just a little more time. This may only be in your mind.
There’s no way to say what is real and what is make believe you know.
Look at all the stars in the sky, girl. You could find a way to get high, girl.
You could fly away into a state of ecstasy and glee you know.

I know I will stay.
Life- lay your hand on me and guide me on my way.

I stay up late at night and make a list of ways to make you love me more.
I know it won’t succeed cause men they only love the ones they’re fighting for.

And I’d do anything on earth if you would fall in love with me
But there are things I can’t control, I don’t know what you want to see.
The only thing I know for sure is that you like to be alone
But either way, you are my home.

Download Mp3: My Home

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Uncategorized Writings

Wife Head

It has been impossible to write on this blog recently, because I have fallen into wife consciousness.

Around a year ago, probably due to James’s inaccessibility, I started connecting my emotions to the faceless glob of possibility known as “The Public.” I enjoyed connecting with these invisible people on an emotional level and somehow felt they were my friends.

But then, around a month ago, a change of heart caused me to seek emotional fulfillment through James instead. This only led to my disappearance as an individual. After all, James is absorbed in technical things 99% of the time. Trying to connect with him by discussing feelings & relationship issues is a recipe for disaster (although he is great at helping me solve problems that don’t involve him).

Females connect by sharing negative feelings & problems. Men interpret this as criticism or a demand to fix something. So you open yourself up to receive empathy but instead get anger and defensiveness. Now you feel more needy and alone than before which makes you try still harder to connect. Before long it turns into a degenerative cycle with all your energy going into a circuit that returns pain.

Whereas with The Public, I can be more real. I can share feelings and always receive soft love in return- even if only in my imagination. The public is the moon- gooey, silver, magical, reflecting you back to yourself until you feel you exist.

But still- the thing about me is I am REALLY into being a wife. It is an unhealthy obsession. I don’t know how to give up on having a perfect ultimate connection and settle for something brisk, sporty and casual. But when you are too idealistic, it causes things to crash.

Plus, I just feel guilty about investing myself emotionally in any other direction. I feel guilty seeking fulfillment through writing a blog post or a song. It feels like I am giving up on love.

And wife consciousness makes it hard to express yourself anyway. While I am ok with making myself look bad- I sort of expect it- the idea of reflecting negatively on James feels like committing triple homicide.

And realistically there is little you can say beyond “Everything is Wonderful! I am so happy!” that doesn’t potentially cloud your husband’s reputation. If you say “Nice dicks, boys!” that could reflect badly on him. If you say “I hate my life- I am so miserable.” that could reflect badly on him. If you say “I love idiots!” that could reflect badly on him.

So I really don’t know what to do. As an artist, I have to straddle the crack between Stepford Julien & being real. Of course, James says he doesn’t want me to make him look good- he doesn’t care about that- but this is hard for me to believe. Making men look good is the whole reason society is fake, isn’t it?

If it was just women, we would be talking about our insecurities & failures all the time, but men- being soldiers- don’t do that. And so women- caring about men- become fake as a way of protecting them. That is why there are only Stepford *wives* & no Stepford singles.

If I was single, I could be transparent, but since I am married I must be opaque, like men are. I WANT to be opaque and fake to make James look good. As an expression of love. But I also need the moon juice that comes from transparency.

Even just writing this could make James look bad.

There is no way out.

I am doomed.

Ps. I hope I am making sense & there aren’t too manny spelling errors. My brain is pretty tired, due to the new dog, Patton, waking me up in the morning, while James’s schedule keeps me up into the wee hours of the night.

The new dog- Patton. I sort of wish I had named him Hazel because it sounds more vicious. But you shouldn’t switch beds midstream. He is a good dog but very demanding.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Uncategorized Writings

Fiery Chunks

For a while things were going poorly in my domestic life. A dark and moody spirit filled the house. Then I remembered how the problems began when I removed all bright colors from my home to replace them with shades of black and purple. I can’t remember why I did this, exactly. I think I was trying to open a portal to the world where spirits live in the hopes of gaining magical powers.  At any rate, at a certain point magical powers seem less appealing than the ability to live a normal happy life. So I removed these dark colors, replaced them with yellow & other shades of cheer, and life seemed to pick up again.*

I am beginning to think the secret to surviving in West Virginia may be decorating in a colorful, chunky style, with plenty of homemade crafts and colors from warm end of the spectrum. Earthiness combined with fire.

My natural tendency, of course, would be to surround myself with all things delicate & dainty. But I don’t think lavender lace has the muscle to push through this heavy mountainous energy. And ultimately decoration is about survival, not self-expression.

Every environment presents us with challenges to our spirit. Sunny ones melt our brains, while cold ones freeze our hearts. Deserts dry out our emotions while moisture bogs us down. Plains fill us with desolation and rounded mountains with inertia. Here in West Virginia, a moist and mountainous environment, heaviness and inertia are the demons we wrestle with.

This mostly challenges men** since this squishy thickness makes it hard to be brisk and productive. It is a great place to be a woman, however, because so many of the spiritual and emotional diseases that plague other parts of America don’t exist here.

Mountain mamas don’t get ribs removed to fit into the latest fashion. They don’t see themselves as objects or obsess over the “male gaze.”  People here rarely seek meaning through career success, but rather through connections to God, family and nature.

But for men, this West Virginia environment is challenging. It is hard to get that dry, crispy feeling which allows people to think objectively. Hence why we are plagued by functionality problems- poverty, divorce, drugs, decay and disorganization. There isn’t enough yang energy for men to get their bearings.

So, what is the solution to all this? Decorating in a chunky colorful fashion, of course. This will obliterate all environmental challenges and turn West Virginia into a heaven on Earth. I hope. Stay tuned & I will let you know how it works.

* These statements seemed true at the time I made them (yesterday).

** For people who enjoy qualifications, when I refer to men, I am also referring to the masculine side in us all.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom Uncategorized

Old Guitar

 

I think I’d like to go away
with no one else around
That’s when it feels like the day.

I think I’d like to be alone
with no one else around
That’s when it feels like a home.

I think I’d like to flow the time
with no one there to shake away
It’s just a place in my mind.

I think I’d like to know the way that he dreams
when no one else can see the way
It’s just a float down the stream.

An important excerpt from my journal.

Talk about an old guitar
Talk about an easy way to fly
Everybody wants to go
but they won’t take the time.’

Talk about an old guitar
Talk about an easy way to feel
Everybody wants to know
but they won’t touch the real.

I think I’d like to know the way that he rings
and though I kick myself again
It’s just the way with these things.

I think I’d like to know he’s hoping inside
I see his eyes turn out towards me
But they’re lost in the ride.

Talk about an old guitar.
Talk about the crazy worlds you know
Everybody wants to climb
but it won’t stop the show.

Talk about an old guitar.
Talk about the crazy things you’ve seen
Everybody wants to go
but it won’t stop the dream.

I think I’d like to know a world that is mine
just one step beyond the ocean
Someplace you’ll never find.

I think I’d like to know a world that is green
just one step beyond the water
Someplace far from the dream.

 

Download MP3: Old Guitar

Categories
Hurricane, West Virginia Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Candy Cane Lane

In my last post I wrote about how I need to begin expressing myself more for the sake of my own life. But, you may be wondering, from where will I get the discipline to follow through on this commitment, especially when it is something I am so afraid of? That is easy, I will buy the discipline from Yankee Candle.

I used to laugh at the people who shopped at Yankee Candle, taking $30 they probably needed for their electric bill to buy a giant “Home Sweet Home” candle, and another $25 dollars to buy a candle cozy shaped like an English Cottage. It seemed to me that they were probably buying overpriced candles to compensate for a lack of love in some part of their life. But I have changed my mind, and while I do still think that Yankee Candles generally serve as a love substitute, I no longer think this is pathetic. After all, who doesn’t need a little bit of extra love in their life? Nor do I think the use of love substitutes is dumb. After all, we all know that when a baby animal is taken away from its mother, it must  be given a stuffed animal to snuggle with, or it will probably die. Love substitutes are real, effective, and not beneath anyone’s dignity. We all need love, but we can’t always control whether or not we are receiving it. Which is where Yankee Candles come into play- to fill up the holes in our chest with colorful, scented fire power, so that we have enough warmth to make it through another day without needing to shut down chambers in our heart.

Candy CanesAs far as I can tell, Yankee Candles don’t smell better than less expensive candles; what I love about them is the glamour the store casts around their candles, elevating them from meaningless trifles to the most important aspect of your life! They do this partially through their elevated prices, but also through the candle accessories they sell, and the instructions they give you on the proper way to burn and care for a candle. They just make scented candles seem so darned important, which I think acts- especially to women- as a subconscious symbol that their emotional needs and desires for love are important. When you tend to your Yankee Candle, you are- through the powers of transubstantiation- tending to your own heart.

So yesterday I went to Yankee Candle to choose a candle that would symbolize the commitment to express myself. I selected Candy Cane Lane, a red candle, since red represents the courage to be true to yourself. I thought peppermint candy would be a good scent, since it combines the sugary sweetness of the heart with the minty freshness of the brain. I will burn it for four hours at a time, just as my candle consultant taught me. She warned me to never blow out my candle until the wax has melted all the way to the very edge. Otherwise the candle will start tunneling, and once the tunneling process has begun it can be difficult and costly to reverse. My candle consultant also sold me a gold Illuma-lid candle topper to maximize scent throw, and a wick trimmer to ensure that my wick stays 1/4 inch between lightings. So what if I can’t afford a warm coat or shoes for the season?

Just think about it- fire has been one of mankind’s best friends since the very beginning! Many believe it is precisely fire (learning how to cook with it) that caused humans to evolved differently from other animals. Cooking with fire enabled us to absorb more calories more efficiently, while reducing the work load on our stomachs. This enabled us to invest the extra energy into growing our brains. Without cooked meals, we would have weaker brains and stronger stomachs.

So couldn’t a bit of fire do the same thing for our hearts? Predigest for us some of the more difficult feelings, like loneliness and despair, while giving us a boost of warmth and light? Then we would need to spend less energy filling up the empty places inside. What part of us would receive that freed-up energy? My guess is the energy might be spent in fulfilling our purposes. I think once are heart are filled up on the inside they begin radiating light and warmth outwards into the world.

Maybe next time I go to the mall, I will pick up a candle cozy as well… perhaps the limited edition Christmas Teddy being crushed between two plush hearts.