The house has been redecorated so I can sell it, yet it is more beautiful so I don’t want to sell it.
I have been having long, stressful conversations with the realtor and the bank. I pray, I stay in consultation with my peers.
A woman I was at school with wrote to me recently and reminded me of a poem I had written when I was eleven. I think it’s rather good. Good enough to share with you all.
There’s a hole in my mind/
And I do feel inclined/
to cover it with leaves/
so the hands of thieves/
cannot touch it.
It’s quite a telling little poem written by a mad little boy drowning not waving.
The past days have been deadly confusing. Is this what happens when grown ups fall in love? Is that it? It’s really hard to write convincingly about love because the symptoms of love remind me of the symptoms of addiction, of drugs, of hangovers. It is all so damned intense.
Who doesn’t want to fall in love and feel all these things?
I cannot move-does love cause this geriatric immobility? I cannot think. I am frozen to the spot – then in the next, immediate moment I am running around making important decisions that I should have made months ago. I an revitalized, confident, hopeful.
I decided to sell my art collection. I called a gallery owner. He will come and assess the art I keep in Hollywood then on the tenth of February (when the renters leave Malibu) he will assess the rest.
I can’t wait to see it all go. Every last bit of it. I am tired of all this STUFF. Too many things in too many places, too many plates, too many forks, too many vases, too many paintings, etchings and far too many sheets and pillowcases. Too many rooms for too many guests that I no longer feel like entertaining because I want to bury myself in him.
Now I am eyeing the furniture and the silver and want to liquefy it all. The odd thing is-if I get the correct price for everything I can be debt free, run my little farm, get off the grid and beholden to no one. That’s what the goats and the chickens are for: to clear the brush and lay eggs. Of course, some of you don’t like the idea of me eating the goats but that’s what we do when we live off the land.
Isn’t that the dream we all have?
When I am in Hollywood I lay in my bed listening to my neighbors screaming at one another. They scream the most disgusting, violent things. He tells her to ‘shut the fuck up’, to ‘get away’ from him. He tells her that she is a ‘fucking bitch’. Then they repeatedly slam all the doors in the apartment and she gets deathly quiet and I worry he may have killed her.
Whenever I see them in the lobby they behave as if we don’t know. As if none of us who live near them can hear. As if we are deaf to insult, blind to knives in rotten flesh.
No one/someone/no one/someone/none? For almost everyone I know the choice is obvious. My mother scoffs at people who have no one. She would rather be in any relationship, however bad, than come home to an empty house. I would rather come home to an empty house than any half measure. Loveless, passionless half measures. No, that’s not for me.
If he is unavailable? What of that? What if he had someone else?
Ben Wishaw and Hugh D’Ancy are performing in a play called Pride in NYC and my new friend Jake Bauman went to see it. He texted me during the interval that Hugh fucked Ben. I knew what he was thinking.
I read the reviews. The comment. The predictable gay outrage because Ben won’t make his fucking mind up about what he is. Good for him.
You know that I am writing this for you? You know that after I finish writing this I will hear your voice and I will be complete?
I, personally, love that you found someone, Duncan. I’m so anti-relationships right now, I almost forget what it’s like to be in one.. but I do remember that it’s wonderful to feel needed 🙂
I’ve known about your blog for some time (I follow you on Twitter as well) but I’ve just decided to follow it regularly, and I’m glad I have. I can relate to a lot of your stories.. you speak to more people than you know. Thank you for your honesty.. but please don’t eat the goats
I am sitting here, just read your latest entry, feeling honoured that you are sharing your humanity with me, with us. I feel like a friend who provides support and love with my witness. Love to you and your dreams.
Dear Duncan,
I’m a bit hesitant to send this because I’m not sure I want it published on your site, but it’s the only way I know to email you, so if it’s all the same to you I’m not going to put my full name. I’m writing in response to your latest entry, but really it’s in response to all the words you share. Really it’s in response to that part of you which you choose to share with your readers. I read your words each time you post and I sit with them for a time. We are very different people, you and I, but the things we have in common–those things that torture and haunt us–connect us in a way that makes me trust you. I don’t trust easily, I’m afraid.
I’m a straight woman in the tail end of her mid-30s…I’m not ready to say late 30s yet. :0) I’m an addict and an alcoholic, though I have a fair amount of sobriety behind me. I’m not a sex addict. Actually, I have quite the opposite problem. Sex scares the holy hell out of me. The physical act makes me shudder with fear and shake with shame. I often wonder how and why it is that those of us who were abused sexually as children are so often abused again as adults. I was molested as a child. As an adult I was gang raped by 4 men. As a result, I was infected with HIV. Sex to me means pain and fear and death. I hate that it does, but it’s not something I seem to be able to help. Drinking and drugging always helped, of course. Helped to keep those thoughts, those memories, at bay.
I’ve had relationships. They’ve usually ended in disaster as I’m sure you can imagine. I’ve found love, but have never been able to fully embrace it. The fear overpowers any good that comes from love. I live every day with a constant reminder of what happened. Each time I take my meds, each time I get my blood work, each time I wake up feeling unwell, different, in pain.
It’s been difficult lately. I become self destructive when I’m angry or hurt. I haven’t used yet, so that’s good, but I’ve decided to come off my meds. I need a break from the reminder. I need a break from that particular reality. I just need a break.
I’m not sure why I’m writing all this to you really. I guess I just wanted to thank you, because your words really to mean so much. You’re a distant, invisible friend, one whom I can turn to in the middle of the night for comfort simply by reading your beautiful prose. You have helped keep me sane and sober lately. So I guess I just wanted to thank you for that.
Keep writing, my friend. I will keep reading.
Shell, my heart goes out to you, be strong, talk it over with a professional before coming off your meds, it’s not a good idea to just quit.I totally understand about taking a break from the daily reminder, but that daily reminder is also saving your life. That life is worth saving, even though it seems too hard. One thing I have learned is things do change, even though you are wading through mud to get to a better place, keep going, it will change for you eventually.Your HIV status is a burden for sure, but you never know what new meds are coming in your future.
I feel your sadness and your inability to embrace love fully breaks my heart.Have you thought of rescuing a little dog? pouring love into a little soul that needs you to care and take your mind off that memory. They give you so much back in return and with no strings attached, just because.
Wishing you love and peace.
I say go for it if you’re really in love or in the act of falling in love. Chances like this are always worth the risk. Be blunt though. It may be the hardest way to take a chance, but it’s the most convincing and the most truthful way to accomplish your goal.
My day begins with a routine,walk the dog,make a cup of coffee, read emails and then saving the best til last sitting down to read Duncan’s Blog.
I like to re-read older posts and I see the good place you are in now.A song just popped into my head, it is Nina Simone singing ” It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and I ‘m feeeeeelin’ good” that’s how you sound.New day, new ideas, and along with that new love, sobriety and opportunities to move forward to your new life.
Good job Duncan for recognising that ‘stuff’ bought to impress others is useless. What a genious idea to purge all your useless artifacts and start fresh and debt free.
Do you know what a difference your writing makes to so many lives? I wonder how many read your musings and feel better about their day.
I wish you more love in your life, it will all work out, the long distance romance thing, that’s giving you time to sort out the important issues.
I love you man.
i agree irena, its like it makes me feel better, because we are all in this together, not alone. Duncan, you are so on the right track, full of the same concerns the rest of us have..but you put the words together in a way i cannot. so for that. thank you
It’s only my experience offered for contrast, but I’m wary of any love that’s so intense it stops you cold etc. I mean it’s great and intense and all the upsides of addictions. But it can’t last when it’s like that, and it distorts your perspective and makes it hard to produce work. That level of intensity burns out the fuel. You either end up enemies, or avoiding any contact. I think your intuition toward caution is well-advised, Duncan. On the other hand I DO want you to find “the one”. I just want that one to think of you the same way.
(I’ve been posting about a love affair too, but with guitar-playing.)