What am I?

[tsuki]

14 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

There's a box in a star bag that's for your wife. There's a box for you, it's something I made for another man who really helped me on my journey even if I thought his help was going backwards a lot of the time. I made it months ago. He described an object that he could look into that would make him feel better, make him feel at peace. So I made it, but I never found out a way to get it to him. I think that was for a reason. There's also a piece of copper than I took from Tom's house, and a piece of moss off his apple tree (probably wasn't supposed to mail that but oh well). I found that piece of copper in my jacket pocket that day, the day the bottom dropped out from under me,  the day I denied myself and looked to the Tao to teach me how to go on. When I was in the woods and realizing it as Eden, I kept feeling that little piece of copper that had happened to have broken off the larger piece I brought home from that place.  

I don't know why, but it sounds sad. Is this a goodbye?
Maybe I'm confusing sad with beautiful again.

Edited April 10, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

6 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I don't know why, but it sounds sad. Is this a goodbye?

I don't know, can you tolerate me and my 80's music in your journal? 

 

[tsuki]

3 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

I don't know, can you tolerate me and my 80's music in your journal? 

How am I even supposed to answer to that? I feel indebted to you.

[mandyjw]

1 minute ago, tsuki said:

How am I even supposed to answer to that? I feel indebted to you.

I'm a package deal baby. Take it or leave it. 

 

[tsuki]

RIP journal.
What am I? An 80's music fan, apparently.

Edited April 10, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

2 minutes ago, tsuki said:

RIP journal.
What am I? An 80's music fan, apparently.

I bring such clarity to people. I'm starting to get a big head about it. 

This is the wizard I made for my carpenter's wife. Cause he's a wizard.  Anyway that's what the jewelry looks like, just super simple, sterling silver.

 

[tsuki]

2 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

just super simple, sterling silver.

I'm starting to think that's humble bragging. You like to be praised for your work, don't you?

Edited April 10, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

1 minute ago, tsuki said:

I'm starting to think that's humble bragging. You like to be praised for your work, don't you?

No I feel sorry that I never put more work into learning more advanced techniques in jewelry making. I just focused on glass. Blamed my kids for it, I couldn't work with the chemicals pregnant/breastfeeding, not having time or focus to learn an extra skill. 

[tsuki]

Why do you feel sorry? Is there something more Mandy than Mandy?
Your work is amazing, I have never seen anything like that.

I don't follow the trends and I don't know what's considered good glasswork.
What I do know though is that it brings joy to my heart and I believe that's what's important.

[mandyjw]

And actually I hate talking about what I do because...

well...

 

[mandyjw]

This is the one I was trying to find. 

[mandyjw]

6 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Why do you feel sorry? Is there something more Mandy than Mandy?
Your work is amazing, I have never seen anything like that.

I don't follow the trends and I don't know what's considered good glasswork.
What I do know though is that it brings joy to my heart and I believe that's what's important.

Thank you. 

[tsuki]

4 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

This is the one I was trying to find. 

That's soul-crushing. Is there a social stigma related to that?

Why would you want to talk about what you do, if you could, like, do what you do?

[mandyjw]

Just now, tsuki said:

That's soul-crushing. Is there a social stigma related to that?

Why would you want to talk about what you do, if you could, like, do what you do?

That's probably part of why I was a hermit, but at doctor's appointments or family gatherings people would ask and I hated having to answer. People keep asking me if I "still" do it, constantly. I didn't go to college in order to have the time to live with my parents and not have money pressure while I was learning. Everyone thought that was a huge mistake, and they thought I was just screwing around with something waiting for my husband to graduate college so I could have him support us. Just about the only person who supported me was my dad and he helped me set up the gas safely and fix tools when I needed to and anything I needed. 

But women liking to do crafts is a huge joke in the US. Crafts are synonymous with worthless and uninteresting. Add to that living in an area where people don't even pay attention to fashion or art. AT all. Practically and poverty is our culture. People like to see something done well and there are still plenty of artsy and wonderful people who supported me, and who i couldn't have done it without. But I always felt that that was the general feeling about it. It was something special to me and I wanted to hide it. 

Making the beads is really meditative. The flow of the liquid glass, the flame of the torch, the colors, the way the colors become something else entirely while they are being worked with and you have to learn to differentiate shades of orange that will later become a rainbow. You have to learn the chemical reactions between colors and buffer them with other colors if they don't get along and change each other into something else entirely. or you can capitalize on that. I ended up feeling like i was doing production work and had to listen to stuff to keep me busy. That's how I found Leo. I never would have had the time to go deep into this stuff, to listen to The Power of Now on audio if i hadn't chosen this as a job. While in the flow of my work it was like I absorbed the information even better than if I was doing nothing. 

[mandyjw]

 

[tsuki]

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

That's probably part of why I was a hermit, but at doctor's appointments or family gatherings people would ask and I hated having to answer. People keep asking me if I "still" do it, constantly. I didn't go to college in order to have the time to live with my parents and not have money pressure while I was learning. Everyone thought that was a huge mistake, and they thought I was just screwing around with something waiting for my husband to graduate college so I could have him support us. Just about the only person who supported me was my dad and he helped me set up the gas safely and fix tools when I needed to and anything I needed. 

But women liking to do crafts is a huge joke in the US. Crafts are synonymous with worthless and uninteresting. Add to that living in an area where people don't even pay attention to fashion or art. AT all. Practically and poverty is our culture. People like to see something done well and there are still plenty of artsy and wonderful people who supported me, and who i couldn't have done it without. But I always felt that that was the general feeling about it. It was something special to me and I wanted to hide it. 

There are 7 billion people and just one Mandy. To try to live a life like somebody else is the greatest crime and treason.
We all live with our lives at stake and we make the best decisions we possibly can given the circumstances we find ourselves in. To look back and regret is to spit in your own face, to throw your life away. It is a fundamental disrespect towards the miracle that is happening right here, every second, just for you. To tell another person that she made a mistake and destroyed her life is blasphemy.

Even if you were screwing around waiting for your husband to support you - this is your decision to make because it is your life that's at stake.
Can you imagine making that decision consciously, with full understanding of what it entails? To be prepared for whatever comes with it despite what others tell you? In my eyes, that commands respect.

[mandyjw]

Wow, I hadn't thought of it that way before. A part of me was doing that anyway. The thing about telling stories about our past is that they are always lies, always just stories. 

[mandyjw]

On 2/28/2019 at 2:29 AM, tsuki said:

Beautiful sky greeted me today. I also had an important dream, but I don't have enough time to dissect it properly, so I'll just post it.

There was a witch masquerading as a little girl. She had seduced me before.
I was a watchman in a military base, standing in the middle, atop of a watchtower.
I was appointed to look out for danger and I saw her talking to other men.
She was sitting on a sunbed by the pool in a two-piece swimsuit and I saw her through a glass ceiling.
I raised the alarm, red lights and sirens turned on.
The guards did not know how she looked like, so they drew everyone's blood and tested it.
I was pointing my finger at her and yelling, but they couldn't hear me.
She kept talking to men ignoring the alarm and I knew that she was looking at me with her cold eyes.
She let her blood be drawn calmly and the test was negative, so the guards missed her.
As the guards were passing by her, she gave me one last mocking* look and the dream ended.

Note to self: a strong connection to a traumatic childhood memory.
* - I read it as if she mocked me, but she may have simply been looking.

That's creepy shit, Tsuki. 

[mandyjw]

On 2/28/2019 at 9:18 AM, tsuki said:

The childhood memory that involves a little girl happened when I was around 10.
During holidays I used to leave with my parents to a small town near my home where we would borrow a summer house from my uncle.
This town had a lake with a beach and I had a female childhood friend that lived next door.
One day, her relative came by and she hanged out with her. She was much younger than both of us - the little girl.
I remember that didn't like her that much for some reason. I think that she had an attitude and tried to boss us around. I'm not sure.
I remember that she had blonde curly hair and looked very innocently.

The three of us went to a playground nearby and played with a rotary swing like this:

The little girl sat in one of the seats and I started pushing.
I wanted to impress my childhood friend, so I gave my best. The little girl protested, but I didn't listen.
I always thought that she fell off, but now that I think of it - she may have wanted to get off on her own.
She fell out/got out and the next seat hit her hard in the back of her head.

I ran away and left the two on their own. I just denied the realness of what I did.
I think that something may have been born that day.

 

I met that girl several years later and she tried to blackmail me into submission. She threatened that would tell my mother what happened if I didn't do what she said.
By that time I knew to not negotiate with terrorists, so I just said: go ahead. She went ahead and my mother was very upset.
The girl had major health problems because of that accident, but I never inquired into that. Now seems like a good opportunity.

"We all live with our lives at stake and we make the best decisions we possibly can given the circumstances we find ourselves in. To look back and regret is to spit in your own face, to throw your life away. It is a fundamental disrespect towards the miracle that is happening right here, every second, just for you. To tell another person that she made a mistake and destroyed her life is blasphemy."

I'm going to give you your own advice right back. 

This is a memory, a story. It's not true. 

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

That's creepy shit, Tsuki.