A Life Arrested

        There are days when I feel positively toxic on the inside. And when I say toxic, I mean my insides feel like they have been swimming in a sludge-like swill for the better part of too long and, are now covered in the thick, black debris of what the rest of the world doesn't want and can do without. I don't know how I get this way. No, that's not true. I get this way when I'm feeling angry. Really angry. And for no particular reason.         I'm ashamed to admit that there are days when I just wake up angry. When every, tiny, little thing gets on my last nerve. The door to my bedroom doesn't open up all the way so when I try to get out it slams back into me, sending a radiating pain shooting through my leg starting from my knee, I try to brush my teeth and find that the last of the toothpaste was used up the day before and someone had forgotten to buy a new tube, I want to wear my favourite shirt only to find that it s still in the wash (again, some

        I've been writing a story for a friend of mine for some time now and, by 'some time' I mean years- you, fellow writers, you know of what I speak. Sometimes it is not so much the destination of a story but the journey it takes you on. I found this out the hard way, about three years into the hard way.         The story started out one way and took so many turns I scarcely remember what the original tale even looked like, which, I have come to figure out, is not all together a bad thing. Along the way I've discovered my characters, who they are, what they will put up with, where they draw the line in terms of their imitations. It's like getting to know brand new set of friends. I love this part of writing. I just hate the lengths it takes sometimes to get here, where I need to be...         It never used to be this hard for me to write. There was a time when I would put pen to paper and whatever I had inside of me would just flow through me like water

        For as long as I can remember I have loved art. And not just any art, all art. From my very first conscious sight in that day care, where the kid across from me was having his birthday party, and we were all celebrating with a large white cake, I could remember being led around by my heart strings to the tune of all that is art and artistic in this world. At my very core creativity is surely the thing that defines me.  Until, I lost it all few years ago.          Well... I felt as though I lost it all, anyway. Somedays, I'm not so sure. Mostly, and what is a great surprise to me, I feel as though I may still have a few dribbles of the stuff left in me. And I have been holding onto it for dear life ever since.         Where I once wrote effortlessly in the past, coining words together and stringing letters along like it was second nature to me, I now find myself struggling to link any feint incantation or sentence together. The ease of it all failed me.         It w

        Let me tell you what my first love has been. Long before dance, for which I had an all too short, yet deeply passionate, love affair, broken up only by the presence of a very damaging experience/entity in my life at the time. And, way before I found out what music could do for me, spiritually, emotionally, and soulfully... I found the word. And, no, I don't mean The Word, as in the biblical sense. (trust me, I'm the last person to be seen in a church. They're still trying to put out the burning embers from the last religious building I walked into)(not really, but that would make a helluva a story). I mean the word. As in the written word, the spoken word. Growing up, this was where I found shelter and comfort. I felt more safe within the letters of words than I ever felt on the outside of own my apartment, or even in my own skin.         Most people think photography was where I began, but they would be wrong. That love came later, at the third half of my l