Ah how I relish waking early in silence, alone, nobody but me, my animals and hot coffee with a drop of saffron, overlooking my healthy plants, the sunrise casting warm rainbows across my room. All is right with the world at the start of the day.
On Halloween I sang along to Andrew Lloyd Weber's entire Phantom of the Opera soundtrack and remembered how much I loved it as a kid. Revisiting the storyline helped to frame my grief and the complexity of the deceased, like the Phantom who was both good and bad for Christine, the object of his selfish obsession. His mask, like an alcoholic who lies to hide his ugliness. Christine doesn't want to live in his underground lair where it is always night. She pities the phantom's loneliness, but she desires daylight. The story is a bit like Hades kidnapping Persephone into the underworld to be his bride. Or like Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. A trope as old as time. The arts are of great comfort, and stories and metaphors are powerful resources for healing. I also learned to play one of the songs on xylophone by ear, so it got me playing music again too. Good all around.
My crazy friend's accusation that my friend died due to an alleged curse, reminds me of how my landlady's European mom with dementia regularly accused me of stealing her bible because she thought I was a gypsy. My landlady always pulled her out of my room mid-tantrum and apologized to me profusely. Thank goodness I don't need to rent rooms anymore, and thank goodness all my neighbors here are so cool.
I swear people with dementia/schizophrenia/addiction etc FLOCK to me to accuse me of ridiculous shit, like flies to honey. I already had to tell the schizophrenic's obsessive mutual friend I'll no longer be helping him due to my recent loss. I am not an orphanage for all the lost children. I am not a healer or miracle worker, nor a disney witch throwing death curses, nor a gypsy fortune teller. I am just a human being. For some reason people be thinking I have magic powers. These accusations feel very 1600s Salem. Quite the throwback. Is this because I wear black? I'd wear white but it's too high maintenance laundry-wise and I don't fuck with bleach. Anyway. It's been weird.
Bathroom renovations begin today. I have a bunch of paints collecting dust so I'm going to try a mural first before I invest in new paint, my plan b if the mural doesn't pan out. Might turn out horrible or wonderful, but either way it will be fun to try! My home is my canvas, my dreamspace, my own mini museum of all that delights me. I love living inside it, perfecting it little by little, using it as an experimental space for all my wild ideas to play.
7:18 p.m. - 2022-10-31