A Work In Progress

 I am sorry.

 

Sorry that I have failed to live up to your expectations.

 

Sorry that despite your efforts in molding me and scolding me and guiding me and deriding me, the projection of your energies have been in vain.

 

Sorry that at the age of 24, going on 25, I have yet to attain what you seek of me.

 

I won’t pretend to be the dream you sought when you made me in an act of love. I am not a personification of perfection. I am not a divine creation. I am not Galatea. And you are not Pygmalion.*

 

I am not a building you can tear down and rebuild from scratch. I am not an immaculate statue given life. I am here; I have been born, and I have been made. Now it is time for me to make myself.

 

In the process of that remaking, I may be scratched and scarred; knocked down and showed up; played out and pushed in. I may thrive or fail. I may find an easy path. Or learn the hard way.

 

What can I say? I was not born complete. I was born of flesh and blood and intention. Or perhaps inattention. Perhaps an accident. Either way, I was born of you.

 

I came forth with your flaws, and to make things more interesting, I brought my own.

 

I am a wanderer finding my way.

 

I am a dreamer finding my dream.

 

I am flawed despite your efforts.

 

I am a work in progress, and I do not know when the work will be done.

 

Perhaps it never will.

 ~ ~

 

*Galatea was an ivory statue made by the sculptor Pygmalion, and given life through his prayer to the gods. He built her as an ideal woman, one who would rise above all others – a paragon of  perfection. In many ways, that is how we make children. We create them in an act of love and believe with all our hearts that they are just as we dreamt. But even dreams take time to come true. And sometimes they never do.

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My Serpentine

Hello, my pretties. Featured beauty of the day:


This amazing pencilwork is the masterpiece of a gifted amateur artist known as deru-san. A former college mate who graduated as Most Likely To Succeed in her class. Her main interest is manga & anime art but she sometimes does all kinds of interesting things on the side. Her current stint in Japan probably means she is only getting more fascinating while riding the weird, awesome creative streak the Japanese are known for.

It is freezing in Nihon-land right now, she says. Just right now, I can definitely feel her: the air conditioning in my office is near unbearable on a rainy day, and my fingernails are turning an interesting shade of grey-blue as I type.

Anyway...
this picture currently adorns my desktop in all its serpentine glory. It definitely 'speaks' to me. Sometimes I wish I was a reptile because people don't treat reptiles like freaks for having scaly splotchy skin. The other day I walked into a restaurant, all ready to enjoy a nice dinner, when some nosy idiot exercised her right to be rudely curious and asked if I had an allergy. (A Brit or Northern European would have politely told you to Fuck Off and Mind Your Own Business.)


So.....(why is this becoming about me again?)

Enjoy the works of the exquisitely talented and irritatingly modest deru-san. Have a good week, y'all. I know I ain't.


~ ~ ~ ~

There is a special kind of hell for those who treat a human being as a freakshow without having the courtesy to at least pay for the show.
Serpent 7:2


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