reclamation

I was upset. Unbalanced. You’re as moody as I am, she told me, and I’m bipolar. Have you thought about medication? All I wanted was to get out of here, and for a fast and uncomplicated transition. No submerging into my own introversions. No dizzying intoxications. Minimal stress and panic. Once settled I could go back to being unsettled. I tried to cherish the morning. I tried to read a book. I offered to watch over the kids of divorced parents next door. I tried and failed. Someone wanted my heart. To consume it. Jagged rocks ahead in the mist. She told me, you have no control over your life. She’s right. I don’t know how to say no. I drop everything important to me for nothing. Why? I have lost any cadence. I am in a sorry state. And this is why I am heading for the dead center of the city in the north where, inside its industrial rhythms, my own I may reclaim. 

by  #katyamills from [July 14, 1998] journals

Royal [8.16.1998]

The sleep would not come the ink would not run. Close to paranoia in paralysis on bleached sheets, drag off a newport, shallow lying on my side on this borrowed mattress on brown paint roses and thumbtacked vinyl on a slanting floor. And when i drop off a car alarm rebukes me, setting a dog to barking, a call gets a response, and now they all are howling like wolves in a forest. The sleep will not come again. the ink will not run though i try, opening up my journal to the blank page bookmarked. Without words so i sketched a poor rendition of your face from the side, the image vivid in my mind, too bad i am no good at drawing. I make up a wonderful imaginary eye. The following night made up for the last with relentless dreams. Riding around in cars. Running too fast down a hill with a friend and he gets close and crosses my leg and i tumble for a fall. A man walks confidently into my bedroom (plush and much nicer than the real one) to steal me away. My mother getting stoned and accidentally telling me i am beautiful.   

by #katyamills  on 8.16.1998

Royal [8.23.1998]

It was mid August when he said goodbye to his friends and traveled north from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes ready for a different life. He had a small savings and signed a lease for a flat off of Armitage, three floors up from the ground, northwest of the city. The space was unremarkable. Surrounded by red brick factories. All four winds could travel through it and there was a slender view of the city skyline and decent light. He signed a lease on the trunk of the man’s car. The week after he moved in a former tenant shouted up to the open window and reclaimed an oak wood desk he had left. Someone crashed a car at 2am into a telephone pole in the alley and set it on fire. This was no accident. He went back to bed while his cat watched the flames from the windowsill. A kind woman named Monetta shared a back porch with him and they got to talking. She was spiked on vodka, Stoli. He discovered her terrific laughter when she learned of his favorite drink. Seagram’s whiskey with milk on ice. One lazy Sunday they walked down to Western Ave and had lunch at Lazo’s Tacos while sharing art and literature.   #katyamills

Royal sessions [9.13.1998]

The top of the back stairs looks over the string factory and the windows filter out all the sun’s colors excepting the blue and can barely be seen through. On a Saturday night the workers are wishing they found another calling trapped in this ball of yarn. The potatoes are ready to come out of foil after I go down three flights to give the dryer my washed and spun clothes. There’s a heavy Mexican in the apartment below stirring beans on the stove, door open, television singing over the baby’s cries. I can see the tomato cans lined up in the pantry. The canned goods they don’t embrace change, either, you have to shake and hit the tin with your palm, they don’t want to come out, it’s better in there than being dropped into a pot and cooked into another life and consumed. My cactus keeps dying and coming back to life. Same with my guitar. It’s my fault. I keep playing favorites and the typewriter always wins. I have to turn down my stereo to hear my phone ring. Lenny Kravitz is a romantic. I am paying attention and it doesn’t cost much. If your phone never rings you distrust people. If you keep your phone off or off the hook, you cannot trust yourself. A candle that is melting without a burning wick tells of summer in Chicago. A single word in any book is less trivial than any single image on all of television. Which is a demonstration of seeing the world through my values. The secret to happiness is acceptance of suffering. People living in a hard part of town are more decent and less frightened. Reality is scarier than fiction, but not as scary as not being real. This paper is thin legal. This is the best typewriter paper around.

by #katyamills

Typewritten 2.26.98 on an old Royal

2.26.1998

A fifth of liquor followed four days of anger and then I was done. Done drinking, done being angry. I uncurled my toes like a good boy and sat patiently. I did not look up until she was standing above me. She was awfully still which meant she had made a decision. Well? I asked, what is it? I prayed she might surprise me but my prayers went unanswered. Now I had to take her spoken words seriously and bring myself to believe, though I could not be moved by them, by anything.  I had next to nothing left after a hundred hours of basic misery, watching tv until tv was essentially watching me, locked in my house, seated in the center of a room, dangerously safe, talking to myself, lost in a language full of images only I could decipher…Wrap the dutiful land with sky and milk, the clouds round and full with the dimmest hope, waiting to be sucked. The side of my face presses into an interminable chain link fence. Blood dripping like a leaky faucet. The pastures turn green. Sweat off the iron palms. My fingers wrap around the links and my body goes limp. Inseparable against the sky. Do not care if we live or die. The ghosts within me began to wail, long slow and rising from the caps of my knees to the pupils of my eyes. I woke from semi-consciousness to the aching of my calves and feet in Japanese position. My arms were somehow upraised with a power I had not bestowed. I remembered her and what she told me, before she even told me. And after she gave me her decision I was unable to be moved, I was speechless. I was sorry but I could not apologize. The good news was that the air began circulating again and the oil began lubricating my pores and I was no longer suffocating, and I could bring water to my lips and the chain link fence was gone. God had carved our lifelines and the sky was still with us.  

by #katyamills

Day 1. 2024

Day One. 2024. Don’t let this be just another day. Let it be an opportunity for you! I want to make some changes to my routine, starting tomorrow. Water before coffee. Yoga before writing. Writing before going anywhere near social media. Water. Yoga. Shower. Coffee. Writing. Then ideally a short walk before I start my work day. I think I can do it. I already get up at 4:00 am every morning and I do everything now except the yoga (currently 2x week). The key is to have a realistic plan!  

#katyamills

pandemic 2020 day 1

March 18, 2020. These are frightening times. covid-19 outbreak across the world. here in the usa we do not have testing yet available for the asymptomatic, test kits are slow to roll out. i have spoken with acquaintances who have been either in close contact with someone who got sick and tested positive, and yet because they are asymptomatic themselves, they cannot find a way to get tested. statistics are showing 2-3x jumps in the number of cases in major cities, as tests become more available. god knows how many people are carrying covid-19 and spreading it without realizing. though the sacramento region has only had 16 estimated deaths and 150 estimated cases, we know these numbers are not accurate. i myself could be carrying the virus and don’t even know. the grocery stores have been ransacked for basic things i need now, a thermometer for instance, soup, bread. i am still going to work as a mental health clinician for an outpatient clinic, and most but not all of our appointments are being conducted by phone. i am trying to keep a positive attitude and a sense of humor so i can help my friends who are scared just laugh. the streets are mostly free of people. going to work is now a welcome escape from the fear and hysteria. traffic unusually light. city unusually quiet.

January 2, 2020

up at dawn thursday, first month of the year. i listen to the heater ignite off the pilot while drinking coffee from my union jack mug. the heads of the palm trees are bobbing, dancing. i see them through the window, signaling the storm. i think back on what i have accomplished and ahead to the challenges i face. into my sixth year (first year as a manager) for a nonprofit organization. i am responsible not only to my staff but also my psychotherapy caseload. stressed and tired i come home looking for calm and rest. while i wish i could be building community, i cannot always summon the energy. i tend to devote more time to my writing projects at home. i have to strike a balance to sustain physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychosocial health. there’s only so much you can do in a day. i am trying to devote more time to reading fiction. considering how life has gone this past year and what lies ahead, i guess what i hope for is to keep a spiritual core. move away from self-criticism or comparing myself against other measures, and towards acceptance of my life, as is. there are plenty of ways i feel disappointed. and while i want to allow myself to feel, i also want to check it against my reality, the context of my life, and show myself some love for staying on the pulse, and going after what matters, courageously moving forward in the proper direction. being successful in my chosen career. i am lucky and blessed to be alive and have my family and friends, food and shelter. i have enough cash on hand to navigate a capitalist society, and a fair amount of freedom to roam around and position myself in the places where i feel useful and valued. i am grateful for the gift i have to outreach to my community in ways i see i can help make a difference. thank you for visiting and reading. i wish you all the best today and in the new year. keep the faith. keep after your dreams.  – katya w. mills

the self sets the limits

the spirit and soul is shining underneath, waiting to break out of the rock that conceals it, out of darkness for us to see and believe. meanwhile the world goes on waiting for you to arise. will you ever? the tarnished lack in a rusty controlled mechanical sort of perfection with an intellectual hook demands a miraculous effort. most are pulled out of the path of life and retired, subservient to other forces, equally bad as good, fenced in by unnatural designs. oh! the self-set limits of life experience. and very well worth living and dying for!

reading #130

AME AND THE TANGY ENERGETIC