071623

[prismaticbleed]

I'm updating very quickly, and very dissociatedly, because there are a ton of phone-post entries on here waiting to be edited and expanded as is possible, but... time is just shot lately.

Post-Jade, we still-- STILL-- haven't recovered. I do not know why. What shook us up so bad? I don't know, we haven't had the time to sit and think about it.
Church today, during the homily, we got that same feeling, beautiful and awful-- that pull into heartspace, into our soul's world, feeling each other's life and wanting to talk about this spiritual resonance, needing to-- but we couldn't. We were in church, we were cantoring no less, we couldn't just completely depersonalize and go into a meditative state for the next hour. So it got pushed aside, and memory blanks out again.
We're tired of not being able to exist because daily life keeps crushing us.
Even right now, we're autopilot typing. Can't get anyone solid out fronting because there's too much to do. Our schedule is packed and it's getting to the point where we're being notably harmed by it, and we NEED a break, but we don't see one.

We're trying.
Saint Anne's Novena starts tomorrow, so we will be getting up at 5:45 for the next 10 days in order to catch the first two masses before the day begins. Last year, we hit the full novena but it was mostly with the mother, so there was a huge element of unpredictability, rush, stress, panic, and the infamous motherfear. We don't remember anything but the panic, and constantly feeling like we were on the verge of a stroke or something, like there was a grenade about to explode and we were bracing for impact. The feeling was pervasive.
However. There is one reason why, by the grace of God, we survived those ten days last year:
The Chizu Marathon.
We checked the archives. Whoever fronted back then-- and we have no clue, still-- did NOT write about it, which is INEXPLICABLE, considering what a literally life-changing effect that week had on us.
In short: on July 21 last year, we have a memory. It comes in literally out of nowhere, like waking up in the middle of someone else's narrative. We remember walking into the living room in the morning, as it was just dawning, and looking at our old TV setup: on the far wall, surrounded by bookshelves, by the bedroom door. We had the DVD for Summer Wars on the shelf, from the library. I have no idea when or how or why we got it, but it was there. And, suddenly, looking at it, we felt this irresistible FORCE motivating us to completely change our life.
I'm serious. We wanted to watch this movie, but it felt "too important" and "too good of a thing" for someone as filthy and stupid and addicted as we were then (whoever we were) to watch it. And in that thought, we CHANGED. It was just a seed, just an initial spark, but it was REAL.
We tore apart the living room and changed everything. We moved all the shelves, we moved the TV, we moved the couch, we moved the altar. It took like four hours, and when we were done, it looked like a whole new apartment.
That was the point. If we were going to watch Summer Wars, we wanted to be a completely different person TO do so. We wanted to be worthy of watching it. We wanted to start our life over, with it. We wanted everything to start over new.
...I have no idea why that movie was given such high honors. I really don't. But it's the truth-- whoever we were then, we saw this movie as something we NEEDED to watch, and something that held a huge amount of unknown yet undeniable significance and gravity. It would have been irreverent to watch it casually, or while in an addict/depressed mindset. Hence the total rehaul of the apartment, and in all hope, our life as well.
Jewel was around, that morning. In the memory aura, I can feel her there, that particular Red of hers, a glowing sort, light rather than pigment. She was so blurry, almost unreal, if not for the irrefutable is-ness of her very being. Whoever our pseudocore was then, that girl whose life revolved around food, this was the first solid strike against her power. That morning, the tide started to turn. That morning was when our life was finally, almost imperceptibly, shifted towards actually living.
I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say is: on July 21st 2022, we remodeled our apartment and watched Summer Wars and changed as a person somehow.
That whole week, despite our eating disorder hell, we went to (the remainder of?) Saint Anne's Novena every single day, and watched a movie by Studio Chizu as well.
NO ONE WROTE ABOUT IT.
I cannot believe that. I honestly can't. Those movies were fundamental in our recovery, and no one wrote about them??? It's incredible. Then again, back then, we were still switching like mad even if we didn't realize or admit it, and no one wanted to remember anything because everyone wanted to die.
...Except for the ones that watched the movies.
See, that was the issue. Whatever parts of our heart and soul were ABLE to watch Summer Wars and Belle (and let me tell you, THAT movie was EVEN MORE powerful to change us) were parts that were being choked and smothered and ignored and denied by the corpufoni. And so, no typing. Only flickers and splinters of memories buried yet treasured that, thank God, we still have.

So. This year, we're doing it again.
We're reliving the Chizu Week. We're watching ALL five of the films we watched last year, plus many more, and this year, we WILL type about them. We will see what memories they bring up-- even flashbacks-- and we WILL record them. And we WILL-- we MUST-- do this TOGETHER.

On that note. That's why time is short.
All I wanted to really update on today was that process so far. We started on Thursday, for unknown reasons, but it was still good timing, thank You Divine Providence.
Thursday night, we watched The Secret of Kells. We've heard about it for years and finally found it at a local library, by accident, so we decided hey, let's watch it. It was supposed to be very artistically impressive, and we liked the subtle Christian roots too of course.
Let me get the first amusing thought out of the way first: FREAKIN' GORGEOUS BROTHER AIDAN, I WANT TO GROW UP TO BE THAT MAN all right there you go.
There's SO MUCH actual myth and "lore" alluded to in this movie that
But, for the record, it lives up to the artistic hype. The sheer use of LINE and SHAPE in the characters, in the movement, is AMAZING.

Friday was... a livng nightmare of a day. We went to bed at 11 and slept until noon.

Last night, Saturday, we watched The Little Prince.

I was sitting on the couch with Chaos 0, watching as the monotonous cellblock of a city rolled past on screen, all drab squares and cement, and then... that one house appeared. Misshapen, overflowing green, shot through with colored glass and pinwheels.
I remember the kite flying overhead, brazen beauty defying the powerlined apathy.
My heart just... ached. I pulled Chaos 0 into my arms and said with sudden quiet ardor, "that's you." That kite, that house, that's all you. THAT'S what "chaos" truly is. It's THAT. It's the breaking through of life, of color and joy and sacred creativity, into the "just so" neatness and business of constructed existence.
...I loved him so much throughout this movie. God thank You. I haven't felt emotions like this since February.

There was one line in the film that terrified me, and has been playing in my head like a traumaloop since.
Paraphrased... "I care about it as much as I care about you! It IS you!"
So much about that woman scared me to death. She was too much like our mother.
(scary body shape, the RULES)


...

(left unfinished for now)