My cat.. most definently... second to my cat is my art professor. :)

Hmm.. I really haven't written a blog in a long time. I haven't actually participated in much online activity in a while. (when you have to go outside to you use your internet connection in 90 something to degree weather.. it's not as much fun as it used to be)
Anyway...

Autumn is in the air. I can feel it in my soul. That's the only way I can describe the feeling that autumn is on its way. If there is any season I am most connected to it is summer... I almost love it more than spring. Autumn and spring are the seasons in which the most things happen to me. Not only does semesters start in each of these seasons but the great infinate turns the wheel yet again.

I love autumn because It's so unpredictable.. it's predictable. Everything that has happened that is life altering for the upcoming year happens in autumn.. it's almost a sort of storm of life.

My sister moved back in with us. She's been having some serious issues with life and death and continuing on her path. She no longer gets away with the carelessness that she used to now that her children are becoming more aware of the world around them.

But to my great happiness I witness her turn of tide. I saw the light spark back in her daughters eye. I saw the light spark back in hers. It made me feel so.. happy to see her adjusting so well to the town she always desperately wanted to leave. I hope she see's that running away isn't the answer. I hope that I understand it too. :)

To be continued.

I've been contemplating our family.. As always. For everyone's family there is ups and downs.. quirks.. and I'm quite sure there are familes that are much more ... interesting.... than ours.. but I've recently realized why we all are so.. well almost deluded.

Everyone is a liar in their own respect. And everyone believes the lies they have to tell themselves on a daily basis to get through whatever situation calls for they averted attention from the truth. Our family lives off lies. We lie about what we've done.. Where we've been.. how we feel.. who we love.. who we are. We lie about the things that have happened to us. Untill we become an idolized version of ourselves.. and it only takes so long before one starts believing a lie that they live.

I am in no way exempt from this most interesting family trait. I am a very vivid liar. For what does a painter do but use lies.. even to tell the truth. And I don't know how many times I've straight-faced lied and even scared myself at how good I was at it. It's a talent we all posses in our family. How we so eaily mistreat it.

I am kind of at a stand still about my family and their refusal to come to terms with the lies they tell each other and themselves.

I've asked myself why.. why was I .. this black sheep.. so different from the other liars but with the same skill to manipulate with ease... but with the insatiable hunger for personal and exsistential truth thrust into this family of people who recess and refuse to face themselves. Why am I the only one of them un afraid to strip myself bare (metaphorically speaking of course) and see that amoung all things that I wish I was.. I am.

It came clear to me. Why is any oddball their in the midst of square pegs. To make the other's wonder. Why give them something to think about.

I often think about stripping them bare.. showing them their own truths.. the good and the bad... and then I pause and remember that liars are so fragile.. If the mask they wear is broken.. perhaps they will never be fixed.. and is it really.. really .. my place.

I could be lying to myself at this very moment.. But the most interesting thing I ask myself.. what is a lie in this world of illusion.

Does that one small peice of yourself that you give up to hide for a lie just stack onto the illusion a person has already created. Just another sheild of defense from a truth we so desprately want to be the lie. and the lie we eventually believe is true.

I fear that for some of the older members in our family.. My grandmother.. who is the queen of pretending and my mother the mistress of self deciet. My sister spiraling into the same path.. a slave to her lies. and I a princess dancing in my world of woven imagination and vapid words.  I fear for my neice and nephew.. am I powerless to break the cycle.. or am I a self proclaimed beacon of hope that is afraid to tell my family the truth that I so desperately seek in my own life so that perhaps they will finally face themselves like I try to do. Who is lieing now? I ask. (please don't answer that.. it was rhetorical)

I read once that the truth can not be experienced.. only realized.
 This desolate truth is the one I very much wish were the lie.