rabbitandcrown – Rabbit & Crown

Hello Friends and Strangers.

It has been a little over two years since I last posted here but this place has not been forgotten. Far from it, actually.

I was talking to a friend just now, about how we have such good lives but it can be harder at times, to see the beauty through and in our struggles and our mundane.

We both had had a good day that just kind of, slipped out of our grasp once we were done with work.

In talking about these things, I brought up that I’ve been wanting to write here again and just…haven’t. I’ve actually been thinking about it most days, for months.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried. There are half finished drafts scattered through my post list like roadkill.

Before talking about it with this friend, I hadn’t been able to pinpoint what was holding me back, even in the broadest of terms.

If it truly was time, I would have prioritized it over distracting myself on my phone, so it had to be something else.

Maybe it was fear? Oh, that’s something.

Has it been the fear of feeling everything that I’ve pushed down far enough to forget for a time? The fear of my own genuine thoughts , normally chased away with cute animal videos and endless scrolling? The mask that is so fitted to me, that I forget how to take it off?

Or is it the fear that it will all come out awful, only about one thing over and over in different ways; or that no one will read it and it’s just my documented stupidity on the internet.

The internet never dies they say. Well, what you put on the internet, more specifically.

But the dream that started this blog feels like it died. Not in some soul wrenching loss, but more like the passing of a family member who you only remember in flashes of memory from childhood, and hearsay.

Feelings and imagination that were so full of life once, now are reduced to warm coals. I don’t know how to rekindle those things into a proper fire.

Yet, here is a post.

Silence

For some, silence is that uncomfortable feeling creeping up on you in the dark; uncontrollable, except to be broken. Others may find it peaceful. There are of course, different kinds.

Loud
Mine, right now, is filled with a low whirr of the laptop trying to breathe, a high pitched frequency from some utility – accompanied by it’s own white-noise-type fan, clicking and shifting of metal: the oven preheating, a shhhhhh of water and then fmp fmp of (I think) the heater warming it, all rounded out by a faint but shrill tinnitus in my ears and sound of typing.
Neighbor’s music through walls, people shouting at fireworks outside, footsteps or moving furniture overhead; loud, as you sit in silence.

Soft
When quiet enough to hear candles crackle slightly as they flicker, or gentle rains approach, the small sighs of pets surface and whispers feel like they float; it’s those nice things that tend to produce a spirit of rest. Even then, another kind of silence can linger.

Either or Both
Sitting in a room full of lovely, laughing, happy people, there can exist a deep silence. If you seek someone in that place, first find their eyes, more still than expected, like undisturbed water. Alas, pain can be perceived as comfort if “better” comes like waves.
A blank wall is not loud, yet a mind afforded generous silence in multiple senses, can fill with chaos of brash, banging, rushing thoughts. One does not even need to finish before another cuts it off, yanking back and forth, here and there, with no mercy.

If you have read this far, I thank you. My mind has been both so dill, silent and avoiding any opportunity for rabbit trail after rabbit trail of spiraling, confusing, endless chaos of thought. I’ve found it difficult to care about anything except sometimes to distract myself, scrolling social media posts, videos, Pinterest pins, nothing of any real creative value since I’m almost completely zoned out then.
At the beginning of next month, it will be two years since I started this blog. I had such excitement and passion then, that it makes me sad to look back and see the slow fade. So much has happened and changed since, not just in my life but in our world even still. It makes me wonder if it’s worth it to hold on to those things that used to ring so loudly in my heart.

This is what happens when I get silence. I start thinking “what is realistic? what is worth it? what do I need to prioritize?”. The questions don’t end and I never feel like I’ve done enough. Finding the small things in life, the quiet beauty, being still and able to enjoy silence, I’m trying to get back to that.
For me, posting on all creative platforms has slowed to once in a blue moon, not just here. In the endless scrolling of them, my mind shouts “you should post! why haven’t you posted? what is wrong with you? post!” and I have no answer. Eventually one comforting thought timidly stands up in my grey matter. “I am not only valid when witnessed.”

I am not only valid when witnessed.
Stephanie – Rabbit & Crown

Most days, silence is the monster under my bed, saying that not much matters, especially me. I’m hoping to get back to days where silence is sunshine on my skin and the quiet beauty of life around me.

I’ll be around, Friends and Strangers. Thank you for being here.

Holes

“Everyone’s got stuff.” is a statement that I sometimes repeat, to remind myself, the person yelling at me on the phone could be consumed or overwhelmed with something far less trivial. The person practically pushing my bumper as I drive the speed limit, in the right hand lane could be blinded to their own actions by worry or urgency of an event.

How do we deal with our stuff? Most of the time it’s bad habits, unhealthy coping mechanisms, really anything to fill the holes that only hope holds together. Even when something is found to try filling it, it was dug up elsewhere, simply moving the problem, instead of a solution filling it.

I am hungry and tired, day after day moving dirt around my pockmarked heart. As soon as a hole seems filled, close to overflowing with sweet temptations, it’s empty again, just as fast.
“You said hope holds them together. What hope, if this is a never ending push and pull?”
In a world where our happiness rules supreme, and comfort decides value, where is hope indeed. Unlike many, I don’t believe that the point of living is to be happy. This doesn’t stop the addict in me, always looking for that fix. Yet, accepting that the point of life is not, to “be happy” or achieve top social standing, is resolutely freeing.

I often fall into my holes. Cycles still haunt me, whispering, taunting. I know I could be, can be, so much better, so much more. But still, I am hungry, tired.

Someone told me, not too long ago, that in order to change something that you keep going back to, you first need to find the underlying reason. If you keep falling in a hole, get to the bottom of it. Dig deep, so to speak.
It’s a very personal, raw and vulnerable act, to face that place that we keep trying to cover.

If you couldn’t tell, by the lack of posts, and the tone of what is there, being as it is, I’ve been dealing with some holes. I still am.
Would you do something for me, friends and strangers? Would you try facing your holes instead of filling them, covering them? Would you sacrifice the façade of alrightness, the clinging to what feels like control? I’m not asking you to succeed in a single attempt, just try. Take off the VR goggles, the filters and fronts, face whatever your emptiness is and get to the bottom of what you’re trying to fill it with.
It might not make you happy, but it will make you free.

The Vulnerability in Knowing

I know that I’ve been absent for quite some time here. There has been no new writing, no spam posting of edited pictures on social media, and a barely-noticable, quite sparse presence on the book of face.
I haven’t been creating like I used to, for months… and that’s okay.

“We’re all on a different timeline.” has been repeated over and again and it makes me wonder. In the multiverse of five billion minds, where will paths cross, intertwine and split again, all creating what we know of ourselves?

What exactly started the chemical reaction of learning more of myself, I don’t know. The healing does not come like a cleansing rain. No, it comes like a nuclear explosion, laying waste to all you’ve ever known. It leaves you in what looks like ruins, flaws and brokeness exposed.

There is no painless way to know yourself.

Before uncovering the foundations a soul stands on, hours, days, months are spent digging through the rubble. Research on radioactive events, in our existence, is never truly over. So it is, sorting through fragmented memory, to find insight into a reason for every element of ourselves.

Clarity is supernatural and what you once thought of in black and white, washes away. Contrast can only do so much to see within, when even our brain-matter is gray. Such is the struggle, when it is realized that previous you-s no longer exist, and you are pressed to give answer to questions insidious persistence. Steady retort is buried under the debris of all I have been and have yet to be.

Long story short, I’ve been learning about myself, pursuing healing, and wrestling with the unknown. When you think about everything you perceive yourself to be, what do you find when the past is pried open and the patterns of of your personality are tracked? Getting to know someone, with all their flaws and idiosyncrasies, takes intention and vulnerability. You are worth getting to know yourself that way.

Should

Hi
There’s been a heck of a lot to process lately. Almost nothing seems untouched. It’s like trying to stay in one place but hanging from a pendulum. I can’t begin to cover everything whirling around in my life lately, so I’ll try for as much “now” as I can.

Yesterday, I woke up happy despite my tiredness; fed Clove, took my meds, and returned to the cozy comfort of my bed. After some time had passed, and I had both gone to and returned from sleep, there was no pleasant escape feeling. Yes, no pressure to check items off of the never ending to-do list, but with the absence of pressure, I felt suspended, as if in a vacuum, without solid form, empty, blank.

This morning, I woke up and tarried in bed some sleepy moments, before getting ready and heading out the door. Coffee put a bit more pep in my step, and singing out in a room full of people doing the same, kept my energy up and the joy flowing.

It wasn’t until after I had gotten home, that the pendulum swung back again. I don’t know if it was watching stories on social media overflowing with pain and anger, or the fact that the weekend is quickly approaching it’s end.
The best weather we’ve had all week has graced us today. “Should”s fill my head. I should be enjoying the weather properly, actively, instead of convincing myself to leave the bed I had returned to, and sitting on the slab of cement outside my door. I should be utterly happy, tickled pink, over my many blessings.

Find the pleasant things.
The wind is more than a slight breeze. It sighs and whispers through the trees, wood creaking beneath birdsong. The ebb and flow of ocean waves sound to rest within their boughs. I wonder what all of the birds are saying. They have no moral dilemma, no sense of uncertain future. A Mourning Dove calls, and I am transported into a childhood memory.

There are no details, despite the picture not blurring. It wasn’t a complete memory. Although real and true, it is a mixture of memory, old photographs, and possibly dreams. Isn’t nostalgia interesting? Looking back, I long for those days. Chalk on the driveway, making homes under trees, being unafraid to let loose a shout or scream; they sit on the surface. Oil and water, or a soup you skim the fat from; nostalgia is like that.

Nearby, a train’s deep whistle echoes and just like that, I’m pulled into the present. More “should”s are waiting, both question and command. Sometimes, I wish I was simple, but that smells strongly of the roses they make all those glasses from.

That is where I leave you for now, friends and strangers. Answers have not yet turned into action or soaked into my grey matter. Health and peace to you these days, and thank you for sticking around through the above partial brain dump.

Friday Morn

I hit almost every red light on my drive to work but it just gave me more time to sing along with the radio. Walking through the parking ramp, inhaling and relishing the cool morning air, underlying dampness foretells a hot day. The florescent lamps, ever present, are drowned out by birdsong and I take another sip of coffee before looping the other half of my mask around an ear. There are a few people in the building, yet quiet is predominant. A “good morning” to the maintenance man, journey through the hallway of broken chairs and the pat pat pat of my steps on the concrete stairs brings me back to work.
Happy Friday.

Growing Pains

The sun is out today after a couple weeks of it hiding, taking my energy with it. I’m forcing myself to sit outside, take in the fresh air, and eat something besides pancakes. Clove is here with me and seems to have forgotten what being outside is like, too distracted to notice I’m eating carrots.

The sounds are a blend of what I’ve become used to in the present, and a pang of nostalgia.: Construction, cars driving by, a dog barking from a neighbor’s yard. Someone appears in our shared back-bit of nature with a plastic bag, and the sweet call of a morning dove quiets. I’m annoyed until I see they are picking up trash. I feel both shame for my reaction and gratitude that people still exceed expectation in simple goodness.

Clove is munching on her arugula and I, my carrots. A slight breeze waves the top of the container and disperses the sparse amount of loose fluff on her. This is good for both of us.

Maybe Spring inside of us is just as messy as Spring outdoors. With all of it’s back and forth, between freezing and melting, sunshine and gloom, our hearts go through it too. When will my chest pains push flowers from my bones, will this digging and searching inside yield the treasure I buried to hide through winter? Things are stirring in my soil, unseen. I guess I’ll keep seeking sunshine for my Spring.

Castlecore – Writing Snippet 1

The cool stone of the castle wall remains solid against my back as the trees bend this way and that, shushing loudly. Clutching my cloak closer about me, I take a deep breath and continue across the rampart, pushed by the whipping wind. It was time for one of us to pay attention to the pleas of the townspeople and no silver spoon was going to blind me to the truth. Thankfully it was dark tonight, the moon hidden by grey clouds. I struggled against the heavy wooden door, finally slipping inside and locking it behind me.

If they knew what I was doing, what a load of trouble I would be in. I descended the spiraling stairs quietly. Of course, I already had not garnered much favor, rejecting the proposal that had meant to bind our kingdom to another. No, I would not be traded as an object, treasurers bartering using my being as leverage. There was more to being a daughter of the late king than that and I was bound and determined to set things right no matter what it would take.

“Going somewhere Princess?” I paused, before straightening, facing one of the knights.
“I’m on my way to the banquet of course.”
“This is certainly an interesting route to take there.” he replied, raising a brow and eying my cloak. “Might I escort you, your majesty?”
I sighed lightly. “Fine, you caught me. I was going to the kitchen beforehand to get some extra of the good stuff before I have to act all proper and pick at my food.”
His chuckle told me that he had fallen for the half-truth. “I see” he bowed slightly before moving away. “Don’t take too long or too much. The court are deprived of one of their most precious jewels by your delay.”
I nodded, returning a small smile before continuing to the castle kitchens, careful to avoid detection by anyone else.

Let’s do “get help”

I think that part of why I have such difficulty expressing negative emotion is because of my high empathy. That doesn’t exactly make sense without context, I know. Thinking of all of the hurt and difficulty in the world weighs me down immensely. I know that there is only so much I can do to help but I want to do it all. This “give until I can’t anymore” mentality is good, to an extent.
Just because I feel people’s pain doesn’t mean that others understand that. Taking on so much, mentally and emotionally, actually ends up keeping me from helping others to my full ability.

So, my own pain and struggle, I don’t like acknowledging it. I don’t like expressing it and I want to keep others “safe” from it. Part of this comes from a selfless place, but really, lately, I’ve found that I get annoyed when people don’t do what they can to take care of their own problems. Because I’m exhausted by other peoples worry and complaint, I don’t want to share mine. The mindset of taking care of it myself, just pushing through, or telling myself subconsciously that it’s not real or it’s just me not doing enough, has completely infiltrated.

I’ve only just realized this, thinking about how someone I know, instead of calling emergency services, after being in a situation very close to the one my grandmother passed away from, waited an hour or more, for someone else to help them. I’ll admit, that made me angry. I was irritated because my grandma didn’t have the chance to call and had to wait hours until she was found. I’m irritated because I care about this person and they aren’t asking for or accepting help that will actually contribute to solving the problem.

This caused me to look at myself. Sure, I’m not pushing aside a severe physical situation onto those around me who care about me when I could be getting help from someone actually trained to assist immediately, but I have been pushing aside other things that I need to ask for help with or acknowledge to resolve with the resources I have available. I think one of the things that I’ve pushed down is that I’m mad at myself. In some sense, I need to call 911 instead of laying on the ground, downplaying it and telling myself I’ll be perfectly fine until someone finds me there with my broken leg.

If you are reading this, and you are the person I’m referring to, or relate to my side of this challenge, please don’t take offense. I’m annoyed at the struggle. I’m angry to see it reflected in me. It’s because I care so immensely.

I don’t reach out often. I don’t open up easily but, friends and strangers, please, be honest with yourself and if you need it, get help.
Love y’all.

From Gratitude to Riches

Hello,

I’ve come home from another day at work feeling like time is moving both all too fast and not at all. The beginnings of a box of Rice-a-Roni sizzle softly on the stove, requiring me to leave the warmth of the kotatsu and stir it before it browns too much. It smells lovely and I half imagine myself to be cooking up something from scratch in a lonely forest cottage. My little mushroom mug, previously my grandma’s, fits the narrative. I’ve been sorting through my stash of tea and trying to drink it more but this time, it’s a matcha and cardemom latte. The pan that dinner is cooking in, is also a hand-me-down and I’ve ended up covering it with a baking sheet since it has no lid; how aesthetic.

There is much I want to dream into my fantastical (quite likely impossible) future but the current moment holds beauty. It’s something that I’m working on remembering. Sure, escaping into a daydream is fun, but it leaves me feeling somewhat trapped when I come back. So, I’ve settled myself in, to process the unpleasant reality that is my now and resolved to romanticize it.

It’s been bad winter weather the past two days. Snow and ice cover the roads and let’s just say the temperatures aren’t very positive. I was carefully parking yesterday when my vehicle decided to slide into the dms of the one next to it….and leave a nice scratch. That is a claim I now have to handle on top of the other matters pressing at my tired grey matter. Bills, budgeting, scheduling, pursuing the next steps for my health, and simply maintaining my space and self seem to be more than I can manage but, one task at a time. Some progress is better than no progress.

Seeking out the parts of my imperfect life that are daydream-worthy and keeping them in the setting of the present, helps me practice gratitude. I have so so much to be thankful for. Might be dealing with physical pain, burnout, and exhaustion but I have a warm home, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and a job to provide money for which to pay my medical bills. I may have yet another insurance thing to process, but the people involved have all been kind, there was minimal damage, and no one was hurt. There is probably no secluded cottage in my future, but I have my own cozy space with a kitchen to cook in. Thinking of all the things I do have, how ungrateful my mindset is most days.

It’s been said, “the present is a gift.” Trusting that right now, is good timing for what currently is, is a process. Even struggling through difficulties, I am going to practice noticing that I’m rich; rich with opportunity, rich with relationships. I am rich with a multitude of what I have in my life, and when I frame things that way, it doesn’t take much to romanticize it.

Whatever struggles or hard times, difficulties or frustrations, pain or loss of hope you may have, can you find something you are rich in? Maybe it’s too much of a stretch to use that word but what is something you are grateful for? What is something that you could pluck out of your present and place into a daydream?

Be well, friends and strangers. Thank you for joining me again.