'Oh really?' the magician asked,
'Try drawing one.'
My friend issued some homework for me after one of our intense 4+ hour spiraling conversations tracking from superficial ideas down into the depths of where they emanate from - To fill a single spaced typed page answering the question "Who am I?". Halfway through I realized so much of it was the dregs of previous stories that I never stopped telling, things I present as, or want other people to know me for, other disingenuous lenses through which I have been perceiving selfness. I thought about starting over right then and there, then decided that maybe it would be useful to document the starting place of this line of questioning and attempt at defining, the lines that I have tried to circumscribe on something as amorphous as it is resolute - a shape shifter. A Magician. Myself.
*Done in the style of a tarot book my mother used until it fell to pieces - as if you were drawing me like a card from the deck.
Sometimes loud / sometimes will go all day without speaking, unable to summon the energy required or unwilling to break the spell of silence / Freedom Fighter / currently engaged with the prison of my powerful and successful survival mechanisms / Child of Con Artists / Real / Present / Thoughtful / Cautious / Passionate / Vigilante / Forward, especially when being sneaky / Deeply protective of those I deem deserving of my love / Child of the ocean, of myself, of circumstances beyond my control / High standards / Full of weight, gravity / Curious with an earnest contemplative gravitas / Honest, sometimes to my own detriment / Someone who listens in multiple languages and planes at the same time / A Kaleidoscope / A Prism whose light only leaks out through the holes in my patterns of self preservation / Filled with light that often escapes in the form of Laughter / Laugh like my mother, like all of the Bussell women, but especially like her / Hosts delusions of Ego and self importance / Deep belief in my potential destiny to have a healing impact on the world / Drawn to broken things, things wearing their history / Watching for evidence of the past rippling into the now and creating structures that will manifest in the future / Masterful anticipator / Compulsion to heal other's pain and my own through physical contact, often accidentally manifests as or gets confused for sexuality / A scared little girl in a woman's body / Siren / Fool, refusing to fold into society, living on the outskirts so my voice isn't lost, remains differentiated from the chorus / Fearful of committing to something, for how it necessarily removes other potential manifestations / A sculptor of experiences / An Agent, but not a free one / Bound in the spider web of associations, which I play like a harp to get what I need from people / Letting myself be filled with other people's needs so I can be called into action by the room and its constituents, like a holy weapon / Filled with poison, but skilled at modulating its affect on my system / A Scorpion / Endless reserves of patience for those I believe in, respect, love / Strong at my own expense / Clever, truly crafty at hiding my weaknesses / Aware of the spotlight, of how to use its luminescence to get what I need done / Lonely in a quiet, animal, skin-to-skin kind of way / In a constant process of transformation, never quite recognizing myself in the mirror / Often starting processes I've done a hundred times from scratch, like I didn't bother to make a map of the landscape, or notice the pathways I used to get somewhere or do something / Obscure to myself / Protective Steamroller / Reformed Stress Response Addict / Overwhelming fear of helplessness that often leads to paralysis / Vessel for something, not sure what though / Laser / Force / Listening constantly for the intentions of others, unconscious or not / Deeply curious about how things and people work so I can anticipate how to be and respond appropriately / A consummate performer / A highly skilled translator/ An alchemist in training, my life's work is looking for the space where the immaterial becomes material and back again.
