If you are a long time reader of this blog or have stumbled upon it, let me give you some background of what I am currently posting. I have these flashes of memory not of this life that pop into my head on a daily basis. It usually happens when I am walking to and from work, and any other time when I am walking. I am not sure if these memories are from a past life, a half-remembered dream, or some fictional character who has popped into my head showing me a story that they want to see written down. Whatever the case may be, I've decided to start writing these memories down in this blog as a sort of a free write exercise, to get myself back into writing and to store these memories somewhere so they are out of my head.

I should note that not all of these memories are from the past. Some of them are from some strange future and sometimes they happen on different planets.

And they won't be complete stories either with a beginning, middle, and end. They will be memory fragments, dream fragments, like half-remembered songs. In other words, they may not make sense because they aren't suppose to make sense. 

First past life memory. I was in junior high, and had read my first book about the concept of reincarnation. I cannot remember what I was doing or what triggered the memory, but this is the memory I saw in my mind which I can still see very clearly even today.

I am standing at the top of a castle. I look down and I can see that I am very, very high up. I look up and around, all I can see is land and trees far as my eyes can see. I look down at myself. I am wearing some type of long gown. The gown looks to be made of silk and it has pearls sewn into the fabric. My hair is long I think because it is done up in braids which have been wound around my head. I am young at least I feel young. I am not wearing a ring, which may mean I am not married. I have a necklace, a choker really, made out of some strange type of bead. I wish I had a mirror so I could see what I really look like.

I feel the top of my head and I have some type of cap on or bonnet made out of the finest wool. The fabrics I am wearing feel so different than modern fabric. I feel a draft underneath my skirt. I don’t think I am wearing any underwear, but I am too afraid to check.

Emotions come over me. I feel sad, heartbroken, but I have no memories of why these emotions are with me. In my vision, I see myself having a memory of standing exactly where I am standing now and wondering if I should fling myself off the castle wall. There is no moat around the castle, so any fall would mean instant death. In my past life memory, I have more past life memories of being this age and not growing any older. I think this means I have never had long past lives. The lives I have memories of were short, meaning I never see myself being older than 20 years old.  

I am not sure why there is no one about, but judging from the light in the sky it must be early dawn because the sky is a mixture of pink and yellow clouds.  If this is a castle, it must be poorly defended since I do not see anyone standing watch on this part of the castle.

I put my arms around myself so I can give myself a hug. I am not sure if this is a modern gesture or if people have been comforting themselves like this since the beginning.

I can hear a voice calling me. It’s a woman’s voice. I have a memory of this woman, which is dropped into my brain like raindrop. She's my nurse, which I guess means she is my servant. She has been looking for me, and has now discovered my hiding place. I want to scream at her to leave me alone, but I don’t. This version of myself seems so helpless. She is, I am fragile. I feel my waist. I don’t think I have been very well because I can feel my ribs sticking out. I take one more look around, at the land, my father’s land, our land, and head to the door which has just opened. 

Writing this post while typing on my iPad. It is strange to type on the glass screen. I am watching this horror movie called "Drag me to hell", and it is genuinely scary. Memo to self - do not rent horror movies to watch on Netflix because I get scared too easily. Parts of the movie are actually quite campy and funny, but the scary bits are freaking me out.

What else? I went to see the J W Turner exhibit at the de Young museum on Sunday. I knew Turner was considered a master in art, but I never quite got why until I saw the art in person. There is something about his work that is absolutely breathtaking. His depiction of light is amazing. His light has texture and depth. Who knew light had such substance to it. And it is different from Monet.

Monet depicted light as well, but his light was dappled and transparent. Turner's light is different. His light is so substantial. There are no words to describe his art. And seeing Turner's art in a printed book does not do the art justice. You have to see the work in person.

Art can be such a relevation. I am thinking of the time I saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the Tate Museum in London. The sunflowers leapt out of the canvas, and all Van Gogh did was layer the paints in the piece so it had depth. All previous art until then was flat. And then when you see the art of Jay DeFeo, you see paint layering in its extreme with her piece "The Rose".

So if you are in San Francisco, go and see the Turner exhibit at the de Young. I am now dying to see the movie about Turner's life that came out last year, and then going back to see the exhibit. That will be fun.

I thought morning pages might be easy to get into, but the process has not been easy. I used to be so eager to write that getting up early in the morning to do it was no big deal.  Now it is a huge effing deal. I am not sure if my reluctance to get up in the morning is because I am getting old, or it's because I don't have the enthusiasm for writing that I used to have. Most likely it is a combination of both things and then some others.

But I want to get back into it, the problem is I cannot guage that want. Writing used to be like an addiction, like if I didn't write, I thought I would explode with all these voices in my head. Have the voices gone silent? Or have I jus stopped listening for them? Where have all my story characters gone? 

I can hear them, but they seemed so far away. They are saying there is too much clutter in my head and the clutter blocks their voices, their sounds. 

I have a theory about story characters which goes something like this.  If you are writer, and I believe anyone can write, so that's everyone, the story characters find you  They inhabit your mind, hoping you can hear them, because all they want to do is to get their story out. And when you write their story down, they are ecstatic because they want their stories to be told. I don't think much care about the story being published, they just want the story out. But if you can't hear them, they will move on the next person and the next person until they get story out.

And even when their story gets out, some of them will go to another writer and have that writer get their story out, because the new writer will tell their story differently.

I wonder if my story charcters have moved on. I hope not. They say they are still around, but I need to get that that clutter out of my head. They say they are attached to me and they want me to tell their story. I'm glad that they are sticking around.