♢ MORATORIUM ♢

Back in school, there was an alleged moratorium for three hours a day, reserved for athletics. 

Of course, if you were mortal, this meant nothing other than that there were no classes. For athletes, it meant that there were no classes because you were training. You were training at other times as well. You were always training.

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But. You're not here to deal in the fringe regularity that routine brings. Are you?

You want to know if I'm crazy.

Well, I am.

But as far as the specifics of this alleged affliction? Relief as to your confirmation is delayed. After 15 months of litigation, my side forced a settlement resolving primary custody of my son to me with the freedom to move, and multiple levers constructed by yours truly. It is customary, in contested trials, that settlements be reviewed, especially if there have been any ongoing issues. Which, of course, there are. By design. 

So, while I am suspended in time for this last moment, I must pursue your patience. The anticipated safe release of HYSTERIA is now Fall 2018.

As time spirals out from the endurance of trauma, memory of the experience is modified. You lose the primacy of emotion in your memory. This is for your own good more than it is any choice you make.  I have left what I'd written then to rest. I've grown into a life (mostly) beyond it.

And as my focus recedes from these experiences, so does my occupation of that pain. The asylums are torn down and time moves on. This is, ultimately, how the species carries on, no matter what. 

There are infinite ways to give birth, and no way to avoid pain. Nothing commands your focus to the present moment quite like pain. But unless it kills you -- which I assume it has not since you are here, reading this -- it peaks and then relents.

It turns into something else. 

In anticipation, 
Jessica.

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PS. I am sure ill-conceived late revisions, overhauls, and potential expatriations will occur. That's....it's my brand. So please do expect one update around Independence Day. 

I plan to enjoy summer. However it occurs. But I have a least a few things In mind. <3

CONTACT

PATRONAGE.

Atonement.

It is the anniversary of my escape. 

When I escaped, they took my books. They thought the power was in them. Same for my hair, my money, my body, my mind. But the power is mine; I took it with me when I left. 

After I left, things got worse. The violence peaked, unsheathed from the need to keep me near. If I had arrived as the result of a loss of faith, the way out would require that I submit to the order of the circumstance for my passage through them.

Atonement is to be done [god]'s way.

And. It has always been my head upon which the sins of the house were laid. Rather than petitioning, this time, forgiveness...rather than begging for my life, I turned myself towards the wildnerness.

If you give people the benefit of the doubt, they will prove to you that they are who you thought they were. So much has been done in this life to make you doubt your instincts. Do not doubt your instincts.

Not again. If you give yourself the chance, you will prove to yourself that you are who you think you are. And, I guess I've got to thank [god] for letting me see. 

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Hindsight.

If someone else took a photo of my back at the beach, would you feel differently than you do now? 

After Olympic Trials, I was hoping my body would...forget that I had spent 20 years training. I had formed knots around injuries holding joints in place. My posture was twisted to suit, and most of daily living was uncomfortable. It wasn't mine. I had used sports and academics to put distance in both geography and class between my dysfunctional abusive family and myself. I exploited myself for a ticket out. And I was ready to be done.

Of course, things never go as planned. And 9 years and one Leo later, I still look more or less like an assassin. My body has been leveraged against me in a lot of ways: I'm too strong to "deserve" protection from assault. I'm too sexual to "deserve" respect regardless of what I wear. (Believe me. There's no hiding this, anyway.) And I'm too unrepentant about it all not to become a serial target, singled out for aggression and abuse. 

Notice how the default is intrusion, scrutiny, and violation? If this is the tenor of the world that this body inhabits, I will have to be my own hold-out. This is where I live twenty-four hours a day, every day. I refuse to wage war in my own house. And I'm not about to let anyone tell me which trespasses should be tolerated and why. 

Now. If I weren't holding the camera, what would you see? 

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Land and Sea.

---

I am going where I am going whether you can see it or not. 

And. Look. The horizon is receding from me. I don't have time to explain.

(You had no interest in my language anyway.)

If you obstruct my course, a new one appears. 

I didn't write this map; I was just given the eyes to read.

Or let's put this another way.

I own the house. 

I decide who comes into the house, why, when they leave, why. 

You don't own anything in my house because I let you through the door.

If you break things in my house, you leave my house.

There are no squatter's rights in this house.

I don't need you to agree that it's time for you to leave.

I built this house. It's mine.

If you were meant to stay, you'd know.