A few weeks ago I took a trip to the ever-dreary, vegan-friendly, grunge mecca, Seattle. When I was a teenager in bumfunk Texas, I had fantasies of moving to Washington—the land of perpetual flannel, riot grrrl, pine trees and independent coffee shops. The Twin Peaks lover inside of me will ever-yearn for Snoqualmie Falls-fueled moments of inspiration and gloom. I make sure to make pilgrimages relatively often—and each time I go, I find/see/taste/experience something that feels life-altering and important.
Whenever I'm in Seattle, I spend a lot of time thinking about Kurt Cobain, but for the first time, I actually felt brave enough to visit his house--the very house in which his suicided body was found. I had always avoided it before, not because I wasn’t interested, but because I was wary of the very visceral response that was bound to erupt throughout my entire body/mind/heart/soul system. I'm a super sensi, pisces type: connected to the deep, archetypal waters of emotion and upheaval. I am full of salty waters, I water your weeping willows with my tears.
Kurt Cobain had a very strong impact on my teenage years and his passing was one of the first cataclysmic death moments that I encountered growing up. To a quiet, nerdy 14-year-old girl with black hair and chunky glasses, empathic little Witch Baby, full of stomachache and angst, Kurt Cobain was an almost-angelic figure. He said all of the things that I needed someone to say, a spokesman for the disgruntled, the unappreciated, the misunderstood. His lyrics inspired me to scribble in notebooks, to etch terse, rune-like fragments of poetry on the soles of my shoes. He helped make everything feel a little more okay.
Seeing his house in person was intense. I felt haunted and effervesced. In the small park next to his house, a lone bench stands--acting as a monument to Kurt. People scrawl messages and leave artifacts, it is the closest that we can come to him. Sitting on the bench allowed me to gain a new perspective into his existence. Not just “Kurt Cobain sat in this very spot and looked at the grass and trees and birds” but a quick icy feeling of utter misunderstanding and the spiraling-gut-suck of being in a room full of people but being so alone.
I am a magnet for ghost particles and have felt very connected to Kurt since leaving Seattle. Little bits of his energy have lodged themselves into my pores and I have been holding him ever-so-tightly in my own heart-shaped box. His baby blues are nothing if not haunting and I am definitely haunted. So much of my aesthetic, my poetic drivel, my fancy-fingered literati has been influenced by Nirvana (and Hole, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, Pearl Jam, etc.) I am full of milk teeth, poppies, umbilici, angst, depressive tendencies, sappy somethings, teenage rebellion, awareness, parasites, love spells, misspellings, broken wings, bad posture, marigolds, and dirt. Thank you, Kurdt.
Whenever I'm in Seattle, I spend a lot of time thinking about Kurt Cobain, but for the first time, I actually felt brave enough to visit his house--the very house in which his suicided body was found. I had always avoided it before, not because I wasn’t interested, but because I was wary of the very visceral response that was bound to erupt throughout my entire body/mind/heart/soul system. I'm a super sensi, pisces type: connected to the deep, archetypal waters of emotion and upheaval. I am full of salty waters, I water your weeping willows with my tears.
Kurt Cobain had a very strong impact on my teenage years and his passing was one of the first cataclysmic death moments that I encountered growing up. To a quiet, nerdy 14-year-old girl with black hair and chunky glasses, empathic little Witch Baby, full of stomachache and angst, Kurt Cobain was an almost-angelic figure. He said all of the things that I needed someone to say, a spokesman for the disgruntled, the unappreciated, the misunderstood. His lyrics inspired me to scribble in notebooks, to etch terse, rune-like fragments of poetry on the soles of my shoes. He helped make everything feel a little more okay.
Seeing his house in person was intense. I felt haunted and effervesced. In the small park next to his house, a lone bench stands--acting as a monument to Kurt. People scrawl messages and leave artifacts, it is the closest that we can come to him. Sitting on the bench allowed me to gain a new perspective into his existence. Not just “Kurt Cobain sat in this very spot and looked at the grass and trees and birds” but a quick icy feeling of utter misunderstanding and the spiraling-gut-suck of being in a room full of people but being so alone.
I am a magnet for ghost particles and have felt very connected to Kurt since leaving Seattle. Little bits of his energy have lodged themselves into my pores and I have been holding him ever-so-tightly in my own heart-shaped box. His baby blues are nothing if not haunting and I am definitely haunted. So much of my aesthetic, my poetic drivel, my fancy-fingered literati has been influenced by Nirvana (and Hole, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, Pearl Jam, etc.) I am full of milk teeth, poppies, umbilici, angst, depressive tendencies, sappy somethings, teenage rebellion, awareness, parasites, love spells, misspellings, broken wings, bad posture, marigolds, and dirt. Thank you, Kurdt.
i sleep with the drapes
drawn tight well into
daytime, mourning my
youth with the fervor
of a victorian window.
drawn tight well into
daytime, mourning my
youth with the fervor
of a victorian window.
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