Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I never should have attempted those hurdles...




I am a slave to adversity. Used to always say "I didn't ask for this to happen" but yeah, actually, I kind of really did. Because sometimes it seems like artificial trials are the only way I can catalyze myself to action. If light can't be seen without knowing the darkness, then good things must be made evident at the expense of suffering. "Life is pain; Anyone who says differently is selling something." Oh my sweet Wesley, what have I done?
We become privy to this Karma exchange at a young age. "Eat your veggies! Then you can have dessert." "Do your homework! Then you can play." Need I remind you that the prince only becomes interested in the princess when she's trapped in a mile-high tower surrounded by treachery and dragons?
What does it say about me that I will deliberately place obstacles in my path just to attain that short-lived feeling of accomplishment when I stumble over them? I swear my most effective moments are on that third day without medication the week before finals with a broken cell phone and nothing to eat. Any tasks completed under such conditions become feats against all odds. For those precious few seconds I feel like superwoman minus the latex and with a really bad case of ADHD. Something inside of me longs to be the underdog victorious. I love that story. America loves that story. The single mom with cancer who starts a non-profit. The disabled kid who runs a marathon. The ugly dog that saves an entire family from the depths of an abandoned well. Thanks Lassie.

Just tell me this: why am I so afraid to let joy stand on its own? I was not called to live a tragedy. I don't believe any of us were. So something needs to change.

Tell me: what does it look like to change a masochistic pattern of self destruction that I happen to equate with success? With growth? With living?
I know so well what joy looks like. I am filled with it. And yet there is still a voice that whispers "mmmm, yeah, you haven't quite jumped enough hurdles to deserve this yet. Hop to!" (Not really with words, of course. All of these dialogues go unnoticed, which is part of the issue.)

Please. What would it look like to accept this undeserved grace?

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Laura Veirs

Don't recognise my face
Everybody knows your game
Feel like I’m running in place
Everything's changed, everything's changed
I'm gonna move to the country
She's gonna move
So I can see the stars
Heavenly stars, the heavenly stars, the heavenly stars

She's gonna move
Heavenly stars, the heavenly stars, the heavenly stars

I dove into the night
Bathed in the beautiful blue light
Sheltered inside a bat cave
Me and my baby had a conversation
Gonna move to the country
She's gonna move
So I can see the stars
Heavenly stars, the heavenly stars, the heavenly stars

I'm gonna move to the country
She's gonna move
So I can see the stars
Heavenly stars, the heavenly stars, the heavenly stars...

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I love Anastasia and Thanksgiving.

Heart don't fail me now
Courage don't desert me
Don't turn back now that we're here
People always say
Life is full of choices
No one ever mentions fear
or how a road can seem so seems long
or how the world can seems so vast
courage see me through
heart i trust in you
on this journey to the past

Somewhere down this road
I know someone's waiting
Years of dreams just can't be wrong
Arms will open wide
I'll be safe and wanted
Finally home where I belong
well starting here my life begins
starting now, im learning fast
courage see me through
heart I trust in you
On this journey to the past

Heart don't fail me now
courage don't desert me
Home, love, family
There was once a time
I must've had them too
Home, love, family
I will never be complete until I find you

One step at a time
One hope then another
Who knows where this road may go
Back to who I was
Onto find my future
Things my heart still needs to know
Yes, let this be a sign
Let this road be mine
Let it lead me to my past
courage see me through
heart I trust in you
And bring me home
At Last

L'inno di mameli

Nothing in me can quite describe what I would give to be back in these abandoned buildings
Looking out on my old school and my favorite snowless marble mountains
Exploring the cracks of this 40 person hill town
wondering what is behind this door
petting this horse and feeling so. so. happy.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

surrender me.

I don’t know how to do this. This weakness. I don’t know how not to struggle. Flail. When even giving up is within my control, when even the choice to submit is an act of my own will. My fingers tap out the familiar rhythms. Each beat a reminder of security. Nails on fingerprints. Constantly touching base. Rooted in my own muscular memory, I play out the dissonant melody of my fears on a palm-sized piano with 4 keys and a thumb.

I just don’t know how to finish the song.

4321123443211234 why doesn’t this code mean anything? There are times when it feels like the subatomic meaning of life. Everything hinges on this pattern continuing and I have to be the one to keep it going foreverandever amen.

I can’t let go of the rope. We’ve reached the end of the beginning and I am still holding on for dear (life? Is this really living?!) Callused hands feet dangling arms stretched ground looking soft and all the leaves in the fall reaching out to catch my iniquities.

What will happen when my muscles betray me? When these tendons refuse to cooperate with the will of my nervous determination? When my fingers stop drumming will I be able to feel my heart beat again?

And just like that, the fall began. It is very, very far.

Friday, November 4, 2011

passive: frustration in hibernation.

I am frustrated that my secrets cannot be tokenized.
wearied by my abundance of honesty
that will never allow for an anonymous postcard.
why do I spend my days fighting nature?
10 four year olds is the most beautiful scene that dead leaves can buy.
and I see the boy i love unreasonably suffer through the fall
without my tree arms being able to catch him.
did I forget that autumn is the skipping season?
the time for pumpkin apple cider and long long thoughts.
forget truth
Just get me back to the wonder of fresh death
to where the leaves are swept away!

(that i might sit in them and rest.)