Good to Remember

"People are who they are. They don't change just 'cause you want 'em to." -Fiona Glen-Anne (Burn Notice)

Cold sheets

It's cold in my room from the window you left open. To give us air in the heat of our nights. A chill falls along my open skin so I pull the covers but wish that I could lean into the warm sanctuary of your chest. The small joy of your hands along my sides as we sleep. The simple comfort to kiss your skin. Oh, lover, I await you and count that days, the hours, the moments until you return to my bed. Please hurry, the sheets grow cold and the heart grows longing.

Affirmation

This should be a really long post, but in the interest of time. I'll sum up:

For two years, I've been on this spiritual(astrological) journey about home, family and foundation. This is the tail end and like all journeys there is a test. - more about the test later- more about all of this later -

But what the test has lead me to, i think, is this affirmation.

My foundation in myself, not in others.

Though i love, and want to love, those who i love are not the cure.

The boy is not the cure.

I should not expect him to be, for he could never heal the world or all of me. (which doesn't lessen is possible perfection for me)

But also I do not need him to be. I can cure myself, me with the help of the universe, and many people people in it.

White Houses

There are some songs that we love, for the sake of love. There are some songs that we love because the story they tell, and those which we love for each line.

For me Whites Houses, is like a stream of memories, at light sped, each with its own pang and its own story.

The first five beats
726 is banging out the notes.

"Five beats to start, 565, you're counting wrong."

He taps me when its time to go. Sometimes i get lost, just watching him play, feeling every note. Here, he has no doubt, no worries, he is the master. I'm trying to remember to breathe, to add phasing and he waits for me patiently. We bicker about phrasing, about slides, but I am the singer, I win. (well mostly, I win). In the end, we have a million takes, the sun has gone down and the hours have flown by. Here in our sanctuary, I do not miss them. Here we are safe, from the world and its endless to-do list, from our relationships. Here we are even safe from each other. Here we are the perfect pair, and we can't find the reasons to deny or complicate it.

Crashed on the floor when I moved in
Arriving at Glisson, I'm nervous. I've never been camping or evenstayed in a cabin. No summer camp. Not even big groups of girls, but i pick bed and make my top bunk home for the weekend. I remember the fresh pine wood, and concern for splinters; sleeping fully clothed because it was so cold. Seeking the face of God in dark night, and praying that the girls that surround me would be sisters in Christ.

This little bungalo with some strange new friends
Stayed up to late and I'm too thin
The girls and I huddle at sleepovers, we're headed to middle school, then highschool. Surely we can stay friends forever

We're spinning empty bottles its the five of us
The pretty eyed boys girls die to trust
I can't resist the day, No I can't resist the day
Sleepovers at Lew's house. Phone calls to our parents about how we are just watching movies, leaving out that the boys are coming over to spend the night too. We cover the bonus room with pillows and blankets. Everyone in there own pallet with the boy-du- jour. Liz is making out with Camren, Lew's little brother is trying to bum cigarette's off someone. Everyone knows i'll end up with 726 before the dawn, but the tension is high. Lew groans at the though of another round of pain and tears. But here we ago again, was there a movie or just loud music, lets curl up on in blankets and watch the dawn.

Jenny screams out and it's no pose
Cause when she dances she goes and goes
Beer through the nose on an inside joke
I'm so excited I haven't spoken
And she's so pretty and she's so sure
Maybe I'm more clever than a girl like her
Simple pangs of jealousy: Lew for her party skills, Shannon for being everything i'm not. Lbu for always laughing, staying in control and keeping them wrapped around her finger.

The summer's all in bloom
The summer's is ending soon
It's alright and it's nice not to be so alone
But I hold on to your secrets
In White Houses

Maybe I'm a little bit over my head
I come undone at things he said
And he's so funny in his bright red shirt
We were all in love and we all got hurt

I sneak into his cars cracked leather seats
The smell of gasoline in the summer heat
The feel of leather seats, sticking to my bare skin. The heat of the car, with the air conditioning off, as we work to devour each other in the back of that tiny car. The bright glare of sunshine that can only come in the middle of the afternoon in the South. The sight of broken construction tools and cars, that we are hidden between, hoping with logic that only the young and lustful can achieve that surely no one will find us here at our spot; along the back hidden country roads. I cry out, and fear not the pitch and strength of my voice; there are no parents to find us here. Gasping for air between cumming, is the sent of stale coffee, cigarettes, leather, sweat, and the thick slide of heat down our throats in the summer day.

Boy we're going way to fast
It's all to sweet to last
It's alright
And I put myself in his hands
The perceivable feeling of falling, Of letting go. Of choosing not to worry. Will. Joyfully falling

But I hold onto your secrets
In White houses
Love, or something ignites in my veins
And I pray it never fades
In White houses

My...First...Time
Hard to explain
College lover and I as we sit on the edge of the bed. Swimming in blue, Tuesday afternoon. The moment, really the moment. Excitement.

Rush of Blood oh A little bit of pain
726's basement. I lie with a pile of pillows behind me, on that old whit couch. I cry out. Broken, blood, tears. He comes to hold me, chase away the demons."It's ok, its ok. Did i hurt you?" I shake my head willing myslef not to hurt. Tears steam across my face. "Shh, shh its ok," and he holds me until it is ok.

On a cloudy day
It's more common then you think
Back to the memory of College lover. The happiness, the randomness, going to see 726 and his gf for dinner, grinning from ear to ear, because of the reasons we are late.

He's...My...First...Mistake
When was loving a mistake?

Maybe you were all faster in me
we gave each other give up so easily
The silly little wounds will never mend
I feel so far from where I've been
Coming from college, and knowing that "the girls" are broken. Knowing how we grew apart, it wasn't the distance, it was the lifestlye and the love. We chose to let the love go. I don't think it will mend.

So I go and I will not be back here again
I'm gone as the day is fading
In white houses

I lie, put my injuries all in a dust
In my heart just the five of us in white houses
And..maybe you'll remember me
What I gave is yours to keep in

White houses
In white houses
In white houses

The Winter is Awesome Game

Winter started in NYC today, at least for me, the Georgian. It is 44 and raining and that is close enough for me.

So, I have tasked, Clos du bois (yes this is a new person reference) with listing the reasons why winter is good - since he, being a northern, has a love for it. The trick is that he has to convince me of the reason for it to make the list, which should be fun. Hopefully this will be a series, but we'll see - after all i have such a commitment to writing.

#1 : Spring feels like the best thing ever when it finally gets here - Oct. 15

A top 10 reason why I love my job:

A 5:30 p.m. Conversation

Me: it should be nap time
or there should be a way I could read while (insert mindless work task here)
that would be great too

Boss: there is a way you can drink and (insert mindless work task here)
oh, wait, you hate beer*

Me: :(
i'm getting better at it
another year or so
i'll prolly be able to stand it

Boss: i think we should pony up and get some flasks

And who says the Mad Men era is dead

*readers note: we almost always have beer in the work refrigerator

Biten and Bleeding

Last week I discovered True Blood on my HBO on Demand. Within three days, I devoured season one. Despite its often gruesome explicitness or maybe because of it, I felt deeply connected to it, addicted to it. There were so many themes, I understood. Most left me feeling raw. Death, sexual boundaries, the unexplained walking out of people. None of these connections are pleasing, all are immensely complicated and personal. While I would not ask to go through this (like people who sign up to watch Schindler's List on a Saturday afternoon) it is healing in its assault.

There were some demons I communed with, threw salt on and put back in the box, but others, others are out and about...

I bought the first book in the series (note the obsessiveness) and I lay in bed reading last night until midnight. I admit I was skipping ahead to all the good parts (after all I know what happens).

There was this portion where the central lovers are getting together for the first time. It's hot an steamy. It's romantic in its dark and twisty way.

They are all hot and heavy when the man stops and he looks at her. He's realized she is a virgin, that she is vulnerable and breakable.
So he stops.

Pauses.


Waits


to make sure she will be ok. And when he stops, he says one word:

"Darling"

I burst into tears.

I was reading, I was happy, I was fine. But here are the sobs and tears and I don't really know why.

"Darling"

The author noted that it is an old fashioned word. I think to myself of the last time I said it, because its a word that i use. I used it last with college lover, slipping up as he told me about his dog dieing. So intimately I had used it. "Darling" as if it was secret code for "I love you, my heart breaks with you. I want to heal you."

I flash forward to a time when I needed to be healed. Having a panic attack, Will holding me. I was naked in every way possible, stripped to core, cowering on the corner of his bed in a ball. He pulled me close to me, held me, rocked me, "its going to be ok, its going to be alright, we'll get through this" he said until I was calm again.

And there, I think, it is. I have no one to love and no one to love me. I feel empty in way I can't fully explain. It is not that I'm unhappy in my life now or that in my almost two years of singleness I haven't grown or learned to love myself. I don't need a man.

But frighteningly, I think I do.

I need to love, Deeply, passionately. I need to be loved to know someone is there to hold me, to sleep by me. Although, I am fine without it, I can live my life just fine. I'm not sure that fine is full. Even more scary is the thought that I'm not sure I'm really me.

I mean, I am the girl who feel in love at 13, at 18 and again at 21. I have more "in serious relationship" time than some people having marriages.

My biggest fear is that God has already given Love to me, and I can't have it again. If I don't believe that then I am simply impatiently waiting to find someone (A move which guarantees I won't find someone, by wives tale logic). I hate that wanting a relationship is seen as a weakness. I hate admitting that I am weak.

But let's take a reality check, who else is bursting out into tears from a vampire book?

Wanted: Must have Experience in the Fine Arts

There is no specification on which of the fine arts, although performance fine arts are highly valued and music experience is optimal. The craft must not necessary be in current practice but must have at one point been a pivotal portion of your life.

Why fine arts?
The are two main reasons, compatibility and life view.

The first is simple, compatibility. From the time could talk; I sang. I was in a choirs from 6th grade through college. I went to literary competition, all-state choirs, honor choirs, and auditioned for even more. It was something important to me. Something that has span more chapters of my life than any other actives, so I want you to be able to grasp that, share that, and love that.

The second is life view. Art is transcendent. It is a sacrifice. To love art, to be art, you must step outside of your self. Become a vessel for the paint on the brush, for the notes on the page, for the words that you say. You are here to make people feel, to show them what you are feeling, to bring them to another place and do that you have to leave your self behind. When you lead them, you can’t show that you are worried about your laundry, or your boyfriend you must focus on the journey. Its not that you abandon those things, but rather you weave them into the path. When you share the sunny melody, you give them a glimpse of how you felt after your first real date. When you weave the Irish ballads into song, you share the loneliness of when you first moved away.

To love is walk along a journey, to make it through all the mundane parts of life is like learning your craft. Holding the brush and learning the symbols, so that you can finally paint, finally sing. Love takes patience and giving. It takes time and effort. You may bleed for your craft. You may be tired but you are driven because the rewards of art, like rewards of love, enlighten and brighten your soul.

photo credit: Mel B.

Official

It is official now, college-lover will not be attending my Ga. birthday event.

I had been silently preparing myself for that. That his girl-friend would oppose, that he would make other plans so not to attend to please her. I didn't want to be right. I wanted to be proven wrong. I wasn't though. When i told him of the event he said he wanted to come and would probably be there. Then he paused asked the ever-present-girlfriend a question and said that he would not be able come it was her little brother graduation. He has to go meet the family, all the grandparents would be there ...

To be honest i stopped listening. Eventually I cut him off. "You don't have to defend yourself to me, perhaps i will see you at Christmas" I said. Trying to sound nonchalant, even handed, like it wasn't a big deal.

He explained agian about how he wanted to come, about how maybe he could see me before.. 'when was i flying in again?". But all those plans were difficult and unlikely. We wont be anywhere near the same places at the same times.

He circled back to Christmas. They'll be time then. It was bitterness when i said I hope so, but then you'll have you family to spend time with and you'll want to speand half of Christmas with her family. I'm rethinking old arguements. I'm remembering how hard it was to make plans at Christmas when we were together and when we had a month between school semesters.

He hasn't thought of this yet.

I shouldn't be so harsh, we are all busy and my birthday in all its early June glory has always competed with graduation and first summer vacations.

And honestly, He doesn'e owe anything to me. He has a life with out me, and a new lover. What am i but a complicated person who is always to much work defend or too much memory to be around?

I have lived my wholelife this way, always striving, always working to befreind them. To not lose them. But they are lost either way aren't they?

Bocci Ball in Braynt Park

Seeing bocci ball always makes me think of being at the Kholer's.

Missing the family we grew out of need for each other, the stress of calculus and making our first life decisions. Those times in life are rare as are the friendships forged by them.


Sent from my "grown-up phone"

The Wanted Series

Hi again Blog,

So I wanted to start a Meme/theme/writing project. A wanted ad.

Once upon a time a good friend of me advised me to make a wanted ad for the kind of man I wanted. At that time, I wanted someone desperately and it reminded me that I need more than what I might have settled for in the desperation.

Now is not one of those desperate times. But I thought given my singleness for a year and half. Now might be a good time to reflect on that.

Since a lot of the things I want tie back to people and stories. I’m going to do them one at time or some at time.

Ok that’s all,

Xoxox

Amazing TED Video On Education

Here is to 2008

So this was yesterday's exercise, I wrote some copy for the collage I made I ages ago :)

Its a actually a postcard template..

Front:



Back:

Rain Strom

The rain was coming. He loved the rain, said it brought peace. More than rain, he loved the storm. I like to think it was because he had so many storms in his mind, it made him feel better to see some of that manifested on the outside. I, on the other hand, hated storms. I hated to hear the sound of thunder, hated the lightening that was so shocking. I mean he did know that people die by lightening, right?! But that was us, I said go, he said stop. We weren’t total opposites but we were different enough to be ying and yang. I guess that is the way it always is though…

726 and I were different in that we actively tried to merge with each other, to quell the differences between us. I don’t think it was conscious, but it was something that happened to us on every level that I can think of. To this day, I notice myself climbing stairs like him, making jokes like him, arguing in that take zero-sum killer method I developed by fighting with him. I think because of our tender age 726 and I became one person, more so than the average serious couple. I also believe that’s why I miss him so much, he is in so many ways (except the traditional) my other half.

I digress though…

It was storming. The air was electric, the way it holds a charge before it rains. He was excited and I groaned internally. I knew what was coming.

“Come sit in the rain” he said. He was light up like child at Christmas. He eyes were filled with excitement, with joy and with the hope that I would go with him.

“You know, I hate the rain, it’s cold and thunder means there is lightening.”

“Exactly” he replied. His smile widened into a grin.

He grabbed my hand and drug me outside. The truth is, I always wanted to go with him, wherever he went, I wanted to go.

We raced down the stairs and up the driveway. When we got all the way out into cul-de-sac before I halted.

“ I am not going out in the open.” I said with full pout, and a tinge of my fear.

“Please.”

“It’s not happening…” there was more fear in my voice now. Even my pride couldn’t hide that fact that I was scared.

“Ok, just the edge then”

So we sit under the tree on the sewer drain at the edge of the cul-de-sac. I try to convince myself that the lightening will hit the trees before me. I try not to think about how much sitting on water will increase the likely hood of a strike. He, however, is completely joyful, the rain is coming…

We sit there until we are soaked and until I can’t take the idea that being wet is greatly increasing our death wish.

But before we go in, he stops and leans down to kiss me. The water runs down our faces, he smiles and says, “Thank you, I know you hate the storm. I love you.”

We walk back up the house in search of towels, but I don’t really care about being wet or being cold. This is the best storm of my life.

Jackie Onassis Reservior

by Joyfulgyrl

Spring came this weekend. It is hopeful and full of life. I felt the peace wash over me, with the wind blowing in my hair. I remembered, although i'm not sure i ever forgot, how much i love the open air on my toes, and breeze on my skin. I discovered the Jackie Onassis Reservior and it is like standing on the lake and being at the ocean all in one. The wind blows over the freah water, and if blows from the right direction you get the slightest bit of salt, reminding you that this behomoth of a town, with all its concert and glass is only an island. There is sound of gulls in front of me playing near the water, but the the smell of pine trees behind me. It felt very much like childhood. Days on the lake out the boat, hearing nothing over the roar of wind from the speed of moving over the water. Memories of running through the woods with McGee barking along, out on a some secret avdeture. Finally, the cool air, the tiny bit of salt reminded me of Christmas in Florida, where we rolled down the windows in the car some my mother could smell the salt again, and hear the gulls.

It was a good find. Important for my soul. I'm longing for people to share these things with, but i have faith, they will come. Untill then, I am learning to love the scilence, learing to love myself and grateful that my love of water is only a few blocks away.

"She was dreaming of me, and it wasn’t even a nightmare. She wanted me to stay
with her, there in her dream.

I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had
no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them.

When I surfaced, I was not the same man I had been.

My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be
midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my
midnight?" - From Stephanie Myer's Midnight Sun

I Miss feeling in love

on crack

"Ms. L" work therapist (wt) said. "You are on crack"

A little indignantly, I reply:

"You 've been saying that for quite some time now, like two weeks. Don't you think, maybe, i'm not 'on crack' I've just established a new sense of normalcy?" ( or maybe- i think quietly- you don't really know me)

"No" WT replies matter-of-factly

I pout.

"You are on a journey and you're not there yet"

I pout more.

"But being on crack while being on a journey is not so bad"

Live high

Today was Tedious.

All day i couldn't help but feel annoyed, grumpy and wholly uninterested in work. Sigh. I hope I learn to control that.

Last night,one the other hand was glorious. I was happy after writing posts and readings M's musings on life as Dorthy trying to make her very own oz.

I trod off in to the burning cold and snow to dance which was, as it frequently is, an instant burst of contentment. I don't know if it is because it is social, or if it is because it doesn't matter, in the sense that no one cares how good or not good i am, or if it is just because it is as close as i can get to my skating days, but it makes me joyfully, wonderfully, happy.

I practically skip home, singing out loud to with my ipod on the abandoned New York streets. I decide do a little leg work before I shower singing along to Jason Mraz

Live High, Live Mighty

Live Righteously, takin' it easily

Then i curl up with my laptop and read a chapter of Midnight Sun, for the umpteenth millionth time until i decide i should sleep before tomorrow. Today I am tired but i'm selfish too and i cherish the hours when i return, however late and feel that the pressures of adulthood simple do not exist.

Well I'm already off the Wagon

Photo credit: Max Z

Life has a funny way of making you prove things.

I wanted for Lent to write everyday. As a matter of focus, a matter of making time for me. Last week wasn't having any of that. I worked late everyday, and each day was filled with not only stress of projects undone, but the growing intensities of corporate grown up life. By Friday night, i could not even be tempted by food, i only wanted to go home sit in the silence and read. Eventually i ate some yogurt, happy in my living room like it was the finest of restaurants.

If I didn't know i had a work/life balance problem, it's only becoming more clear. The problem is, How do i make it better? To be sure, i don't know and i only hope that is a product that comes with patience, time, and prayer.

As is, i am apparently quite loopy and unpredictable. As if something in me has snapped and all i have left is wacky, sarcastic and creative. I rather like it, but my co-workers seem to think i'm on crack or that i've cracked up. Honestly i'm not sure they are wrong, but i don't think i mind either. I recognize that mind is seeping some, but it makes me feel so much better to dream a little and take time apart to draw comics and make delivsh remarks of my superiors.

I've also been rereading Twilight. I never used to reread things, ever. Once i knew what was going on I simply didn't care anymore. But with twilight, its not that i know what going to happen - becuase in a certain sense you always knew what would happen, but rather that i like feeling with them. For most of my life, i have been in a relationship. Now that i'm not, and haven't been for nearly a year and half, i've found i miss that part of me. Not all of it, becuase in some many ways i'm not really ready for it all agian. But i miss being in love. i miss wanting to deperatly to kiss someone, to stroke their checks, to come up behind them and wrap me arms around their neck. When i read, its like i have some of that. It reminds me and gives me faith (although i know this is a silly fear) that i am still me, a lover, a sentimentalist even though i'm with myself. Secretly I'm terrified that when it is time to date agian, that i will have forgotten how to love, how to make love, how to be coy and cute. I have no fears that i can be patinet and trustworthy, that i can be solid and resound, but i do fear that i will not know how to be vulnerable and weak, not to how to cry and allow myself to be held.

For those of you who know me, these seem like such silly fears, they are so very unlike how I have always been. But when we grow up- when we intentionaly grow, Do we grow away from who we have always been. In part that is our hope, becuase undoubtly we did things that did things that were childish and foolish, but do we also lose our ability to love like a child; have faith like a child?

Loving the Flare taught me that i could love like i had with 726, but i still got burned. Faith is difficult in the fire, even though we have been told that God purifies in the fire, that he forges us. Its still scarey.

Take My Life, and form it
Take my mind, Transform it
Take my will, conform it
To yours, yours, Oh lord.*


*While I've nevder wholey subscribed, and still don't, to the full meaning of this song. I can't help but admire the faith. Life is something we form, we make and when we do, we have to potential to be anything we are brave enough to become.

So Take this Life and Transform It

Lent Day 2

Yesterday was oppressively long and full. I will have to fulfill that space on another day.

Today, while not nearly as emotional was long, I am actually still at work, and incredible tired. So this is brief.

Take joy in the little things.

In the funny blog post titles (Girl disrupted. I stick to vodka. Champagne is just ginger ale with good freinds)

The comics (xkcd style) i've created to make fun of my job. (I will try to post them later).

Vanilla tea, god love it.

My heart still has longings for more serious things that i don't know how to reconcile with work. Staying in bed and reading Ender. Joining a choir. Making new freinds. Playing Wow (i know, i know, geeky)

Sigh

I just pray it even it self out