Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Here or there?

When does it happen? The moment when you stop holding onto your pain. If it happens to slip away for a moment without you knowing, the minute you notice, you grab it right back. There is comfort in the chains (as Jars of Clay so perfectly stated). Comfort, familiarity in suffering. Because what are you letting it go for? What are you getting instead? Neutrality? Well, that doesn't seem fair. Call me an overly feeling artist if you must, but I'd rather live with pain and be living, then live with, well, that's it exactly, nothing really. Then, the void that exists from the start is no longer covered by the pain, and you are left with an even larger emptiness.

Then again, I am speaking out of hurt. A hurt that I am sick of feeling. But I can't quite let it escape either. Because the alternative is not appealing. I at least feel alive now. The alternative places me in a haze of existence. Do I have to enter the haze to get out of it on the other side? or can I just stay here for a while until the fog clears and I can at least see what's on the other side, and then let go, with purpose. Or will I play yo-yo with myself? Sick of the pain I enter the fog, until I am somehow led back to the hurt to relieve the absense in the haze? and then back again...

I just want something worth holding onto again.



muted hues...but My God, they are beautiful

Monday, August 08, 2005

3-D me

When you have an experience, or a feeling that you think you would like to relive one day, document it. Use words, use music, use something to place that moment in your memory forever. Write a journal entry, or a poem, or a story. Or find a song, or use a song, or be courageous and write a song. But save it somewhere. Maybe save isn't the best word- becuase then there is too much effort put into the saving and you lose out on the living. But once it has passed, take a moment, and think on it- fondly.
Today I found among a friend's collection of CDs an album by an artist I have never owned, but had borrowed from a friend freshman year, put on my computer and then lost for the past three years. Anyone who has had the experience of losing all their pictures from an important event only to find that all their friends then made doubles of their photos to replace your lost memories would understand what finding this CD felt like. It was almost as if my heart curled up on the edges and gently smiled as a tear escaped... almost.
Its truly beautiful how so many moments, emotions, and events I found on that album. I knew it was important, but I forgot the details as to why. Then I put the headphones on- and it was surreal. There I was sitting at my desk in my room on the fifth floor of the stunning brownstone on Comm Ave with the windows open and the sounds of the city outside being occasionally blown about. I could smell the air, the streets, the dusk. I remembered where everything was in my room, and the huge poster my roomie had over her bed... the tapestries, the closets, and my physics homework. The feeling of the college life. The security and complete directionless present. The thrill of friendships- new ones that felt old and well-worn. And somewhere amid it all, a passionate purpose. Who knows what for- but noteworthy and well nourished by life-experience.
I truly missed that feeling. In a sense it had evolved over the years to experiences of senior year that I can find memories of when I read my journal entries, and play the songs I have written, or even in prior entries of this blog. But that original feeling, the one that I can think on and look at myself in the mirror and feel 3-D --- that was truly missed.

It's not about reinventing yourself... it's about cultivating the self that you really are.

...even amid your world changing.






children's books had it right - can I be a pop-up book?



its about time this canvas had a new color wheel on its way. . .