Happy Anniversary Love

April 19th. One Year.

Today there will no musings on the past year spent
There will be no reflections on ground covered, or lost
And no mention of -

Today is new.

And today is mine.

Today she came back. She saw me for the first time in a year.
And she smiled as she cried.

And now its our time. Today, tomorrow...
The world is our big, fat, overflowing bushel of fresh cherries, or lomein...
(we don't like oysters)

So say a prayer of love
or joy
or just contentment
and send it with a smile in the wind

we'll get it - boston's windy




to us
today
to me
><>

you wanna know how I really feel?

**warning** the below entry is rated R due to adult language and subject matter. I do not recommend reading on is you are uncomfortable with cursing or drugs. Recent awful events in my life have been caused by drugs and alcohol and after one more event piled on top, I had to vent my thoughts. I guess I needed to give drugs a swift kick where it hurts- verbally.



what the fuck!

something is seriously wrong with this whole picture. it aint right it just pain and fucking simple aint right
now dont get me wrong, i love chemistry and biology and all the sciences, but they are not supposed to kick you in the ass
why the hell were we made with nicotine receptors for example? and why does this stuff mess with our brains no- no- not our brains- out whole fucking life! everything - it takes away every ounce of common sense we once had. no street smarts, no book smarts, and god knows, no people smarts. you dont know how to treat friends, you lose the ability to even understand what the word friend means- and family- shit- not even on the radar- unless that is, they are your dough. and then - the worst thing about it, is you depend on them- but not like a normal human being- you hate them. and you depend on that hate, because they fuel your habit- but you hate that they do and hate that they dont know, or hate that they do and dont do anything about it- and hate yourself for letting it all happen- or hate yourself for not stopping it.

but how do you stop fucking yourself up

how do you do it
i cant even count on one hand anymore how many people have died trying to figure that out- died. done. gone.
and everyone is fucking up everyone else around them so they dont look like they're so fucked up themselves. its the only way to wake up in the morning, if you level the paying field. but you cant sleep at night. you cant even feel comfortable in your own skin anymore cause you are fucking up peoples lives- you are stealing from them- you're taking a beautiful thing and saying, well, i messed up mine- so you cant have yours either. so fuck me

this is not a storybook- or a fairy tale- there is no happy ending. and whats worse is there is no resigned sad ending either- because there is no fucking ending.

ps

and it still sucks Jamie

musical musings

within most every second of the day my body and mind are bombarded by thousands of sensations and stimulation of the good and bad. it has recently hit me that that same phenomenom applies to my heart- my soul.

its not that I wish to spend hours musing on the complexities of all this, or the immense simplicity- just needed to say it out loud. sometimes you have to do that.

your mind knows that you grow up, and your reflection tells the same story, but its hard to convince your heart that it has moved on, when everything that it is encountering has held residency some 6 years earlier.

and i am also baffled by the unproportionate years of life that we spend here. Simply put, we spend about 1/8 of our lives as children and the remaining 7/8 as adults. Who came up with that? Explain it.

And what does one do when they are daily tormented by the wanderlust to get up and get out and the utter longing to finally feel at home?

Dance...

Dance when you're broken apart
Dance if you've torn the bandage off
Dance in the middle of the fighting

Dance in your blood

Dance when you're perfectly free

Broken Mirror

There are pieces of me
My goodness within
They are scattered, they are shattered and windblown
But I'm going to find me

Are you expecting the world
I can't even give you an island
Perhaps I am overthinking you
And all you want are the desires of my heart

Its time to stop
Carrying other people's burdens
Their hurt, their grief, their pain
Its time you let me care for you

Say cheese... please

You never smiled in my pictures.


I am so tempted to just leave this post as is, with just that one line, because I feel that is all I need to say. But for those who may actually read, I suppose I owe a thought or two to make it worth your while. And besides... I don't need to worry about you reading this and feeling exposed, you probably don't even know I have a blog.

I recently had the honest pleasure of speaking with you on the phone a week or so ago. It was the first time we had a conversation that didn't sit of the fence of being superficial and painfully truthful in over 6 months. It was actually beautiful. So, I have been thinking of you on and off, a bit more than before, but in a grateful way. With gratitude for our friendship. And in gratitude that neither of us let ourselves get in the way of that. And dont get me wrong, we still have a long way to go in moving out of our own way, but it was a giant skip foward.

When I find myself in these moments of nostalgia and quiet joy, it naturally comes across my mind once or twice how we didn't quite become what we wanted so badly to be. Everything to each other. And a complete inability to grasp how such a forceful will and heart-strong desire could not be enough to make it work.

It was in one of these moments that I pulled out a few DVDs, in amongst which I had stashed your photo album. It fell out as if on cue, and I looked at you. And then I smiled to myself. You didn't.

You never did. You would hardly ever let a picture be taken, let alone smile in it. After almost five years, I can still carry every photo of you that I own in a 10 page photo album. And half of the photos are of your apartment. And I just needed to let you know.

You can take it as an explanation, or as a complaint, or anything you need it to be. Because it is everything I need it to be. Its sad, its angry, its humorous, its mournful, its sarcastic, its me. It was always me begging you from the other side of the lense...

say cheese - please

. . .

it goes without saying that when someone dies it generally sucks. There are of course varying degrees of suckiness, depending on who you are to that person, or more so, who they were to you. but it has become my opinion that what sucks about death is sometimes not the death, but rather, what our world expects of us afterwards.

solemn faces and clothes. tears at the mention of their name. inability to be happy. depression. the need for friends and family to carry us through.
... and peace after time.

for some there is always peace
for some there is never peace
for most there is a little of both

JD was beautiful. Always will be. And I do miss him.
But there are no tears. And on most levels I am happy.
Yet everytime I hear his name, see his picture, or think of him I feel awful...
Because I feel as if I am not sad enough, not broken up enough by the world's standards.
I want to tell my friends and family that he died, but not for sympathy for me-
rather, sympathy for themselves that they will never know him. or for his wife and his children, that they will no longer sit down to dinner with him, or go on vacation with him.
Or just sympathy for the world. Because it has lost quite a man, and because it is so wrapped up in expectations of pain that is it missing out on the love.

So instead of calling all my friends and telling them, I will just think fondly of him whenever he comes to mind and send a smile and a soft hello upwards from time to time.

He knows that he is missed


he can see the hole in our hearts

Still hanging

sorry it has been over two months... I guess time flies as it drags...

So, there is this ropes course at Camp. About 60 feet up in the air in the middle of the woods. You climb up, with loads of harnessing and helmeting. Hook yourself onto the trees with carabeaners (spelt awfully) and try to enjoy the view without letting your knees shake too much. You walk across wires, you swing on vines, walk balance beams, shuffle horizontally across the sky with ropes in your hands and feet keeping you flat so you don't fall. And then there is the big finale- the zip cord. You stand at the platform and detach from the trees and hook up to a pulley, and fly. Over a gorge. You fly. And then someone catches you and takes you down at the bottom.

I have found myself thinking incessantly about camp these past few months. I think its due in part to the complete joy of life I experience there. Whether its on the bay in a sailboat dodging freighters, or on the soccer field, or suspended in the air in the woods, or as I recently discovered, on the tennis court blasting the ball, I cannot get enough of it- ever. And of course this year was even more difficult- because of the added bonus...

So, quite appropriately I have found an analogy to suit my needs. The ropes course.

I spent over four years on the ropes course. Tackling every new challenge with a great excited spirit and hooked onto it for better or for worse. I learned a lot about myself up there and only looked down a few times, but mostly I never wanted to get out of the trees. I loved it there.

I guess it couldn't last forever ( a concept with which I am still battling) and the time came to get out of the trees. It took a lot of preperation and prayer to have the courage to step onto the platform and to actually disconnect from the trees. It was terrifying. There was so much of me that didn't ever want to leave. And I could fall- I was no longer hooked onto anything but a pulley. But I did. And I sat there on the edge of the platform, seperate from the ropes course- waiting for the next part. Fighting every urge to stand up and reconnect with the trees.

And then out of the blue- I was hooked up to the zip cord. I was connected to a string hanging over a gorge, and I jumped! I don't know how, but I did, and I flew... it was b e a utiful.

And it was over as soon as it began. I was at the bottom ready for the catchers to bring over the ladder and pull me down. But they didn't. I looked all over and called for the catchers to help me out, but no one came. I was left hanging about 20 feet up in the air by my harness- which gets painful after about 30 seconds and really painful after a minute. And still they didn't come.

I have been hangning now, painfully so, for over two months. Missing both the ropes course and the zip cord- and unable to get to either of them. The bottom of the zip cord is at the bottom of the gorge, and there is no way to get back up. Physics won't allow it. But the longer I hang here, the more and more I actually consider grabing hold of the wire above me from which I hang and pulling myself uphill. It would take days. I would fail more times than I could stand. I would get wire rope burns and sweat and be out of breath. I would be miserable. But I cannot fight the urge.

I catch myself trying, hand over hand, small step by small step. On good days I let go and fall back to the bottom and wait. On the other days, I don't get in my way, I let myself try until my arms tire and I have to stop. But either way I am still hanging.

...faded earth tones...

Red Dirt Road
(Kix Brooks/Ronnie Dunn)

I was raised off of old Route 3
Out past where the blacktop ends
We walked to church on Sunday morning
Race barefoot back to the Johnson’s fence
That’s where I first saw Mary
On that roadside pickin’ blackberries
That summer I turned a corner in my soul
Down that red dirt road

It’s where I drank my first beer
It’s where I found Jesus
Where I wrecked my first car
I tore it all to pieces
I learned the path to heaven is full of sinners and believers
Learned that happiness on earth ain’t just for high achievers
I’ve learned I’ve come to know
There’s life at both ends
Of that red dirt road

Her daddy didn’t like me much
With my shackled up GTO
I’d sneak out in the middle of the night
Throw rocks at her bedroom window
We’d turn out the headlights
Drive by the moonlight
Talk about what the future might hold
Down a red dirt road
I went out into the world, and I came back in
I lost Mary, oh I got her back again
And driving home tonight feels like
I’ve found a long lost friend


"its just me"


and realization hits...

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

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. . .

weekend weather

This weekend was my graduation party- sweet times. Lots of people and lots of fun. (followed by some more bar fun and karaoke :-) )

As for the rest of life as it now is being lived... its humid and muggy. Inside and out. Literally and figuratively. And we all know how the heat brings out the best in people- riiiiight. I can't find the energy to do my psych research, and I can't even find the energy to function on less than 10 hours of sleep a night. I keep falling asleep during the days too. I guess I am sorta like a dog. Gosh, I really want a dog too. The past couple of months I have kept thinking about it and realizing that I can't have one until I have a steady place that will allow one. And it doesn't look like that'll happen for another year... man. I have never had a dog my whole life, and I'm 22 and still can't have one. And a fish just doesn't cut it. Not a lizard either. Lizards don't jump up on you when you come home. Fish can't tell when you are sad. I really want a dog...

Anyway- just as the heat as affected everything else, its shortening my attention span massively... so I will have to catch you all later.

try not to let the fog get you down... the haze will clear...someday.

some...er....

yeah, so back in Jersey, and realizing that a lot more people read this than I thought, so it is only fair that I write more often. Quick update for now; I am working as a waitress at a bar and grill over the summer- good money, and right down the road. And presnting some psych research I did over the year at the National Conference in Washington DC in August. Good times. And I'll be going to grad school at Northeastern in the Fall. That's the quick sum up, and the rest...will have to come later. Anyone in Jersey on June 12th? Come to my graduation party. Gimme a call!

Peace
><>

and colors for today... faded, like when your color ink cartridge is dying... hazy...

end of the beginning... or is it the other way?

11:40PM April 26th...only 20 min and technically I will be twenty-two years old. hmmm... I came across a number of thoughts tonight and thought a good way to ring in the rest of my life would be to spend some time with me...I suppose.

Everything that really matters, can't afford to be important.

Because everything that doesn't really matter hogs the spotlight. Its so true. There was a benefit concert tonight for victims of violence and AIDS in Africa. Great causes, amazing organizations. I was asked to say a few words about the situation in Darfur, and I dont mind public speaking, so game on! But I was actually nervous, because when preparing I found myself becoming so passionate about it that my words were a jumble, I was driven by such crazed emotions that I wasn't being helpful, so I had to flush it out and tune it down a bit. It all turned out just fine and everyone got it, but where is the line where passion crosses from being motivational and inspiring to dabilitizing and scary? Just a thought. I dont think I have made up my mind about it yet. but then again, I think we often rush too fast into having all the answers. Sometimes you just need to have a couple things you are not sure about one way or another. You'll live your way into the answer when its time.

But anyway, my original thought was that I had been preparing so much for the concert and the movie the night before and all the publicity because this was really important to me. And the whole time I was preparing I was so bothered that I couldn't do more. I was actually upset that I couldn't tell my professors to give me Incompletes and I would finish it up next semester, but for now I had something to attend to that was bigger than my education, heck, bigger than me. I couldn't do that because I am graduating, and I wouldn't graduate with a transript full of I, I, I, I . A significant portion of our human family is being brutaly exterminated by another portion of our human family, and I have to push that to the back of my mind and heart so I can memorize drugs that synthasize neurotransmitters and all the cases where insanity pleas were reversed.

Everything that really matters can't afford to be important.

And then I am sitting there, and all I can think of is all the chapters I haven't read, and the massive paper I have due in less than a week, and whether or not I can get it all done while maintaining a pseudo-normal sleep pattern. Even when I am there, at an event to save others, I still cannot allow my mind and heart to be fully consumed with compassion and weight because I have to outline my to-do list mentally for the next four hours.

Then I got a headache. No big deal right? But it got me thinking even more. I really wanted to then get home, plug in the christmas lights and take a shower, make some tea and listen to some calm music/nap for a little bit to rest my head. But I felt like a slacker just thinking about that! I had work to do!!! (you have no idea how much self-prodding it took to get myself to take the time to write this!) I thought about the last time I allowed myself to take a long shower, the last time I took a nap, the last time I just sat and breathed without doing anything, the last time I did anything for me, for my soul. I dont even mean in the spiritual sense ( although that could use more quality time too!) I mean that part of you that dances when the perfect chords are played, the part of you that beats a little faster when you see a friend, or slows down when you breathe real deep. Treating your spirit nicely for lack of a better word is a necessary part of life. It is the essence of you afterall. But yet again, everything that really matters can't afford to be important.

We neglect others and we neglect ourselves- because somehow in the scheme of things, we can't afford to give them their deserved weight and attention. Isn't that odd to think that what is most important in our lives is class attendence, gpa's, resumes, papers, studyin' for exams. Exams, peices of paper with text on them. THIS is what is preventing us from caring? From saving? From loving? I guess this is still another one of those things that I haven't figured out yet...

I hope we live our way into the answer soon, because pretty soon there will be a lot less living going on.

Happy Birthday to me... wow.


And just for the record, I am not depressed or upset, as it may read, rather...just disappointed that one of the limitations of humanity is they sorely underestimate their power to change.

And tonight there was a drummer. Jeff. Jeff was beautiful. And no, not in the conventional sense, as a matter of fact, I don't even know the color of his eyes. He actually performed a beautiful canvas of dance...on the drums, yes. He painted the airwaves with his fingertips, elbows, knuckles, millions of different sticks, edges of drums, middles of drums... He closed his eyes and opened mine. He danced with the cymbals. I can't even explain it. It just made me seriously question why the drummer is always in the back - i know its for acoustics, but nonetheless, this was quite the performance.

He looked like he was home.

I wonder what that feels like...

Perfect moments

Amelie moments that must be documented before they are forgotten:

- the smell of old books, especially the sound when the pages crinkle as you turn them

- warm wind blowing in your face. When the wind blows it surrounds you head to toe, like a full body hug from God.

- walking with dangly earings as they tap on my neck and shoulder and gently jingle.

- light rain that when it hits your face it feels like a holy water sprinkling at mass

- when walking to the beat of the music makes you slow your pace down

- the moment when the rain suddenly gets heavier and everyone on cue rushes for the same few safe overhangs and then after a moment everyone is smiling at each other, for no reason in particular. And then once they have their umbrellas, newspapers, hoods, they rush out, but that moment in between, those shared smiles... perfect.

- walking down the middle of the street

- the way puddles dance into life when the raindrops hit

- when it rains, and the trees are partially wet, and part dry and it looks like they are crying

- the moment a magnolia leaf falls. Once the petal breaks off from the tree in the space of time before it hits the ground is a profound moment. So many petals fall unseen and maybe that's why its so difficult for me to look away from the magnolia trees, because I feel as even if I am the only one to see it fall, my seeing gives the petal's fall purpose. perhaps...

- facing into the wind and inhaling deeply so it feels as if the Holy Spirit is giving you CPR and reviving you slightly

- standing in the middle of the little overpass pedestrian bridge by the BU beach over Storrow Drive, watching the traffic and feeling like you are floating and you can breath deep

- at just the right moment, throwing something forcefully and very far


The colors for today's canvas? hues that are humanly imcomprehensable, to be seen only in Heaven.

start
dark magic sparkly hippopotamus walks up
upon his sister once born peace baby
summer bubble joy inside of wet fat ballooned dinosaurly
and she following yellow music friend jumply fed turtle child
clouding has night pig turn light garden butterfly
where she loves squirrel cows with happy
pull out you a cocoon it flew momy for froged
one saw down castle I fly, boys are dreamy
whisper the pink flew or flowery big smelly tree
me cry cool went slow apple rain grow little
dad dug moon at home for hot dog
I who cried am silly green farm boy song or bounce good
sun are red round for spring kittygirl top went silently funny like lake glow
put glad heart owl if cat star mud color have toy
nest is my fast time, or told meowing hand I ate bed
boys are stupid so they do little winter boxen
imagining together, are we nuts? twirls like snow
boys have cooties that were bluest barn he hat and wing funfedly
sometimes I like to run around in my underoos for no reason, was the smart eat
he went daying and came on a woman
Golly! That was fun! and my man had to talk by cactus
sadly his story was thoroughly researched and delivered with dramatic flair to water ran sky
are that was is told in were eras gety a ask the are yess
tell and says is noboys are smelly, getted her goest
she lives an see of the end er


I love my friends... you are all brilliant!!!!

A picture of a human kite. Just thought it was worth seeing.  

growing on

i am not normal. i am not pretty. i am not smart. i am not kind. i do not care.

this was the beginning of an entry of a friend's blog. and although we do not know each others deepest secrets, nor have we spent hours on the phone together, I'd like to say we know each other quite well. So what struck me, was what was on the page, and what she was actually saying, and the regret that I was not there to have the conversation with her and the computer. Sure, to an extent, she is not stereotypically normal, pretty, smart, kind, nor does she care. But, despite all of her arguments against what I am going to say, she is more these things then she knows. I find, on the contrary, that she is quintessentially normal, the epitome of beauty and smarts, unconditionally kind, and more caring than most humanitarians.

But thats not the point. And she knows that, somewhere inside, I know she knows that. The point is what she is REALLY saying. She is doing what the best of us have all done. Found some way to slap at mediocrity and scream out- I refuse to conform and assert our individuality through most any means available. To transform the way people think and to show them that they are fixating on immoment, trivial concerns that are going to be laughed at in a few years, or perhaps days time. To, in a single gesture, reallign the world's priorities and then be able to feel that even if the world doesn't know what's important, you do, and you can sleep easy now.

She goes about this by claiming to not be everything that everyone strives to be. I did that too. I didn't care, or at least about the things I was "supposed" to care about. And my idea of beauty was founded on un-earthly ideals. I said I wasn't what people tried to label me, just to let them know that I was untouchable by their standards. But then life happened...

it always does, ya know. You go through new experiences, learn new things, meet new people, meet new "you"s, and grow on. (I won't say grow up, there is too much immaturity implied with that word, but growing on never starts with immaturity and never ends in maturity, it never stops.) And I have learned something valuable through my recent "growing". That although this technique served me well in the past, it is not the way anymore. Making these statements and living lives that uphold them inorder to be true to yourself is in fact denying very human parts of yourself.

I am not normal. Well, despite how much I want to believe that my free spirited mind and creative edge can justify that line, it simply cannot. Every single person I have met in the world has had those characteristics as well, ( some more than others) but they all do. And define normal... well, no one is, which means we all are.

I am not pretty. Yet another comment out of your hands. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and as long as there is one person in the world who thinks you are attractive, you cannot justify that comment either. Also, compare Cosmopolitan's "beauty" with Michaelangelo's...whose standard are we looking for? Beauty is something that cannot be captured consistently from person to person and year to year.

I am not smart. Oh please! Do I need to say: that everyone has a skill that they do better than anyone else, and also that everyone has someone who can do it better than them.

I am not kind. Everyone has treated someone/something nicely at least once in life. Be it animals, people, collectibles, there is always something that brings out the nice part of you.

I do not care. Then why are you writing?

I can still accomplish what I set out to do then, as my friend does now. I can still shout in the world's face and try to shake them into seeing the futility in their efforts for pointless accomplishments and possessions. But you will find, as I did, that the best way to do that is to not put off all their labels and definitions and show that you are beyond them, but rather to share your humanity and embrace the parts of yourself that are normal, pretty, smart, kind and caring. Say that you are, part what they would like to make you and call you, but it comes with the territory of being a person, and there is nothing wrong, or unworthy about that. You are not pretty and smart because they say to be so, you are, because you are. And there will always be parts of you that remain pretty and smart. What's more important is that you accept that, and it does nothing but enhance the "true you" that is nothing secular or commonplace but, purely remarkable.

inetgrate every color, shade and hue that exists in nature, and paint the masterpeice that is life and living.

I have my music back again. Easter is good. Great, even.

Now if you would excuse me, I am going to paint a mural in the air with the paints I locked away for 40 days. Masterful...