I had a dream, and as I have actually been remembering my dreams lately, I thought I would try to get this down...

We were walking on a sea wall - some place cold and misty, like England; it was a foreign place, but it still kind of felt like St. Augustine. There was an older man with us who I didn't recognize, but his presence was kind and it seemed that we cared deeply about him.

Somehow, I got ahead of the two of you. All of a sudden, a gigantic tsunami type wave came and swept me off of the wall, gobbled me into the sea like a baleen whale sucking up a tiny fish. I was dragged to the crest of another wave, and pounded back into the water repeatedly. It was terrifying, but somehow I was staying alive, and there were other people in the water who seemed to have removed themselves from the vicious cycle. They kept telling me to take a deep breath and dive, dive down into the cold, unknown depths and eventually I would escape to a small beach that capped the tide line.

So I did. I guess I miraculously turned into Aqua Girl, because I held my breath long enough to sink down into the navy blue calmness and free myself of the crashing waves.

Once back on land, I was frantic to find the two of you, scared that you had been swept off into oblivion. But when I found my way back to the sea wall you were still there, hands in pockets, having the kind of solid chat that is rare and meaningful. I don't remember wondering whether or not you noticed that I was gone; I just marveled over the fact that you were still there, waiting for me to return. The panic dissipated as I realized that you were safe, and I was safe, and we were together again.

It was a good dream, it was a dream that meant something to me - perhaps that you represent the calm in my stormy psyche. And the old man? THE Old Man, maybe? Walking along, having a chat?

Did you know that God was by your side?

Repost. To remind myself. Trying. But could try a lot harder...

Friday, December 25, 2009

Before the inspiration dips below the horizon of my heart...

"I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen." Say Anything

I am starting to know when something is right...I feel it. I just know. I don't question it. It just is. Like an instinct. Like the sky. No doubt in the addled brain means a lot. But I am also learning that even though I know something, it doesn't always mean anything...because some of the feelings that I have, though valid, can't ever breathe the light of day if they are not shared. Other feelings are significantly mine: when warmth spreads through my belly: inspiration. When my pupils dilate, my lips part and my skin tingles: excitement, curiosity. When I isolate myself on the island of my cold side of the bed: loneliness, self-induced. When my toes hit the sand touch the waves: my spirit, my home. When my throat feels closed, tight, tense: mute. Oh yes, mute is a feeling to me; not using my voice, burying myself under a mountain of each other person's expectation will be death by silence. And it will be a quiet, hurtful violence if I allow it to happen.

It is ok to feel in color, to hear so acutely, to bundle up each tiny emotion in it's own unmarked box so that I am never sure what I am pulling out of the attic of my soul. It's ok to want to fish with the egrets in the salt marsh and covet Christian Louboutins: pumps, black. It's ok to be wrong, it's ok to fight when I am right, even if that means everything around me will change. It's ok to want it all, from one opposite end of the spectrum to another.

And it's ok to be afraid, as long as that fear is an impetus. Because if I don't take my respect for the things that I love and turn them into something useful for me and the world, it will be a waste. No one can write about the heart-breakingly beautiful shades that the intercoastal can be on any given day like I can. No one can wax poetical about her love of a small beach town and live in the greatest, craziest city in the world like I can. No one can talk my particular brand of smack and use the same mouth to sooth a fussy child like I can. No one can feel people and read people and really see people like I can. I can, I only have...all I have is to try. But I know before I can do any of it I have to be without fear. I am ok with trying and failing. I am not ok with dying and never knowing.

What I have longed for is this. The words; somehow communicating the intrinsic beauty I see in the things that are special to me. I have been trying to feed the longing with other things, I have been thinking that what I ache for is him, or that thing, or this place...when really I have been aching to be me. It all makes me stupid with distraction, discouraged that I can't seem to get it right and no one seems to get it. But I am not trying to be anything but a fraction of me, a shadow of the dark, sweet, honored power that I posses. I ignore and I pretend and I smile and I hope for the best, but nothing else will mean much until I use what I have at my fingertips...my very own heart. No one can see it or judge it or measure it, only me.

My gift is me.

I feel like a flower bud
Or a nut that is being
Cracked by sheer force,
Determination...
And maybe a pointy tooth

I feel like something that is
Opening
Changing
Growing.

I met this fabulous lady at the bank yesterday - older, walked with a cane. She had on a black hat, but the rest of her outfit looked like she said "I can't decide which color I want, so I think I'm just going to wear them all today." Multi-colored scarf over a patterned blazer. She was a black & multi-colored rainbow.

We had reached for the same pen when filling out a deposit slip - I of course deferred to her because she was older, mostly, but also because she was so stinkin' cute. I got in line for the tellers before she did and, I'm not gonna lie, was kinda relieved because ya know how old people are...slow. But I turned when she approached and as we exchanged a smile, I chided myself for being a jerk and asked her if she would like to go before me. She said "No, thank you. I just had my physiotherapy and I feel rejuvenated." So there, Kelly, for thinkin' she was nattering and feeble. We started to chat about the price of gas and the necessity of planning trips. She explained that she wasn't one of "those people" who complained about prices today because her father always said in life, you have to roll with the punches. Evidently, he also said "remember the $25 days" which I had never heard (even googled it, no help there) but took to mean the days in which a family could live off of $25.

It seems like her father was a pretty awesome man, because he was a fan of one of my favorite sayings; it's an oldie but goodie "never follow the crowd...I hope if everyone else is jumping off of a bridge, you are not." As I listened and took in the features of her face I was just totally delighted by her presence, even in that little slip of time. I always want to collect these cool people that I meet, but I have come to learn that they are probably just there in that time and space for a reason. Whether it be to brighten each other's day (I am sure she was surprised to find that I wasn't a twit because of the way that I raced to the line to get there before her; I'm not subtle) or remind each other of something, as in this instance, a thought that needs to be reinforced. I am an absolute fool over people like that, who are clearly their own person and tell you neat little tid bits that make your day. But I don't let that adoring girl come out much...only with strangers who I will never see again...makes no sense, does it?

Thing is, if we pull our heads from out of our asses for long enough, we find that we are surrounded by these people. I really think you attract to you what you are looking for with the energy that you perpetuate; the vibe that you give out. So, it's important to concentrate on positive ish instead of worrying all the time. Perhaps if I stopped worrying and engage that adoring girl part of me a little more, I'd deal less with d-bags and more with delightful creatures.

Common doesn’t write his lyrics down. He rhymes out loud until he finds the words that he wants, then he just memorizes them and lays the track. He is dedicated to his art.
I avoid mine like the plague. Wtf for, you might ask. Is it my grossly abnormal, debilitating fear of failure? Sure. Is it that I will not stop long enough, sort out my time sufficiently enough, be still in my heart and my mind long enough to hear the words that have been jumping around in my soul all of my life? Absolutely. Ab-so-freakin-lutely.

I think sometimes I know my worth and the height, depth of all that I am capable of. Sometimes I am able to feel the rich beating pulse that is my voice, I am able to put my finger on it. But instead of recognizing it as my life force, I let it quicken, then fade. WHY do I DO that?

So in order to get your blood flowing, clear you head, hear your voice, you have to just stand up and move, correct? Maybe stop asking why, just see what happens when you stand up. Take that famous one step to start a journey.

Yes, Kelly. Another one. Actually, it's not so much a new path to start down, it's the one you've been meant to be on all of your life. You've just meandered around a lot of other paths, snake trails to highways, in order to find this one.

So, in essence, shut your face and get to steppin'.

It settles around my face
A black, lacey veil, coquettish, at first.
It settles and starts to cling
The slight breeze of bantering light
Not enough to ruffle it anymore…
It settles and begins to constrict
Tightening so that it is no longer possible
To push my fingers between it’s black iron lace
And the lily livered skin of my neck.
The veil wants to become a shroud.
In utter terror, I look round to see what’s tightening
This sweet little noose round my neck
Imagine my surprise when it’s my hand
Holding that length of rope
Just long enough to hang myself

3 Pages:

I found this poem in Tattoos on the Heart this morning, thought it was beautiful:

With That Moon Language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them,
"Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying
With that sweet moon
Language
What every other eye in this world
Is dying to
Hear.

- Hafez

I saw a peeper this morning...a teeny little green frog who was sitting on the doorframe as I washed the glass.

He was bright green with brown tipped tiny "fingers". I had just been thinking of you, and then there he was. I took a picture of him and I wanted to send it to you.

But I didn't.

I am stunned everyday by how crappy this world is. Even though I try my hardest to see the best side of things, the fact of the matter is that everything, ever-y-thing is just messed up. During my bleeding heart days I believed I could change the world if I prostrated myself at the alter of do-gooding. As cynicism and awareness became my constant companion I realized that making a martyr of myself for the good of others wouldn't be helpful and if I wanted to change anything I had to start with myself. And by being my best self, maybe I could positively influence others. Not so much with the broadstroke changing of the world, more one day at a time one person at a time, starting at me.

In being myself I have begun to be very protective of my energy. People will steal it - they may not even realize it, but if they do not know how to create their own, they feed off of other people's energy, like vampires. They take and they don't contribute; the relationship is not symbiotic ("two entities that need each other to survive and prosper"). I choose to surround myself by people who have cultivated their own energy and can share it, and take from me, so that we can learn and grow together.

In wanting a companion, a partnership for life, I hope to find this symbiotic energy relationship.

Do not simply believe what
you hear just because you
have heard it for a long time.

Do not follow tradition
blindly merely because it has
been practiced in that way for
many generations.

Do not be quick to listen to
rumors.

Do not comfirm anything just
because it agrees with your
scriptures.

Do not foolishly make
assumptions.

Do not abruptly draw
conclusions by what you see
and hear.

Do not be fooled by outward
appearances.

Do not hold on tightly to any
view or idea just because you
are comfortable with it.

Do not accept as fact
anything that you yourself
find to be logical.

Do not be convinced of
anything out of respect or
deference to your spiritual
teachers.

You should go beyond
opinion and belief. You can
rightly reject anything which
when accepted, practiced,
and perfected leads to more
aversion, more craving and
more delusion. They are not
beneficial and should be avoided.

Conversely, you can rightly
accept anything which when
accepted and practiced leads
to unconditional love,
contentment and wisdom.
These things allow you time
and space to develop a happy
and peaceful mind.

This should be your criteria
on what is and what is not the
truth; on what should be and
what should not be the
spiritual practice.

-From the Kalama Sutta, The Buddha

It seems that addiction, or any self-destructive behavior, starts when we walk out of hearing distance from our own voices. We listen to our parents, our church, or teachers, our TVs and radios, and we are rarely told to listen to ourselves, our souls. Once we are released on our own, we have no idea what to do with ourselves without being told by outside influences. We trip, we fall, we fall again, and again and again, and because of what we are taught early on, we see this as failure. We feel guilt, we hate how the guilt and the "bad" emotions feel, so we ignore them, we try to numb them, we bury them and in doing so bury who we truly are. As so many wise people have pointed out, you cannot have good without bad. It is impossible.

This is not to say that we should not listen or learn from others, rather, we should discover our own set of My People who speak to our souls. It seems that the soul needs constant renewal; from beauty, from struggle, from joy, from trial and error, from wisdom and freedom and wishes color and successes and victories.

If we ignore our soul, we become lemmings, and once we realize that we are being led to the cliff over the sea, it might be too late. Though I am coming to believe that even those lemmings could've said - "whoa. Wait a minute. We're gonna do what now? No thanks. I'll just step to the side and live."

I held my heart
in my hand
this morning
my brain was so busy
that when it gave rare pause
I thought that my heart
had stopped beating
my palm tensed
my thoughts whirred
and my heart began to race again
did it stop beating?
or did I forget to listen for it?

Smack of cool wind
Pushing on dense, hot air
clouds in the sky
like steel grey sponge paint
on a lightening white wall
Shivering trees
a storm holding its squalid breath.

Reckless and loose and renegade
uncaring, unfeeling
deceptively soothing rumble -
then a bright menacing flash
and roaring
demanding attentiveness
to its power

A mash up of
sight and sound and pressure
making ominous foreshadows
my God, in your infinite wisdom
How do you paint
such a clear picture of
how I feel inside?

I just found 4 more journals. 4 more.

I have been looking for it, that inspiration, that thing I need to succeed in this...I have been looking for it outside of me. Which is good. That should always be, in order for things to be balanced.

But I think that it is time to find it inside. I think I am ready.

Music. Music makes me cry. Like a hungry baby. A soul aching for a cleansing. Touch me please, so I can feel. Alive instead of numb, feeling instead of thinking. My brain is a force for my heart to reckon with and most of the time my brain overpowers and poor, poor heart. It cowers. But music restores it's strength and it's belief that the struggle to be ok with emotion is not all in vain.

Ben Harper's Welcome to the Cruel World album makes me particularly ridiculous. There was a time when I lay in my bed in the dark and looked out the window at the stars while that album looped over and over through my consciousness. Rare are the times that I will be still long enough to do that; I believe that those songs and that stillness were healing me. Since I was prone to breaking myself over and over for no aparent reason, it felt so good to surrender my bruises and scrapes to something outside of me that could tend to them. So that I didn't have to do it for once.

One song, The Three of Us...Ben doesn't even sing. No words, just two guitars. And it's like the guitars are speaking...more than just words. It's like he gets that sometimes words just aren't enough to communicate how you feel, there aren't enough words in all of the world sometimes to give justice to that beauty, that hope, that rage, that despair. So all of that gets infused into the guitars, the notes become the words.

When I am tired of all of the words, music is my solace. Something to curl up inside of and surrender.

(May 2001)

Remnants of sandcastles
dissolve in the sunset
sweetly forlorn;
minute statues
built in honor of
the blissful day.

Most of the series of poems above and below were written in my late teens early twenties. A few were written when I was 15 or 16. I knew that a book of my poetry existed, but I thought the contents were paltry at best...but there are 43 poems in this one book alone. I am a little shocked that I had forgotten this, how much I loved writing these words, and the fact that I have so grossly underestimated my ability to communicate what I am thinking and how I am feeling...

I can't believe that I lacked such faith in something so dear to me.

Wow.

(Written sometime in 2001, 2002)

Every light in the house
is on
trying to drown out
all of the things
that we didn't say -
darkness shifts around
in the corners
waiting to seep into my light
and permeate my brain
my heart beats
ever now and agian
it's only doleful desire
to beat for someone
with another heart
dancing in honest light
intoxicated with love
that is so powerful
it could never create anything
but what it is -
Truth.

Deficit In Philosophy

Exhaustion gained
after much sleep.
Distraction to the extreme,
Fidgeting
Fighting
Then taking steps forward
back towards what
away from that.
Explosion?
most likely,
although contingent on the
Facts
THAT CHANGE
scattered ecclectic collections
forever to deplete
my store of
Sanity.
I struggle
against chains
that tighten as I move.
Peace answering me
must consume my
Raging contempt
seal my hot mouth,
bind my contradictory wrists,
and shut down my brain
so I can Breath again,
normally.

I might imagine
that I look a certain way
a carefully crafted facade
not fully done at the seams
whether it be nails
or string
or fine silk thread
that I use to keep it together
it is faulty material
and it is not working

Things
grotesque unsavory and unflattering
Things
leak out, ooze forth,
staining and spotting and spreading
horrified I see it coming
I see the tiny leak, the pinprick hole
in the dam of ridiculously emotional water
I see it dripping and know it's only a matter of time
before the dam bursts

I could call out, I could shout, I could
stick my pinky finger in the hole
super glue, cement, a freakin' band-aid...
I could do something.
But I don't.
I watch as the infinitesimal speck becomes
larger and grows until
others start to notice
they look work worried
they look at me and wonder why I don't look worried

It's because I knew it was coming
I did nothing to stop it
and I don't know how to fix it
I just sit in my brain and watch what makes sense
become a ruin
and know that it didn't have to be this way.

"You are a girl who never looked in the mirror."

Pictures. Lots of pictures today. I could look at pictures, take pictures, monkey with pictures, all day everyday. I am obsessed with capturing that moment...sometimes I think that I should put the camera down and just BE in that moment; I've gotten better with that, the camera is not as attached to my face as it used to be. But I still get that itch. Maybe I can scratch it now by just doing something with those photos.

Speaking of being in that moment...that Moment's Gaze...I am trying to take each little teeny tiny little thing, every happy happenstance, in as I would a deep cleansing breath. I have the sentiment tattooed on my wrist, figure I should try a lot harder to live by it. It's hard, really hard, to not get caught up and bogged down in the day to day. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not doable.

I'm sayin'...