Don't forget to cut the salvage

Lestor always told us, a relationship is like how we pull the thread on the muslin : the more patient and gentle you are, the easier the thread will pass through the grain without breaking.



I wish they would have been more patient.
I wish they wouldn't have allowed the initial rush of lust, that always so conveniently disguises itself as the 'real deal,' to lead them to losing themselves in one another; totally forgetting who they were as individuals.
I wish they wouldn't have allowed it to break. Over, and over, and over again! Until there was nothing left to tug at.
I wish I could stop getting caught up in the 'what ifs' of a past I do not own.
I wish my anxious hands knew of one relationship that didn't break, like all the threads, I pull too quickly.

Without faith, we're wasting time

I finally bought a physical copy of Marianne Williamson's 'A Return to Love,' and every chapter is slowly awakening parts of myself that have been frozen since my infancy. I have to read it with a pen/highlighter in hand underlining and taking notes on the parts that speak to me, because I love to go back when I am feeling 'lost' and just flip to a page and read what it was that I was originally drawn to and could inspire me in new ways throughout different chapters in my life.

I really liked this excerpt - it's about having faith - and about letting go. I know I need to stop trying to control the things that are not in my control, but sometimes it is so damn hard! But that's what faith is; 'believing that the universe is on our side, that the universe knows what it's doing. Faith is a psychological awareness of an unfolding force for good, constantly at work in all dimensions. Our attempts to direct the force only interferes with it. Our willingness to relax in to it allows it to work on our behalf. Without faith we're frantically trying to control what it is not our business to control, and fix what it is not our power to fix. What we're trying to control is much better off without us, and what we're trying to fix can't be fixed by us anyways.'

Marianne describes our attempts at interfering with the universe as interfering with our 'support system.' She says, "It is important to respect the laws that rule the physical universe because violation of these laws threaten our survival. When we pollute the oceans or destroy plant life we are destroying our support system and so destroying ourselves.

Internally, the universe supports our survival as well - emotionally and psychologically. The internal equivalent to oxygen, what we need in order to survive, is love. Human relationships exist to produce love. When we pollute our relationships with unloving thoughts, or destroy or abort them with unloving attitudes, we are threatening our emotional survival.

So the laws of the universe merely describe the way things are. these laws aren't invented; they're discovered. They are not dependent on our faith. Faith in them merely shows we understand what they are. Violation of these laws doesn't bespeak a lack of goodness; just a lack of intelligence. We respect the laws of nature in order to survive. And what is the highest internal law? That we love one another. Because if we don't, we will all die. As surely as a lack of oxygen will kill us, so will a lack of love.

You gotta lose your mind in Detroit Rock City!

I've been working on a project over break for my upcoming semester... we were suppose to design a sportswear collection based on our 'cultural background,' but I decided since I was a mixture of too many cliche/typical ethnicities that I was going to use the thing that both of my parents had in common 'back in the day' & the one thing that has always personally inspired me: MUSIC! Both of my parents grew up in the Detroit music scene during the 80's and that is exactly what I am using as my inspiration. DETROIT ROCK CITY CIRCA 1980! I am having a blast looking through old photo albums of my mother's and researching the bands that paved the way for the 'scene' that I was apart of during high school. So many laughs and lots of inspiration! Here's a picture of my Dad in his band 'Strand' that is definitely making an appearance on my 'Inspiration'/Mood board. ha ha ha! Thanks Mom & Dad for being such inspirational people in my life, even though we may not have an interesting 'cultural' background you certainly taught me how to be a total ROCKSTAR! xo

Le Baiser de L'Hotel de Ville, Paris

I grew up with this Robert Doisneau photo in my grandmother's house, when she lived in Michigan. I remember always being attracted to it when I would visit her. When she moved to Florida, she passed the photo along to my father, who then hung it in the basement entertainment area of our home. My room was in the basement of our house so I frequented the area where it was on display. I saw it every day. I'd often times find myself sitting on the couch 'doing homework', and then realize I was starring at the photo hanging on the wall, swept away in a day dream; lost in foreign streets of a fantasy world I had built in the fine details of my imagination. Even today, when I think of love and of romance this photo is the image that appears vividly in the movie like memories of my conscious. I wonder if 'it' is as magical as I've made up in my head. Even if its not... [because I doubt it is] I know the love I have to give, is more quixotic than even the most creative of pens could write.

Makers Manhattan de Maison Rose à Rue Cortot

Sarah's hermit of a heart burned [bright.bright.b r i g h t e r]. Reflecting the warmth of his favorite city lights as the bus, she frequently took back and forth from suburbia [aka - Wayne, New Jersey] to her 'city life,' paralleled the skyline so many dreams are lost in. She pressed her flushed cheek to the cold window pane, allowing it to diffuse the fever her body temperature was quickly boiling to. The empty seat next to her mocked the empty bed she so deeply despised back at her studio apartment she shared in the East Village. She sat with her oversized bag in her lap, clutching on to the meaningless possessions that filled it; the little pieces of 'home' she always brought along for the ride, searching for substance in their banality the same way she scanned the streets for a face that responded to human interaction. Sarah's trip back to the city was always this bittersweet. Her heart was torn between two World's, but she loved him and this is where he loved. Passerby's may have described her walk back to 'the cave,' [as she affectionately referred to it] on 6th Street as if she was a giant child and there was an invisible parental like figure pulling her by an apathetic hand. Before she even settled in at home, she'd always meet him at that bar on St. Marks Place, the one that the regulars still smoked inside of, and the bartender was an old man who could probably still remember when the calculator was invented - but, DAMN! Did he know how to pour the whiskey heavy! She'd always find him waiting for her, in the back booth where they first met, and first held hands, and where she first let him kiss her, and where she first kissed him. Sarah loved their personal little alcove, in the 'back room,' away from the busy door that was frequented by foreigners with accents that reminded her of the places she [really] l o v e d. BUT, she loved him, and he was never afraid to take her hand and ask her to slow dance to songs you really couldn't slow dance to. He was years older than her, an intellectual, a graduate, a 'worldly' fellow. He didn't understand her fascination with the banality of the world, especially with the only place she'd ever really traveled to - Paris - he thought she romanticized 'things'. He thought it was a silly, touristy place. He didn't get it. He didn't get it at all. But, that's where she left her heart, amongst the silly-touristy-romanticized streets. That's where you'll find the cleanest parts of her heart.

"What we have here is a dreamer. When she jumped, I bet she thought she could fly."

I write about passion and love that I have never experienced. Maybe that's what comes with being an artist? I'm the dreamer, and the dream.

Splendid Isolation

I fell in love with the way your face lit up as we drove back from the ocean, like you had opened your eyes for the first time to the gallant beauty around you. Windows down, music up, and a full pack of Parliaments to get me home. I couldn't stop smiling as we made our way through the same gapping hole in the Earth that I lost my sanity over seven days prior as my plane descended above the 'West Coat.' Just like a giant cut in the bedrock of LIFE, and we could've been the blood t r i c k l i n g back to where we inherently belonged. Maybe it's just my own sentimental and artistic perspective, but it's that kind of landscape that always sobers my anxious thoughts. Landscapes so grandoise they could make even the nonbelievers fall to their knees in a form of surrender, shouting in to the infinite silence of their heart space: "Thank you sweet Universe, Divine Mother-Father-Everything-God!" Nothing human could have dreamt up such sublime beauty without witnessing creation at its finest first. My hands were numb [as usual!] as we left the rhythm of the metrical tides behind us, but there was a new [e n e r g y] pumping through my stiff limbs. I wanted to reach out with my anxiously cold and clammy palms, to take your hand in mine, to take the initiative this time. But my nerves just refused to deliver the message to my limp appendages. Something more potent than fear radiated into my blood stream and paralyzed my arms safely in my lap.

A miracle is just a shift in perception

"All of a sudden, you're not too proud to ask for help. That's what it means to surrender to God."

5:12 am on Sunday, January 17th 2010
I believe I have experienced my first real miracle.

From this moment forward I surrender my physical body, my mind, my creative talents, my knowledge, my life purpose: as a vehicle to express the love of God that has always been inherent within me.


I will elaborate tomorrow when I am not so emotionally exhausted.


Thank you God. Thank you God. Thank you God.

I GET 'IT'

Bridges of Madison County

'I dont want to need you, 'cause I can't have you.'

Can't find truth in a house of lies

Need to move here.
Need to wake up with sand from last nights dance on the beach still stuck between my toes.
Need to have messy hair from the humidity.
Need to read a book a day.
Need to do yoga in rhythm with the tides.
Need to make the art that I want to make.
Need a b r e a k.

Sand on my feet, ocean in my hair.

There's this panic
settled in the left side of my chest
I can't seem to put a finger on it
Even the doctors can't come up with a diagnosis
science could never explain this d a n c e
It's like you've sunk your hook between the hollow space of my ribs
a pathetic inbred mermaid
being willingly dragged
in the opposite direction of the cerulean sea.

Notes to a friend.

It is the light, not the darkness, inside of us that we seem to always be the most afraid of... you're dark yet lovely missy! Embrace the good and the bad, but know that the laughter is ALWAYS inside of you... let it resonate for all the world to see. It's always there, no matter how 'dark' you may feel. The past [and the negative people in it] is just that: the PAST - don't carry it with you, it doesn't define you. If you stop allowing it to have substance, it can no longer tarnish this perfect moment that is right now! & now! & now! Everything you need is always available in the present tense. The past, the darkness, the bullshit will not service you in the present. So let go. 'If you don't reveal the brilliance you are, the world will be less.' You're an amazing person, don't let the narcissistic people in this world ever convince you that you're anything less than A FUCKING BAD ASS!



Wake up tomorrow morning... HELL, wake up every morning and stand in front of that mirror. You know, that mirror that's been following you through this great city adventure... the one that's now unevenly hung above your bedside table. Take the biggest inhale you've ever inhaled. Notice today's scent. Notice the recycling of the early morning air that's been sneaking in through the window you always keep cracked an inch and three-quarters. Inhale the positives and exhale the negatives. Envision them: like black smoke, being stuffed back out that same obsessively measured crack in the structure you call 'home.' Don't be shy, stare at the reflection in that gypsy mirror. Really look at yourself; examine your slowly aging face. Notice what IS, and let go of the assumptions... the 'what could be's.' It's like drawing, see what's in front of you, and let go of the image you've already painted in your head; you'll get a more accurate picture this way. Look deep into those two gapping holes in your face; those huge eyes that always seem to grab the attention of the strangers you keep praying didn't notice your face in the crowd. If the eyes are the window to the soul, then take this opportunity to peek inside. Discover the truth, the lightness, the inter-being-ness connecting you to the present and everyone and everything sharing it with you. Don't be afraid, let the warmth of the moment thaw the pieces of yourself you've been keeping on ice- let them melt away-away-away! SMILE. Smile back at what'ever it is you find in that space, for this is the truth, and truth will always set you free.

We'll catch a plane to Barcelona, cause this city's a drag

While you were sleeping
I kissed you
alllllll over your p.e.r.f.e.c.t face
in a pattern mocking
the f r e c kles on my bare arm.

Nothing worth anything, ever goes down easy.

'Undeniable' use to be their song...
now 'On and On' seems more fitting.
It makes me cry everytime, still.
I wish I could send this song to them.
I wish music could fix things like it does in my head.

I haven't slept in weeks.

I never realize how much I hate being 'alone,' until I crawl in to this empty bed every night.
I hate the new coldness this season has brought.
and I hate the empty left side... the side I now sleep on, just to feel closer to your g h o s t.
I keep trying to remind myself that 'time alone is good...'
but it doesn't make this empty bed feel any warmer.





"If you can't find someone to walk with you, then walk alone for that period in time. It's loving what is. It's being realistic. It's about loving people exactly where they are and letting them be where they are and then when you're guided to say something and do something it'll have some meaning. Then you won't waste your energy in a whole bunch of "hoo-haa"-what'ever, because you think that somebody else is suppose to understand you." - Greg Barette

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.

From : March 27, 2006
With one foot in front of the other,
The journey is that of an unsteady pace.
Every missed step is matched by an even greater stride.
You choose the unmarked path and dive in; right side leads.
Emotional stability blocks the blows to your ego.
It’s all a gamble; a simple hit or miss.

I believe in the fever to set the stage afire.
I believe in the inspiration to illuminate the loose leaf.
I believe in the wind to coil the tune of a heavenly voice
towards my appreciative ears and sensitive heart.

It's your gamble; a simple hit or miss.
A downfall is an opportunity in disguise.
Just one more strike, to set the wet match ablaze
You’d of missed the glory days, without granting it that
“One last shot.”

I believe in the fuel that ignites the fatigued muscles
I believe in the strength of a single dream.
I believe in the drive, the ambition, the appetite.
I believe in the passion.

I embrace the mystery of life...

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." -Albert Einstein



Ironically I had this quote written amoungst the notes I was using for the paper I was writing tonight on Kuhn's book "The Structure of the Scientific Revolution," and right when I finished my paper I checked my email and the daily meditation email I receive from Renaissance Unity started with this same quote. Ironic, or a sign? Regardless, it's kind of freakin me out!


Dear God,
Whenever I think I have life figured out, something new and exciting
and unexpected happens and I realize that every change I go through
changes everything.
I open myself to the mystery of Your presence.
I offer my heart as a place for Love to live and grow.
I offer my life as a vehicle for Your peace.
So it is!
Amen

The Structure of the Scientific Revolution

"I know it's hard to convince you, but life is too short to be writing conclusions for introductions that shouldn't have been written in the first place."

.. and on that note...
The Lexicon to Understanding Our Lovely Kuhn:
Paradigm: 'to show, an example.'
Definition: 'a term that must be defined by opposing terms.'
For example: In respect to its historicity : internal coherence. Arbitrary : necessary. Ambiguity : modeled or articulated. Structure : revolution. Specification : normal. Past : future.

A paradigm, according to Kuhn, is both precedent and unprecedented. It is open ended and exclusive. The paradigm sets the puzzle, gives the answer and sets the parameters of the answer. The puzzle, the paradigm itself, contains the answers it is set to solve in the first place. Failure within the paradigm brings about a new paradigm. The paradigm, according to our celebrated Kuhn, is self destructive and self solving. The paradigm is the model by which Kuhn views the evolution within normal science. Normal science means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. These achievements can be called paradigms. This movement is not linear or straightforward [like Fleck's structure of self moving history] but revolutionary. The successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science. This revolution starts in what Kuhn calls the 'pre-paradigmatic' period when the facts of the current paradigm begin to be challenged by researches who all confront the same problem in different ways. There can be numerous pre-paradigms existing at the same time independently, eventually a new paradigm emerges from the pre-paradigm competition. To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted. Eventually the other pre-paradigmatic competitors and the previous paradigm will disappear. A paradigm transforms a group into a discipline with it's own facts and books. Paradigms gain their status because they're more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of researchers recognize as acute. This is when normal science occurs. The paradigm is like a box which researchers try to stuff nature in to. There is no effort to discover anomalies, and even when they occur they're usually ignored or go unnoticed. There is no effort create new theories. Normal scientific research is directed to the articulation of those phenomena and theories that the paradigm already supplies. This tunnel like vision researchers have when in a paradigm is important because it allows for them to investigate some part of nature in a detail and depth that would otherwise be unimaginable. It is not until the paradigm stops functioning that it is possible for researchers to become aware of and recognize anomalies. Anomalies are all known exceptions related to the generally accepted pattern of normal behavior. This period of the revolution can be called crisis science which is when the emergence of a new theory is generated by the persistent failure of the puzzles of normal science to be solved as they should through recognizing and analyzing anomalies. Although anomalies challenge the current paradigm, scientists will not loose faith in the current paradigm without another credible alternative. Often times there will be competing anomalies at the same time, or an anomaly will be discarded after being analyzed but further explored by the community in a later generation that has the proper tools to solve the problem. It is the recognition that the current paradigm is no longer functioning and accepting the emergence of anomalies, even seeking them out that can be called originality. The revolution occurs when the anomaly becomes normal, is eventually expected, and this is the internal momentum that regenerates the revolution. Paradigms seem invisible because the revolutions reflexivity is internally moving as a community and the view of history is nonlinear. The understanding comes at the end, not the beginning. To keep the revolution moving, in all areas of science and art, it is important to have originality. It is important for researchers to see the problem that nobody else sees because that is the internal momentum of Kuhn's model. The community must see paradigm change as progress, as we have seen, this perception is, in important respects, self-fulfilling. An idiot can solve a problem, but to keep the structure intact, it takes 'researchers' to take a new view, and discover the problem nobody else sees and reflexively it can reset the puzzle and provide the parameters and answer itself.

'I' before 'E' except after 'C' ?

I always go searching for the things that will hurt me the most. I've spent so much of my life sick and wounded, that I think sometimes this new found 'happiness,' terrifies me. I'm not sure why I felt the need to go searching for the old Ali tonight, but it happened, the stories fell into my lap. The sickness, the disease, the heartache, the lies, the deceit, the darkness, the past. The past that I can never bury deep enough. The past that rises like the bile I coughed up at least a thousand times too much. The old pain that seems to pick away at the scabs of the new wounds, in just the way I like it. I'm addicted to the past that nearly destroyed me, that could still destroy me if I don't just LET GO. I'm letting go. I'm gonna do it. I'm not just gonna walk on the narrow ledge I've been balancing on for the past five years, I'm gonna close my eyes and dive. Dive head first into all the perfect love I keep trying to stifle. I'm gonna fall down to come back up. Back to the now, back to the present tense. The tense I can never seem to write in. I'm gonna let go and let it write itself.

You can't cage a free thing

Baby I could climb down in to your dreams

If a real man like Mat Kearney exists...
I'm gonna find you!

The rhythm of the heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.

As I was getting ready the other morning, I was voicing some frustration to God and asking him for guidance in a certain situation that I am unsure of how to deal with. I have found myself getting angrier and angrier at someone I truly care about in my life and allowing their issues to affect my well being and anxiety. I have been trying to figure out how to help this person but my anger and frustration has gotten in the way of allowing me to find sympathy and compassion towards them any longer. I have been in the same position they are, but I cannot seem to find the strength to put my frustration with them aside to be the true friend I know they need, the support that I knew I needed at that time. As I was praying to God for guidance, to help me find compassion again, I picked up this book 'Heart Steps' that was sitting on my nightstand and randomly flipped to a page unconsciously. I landed on a page with this message on it...

MY SOUL IS A COMPASSIONATE HEART
I am compassionate. I allow my heart and imagination to embrace the difficulties and concerns of others.
While maintaining my own balance, I find it within myself to extend sympathy, attention, and support.
When they are grieved, I listen with openness and gentle strength.
I offer loyalty, friendship, and human understanding.
Without undermining or enabling, I aid and assist other to find their strength.
I allow the healing power of the Universe to flow through me, soothing the hearts and feelings of those I encounter.

It was quite the perfect mantra to open that book too. I have been reading this to myself every day, trying to find strength in these words, and in myself to allow the healing power to flow through me. I will continue to pray that my friend finds strength within their self to feel the healing power of the universe, to choose a healthier quality of life, because they truly deserve it.

Itinerary

2007

I'm so happy I am not 'this' girl anymore.
I am so happy I found peace.
I am so happy I realized I deserved better.
I am so happy I got out of Michigan.
2007, was a BAD year.



'Photographs Don't Lie'
(found on a harddrive from 2007)

He adored her
He doted over her creative imperfections
Always accepting
and challenging her distorted perception of reality
Her actions were even more unclear than her unorganized thoughts
She spoke before thinking
Speaking the truth regardless of how offensive she may be
She lived by one big contradictive policy
Like she was pressing down on the fast-forward button
Skipping over the “unimportant” parts
But still, she was the only one on the opposite side of the lens
The one that he spent years trying to keep in focus
She was always sliding in and out of frame

pretending to not notice his struggle to keep up with her impulsive pace
He took snapshots of her best 
and worst features
each one individually

Telling a story all their own
He took it as his responsibility
trying to convince her of the beauty he worshiped
How could she not see it?

The audience…
they loved her!



Her eyes seemed to reflect the fury of the storm brewing in the gray clouds
and he cleaned up the mess left behind
after the flood gates had been released
Attempting to capture the sympathy of his strong arms
She wanted more than the awkwardness of these situations
Paralyzed by the memories of arms that weren’t as genuine
A distant touch that always seemed to haunt her in the most painful way
She intentionally tried to appear unintentionally needy of compassion
Smearing her vibrant palate of lipstick on the collar of the faces and the places she tried to call home
She was only trying to define the things she would soon suppress to the darkest holes of her consciousness
She wanted to take it all in

and let it slowly seep back out
Conserving the air that would sustain the handful of years she had left in her

Holding her breath in fear of disturbing his peaceful sleep
She wanted to give him everything
Her intentions were true this time
She was scared that everything she had had to give
wasn’t much of anything at all.
He questioned her judgment
Lost sleep over her flirtatious behavior
If her provocatively girlish smile did as much for the other hungry bastards
He knew he was in trouble.
“God damn those bastards!” she silently screamed into the pillow beside him
“
God damn those bastards with their untrue intentions! 
”
God damn those bastards with the untrue intentions who always built up the walls he struggled to destroy
Those bastards never loved her
or even appreciated her
She wasn’t just some body they thought they could abuse
Using for their own goodtime
Always bringing over her favorite wine
in the dark cobalt bottle
With a name they couldn’t pronounce
She sipped on glass after glass
It was the only way she could even tolerate their ignorance
She could never have enough
She was celebrating the pain of their touch
As their hands became more friendly
burning every precious inch of her innocent body
Their dirty hands mutilating her flawless skin
It was like acid 
and every unwelcomed touch scared her deeper
than even her sharpest razor could have cut

Those bastards never caught the moments that defined her elegance
showcasing the compassion she was too afraid to see in herself
These were the moments he fell in love with her again, and again
Despite the demons that sometimes got the best of her
Even years later he couldn’t forget those stormy eyes
and the way they darted about the world she used as her personal canvas
He’d leave parties to recklessly hunt through the libraries of albums he hid in the basement of his subconscious for that one photo
that would nurse all the wounds that never healed

Reminding him how far they had come
and even how much easier it was to loose her
The snapshots he preserved in his personal archives
illustrated the person that he gave up everything for
The person he always wanted her love like he did
In those photos her authentic,
uninhibited innocence was captured
In the candid laughter that still echoed in his not so distant memories
In his photographs her true colors were synthesized
despite the black and white of her scripted persona.
She tried so hard to appear aloof
and untouchable
to even him
But he touched her

and only because she let him
She tried pretending she didn't notice

or even appreciate the prudence that was in his delicately strong hands
Secretly and anxiously she anticipated the next time his welcomed hands would penetrate beneath the layers of her clothes

Muting the burning left behind
With every organic blink
he captured her beauty and rawness in a way he would remember

Everything in life responds to the song of the heart

Mom snuck this book in with the books I asked her to send me, I had read it awhile back and folded the corner on this page...

'MINE IS AN ADVENTUROUS HEART'
-from Julia Cameron's 'Heart Steps'

I choose an expansive life.
I choose adventure, freedom, self-expression.
I choose self-definition, self-love, self-renewal.
Life expands or contracts according to my expectations.
I expect good and that is what I experience.
Viewing the whole, I choose to be interconnected yet dependent.
I allow the force within me to open and enlarge my lens of perception and realm of action.
My horizons stretch ever wider as I define my identity in terms of my divinity.
I am an adventurer, an explorer, a dreamer whose dreams become true.
I embrace the adventure of life.
I have courage.

The girl who's in love with the World

I really love the way the World can make you feel so small sometimes. I really love the people who have come in and out of my life for even the briefest portions of my history; the ones who inspired me to be adventurous, to find the laughter in my heart again, to stop holding back and just open up my wings and fly, to trust in myself and stop being so damn afraid of being hurt or abandoned, to just let loose and dance to the rhythm of LIFE. I really love that I've finally become OKAY with being alone, that I've actually grown to love being a solo act, that I've embraced myself for the loner that I always have and might always be. I really love the way a song can synthesize a specific moment in time, but there's always the opportunity to hear it a different way and it just might make you fall in love with something in a completely original way. I love that at any second of the day I can step out onto my shallow stoop, into this empire of a city, take a walk around the block and discover something or someone uniquely new to inspire me. I love that I can make a person's day with a smile or a corny joke (G.G. always said laughter was the best medicine). I love that my capacity and hunger for knowledge seems infinite. I love that when I feel like I've given my all, I somehow always seem to stifle more energy, to push myself a littler further this time, to blow myself away with my new found potential. I love that I was given a voice, a voice that deserves to be heard, a voice that can speak up for herself, and those who can't fight for themselves sometimes. I love that I was blessed with good fortune, because what a better opportunity to help others less fortunate than I? I really love my family and friends, because without them I just might have given up that one time. I really love the way the World can make me feel so infinite sometimes.

Cold Roses

The clock next to my pillow hasn't worked for weeks
but since when have I been one to be on time?
Days feel like evening and vice versa.
The only proof that time is still ticking away
t i c k t o c k - i n g
in a spiral motion
are those roses.
The roses keep getting colder
hung to dry,
a wreath of my favorite city memories,
on a noose of silk.

Train of thought

"My thing is that I can never write about anything enough. I can never fully explain how much I love stuff. I can’t ever quite get it into the package."

We're gonna float around

Gotta get my space suit dry cleaned.
Andrew said he's gonna take me on a date to visit the moon in December
I'm hoping to catch a star
and if I'm lucky it will let me keep it, as a souvenir to wear on a red string around my wrist.
Btw- I hate the way 'souvenir' is spelled... should be more like souvenier or souvinear. IDK, maybe that's just me.

It's 4:30 in the morning, it's always 4:30 in the morning

The palest of my two palms is sweating...
recollecting
late night fingers
petting
skeleton knuckles

Repeatedly
falling limp

stale
and
clever

beautiful
and
morbid

atop the fleshy spot
your cheek
made home

Sometimes, I wish.
I wish,
I wish,
I wish!
The sky lark
would make it rain...
inside!

Flooding this rejected hideout
Washing away the faintness
of your scent,
disguised as echos
exhaled by sea shells
scattered
on the bed side table.

Episodic visions
of your bare hands
left to loiter
like morning dew
in the six corners
of my freedom

Spiritual Surrender

"How many times have we called on God and then ignored the opportunities he sent? Maybe we didn't recognize them because they didn't take the form we expected. Spiritual surrender requires faith, but it also requires paying attention to opportunities and taking action. We need to look to God for guidance, to keep us on the right course, but we can't expect God to kick-start us every morning and deliver breakfast in bed."
~Kathy Cordova
 
Strengthened by faith, I act upon the opportunities God provides.

Dear Mother/Father/God,
I surrender the pictures I have long held of the way I think things should happen.
I surrender the outcomes I have attached to my goals and plans.
I surrender the problems and challenges I have been holding onto by reliving and retelling them over and over.
I surrender my stubbornness and rigidity.
I surrender the pain from the past and fear of the future.
I surrender any outmoded beliefs I still cling to.
I surrender everything that is not part of Your plan for me.
I accept and act on the guidance You provide when I ask.
I say yes to the new life You are creating in and through me.
I say yes to the rebirth of the Christ in me.
I accept Your will as my own and I let it be.
Amen

Perfect families are boring

Thanksgiving is next week and everyone is talking about their plans of going home to be with their family. I'm not going home again this year, but that's not bothering me as much as just having to think about 'family,' right now. My parents have been divorced since I was two years old, my childhood was atypical to most, but seemed very normal to me. When my Dad and Step Mom got married, I was pretty excited. I was going to get the opportunity to be apart of a 'typical' family. I moved in with my Dad, Step-Mom, step-sister and little brother my Sophomore year in highschool because I NEEDED to feel like I was apart of my Dad's family, apart of their life. We had a big house in a beautiful neighborhood and our front porch looked on to the golf course, my step sister and I went to the same school, I got to watch my little brother grow up, my Dad came home from work and we'd usually all have dinner together, we vacationed together, we laughed together, we supported each other. We dealt with more shit and problems than most families do, but we were a family who supported and loved each other. It was a special experience for me, I needed it. I admired my Dad and Step-Mom's relationship, more than they will ever know, but I guess sometimes the perfect (but crazy) family isn't enough, maybe sometimes love just isn't enough. It's tearing me into a million little pieces to think that when I come home for Christmas we're not going to be the same family all living in the same house together. My Dad's moved into his house downtown, Lisa is living in the house with the kids... instead of having two houses to visit while I am home, I now I have three. I talked to my Mom (via Facebook chat - how weird! haha) and she reminded me that I still have a family, I have her - 'it only takes two people to make a family.' I love my Mom. For the longest time growing up it was just her and I living together, we've always had each other to lean on. It still hurts to know that my Dad's family is being torn apart, but no matter who is living with who, or no matter where any of us end up - we will always be family, blood or not, we'll always have each other. My little brother and sister mean the world to me, they inspire me to fight for what I believe in, to make a difference in the World around me, to stay strong, to see the World for the messy-beautiful thing it is, and I will continue to be there to support them as they grow up and face the demons of reality. It's so hard living states away, pursuing my dreams, when all I want is to hug them all, be the big sister I know they're going to need. I've laid in bed the past two days trying to get a grip on the reality of what is happening, hugging myself, trying to piece myself back together. I refuse to let this situation turn me cynical, I refuse to stop believing in the power of Love. I have a family who loves me, and who I love more than words could express, and that makes me one of the luckiest young women I know. God is Love, and Love is real... I won't loose faith.

You are my greatest Earthly blessing

Today's been tough. Laying in bed just counting the minutes from one anxiety attack to the next. I've never had so much work to do but been so paralyzed by my anxiety and inability to even start anything, or even concentrate on something for more than 10 minute intervals. I never thought being productive or motivated would be a struggle for me. I chose this crazy lifestyle, but sometimes it's hard to be completely alone. I miss my friends, my family. I'm in this big city, with no one to depend on but myself... sometimes, it gets a little tough. It's days like this were I just need a hug, and there's no one - I called my Dad and he reminded me the power of wrapping your arms around yourself, hugging yourself, hugging your inner child. The next month is really gonna test my mental, and physical, endurance but I'm taking it a day at a time, an hour at a time. Making a list, and checking it off.




'I have heard the crying of your heart.
I have seen the searching of your soul.
I know how deeply you have desired to be loved and accepted as you are.
Know that you are truly beautiful.
Love you always.'
(Thank you Dad, I couldn't be luckier.)

I know you better when I'm sleeping

I wake itching
Monday morning
your scent
permeating from
the pillow
buried in my skin
Your tarnished ring
on the night stand
A glass of midnight water
dully gleams back
reflecting last night
into my opal eyes
Unconscious fingertips
claw away
tearing
little pieces of you
left buried in
my too thin of skin
Cleaning
bloody nails
painting self portraits
on your white sheets
a souvenir,
a memento
to say the least.

-wrote this on 11/20/2008

You were holding me honey, kissin my soul

The only man who's made me cry, laugh, dance, and inspire me - all at the same time - in the past 2 years, and I don't even know him! Now that's talent. That's what music is about, that's what art is about. If you can make your listener, your audience feel like they know you, connect with them in such an intimate way that they can literally almost 'fall in love,' with you, with your art - you're doing something brilliant, something right. Ryan Adams, you are a genius. Thank you.


A few of my all time favs...


'Oh My Sweet Caroline'


'This House is Not For Sale'


The best performance of 'Wonderwall,' Ever


'Crossed out Name' by. Dr. Adams


'Cobwebs' by Dr. Adams


'Two' by. Dr. Adams

The guilt of witchery

Sometimes my potions don't work.
Sometimes your brother's ghost haunts our home.
He's a talkative little bugger.
Just wants to sit and discuss philosophy
over a cup of last weeks coffee.
He's a messy little fool of a ghoul.
Leaves me a puddle of memories
to be mopped from the hardwood floors.
I don't mind his conversation
but his mess is starting to leave a stain,
it's shaped like the birth mark on your neck
the one on the spot I use to kiss.
I'm starting to think I can see your face...
in the floor boards,
smudged into the grain.
He won't stop floating about my hair
going on tangents
about Nietzsche
and tragedy!
He's so rude that brother of yours,
soaring right back through the ceiling
rattling the dishes on his way out,
before I even get a word in!
My lips have started to bleed,
and bruise a mosaic of dull colors.
When he leaves, I get to lay with you.
Sprawled on the wet floor,
pressing my cheek next to yours,
I can hear you singing.
Inviting me to dance
into the darkness with you
Deep into the shadowy basement
you now call home.

When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
-John Keats

This gives me hope, every time.

The Dance by. Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation, the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living. Don’t jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!" Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires, spiralling down into the ache within the ache. And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart. Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living. And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring. Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart. And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business without letting business determine who you are. When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price, let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude, knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

Sunday morning omens

I saw a deer crossing the road for the first time ever this morning in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It's image was the forefront in my thoughts all day long. I fell asleep on the bus and the deer came back to me. It led me in a maze-like-path; deep into the forest it called home. I gratefully laid with it in a blanket of colorful autumn foliage. I felt protected and loved. I felt one with The Source, held like a sweet-sweet child of Mother Earth. I didn't want to wake up and to leave the embrace of my morning dream world. Supposedly a deer can be an omen from the God's, a symbol of peace. Deer's are in tune with nature and all it holds. They are sacred carriers of peace and show others how to open their hearts and love unconditionally. I'm thankful for crossing paths with this beautiful beast this morning.

Il n'est rien de réel que le rêve et l'amour

I want to remember what 'it' feels like
to have your dreams realized by someone else's imagination
and to know that time does not limit the road this love can travel
because in this moment, with you, forever is the only answer.