Eight More January Sunsets

Room For Improvement (I'm still pretty bad at titles...)

Regardless of how inane or useless writing posts on this blog -or writing in general, may sometimes seem, the very act of writing always improves my skill by that much every time.
I'm pretty impressed by how far I've come in the years since I began this blog, and I'm equally impressed by how much I've improved in just the past year. I think I've become much better at flow and the essay format in general, however loosely structured I still write.
The past few months I've sort of made it a goal to write something on here everyday, and be it poetry, essay or stream-of-consciousness, I think that practice has been very beneficial. It's a great way to set aside time to just sit down and write and try to bring it to some sort of a conclusion and structure.
I still very much remember when I felt it was impossible to write an essay, let alone come up with a good title or a coherent ending to said essay. However, just writing every day and not quite holding myself to the essay format has helped me to feel out the structure of an essay for myself, and gain a better understanding of the how and why of essay composition.
Quite often, I feel like my writing gets me nowhere, or isn't of any real relevance or use to the world and its people, but honestly, that feeling doesn't usually last long, and it generates the need and thirst to write. I improve every time I write, in everything I write, and this, I think, is enough to keep me going.

Coincidence or Synchronicity? (A rewrite of "Fly Away")

I.

Walking home

So many invisible people on the street,

Too many lights

This voice will change.

Wrapped too tightly in my own thoughts

A black leash swinging from my hand

Something floats to the ground ahead of me

Catching my attention

Gray and light, drifting like snow or ash

A feather,

I am brought back into the physical world,

And I look around me, feathers falling noiselessly to the ground,

Tiny and the color of soft death,

A trail perpendicular across my own path

So very quiet, so very very quiet

Where did all the sound go? 

A peregrine falcon 

Regards me from the bare bare branches 

Of a long dead tree.

The question of course is:

Was it all just coincidence? 

II.

Dream-walking,

Music playing

Eyes turned inward 

I catch the words just as the song ends.

I am so often too wrapped up in my own head

And I miss the world around me

"I see fire..."

My thoughts are suddenly snapped back into the present 

By a song 

Familiar and unfamiliar,

But suddenly the place ahead of me,

Just down the street--

Doesn't look like home anymore.

So I turn and run,

Loose shirt billowing in the wind

Like a skin shed

And flight taken.

III.

Now every third time I walk that road

I pause just before the fence that leads down the street

To the house I grew up in,

And I wait for that feeling,

Though that was summer

And this is winter

Masquerading as spring. 

One a day, 

The other a dream, 

My life is never just now;

it is then, 

The bridge between past and future;

And all memories live in my hands, 

All seasons dwell in my heart. 

(Click to see them full size and all that.)

All Things Wound Together

A question:
Am I the creator of the world around me?
Or is the world around me the creator of me?

-(It would seem that this sounds awkward and unmusical and a little bit muddy no matter how I write it.)-

A winding-gliding answer:
I think it goes both ways, I create and am created. The path I take is drawn, but also chosen.

I seem to be a woman of few words today...

This is something I did not choose *grins*


I was reading this blog on a college website the other day, and marveling to myself at the craftsmanship of the writing. It's a little bit intricate, but in a way that pretty well covers the entirety of the subject at hand, I think. It's fairly descriptive and it doesn't float off into the air like almost everything I write, it's solid and occupies its space.

So I am doing my best to pare myself down as a person and reach the very heart of me which I guess also translates to my writing, but it feels like a sort of simplicity and spareness of words that's boring rather than refreshing? *shrugs*
I have no idea, but I do think it links somehow.
I have to try, kinda really hard, to wax lengthy and delve deep into any matter. But I guess that's just how it is with such things, no matter who you are. It all takes focus and determination.
That's not something that seems to come easily to me most of the time, determination. I act like I'm good at it, but I'm not so sure anymore. What have I really seen through to the end?
Mostly I feel flighty and like a shallow dipper, hummingbird drinking from the surface of a small pool.

Musing, not intellectually plotting out and methodically sifting every rock from the sand from the dust. They're all full of universes anyhow...

Understanding all of this, though, allows me to consciously choose instead of merely following a path drawn or dug, I don't have to fall into the ruts of my own mind and experience, I can forge a new path for myself.
(For a minute it looked like that was going to draw itself to a close, but the thread of thought continued and I watched it split once again into ten different branches, all a different color and voice.)
I suppose I enjoy following every little path, either physically or metaphorically, and that is why I don't often like sifting the soil to fine treasures. It all looks like treasure, it's all breath-takingly beautiful and fascinating. So either I want to hold and see every treasure, or forget it all and continue on forward with blinders. A horse and carriage in London, don't you know... That's not fun for long though, so then, I suppose, I enter supernova.

You wouldn't believe how analytical I can be, but that's not all there is. That would be why I try to refrain from "I am" statements. It's all good, it's all me, and it changes so quickly. I've said I'm contradictory before, but it's funny how much more even that means now.
Creator and created, so it goes with god? Perhaps, perhaps.
After all, if we are god, if god is within, all around us, wouldn't god look so strangely opposite, though yin and yang are inseparable? God being inseparable from anything, everything, and Good/ Bad, separated by the human mind with the imposing forward slash, really being more gad, or bood than anything else. Black and white, spaced apart and brought together by the word "and", being more of a beautiful swirl and swoop or gray than the harsh straight line between them.

I'm not entirely sure any of this is following, or rather, leading whatever came before it, because the longer I sit here and type, the more my mind becomes a mess of color and static and my eyes light up with the glow from this strange tapestry that seems to be weaving itself from the movement of my fingers, the dance of my thoughts.
The longer I meditate, or think, for that matter, the more my language dissolves into something purely from that space in my heart that isn't entirely of me but is also the purest me there could possibly be. The more parallel universes and strange dimensions open up into milky galaxies and colors unknown by any psychedelic experience.
I can barely follow myself, so how should I expect another being to? I wouldn't personally know if this is a quandary experienced by all or none. I tend to relate my philosophies to all of the world and human race, and sometimes I don't seem far off, but at others I am quite sure I have missed the mark altogether.


To wrap this whole thing up finally:
As with many of the questions I ask, there are two answers, or an answer disguised as two, when really it is one thing of two colors wound together. Perhaps the question should not have been separated into two itself in the first place.
I would say that I am created by my world as I create the world around me; It is a dance, no one partner doing all of the leading or following.

Talking to myself talking to someone else

I can relate to this quite a bit right now. Growing up in this world seems so difficult, and so often it feels like there is no community of support to all the little fledglings trying to take flight.
Sometimes, when it feels like everything's falling to pieces, it's just the world rearranging itself into a new pattern around you, and I really feel like it'll always get better somehow, even if it's just tiny things like noticing a sunbeam on a wall that strikes you as really beautiful, or an old friend suddenly showing up to just give you a hug.
Sometimes, when life and the future feels really overwhelming, it can help to choose just one thing to work towards and accomplish, something that you know you'll thank yourself for later.
This is a song I often listen to when I'm feeling really down or angry or just generally irritable and unsure of everything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8k9rD7lx9c
I hope this helps, dearheart. You are loved. Bless us to bless each other. <3 p="">

Fly Away

I.
Walking home

So many invisible people on the street,
Too many lights

This voice will change.

Wrapped too tightly in my own thoughts
A black leash swinging from my hand

Something floats to the ground ahead of me
Catching my attention

Gray and light, drifting like snow or ash


A feather,
I am brought back into the physical world,
And I look around me, feathers falling noiselessly to the ground,
Tiny and the color of soft death,
A trail perpendicular across my own path

So very quiet, so very very quiet

Did she scream when she was torn from the air?
Or did he escape, missing only a few tufts of soft down?

II.
Dream-walking,
Music playing.

I catch the words just as the song ends.
I am so often too wrapped up in my own head
And I miss the world around me.

"I see fire"

Familiar and unfamiliar,
But suddenly the place ahead of me,
Just down the street--
Doesn't look like home anymore.

So I turn and run,
Loose shirt billowing in the wind
Like a skin shed
And flight taken.

III.
Now every third time I walk that road
I pause just before the fence that leads down the street
To the house I grew up in,
And I wait for that feeling,
Though that was summer
And this is winter
Masquerading as spring. 

Happy Box Thoughts

Subject: Night Walk 1/5/14
Running and walking and talking with Torthadiel, my best friend sister.
We hugged trees and tried to solve the mystery of the footprints spaced far apart in the sidewalk.

1.23.14
Hanging out on Torthadiel's bed all afternoon. Talking and laughing and sitting next to each other all over each other. Reading and surfing Tumblr. My sister makes me happy!

Sledding in all sorts of different light, shadow, and brightness. Afternoon yellow, then sunset orange slashing across the hills. Then deep and deeper blue. At the cabin with C. and all of my family.
  Playing and just worshipping on the walk up, laughing and yelling, eyes wide open, hair blowing in the wind on the way down. Exhilaration. 1.26.14

Subject: a movie night 1.24.14
Watching Red Dog with my family for the second time.
                                                                     So happy
          Beautiful soundtrack

Subject: beauty 1/12/14
Sledding with Yo under a grey cloudy sky.

Every Once In a While (This is Supernova)

Can't apply myself to writing today,
Though the pen scratches at my ribcage,
The birds are making an enormous racket--
And I would throw stones at them--
But I'm a content sort of restless.

Every once in a while I become sick of metaphor
Weightlessness,
But I'm trying to fly,
Alternately floating off and crashing to the ground.

Creativity, today, is an itch I can't scratch,
A rope thrown over a tree branch that won't catch.
Would anybody like to hold these things?
Take them from me and explore them
And give me your own things in return.

How much does the song in your heart vary?
Every once in a while mine becomes this elemental,
Orchestral movie score, and I have no idea what to do with it 

Or how to sing it anymore.
That is the itch that begs to be scratched,
Scales hanging just so,
Ready to be shed at the slightest touch,
But it is an art.

The dance of the girl in supernova,
Brighter than she can stand,
A whirl of color and light;
Singing and drawing and playing the guitar--
And wondering what to do with it all,
Everything begging for another shoulder to alight on.

Did you know that the universe is underneath our feet?
This planet is round,
But it is no wonder we once thought it was flat,
And every once in a while we forget
that the universe isn't just above our heads;
We stand upon the stars.

Wired In Life (rough draft)

Bless you, little one 

The universe is within, without, all around 

You. 

Infinities stretching in every direction

Galaxies in the atoms of my couch. 

Life is so delicate, so rare, 

Everywhere and tougher than nails. 

To hold two concepts in the heart 

May be almost effortless, 

Like the wonder of an octopus changing skins, 

The head is a little bit harder;

Before two things can remember they are one, 

You must wrap them all around with silver wire. 

Sunsets From the Past Month

The power of the opal (Nameless)

(Older than the hills, this story is.(from 11/29/10) I am one who has many head-books in her heart, none of them written down entirely, mostly condensed into short stories or poems, or nothing but ideas. This one was inspired by a dream, loosely inspired. All that was in the dream is merely mentioned in the story. More of an epilogue to the dream, really. It's been in my drafts for a while, so today I decided to touch it up a bit and just post it. Not a bad piece of flash fiction, terribly sentimental and saccharine, but I've chosen not to care too much.)

They watched the lights play out in the night sky as he held her in his arms. 
It was the end of all they had known, and what they had known was not pleasant. The pleasant times were to come in the many years ahead of them. 
    He looked down into her eyes.
    "What's the moral of this story?" He asked, his eyes searching her pale face as he tilted her chin toward the sky.
    She regarded his satin-blue eyes, and seemed to consider her reply for a short time. At last she spoke,

    "Why should there be a moral?" She questioned in turn, 

    He laughed, "Ah, I am afraid I do not know, I guess we'll just leave that to the bards, the poets, and the harpists."
    They laid down together on the dewed and singed grass. The flashing lights drew to an end as they slept against each other's shoulders. 

A few years later, after the the time of hard work and diligence in the building of their new civilization had come to an end, they took their evening walk, and 

she found a paper pasted to a stone wall. 
    "Look," She told him, indicating the paper with her outstretched finger, "Someone has written about our adventures." She gazed wonderingly at the paper, her head tilted to one side.
    "Why would someone write of us and post it in such a public place?" He wondered.
    "It is strange, Isn't it?" she said, her hair shone in the late afternoon light, "I've read the news my entire life, but I've always thought stories should be told out loud by a bard, or a poet. They give so much more life to the characters, the places and the deeds."
    The man peered closer at the paper.
    "'By Bartholemew St. James', do you suppose that's the Bartholemew St. James? That crazy old monk you used to know?"
    "It could be," She replied, also peering closer, her eyes narrowed in thought, "That's definitely the way he spelled his name." She giggled, holding her hand to her mouth.
    "It certainly merits a reading, then." 
    They both stood in front of the red-brick wall, holding hands, motionless and attentive for some time.
    Soon the sun began to set behind the mountains, causing glorious angel-pathways (as she called the beams of light that shot from the clouds) to dart out all over the darkening sky. After some time spent in silence, the two of them came to the end of the story. 
    They slowly turned and looked at each other with wonder and satisfaction on their rose and umber light-tinted faces.
    "I rather liked that moral." He said.
    "The ending was best." She agreed.

Update

New post to my Art Page, just thought I'd let you know.
http://amonielmuse.blogspot.com/p/for-to-post-art-experimentive-at-moment.html

Three SUNbeams

"A primary cause of suffering is delusion: our inability... to see things the way they truly are.... The world is in face a seamless and dynamic unity: a single living organism that is constantly undergoing change. Our minds, however, chop it up into separate, static bits and pieces, which we then try mentally and physically to manipulate. One of the mind's most dear creations is the idea of the person and, closest to home, of a very special person which each of us calls "I": a separate, enduring ego or self. In a moment, then, the seamless universe is cut in two. There is "I"--- and then there is all the rest."
John Snelling
(The substantially small, and infinitely huge. No wonder when we are separate do we feel so tiny and insignificant.) 

"The hunger of the spirit for eternity-- as fierce as a starving man's for bread-- is much less a craving to Go on living than a craving for redemption. Oh, and a protest against absurdity."
Storm Jameson 

"If logic tells you that life is a meaningless accident, don't give up on life. Give up on logic." 
Shots Milgrom 


From the "> 278th issue

There was also a fantastic essay in this issue that I loved very much, sadly, though, there isn't a link or anything online as far as I can tell.

On a longboard ride a few weeks ago

Fossilized Bell Tones

Beat this crystal and ether
Into wood and stone.

Instead of floating away,
Make it crash to the dirt

With all the jarring cacophony
It seeks to deserve

About Stream-Of-Consciousness

Every once in a while I must scratch the accumulated scales
From the inside walls of my heart and ribcage
Onto whitespace, uninhibited and free,
Let their sharp wings flutter unbound by walls and cages
Linked together by tails of the breaths taken between words. 

Colored Deep In Mind

I feel like a horrible writer. Most of what echoes voicelessly in my mind and heart is perfectly articulated by so many other people. So what use would my own unique experience, not so unique at all, be to anyone who has encountered so many other perfect prayers and poets? I cannot even write of something or someone without relating it to my own heart, and I don't know what this has to do with the previous sentences, but it makes me feel acutely self-conscious. Maybe that self-consciousness is a part of my imperfect but somewhat truthful, though terribly fractured way of putting myself in others' shoes and peering at myself through their eyes. 

But these silly, silly cries of pain, oh Seymour, do not matter because I am dramatist. The child still asks, simplemindedly and innocently, "but why should it not matter? Why shouldn't there still be something under it all?" We are all wounded I suppose, but why would that make any individuals' wounds any less important, to them or others? A wound is not healed if it is ignored because it hurts to touch. It must be examined thoroughly, prayed over, medicated and bound. 

Can you see me perusing the book-shelves of my ribcage, pulling out one tome and selecting a passage before moving on to the next book and running my finger down its pages to find the words highlighted in my own rainbow blood? But then, would I even know if you did the same in your head? 

A Zen master once said a person can not exchange even so much as a fart with another person. This is something that still puzzles me; I understand, I think, the meaning and thought-process behind this, but in my experience, in my great dream, it does not seem true. I am a sponge to life and people and beauty and nature and animals. I am a sponge in my own experience, and so, all I am is not entirely of me, or rather, it is entirely of me in relation to my life and all that entails. Oh god, I share and am shared by everything, life running through me and you and the stones on the ground. 

I read "Seymour: An Introduction", and I marvel at the flow of words and the brightness of every person, of Seymour, and the illuminator that is the narrator, Buddy Glass. Neither of them exist anywhere but in the mind of JD Salinger, but, love, they are so real, it is like they created themselves. Children of the mind, as it were... How strange, how beautiful. 

Seymour living, breathing, dead; but also a mirror, reflecting you and me and my father. But you see my quandary; why should I write so clumsily when everywhere I turn I see my own heart reflected in the minds and works of other people? It's funny, seeing this makes me feel completely inadequate, but it also awakens that deep itch to write and draw and try my very best to splash my every color every where I can. Both writer's block, a brick wall right in front of the nose; and writer's wound to cause blood to pour through the fingertips onto the page, or keyboard. 

Writing and drawing and photographing often drives this itch to distraction, because I see this light, and I feel it on my skin and across my ribs, but it does not transfer well to any page, it seems. And still, even if it did, would it still be what I saw? I am an imperfect translator. But I suppose it wouldn't be so bad, everyone sees everything differently, coloring it with their own brush. I can not make them see what I see. And I suppose that would defeat the purpose of sharing it with them, which would be to watch it under the light of their experience. The very same reason we converse with other human beings instead of sitting on the ground and talking to ourselves and the vast emptiness of personal god. 

If You Are My Friend, Chances Are The Same Applies To You

I think and say often that our baby boy is so loved, he has eight other siblings and two parents who adore him. The thing that struck me yesterday, though, is it is the same for all of us, we have a large family, and we all have ten people who love us dearly and know us so well. And that isn't even counting how much our friends and extended family care for us. God, we are so loved.

(Feeling Out This Essay Thing Still) Early Morning Discussions

Oftentimes, when I converse with my mom, we'll be discussing something, and I'll sum it up, and she'll tell me "You should write that!". I'm always a little taken aback, but I also think "hey, that subject," (whatever it is) "would be kinda fun to write about." The problem is, I never seem to get around to writing that stuff down, and by the time it occurs to me that I ought to try, I've forgotten ninety-percent of it and it's muddled besides. I can't figure out how to word and organize it, let alone write a draft of it, and the more I try to write, the more I forget.

I'm not sure I've ever managed to write the things I discuss with my mom. It's reoccurring, but I don't think I've ever really tried. It's not like I totally ignore mom and forget; I often make note and think "Yeah, I should write that. I'll have to try that out tomorrow...". But tomorrow never comes, and I never even make note of the subject or idea in my journal. 

As I write this, the idea occurs to me that the essay formula has the potential of being a problem-solving tool in that it forces you to map things out and come full circle with some sort of a solution to a dilemma. First you present the idea, or problem, sum it up and then come to a conclusion. Unfortunately, this idea is sort of muddy in my head right now, I think I've been carrying it around for a while, but this is the first time it's sort of emerged and it's still not developed. 

Now, if I could figure out how to properly explain and outline this idea, I could use it to actually write about the things I talk about with mom sometimes. I could state what I've already figured out with mom, and then extrapolate and draw them out further. I could develop my ideas in-depth, and in doing so, share them a bit with whoever feels like reading about them. 

I don't usually get around to writing the things my mom tells me I should. Since I've become aware of this, I can now figure out what to do about it, because I would like to start writing more thoroughly about anything I can think of. Perhaps what I should do is write things down when my mom and I speak of them, and then afterward, sometime during the day when I just sit down to write anyway, I can pull out those notes and use them to explain and further explore the philosophies and concepts we discuss. 

Saturday Morning

Thoughts on "The Artist"

One would think that a black and white, silent film would be hard to make and hard to watch in the modern world, this time of 3D films and surround-sound systems, but contrary to this thought, a silent film is still great fun and possibly far more poignant that anything else out there in this present age.
A couple days ago I watched "The Artist" with my family, a film I've had my eye on for a very long time.
It was fantastic, everything I hoped it would be, though rather painful; one of those movies that leave you laughing with a wound over your heart. Hard to describe, but some films get right through all of your defenses, and tragic or not, they leave a mark right in the core of you.
Somehow, this black and white, mostly silent film managed to captivate all of my siblings, who have been quite outspoken against such movies for a long time. Still, they watched entranced and terribly interested, and discussed many of the things happening in the film as they happened. That's not really something one can do while watching a "talkie"; too often something is lost in the time you speak to another and hear their reply while the characters are conversing onscreen.
It was incredible how nuanced and full of resounding symbolism and imagery "The Artist" was, tools perfectly complimented by the back drop of monochrome colors and a soundscape empty save for orchestral and piano music. It's rather amusing, "The Artist" was in itself a work of art, perfectly sculpted and woven and tied up tight.

Bless Us To Bless Each Other

Quiet falls once again

My voice having grown strange, 

Then familiar

I look at the black beads in my hands, 

And am struck by their weight and meaning,

More than was there before

Every-day Meditations

I
Bread dough--
rough polish on my nails

--Sometimes I forget every-day meditations
for the ethereal allure of cocooned spiritual practice
and living

--But the idealistic future
lives no where--
except the present,

if you'll let it


II
My heart is made of galaxies
but it's also grown over,
twisted through
winding ropes of knuckle-kneaded
bread dough-
and my prayers, my meditations
are grounded in

The hugs of little children
"Goodmorning!" sung from a friend across the valley
Sunrises
Kisses
Simple poetry
Incense lit on my dresser
My native landscape
and
You

Tercet about a birdcage

Yes, it is true that I guard my heart

But every once in a while I remember that my shoulders

Are not the thing that keep me upright.

One of those nights of vivid dreaming

(I figure it's an experiment in storytelling, if nothing else...)

In a grey stone cave some way from a road in a forest a hunter stood with his gun in wait. 
In the cave, looking out, sunlight poured in through cracks and holes in a side wall. A magnificent stag slowly entered, his heart exposed on the outside of his breast. It would be terrible to watch this animal die at the hands of the grizzled hunter, who seemed a bit of an ignorant hillbilly at best. Still, we thought the kill was inevitable, and the suspense was too much to bear, so we urged the hunter on. His gun was trained dead straight on the stag's heart the whole time, unwavering, but still, he waited to take the shot. 
The stag was outside, we could see him lay down on the grassy ground through the holes in the cave wall, and his grand horns fell from his head to the ground in a mess of stringy flesh. We thought a little triumphant that now the hunter wouldn't have to kill his prey to win his prize, but something was wrong with the stag, something was terribly wrong. Another stag, younger with smaller antlers, limped into sight, its legs bent and broken. The hunter rushed outside, concerned, and did his best to try and repair the damage on both the animals with a first-aid kit. We looked on from the cave, admiring his determination, but all the same sure that it was hopeless for the two stags. 

One way to do one of those "looking back over the year" things...

Subject: Bridging the gaps of an evolving heart
After watching "DMT: the spirit molecule", having finished, started, and finished two crochet projects of the prettiest color. 10/10/12

This morning was lovely in so many ways, as I lay here, listening to "Secret on the moors" by David Arkenstone and remembering hanging out with Starchild and Yo at Starchild's apartment, I am happy. 10/23/12

Sledding at the cabin, underneath the full moon with my siblings. Everything so bright and beautiful and happy. December 28th 2012

Subject: The smell, sound, feel of rain. Utter bliss with siblings.
Running around the block, bare feet and socks slapping on the wet asphalt, one of my brothers took his shoes off at the start of the third black, barely in the faint orange light of the lamppost. Torthadiel, Erumeren, Hammer head and me. 4/1/13

Sigur Ros Untitiled No. 3 in my room, dark from the overcast sky outside. I am working on my bacterium story, happy to write unreigned, unrestrained. The song turned up as high as it can go, humming in my bones, sweet in my throat and loud in my ears, my heart rejoicing. 5/17/13

Subject: Contact from very dear old friends 3/28/13
Receiving an email forwarded by dad from our dear friends -- They say they have internet now and they'd like to skype with us!

a d*** everything day (Yeah, I censor myself online on my own blog...)

You know what's really obnoxious?

Actually, I don't know what's obnoxious. That sounded like a 'guess what' question, and it was meant to be, but it's all fizzled out in my head. Whatever.

I had a lovely time painting and drawing today but it's all kinda stupid and boring and the streak turned sour in the end. I got this great idea but I completely murdered it. Completely and thoroughly butchered it. Ah well, maybe I'll figure out how to do it better at another time when I've learned a whole lot more.

I'm really bored right now. 

Ohm

Fill your heart with love, not fear. It's hard, it will take practice, but in time you will be happier and life will be brighter and easier. 

Cultivate a life of your own, little one, and lead me on

What is my voice like to you?
What does this place feel like to you? Is it the same as how it feels to me?

I am so sloppy lately, I don't care to edit or try to edit or try to write well. I don't care. But still I write and some sort of beauty emerges, disfigured and fractured as it is, its voice slack, its posture bent and twisted and stooped.
I wrote a poem Wednesday that was that and more, but a couple of days later, it seemed endearing and maybe just a little bit courageous. It had built a life of its own independent from the lackluster breath i'd blown into it.

I'm feeling like multimedia today, nothing new, but now I've decided to act on it and see what rainbow tapestry of broken strings and hazy figures I can weave with no direction dictated by me consciously. And then maybe I can take that crazy-blanket from the loom and drape it around my shoulders and it will afford me a little comfort and courage.

I'm on a bit of a sentimental bent today, and I still have a streak of disgust for such things. I don't know why. Maybe because I've been such a dramatist and romantic all my life, and I never regarded it as very constructive. It tends to be blinding, sentimentality. I'm terribly sentimental, though, and I don't necessarily want to squash it from my spongy self entirely, but I seek a balance with it and whatever else there is, you know, there's a great many ways to see life. 

I don't like indulging in sentimentality, I guess. Seems very self-serving and not much else. It can have it's place on my shoulder with everything else, but heaven forbid it should ever become my matrix again. 

I imagine I've been reading a bit too much JD Salinger in the past few days, but I fully intend to read a deal more before this week is up. 

All the same, damn his lofty-earthy ideals. I don't want to be integrated into society, I don't want to continue cleaning the kitchen every day, I don't want to see God in every horrible person on the street or over the internet, and I repeat, I don't want to clean the kitchen. I'd like to sit in the clouds, no needs at all, perfectly free to live in my own head or observe the lives of others. But whatever, that's entirely unrealistic, and probably would be boring to boot, I, who would be everyone but myself sometimes. 

Still, I'd rather live in a monastery than whatever it is I think I'm going to have to bring myself to do in the next couple of years, college or career or whatever. Not so much career, though as some sort of way to support myself in between stepping stones in life. 

Shall I try out a new personality now? 

Yes, there is spiritual beauty in the small things in life. Serving others, taking care of oneself, paying homage to small miracles in home, the workplace, and public spaces. 

You want to know of a book that sustained me and my sanity this summer? "How to cook your life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment". 

It spoke of simple service and the beauty in it, and I needed that so bad, especially while taking care of my mother and most of the cooking for a few weeks while she was on bed rest. 

Over time, gradually, I've learned that every act of kindness, every small work is a sort of prayer, a hope that things will get better, and a way to show how much I do care for my family and friends. That is no bad life, not remarkable, but how much do I really want remark-ability? I remember when I decided to cultivate talents and abilities unrecognized by the majority of this society, and half of that choosing was because I figured I wouldn't have anything or anyone else to compete against in my forum of choosing. I'm actually highly competitive, but I'm also highly understanding, and I know that there's always someone or something better if you think in that way, and therefore, can never ever win. So I chose a place in which I figured there was no winning or losing. No better nor worse, just a pathway, a few sages of my choosing, and my own strength and will. (Which isn't much, love.)  

I spoke of mixed-media before. It's something that's growing in attraction to me, and right now I would give almost anything to write in my own handwriting on this thing, or leave my finger prints and doodles in thick paint all over the margins. Maybe that's part of my sloppiness lately, not caring whether or not if the mark I leave is "perfect", but instead looking for the beauty in everything in its wholeness, not just spliced and framed and edited by the ruler in me that was put there and dictated by other people. I'm not really particularly interested in that lately. But to fit under the wings of others, you must pare yourself down to their colors and specifications, and I guess I don't feel like my own wings are strong enough to hold and shelter me on their own. Still, I seem to pare myself down only to my own specifications. 

Hey, did you know that a small part of yourself is revealed only after you've loved another and been loved in return? It is, in a way, fascinating, and of course, remarkable beautiful.  Can you just imagine all the things we miss, though? Can you imagine all of the things all around and within us that we miss from being so frightened and blind? I read a short story today, the last in "Nine Stories", and, honestly, my favorite. Can you believe that crazy book begins and ends with a death, though? Geeze. 

As it was, the short story contained a beautiful little scene that sort of goes with what I'm speaking of, missing things that go on without your presence or observation. Also a concept that came up when I was watching the sunrise last Tuesday. Mmmmm. 

"He suddenly thrust his whole head out of the 

porthole, kept it there a few seconds, then brought it in just long enough to report, 

"Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window."....

Teddy took in most of his head. "They float very nicely," he said without turning 

around. "That's interesting." 

   "Teddy. For the last time. I'm going to count three, and then I'm-" 

   "I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know 

about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there, 

and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist. 

That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--" 

   "Teddy," Mrs. McArdle interrupted, without visibly stirring under her top sheet. "Go 

find Booper for me. Where is she? I don't want her lolling around in that sun again 

today, with that bum." 

   "She's adequately covered. I made her wear her dungarees," Teddy said. "Some of 

them are starting to sink now. In a few minutes, the only place they'll still be floating 

will be inside my mind. That's quite interesting, because if you look at it a certain way, 

that's where they started floating in the first place. If I'd never been standing here at all, or if somebody'd come along and sort of chopped my head off right while I was--" ....

 Teddy lingered for a moment at the door, reflectively experimenting with the door 

handle, turning it slowly left and right. "After I go out this door, I may only exist in the 

minds of all my acquaintances," he said. "I may be an orange peel." "

(From "Teddy" in "Nine Stories" by JD Salinger)

Anyway, the last bit doesn't doesn't relate to what I've been thinking of so much, but that doesn't matter and it's an interesting lead off. 

I'm crazy, sorry. I guess part of the crazy is what's lending such appeal to multi-media. Yeah. Just slapping whatever's in my head and heart all over whatever blank space presents itself at the time. I don't really care though, I explore myself just as thoroughly as anything around me. And I suppose part of that exploration is testing some of whatever's inside on the outside, seeing if any of it can hold its weight and color with so much all around it. 

I think, with this post, I'm trying to see how far I can wander off the beginning course of things without losing anyone everyone who reads it, including myself. I'm still curious as whether or not if I can lead myself back to where I began and sew everything up tight and neatly. 

What do you think? 

What did it all feel like?

Ah, but that is an ending of no substance at all. It floats away, and that can be pretty, but I think it would be better if the ending buried itself deep in the ground rather than drifting off to ether. After all, that is what I'm attempting to do right here, whether I realized it at first or not; I am attempting to ground myself-- tie myself all over to life like a hot air balloon roped and bolted, straining from the ground.

When a Snail Dove Into the Sunrise