Scars Are Supposed To Fade With Time

Seeing your truck three times 

In one night

Made my heart drop, deflated blue lead balloon

Straight to the bottom of my shoes, 

And then into the center of the earth.

What is left is a ghost, 

An echo of what you were to me for so long.

It's better that way.

Please stop reminding me that you're real.

Moon, earth, and a new sun

You're still shiny
Even though you're invisible.
Chasing our own stars
On separate sides of the Earth. 

A wheel turns, her fears come to fruition, and then are dried to benign husks in memory

I compose in my head, addressing thee still, 

Though the words rarely meet page, 

And perhaps, never again will. 

At least two sides to every story

Yesterday the rain 

Left my heart, last night I dreamt 

Of your own sadness. 

I am a composite of every person I have held dear, and I am also Myself

I've grown up watching my parents and imitating their actions, tastes, and opinions. This has carried over with other relationships in my life with my siblings and friends, and the people I've worked for. I suppose this is sycophantic, but I like think of it more in the terms of "the best form of flattery is imitation".
I pick up my taste in music from what the people I love listen to. My parents came of age in the eighties, and have exposed us to a lot of alternative new wave and punk bands; The Smiths, The Clash, The Cure, Blondie, Siouxie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, Devo, Madness, and The English Beat among others. I've heard almost everything from the genre, even if I may not immediately be able to name songs or the bands playing them. My friend Raven introduced me to Mountain Man, described as an indian folk rock trio, and The Lumineers, a folk band best-known for their song Hey Ho. My dear friend Yo opened up the world of Les Friction and Led Zeppelin (the former, indirectly) to me. He also brought Ben Howard to my attention, as you well know if you read this silly blog regularly.
I read most of the books my friends and family recommend, and I aspire to read every book on this list compiled by me, my mom, and my dad. I adore JD Salinger, my dad owns every book he's released to the public, and my dad also introduced me to Orson Scott Card through the Alvin Maker series. Three or four of my friends told me I had to read The Hunger Games; I held out pretty long, but Yo finally lent me (or rather, my dad) the first two of the trilogy. I got into the Harry Potter series because my great Aunt told my mom to give it another chance; originally she'd sort of banned it. That's one of the more indirect examples I've written so far, but it does illustrate my point pretty well.
Longboarding is something I decided to learn because of my siblings and Yo, who are all fantastic longboarders. I built my own board with another longboarder friend because I knew I'd be more likely to actually learn it if I had my very own board. (At the time, my siblings shared a few boards given us by the board-building friend.) I'm not very athletically inclined, though I do enjoy climbing trees, hiking, and playing games like tag. But I really would not have picked up boarding were it not for my family and friends.
One of the more abstract examples included in this essay-list; Sometimes, after spending at least half a day with a person, I'll find myself thinking in their voice and syntax. This happened with a southern guy I work for and it happened when I spent the day with my college-age friend a couple Springs ago.

I've grown up closely watching my parents and imitating them. Along the way I've also learned a lot of things and acquired likes and interests from my friends and the people I've admired. I haven't neglected my own innate tendencies or tastes in all of this; I am fairly discerning in what I copy from other people. I don't pick up everything my friends do or enjoy; I know very much who I am, changeable as that may be.

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.

Ben Howard: About Still Waters, what his music is to me

This is actually something I'd planned before that whole Kesang Marstrand

 post from a while ago. But now the two have inspired and collided and spun off from each other. Anyway, I rather enjoy documenting some of my music discoveries on here, lengthy or otherwise, and it creates an interesting sort of stream-of-consciousness commentary, which is something I feel like writing at the moment, but can't really figure out how to begin. 

Ben Howard - Oats in the Water
To begin with the first, found by my best friend, shared between and then adopted, a thing not my own enfolded into my being, by me.
Probably the one many of his fans heard first, for whatever reason, lately as a result of the song playing in a Walking Dead episode.
Absolutely beautiful, my love. Heart aching in a way, and the music has a lovely rhythm to it.
I love Ben's intonation and inflection, it sounds like he's singing it for the first time, with all of the thoughts and emotions fresh in his own mind. Reflective and darkly tranquil.

Ben Howard - Esmerelda
Lordy this video is lovely, black and white, the stormy skies, the waves crashing backwards, like time is rewinding underneath everything being said. It very much evokes a feeling of looking back to something long past and deeply missed.
All of Ben's music makes me just a little sad and rather meditative. It's fun to pray along to as well.
That all probably sounds pretty weird, and it's hard to explain, but that's as close as I'm getting at the present.

Ben Howard - Depth Over Distance
This is one of my very favorites, I first discovered a fantastic layered version on Tumblr, which was haunting and beautifully rainy. I adore both versions, though; this one's warmer, the other very still. Here's a link to the layered version, Layered Depth Over Distance

Ben Howard - Black Flies
Terribly lovely, and it seems like it was serendipitous the day I heard it, though I'm not sure. I think I wrote the October Fly poem the afternoon before I first heard Ben Howard, the first three of which were Oats in the Water, Esmerelda and Black Flies.
I remember walking in the dark, speaking about Ben's music, and having simultaneous thoughts, speaking at the same time, weaving bright threads of gold in the dark of the night, the winter not yet cold enough to draw our breath upon the air.

Ben Howard - Old Pine
He makes want so dearly to learn to really, truly play guitar.
All of his songs sound so different, and have such different subjects, but still they have a blue thread wound through, a life all their own shared throughout.

Ben Howard - To Be Alone
It sounds like he puts a lot into everything he writes and sings. Seriously, the emotion of it all, every one of his songs sounds like it's being made up as he sings it, every feeling felt in the deepest way. Reflective, Introspective... Do you suppose every artist, musician, public figure is a mirror whether they mean to be or not?
I act like I'm a mirror, though I'm not entirely sure I actually am. Or maybe I am too much a mirror.
Watching "Rise of the Guardians" last night, you wouldn't expect it to, I didn't expect it to, but it raised some rather deep questions within me. What is my core? I don't think I really know, and that's why I'm kinda lost. But I guess I also don't really want to look.

Ben Howard - Promise
"I think," he said, "that it's a good thing to get out of your usual, you know, surroundings. Because you did things out about yourself that you didn't know, or you forgot. And then you go back to your regular life and you're changed, you're a little bit different because you take those new things with you. Like a Hindu, except all in one life: you sort of get reincarnated depending on what happened and what you figure out. And any one place can make you go forward, or backward, or neither, but gradually you find all your pieces, your important pieces, and they stay with you, so that you're your whole self no matter where you go. Your Buddha self. That's my theory, anyway." 
-From "Criss Cross" by Lynne Rae Perkins 

Ben Howard - Keep Your Head Up
That looks like so much fun, can you imagine doing that? The grandeur of building and then using that magnificent slide? Can you imagine thinking of that and then actually sharing that dream with others and acting on it? :D It's absolutely beautiful, and yeah, it's a music video, so it's terribly idealistic and it's taken for granted that it was edited and a little contrived, but that's still cool, and from watching the behind the scenes video, it looks like it was a ton of fun. 


What does his music mean to you? How does it make you feel? What does it make you remember?

Fire and blazing light, comet cutting through the dark

(What I wanted to write but couldn't until I sat on the clean front room floor that clear afternoon while mom was asleep and everyone else was away. The most beautiful things are born in stillness.)

You are the brightest piece of gold I've ever found in life. 

Shedding stardust everywhere you go. 

I follow, starving. 

You are one of those things I want to get all over myself and my memory, better than mud or berry-stains or scratches on my arms from collecting and stacking wood for the winter. 

You make me burn bright, you're not the only, but you are the best. I guess that's why I run away sometimes, it can be too much for me to handle, and before, I hid it. But now I don't, and maybe you see. 

I can feel you (wings) on and between my shoulder blades, and deep in my heart. You make my heart burn low and superheated and dark, then explosive supernova. 

I haven't really let myself fall, plunging into the depths of the universe, you, but I'm tottering on the edge, and you're beckoning. 

I'm raising my arms, spreading my fingers, feeling the wind. 

I want to fly with you

Namaste y mae govannen to every and all

• Beauty in everyday life, spontaneous and immediate. If you wait, it will always come, heartbreaking and eye-opening. I am always a little bit less blind than I was before. 
• Yo, my best friend and love.
• My lovely, still growing family.
• Every single one of my siblings, adopted, blood, and soul-relatives.
• All of my friends, which usually translates into siblings.
• Fantastic food and teamwork.
• Snow.
• Music, musicians, and musical instruments. Also, the music of the natural world in all senses.
• Memory. 
• Writing.
• Doctor Who, in all of it's complexity and simplicity, intertwined duality. Funny, beautiful, heartbreaking.
• Enlightenment and transcendence, the unattainable, ever-won quest and weave. 
• Emotion and expression, creativity and god.
• Skin.
• The space between the ears, all at once infinite and perfectly encapsulated. 
• Life, always

Hands

The last time I ate pomegranate,
I stained one bead on my wooden bracelet pink.
Later, I took it off, so i could better hold your hands
and tickle you.
Somehow my sister got a hold of it,
twirling it in her hands and stretching the elastic.
You took it from her, stretched it over your hand,
(almost the same size as mine)
and you held it out to me.
I slipped my hand through,
A perfect space within a circle of fingers
and cup of palm.

Liebster Award

A while back I got a lovely comment from from Mary at Cogitational Counterpoints nominating me for the Liebster award, which is kinda fun and totally unexpected :) Thank you Mary, for reading and the nomination :)
If you've been nominated or would like to nominate somebody, all you have to do is follow the below set of rules:

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you.
2. Give 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions set by the person who nominated you.
4. Nominate 11 other bloggers who have a small following.
5. Create 11 questions for your nominees to answer.
6. Tell your nominees, on their own blog, that you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts About Me:

1. I dislike long sleeves, and nearly always roll or push them up.
2. I miss my dog terribly since he died last January.
3. Lately, I enjoy doing things that terrify me, I've been able to push past fear in the past couple of years, and I've found that I enjoy the things that are difficult for me all the more fiercely once I've somewhat mastered them. Take guitar tuning, for example, once a vast unknowable unknown, now one of my favorite things about practicing the guitar. 
4. I love writing and receiving letters, though I'm not very good at actually writing and sending them in a timely manner. 
5. The San Rafael Swell is my happy place.
6. I have no idea how to go about getting ready for Christmas this year, I haven't got a thing done and it's not much longer until December arrives.
7. The movie Inception was quite the spiritual and enlightening experience for me.
8. Right now I'm wearing my favorite blue sweater which will quite soon probably fall apart, as it is getting fairly threadbare in places. 
9. I say I have no expectations, I think I have no expectations, but I'm quite open to the possibility that I might. I still maintain that relationship is organic and a thing of space rather than just bonds. 
10. I love deep and thoughtful documentaries like Kumare, I Am, and The Nature Of Existence. 
11. Life is terribly interesting to me, adventure, people, discovery. This outlook does tend to ebb and flow though, as all things do. I'm not sure balance is stillness so much as wave, pattern and resonance.

The 11 Questions That The Person Who Nominated Me Asked:

1. What is your favorite past time?

I don't really have any one favorite past time, I'm kinda scattered all over the place. I love hanging out with my friends and family, reading, writing, playing guitar. Hiking, whatever. I love doing everything, and it is all my favorite :)

        
        2. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

Both, yin and yang. Not opposite, but intertwined.

        3. What's your ultimate goal in life?

Enlightenment and deep relationship.

        4. What is the last thing you bought via online shopping?

Light Martin acoustic guitar strings. I'm awesome because I can break a string tuning down...

        5. How did you get started using blogspot?

I got sick of how much I was on facebook in 2009, so I created this blog with the help of my dad to sort of experiment with for a week of abstinence from fb. 

        6. Do you have a favorite film, and if so, what is it?

Far too many favorites, and perhaps all because I have learned or can learn something from them.

          7. What's your preferred fall outfit?

Jeans and a sweater over a t shirt, maybe a hat.

        8. What's your biggest accomplishment to date?

I don't really believe in that. I just live. 

        

        9. Who inspires you the most?

Yo

        10. The best show on television right now is:

Doctor Who :) (That's basically the only thing I watch right now that's ongoing and current, though.)

I don't think I shall nominate anyone else, if someone wants to nominate themselves from me, that'd be great, haha :) Just let me know and I'll come up with some questions :]

Thanks again Mary, you're a sweetheart.

All Things Pass; Letters blog: May 6th, 2011. Friday.

Another letter to Om.

 Voitko kertoa, että en halua 

puhua hänelle?

Yin and yang,
Om and Yo.
Two letters each to two people 

who seem complete opposites
in my eyes.
Here I am, writing the second 

letter to you, hoping you won't
see this letter like I thought 

you would never see that word.
But you did, and you're trying 

to justify yourself to me again. I
don't care, I'm sorry, but I really

 just don't care.
I don't want to talk to you, I 

don't want to address you directly,
I don't even want to see you 

sometimes.
I don't want to be mean to you 

like I'm afraid I will If I try to
talk to you.
But most of all, I'm afraid of 

becoming friends with you again.
I did it once.

As I've said before, I don't rue 

the friendship I had with you, as
a matter of fact, I cherish it.
But you're a different person now. 

You were then, too.

You repulse me, this one word 

will give me away, but you really
are a traitor, you're betraying 

yourself, though you may not
think it.
You betrayed me.
You think you're rebelling against 

society and it's rules, but
you're still letting it decide who 

you are.
Om, you know nothing, though 

you think you know everything.
You think I was trying to hold 

on in some way when I behaved
the way I did, but I was trying to 

let go.
I promise I will never intentionally 

hurt you, but I have no power
over how you decide to take 

my silence.
~Amoniel

Letters Blog: May 4th, 2011. Wednesday

Another letter to Yo

Dear Yo,

You've become a sort of confidante 

in my mind.
You don't really talk back, and I 

probably wouldn't talk to you in 

real life like
I do in my mind, but who knows? 

Maybe this is just practice.
I've been very open to you in 

our person-to-person correspondence,
I'm generally very closemouthed 

and afraid of what people will think of
what I say.
Perhaps the conversations 

(more like monologues) I have

with you in
my mind will allow me to feel 

comfortable to really talk with 

you, and
perhaps with other people as well.

I wonder what you would think if 

I were ever to tell you all of this, or
if you were to come across this 

letter. Would you even recognize
this as being written to you?

You know, there are all these 

rather abnormal questions I want to
ask people, though I doubt I 

will ask most of them.
I want to ask you what you 

honestly think of me, what 

you think of
what I have to say, and what 

you thought of me when we were
first introduced.
I wonder if there are any questions 

you want to ask me. I would
answer them truthfully, I think I 

generally do.
In a strange way, I trust and 

relate to you as a sort of kindred
spirit from what I know of you, 

and what you have told me.
I won't say that I haven't found 

many kindred spirits in my life,
I've found quite a few, and most 

of them became my best friends,
If only for a time.
the thing about kindred spirits 

is they don't stay that way for long.
Would you remain a sensed 

kindred if I were to get to know 

you more,
or am I just projecting? It 

doesn't seem that way to me, 

but I don't know.

Would you be scared of me, 

or who I am, if you were to 

get to know me
better? I see myself as a very 

strange and abnormal person 

inside and
out. I don't really know if anyone 

else thinks that. But judging from
Sixbillionsecrets, most people 

think they're completely alone in their
fears and insecurities. Everyone 

thinks they're the weirdest person
around.

I had a whole other paragraph 

here, but it digresses from the rest of
the letter, it has no point, so 

I'll just forget about it.

Thank you for all of you've

unconsciously and indirectly taught me.
Thank you for reading this letter, 

and thank you for being you.
love,
Amoniel

From Letters Blog: March 30th, 2011. Wednesday

Dear one, you wouldn't know who you are. 

I don't know who you are.

Not an HP letter.


Dear Yo,
It's strange to say that I'm actually 

going to
miss them.

I mean, it's not as if I've ever 

really even talked to
you. Actually talked to you.

I have no idea how to fix that though. 

I could, but
then again I probably won't.


Y'know, I actually rather admire you, 

and you've
managed to inspire me in various 

non-direct ways.
You're cool, you seem almost 

aloof, but I think
that's just because you're shy.

I've always wanted to impress you. 

Dumb, isn't it?
It's not like it matters. You're two 

years older than me.
You could be anybody.
But still I wish, and still you 

manage to
steal into my dreams.
A lot of people seem to do that, 

and most
often not in the ways you do.

Sincerely, 

Amoniel

Happy box thoughts

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

Subject: Wet cloth and fur under gray skies.
Running through the rain with the Chocolate Chip dog, her leash in one hand, my umbrella flapping in the air in the other. Elation, wet, wonderful happiness.
5/7/13

Subject: Easter
Mar/31/13
Hiding eggs around the yard with B and the big kids and then watching the little kids dart to and fro, spotting the eggs in the high places, seizing the ones in the low.

Light, shadow, and snow

Haitian benefit concert

Last night i went to a benefit concert for Haiti at Snow college. It was fantastic! All of the performers did an amazing job, it was the best concert i have ever been to, albeit i haven't been to very many ;) I think what made it all the more special was that i recognized many of the people who performed. My Dad knows the Greenalghs, I've been introduced, but i haven't gotten to know them very well yet. I know Sherry Boekweg, and i know Eve Martin personally. I also recognized some of the people in the high school choir, although when i said hi to one of them, she didn't seem to recognize me.
The song performed by Mayu, Benson and Terry Greenalgh was by far my favorite musically, I thought i was going to lift up and fly as i was listening. I finally understand what makes live rock concerts so special.
My favorite performance visually was Alex Boye. Hi-larious! He got the audience very involved. I laughed and danced and clapped to my heart's content.
The concert wasn't all music, they also had some speakers in between performances. The speakers were pretty neat, although i forget their names, and they didn't have any of the speakers listed in the program.
By far, I am glad i was able to go. It was beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting, and educational. I learned quite a lot about the situation in Haiti. I am glad I had the opportunity to attend the concert and donate money to Haiti. All of the money from the tickets the organizers sold went to these two charities that are helping out in Haiti, IASK, and, Healing hands for Haiti. Snow College even donated the performance center free of charge! Doesn't that make you all warm and fuzzy inside? It sure made me feel that way.