Unspoken promise

On the last page of the SUN magazine. I'd thought it would go on forever, at least, I had hoped this issue would have no end. 

Well, not the very last page, I suppose. In a normal issue, this, the Sunbeam page, would be the very last. But in this issue, there are two more pages, an extended sunbeam page, and the dog-eared page as the last breath of this song without music. 

***

Now I sit here, holding the back cover in my hands and eyes. 

Here's to many more years, SUN. We'll walk together throughout the next decade, and, love, I do intend to contribute to your fiftieth anniversary. Bless us to bless each other, dear friend. 

Free-form Crochet in Digital Ink

Hello, it is me, come to visit this place of home.

There is a child hiding in my closet. I have no idea how there is room even for her small form in there, stuffed full as it is, as everything in my room is. I suppose I shall look back on all of this fondly someday, and indeed, I do not hate it terribly right now.
There is another child struggling to hide behind a dresser, but he has been found. The child in the closet is smiling at me from between the folds of a few dark dresses, and the child who was found is back again, hiding under my blankets and rocking my bed.
Apparently this is a game of hide and seek, based upon some sort of prison system.
The closet child has been found, a white arm and mess of hair were visible and the "warden" called her out. The child hiding in my bed has also been recovered and led to the next room, to return to "prison" once again. Now there is no one in here but me, and my sister who is actually in dream land still, so she doesn't really count.
I sit cross-legged amid mountainous folds of purple afghan and floral bed sheet, the corners of my laptop resting on my legs below my knees.
I'm kinda sorta lost. And I don't really know how to find my way back.

Never alone for long, a child darts into my room and onto my sister's bed pursued by the "warden" and is hauled off once again. My sister is sitting up, looking at me blankly, says "I hate getting up". And she lays back down, all yellow shirt and hair, sits up, blinks. I look at her, she looks at me, and says "what? what are you doing? what are you doing? Smiling so sneakysly."


I rather miss my school-time schedule. It's easier to write and remember to nap and exercise. I've given up on all else during vacation, but writing is life and nap-time, haha, makes life easier. I really am quite the four year old.
Never did it occur to me that I would be comforted by schedule and regularly ordered days, but I am, silly girl who thinks she's so very random. But ha, balance... Because yes, I can get very, very bored by too tight of a regimen.


How does this all fit together, I wonder? I followed the thread, but I also wound it. It is my making, so do I have the key to pulling it all tight and tying it neatly, or having been made by me, is there no answer nor key at all? 

Gather Again

Grief And youth

You-th and grief, 

We were young, once, 

They all say, 

And love was bitter-sweet, 

Touch was sweet pain.

Growing up hurts, 

The pain doesn't stop when your limbs cease to stretch, 

Your skin ceases to stripe, 

Your mouth ceases to crack and whine. 

Love is like breaking, 

But it's also like living and growing and learning, 

It never stops hurting, 

And nothing is happily ever after. 

Once upon a time

Wasn't so long ago, 

And it will come again 

Before it is all over and the sweet black pool swallows you whole

Or piece by piece. 

You are young still, 

And youth is its own peculiar sort of grief.

Just a thought

Well, I just figured out why this whole "true power comes from within" and "look inside for the answers" is kinda messed up and definitely unbalanced.

It forgets the importance of community and friendship, and the very reasons why we converse with other people. There are so many other viewpoints, why learn only of and from your own when you can learn of and from the experiences and philosophies of others as applicable to your own life or purely abstract? 

We're not meant to be alone, we're not meant to rely only on ourselves, on our own strength. We're meant to have relationship, community, support and we're meant to support others. We are strong and we are weak, and we do life better with other people around us. 

Morning Musings

I want to be a mystic. I want to devote my life to the pursuit of learning and spirituality. I really want to get married and have a family as well. A career or any kind of work outside of my own home and family would make this very hard. 

I don't want to work. 

But I don't know what to do, okay? Because yeah, I'd like to be some form of independent for a while, I'd like to travel and live and take care of myself, but what do you need in this world for anything? You need money, dammit. I have a really weird mindset about money, a really weird relationship with it. I hate it but I understand why it has its place in this world and that it is kind of essential right now. Sort of, but not really. And I deeply hope I can live to the age where it is given up as the bad and destructive habit it is. Maybe I'd like to help bring that day to a pass, but I don't know how to do that. Living as I do in my parent's house, relying on god's will and kindnesses: the kindnesses of other people (that must never be forgotten, and thanks must always touch down there first), all of these things generally spring from money in some form or another. Not my own money, but somebody else's. So here I am, avoiding attachment to money and the making of it, but it's still all around me like a hobbit tangled in spider web. 

I have this idealistic vision of what I want my life to be, and it's constantly changing, but there isn't a bridge between now and "the future" yet. I think I've given up on the wanting for saviors, that was never very realistic. Still, there's a balance between relying on your own strength and trusting the community you build around you. I don't think we're meant to be alone or fanatically independent ever, it's not very healthy for the heart or mind. 

I want to be a mystic, I am a mystic, but I guess I'm cloistered right now, all shut up in my monastery, or, what's the Buddhist word? Maybe that's what I need to grow into, what I'm trying to find my way into, there's a Buddhist word for a spiritual community, the people around you who support you in your pursuit of living a life of revelation. Maybe I'm making this up, but it does sound lovely. I guess mostly I just need to connect all of this "then" in my head to now. 

Hello idealistic future, I always forget that you live within the present. 

Today I went home

(You're probably going to have to click on them to see them in full.) 

Gather

(Written last night. I was reading some poems in the theme of youth and grief on a poetry app and noticing this pattern all through them and wondering how, as a young poet, it all applied to me. I am writing in my youth, now, it is not yet nostalgic, though it may be in the future. Still, I intend to carry my youth with me all through life, I have not left behind each age as I grow older, they are still inside of me, like many layers of cloth, or an onion skin, if you will, and they ebb and flow back and forth across my days and life.) 

Grief And youth

You-th and grief, 

We were young, once, 

They all say, 

And love was bitter-sweet, 

Touch was sweet pain.

Growing up hurts, 

The pain doesn't stop when your limbs cease to stretch, 

Your skin ceases to stripe, 

Your mouth ceases to crack and whine. 

Love is like breaking, 

But it's also like living and growing and learning, 

It never stops hurting, 

And nothing is happily ever after. 

Once upon a time

Wasn't so long ago, 

And it will come again 

Before it is all over and the sweet black pool swallows you whole

Or piece by piece. 

You are young still, 

And youth is it's own peculiar sort of grief.

Talking with myself

Yes, everything has been done before, but you still have a unique and personal take on everything. 

Book binding Projects as of late

And because I'm honestly a little ridiculously pleased with how I wrapped the last one, here are some photos to document it by;

Coming to a close

This whole year has felt a little like a breath held in anticipation. Anticipation of what, I don't know, and whether it applies only to me or to the world in general, I am not sure.