its a weird thing when you figure out what you are supposed to do with your life.
especially when you never thought there was going to be "that thing" you were going to do with your life. and its possible that even if there is "a thing," we are always doing something that will become part of "that thing" we do...and we will always be growing and changing in how we do "that thing" so i guess the moment i am talking about is kind of arbitrary...
but if you never thought there would be such a moment...
the one where suddenly everything you find exciting and magical and fun and important...all your talents and your passions and your quirky ideas...every cause on your heart and dream in your mind....your knowledge and your questions...your experiences and your wonderings....your light and your shadows...your fight and your fears...all fit under the umbrella of one thought, one concept, one vision...
the one where every mental snapshot you ever imagined of yourself and hoped might be at least in the realm of possibilities for how your future might look...and even most of the ones you never figured could be more than just dreams...all suddenly make up the pages of one album...your album...
the one where you suddenly feel every movement you have ever made in your body like the training and choreography that will become the performance that is your life...
well, its one heck of a moment.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
july 19th 2011
if you have clicked your way here, it was probably in search of blogs about africa...i know im way behind...sorry folks, but its my baby's birthday, so you will have to wait at least one more day...tonight i have some things i need to say to her...
dearest rosetaina 'ti rose' 'crank muffin' 'taina' 'ti zwazo' bertrand,
today is the day you might have turned 4 years old if you had not been born HIV positive, or if you hadn't been born so financially poor, or if you had been treated from birth, or if cheez-it crackers were the cure for AIDs....or any of a million other ifs...
today is also the day i will finally say goodbye to you, the day i will stop clinging to who you were in your tiny broken little body and embrace the truth of who and how you are now.
but first i have a few things i need to tell you.
i remember the moment when i first learned that you existed in the world, i remember where i was sitting, and i remember exactly what it felt like.
i remember the way you looked sleeping in the dining room crib the first time i saw you. i remember the moment dorothy sat you on my lap in a tiny blue onesie that swallowed you up. you were so beautiful and precious and important that i didn't even want to touch you with my dirty from the roadtrip hands.
i loved you before i ever laid eyes on you, before i knew your name, before i felt your head resting over my heart, before you and i discovered our shared love of latin music and lime or cheeze flavored junk food, and an inability to work an ipod.
i loved you when you threw up vanilla pediasure down my shirt (again), i loved you when you refused to be bathed unless i was IN the bathtub with you, i loved you when you stole my warm freshly buttered Rosemanie roll and replaced it with your cold half-eaten one.
i loved you when you cried and when you laughed and when you slept and when you refused to fall asleep. i think you get the idea.
i wanted you with me all the time. the only reason i didn't keep you with me every second of every day was because i wanted to believe you would be at dorothy's long after me and so i shouldn't spoil you COMPLETELY as a courtesy to the nannies and to you. somehow, it felt like keeping you all the time would have been to assume you were going to die soon...and i wanted to treat you like a child with a life, not just a child with a disease. its seems ridiculous now and just so you know if i could do it again i would totally suffer the wrath of the nannies for being that annoying white girl who spoils the babies...i would have kept you in our baby sling right by my side as many seconds as physically possible. we both actually have kervens to thank for so many of our days together. somehow he could see right through my guilt complex so he was the one who would bring you upstairs "forcing" me to let you stay with us a while so you wouldn't give the nannies such a fit. God bless that boy.
you never learned to talk before you died but you have spoken into my life in so many ways. i continue to learn from our moments together, and our moments apart.
thank you for teaching me what it means to crawl, how hard and how important it is. thank you for discouraging too much computer use. when i am finding myself in front of this screen for too long i still think of you trying to shut my laptop and it reminds me to consider whether what i am working on is really the best use of the moment. thank you for the times you were stubborn about what you wanted and the times you shared, it has helped me get better at both when the time is right.
there are so many things i could thank you for...the way you made me feel special and important...the way you made us all laugh...the way you made us all think differently about life and about death. all the help with the laundry when you were strapped to by belly :)...the moments you gave me a reason to slow down, to be quiet, to just be. for all the ways you have guided and encouraged and challenged and stretched my heart. who i am becoming and what i will do in the world has a lot to do with knowing and loving you...and with losing you as well. for such a little thing you have made some big waves ti.
knowing you has helped me do a lot of things. even though it was part of why i came back from haiti, i wouldn't have made it to school if it weren't for you. even in dying you managed to help me live better.
about my leaving haiti...i left because i thought it was what i had to do for me and for everyone else in the house - including you. but i need to tell you it was the hardest thing i have ever done. walking away from you that day was so unbelievably painful that i will probably always the physical reaction im having right now just thinking about it. i was such a wreck on the plane i almost caused the guy next to me to have to take another flight. that whole crawling after me bit with the crying and the reaching - not cool missy. but you couldn't walk or talk so i guess it was understandable behavior on your part.
sometimes i wonder if you knew something i didn't...its weird since i knew how sick you were doing so well (shout out to the vertical like on your growth chart at our last appt!) i never dreamed it would be the last time i would see you. i was sure i would be with you again...and also sure i would be with you at the end whenever that did come. i was already gone before the reality of another possibility hit me.
im not sure what i might have done different in saying goodbye - i don't think we would have ever been really good at that no matter what kind of insight we had...i think it would have sucked no matter what.
i don't know exactly how the whole spirit/heaven/eternity thing works in terms of how tuned in you are to things back here but if you have any awareness of this world at all you know how much i regret not going to haiti to be with you at the end. my heart said go and i talked myself into something more logical and sensible,into something easier for other people to accept and understand, easier for me to accomplish and explain. it has taken me a long time to forgive myself for that, which is part of why it has been so hard to come to terms with you being gone. turns out forgiving yourself is much more difficult and humbling than forgiving other people. i guess that is something else you have helped me learn. i know it would have been just as messy and just as awful and probably more so. but i do wish i had been there. i'm sorry i didn't come. i am so sorry baby girl.
and i am so thankful for your mama who was there by your side so faithfully. she loved you so much. i haven't been able to find out anything about how or where she is since the earthquake last january but i have recently decided that i want to try harder. i really want to see her and hug her again if she is still alive. i really want to tell her how amazing her daughter was and how much effect she has had on me, my family, and so many others. how much affect she will always have. i want to thank her for the honor of having you in our home and our lives during such a precious time of your life.
i also want to forgive your father, and maybe even find him too. i'm definitely going to need the Lord's help for both. but i'm realizing that even more so than your mom, it's important that HE know how amazing you were - that would probably go a lot further in changing his heart than just knowing how angry i am. wow, even as i write to tell you what i have learned from knowing you i am learning more....
i know that you will always be a part of me, one that grows and changes with me and that i continue to learn from and to live differently because of...but i know in order for you to be part of a growing and evolving me, i have to let go of the you that you aren't anymore. for so long i just wanted to HOLD you one more time. i always feel you...but i wanted to TOUCH you...but the you that resides in spirit with the Father no longer fits inside that body i wanted to cradle. your spirit is expansive and beautiful and BIG in a way that poor little body could never have had proper room for. it would have always limited you. and i am finally able to see that in wanting you back that way i would only be limiting you too.
now that you are free of it, you are much more YOU, you have room to be as full and as much as you truly are. in letting go of the body i knew as my "ti zwazo" i can make room in my life for who you really are now, who you really always were.
i am looking forward to getting to know you in this way and to carrying your spirit and your beautiful truth with me forever. your presence will always be BIG but it won't be HEAVY anymore. i think that is how my "little bird" would want it.
happy birthday baby.
dearest rosetaina 'ti rose' 'crank muffin' 'taina' 'ti zwazo' bertrand,
today is the day you might have turned 4 years old if you had not been born HIV positive, or if you hadn't been born so financially poor, or if you had been treated from birth, or if cheez-it crackers were the cure for AIDs....or any of a million other ifs...
today is also the day i will finally say goodbye to you, the day i will stop clinging to who you were in your tiny broken little body and embrace the truth of who and how you are now.
but first i have a few things i need to tell you.
i remember the moment when i first learned that you existed in the world, i remember where i was sitting, and i remember exactly what it felt like.
i remember the way you looked sleeping in the dining room crib the first time i saw you. i remember the moment dorothy sat you on my lap in a tiny blue onesie that swallowed you up. you were so beautiful and precious and important that i didn't even want to touch you with my dirty from the roadtrip hands.
i loved you before i ever laid eyes on you, before i knew your name, before i felt your head resting over my heart, before you and i discovered our shared love of latin music and lime or cheeze flavored junk food, and an inability to work an ipod.
i loved you when you threw up vanilla pediasure down my shirt (again), i loved you when you refused to be bathed unless i was IN the bathtub with you, i loved you when you stole my warm freshly buttered Rosemanie roll and replaced it with your cold half-eaten one.
i loved you when you cried and when you laughed and when you slept and when you refused to fall asleep. i think you get the idea.
i wanted you with me all the time. the only reason i didn't keep you with me every second of every day was because i wanted to believe you would be at dorothy's long after me and so i shouldn't spoil you COMPLETELY as a courtesy to the nannies and to you. somehow, it felt like keeping you all the time would have been to assume you were going to die soon...and i wanted to treat you like a child with a life, not just a child with a disease. its seems ridiculous now and just so you know if i could do it again i would totally suffer the wrath of the nannies for being that annoying white girl who spoils the babies...i would have kept you in our baby sling right by my side as many seconds as physically possible. we both actually have kervens to thank for so many of our days together. somehow he could see right through my guilt complex so he was the one who would bring you upstairs "forcing" me to let you stay with us a while so you wouldn't give the nannies such a fit. God bless that boy.
you never learned to talk before you died but you have spoken into my life in so many ways. i continue to learn from our moments together, and our moments apart.
thank you for teaching me what it means to crawl, how hard and how important it is. thank you for discouraging too much computer use. when i am finding myself in front of this screen for too long i still think of you trying to shut my laptop and it reminds me to consider whether what i am working on is really the best use of the moment. thank you for the times you were stubborn about what you wanted and the times you shared, it has helped me get better at both when the time is right.
there are so many things i could thank you for...the way you made me feel special and important...the way you made us all laugh...the way you made us all think differently about life and about death. all the help with the laundry when you were strapped to by belly :)...the moments you gave me a reason to slow down, to be quiet, to just be. for all the ways you have guided and encouraged and challenged and stretched my heart. who i am becoming and what i will do in the world has a lot to do with knowing and loving you...and with losing you as well. for such a little thing you have made some big waves ti.
knowing you has helped me do a lot of things. even though it was part of why i came back from haiti, i wouldn't have made it to school if it weren't for you. even in dying you managed to help me live better.
about my leaving haiti...i left because i thought it was what i had to do for me and for everyone else in the house - including you. but i need to tell you it was the hardest thing i have ever done. walking away from you that day was so unbelievably painful that i will probably always the physical reaction im having right now just thinking about it. i was such a wreck on the plane i almost caused the guy next to me to have to take another flight. that whole crawling after me bit with the crying and the reaching - not cool missy. but you couldn't walk or talk so i guess it was understandable behavior on your part.
sometimes i wonder if you knew something i didn't...its weird since i knew how sick you were doing so well (shout out to the vertical like on your growth chart at our last appt!) i never dreamed it would be the last time i would see you. i was sure i would be with you again...and also sure i would be with you at the end whenever that did come. i was already gone before the reality of another possibility hit me.
im not sure what i might have done different in saying goodbye - i don't think we would have ever been really good at that no matter what kind of insight we had...i think it would have sucked no matter what.
i don't know exactly how the whole spirit/heaven/eternity thing works in terms of how tuned in you are to things back here but if you have any awareness of this world at all you know how much i regret not going to haiti to be with you at the end. my heart said go and i talked myself into something more logical and sensible,into something easier for other people to accept and understand, easier for me to accomplish and explain. it has taken me a long time to forgive myself for that, which is part of why it has been so hard to come to terms with you being gone. turns out forgiving yourself is much more difficult and humbling than forgiving other people. i guess that is something else you have helped me learn. i know it would have been just as messy and just as awful and probably more so. but i do wish i had been there. i'm sorry i didn't come. i am so sorry baby girl.
and i am so thankful for your mama who was there by your side so faithfully. she loved you so much. i haven't been able to find out anything about how or where she is since the earthquake last january but i have recently decided that i want to try harder. i really want to see her and hug her again if she is still alive. i really want to tell her how amazing her daughter was and how much effect she has had on me, my family, and so many others. how much affect she will always have. i want to thank her for the honor of having you in our home and our lives during such a precious time of your life.
i also want to forgive your father, and maybe even find him too. i'm definitely going to need the Lord's help for both. but i'm realizing that even more so than your mom, it's important that HE know how amazing you were - that would probably go a lot further in changing his heart than just knowing how angry i am. wow, even as i write to tell you what i have learned from knowing you i am learning more....
i know that you will always be a part of me, one that grows and changes with me and that i continue to learn from and to live differently because of...but i know in order for you to be part of a growing and evolving me, i have to let go of the you that you aren't anymore. for so long i just wanted to HOLD you one more time. i always feel you...but i wanted to TOUCH you...but the you that resides in spirit with the Father no longer fits inside that body i wanted to cradle. your spirit is expansive and beautiful and BIG in a way that poor little body could never have had proper room for. it would have always limited you. and i am finally able to see that in wanting you back that way i would only be limiting you too.
now that you are free of it, you are much more YOU, you have room to be as full and as much as you truly are. in letting go of the body i knew as my "ti zwazo" i can make room in my life for who you really are now, who you really always were.
i am looking forward to getting to know you in this way and to carrying your spirit and your beautiful truth with me forever. your presence will always be BIG but it won't be HEAVY anymore. i think that is how my "little bird" would want it.
happy birthday baby.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
africa.
it's happening.
it's happening today.
okay...so maybe africa is always happening...but today it is happening to me.
for anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with me this is probably not that surprising I guess since I have been in africa in part of my heart for what seems like always. The vision and dream and desire of being there was so strong in me that I have often forgotten I haven't already been there.
more than just going to africa, I get to go to do the very work there that inspired me to study Dance/Movement Therapy and to challenge myself to return to dance after years of thinking that part of my life had ended. Dancing and moving with the children and families who have experienced so much that is foreign to me in a place that is so far removed from the places I call home will go from vision to reality in the days ahead.
this is humbling and exciting and overwhelming because in the visions and the words spoken over me, people were healed of hurts, discovered their innocence, reclaimed their childhoods, saw the separation between who they were and the things that had happened to them, they understood their value and preciousness to God, THROUGH THEIR DANCING...their dancing with me.
part of the inward journey that has been graduate school as been a desire to be "a beginner" to be the one who has the most to learn, who isn't in any way the leader...i haven't been able to find that place completely in these two years...until now. in this amazing group of people with whom i get to travel...i am the beginner in so many ways. not only that, i feel no pressure to be more than that. this is where i will crawl. and this is also where i will grieve. this is where i will forgive and let go.
very few things scare me. but i am afraid.
this opportunity is a divine appointment between my exact hopes for how a trip to africa would be structured and the very edges of my faith and trust, in myself and in the Lord.
i have decided to be there. and today i take the first steps from which there is really no turning back.
i absolutely do not have what it takes to finish this month according to the world, physically, emotionally, professionally, financially. i have less money, less experience, less training, and less muscle than most everyone i will be with.
suddenly i sound like every other odd character that God has ever used to do something incredible. something just.so.God.
this, more than anything maybe, is exactly why it feels so right to be going now and in this way and with this group.
this, more than anything maybe, is why i am afraid.
for anyone who is interested in learning more about what i am doing where here is a little rundown:
We will join drama therapists and fellow students in urban and village settings in Kenya and Uganda, where we will exchange knowledge and techniques with African theatre practitioners, counselors, social workers, and other group leaders who help heal and transform their communities. Using applied theatre and drama therapy methods, our work with community leaders will focus on several outcomes:
In Nairobi, Kenya, working with the Amani People's Theatre ( http://www.aptkenya.org www.aptkenya.org ), we will focus on street children in remand homes.
In Budondo village, Uganda, working with the Atua Theatre Troupe and Budondo Intercultural Center ( www.budondo.wordpress.com ), we will focus on women’s reproductive health.
In the Great Rift Valley in northern Kenya, and villages near the coast of the Indian Ocean, we will focus on preventing election-related violence.
In Northern Uganda, we will focus on rehabilitating and healing trauma in child soldiers after 20 years of war.
Another group we will be working with is the Rifiki Participatatory/Forum Theatre Troupe ( http://www.rafiki-theatre.org ).
ultimately, these people and groups recognize the power of movement, drama and music as healers and tools for communication and change. they see them as particularly useful to their cultures who live so immersed in these forms already in their daily lives. as such, they have invited us to come and to work with them to share the resources we have about how to take these art forms and make them part of the healing and growing process for body and spirit, individual, family, community, nation, and continent.
we are humbled and honored to share and eager to learn from all the wisdom they have to offer as well.
it feels important to thank everyone who has honored my heart's desires by supporting me and those who have honored my heart's desires by challenging me and asking the hard questions, those who have understood my crazy lack of schedule or plans, those who store my stuff, those who watch my dog, those who have given me grace for not returning phone calls or emails, those who have put up with excessive phone calls or emails...there are so many ways people have loved me into this place.
each of you have been part of why i believe i will be able to do this and that it will be right and good. and hard. and scary. and fun. and strange. and awful. and beautiful. each of you who will hold me in your heart for even a moment are part of the magic and the holiness of this with me.
thank you.
i hope to have some internet access and to keep people at least mildly updated but you can expect a flood of caseystories once i land back on this side of the pond.
you may wanna get some floaties.
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE EMAIL UPDATES SHOULD CONTACT ME AT cnichols3@antioch.edu AND I WILL DO MY BEST!
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THIS WORK AND MY OTHER WORK TO OFFER HEALING THROUGH DANCE IN THE US AND IN HAITI PLEASE VISIT www.muchministries.org OR ME AT THE ABOVE EMAIL
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT ME IN THIS WORK AND AS A HUMAN BEING THROUGH PRAYER DOESN'T HAVE TO CONTACT ANYONE...BUT I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT IT!
it's happening today.
okay...so maybe africa is always happening...but today it is happening to me.
for anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with me this is probably not that surprising I guess since I have been in africa in part of my heart for what seems like always. The vision and dream and desire of being there was so strong in me that I have often forgotten I haven't already been there.
more than just going to africa, I get to go to do the very work there that inspired me to study Dance/Movement Therapy and to challenge myself to return to dance after years of thinking that part of my life had ended. Dancing and moving with the children and families who have experienced so much that is foreign to me in a place that is so far removed from the places I call home will go from vision to reality in the days ahead.
this is humbling and exciting and overwhelming because in the visions and the words spoken over me, people were healed of hurts, discovered their innocence, reclaimed their childhoods, saw the separation between who they were and the things that had happened to them, they understood their value and preciousness to God, THROUGH THEIR DANCING...their dancing with me.
part of the inward journey that has been graduate school as been a desire to be "a beginner" to be the one who has the most to learn, who isn't in any way the leader...i haven't been able to find that place completely in these two years...until now. in this amazing group of people with whom i get to travel...i am the beginner in so many ways. not only that, i feel no pressure to be more than that. this is where i will crawl. and this is also where i will grieve. this is where i will forgive and let go.
very few things scare me. but i am afraid.
this opportunity is a divine appointment between my exact hopes for how a trip to africa would be structured and the very edges of my faith and trust, in myself and in the Lord.
i have decided to be there. and today i take the first steps from which there is really no turning back.
i absolutely do not have what it takes to finish this month according to the world, physically, emotionally, professionally, financially. i have less money, less experience, less training, and less muscle than most everyone i will be with.
suddenly i sound like every other odd character that God has ever used to do something incredible. something just.so.God.
this, more than anything maybe, is exactly why it feels so right to be going now and in this way and with this group.
this, more than anything maybe, is why i am afraid.
for anyone who is interested in learning more about what i am doing where here is a little rundown:
We will join drama therapists and fellow students in urban and village settings in Kenya and Uganda, where we will exchange knowledge and techniques with African theatre practitioners, counselors, social workers, and other group leaders who help heal and transform their communities. Using applied theatre and drama therapy methods, our work with community leaders will focus on several outcomes:
In Nairobi, Kenya, working with the Amani People's Theatre ( http://www.aptkenya.org www.aptkenya.org ), we will focus on street children in remand homes.
In Budondo village, Uganda, working with the Atua Theatre Troupe and Budondo Intercultural Center ( www.budondo.wordpress.com ), we will focus on women’s reproductive health.
In the Great Rift Valley in northern Kenya, and villages near the coast of the Indian Ocean, we will focus on preventing election-related violence.
In Northern Uganda, we will focus on rehabilitating and healing trauma in child soldiers after 20 years of war.
Another group we will be working with is the Rifiki Participatatory/Forum Theatre Troupe ( http://www.rafiki-theatre.org ).
ultimately, these people and groups recognize the power of movement, drama and music as healers and tools for communication and change. they see them as particularly useful to their cultures who live so immersed in these forms already in their daily lives. as such, they have invited us to come and to work with them to share the resources we have about how to take these art forms and make them part of the healing and growing process for body and spirit, individual, family, community, nation, and continent.
we are humbled and honored to share and eager to learn from all the wisdom they have to offer as well.
it feels important to thank everyone who has honored my heart's desires by supporting me and those who have honored my heart's desires by challenging me and asking the hard questions, those who have understood my crazy lack of schedule or plans, those who store my stuff, those who watch my dog, those who have given me grace for not returning phone calls or emails, those who have put up with excessive phone calls or emails...there are so many ways people have loved me into this place.
each of you have been part of why i believe i will be able to do this and that it will be right and good. and hard. and scary. and fun. and strange. and awful. and beautiful. each of you who will hold me in your heart for even a moment are part of the magic and the holiness of this with me.
thank you.
i hope to have some internet access and to keep people at least mildly updated but you can expect a flood of caseystories once i land back on this side of the pond.
you may wanna get some floaties.
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE EMAIL UPDATES SHOULD CONTACT ME AT cnichols3@antioch.edu AND I WILL DO MY BEST!
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THIS WORK AND MY OTHER WORK TO OFFER HEALING THROUGH DANCE IN THE US AND IN HAITI PLEASE VISIT www.muchministries.org OR ME AT THE ABOVE EMAIL
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT ME IN THIS WORK AND AS A HUMAN BEING THROUGH PRAYER DOESN'T HAVE TO CONTACT ANYONE...BUT I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT IT!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
today (really it was friday but on friday it was called today)
Today a million things will have gone wrong in the world.
And today it was my job to skip down the hall with a 16 year old girl while wearing funny hats and believing that life could be really good.
And somehow, right now, that wins.
And today it was my job to skip down the hall with a 16 year old girl while wearing funny hats and believing that life could be really good.
And somehow, right now, that wins.
so why do we do it?
as I was sitting in my new favorite spot in the antioch library (its like a living room...how did I not know about this when I was carless and LIVING at school first semester?!) when a gentleman came in to use the television set near my comfy couch. We had seen each other often around campus and even said hi but had not offically met...he introduced himself and we started talking. Somehow we got from the joys of the end of semester to the environment to the mountain gorillas of africa, to rwanda – which is where he is from, to my trip to africa, to the differences in communication styles between cultures, to friendship, to relationship, to LOVE.
Funny how everything really does come down to Love...no matter where you start Love is where you eventually end up....between lovers...between friends...between strangers....
between communities....between systems...between paradigms....
between generations....between moments.
No matter what you are buying or selling, doing, saying or believing...in every human transaction Love is that something that we are all trying to figure out how to give and hoping desperately to get.
This beautiful stranger sat with me and instead of watching his video he told me all about how he didn't know anything about Love because he had never had it, never felt it. He told me in great detail about all the aspects of Love he didn't know or understand.
After about half an hour of hearing things like “Love is about learning what matters to someone and making it matter to you too....Love means considering considering how you impact someone else's happiness.....Love makes you crazy, its terrible, because it is everything! It becomes what you eat, what you sleep, what you think, all that matters!....Love is being there even when you don't know how...Love is hard...” I finally said,
“Sounds to me like you have a much better idea than you think!”
He laughed and went on to say he felt he should understand it more....work harder to figure it out. I had to take a deep breath and a long look into that mirror he held up to the foolish image of what I have looked like far too often this year....
Then I said to myself, just out loud so as not to exclude my new friend, “I don't think we get to understand it because it is bigger than us. Its not something we were built to understand, its something we are built to do. It doesn't make sense, it just works. It's hard...it's really hard...”
“So why do we do it?” my holy messenger of wise reflection asked, surely just for effect at this point (nice touch by the way God.)
“Because....because its crazy and its hard and at its very worst it still feels to much better than giving up.” I heard myself reply.
Damn. And we wonder why I can get my neuroscience homework done.
since i don't have the internet i do all things web at once when i get to the library...like post blogs i wrote instead of doing homework while checking my facebook...the following quote was on someone's status as i was posting this blog and it seemed appropriate...its ridiculous...and kind of exactly true.
Love is like a booger. You keep picking at it until you get it, then wonder what to do with it.
Funny how everything really does come down to Love...no matter where you start Love is where you eventually end up....between lovers...between friends...between strangers....
between communities....between systems...between paradigms....
between generations....between moments.
No matter what you are buying or selling, doing, saying or believing...in every human transaction Love is that something that we are all trying to figure out how to give and hoping desperately to get.
This beautiful stranger sat with me and instead of watching his video he told me all about how he didn't know anything about Love because he had never had it, never felt it. He told me in great detail about all the aspects of Love he didn't know or understand.
After about half an hour of hearing things like “Love is about learning what matters to someone and making it matter to you too....Love means considering considering how you impact someone else's happiness.....Love makes you crazy, its terrible, because it is everything! It becomes what you eat, what you sleep, what you think, all that matters!....Love is being there even when you don't know how...Love is hard...” I finally said,
“Sounds to me like you have a much better idea than you think!”
He laughed and went on to say he felt he should understand it more....work harder to figure it out. I had to take a deep breath and a long look into that mirror he held up to the foolish image of what I have looked like far too often this year....
Then I said to myself, just out loud so as not to exclude my new friend, “I don't think we get to understand it because it is bigger than us. Its not something we were built to understand, its something we are built to do. It doesn't make sense, it just works. It's hard...it's really hard...”
“So why do we do it?” my holy messenger of wise reflection asked, surely just for effect at this point (nice touch by the way God.)
“Because....because its crazy and its hard and at its very worst it still feels to much better than giving up.” I heard myself reply.
Damn. And we wonder why I can get my neuroscience homework done.
since i don't have the internet i do all things web at once when i get to the library...like post blogs i wrote instead of doing homework while checking my facebook...the following quote was on someone's status as i was posting this blog and it seemed appropriate...its ridiculous...and kind of exactly true.
Love is like a booger. You keep picking at it until you get it, then wonder what to do with it.
Friday, April 22, 2011
faith hope and love...and therapy
thanks to the i am already aware she is amazing and yet she is not an actual acquaintance in the conventional sense lexi holloway my belief that i am supposed to have a blog but not feel obligated to blog according to any sort of schedule or in any way consistently has been completely validated...
so here i come out of what may seem like nowhere to the world wide web but has felt more like out of everywhere to me to say whats on my heart...more like what is being chiseled into my heart with the sharp instrument of life and the hand of a big god super serious about his love thing...
i have been in graduate school for two years now learning about dance movement therapy. before coming here i had already declared Love as my chosen profession but they didn't offer a masters in Love so i settled for something really close...dancing :)(actually i do have textbooks with titles like 'a general theory on love'...i LOVE my school)
but i digress...
the point is, while i have been here in a circle of people who are dynamic, embodied, self aware, radical, and all other kinds of amazing, and we are in a program that is just as amazing in how it engages us in the process and keeps our learning immersed in the truths of life outside the classroom, we have still invested a significant chunk of time in the classroom.
it has been challenging and nurturing, informative and question provoking...and it has taken me and many of those around me into a very heady place where sometimes we begin to see everything through the hypothetical and theoretical lenses we use to view the learning materials. i had a great talk with another amazing georgian (who i am actually acquainted with!) last night about the ways that disecting and examining any subject, particularly one involving humans, can lead to a very constricting pragmatism if we aren't careful that doesn't leave space for the way Truth and Life can and do contradict pattern and logic and expected...all. the. time.
maybe in our hearts we are still claiming hope for what is possible, but with our mouths we begin to expound on evidence and awareness of what is common, or likely, or expected...to be sure that we make it clear we understand and we KNOW what it is we are facing. but as we name the worst case scenario, or even the status quo, more and more...and we name our wildest hopes less all we are really doing is naming our fears and keeping our faiths silent...so we don't look foolish. or ignorant. or ridiculous.
or maybe so we don't lay claim to a miracle that is too big for God to come through on..oh wait...i didn't think those existed...
in our work we talk a lot about being "attached to outcome" and how that affects the work we do with clients. as the therapist our role is to create space for a client to find their own healing, to facilitate the process, to emotionally hold and support them as they find the truths for themselves. it is not our job, nor our right, to change or "fix" another human being or their problems and this is where outcome comes in. we are taught that we must be very aware of the outcomes we are attached to for our clients, as humans we will certainly have them, but our commitment as therapists is to support a client in discovering and pursuing the outcomes that matter to them. so we spend a lot of time talking about what i looks like to create a relationship with a person, explore their life experiences and feelings with them, to create goals and ideas that guide how we work together with them...and yet not become too attached to the outcomes we personally desire for them. umm...yeah.
i don't disagree with this, but i do have to continually examine it very carefully and very often...especially as i start to move my concept of what i am learning here out of the laboratory and more fully into my messy messy life office at the center for people who want to show love for a living. (read: usually my car)
the past two years have been serious career development for me. i have had and continue to have so many training experiences that push and challenge and stretch my understanding of what it means to love, how many ways that can look, what it takes from me, what it takes from God...i could write a thesis...or a business plan...hmmm....
this hit me this morning and it puts so much of what has been going on for me into new perspectives...i know i've been all over the place so try to stay with me here...
faith is believing in the infinity of possibility...without having to get into specifics..if i have faith...i just have it...no matter what set of details you give me faith always has the same answer...YES, ITS POSSIBLE.
hope is a different story...if i have hope...its hope in something happening (or not happening)...its being attached to an outcome for sure...but if hope comes from a holy place then so does the outcome, right? this is important because this means hope is a relational activity...its hard to think of too many things we could hope for that wouldn't affect other people in some way...so living a life of faith and a life of hope are two different stories...and that is all before you get to...
LOVE if faith is believing something is possible and hope is having faith that something that is possible will actually happen to you or someone else or someplace or whatever...then love is living in such a way that you support or encourage that thing to happen...doing and saying things that make it more possible and NOT doing or saying the things that make it less possible...love isn't just relational...its aggressive! it isn't just attached to an outcome...its following at high speeds in a fast car, its studying the blueprints and coming through the airducts, its finding the shortcut and coming out in front, its crouching in the bushes, tracking through the jungle, lying in wait for as long as it takes...its pursuing that outcome to the ends of the earth..and beyond.
okay...and then there is that whole thing about faith hope and love being really important...but the greatest of these being love...
whew...all this and no 401k?
(ok this is the part where i could take the time to make it clear that i don't think that loving people or places or things means you get to decide what is best for them (or stalk them in dark alleys)...in fact that couldn't be more opposite of what i am trying to say here...but i am going to trust that anyone who even knows to read this knows a few things about me...
a. that these are slightly manic thoughts presented in my somewhat melodramatic writing style so that they are out of my head and can be properly played with, talked about, analyzed and danced with until they feel right...
2. i would clear anything i believe or hope for anyone with my Boss before loving it onto them...and i am currently being trained in all kinds of methods for loving people that are not invasive, painful, or even immediately noticable to the naked eye. so don't go checking your airducts, your privacy and free will are safe with me.
and d. this is just the start of a much longer conversation that i would love to have with all of you, or both of you...or just you. hey mama.)
so here i come out of what may seem like nowhere to the world wide web but has felt more like out of everywhere to me to say whats on my heart...more like what is being chiseled into my heart with the sharp instrument of life and the hand of a big god super serious about his love thing...
i have been in graduate school for two years now learning about dance movement therapy. before coming here i had already declared Love as my chosen profession but they didn't offer a masters in Love so i settled for something really close...dancing :)(actually i do have textbooks with titles like 'a general theory on love'...i LOVE my school)
but i digress...
the point is, while i have been here in a circle of people who are dynamic, embodied, self aware, radical, and all other kinds of amazing, and we are in a program that is just as amazing in how it engages us in the process and keeps our learning immersed in the truths of life outside the classroom, we have still invested a significant chunk of time in the classroom.
it has been challenging and nurturing, informative and question provoking...and it has taken me and many of those around me into a very heady place where sometimes we begin to see everything through the hypothetical and theoretical lenses we use to view the learning materials. i had a great talk with another amazing georgian (who i am actually acquainted with!) last night about the ways that disecting and examining any subject, particularly one involving humans, can lead to a very constricting pragmatism if we aren't careful that doesn't leave space for the way Truth and Life can and do contradict pattern and logic and expected...all. the. time.
maybe in our hearts we are still claiming hope for what is possible, but with our mouths we begin to expound on evidence and awareness of what is common, or likely, or expected...to be sure that we make it clear we understand and we KNOW what it is we are facing. but as we name the worst case scenario, or even the status quo, more and more...and we name our wildest hopes less all we are really doing is naming our fears and keeping our faiths silent...so we don't look foolish. or ignorant. or ridiculous.
or maybe so we don't lay claim to a miracle that is too big for God to come through on..oh wait...i didn't think those existed...
in our work we talk a lot about being "attached to outcome" and how that affects the work we do with clients. as the therapist our role is to create space for a client to find their own healing, to facilitate the process, to emotionally hold and support them as they find the truths for themselves. it is not our job, nor our right, to change or "fix" another human being or their problems and this is where outcome comes in. we are taught that we must be very aware of the outcomes we are attached to for our clients, as humans we will certainly have them, but our commitment as therapists is to support a client in discovering and pursuing the outcomes that matter to them. so we spend a lot of time talking about what i looks like to create a relationship with a person, explore their life experiences and feelings with them, to create goals and ideas that guide how we work together with them...and yet not become too attached to the outcomes we personally desire for them. umm...yeah.
i don't disagree with this, but i do have to continually examine it very carefully and very often...especially as i start to move my concept of what i am learning here out of the laboratory and more fully into my messy messy life office at the center for people who want to show love for a living. (read: usually my car)
the past two years have been serious career development for me. i have had and continue to have so many training experiences that push and challenge and stretch my understanding of what it means to love, how many ways that can look, what it takes from me, what it takes from God...i could write a thesis...or a business plan...hmmm....
this hit me this morning and it puts so much of what has been going on for me into new perspectives...i know i've been all over the place so try to stay with me here...
faith is believing in the infinity of possibility...without having to get into specifics..if i have faith...i just have it...no matter what set of details you give me faith always has the same answer...YES, ITS POSSIBLE.
hope is a different story...if i have hope...its hope in something happening (or not happening)...its being attached to an outcome for sure...but if hope comes from a holy place then so does the outcome, right? this is important because this means hope is a relational activity...its hard to think of too many things we could hope for that wouldn't affect other people in some way...so living a life of faith and a life of hope are two different stories...and that is all before you get to...
LOVE if faith is believing something is possible and hope is having faith that something that is possible will actually happen to you or someone else or someplace or whatever...then love is living in such a way that you support or encourage that thing to happen...doing and saying things that make it more possible and NOT doing or saying the things that make it less possible...love isn't just relational...its aggressive! it isn't just attached to an outcome...its following at high speeds in a fast car, its studying the blueprints and coming through the airducts, its finding the shortcut and coming out in front, its crouching in the bushes, tracking through the jungle, lying in wait for as long as it takes...its pursuing that outcome to the ends of the earth..and beyond.
okay...and then there is that whole thing about faith hope and love being really important...but the greatest of these being love...
whew...all this and no 401k?
(ok this is the part where i could take the time to make it clear that i don't think that loving people or places or things means you get to decide what is best for them (or stalk them in dark alleys)...in fact that couldn't be more opposite of what i am trying to say here...but i am going to trust that anyone who even knows to read this knows a few things about me...
a. that these are slightly manic thoughts presented in my somewhat melodramatic writing style so that they are out of my head and can be properly played with, talked about, analyzed and danced with until they feel right...
2. i would clear anything i believe or hope for anyone with my Boss before loving it onto them...and i am currently being trained in all kinds of methods for loving people that are not invasive, painful, or even immediately noticable to the naked eye. so don't go checking your airducts, your privacy and free will are safe with me.
and d. this is just the start of a much longer conversation that i would love to have with all of you, or both of you...or just you. hey mama.)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i had the weirdest dream....i took my mama and my aunt sabra and some of their friends to church in a small southern baptist style sanctuary that was supposed to be in haiti...upon walking in i became aware that joseph kony (the ugandan leader of the LRA, a rebel group that enslaves and exploits children as soldiers and sex slaves) was in attendance. other than the presence of this church in haiti and this terrorist's presence in it, a couple of other things were kind of strange...
he was white...with an entourage made up of middle aged men from india and pakistan...who i apparently knew well.
in the midst of all this all my energy was going to trying to convince my mama and her friends to stop being silly and whispering in church, which they saw as highly uptight and hypocritical on my part...because they didn't recognize kony and know that our back pew antics could exact a severe penalty from him and his cronies...which i was apparently painfully aware of and hence...
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i have no idea what i expect to come of sharing this dream...but i couldn't bring myself not to...its just too weird...and i would just love to hear what cory brooks thinks about it....
he was white...with an entourage made up of middle aged men from india and pakistan...who i apparently knew well.
in the midst of all this all my energy was going to trying to convince my mama and her friends to stop being silly and whispering in church, which they saw as highly uptight and hypocritical on my part...because they didn't recognize kony and know that our back pew antics could exact a severe penalty from him and his cronies...which i was apparently painfully aware of and hence...
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i have no idea what i expect to come of sharing this dream...but i couldn't bring myself not to...its just too weird...and i would just love to hear what cory brooks thinks about it....
mama t
1-13-11
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
kompa
1-9-11
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
driftwood beach
god has told the ocean the secret, and the ocean tell it to me anytime I stop to listen.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
can you have resolutions if you skip fake amish new year's?
so tonight was supposed to be "fake amish new year" which is a long story that is probably only funny to my family, or maybe just me, and it ended up not happening at all. it wasn't until i laid down tonight (which happened to be right a midnight) that i realized that in addition to missing out on time at "the coast," fireworks, seeing a lot of peeps i had yet to get to hang with on this break, and a midnight dip in the julienton river, by skipping regular new years in favor of fake amish new years and then skipping that too we never officially welcomed 2011....i realized this in a kind of backwards way too...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
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