I'll be the one free of jealousy.

My words are stuck and my camera is broken, but hey, the music's still here.

I love you, and I miss you. What else is there to say?

{Far More ~ The Honorary Title}

a letter

Someday I'll live in a house with  spiral staircase, and a fireplace in the kitchen, and a big dog underfoot. Every room will be a different color. Every room will have books.
I want to take a train to somewhere brand new, and read a new book, and stare out the window at the blurring woods. On that train, I want to sit across from someone who likes the same kind of adventures I do.
I want to watch snow fall into the sea. I want to climb to the top of a lighthouse.
I want to play upright bass in a jazz band on the corner of Main Street at Christmastime.
I want to sit in a cafe alone, and watch the jazz band across the street play their hearts out to the passing pedestrians.
I want to write a story that will make someone happy. And another that will make someone cry.
I want to write a poem that makes someone feel less alone.
I want to write a book worth reading twice.
I want to hold the hand of someone kind, with a nice smile. I want to write haiku love letters.

I'd tell you all my secrets. Really, I would. But secrets are slippery and quick, and when I try to let them go, my heart closes up before they hit the air.
Someday, I hope my honesty is quicker than my secrecy.
I want my bravery to be faster than my fear.

11.25.12

:)

six things

1. Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches. 
2. I turned on my car this morning to discover that one of my radio presets is playing Christmas music already. [No! Too soon!]
3. Cheap tea, copiously.
4. Unintentional honesty. Everything I write is too personal for comfort.
5. Good people saying kind things.
6. Sunday Afternoons.

There's a lot I want to say. It's just taking a while to puzzle out the right words.  

It's almost Thanksgiving. I'm glad.

poem for one of those thursdays

If ignorance is bliss, Father said,
shouldn't you be looking blissful?
You should check to see if you have
the right kind of ignorance. If you're
not getting the benefits that most people
get from acting stupid, then you should
go back to what you always were ––
being too smart for your own good.

~ The Benefits of Ignorance by Hal Sirowitz

indecorum

Tonight, in the store that smelled of citrus, I lightly touched the $10 teacups, and ruffled the $200 dresses, and then caught sight of my chipped nail polish. I paused, and curled my fingers into light fists. I was suddenly aware of my old flannel  and my scuffed converse. In that airy place of light and sparkle, I felt distinctly out of place and inelegant. I felt like something decidedly less than lovely.

{photo from Anthropologie}

A Halloween List

I'm taking my sister trick-or-treating tonight. About a week ago, she showed up at my bedroom door, and, with a very hopeful expression, asked me, "Dana, will you take me trick-or-treating on Halloween? I want to go with Gordon and Alex, or maybe Madeline and Peter, I don't know, but could you please, please come?"
Of course I said yes.

I wasn't going to wear a costume, but my best friend reminded me not to slip too early into adulthood. A trip to Walmart yesterday produced a $7.50 t-shirt and a 93¢ tube of lipstick. I'm going to be Batman.
My mum said, "....Isn't Batman...a man?" Yes. And no, I am not. But I will look just as sharp while defending Gotham City.

When I was little, my mum always used to make me sit down and eat dinner before we went out on Halloween night. It was the hardest thing, because I was never hungry, and too excited to eat even if I had been. I never much enjoyed talking to strangers, but I liked getting candy, and seeing my friends, and dressing up. I liked the post-pillage inventory, when we'd dump all the candy out on the living room floor and sort it into piles. I used to be able to make it last until Valentine's day.

This Halloween should be good. I'm in the right mood. My siblings have promised to share their candy.  We carved pumpkins last night. My costume is tops. You should come over. We can trade mini Twix and watch old Scooby-Doo episodes. Stay up late and wait for the Great Pumpkin. It will be fun.
Happy Halloween:)

{Costume inspiration}

[This is terribly written. I had a killer test today, and not enough sleep last night. But I'm sorry. Thanks for understanding:]

the obligatory mention of how much I love October

Somehow I've gone twenty-seven days without writing an ode to October. That might be unprecedented! But tonight the sky is pale pink, and I'm sitting on my deck, on a bench covered with leaves. The light in my neighbor's window just came on. The air is cool, but not cold yet. It's peaceful. I think I'm happy.

I was lonely this time last year. I was thinking about that today, remembering the ghosts that used to walk at my shoulder and ride shotgun in my car. But a year is a long time. I'm not a different person now, but I know a little more. 

And this autumn has been treating me well! Sure, there's been a few scares, a lot of stress, a little sadness. But there's also been a lot of honesty. A lot of late-night phone calls, of the best kind. There's been more writing. Less struggling.

I don't have a closing thought. All that I'm trying to say is that it's October. Good things happen sometimes when you aren't expecting them. And I'm glad to be alive.

{This is my view.}

rainbow shoelaces

My sister is on the floor in front of the TV, singing along to the claymated theme song. I come up behind her, and softly I tug on her ponytail and kiss the top of her head.

I sit down on the couch with a blanket and my laptop on my knees. In a few minutes, she climbs up and makes me share. She lays her head on my shoulder. I watch her serious eyes and the way her whole face lights up when something funny happens. 'Hotshots' soccer jersey, white turtleneck, miniature Newbalance sneakers, her perfect freckled nose. She notices me watching her, and gives me an eskimo kiss. She grabs my hands so I can't type, and laughs, and tells me a story about kindergarten. 

She's five years old, and the most beautiful thing in the world. 

                 /.lkogirituutyde8figojd8eyw6teujffijduetr5e5s66eyhwiskisu66tar5rshiiu

(That was her.)

among the stars

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Click for big, links below.

blue silk

Last night, I was on the phone too late.
I talked outside, under a deep, starry sky. The Milky Way was a dusty stripe in the blue silk. I lay on the hood of my car.
On the other end, I heard him laugh, dry and quiet, and I reached up and trapped a star between my thumb and forefinger. For a second, I thought that maybe I could catch it, pull it down and stow it in my pocket. It seemed so close. He seemed close, too.
I got up and walked barefoot down the center of the street. As I neared the corner, I saw the moon coming up. It was huge and orange and half-full. It sailed slowly upward over the black tree line on the horizon, and I was the only one awake to watch it.

Last night, I was on the phone too late. I should have hung up an hour earlier. But my soft velvet weariness beautifully matched the blue silk sky, and my solitude matched perfectly the sound of his laughter.

on seeking

"I think God is always there, and He's always perfectly there. The issue then becomes, "Why can't we receive what is already there? Why can't we look at our mother and really truly understand how much our mother loves us even if she's unable to show it?" . . . Why do we need indications of love? Why do we need lesser symbols of love to reassure us of what we already know is there? That's what the core of the spiritual journey is. It's knowing—yet without the proof you need for your heart, you need to just wander around and figure it out . . . . If one could agree with the construct that we're here per God's grace to have an experience and learn something to come into the sublime world we live on, then there's something beautiful about the idea there's a trust from God to let us wander, stumble, fall, and pick ourselves back up."

 ~ Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins

    

The rest of the interview, with Stephen Christian of Anberlin, is deep and excellent and well worth a read.

9.28.12

better days

Today was better.
I took a test. I wrote a paper. I barely missed you at all.
I didn't wear makeup to school, and despite the plethora of bad face days I've been having recently, I felt perfectly fine. 
I tried a new recipe. It turned out well. 
The air felt like autumn. I went to Walmart on the way home from school, and in addition to the shopping list, I impulse-bought some tea (cinnamon apple), and an air freshener (also cinnamon apple). 
I thought about people I haven't seen in a while, and I wondered how they're doing. I prayed a little.

I'm going to grow up. I'm going to get stronger. Stuff will be okay. 



These are disjointed thoughts. I probably would have been better off just putting them in my diary, but hey, my blog, my rules:) Because maybe you can relate a little. Maybe you have bad weeks too, bad months even. And maybe one day, you wake up and the air is crisp and the sky is clear and what everyone else thinks seems to matter less. Maybe some days, you wake up feeling free.

Love.

the fighter

Jerry Douglas - The Boxer (featuring Mumford & Sons and Paul Simon)

I am leaving, 

I am leaving, 

but the fighter still remains.

eight things

 Sitting in my 9 AM math class, I notice a faint lipstick print on my coffee mug. I wonder when I became the kind of person who wears lipstick. Who carries a coffee mug.

I've been trying to break a bad habit. I think I've almost succeeded, but only time will tell.

Lots of tests this week. Two papers due. Lots of homework. Work all weekend. I'm three weeks into the school year, and I don't think it's going to get any easier.

My mum brought home licorice tea, and decaf chai and ginger pear green, and they're making my mornings brighter.

The days are getting cooler. It's making me happy.

Yesterday I got three cd's for 75 cents. One of them was the Jonas Brothers.

I fell asleep rereading my favorite book last night, and woke up at 3 am with the light still on and my book on the floor.

And a recent decision has set me adrift.

photo by Jennifer Trovato

poem for a weary Monday

Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren't we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don't say a word,
don't tell a soul, they wouldn't
understand, they couldn't, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.


~ "Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey" by Hayden Carruth

through chaos as it swirls

This song helped me through many of the dark days of last fall, and as autumn creeps up again I find myself gravitating toward it once more. It's rain-hearted music.


This tightrope that I'm walking just sways and ties
   The devil as he's talking with those angel's eyes,
      And I just want to be there when the lightning strikes
         And the saints go marching in. 


My heart's a bit of a mess right now. Maybe that's what it is.

on love

"So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?"

"Love," he explained.

She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. "I hope you choke on it," she said, flatly.

- from Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

apprehension

Today was the last day of my summer. It's left me with red eyes and freckled elbows, with Sgt. Pepper in my car and a heartful of complex emotions. And now my textbooks are sitting in a stack on my desk, with a box each of brand-new pencils and paperclips, waiting.

I'm not ready. If I'm being very honest, I'm a little bit scared. But my sweet, dear friend wrote me a beginning-of-school letter that made me feel a little lighter.  And tomorrow is coming fast, whether I want it or not.

So tomorrow I'll wake up, and I'll make some tea. I'll wear my converse. I'll pray very hard, and walk into my 9:05 Finite Math class and smile. And from there?

I suppose we'll find out.

8.21.12

a confession (just one thing)

I like the way you say my name. The way you say it before a serious statement, a secret, a revelation. Before questions. After compliments.
I like the way you say it sometimes, and blink, and slowly shake your head, as though you've lost all your words.
I like the way you mock me with it.
My favorite is the way you say my name when we haven't seen each other in a while, and you smile at me, and I smile at you, and it becomes the beginning of a conversation.
There's no subtext, no hidden meaning. But you say it like it means something. Like it's a name worth saying.

(unrelated picture I took and liked :)

chameleon

photo by Michael Molthagen

return

I got back from a trip recently. On paper, it wouldn't seem like anything momentous: it was a trip to a state I've been to a hundred times before, to see people I've seen a lot of in the past. But I came back with a flickering light lit up full force. Something about reaffirming that the people I love love me too lifted a lot of self-doubt and self-loathing. It's easier to notice when things are going all right.

Here it is: the end of the hiatus. The words still aren't exactly the way I wanted them, but here they are. Thank you for your patience:)

last-week-of-spring music

Watching You Watch Him ~ Eric Hutchinson [Jangly, jaunty and bittersweet. "I love you like a broken record plays, but I'm a windowpane, a phantom limb, when I'm watching you watch him."]

Emmylou ~ First Aid Kit [Dreamy and poetic. This is bliss-out music. "Now so much I know: that things just don't grow if you don't bless them with your patience."]

See the World ~ Gomez [This is a road trip, lemonade in the summertime kind of song. Probably my favorite, at the moment. "The answer's still the same: See the world, find an old-fashioned girl, And when all's been said and done, The things that are given, not won, Are the things that you earn."]

Motorcycle Drive By ~ Third Eye Blind [Old song, of course. But it's the kind of song that can break your heart, and heal it at the same time. It's poetry.]

Clark Gable ~ Postal Service ["I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired. I thought it classic. I want so badly to believe that there is truth, that love is real."

To the Dogs or Whoever ~ Josh Ritter [I adore this man. He always sings like he's having such a good time."I thought I heard somebody calling in the dark, I thought I heard somebody call."]

Transition songs, for the gap between spring and summer. Mostly bittersweet, moving-on songs. Ah, there's so much good music out there! It excites me. :)

Paris by night

"One night we hit the town....At eleven-thirty, we drove up to the Place du Tertre, where we struggled past the barkers and milling tourists in the narrow streets. At the Lapin Agile we paid two thousand francs and squeezed our way to some stools in back. The air was foggy with tobacco smoke, and a chap played boogie-woogie on an upright piano. We ordered brandied cherries, but they never arrived. Finally, a man with a good baritone voice sang four traditional French folk songs, and then we crammed our way outside again and breathed deeply in the cool night air. We strolled along the terrace in front of Sacre-Cour to stare down at the city. Paris was serene and quiet in the moonlight, and seemed to stretch away to infinity.
      "...We headed off to the Left Bank, where we found a jolly nightclub called Le Club Saint-Yves....The audience was made up of simple folk, all French, who were obviously having fun. What the singers lacked in voice, they made up for in personality and verve. After the club closed, at 3:00 a.m., we went on to Les Halles and walked around....It was cold and dark, but the vast marketplace was beautiful under splotches of yellow electric light. As dawn lightened the edges of the sky, we found ourselves at Au Pied de Cochon for a traditional bowl of onion soup, glasses of red wine, and cups of coffee. At five-fifteen, we straggled home."

~ Julia Child, My Life in France

nothing

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
(Romans 8:28-29)


Sometimes things like this will suddenly pop into my head and bowl me over. NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. 
Wow.
 Happy Easter, friends. 

guilty pleasure

Don't judge me for loving this song. Give it a shot. It had to grow on me, too. But now? Now it gets stuck in my head on a bouncy, everlasting loop and it's all I can do not to start singing out loud in the grocery store and dancing my converse across the parking lot.

:)

Skin & Bones - Romance on a Rocketship

first day of spring.

It's the first day of Spring, and I'm feeling it and believing it. The trees are blooming all down my street, white and purple and pink. The forsythia are flaming yellow like the daffodils. I've lived a lot of places, but sometimes I think that this Virginian valley is the most beautiful (although it's taken me a while to see it as such). 


Last winter, I was riding in the passenger seat of a woman older and wiser than myself. The mountains hemmed us in on both sides as we sailed North. "I've always thought they look like God sort of kneaded them together," she said. "You know how the Rockies are all craggy, like they were chiseled or something? I think He molded these with his bare hands." I think she's right.

Baby, don't worry about a thing,

'Cause every little thing

Gonna be all right. 

poem for a climax

There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free--
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.

Skin's gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
obedient thoughts have turned to infidels
and every verb desires to be a noun.


I want--my want. I love--my love. I'll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what's here to never go away.
I'll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast...

Your heart's in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You'd have sworn no one knew you more than you.

How many people thought you'd never change?
But here you have. It's beautiful. It's strange.

~ "There Comes the Strangest Moment" by Kate Light

Paris

Darling, let's go to Paris.
Not just for the week. Let's go to Paris for a long time, a year maybe, long enough to rent a tiny flat and run out of money. Long enough to see its different moods, to watch it change with the seasons. We'll get to know the landlady well enough to find out that she's a little bit crazy. But then, so are we.


I'll fall in love with the way you buy a French newspaper every Sunday and puzzle over it with your coffee, sitting across from me in the cafe. You'll fall in love with the  way I buy a bunch of flowers every Friday from the same woman, and try to talk to her in broken French. I'll fall in love with the way you take my hand as we walk along the Seine. You'll fall in love with the way I smile up at you when we stop.


I'll finish writing my novel. You'll sell your art to a gallery. We'll get by. There may not be much money, but it's Paris, sweetheart. We're the lovers and dreamers it's famed for. Together in the City of Light, how could we be unhappy?

photo from here

new girl

I watched this episode and just about cheered.
"I got something to say to you, man!"

there'll be sun

This song has been making me consistently happy for about three weeks now, beyond all logic and despite endless repeats.  It's sunny. It's catchy. It's the best.

2.23.12

rabbit

photo by rabbitier

:)

nightmares

I had a night of terrible dreams with recurring themes, and I woke up crying this morning. But I put on my dress with the polka-dots, and my Dad bought me a chocolate croissant with his coffee. I spent the afternoon on music and paint, and the shadow started to lift.
Do you get nightmares, too, or am I the only one?
Love.

photo by jenna::

via habit

every one.

"The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled." 

~Joshua 21:44-45

the beat

 

I quite love Dallas Clayton. He writes and illustrates poetry for children (and sometimes adults) that's cheerful and nonsensical and poignant and lovely. He makes days like today a little more sunny. You should love him, too.

la Chandeleur

Because I needed a reason to celebrate, I claimed a holiday. February 2nd, La Chandeleur, Candlemas, a day upon which French people gather up their families and eat crepes by the stack. To keep with the tradition, I broke out my mom's copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and dedicated my afternoon to celebratory crepe-flipping.


The evening ended with Nutella and Buddy Holly, a pile of damp dishes on the drainboard and satisfaction.

poem for a free monday

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what 
I want. Only that. But that. 


Prayer by Galway Kinnell

ballads

'I'm yours and that's it, whatever.'

while the snow falls

Today I need a vista, loose wild air, a little bit of freedom, hope. I need to learn the words to new songs, put on a swirly dress and dance and watch the snow fall through the window. I need to find a little spark to get me through next week. I may have to make my own sunshine. 

photo by Mitchell Davis

1-15-12

for A

I was cutting up a pomegranate yesterday, thinking about you, and thinking about how strange it is that we could be friends. We have so little in common, besides our desires to be loved and to do the right thing. I wondered why you chose me. Why you continue to choose me.

You introduced me to your grandmother last night. "This is the girl I told you about," you said. "Remember last year, when I was going through that rough time, and I told you I was praying for a friend? This is her."
I never knew. I was kind of floored, to be honest with you.

Maybe you have something I need, A. Maybe I need more of your wide-eyed, big-hearted, openly loving approach to life and people. Maybe among and between the discussions of boys and beauty and God, you could help me become a better person.

poem for a sodden wednesday

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.


~ Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver