When Heavy Metal Floats

I think, lying here next to Shadow (we share her bed of cedar) that somewhere there is a boy holding a gun; a soldier is being told he will fight a child army in Africa; someone is crying; someone is hemorrhaging; someone is being beaten, screaming; someone is cold and lonely; someone is wondering at the sky, why is it so beautiful if there is no hope?

I implode. A great rocket of a bullet picks me up when I look to the noise. It grabs me under the rib cage and throws me into the wall. My arms and my head and my hair fly forward of my body, my back crashes into the wall where my mother hangs the dead butterflies that I collect for her.

I crumble to the floor and this house is still here. I’m still here. Shadow cocks her head.

Turned on a dime, the rest of my life. I wonder how many ties I’ve left dangling - the ends burning and I don’t know when they’ll run out; sticks of incense become strings of ash. I think that I’ve built bridges and not cared to cross them. I thought I knew what I wanted, I usually do, but then I find myself most occupied doing the tasks that I deny myself. I love these threads and these needles. The paints and the pencils are familiar, but they stretch me differently. I wear make up when I sew. I get dressed to craft in sweatpants and lipstick.

I am. God knows. I do. Pray. Write. Linger. Binding leather to paper somehow creates truth and I believe it -a fool for the strange. For God I swoon because I thirst for His mystery. This world is most amazing with limited understanding. Give me the red moon; I don’t need to know why.

A retirement speech

This man, at his retirement party, at 24 years old, told the crowd in his motivational speech:

"Ask yourself, 'What do you want? When do you want it? And what are you willing to do to get it?'"

The rewards of this business were cars, shoes, a house, clothes, jewelry...at least that's what they showcased. Perhaps if they had shown a video of a girl swinging out of her canopy bedroom at the top of her tree house I would have been hooked. Of course, the one to earn the money may spend it on whatever he pleases.

I just couldn't help but notice.

And I was bothered.

I was out of place and I didn't feel comfortable. What I want doesn't fit in here.

So what do I want? When do I want it? And what am I willing to do to get it?

I want to live in a community of creators, living off the land, in support of one another, at the edge of a city.

I want this now. And I am willing to leave with the bag on my back.

I just don't really want to go alone...

White Elephants; We're Walking

Feeling melancholy. Like I should write a song.

Did I let people down? I don't know how I did but I'm feeling that there's distance.

It's probably just me again.

Words gather to create chatter

I don't want them to forget about me. I want to remain relevant and so I need to be present. He's right: there is no 'two lives,' no 'here and there;' there is only one I and I am here now. I wonder if I'm the only one who notices.

God has come through...those words so often I hear as empty. But all good things are God, right? And all bad things are the absence of God, yes? So why is God absent in some places? No, He is omnipresent...The world is fallen; it's the only conclusion I can come to, but it doesn't completely give me peace. There is war and destruction all throughout human history and then there are those verses where God says that only He knows what He is doing and that His plan is good. Even when He closes the mind of Pharaoh so that he will not let the Jews go, we are meager and it is not our place to understand. The potter chooses for what to use his vessels - perhaps one for trash and another for gold, another for magic. We trust Him. He is good. So what do I do with those verses? Those verses that literally haunt me?

If I am blessed, if I was born of privilege in a land of freedom, then with that power comes great responsibility.

I heard someone say once: When you finally come face to face with God and He asks you, "What did you do with the time I gave you?" How are you going to say, "I got a job."? I say it repeatedly: I do not want a job; I want to be a part of something bigger than myself.

I am consoled: people tell me that I can do "God's work" in all places, even as a telemarketer selling things that people don't need. I can believe that. I can believe that we "soldiers" are needed in all areas of the field. But at the same time I think, But why? Why settle for selling something that you know will not satisfy anybody - something that will become garbage and a waste of space in as little as a year? Maybe it's just the marketing world I cannot come to terms with...

Please, when you read this, do not feel accused. Let me speak honestly knowing that you understand that I do not judge you. It is me opening myself up looking for my own answer to my own problem (my own problem that I'm convinced most people share).

It's true: we need money to live...kind of. At least it is true that I need money to pay back these student loans (thank you). But it's also true that there are always alternatives. My God LOOK AT WHAT PEOPLE HAVE DONE! Look at the monuments that we have raised! Look at the cities that we have built! Look at the problems we have solved! (In spite of the damage we have done.) People are powerful with the right support, the right drive, a shared vision, shared energy, a good leader, hard work, and determined attitudes. It would seem that anything is possible. And so, perhaps

I am gathering my support. I am finding my drive. I am sharing my vision. I am gathering energy. I seek a good partner. I am training to work hard.

Am I determined enough?

Choose Wisely

"Choose wisely. In fact, we would ask a favor of you. If you decide you are a witch and that you will be open about it, don't tell the world for a year and a day. Learn everything you can about the Craft so that you may speak from knowledge. Cultivate your serenity and inner strength. Judge your words and actions before you speak or act, and then act and speak from love and kindness. Learn to see the magick all around you, so that curiosity and wonder are alive within you. Remember that you are holy and all people around you are sacred, and light the world with the radiance of the Goddess and God within you.

After that, if it seems wise, let the world know that you are a Witch. Then you will do honor to the Craft, the ancestors, and yourself." Amber K & Azrael Arynn K.

oh soul my soul

this I take

my soul to give

to live for this

my soul to give

I died in wake

my soul to give

on earth it's bound

my soul to give

mistaken names

my soul to give

a hand to hold

my soul to give

an eye to catch

my soul to give

I pray you see

oh soul my soul

Sex God

A journal entry I found in a random notebook. I'm pretty certain it's referring to Rob Bell's book, Sex God. I'm tossing out the page but want to keep this:

Sure, it's a book about sex, but it's so much more than that:

Virgin. Married. Active. Abused. Confused. Alone. Loved. Forgotten. Frustrated...

for these people (as well as myself) this book is a comfort, but also an inspiration.

Rob Bell knows how to turn his knowledge and love for God into applicable wisdom and enjoyment.

"Velvet Elvis" is perhaps even more ground breaking. It makes me think. It makes me jump up and sing at the top of my lungs unintelligible yet thoroughly expressive sounds: the only thing one can do when her heart is about to explode with feelings unidentified - with energy found new in a cosmic mystery. You know you're a part of something huge when you can't touch it, you can't see it - so you sing, and you love.

the cat's sitting on my lap

Trapped like an animal. I'm flinging myself into the walls and hanging from the chandeliers. I'm loading up on ice cream and throwing it into the streets.

I don't want to sit here and paint. I don't want to write or read or be calm or post on this site.

I had this dream a while back where I was screaming at the edge of a cliff into the space about me. It was raining and my hair was plastered to my face.

Hmm. Why am I sharing this? BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN! I want these feelings to be real and this anxiousness to be satisfied.

I scream inside this mouth behind these teeth inside this skull. You don't hear it but my ears are ringing.

I want to be active. To run, to dance, to jump, to fly, to physically DO SOMETHING.

I will GO

This marathon comes first. That is where I can focus this wondering mind and these jittery feet. I am done and graduated and left with the responsibility of free-time.

I was wondering...what makes a job feel like a career? A retirement plan, insurance that covers health, dental, and optical, paid vacation and sick time, and the ability to pay a mortgage, car expenses, and family needs...so, like, can I do that without a job?

lalalala RE-CENTERING: the marathon is what I want to focus on right now because if I focus on myself, I might just lose it. Please come and support me in this. I need help and encouragement from you so that I know that I am not running these miles in vain but that I truly am making a difference in those kids' lives.

Please visit this link for a direct way to donate.

ALSO keep a look-out for my upcoming open house where I can talk more about what I am doing and why as well as share kabobs, baklava, and hear own stories.

Can we be friends? I like friends.

cookies are baking

All I can do is wait. But I have to keep my head in the Word if I am waiting on Him. I have to give it up, but I want to recognize what he is offering, so I fill my mind with His work.

Clouds are forming. Tornados are spreading. Hurricanes are rising. Storms are crashing. This world is changing. I believe disasters will become a part of out daily news, and even our own daily lives. How do we function in this newly forming world? Who am I? I am not content in keeping a job, or even in creating artwork for people to buy. I have something to give.

I am somewhat suddenly drawn to flowers and to the fact that I can arrange them in new ways, almost like a collaboration with another artist far greater than I.

What I love about flowers is that they are beautiful. They are alluring and delicate, yet strong. They are glorious, yet they are humble. They bloom and shine without shame, and then they wither and they die simply, humbly, gracefully. They serve the earth and then move on. They are a tangible connection between the sun’s energy, the earth’s nutrients, and water’s life.

I want my hand in work that is tangible, public, lasting, but evolving, kind of like a flower’s life.

Lord, where do you want me?

I see thousands of college students wondering the exact same thing: where do we go next? We have these degrees and we are told that that means something and that it is good, but what does it do?

I am: VisualSensualEmpatheticPatientActiveIntuitive

I am a: DancerWriterNaturalistArtistStylistIntrovertedextrovert

Somehow these things can work together for the greater good.

For now, I am noticing the trees, the flowers, the birds, the clouds, and the storms. I am noticing that I am extremely blessed with people who love and support me. Thank you

Night entering May 9

An underground world. Stalagmites and stalactites. I am reminded of the Discovery Zone. There is still a little sun. Two girls and a man. He marries the blond girl in a simple ceremony. No flowers but a bouquet. No guests. I can't even see the priest. The groom seems a little out of it, as if he were drugged, or blind and tipsy. Somewhere I am watching. I see this. Or maybe it's because it's my dream.

In the tent she is sleeping in a bed. Red walls and a toy chandelier made from rhinestones and sequins. I am on the tent floor, my face almost against the canvas wall. He comes in and lays beside me, his chest against my back. I don't fully register that he's there or that it's him. But he holds me and it feels good - warm and secure.

The light shines through the red canvas and my eyes open. Without speaking, without hardly moving, I communicate to him that I am confused. She is not called his wife, but there is that girl sleeping in that bed. I hear him think, 'Shit,' and he gets up, flustered, embarrassed angry. He leaves.

And then the scene jumps. I cannot stop laughing. We are laughing together, our faces nearly touching. I smell lemonade: it pours from the sun. Our smiles are so big that they hurt. My eyes tear. Everything is fixed, healed. Everything I thought of him as is real. It's all true. In this moment, love is an image, not a feeling. I do not say I love him, but this scene is one hundred percent love.

Beaches. Ocean. Sun. Sky. Mountains. A baby's perfect skin. Josh's joking manner. James feeling like a good brother. The family is happy. We are a family. This feeling is just so good.

And damn it it was just a dream.

Would I know what to do with dreams if they told me the future?

Night entering May 5

The house is tall and narrow, almost just big enough for the spiral staircase that twists through it. We are looking for something, almost urgently.

[I will use him as a distraction from the other figure who haunts my thoughts. He I can remember and feel no anxiety.]

A rat with a bunny's tail. A woman I can't fully see. My mom with a criminal mind. She is sick, I am afraid when she looks at me.

There is a station, a pay station, full of credit card terminals. The lighting here is reddish - like a dull bulb in a salmon colored room. On one side we are waiting; she forgot what was most important. The puppies bark. She is upset, hurt, she feels betrayed and unappreciated. Her sister is there, paying also. But this is a two second clip in a twenty (40, 60, 10?) minute dream.

[How can I show you that I love you?]

There is something I am not telling you. Forgive me, I am trying to remember. We are getting ready. That's it: this is an annual event. Our tree house soiree (I don't even know what that word means.)

There are six people in this room. We don't breathe too heavily. Something is wrong, off; I feel unsteady. My eyes dart back and forth. But this man, he is sure of himself, and so then of him I am weary. I hold his hand.

be my lover

Last night I had a dream about this woman who owned an inn. She had a hairless cat and a pool of tar – I don’t remember what the tar was for but at one point it was seeping out from under her inn and into the streets. The cars drove threw it, thinking nothing of it, and then got stuck later down the road once the tar on their wheels had stiffened. At one point I started to roll in it with my roller blades thinking that the drivers of the cars knew what they were doing and it would therefore be okay, but I got stuck too. My mother eventually told me that I shouldn’t even walk by the place because the tar was so toxic.

The innkeeper was older, maybe in her late fifties. We had met her at one point while we were still dating, but we never stayed at the inn, maybe we just passed it by. Once we broke up, I learned that you were staying with her. It started out as one night; you just needed a place to stay while you visited your Dad. But then you grew attached to her and you stayed for longer, for about a month – from the time we broke up to the time we met for dinner again. She loved you like a mother. She knew what you needed and how to comfort and care for you. You served as an object for her affection that, before you, she could give no one but her cat because there was no one else in her life. You were young and she felt needed, privileged, and once again beautiful as she did in her youth. You made her feel beautiful.

I don't feel safe sharing the whole of this dream...

It’s weird, alarming really, how love blinds us. I was so adamant, so sure, so determined that I should marry you and that everyone who told me to wait for this reason or that was wrong and didn’t understand what real love was and why it was a blessing to have found my husband so early. I wanted so badly to be married that young because young, Godly, happy married couples are so beautiful to me.

Now I am seeing that Jesus is insanely jealous of the objects of my affections. He wants me back, Jesus does. I replace Him with things that I can see and touch, who see and touch me back, but Jesus, you are everything! I don’t believe He will put any man in my life until I put Him first, which I’ve meant to do all along.

"Something's missing in me, I felt it deep within me as lovers left me to bleed alone..." Lacey of Flyleaf has been blessed with a gift of putting God's presence in her life into words that Christians and non-Believers alike drink up. I feel that something too and I am choosing to fill it with Christ's love, because He knows how to love me truly. I desire to love and be loved.

"Hello beautiful, my beloved." He melts my heart every time. Like a lover's shirt left behind, God's creation is all I have of His touch. But isn't that tragic? I'm constantly mourning to really hold Him.

I wanted a kiss and so I drank the rain.

trying to write an artist proposal

Right now, if I could have a show at any gallery space I wanted, what would I choose to show? Probably nothing that I have right now.

I am an artist, but I am not a professional.

I am an artist, but I don’t want to make art.

I am an artist, but I am sick of projecting meaning onto junk.

I am an artist, but more than that, I am a believer. Or, at least, I desire to believe.

A dreamer? But a dreamer means nothing.

Take me home!!

That’s all that it is: a search for heaven on earth. Where the hell is it?

In service. I can honestly believe that the secret to happiness is service to others.

Perhaps I am so unsettled because I haven’t stopped searching. No. More than that, I am beginning to believe that I am unsettled because this is not my true home. I desire the Garden of Eden and the way things were meant to be, and so I will never find it. I must come to terms.

I know I am going home in the end so I should just enjoy my time here, right? The end. Stop thinking. I can try that.

But I can’t shake the cursed blessing of being a privileged American. How dare I “just enjoy my time.” It’s checks and balances: wealth and poverty. I am privileged that I may be of use in helping the unprivileged. Or, perhaps I am privileged that I may challenge my fellows: the other numb-suckers with two cars and nowhere to go.

Okay, I’m done. This is turning into a rant.

spiders are friends

Remember those African cave spiders you saw that arrogant man eat on an episode of Fear Factor? They looked hard almost, like they were wearing armor over their whole body. In this dream they were crawling up my bed in 655. They weren’t ‘out to get me’ they were simply coming to tell me something. I was afraid of them at the same time knowing they were my friends. I wonder if they were offended that I was afraid of them...”

There was, again, that strange feeling of complexity in my dream last night. An institution through which to navigate.

A landscape of bricks consisting of puzzle pieces in riddles. In order to finish, I needed to solve the appropriate riddles. They were difficult, philosophical, and pretty much over my head.

Someone actually checked me in to this place. It wasn’t a punishment but it was definitely frightening - as if there were some devastating end to avoid. I wasn’t being chased but there was a sense of urgency. Almost as if I were racing someone or being watched and recorded.

There were characters. I would touch someone or some thing and they would be activated.

I need to go back that I may capture some of the creatures and solve the riddles on this side.

a peaceful disaster

"Heh, your entire foot fits into the sole of his."

"Is that bad?"

"You saying my foot is big?"

"No. No. I'm just saying." We all giggle.

Hillary walks into the room with Mathew.

"Hillary, look. There's a tornado coming." She's looking around frantically, checking the house. "Are the paintings okay?" She's pacing and starting to breathe heavily.

Now the house begins to shake, stronger and stronger. Soon the house is tumbling; it's picked up by the wind and it's floating across the landscape. I can't see out the window but I imagine the city skyscrapers and the country fields spreading out below us. "Don't lean on the wall!" I struggle to get people to balance out the movement of the storm.

I want to crash. I want to feel the end so that I can stop focusing on breathing and anticipating the impact. It doesn't come, but I fabricate the feeling, over and over again. It's a good feeling, like the gentle throbbing between my legs. When we crash, there is no visual, no sound, only a feeling. But I wake up before the climax.

talent reserves

The doctor told me I had spots of cataracts already on my eyes. My retina looks like that of a 40 year old. Macular degeneration he called it. He asked if there was any history of albinism in my family and warned that my kids may be albino and even blind if I "choose the wrong match" - like I can control who I fall in love with. ("Stay away from the Norwegians").

So now, a couple of years into my thirties I have actually lost my vision. He once warned that I should wear good sunglasses at all times when outside, now I wear them like my skin. My beautiful blue-green eyes have been glazed over by cataracts and I cannot see more than through a heavily fogged window.

When once my art practice revolved around an obsession with color and a unique visual interest, now it consists of blind strokes and the records of my fingers tracing faces. Tragically I cannot use the tools on which I relied so heavily, almost exclusively. I used my eyes to see my art, to paint and draw, to write, read, and day dream, to learn dances and admire God's creation. Star gazing, God! I am near tears now as I think of all the things for which I once used my eyes.

They are so precious to me.

Like a dog losing its sense of smell, an ant without feelers, a cheetah without legs, a bat without ears.

Now I turn to singing. That talent I used only selfishly, timidly. I write songs about things I observed when I could see, the pleasure of seeing. I write about my family, ambitions, beliefs, and philosophies. The words I used to hide in the pages of my journals finally make it to a public forum. I don't know how to write music, or even to sing properly really, so I write and sing into a recording device. My partner helps write the music for others to read. I have a faithful band of musicians expressing themselves with me - alongside my frustration, anger, and still constant peace and joy.

Guitars, violins, drums, cellos, flutes, pipes, piano, organ, and instruments we find in the places we travel.

I have a personal trainer who helps me keep my body strong. [Wow, would I even care if I couldn't see myself in the mirror? Yes. Hell yes! Even more than before because all I would know is how I felt, how my clothes felt on me.]

Would I be afraid of the stage? How could I?

When I dance I throw myself into the music. I move the way the rhythms move me. The stage would have to be fenced off, enclosing me in a gentle cage. This way I would feel safe knowing I could move freely and not fall into the crowd or down the stairs or into the drums.

I would throw myself into my music because it would be all I had left.

I am frightened. I am warned.

But I'm excited, nearly eager.

How sick.

art makes company

It was one of those effects in which I knew who the character was, but I can't actually remember seeing her face. Hillary and I were in the living room in a house which appeared similar to our Roscoe layout. There were nights of revelry, tricks, and single encounters flashing through my mind (I was myself. I was watching myself. Isn't that how dreams are? I don't recall ever not seeing my own face. My mind stepping out of the body.).

Back in the room we were talking, but I was not focusing on the conversation. Babies in bonnets, Victorian lamp posts along dark velvet streets, spiders behind bed posts, and a standard sized portrait hanging on the wall behind Hillary. It kept changing. The image was beautiful. The animation in a style that brings to mind Pan's Labyrinth. The colors were brilliant heavily contrasting the deep shadows. The subject was holding a bundle of blankets shaped like a baby. Or maybe the baby simply had no face. Then there was a rather large woman swinging on a hammock dangling a wooden heart from a string, then long figures lazily marching in slow motion, willowy and ghostly. "I made it with you in mind." Such a compliment - to think that someone would have me on their mind enough to make a piece in my honor.

Standing in the room with us was another figure. A tall, willowy girl in a tattered old wedding dress draped elegantly over her bare body and lacing up her neck. Tiny buttons studded the seam down her arm and down her back. I could not see her head, though I recall whispering strands of curled brown hair escaping the frame of her face as she struggled to stay up-right. She was plastic, but still so real. "Oh!" I jumped when she leaned into me. Her tiny feet were elevated on their tip toes.

Two beautiful pieces of art to keep a lonely girl company - to charge a dull, static room with mystery, possibility.

it was a familiar game

He wears a mask - golden and elegantly carved with high cheek bones and a longer pointed nose. The lips curl up and back lusciously, though with no implication of human emotion. Pure gold shields the eyes, allowing no glimpse of the soul. And yet, kissing this face was the aim of her search, the treasure at the end of the game. We were jousting, playfully, along the chain link fence lining the playground. Trees framed the scene, blocking the landscape beyond our immediate occupation. In a way we were tense, there was a bigger story behind the charade that I cannot fully recall. But I know that at the end of the game, when the winds shifted and she paused in her attack, it was because she sense his presence. She turned, fear and awareness in her eyes, and met his touch with reservation. The black cloak covering his head draped elegantly along side the face, flowing around the entire body. I saw no hand caress her skin, no movement below the waist. It was a lean, a whisper, and a hush.

starting out in fragments

On the ground between the sidewalks and driveways, kelly green spears grow upwards, thin and delicate. There are less people around, but just as much, if not more life; a potent humidity of energy replaces breathing lungs. Small, velvety wings in bright patterns flap silently between flowers dripping wet in fresh paint. Squirrels, soft brown boas punctuating their miniature frames, chase each other up and around trees. Birds fly from branch to branch... (jumping) Were we going back in time instead of forward? My mind, foggy in a progressive state, is digging in the past for something I do not understand.... (jumping) From a promising winter wonderland we enter some barren neighborhood being buried alive in dead leaves. That distinct golden cast, the one that keeps the bite of winter in an irrelevant future, fights for the beauty only seen in autumn.

*non dream* "sometimes you regret not doing something"

Things that I regret itch me on the inside That soft under side of the flesh aches from a perpetual bother Things said and actions passed Just little nuances – knats in my face The worst part might be the fact that I’m the one to notice An unnecessary addition, just a little too far I push the subject over the edge and try desperately to pull it back up But that catch is on a rope too long to see and my arms give out before it’s even worth it I should just drop it, try again later But if I knew what I was doing I wouldn’t be here writing Somehow if I write, the mental bother ceases That scratching on the inside becomes the scratching of this pen I haven’t written in a while. Not like this, not with a mean But something struck an old chord and I’ve picked it up again Just like dancing without eyes, I practice lyric without judgment It’s inevitable that my mind will wander It grows on fantasies and I don’t care to cut them down It may be harmful but it keeps me occupied Someday I’ll realize what I never knew and I’ll receive what I did not ask for