what comes naturally

this weekend is like coming home.

midnight wanderings on campus. all things have settled, absence of people. westmont feels deceptively mine when I am the only one walking. no sound but cricket song.

I'd forgotten this sensation: the stillness, aloneness completely free of loneliness. the hollowness is somehow deeper this time, and my feelings fall out my bottomless heart.

even as a child I remember grasping at emotion, uncomprehending. is this sadness? am I sad? this is what she says sadness is; this must be sadness. still I lack words to describe my emotions. in all my happiness there is always melancholy; in all my loneliness there is always joy. naming my emotions traps them, soon I lose them to numbness.

I cut off a couple inches of hair today. unpremeditated. spontaneous and freeing.

midnight in a dark practice room. my mind shuts off, my fingers move, I realize subconsciously I am swaying. now my head is bent down close to the keys, now reaching up, stretching to contain this beauty that streams from my fingers. it's uncontrollable, heart-wrenching when it happens just right.

if there's anything I have learned, it is this: I am not a performer. music heals me when unwitnessed; music in performance hurts me, deepens insecurities. no I am not a musician til I am alone in darkness with a piano.

in spite of all the sleeplessness, this weekend I have found rest. I find my peace in solitude, in friendships that have grown so deep that we can be with each other comfortably, with speech or without, drawing strength simply by presence, a squeeze of a hand, a knowing look.

home: let me settle back in to tonic, practice the scales of rejoicing, the little ways of redeeming the TIME BEING from insignificance.

one thing
malachi 4.2
theatre as magic
the wild thyme unseen
healing through autobiography
my pen suddenly not dry and weary
artichokes and tomatoes preserve community


[shantih shantih shantih]

thought hodge-podge

so many good days in a row! caaan't handle it

1st day of autumn, 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'

assignment: be/write like annie dillard. am I setting myself up for failure? yes but who cares

oh let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of france let's get rich and give everyone nice sweaters and teach them how to dance let's get rich and build a house on a mountain making everybody look like ants from way up there, you and I, you and I

I met a man named Raphael today who asked me if I had Indian blood in me [I was barefoot] and if I loved Jesus

oranges! make me smile and my day just so much better :)

also, clean laundry, and the soft warmth of clothes fresh out of the dryer

I miss: writing poetry, reading poetry, reciting poetry, replaying poetry in my head

I would like: to learn names of birds and trees

I have: remembered how to make paper cranes and paper stars

I enjoy: cooking, home-decorating

I found: a perfect concerto piece

I was given: a 50 dollar macy's gift card from the music department. they like me alot.

I wish: I had pictures in my head to paint/draw

I want: to play with my lil brothers!

[notice what you notice]

so much good in these days.

I don't feel quite awake; I'm not fully aware.
the days run together.


too much to notice, too much to claim.
too many gifts in these days to fully receive them all.



"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
Malachi 3:10


now what?

Here, again.

Despite all the promises we made (we'll never forget this night these walks the way the wind circles around us the droplets of light the dailiness of our joy) these moments slip back into consciousness, elbowing me, whispering "remember me? do you remember?"

Most days I am unaware of time passing. Suddenly I am not chasing fireflies anymore. Suddenly my two front teeth are gone; suddenly there they are again. Now I am catching tadpoles, baking bread, sewing quilts; now I am watching the monarch butterflies in great clumps of movement in the trees. Suddenly I have peach juice sticky down my face, on my fingers; suddenly I am making peach pie, peach cobbler, peach fruit leather; suddenly the peach tree is barren. Now I have three sisters, and now a brother, and now another (will it never end?). Suddenly I speak; suddenly the world awaits.

Suddenly the day is done; suddenly two weeks of senior year are gone.

I think of Thoreau's deliberate and Dillard's wakeful awareness and Marilyn McEntyre's long looking; these words I have lived by, hoped to grow old in, to fit into like a favorite sweater. And yet I stand here forgetful, wakeful, aware more so than ever of what has been and is no longer.

So much change surrounds these days. I walk through the campus, wide-awake to my memories. I try to notice what I used to notice. In my head, I picture old faces in places that don't exist anymore. I see bare dirt where beautiful trees once thrived. I hear construction when I used to hear birdsong and see orange tape where I used to see green wilderness. I walk and feel, I walk and recite lines of poetry and song like a broken record, I walk and notice how my way of thought has shifted, and again, and again, these past years. The end is coming, and here again the beginning presses in on my consciousness.

In broad daylight, I walk through the VK parking lot, and think of the fog rolling in, headlights, the silhouette of a girl talking on a cell phone. Not the walk back to Armington; now it is the walk from Country Club to Ocean View.

In Reynolds, we have new poems from the underground hung on the walls. One is Feste's song. I know the backstory to this poster; what were the backstories to the old posters?

I never step into the DC anymore. There is too much glass; too many new bright lights and fancy decorations; too few familiar faces. Remember our five o'clock dinners that lasted til seven or later?

These are not constants. All is shifting, all is changing, but the changes help me see more clearly what I had at one point in time. This was my time and now the time is running out. I have looked and noticed, lost so much, hurt, claimed joy as my own, taken captive moments of absolute perfection.

This place is mine; I have loved it deeply enough. And I am learning that that is enough. That this place was never mine enough for me to control. That I can release my grip with confidence and gratefulness. That this place is like me, unrecognizable on the surface, under construction, burned and bare, but growing still, alive still, fundamentally the same as it always has been.

lately

I haven't been so happy in so long.
neither have I been so exhausted.

one week of school so far and already I am sleep-deprived.
but life has been good and I have lived free and full.



there is so much brightness here. and rushing waters. I have been baptized again into hope.

every hour there is opportunity for new sight.


we live by creativity. sometimes to push ourselves towards new sight. or sometimes only to remind ourselves that creation is good, that art gathers together.


something about this apartment breathes blessing. whites and browns and reds. seeping sunlight through the slats. daisies candles old copies of Browning and Milton. the absence of television noise. art from scrap. conversation.


I'm remembering how to make cranes.



[playlist for today:
ben harper: she's only happy in the sun
page france: jesus
big japan: all the fish in the sea are stupid sluts anyway
amos lee: keep it loose, keep it tight
welcome wagon: up on a mountain
augustana: sweet and low acoustic
the smiths: please, please, please let me get what I want
adele: make you feel my love]