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]