let me live my life in monochromaticisms

Besides the extra hour of sleep, daylight savings in the fall-time makes me bitter about the too-soon fading light. Tonight it is hardly 5:30 and my living room is in that in-between stage: too dark to see clearly, too light to turn on the lights. The colors drain, distilled into shape and shadow.

I can see a sunset reflection on the windows across the way. Right at 6--now 5--the reflected sun shines strong through the slats of our blinds, projecting a shadow show across our wall of half-frames and the little tree made of paper bag strips. The orchids, the daisies, the wildflowers, the rosemary plant, the colored glass jars leave a second layer of patterns on the wall, shifting by the moment.

And I am sitting here as I have sat all day long, curled up in a plaid blanket, too sick and weary to do much else but watch the sky, watch the light. It's been a long time since I've sat in one place, since I allowed myself the luxury of long-looking. Now the sky is gray-blue-purple, and Alexi Murdoch is playing softly in the background, and the only color left in this room is a faded orchid pink and a faded gerber daisy orange by the window.

This reminds me of:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—

I'm waiting for the scene to change. I'm not sure where I stand in the progress of this play; maybe past the climax, tripping through the falling action, nearing the denouement. Or perhaps the action is rising still, moving forward towards the climax.

But maybe the five-part structure just doesn't fit. I am still unconvinced that my life progresses in a straight line. If anything, I have been caught in a circle of rising action, climax, falling action, and back again, never reaching resolution, never reaching the all-important denouement.

What I do know is this: the last two weeks were weeks of color, bright, clashing, exhausting flares of significance. Now to recover I will steep myself in gray-blue twilight, in the murky darkness of black cream tea, in the stillness of deep dark ocean lit by a full moon, all while tasting words of full-bodied poetry on my tongue.

Now I am waiting for the scene to change and wishing my denouement to come. I am waiting for the lights to come on again, and for the background to be suddenly different, to be taken suddenly from the snowy Swiss alps to a flat grassy meadow in the Midwest. I am waiting for the weariness to disperse, for the fear to be stilled, for the healing to be complete.

But then I remember that this life is, excuse me Donald Miller and forgive me Shakespeare, like jazz and does not resolve. And, in this season at least, peace and grace settle unnoticed through moments of grays and blues.

on loss

So many questions this past week.

No we are not the exception. Somehow we have lived so much of life untouched; suddenly, now it all hits.

What I know now: nothing is constant. Pillars in life have shifted.

The seasons have turned. With the coming of the cold comes ripeness; then, too quickly, death, ruin, spoil. The fruit falls and trees unleave themselves. The wind blows through you as if you were not there. The cold heralds weariness yet sleeplessness, brings a deepness forgotten in the heat of summer.

Loss hovers like the morning fog: you wait all day for it to burn off. In places, sunlight, filtered, works its way through the oppressive mass. Here and there, hopeful attempts at creating relationship trickle through. Lately, I have been cynical; who knows if they will last?

There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

What happens when you can’t decide whether it’s time to weep or laugh, to mourn or dance? What happens when it is time to rejoice but only tears come?

We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death…Now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness.

My mind cannot wrap itself around void. The concept is too large for me: to think that a person who is here one moment can be taken away the next. Something that reeks of unreality is now the sole new reality. What has been lost can never be regained entire, only renewed, transformed into something similar but never exactly the same.

What next? Are we in exile, left to wander the wilderness with no land to call our own?
How meaningless the words that fall from my mouth. How weary my feet as they carry me from place to place, my fingers as, again and again, they cover familiar black and white territory. How silly the inner workings of my mind.

The seasons shift from brokenness to healing to brokenness to healing, a little deeper, a little more honestly each time.

Loss rushes in and washes out, making the rough edges smooth.


Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.




dona nobis pacem

wisher

can I just be five and live my life over?

nothing out of the ordinary really

little pattern in my life these days


the days surprise me by the end
when I look back

so much unreality these days


[I'm thinking of jail time, engagements, babies]



where is my promised land?
how many more years of wishing, of wilderness wandering?

the seasons of brokenness then healing then brokenness then healing then brokenness
where is the moving forward?

after the revelation, always this pulling back, always the hiddenness again



maybe I should graduate early and just get all this over with.


[who knows if the moon's a balloon?]
so much unreality these days

for the time being

on the one hand there is so much to say.
on the other hand there is nothing:
only life to be lived which pulls either way.

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!