Wednesday, July 30, 2008


the golden girls is consuming my life.
and i like it.
sophia is so wise!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

I'm a bomb regardless

Maybe something has to be taken away from us in order to realize how much we need it.

Maybe it has to be taken away from us in order to realize how much we really don't.

I'm in love with a lot of things that the world isn't. I spend my time dwelling on things that aren't necessarily best-sellers or critic darlings because to me they mean something more. It's something personal, you know? It's something that stirs in me and my heart and doesn't necessarily knock anyone else off their feet. But I'm finally okay with that. Sure, there's moments where I'm hopeful and I wish that something that moved me would affect someone else in the exact same way so we could share it. But our experiences shape us, and there's not always going to be someone else rooting for the same things I am.

But then again, that's also why it's so rewarding and astounding when it does happen. When Jacqueline tells me about listening to a live version of some little ditty and it moves her and it moves me and we're together on this feeling it just makes me ecstatic. I'm never alone, really.

Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (again)!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Guaranteed

We're driving literally on the edges of mountains in New Mexico, crossing over into Colorado and I'm speechless. We've got no cellphone service, the windows rolled down and the only radio station that's able to come in is playing a static-filled "Sharp Dressed Man" while Kyle is pointing out the fact that there is still snow underneath some of the trees. It's a sweeping landscape that makes me feel so small and awe-struck. It's a scene from National Geographic or Into The Wild for as far as my eyes can see and I'm just so astounded by all the magnitude. Treetops and rolling hills are just the beginning of what my eyes take in and my camera lens is working overtime. There's something so freeing about feeling so very tiny and surrounded by such beauty and I'm starting to understand why so many writers pleaded with the common man to go out into nature and experience it full-on. Realize that something is bigger than yourself and that if you tear your eyes away from an LCD screen long enough you can see something even more glorious or amazing. Realizing that nature reveals so much of human nature and that it's not just a literary device or technique to feel something powerful when you're surrounded by wildlife. I'm not saying that I'm just running down cliffs with nothing but my sanity at this point, but even without laying on top of a plateau this trip is a spiritual journey. I'm staying in a log cabin, not completely down to the bare essentials of living, but still, being so far away from how I live comfortably allows me to feel this sweeping sensation of LIFE. You know, real life, not just sitting in my suburban at a stoplight. Watching things around you grow and change. I swear, this is when I turn into my grandmother, getting all excited about birds and listening for their sounds. I'm observing all these other woodland creatures that I wish would follow me and help me make clothing and do chores like in Snow White. I try singing but alas, the chipmunks, beavers, hummingbirds and squirrels don't follow me onto the trail near the river and I'm exploring alone. It's refreshing and maybe I've just been breathing in too much thin air, but I really like walking through the woods by myself. It's calm and it's like I'm discovering a secret, some amazing hidden place, the farther I get from the road. I can't see the cabin anymore but I'm in no way worried. I'm alone with my thoughts and the music that I keep replaying in my head, a current mix of Springsteen ("I believe in a Promised Land"), The Hush Sound ("I'll break the sky") and oddly enough, a mass, Festival Magnificat, that we sang in Chorale years before that somehow lodges itself in my brain. "My soul doth magnify the LORD and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior" is replaying in my head and maybe it's too cheesy, but sitting listening to the rapids rushing over the stones and taking it all in, I take a moment to pray. And it's not an elaborate prayer, just a whole lot of Thank you's. Thank you for all these blessings. They don't belong to me but I get to feel them and drink them all in and for that I should and will be eternally grateful. Thank you for music, both with notes to sing and those melodies I hear made up of wind and water. Thank you for letting me breathe all this in. Don't ever let me downsize these gifts-- let me grasp just the tip of how seriously breathtaking creation is. Allow me to realize there's a whole lot more on this earth than me and my normal surroundings and give me a hunger to always want more of it.