Memories/Skin

Why would a person want tokens from their past? Why would they keep things that upon holding them in their hand could make them sad? Evoke an array of feelings. Is it not better to erase things? To file them away in your brain as far away from your immediate memory as possible?

No. I have labeled, altered, hid, and run from memories. Surely I need to let go of some, physical and otherwise, but I like to keep pieces of people, and stories. I want to have tangible things that remind me of who I was, who I am, who I've loved. I can re-write how I see them, but I do not want to delete them.

In but 3 decades I have been so many people, yet wearing the same skin. How? How can it be? I have been beautiful, and ugly. Sweet, and cruel. I have loved, and I have hurt people, I have been careless with mine and others' hearts. And some of that I wish I could forget. I find it interesting, and impossible, that people claim that they do not have regrets, that they learn from their choices etc, and do not hold onto them. To me I think you can do both, because I have. I hold regrets, and I learn from them, or try to. That doesn't mean I should dwell on them, which I am wont to do on occasion. But it means I know them. Our actions are burned into us, imprinted on our souls, and in our thoughts and there patterns and development. I see them in me, the good and the bad. I see them in the creases around my eyes - the laugh lines, the aging, the marks. These are all parts of a complex life, a human existence.

Life is a series of choices. Some that, my God, I would do differently. I cannot pretend otherwise. It is always difficult to say that though. If I love the people in my current life, and I know it is the actions I have taken that led me to them, then how can I say I would do things differently? Because this string of reality, this person that I am, would not exist; so I would not know what I am losing. Just like I do not know what I would have gained had I not made certain decisions. The primary reason I would not do things again is not for my happiness being more or less than it is, but for a chance to not have hurt the people I love. That is what I would rather erase. Remove the stains from my actions in the way that they affected other people. Nothing is harder for me than knowing that I have hurt my family and friends.

Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I turned to page 32 instead of 67. I took one path, if I had taken another, which literally could have been one different turn of a page, then I would not be who I am. The lines on my face would be different. And other people's lives would be different.

That is one of the things that is so amazing about reality, if any of us had made one different decision, turned to page 59 instead of 91, not gone to a BBQ one night, or even returned a call, we would not be where we are. Some people would say that that is the marker, the sign or thing that tells us we are where we are meant to be. And perhaps they are correct. Because every cause has an effect, ever action a reaction, but that doesn't make all of our actions okay; and it doesn't mean that I should erase what happened before I turned those pages. Before I altered the course of mine and others' lives.

So my original question, why would a person want tokens from their past, really does tie into this. We have taken our paths, chosen our inadvertent adventures, but we are creating, and sadly forgetting, memories all along the way. For me in an effort to live with the bad, I have sometimes altered the good. To make me look or feel better for things I chose. Or I have forgotten the good, it has been overshadowed by the darker story lines; so the tangibles sometimes help refocus the intangible. They help ground some memories, remind me of love, of happiness in the same skin but as a different person.

In many ways people may never change, but in many, many others, everything else about them can be different. I have remained ever the same, yet I am a dramatically different person living a dramatically different life since I turned from page 31. It is a difficult dance between knowing, remember, forgiving, forgetting, wanting to keep, or hold onto pieces of the past - all of these components. But we are the sum of many parts, which means we carry those within us, and sometimes we should carry them outside too. On a shelf, or in a closet. Or in a box.

when the sun & moon stop dancing

I watch the horizon. I watch the melting lights. I see the colors bleed as the darkness falls. I feel the weight of night as it is sliding in, and then quickly conquering the day. At winter, at least. Winter is the time of the conquering. In summer the day and night dance, they state up late together and laugh. But in Fall they start to distance, every year the same, pulling and pushing at evening, and by the full throws of winter, the storms that lack the enthusiasm of lightening and thunder on warm wet days, the light is pushed down deeply - completely, traceless.

That is this week. This month. Months? The darkness started with a creeping and then spread. It has invaded all of the pieces. The sum of the parts make a messy mosaic. The colors go bland and the aching prevails as the tiles expand and contract while the glue tries to breathe but cannot as it is pressed together, art on background, forced to stick and dry. It is as though all of the light stood in the back and the glue poured over it, tiles at first delicately placed, developing their image, were then pushed aside by this parade of madness as the pieces fell. The picture, less discernible, except for the memory. Brains, hearts, and bodies have memories of their own, unconsciously formed. They have this memory, or shadow of a shape that you can see, feel - if you look closely enough.

This season's mosaic is like that. The images cry out calling for splashes of color occasionally pushing through only to be pushed down by the heaviness of the night sky. I am left begging the stars to come out. Pleading with the constellations to fight for me. But deaf can be the ears of the heavens. Not the ears of God. But the universe's tongue goes quiet, and the sea of people around, even with their love, joy, and beauty melting into me, they do not sustain. So I go home and the river within purges itself, spilling out into my strained subjective reality.

The madness on parade, within, with out swallows the sensibilities, the faculties, and compress a whole girl into a small box - big enough for an ocean of sadness, small enough to hide within.

Tonight the rain will not fall, just a dark curtain leans in on me. Heavy it hangs, strung across the sky.

When in doubt . . .

When in doubt, look back. When was the last time your spirit felt whole? When you found yourself at peace on a more regular basis. Mine was at 19. Life was different, of course, but there is a chord - a thread - that remains within me, that links me to her (younger me). Even as life changes and we develop and grow up or older, we harden or become softer around the edges, we shift from right to left and back again, or not, and expand and contract within our beliefs about God, love and the world, even within all of that, we stay the same in some way. A chord that keeps you YOU or me ME. And when I follow my chord back, it is to a simpler time. A 19 year old girl, new to university, living with her sister, constantly re-arranging her apartment and seeking a peace in her soul.

At that time what was I doing. A little bit of yoga. A LOT of humor. Yes, many tears and heart break (and drama) but to feed my art and soul, to remain unblocked, I wrote. But I was writing with instruction and intention. I was reading Julia Cameron's the Artist's Way. I was doing morning pages. And when you purge in stream of consciousness for 3 pages, for 30-45 or 60 minutes and then DO NOT re-read it or worry about it but turn and close the pages of your notebook or put them away in an envelope for a few months, you realize that your day is different. Whining, decreases. Pettiness decreases. Productivity and efficiency improves. You become free from the muck that was cluttering your brain. You are taking a vacuum to your unconscious and letting yourself go.

I was also reading SARK. She is a flamboyant, wild, art loving, brilliant woman. She is knocked for possibly holding to new ageyness, but really she is trying to exude life and walk in healing - allowing us to confront pain and see our connection to the rest of humanity.

In those days I liked bright colors. I liked being outside. I did not stay inside on days I could just because I could. I embraced things. I was still depressed sometimes, but I don't think I was so ruled by fear as I am now.

So when in doubt . . . go back. Back to a time that was successful. A time where I felt whole. Whole will feel differently now. My bruises are different. My hurts tell a different story. My entire story has been written and re-written so many times. But I can go back and pick up those pieces and make them part of a new mosaic. Sitting in pain and accepting it, even labeling it, is good. Embracing and living in it, is not.

For me, I have to loose my hold on other things. Like perfectionism. "Perfectionism is a pre-requisite for pain" (Tara Branch). And I am tired of seeking out pain - academically, relationally. I want to live with intention. With love. Not frustration or bitterness. I do this, but not like I CAN, but I also live up to the negative expectations people have of me. My friends who treat me like I am mentally ill (intentionally or not and who probably do not even know it - because I have not told them) often get a broken or down version of me. Because I choose fear, I choose to not be LIVING and I feel that they will not see me beyond the gray version of me they have cast before their eyes and I give them that girl. She is so familiar, but she not who or ALL of who I am. It is painful, but I rise to this bleak occasion. It is painful that I am treated like I am different and painful that I engage.

Anais Nin wrote, "People who live deeply have no fear of death." Living deeply is a choice. I can't promise to make it daily, but I can find the time that sparked that depth. It feels like ages and ages ago. But I can reclaim myself because no one else can.

Icicles & Airplanes

I was staring out the window yesterday. It was covered with the moisture it collects throughout the night - it is the coldest room in the house. But despite the cold I opened the door to take in the chill. It gets so hot these days, which makes no sense. The trees don't turn these day. Which makes no sense. I hide inside these days, which seems the same and always makes sense - because I like to see the world through my single pane glass and not through walking along the concrete. I walk if the trees are throwing their leaves down at me. I walk if my steps fall on crisp colors and moisture damaged leaves. I watch the parking lot. I miss my old home where I could watch the birds and squirrels and trees and bundle up. My apartment, 15 degrees lower than the outside world, but refusing the insanely high electric bills I layer up and sit at my desk. I read. I write. I look forward. Chased by memories. But everything is the same and yet everything had changed.

There were no icicles hanging from the airplanes, they simply flew high high away and like giant birds they took up too much space. They sped through clouds and passed the sun. I stared up from the ground in amazement, pulled my coat around myself, watched the skies turn gray, felt the rain fall, blurring my vision. I thought of finding an inside to hide, but sometimes there is no need. The icicles just melt around me.

Darkest Before Dawn?

People say platitudes all the time. Things are darkest before the dawn, you'll be better in the long run, things are all going to be okay, it builds character etc. etc. But what get's to me, today when more and more is crumbling around me and the people I love, is this: The idea that it is darkest before dawn rests on the assumption that dawn will come. What if it doesn't? What if it will - but not for a very long time? What then? Dawn is relative.

For the past day I've been saying that, "it isn't all going to be okay." I believe that this is not me being negative, just realistic. See, I'm not a nihilist or even a fatalist, just sometimes a realist. I believe in the reality that, as much as people don't want to hear this: life is hard and then you die. I DO believe you should live intentionally and vitally in that time in between (not miserably or negative). But I also believe that when the dawn isn't coming - or at least isn't likely to in the foreseeable future - that it is acceptable to believe feel in the non-existential sense, that we are screwed. When you cannot pay your rent, buy food or maintain housing. When the people you love are unsure how they will survive between a & b, who has the right, or the gumption, to sweep in with platitudes?

People say platitudes aren't real until you experience them - but even that is a band-aid to a deep wound - and another platitude. Don't misunderstand, I am happy that many people I love are currently protected, have some semblance of security or even safety nets - but in those nets their well meaning compassion and desire to make it better is sometimes not what is needed or even wanted. It's hard to say that because everyone wants to offer hope, no one wants to say, "Wow, it sounds like you really are screwed. Sucks." So it is hard to throw this out there, but it is also hard to hear "it will be fine" when there is no promise that it will be. There is no "how" in that statement, so I wonder where will it come from? Now this doesn't mean that eventually it won't be, but right now, in the muck, in the eye of the proverbial storm - it isn't.

Anyhow, here are my non-optimistic platitudes for the day:
The well has dried up.
It is the calm BEFORE the storm. (i.e.; there's a storm)

I am feeling like reciting Elliot's The Hollow Men, which is never a positive thing.

It's been a long time . . .

It's been a long time since I have really written here. I was doing really well for a while, and am still in many ways, but I am slipping. I am mainly just afraid. I am really afraid financially. I do not know how I am going to make it. The loan I was going for - the high interest private education loan that I did not want to take out but was going to so that I could pay bills - fell through. I am scared. I need a job - a real (an almost) full time job.

I often wonder what I was thinking by going back to school. I have learned so very much, but I am so in debt and it feels like it gets worse daily (well, technically it does with interest). I wonder that I couldn't have found a better full time job than what I had (where my soul was being eaten) and chosen to stave off grad school for a while longer. But there is no sense in going down that road - aside from the fact that I cannot change what is, would I want to? Choosing to go to George Fox, while an exercise in significant financial mistakes (let's not think of the loans of 2008 - aka horrible, horrible, stupid decisions), it has been a guide to finding the passion of my heart. I am thankful - but right now that is being out weighed by my fear.

What do I do? I guess I go to my interview in the morning. Then I do the other things I have for the day and at every free moment apply for jobs. Apply. Apply. Apply.

I hate applying but mainly because I hate cover letters.

"Life is not what it is supposed to be. It is what it is. How we cope with it is what makes the difference." Thank you Ms. Satir. But sometimes it feels like "what is" is very close to "what will not be" on account of not being able to afford rent . . .

I want to say, embrace life, it's an adventure. Or say, God will take care of me. But to the first I think, yes I want to do that, but this part is less adventure more . . . unemployment, lack of a roof over my head. To the second I think, who am I to say that??? Does that mean that all the people (20% of Oregonians?) who are unemployed are somehow NOT being taken care of by God? No, that is not true. I do not blame God for the state of things, nor will it be God's fault if things go from questionable to bad to worse. It is what it is - we change what we can, we don't change the presence of God, we try to change our own circumstances.

Well, that went off track.

I'm tired and worried. Better sleep so I can be up early and READY for my interview.

The Proposal

It was anything but a dark and stormy night – in fact it was one of those nights where everything looked and felt so perfect that you couldn’t imagine it getting any better, and then it did. We were spending my birthday in Washington with Kyle’s family so that my younger sisters, who have been visiting, could meet them, go out on the river, hike, eat vegetables straight from the garden, and play with some farm animals. His aunt, who we were staying with in Chehalis, said that since we would be there on my birthday she would insist on having a family BBQ to celebrate. And so she did – most all of the family was there and I suppose there were signs that it was more than a birthday party but I didn’t want to believe them because I thought I would just be reading into things and then not be able to enjoy how great the night was on its own.

As the evening wore on it hadn’t dawned on me that Kyle had not given me a gift until whilst being sanctioned to the dining-room so my hot fudge + ice cream + brownie combo was allegedly being assembled and topped with candles, he came in to say my gift was outside. All day we (the family at the house) had been talking about the fairies in the forest behind her house and he said that the fairies had a gift for me and led me toward the patch of trees. I laughed and as we turned the corner I could see the forest lit up with candles, torches guiding a path and arrows made of glow necklaces and dancing rings lighting up the trail. We walked down the trail and he helped me up onto the little platform that has a table and chairs usually but was now covered with more candelabras and glowing candles and he kneeled down to pick up a frame that was turned upside down, he turned a switch and when he looked up at me from bended knee he held the big wooden frame wrapped in white lights and the place where a picture should be was a big paper that read: Marry Me?

And without a second’s hesitation or room for any other thoughts in my head I said yes. I never knew you could know something so completely as much as I knew right then that every bit of me, to the smallest corner of my heart to the greatest depth of my soul, knew that I want to, will and am so blessed to get to, spend the rest of my life with him.

His family, and his aunt’s camera, instantly descended upon us and he showed me a picture of the ring he designed (that I go in to get sized for, and give final approvals to, today) and in a whirlwind there were toasts and champagne, hugs, giggles, laughs and congratulations from friends and family. Finally we had the hot fudge + ice cream + brownie combo, but no candles; there were enough in the forest already.