My Alias's Alibi

Vegetarian

2011-12-08T18:45:00.001-08:00

Twelve ounces tortellini in boiling water
is supposed to be my humane dining option
since the meatpackers are trying to kill us all,
the animals, the workers, my balding grandmother.

Except that I can’t help talking to the food,
say hello, ask the little noodles how the family is doing:
Rotina, Manicotta, Macarono.
Once I decided they really could hear me, I told them.
“You’ll never see your cousins again.”

Expert Opinion

2011-12-08T18:33:00.001-08:00

I should start out by saying
that the trees look like a system of veins
and that it’s winter, obviously.

I notice this because the eastern wall
of my tiny apartment is a giant window
that lets the sun into my room every morning
to rip the blanket from me and get me to school on time.

Tonight I look out of my window as a skeptic
because the author of my geology textbook
thinks that volcanoes are made out of red paper.
And if the experts can believe such ridiculous things,
what right do I have to believe in anything?

The trees are not made of paper, fools!
they are made of wood,
and paper is made of them.

Again over Color

2011-11-28T22:12:00.001-08:00

A tree in civil war
started with one leaf
who challenged the principle
of green.

“Yellow is a valid life choice,” he said.
And the wind took his secret
up into the tree
the idea spread.

The green shouted, “No!”
The hate dried in his veins,
and the violence began
so much wasted, leaf pain

The fighting would surely end
in only one way:
in a wintery brown
and a field full of death.

This civil devastation
was ignored by all men, except one
who stopped to observe,
“Beautiful,” he said.

waste of a good idea

2011-11-10T19:14:00.001-08:00

It’s one of those conversations,

where you know the truths

but you can’t/won’t say them

Because he wouldn’t listen

He wouldn’t hear them

If you told him how to fix it all

he’d throw you out with the rest.

Dream-catcher

2011-09-19T10:45:00.001-07:00

I can tell the dream catcher is listening as
The weight settles out of me again,
for a moment, then it disappears,
like some Native American wind.

I don’t know where it goes,
But believe that it belongs
Wherever the wind lands tonight
In the dawn, a water song.

Gone back to the glass-like surface
of some lonely lake, and even though
you hated giving it up, loved
having it far away.

Turquoise rock and feather
No appointment to keep, no date
It doesn’t matter to you
Whether or not I tell, you’ll wait.

Pale sinews drifting dry, that
have heard so many dreams,
Let the beginning break tonight,
There is healing in the wind.

Without Words

2011-09-03T15:17:00.001-07:00

They had a feeling she was beautiful,
It spooked them.
It spooked them that they knew without asking,
A beauty they could see from the street,
Looking into the window.
A beauty that shook them so they couldn’t move.
From the street,
Across the yard,
Into the window,
And up the stairs.
There she was.
A beauty that pounded in their hearts and terrified them.
A beauty they couldn’t stop looking at.
A beauty that left them pinned to the road,
Too afraid to go knock on the door.
Too moved to pretend not to see.

In my hand: a book I'm adding to.

Dear LA,

2011-08-07T19:28:00.001-07:00

My heart races when I think of leaving you.

You make me think of burnout tees with tiger faces and rock bands printed on them,
Of familiar faces trying to go unnoticed
Of California softly coming in the open French doors, sinking into my skin.
Oh, you made me feel like there was helium in my heart.

You make me think of charging again and again into battle with the ocean and being rolled back out each time.
I think that counts as a loss,
But it felt like a win.
Ocean-one, Bee Bailey-one.
I feel fine.

You make me think of Saints and Angels.
They live quiet holy lives.
They build homes for strangers.
They build the kingdom for strangers.
And the strangers don’t stay strange for long.
Come into my heart.

Yep, that summer breeze makes me feel fine.

I’ll be seeing you,
ABEJA

Once upon a something

2011-08-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe Maybe I am my own home.

Sometimes when I speak to you though

I remember things that never happened.

The memories come anyway.

Like they are mine.

Like the high and low has barreled through me.

Things I can feel.

Things I can know.

All places and all my real memories become little plasma boxes on a screen.

And I can’t remember the real people.

The quiet conversations spoken over pillows and the dark air.

Spoken at the ceiling and from the heart.

And to a girl.

But I guess I do remember.

And although I can’t feel it now,

Maybe they are home.

They are the furniture, the lamps, and the sunlight that fill the house of my soul.

And turn it into the place I reside.

The place I exist.

And I keep them.

Even while they are not happening.

Even in solitude.

Dear Utah,

2011-07-28T23:05:00.001-07:00

Your flowers are still pressed into the pages in my heart.

You were different than others. I remember sitting in circles on the ground or on chairs, wherever there was room for more love. There was always a little room. Everyone wanted to hold a hand in Utah, didn’t even matter whose.

You were where moonlight meant hiking, and 6 hours later, sunrise meant arrival. It was the most beautiful exhaustion I’ve ever felt.

If only my heart could be like a wide-angle lens, my feelings would do you more justice.

In case you thought I forgot,
Brittany

December 13, 2010

2011-07-16T02:13:00.001-07:00

I need to know.
I’m ready to know.

And it came from inside me,
a voice that said,
“It’s true, Brittany.”
It was like my own voice almost,
Like I was testifying to myself
from some other dimension where clarity exists…

I heard this voice and then I knew,
In my very own dimension…
that it was true,
And that I would never again exist without it.

I was saved by a question: is it true?

I think we are all saved by our questions.

To whom it may concern,

2011-07-16T01:29:00.001-07:00

I’m sorry I didn’t come.

like our souls were on a scavenger hunt
that our bodies didn’t know about
And then one day
I met you,
And I felt a feeling wash over me
like:
Ahhh, I found you.
And you know because they feel like your first home.

I’m sorry I didn’t come
so we could feel this about each other.
I don’t know where you are
Sitting somewhere with a disoriented soul
Feeling like you missed an appointment you didn’t really have.

No datebook said I would come,
None but our souls that were supposed to meet at this time
in this place

We were supposed to meet
A slice of home

A day of what we needed.

I can see you waiting
Alone and wondering,
Confused,
Because you don’t even know that someone left you
But you showed up
And I didn’t.

So I’m sorry I didn’t come.

Notes from the Tree of Life

2011-07-10T01:05:00.001-07:00

When you look up
do you see nature
or grace?

Yes.

You, up in eternity already
Answer us.

Smoking nebulous in the last corner of the universe:
Why are you silent?
Asleep, like you can’t hear me.
Ignoring me utterly…
I know you can.

Splitting cells making man: answer.
Who told you to stop working?
And who told you to start?

You from the ocean,
Why do you swim silently?
Is there no answer at all?
Or is the answer just the way we feel about silence?

Last bleeding dinosaur, after it happened to all the others:
You must have figured something?!

Tree: what is up there anyway?
Where do you think you’re growing?

Carnivore: what did you take from him?

Storm: what do you lack in your movement?

Canyons: You’ve been moved by it…
Does it take 1 million years to know?

[Words should come less often]

The actors are accessories to the story
Men are seasonal, but life is so sweet.
Your little scrape,
Your foot sticking up in the air,
Your mother chasing the butterflies,
It’s all so sweet.
And your little tambourine,
Your reservations about the baby are so sweet.
Playfest, then now:
Pass out where you stand,
23 inches tall.

You, running, tormenting the neighborhood with grasshoppers…

Yes, you.

Where is it all going?
I can’t tell, neither can they
(Because they are still deciding)

Is there someone behind you?
Are you blocking the light?

This is where we go, I’m sure.
To rocks and dirt,
To our Father,
and the fairytales…
To kiss the cheeks of our mothers.
To the tree of life.
Is it as we remembered?

Perhaps, only better.

“I think of your brother”

2011-07-05T21:33:00.001-07:00

A stranger with no legs at the sidewalk,
What a happy fourth of July
he wished us as we passed.

We’re going shopping, see,
But he was so very real,
And some kind of sincere.

A kind smile,
Some kind of smile,
He made me believe he was happy to see me,
Only me,
And I was happy to see him too.

My beautiful mom walked right up to him,
like she had an appointment.
And tried to return his favor,
Tried to make his day easier.

A couple dollars maybe,
”How’d you lose your legs?”
She asked as a friend.
”Diabetes.”

Then she reached into her bag and got something else.
A sticker,
"HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY,” it said.
And she gave it to him, smiling wide.

I’ve never felt more befriended by a stranger.
So close, it was hard to walk away.
But my dear mother,
She’s the one who did something.

Father’s Day Reflection

2011-07-01T17:11:00.001-07:00

I stole his apple slices.

He brought me lotion when I would wake up paralyzed by my imaginary dry skin. Hands clenched in fists, all appendages up in the air like a turtle who got stuck on its back.

"Who said we could?

Dunn Edwards! (excitedly)

Who said we couldn't?

Mom. (said like a depressed horn)

And we continue to throw the football.

Skydive

2011-07-01T16:49:00.001-07:00

I just jumped through fifty poems and caught the ground.

I felt each one come through me

and leave again in a jolt.

There was no way I could catch them as they went,

backward and up,

flying away from me at the speed of gravity.

What is the terminal velocity of poem?

How fast can they fall?

Gotta catch them all,

Gotta catch them all.

The Professional

2011-06-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

So last night I went to a bonfire with pink eye and half a bathing suit. Bad decisions. I'm standing in a circle of smoke and every pollution known to LA is irritating my irritated eyes. Oh, and half a bathing suit? I just thought to myself as I was getting ready, "Self:" I said, "I will put that bathing suit bottom on, as a matter of fact, but I don't think I need to wear the top." What??? Why would I need to wear the bottom if not the top? I could wade halfway into the water with a shirt on, right? Wrong. I wore a dress for Pete's sake. So I could go shin-level in. And at that depth, I realized the water felt perfect and I wanted to go swimming.

The bonfire was a Mormon bonfire. We weren't burning Mormons or anything, but as a side note some of them, because of their Eagle Scout status, thought they could walk through fire and burned themselves. It was a Family Home Evening activity, a sort of Monday night mix-and-mingle thing. I walked up to someone I know, William, and he points out Kyle: who is, according to William, "the coolest person ever".

B-"Why are you the coolest person ever?"
Kyle-"I don't know. I do some music: guitar. And I used to design video games."
B-"Ah... You sound what might be the object of a lot of man crushes. What else?"
Kyle-"Um. I'm a professional wrestler."
B-"Hold the phone! I used to watch WWF with my brother every Thursday. (FACT) Do you do real wrestling or the fake stuff?"
*I think it's important here to note that real wrestling has always been sort of gross to me, but like I said: Fake stuff, like the WWF, I can respect (at least when I was 12)*
Kyle-"The staged kind. I almost took a job with WWE."
*Oh, okay, so he really is the coolest person ever. I get it. Ok.*
B-"How do they do that choke hold thing?"

DUMB question. He showed me. But he didn't really choke me. He didn't even really grab my neck, and like 3 seconds into it, he looked around at the crowd we were standing in and thought better of the whole thing.

B-"What do you do now?"
Kyle-"I work with hedge funds."
*Whaaa?*

What I like about all this, besides every single part of it, is that he wasn't like a MEGA TOOL guy. He was way humble and sort of shy about all of it.

That's it.
Kyle, the timid professional wrestler.

Of course, when my aunt asked me how the bonfire was, I told her: fine. It was fun. The water felt nice...

It's all about how you frame it.

To my friend’s cousin

2011-06-14T13:53:00.001-07:00

You are not my friend’s cousin;
You are yourself.
And I ought to realize this when we meet,
Considering not my friend before you,
Considering you only
As a reference point to yourself,
And be willing to know you
As one individual to another
Not as one role to another.
There is a relationship unfolding here,
And it is not your cousin’s friend to my friend’s cousin,
It is you to me.
You and me.

In my head: Christine Allegra + Anthem

Anabelle

2011-06-12T23:01:00.001-07:00

It’s like trying to find it, and the moment you do, you lose it forever.
Get out the camera,
I hate losing it.

Take this air and save it.
It’s the air I breathed,
It is you.

You wind around my brain,
make me feel like myself,
like an artistic, sophisticated, silly little elf.

In my head: jars + air

My Body

2011-06-12T22:45:00.001-07:00

So this is my body.
Bones, I’m told there’s a skeleton in there somewhere.
Sometimes I have half a feeling about it.
But I do believe in kneecaps. Those are very real.

I see the muscles
take shape,
They flow like water, like blood.
Muscles remind me of the river,
There’s no fight in them, but great strength. Great nature.
Curve of the calf, so interesting, so beautiful.
The creator liked smooth lines, and I do too.

I have this nude color all over me.
Especially when I’m nude.
All this is very interesting.

I have a perfect body.
Perfect in function and design.
It works the way it should.
My toes and ears help me stay balanced.
Perfect like that.

And then the way it moves.
The way it breathes is like the ocean.
Forever on the approach, forever in the descent.
Air crashing into itself, changing in my blood.
My air in constant transaction with the trees.
I’ll fix your air if you fix mine.
He drops an orange to indicate “yes”.

I am stretching.
She is stretching.
He is stretching.
Stretching compassion into our supposed bones, into our muscles.

This is all rather beautiful to me.
I have a body.

In my head: Yoga + Reggie Spek + The Gospel

La LA

2011-06-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

So I've been in LA 2 whole weeks now. I've spent a moderate amount of time brooding over my feelings of leaving Nashville. It's like this: I was on Mill Ave before I left Phx, and a guy on the street played me a couple of original songs. He had just spent time traveling up and down the west coast pursuing music, and wrote a song about the experience. One of the lines in the song was: "If home is where the heart is, then how smart is it to love in so many places" (or something like this). And that is precisely how I feel. I love Phoenix: it's where I was born, but it's also where I came alive. I love Nashville: where the trees are as overgrown as the people's love. The clash of ambition and art. And I'm starting to like LA: full of things I've never seen or felt. Full of the easiness of tan-lines, and the hardness of being lonely in a crowd.

And now, an LA experience:

Two days ago, I was walking home from an interview when I almost passed a Goodwill. I stopped on my heel and went back. Inside, I found: an awkward conversation with an old man, Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban, 2 X-men comic books from 1995 that are totally rad, and 2 dresses--one of which I could aptly be described as looking like a Mormon superhero in, if only I had a giant "M" tattooed on my chest.

Everything in Heaven

2011-05-28T15:13:00.001-07:00

We have everything here,
Everything that anyone who knows all could ever want.
Let’s give it up…
And hope,
that they’ll take some too.

Banish Me

2011-05-28T15:10:00.001-07:00

I have nothing to say
I am not yet lonely enough,

I have my books and new friends,
They help me forget to contemplate the sea.

Or how when I lie on the sand,
I feel myself leaning backward on a wave.

When you’re not lonely
It’s just not the same.

One Year Ago

2011-04-26T17:23:00.001-07:00

I saw the duty in your eyes,
The day on that truck bed,
You told me, looking at the pavement,
That you were sorry for you what you did.

You were sorry that you kissed me.
Sorry for God’s sake.
I accepted the apology,
Hoping it was a mistake you’d recreate.

I used to write.
I used to just look to you,
And be overwhelmed with things to say,
And quietness too.

Solar Eclipse

2011-04-10T16:30:00.001-07:00

I wonder what I’ll be doing when the stars burn out.
My name forever forgotten,
as if I never had been…

I wonder if a record will be kept of me
in heaven
and of everything I ever did.
If I’ll come out on top or bottom of it.

I wonder how I’ll feel.
If I’ll be pulling a cap over my face,
Just leave me alone.
Or floating through the sky, not worried about it.
Or on a mountain top, proclaiming to all the worlds.

I wonder if my husband and I will still know each other.
If we will turn into two new suns
winking at each other
once every 80 years.

We write down our hopes.

2011-04-10T16:16:00.001-07:00

We write down our hopes
And call them true
Because we must

Or we are left a list
With nothing whatever to do with
Over which we must
grieve.
For the things we do love
Things we want so badly to love
Grief over that which
We have not,

And never will see.

Poesía

2011-03-20T19:50:00.001-07:00

Y fue a esa edad... Llegó la poesía

a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde

salió, de invierno o río.

No sé cómo ni cuándo,

no, no eran voces, no eran

palabras, ni silencio,

pero desde una calle me llamaba,

desde las ramas de la noche,

de pronto entre los otros,

entre fuegos violentos

o regresando solo,

allí estaba sin rostro

y me tocaba.

Yo no sabía qué decir, mi boca

no sabía

nombrar,

mis ojos eran ciegos,

y algo golpeaba en mi alma,

fiebre o alas perdidas,

y me fui haciendo solo,

descifrando

aquella quemadura,

y escribí la primera línea vaga,

vaga, sin cuerpo, pura

tontería,

pura sabiduría

del que no sabe nada,

y vi de pronto

el cielo

desgranado

y abierto,

planetas,

plantaciones palpitantes,

la sombra perforada,

acribillada

por flechas, fuego y flores,

la noche arrolladora, el universo.

Y yo, mínimo ser,

ebrio del gran vacío

constelado,

a semejanza, a imagen

del misterio,

me sentí parte pura

del abismo,

rodé con las estrellas,

mi corazón se desató en el viento.

Pablo Neruda

Do you know their names?

2011-03-11T20:55:00.001-08:00

So for Spring Break, I was “stuck” in Nashville. All my plans fell through and I was wondering what I was going to do with myself alone for a whole week, with no car.

Well a lovely Katy S. solved the immobility issue. Thank you, dearest. And I wasn’t bored at all because of your generosity.

I saw at least one homeless person every day. Never the same one twice. The issue of homelessness was absolutely in the front of my mind on Wednesday night when I went to Institute to learn about generosity and tithing. My teacher asked us if we knew what The Contributor was. I do. It’s the paper that the homeless community sells in Nashville to earn money to feed themselves. It’s written by people who are or have been without a home. And it’s a great little paper.

Then he asked if any of us knew the name of someone who sold them. I don’t.

It’s easy to say that when I have a dollar on my person I buy the paper, but I was profoundly shaken by this realization: I don’t know the names of any homeless person.

Do you? People are not meant to be nameless. If one went missing or died wouldn’t we all like to know that someone knew something about us, anything… It’s just a name.

I drove home on Wednesday night at 3 in the morning. It was raining outside and cold, and I passed by a woman carrying a suitcase and looking disheveled. Maybe she has a home, but she looked like she would have liked some help, regardless. And I thought, as I drove right past her, “Why does this happen? Why would a woman be carrying a suitcase outside in the cold rain at 3 in the morning?” To my shame, I didn’t turn around. I was afraid for my own security, if I am honest. But even that excuse does not remove the shame.

Just today, driving, I passed 2 homeless men. One was selling The Contributor, one was just holding a sign. I bought a paper with my last dollar, so when I got stuck at a red light next to the next guy, I had nothing but change left.

I took all the change out of my wallet and rolled down the window. I stuck my arm out the window and said "Hi".” Then I told him this was all the money I had. He wouldn’t even take it before he lifted his head heavenward and praised God for me. He replied to me, that’s fine, you’re friendship is worth enough to me.” Then he returned to his prayer and said that I was the most beautiful woman in the world. After he finished thanking both me and God, he let me give him my change. And he told me I reminded him of Mother Mary and asked me if I was a missionary.

You, sir, do have my friendship. I’m sorry the light turned green so soon. I hope you had a hamburger with that dollar. If I see you again, I will tell you my real name, and ask for yours. That’s what I’ll do. Stay warm in heart. You gave me more than the pittance I gave to you.

Impersonal Sympathy

2011-02-27T17:01:00.001-08:00

You know those moments where you want desperately not to lend yourself to feeling an emotion around someone?

You don’t want to share so quickly all the intimacies that harbor around you—up, down, and around you, like a cupcake wrapper.

You’re surrounded by your own awareness.

Tonight there was a man who told me about Mexico, and I listened to the words, but locked out all the things that were hard to hear.

I will not sit long with that statement, sir. You don’t need to know right this second how largely I can feel.

So I will tell you the correct and automatic answer: That’s so terrible.

But the words left me as if they weren’t my own. As if my ear and mouth were having a conversation with you that my aliveness was separate from.

I was thinking of volleyball.

Because YOU weren’t telling me these awful things the right way.

You, sir, were telling it flat.

How was I to respond to that?

Cry in front of you?

You who saw in person what I am merely hearing?

But there are associations in my mind,

Every one of them is sneering.

Telling me to feel it,

Telling only me,

Like a little man is standing on my earring.

I had to tell you that.
That I am prone to feeling.

Stream of consciousness-Cat.

2011-02-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

Cat
Maggi
Angus
Catching a snake
Volunteer in the morning, at night never drunk
Wasted
Waste
A kitty with an overbite
I miss kitties.
I saw a cat in a store on Hillsboro Road. I wanted to open the door. She would have come straight to me.
But I don't want to buy anything...
Is your cat for sale?
Vanderbilt doesn't like cats.
I like cats with dignified names: Mr. Giles, Madam Bovary, Buffy.
Vanderbilt likes dignified things...
Sex, drugs, and alcohol,
Cursing,
My hall-mates forget to take out the trash.
Cats do that too.
They never take out the trash...
I do everything for you, Buffy. I share the bed, I feed you canned food.
And you refuse to help around the house.
Yes, you may sit on my lap.
Always.
I love you, Buffy.
McBuff.
Sometimes I feel you're the only person who understands me.

Llega el día

2011-02-11T13:54:00.001-08:00

Querido mío,
Mi querido,
No te preocupes.
Pienso en ti
Suficiente para los dos
Tú y yo
Sobre tú y yo
A veces sólo tú...
Y estos pensamientos sienten muy lejos
Como si fueran de otra realidad,
Quizás sí…
Pero todavía me los sienten más cerca que
Mi realidad actual.

Wish Jar

2011-01-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

A bumbling center of whispering hopes.
It never stops wishing with its softest voice.
Someday, dear wishes. I will set you free.
Then I'll leave you in my jar as a memory.

Today I have a wish jar.
A gratitude jar that hasn't been finished yet.

I love the world

2011-01-25T17:42:00.000-08:00

You are listening to a good song,
Maybe we're listening to the same one.

I wonder... I wonder...
Could we take out these headphones
And take up each other?

Which of us had this thought first?
How bad is your yearning, your burning, your thirst?
To cry out to heaven and break out in song,
To stomp out the beat and hold the last note long?

I feel like myself today,
I feel like singing all worries away.
I feel like the music in me,
Iambic pentameter in my feet.

I love the world.

Someone

2010-12-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

I asked him a question I shouldn’t have.

Meant to wrap his life up nicely, made it easy, and moved along.
I asked him if it was gone.
Like a simple yes or no would help me understand.

What a thoughtless notion.
He shrugged. Crossed his fingers. And then told me a joke to make me happy.
And he showed me a song because he thinks he’s bad with words…

He let me have both headphones.

I listened alone.

“If I die young bury me in satin.
Lay me down in a bed of roses.
Sink me in the river at dawn,
Send me away with the words of love song”

I have always found a good time out of digging up people’s hearts.
Poking around their souls in the dark.
Asking questions that have been long forgotten,

To see who they are and how they got there...

This was a simple question:

"Is it gone?"

How could that possibly lend itself to profundity?

He shrugged.

Crossed his fingers and shrugged.

And told me a joke to make me happy...

Not the usual explanation...

And here I am,

Quietly meditating on that reply.

And what I learned is that

he is beautiful...

Peripheral Awareness

2010-12-11T23:57:00.001-08:00

I always sit

Arms folded and legs crossed.

Eyes ahead.

With a dear friend

at my side.

And how I'd love

to s t r e t c h o u t my arms

Open up

my heart

and quit pretending

that I don't notice you're there...

But...

Eyes forward

Legs crossed.

Paying close attention,

Not even grazing shoulders

except lined with apology.

I don't believe in that...apologizing for touching someone...

Eyes forward

Arms folded

Legs crossed.

Paying attention

And forcing back down all my love.

Prone to Loving Strangers

2010-12-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

There are new feelings stewing in strange big cities. You have to walk alone to feel them. You have to mosie alone to feel the humor, to walk at whatever pace and wonder in your smile whether the 10,000 strangers came just for you today. Just to feign business. That, had you not been here today, they wouldn't have bothered to get up and entertain. Just look at them. You are NO ONE to them; therefore, you are anyone to them.
There's a man on the bench next to me, reading. He could change my life; I could change his...
But only alone.
Only when I'm free to yield to every uninspired impulse. Only when I am exactly who I want to be, unpolluted, seized by this second, can I find the right bench with the right person on it, who's feeling the right feeling, and wearing the right shirt. Sometimes you need to be pastless, with no certainty of a future to find something honest.

Flipping through the faces,
The idle strangers I own,
Inventing the kind ones to be:
Any prince-charming who might think I'm beautiful and say so spontaneously,
Any philanthropic fellow who might have been a dear friend.

As they unfold into themselves,
They ruin the holiness of my vision.
Until finally I know it all
And finally,
We've said everything.

And I find as I say goodbye:
He was a prince.
She was a dear friend.
And i will miss them.

Last May

2010-12-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

Dear Tennessee,

You rained a little too hard and then pretended that you never did. A bright hot day to start the week, your resolution to behave. And I forgive you. Because you are a shade of green I never saw before. You smell like pollen and flowers being born. And because you lie with me in the grass and we giggle while we look at the sky as the all-too-serious-kids race by, ambition in tow. And because you, Nashville, are accepting. Because I feel your soil affirming me, and I can feel my soul affirm you. O Nashville, you are a little sticky, but then when I see the season’s first lightening bug, I will forgive you of that, too. I wish that I could exist within your summer, but I will only dream of you and hammocks, and front porches for these next few months. Dream of feeling American and sunny and hot and green.

I am in love with you.
Until August...

The Ascent Continues

2010-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

A raging cotton sea,
A storm or a moment of war.
A photograph of battle.
In a still,,, framed moment of life.

You can see where the sword will fall,
Or where the wave will land.
And here it is in one image.
Forever held out in motion.

A cold and dreamy mountain over there.
Confronts you far off the horizon’s horizon.
Here comes the feeling of arrival.
Approaching you. Far off and still. It’s coming.
Believe it is coming.

And then in a hole dipping down,
You are reminded that this isn’t the plain below.
This is the top of things.
And you imagine falling through the clouds.

Into the clear night.
The still, still clusters of light look like they are under water,
Deep, deep down,
Sunk down to the floor,
Where you cannot dream of living.

While you nap above the clouds.

Here is a blanket of golden veins
Separating two black eternities.

If you’ll ever relinquish your depth perception.
Just for a moment,
And the let the light exist up and down,
Dipping into forever...
Then you will look out the small window in your cold cabin,
And feel like the world’s tallest poet.

How Grandpa met Grandma

2010-11-26T21:51:00.001-08:00

gpa “We’re real different, but it’s always been worth it ‘cause I just love her.”

gma “Really? I didn’t know that. I don’t think you’ve ever told me that.”

me “Haha. Really Grandma? I’m sure you knew it. I’m sure he’s told you more than once since you got married.”

gma “We’ve been married 45 years, 45 years on your twentieth birthday. All the girls over the years always said he was really something, that Benny.”

me “You better believe it Grandma. Grandpa is a catch. You got lucky with him, and any girl would tell you that.”

gpa “I got lucky.”

me “You both did. That’s true.”

me “She didn’t like you at first, right?”

gpa “No, I didn’t like her.”

me “Haha. Oh.”

gpa “I had a gas station. And her sister Eva would come in and get gas. Well, she would come in, too. She had her nose sticking up and she would say, ‘A case of coke… and fill up my car.”

me “How did that change? And one day she went in and asked you out? Didn’t she say: ‘Do you want to go get lunch with the two cutest girls in town?” (her and Eva.)

gma “No, I did not ask him out.”

gma “It was EVA. She told me to go in there. We were both working at a restaurant in town. She was a better waitress, got all the tips. I was crappy. She told me to go down there and tell him to come to the restaurant for lunch. So I did.”

gpa “I told my partner Luke. Hey we gotta go down to the restaurant for lunch today. I think something is going on down there.”

me “But you didn’t like her. How did that change?”

gma “I was little.”

gpa “She was something. She was stuck up, but man, she had a right to be.”

gma “I think all the guys liked me ‘cause I was little.”

gpa “I ate lunch there just about every day. Sometimes Eva would wait on me, but whenever Jackie did, I would tip her a dollar. Once we started going together, she pulled out all these dollar bills and gave them right back to me. All the tips I gave her. She kept ‘em all”

gma “He looked poor. Let me tell you. He. did.”

gma “One day I brought Buzz to the station and when we left he said, ‘Mom, did that man want to kiss you?’ Sure enough.”

gma “That’s when I started giving him the tips.”

A return to the rule: The Golden Rule.

2010-10-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

We were not tricked.

The mean were.

As they came freshly from the cocoon floating high into the air.

But were swatted away by a hand.

So they guessed they were supposed to become swatters.

I wish we all knew.

I wish we all could see the burdens of others.

I wish we had enough heart and faith left to care.

To believe that we should care.
To not be afraid to care.

To hold their hand as they cry...
Whose hand? Blast!--who cares whose hand it is.
Hold all of the hands you can find.
To hold them and say:
Just tell me what happened, from the beginning.
And listen.
To just listen until they stop talking.

For those of you who are still waiting and on your last ounce of wonder.

Waiting to walk past some person who will

Please God, just smile.

I will be her.

I will be unfailingly here for you.

Begging you to see that you weren’t wrong.

You weren’t wrong.

That kindness is real.

It’s here.

It’s everything,

After all.

La Mejor Tinta

2010-10-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Armando Valladares

Me lo han quitado todo

las plumas

los lápices

la tinta

por que ellos no quieren

que yo escriba

y me han hundido

en esta celda de castigo

pero ni así ahogaran mi rebeldía.

Me lo han quitado todo

-bueno, casi todo-

porque me queda la sonrisa

el orgullo de sentirme un hombre libre

y en el alma un jardín

de eternas florecitas.

Me lo han quitado todo

las plumas

los lápices

pero me queda la tinta de la vida

-mi propia sangre-

y con ella escribo versos todavía.

Not Quite Like Pocahontas...

2010-10-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

Watch this in the mini screen version, then go watch it again in full-screen. I look so much tougher the second time. Haha...

These were they

2010-10-12T09:48:00.001-07:00

Here’s the spot they still exist as “they”,

The spot they first became…

It’s true that the woman wore this watch on their first date.

And that man knew who she was before the end of that date.

She was so beautiful.

She still is so beautiful.

Here’s the little silver bracelet that man saw in a store,

The very next day and it matched the woman’s watch he saw.

The hands paused in eternity until that girl and her watch were gone.

Yes, here’s the bracelet he' got for his new girl.

Because he was already in love with her…

He still is in love with her.

But where is the ring

From the day he asked for the watch’s hand?

For it to pause forever on the two of them?

Where is the ring that never ends?

He saw it in a jewelry box. It was perfect, and he got it.

But it is still in a jewelry box. Her old jewelry box.

But the watch and the bracelet,

The symbol of a man’s helpless, lost, immediate love.

The watch that made my dad’s world start turning…

I still have them on.

The Compassion-Confidence Equation

2010-10-02T22:02:00.001-07:00

When we find compassion for others, we will find it for ourselves.
We assume that the way we think is the way other people think or ought to think. So when we are critical of others, something shallow inside us tells us that we are therefore better, but something deep inside us shrinks fearfully.
Afraid of the empathy we all secretly feel for those we are unkind to.
Get rid of the harshness, the criticism, the impossible rubric by which you grade others.
Replace it with love, with understanding, with compassion. Realize that everyone has a story. Everyone has soft spots, even if they appear full of hard spots. Because we don’t know what went into their creation. We don’t know what harshness might have brought them here. To the person you think you see.
But we all have a story. Remember that. Do not ever for one second forget when you meet a stranger that he has lived an entire life before meeting you.
We all have immeasurable value.
When I discovered that, when I let my heart become soft, I gained confidence. Because once I realized that my criticisms for others were unfounded and harsh, they went away. And so did my suspicions that everyone else viewed me the same way.
Now I see love in everyone. I see a walking history. A person with deep desires and aspirations. A person who DOES empathize with everyone else, deep down. Even if they haven’t discovered it yet. And I am able to assume that everyone else sees the same in me.

Break My Heart.

2010-09-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

You don't know if it's his life...
As he leaves the room early,
He is leaving the room so quickly...

You have a thought so casual
That it happens without direction.
Into the air it flies in tiny swirls, never landing...

A simple:
"We are not leaving yet."

Like a feather through the wind...

You don't know if it's her life...
You've seen her on campus,
And she scares you.

The thoughts are empty.
Again, pressed into the ground.
Nothing but a cold observation, left in your step...

A simple:
"Her face is hard."

You don't know if it's his life...
As he stands in line before you.
He curses all the things he mentions.

A small, the smallest opinion:
You stamp it on him.
And quit listening.

A simple:
"That was harsh."

But you don't know.
We just can't know.
If it's his life that could make you cry through the night.
If it's him you love and only his story you despise...

I wanna be a Missionary so Fetchin' Bad

2010-09-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

He's 16, and Australian.

Cafe

2010-09-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Upon the realizations of our nature:
"This has been true from the beginning."
-Andrew Koepp

The Devil's Dream

2010-09-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

A Timeless Song

I can't remember the facts,
But I remember the feeling.
Cause the cuckoo's song doesn't just predict the summer,
She causes it.
I remember the summer,
And all that it meant,
The second she sings her tune,
You can't continue to forget...

The future has already come.
The years so real and so near,
She sings them in,
Tomorrow the past is what we'll feel.
All these moments melt together into one brief eternity,
Taking forever to come,
And just seconds to be.

I wait all the moments of my life,
And in fact some waiting moments brought me here.
And I can see the cuckoo waking up,
To say summer will shortly be here.

"Chirpy tweet chirp,"
I remember when I first heard those words.

Keep singing.

The 15-year-olds.

2010-09-09T10:45:00.001-07:00

"Girl I like your dress.
I like your hair."
And I’ll tell you as you walk by.

Girl, I like your face,
But you won’t look my in the eye.

You are writing on a notepad,
Skipping through the corridor.

You only stop talking about your wonderful ideas,
Just to say thank you
As I admire on your heels.

And you just keep on walking after that idea of yours that you find so exciting...
So kindly,
Without noticing a thing.

But an older woman saw.
She was standing in the hall with us.
She saw the youthful sweet exchange.
And a happy recognition of a memory danced across her face.

And she grabbed her husband’s hand
And she saw me so smitten and excited.
About a girl in church.
And about the
whole
dang
world.

And she knew.
That I am as exactly as her husband was.

Oh girl.
Oh girl.
You run down the hall,
In love with life.

You don’t even notice that I’ve fallen.
On my face.
And how much I enjoy Sunday,
Especially the little hallway chase.
I have some pretty sweet plans a’comin’.

When I turn sixteen,
I'm going ask you on a date.

I'll say.
"Girl I like your dress.
I like your hair.
And I like you too.
In all of the storming off you do.
Please go on a date with me.
Now that we are both sixteen."

Oh girl.
Oh girl.
You don’t see a thing today,
Cause I’m not saying it all the way.
But someday…
I’ll ask you…

on a date.

Two Truths and a Lie

2010-09-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

It started with me trying to convince him,
That he thought I was wrong and intolerable.
He just didn’t know it.
A liberal.

Leaning forward, leaning away, and looking off to the side.
A movie and a city; a departure is a death.
A girl hiding behind the truth of what's left.
He was looking over, under, and around the girl.

It ended in him telling me
No, it will only be intolerable when you leave.
He just didn’t expect it.
A feeling.

I seek a questionable people.

2010-09-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

O World,
If you can,
Please lead me to those on your great belly that walk with aim after questions,
Not those who walk with persistence after opinion.
And show me where the Great Questions are.
And write them in the margins of my life’s map.
Point me to the mysteries, I’ll go.
Give me to the riddles I’ll never know.
And lend me no satisfaction.

Write your epitaph:

2010-09-05T16:04:00.001-07:00

Ella era amable a todos y siempre vino con Dios.

A "Genius" Video

2010-08-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

So here it is. I love this talk. I have felt the very things she mentions. Poems coming up like a linebacker and taking you down on your peaceful walk to a patch of grass. Or a busy day when you don't really have time to be tackled. But I threw out the idea to Alex, and he backs up the popular idea that we are the genius. And I am wondering now if those two ideas are separate, or if they meet somewhere.

I believe in inspiration. I believe I am sometimes just an obedient modem for a poem that actually wants, like a physical being, to be recognized. And I write it, and read it later and it's clear that something beyond "me" was happening on the page.

But I believe we can dishonor our genius. We can neglect our inspirations, or reject them outright, having no compassion over ourselves. It starts out as a person thinking of something perhaps only of slight significance. "I want to smile at the stranger." We hear it in ourselves. Someone saying that to us, and we realize for a very small second that it's true. Stranger approaches and something then inside can say yes or no to the desire, to the inclination, to the inspiration, the genius, even...

I know that for those of us who say yes, who always deign to say yes to their artful, brilliant, and good whims, they will head off in the direction of living well. Of becoming so in-tune with their genius, that they can come to understand her. Like a friend. Even having a healthy relationship... When we say yes to the genius ideas, we open the doors of creativity a bit wider, until the door is swung open completely and we are invited not only to visit but to practically move in.

And eventually, maybe Alex is right, and Elizabeth, and the ancients, too. Maybe we have a genius, but maybe we can come so close to it that we lose the lines between us, and we become the thing which is in us, we become brilliant.

LDS Marriage and Family. Thank you kindly Brother Goodman.

2010-08-09T12:52:00.001-07:00

What

Girl in class: “You cry in a peaceful way, not painful. You cry because people cannot experience the joy you are feeling.”

So What

I have never experienced the clarity that I do as I live this gospel. Outside of it, the world truly is as in Lehi’s vision, a cloud of dark mist. I remember it. And it’s true. You cried because you were lost, and that you were lost is the only think you knew. You cried because you didn’t understand why you were crying. Because you could not feel the Savior’s compassion over you, but you thought you should. You cried because you actually did believe you were alone and you felt that that wasn’t enough. And then one day you found Him. And you cried again, but this time because of what His atonement does for you: It claims you jealously (as if you can hear Christ saying over you, “She is mine, Satan.”); it allows you to have hope for the world, for your own life, too; it helps you to forgive yourself and others; it allows you to have compassion for yourself and detach from the “old man of sin”; it renews you, makes you gentle and humble; you come to experience charity for everyone you walk past; you finally obtain protection from the gross ambitions of the adversary; so you can finally find direction in the dark mist by grabbing onto the iron rod and running in the direction of that great Tree; and so you can come home.

After all that discovery, you are free in the way you had always wanted to be.

We are not free when we run in random directions in a seemingly unassuming darkness. We are free when we know everything we need to know and then get to decide which way we would have our lives be. And there is not joy greater than having discovered that. And my classmate is right, I think. My greatest sorrows are no longer for myself.

Create

2010-08-08T00:47:00.001-07:00

“Everyone has the desire to create something that did not exist before.”

Maybe this is why I have recently felt that conversation is an art… That having meaningful relationships is an art. Because creating connections between unique things and turning out beauty is what creativity is all about. And that’s also exactly what relationships can be. Every human being on earth is so unique, has some deep experience that makes it so they can understand their feelings in a way that no one else ever will. We are all little factories of feelings the world doesn’t know, and ones that it does, too. But there it is. We are unique. And when we can mix unique realities, for example two people, create a bond, and turn out something beautiful, then we have created something.

How to be Alone

2010-08-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wonderful lonely friends: She affirms our instincts about being alone.

What is something you’ve always wanted to do?

2010-08-05T23:47:00.001-07:00

Along the same lines as all my lovely friends answers to this question, I would probably steal the same answer. There are other things I would do too, but it’s late and I conjure any new creative thoughts right now.

But the answer… Reminds me of this daydream and night dream I’ve been stuck in lately. Have you seen inception? Because the dream I’m stuck in feels like that. It’s surreal… I first had it a couple months ago…

I had a dream that words didn’t exist,

And the miracle: that expression didn’t suffer one bit.

That ideas existed hanging in the air, in the yellow sunlight.

The yellow sunlight thick like fog. A haze of illumination…

I had a dream that to trade thoughts, feelings, and EVERYTHING occurring inside you, and to feel the very quiet middle of another person, I only had to see them. I only had to look at their eyes… No matter how far away they stood.

Or I only had to sit on park bench with them, not even to look and see them, but to place my hand on their resting hand.

No words.

None.

I wake up trying to reconcile the experience of sitting contently in a world made of silent things and not caring at all that language had never been invented for us. Because I woke up to the remembrance that I LOVE language, I love rhetoric, and I love words.

Then to the realization that I don’t. I only love communion with my brothers and sisters.

I love us. So I chase after your souls by conversation, by words, by poems, and by talking to you, sure…

But I could have existed forever in that dream, in that sunlight, in the infinite and haunting and tender silence.

What is love?

2010-08-05T23:23:00.001-07:00

It’s not romance. It’s not a surging moment of excitement around some person. It can’t be. That’s like a hormone. I’m talking about love.

Maybe I should start with platonic love. What is this love stuff made of? How do you know when you’ve felt it? I think it’s much more describable than we make it out to be. And I think it’s much more common too, for some of us. For some, maybe this new definition will destroy all notions of love they thought they had in their lives.

Love is a genuine, deep care for the well-being of another person. I think that’s it. It’s just taking yourself into the shoes, no the heart, even, of another human being and empathizing. It’s feeling their heaviness, feeling their joy. It is becoming the other person for a moment and having an almighty desire for them to find true happiness in life.

I believe that.

But it leaves me wondering where romantic love begins? What is the difference?

I don’t know if there is some sort of mystical element to romantic love, besides the fact that even mere love itself is a miracle. But for me, at least… being in love, is to sort of allow someone the honor of reciprocating that.

It’s sort of like affirming to another person’s desire to empathize with you and say, “Yes, you can feel what I feel. You do understand. And I would trust you to feel it the right way.” It’s to allow another to sweep in to all of your feelings, your greatest hopes, your most secret fears, and to trust them in the middle of it all to know it as you do.

If you think that my definition here is saying that the person you allow to do this, must agree with you in all things, that’s not what I mean. I haven’t explained it quite right.

I mean only that the person who you love could come in and understand the paths in your brain… why they trail off in the mixed-up directions that they do, why they are wide in some areas, narrow in others… And that their mind would be wired in some way to be able to converse with your mind. Maybe not one’s mind, maybe their very spirit…

And also, maybe there is some mystical element to it. I have no idea. These are just my most honest thoughts on the subject, perhaps wrong. Perhaps hinging too narrowly on my own personal experiences with life. But I want to know what this “love” is. What’s making the world turn? And how can we understand it, and feel a pure form of it?

Love.

At Each 1:00 AM With You

2010-08-02T21:57:00.001-07:00

Debated for 6 months on whether or not I should post this poem.
Decision:

I want to sleep
next
to
you
Just because we were holding hands while
we
were
tired
And I want to wonder
what
you're
thinking
I want to wake up
next
to
you
When the sun comes
poking
through
to light up the room
I want to wake up
in
a
panic.
I want to ask
"how'd
this
happen?"
It happened cause we were sleepy
and
we
quit
talking and just fell asleep
I want to wake up
in
a
panic.
I want to wonder
in
the
night
What's he thinking and
dreaming when he's breathing
so
steady
and
quiet?
I want to wonder
why
your
heart
Beats like a tank
against
my
soul
And I want to wonder
who
you
are
and what made you.
I want to watch your chest
rise
and
fall
so quiet and constant
I
want
to listen
to the room full of your dreams.
So someday
I
do
hope
that we can sleep sweetly
next
to
each other
in our own bed
I hope that I can
wake up
and just
lie there.
Because it's
Sat-
ur-
day.
at noon there's no place to go
but
to stay
I want to wake up
And not
feel like
a rush.
I want you to steal the covers
all
from
me
So I can roll closer
and
steal
them
back
I want to wonder
where it is
you
came
from...

Get-To-Know-You Questions

2010-08-01T17:08:00.001-07:00

Good conversation takes effort and planning. Friendships do too. So, in many failures and a few successes, I found that asking people thought-provoking questions really helps. It doesn’t matter if they answer wrong, encourage them to just open themselves to you so you can just see the basic thought-process they go through to get there. Tell them: Interpret widely, answer specifically.

I always change my mind about these questions. And I try not to plan my answers, so I can be in the same boat of figuring my thoughts out as the person I’m asking is.

In varying levels of intensity…

What is your greatest fear?
How do you overcome it?
What is your greatest hope?
What trait do you admire/value in other people?
What do you notice first about a person you are getting to know?
If you had a social resume, and were forced to brag about yourself, what would you say is your greatest personality/character trait? Or, what would you aspire to have it one day be?
Where did you come from? (A sort of what-made-you-who-you-are-question). A couple big moments or a small quiet process?
Who is someone who most affected your life or who you are?
What is your perfect day? Ever.
What is your life goal?
What do you think about in your "”quiet”/”greatest” moments? Is there a general theme at least?
What is your favorite form of art?
What is something you’ve always wanted to do?
What would you spend $1 million on? No saving or investing.
What super power would you want?
Are you a beach, country, or city person? Or other?
If you knew you could try anything and not fail, what would you do?
Favorite childhood memory?
Life motto?
What kind of people do you like? Describe your best friend in as much detail as you can.
In 5 years, what kind of person will you be?
What’s your major? Why did you choose it? What do you want to do with it?
What is your language of love?

words of affirmation
quality time
receiving gifts
acts of service
physical touch

If you could have a wish granted, what would it be?
What’s your favorite season? Why?
If you could give the world one piece of advice, what would it be?
What’s your idea of romance? Is it a feeling or an action?
Have you been in love?
Do you daydream a lot? About what?
Favorite books, movies, songs, artists, etc.
Six flags or camping?
A week on a dream vacation with your 3 best friends or 10 minutes on the moon by yourself?
You have 24 hours to live… What do you do? Famous last words?
You have a month to live… What do you do?
What makes you angry?
What makes you happy?
What makes you sad?
What is your favorite/most beautiful doctrine?
Are you a curious person? Do you ever have questions that leave you pondering for long periods of time? Do you have an example?
Is there a driving question in your life?
What is happiness to you? What brings it, but also what is it?
If you were trapped on an island what one thing would you bring? (Not a tool to get you off.)
If your house were burning down, what one item would you save?
What is something you’ve always wanted to do?

A Sister Poem to a Sister Poem. We make a family.

2010-07-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Moth of Memories Best Forgotten

You moth, you appear as the wall you are on.
Sitting so very still begging to keep yourself,
The secret you're so proud of.

I turn off the lights, so you won't even have to try.
You can fly and flit around,
Like you own the night.

You're gone by the sunrise.
I wake up afraid that you'll come back.
That I'll shut the door, but I can see your shadow coming through the cracks.

Come in again.
I've found the difference.
The difference between my wall and what it isn't.

Come in again, be at home in your disguise,
Now the difference is, that I can see where you hide.
Look into your beady little eyes.
And tell you, "Goodbye."

Splat.

The Right Reasons

2010-07-25T23:12:00.001-07:00

But my sincerity is merely an accident, born of the things I feel so strongly. Meet any person who feels compassion beyond her capacity, and you shall see the same exact honesty.

Sincerity is not my virtue. It is the endless result of compassion. It is driven, but is not the driver.

I work not on developing her, but on a wonderful day when I fall more deeply for the human race, she will be seen.

My virtue is feeling.

So I strive to feel more.

So I strive to understand.

So I deal gently.

Or so I try.

And so I will ever continue.

Twilight contest (ie: why I will never be cool)

2010-07-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting in a service auction, minding my own business, when my friend Paul, whom I've known for a week at this point, flips his head around to randomly tell me there's a Twilight lookalike contest coming up in Provo. That's all he says.
"Oh? Really? And you think I should go?"
"Yes."

I didn't admit this then, but holy cow. I was excited. Finally a chance to cash in on my non-talent of having the same hair and head shape as Kristen Stewart. Woot. I went home and looked it up right away. It was the Very. Next. Day.

So lame am I, that I was the first person to show up to this gig. Alone, no less. My friend dropped me off at a contest... by myself. Even the people hosting the thing weren't there yet. Oh yeah: Serious. So I walked around the shops around looking as conspicuously Bella-esque as I ever have in my entire life.

Finally people showed up. The Barnes and Noble people, the 14 year-old super fans, and one twenty-something girl who made me feel like an even bigger dork than I already did. What's worse is that, in spite of my acknowledgment of said dorkiness, I was PROUD. I talked to the 14 year-olds. They thought I looked awesome. So I'm chatting with them, in a room full of lonely women, when I see a group come in from the corner of my eye.

It's 20 year old guys. Like a whole band of them, and the one girl who seems to have drug every one of them along. And then... Edward... Bahaha. They come in and sit down behind me. I get up to use the restroom. As I walk by, one of Edward's friends whispers Bella after me and tells me I look perfect.

When I came back from the restroom, some girls had come in and taken my seat. I left no sign I had been sitting there. So I sat next to the Edward clan. I look to my right and the best-looking Jane and Victoria I have ever seen are sitting two seats from me. Victoria even had that big white fury thing on.
And what?
"Woah, you even have red eyes! You look great."-says me.
Victoria turns to me and gives me the look of death.
Oh.
What?
Is she in character?
Or just a huge creep?

The judges called up the Edward lookalikes. I knew who my Edward was going to be. They asked if any of them wanted to give an Edward-speech. They were all dumb boys, and just said, "I'm Edward Cullen. Blah." I wanted more than anything in the world to storm up and do a scene with Edward. I was feeling theatrical. But I didn't. I didn't know what Edward would think of it. Haha. He won, easily. And when he came to sit back down, he sat right next to me. Like we were together. I liked that. Lol.

Then the Bellas went up. I went first, and stormed on stage to do what I had wanted to do with Edward: the I-know-what-you-are scene. I should have been nervous. I had never acted; I was in a room full of people I didn't know; I was dressed up as a teenie-bop movie character... But I wasn't nervous. I won.

Then the Victoria-girl won the female costume contest. She freaked me out a little. But after she won, she got really friendly with me, asked to take pictures with me and stuff. I think she was in character before.

That's about it.

Until! My roommate when to the midnight showing with me, since she helped me win the tickets. And she met Edward, blah blah, movie, blah blah. The end of my beautiful cast.

Then two days later she ran into the apartment after her guitar class. Apparently Edward is in her same guitar section. And is horrified that some girl who actually knows him in real life can testify of his lapse in general coolness by showing up to such an event.

I'm okay.

2010-07-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

Why should my cheeks be moistened now?
Do I owe it to it to the joy itself, so remarkable a joy...
To honor its end with a soaking wet sorrow?
Perhaps...

But I remember the dawn of my life.
I remember falling in love even in my own secular dot.
I remember joy there, not as tall,
But still as conceivably wonderful then as you were just yesterday.

I know this. I know what happiness is.
We all know it to the extent we have experienced it...
Just like sorrow, we know it only as well as it has known us.

Now I will turn from our new rubric for as long as I may.
The one where joy is taller when you're around.
Because there, sorrow is also much taller.

I will go back to the other,
The one where I danced with myself,
And knew little dependence from without.

There I will go, that my sorrow might be shorter.
I would perhaps dishonor my recent joy.
Because I cannot look at it anymore.

And I will again know only the heights of myself.

My enchantment with life come from within, not without.
And I love you with all the energy of a dying star,
Yet you are, even my dearest friend,
Utterly without.

My walk: line by line.

2010-07-03T00:37:00.001-07:00

Nature writes its own poem today.

There is literally cotton snowing sideways in the field.

I can begin to feel the upsetting art in me.

A question: What do you think about in your greatest moments?

Here is clean. I want the messy woods. I want a chaos of trees.

An answer: There doesn’t need to be something wrong for a person to seek solitude.

There is no better moment than when I am alone in my own voice, listening only to my own thoughts.

They read me poems.

They see the world in its exquisite disorder.

They remind me of how richly, how heavily, how excruciatingly human I can feel.

There, the words stop. Can you feel me yet?

Because if you don’t feel it by now, if you haven’t felt it yourself, no one can explain it to you. Not me.

You are a stranger to your own romance, then.

A thought: I don’t want to see another human right now.

But one…

Because I don’t want to speak or hear.

At all.

And we just cannot stop it.

Save for these walks.

Just leave me alone to my art.

My maddening love.

My leaf and this pen—and I will write my heart onto it.

A turn: I cannot help but take the more beautiful one, even if it will get me lost in a place wanting desires.

It had them once, this turn.

Now a conspicuous void.

A memory: The problem is that we own this place.

A break: Do you ever have an indescribable feelings that drive you again and again to this spot, to your attempts to frame it? Ones that overwhelm you and keep you from moving. Ones that paralyze you in the grass while you watch the clouds. Ones that you ever recognize but can never identify?

A question: What are you doing?

An answer: I appear to be lying down, but I am actually writing a poem, collecting myself, doing exactly what I must, thinking, feeling, listening to classical music, monitoring the clouds, honoring the yearning inside me, watching ballet…

A wave: Everything is falling behind me the same way as I pass it all.

A correction: Ah! Alas, I had to see a someone, but she was barefoot and picking at a tree. A kindred spirit.

What if, darling?

2010-06-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

And when we are happily married you will say,
"But I don't know what we are going to do tomorrow!
What will we eat?
What will we name the children?"

And I'll always just grab your hand.
Tell you I don't know.
Look at you begging,
"Don't worry."

"Darling I love you.
But what if one day we are different?
What if we wake up
And don't know each other so well?"

"I'll still be anxiously engaged
In being your dear wife.
I'll ask a bunch of questions,
And come to love you more at each reply.

"I know we won't stay the same
As we are today,
But I think we both are counting on that,
To be more like Him everyday."

Also: "I love you."
And no matter which way you grow.
I will grow around you.
I hope tomorrow you still know.

Ivy

2010-06-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

From the Guests of the 2010 Dead Poets Society Meeting:

Ivy is trying to grow in the window
through the glass it raises toward the sun
as though its an addiction it can't resist
Thirsting, drooling, itching for its warmth, its love
It IS LOVE, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and blinding love.
This love--this sunshine. Eternal sunshine that fuels that ivy to creep up the side of the house,
Beckoning the vines to savor its encompassing glow.
Dark clouds, wailing winds, and even swarms of pestilence cannot thwart its advance
Beaten from without, beckoned from above, fueled from within. By love.
Persevering toward its goal, reaching toward infinity, trying to live higher.
The ivy lives in the ephemeral ecstasy of its love with no reason to fall
It is we who are growing in the window, visible to the world as we go. Screaming in the language of green.

Does everything happen for a reason?

2010-06-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

Who am I?
Whose very life desires...
Desires to exist in the way that it does,
Is happy to be and also happy to have gone.

Who am I?
Beyond all circumstance...
Not after nor separate from the world I am in,
But in a loving embrace.

Who am I?
Whose heart feels to fly...
Into the face of my past,
With some gratitude alive.

Is this right?
Does my life actually feel?
Was there a plan to make me
Into something so clear?

Was there a reason?
Or is this mere chance?
Am I condemned to be the endless victim
Of random happenstance?

It would appear that is so,
That my life is so fragile,
That I accidentally landed
In happiness and joy for awhile.
That in my journey here's a moment,
To be followed by more,
But I cannot know what may come,
And have no right to hope.

But I hope.
I dare.

And I think that in fact my life did want,
Wanted to be the way that it is,
And ran desperately after that.

And I think that it succeeded,
And now has faith in me.
I think we, my life and I,
Were meant to be.

Spinning

2010-05-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

They danced close together,
Like two sides of a double helix,
Swirling toward the sky.
Close, very close, but separate.
Connected by complete necessity.

2010-04-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

You can almost see it bending,
The wide angles coming in,
Like a net being pulled through the sea.
Like a kite being pulled in the wind.

You can almost see it changing,
Slowing drifting by,
Quickly getting darker,
Before turning into night.

You can almost breathe it in.
And feel like a finite point of eternity,
Like the sky is pointed toward you,
And you are wide-open to it.

You can almost imagine the back,
Beyond the stars expanding.
You can almost feel yourself take off,
Feel the whole universe where you're standing.
......................................................
You can almost forget numbers,......................
While drawing pictures in the sky,........................
You can almost go back the the beginning of the world.
But you don't care to try.

Barefoot in the grass,
Strolling through and through,
All these new abilities,
Pondering what to do.

my gLee

2010-04-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

I was walking home from some place on campus and there was a drunk kid singing/yelling "Don't stop believin". I turned to look at him because I thought it was just about the greatest thing you could do when you're drunk and fearless, but he probably thought I was sizing him up... He complimented my backpack. (It was dark out and he probably couldn't even see it but enough to note that I was wearing one...) I complimented his singing.

As I walked away he kept on going, and I turned back around and started shouting/singing back Lea Michelle's parts. :) Oh, night.

lovely vids.

2010-04-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

For the Secret Society of Souls

2010-04-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk down music row last night with Hayden. It was spontaneous. And it was perfect. But it made me think of the fact that I usually only equate spontaneity with havoc. And that's just not it at all. Sometimes life just wants to take a warm evening walk down a street and be quiet. And spontaneous doesn't always mean you do something loud and exciting. It just means you do whatever comes naturally.

So now I'm discovering adventures that are more quiet. I'm listening intently and hearing silent secrets spilling over the air like beauty. Floating down the street wheresoever it takes me, not compelling myself to do something to my walk, but letting my walk do something to me.

Close your eyes and the world opens

2010-03-28T21:38:00.001-07:00

Calling a person ugly doesn’t make you any prettier,

Even your laughing audience will sense in themselves a fearful compassion for her…

What makes her ugly? And is the blame to her assigned?

She who missed the high gymnast’s beam of perfection,

The beam that has never known a single hand.

She ought to know better than to dress her head with her heart.

She ought to know better when to be careful and to stop.

She ought to know what makes her pretty,

And she ought to do those things.

Say they who know not a single reason for the look she brings.

Or that she saved another ugly girl,

By joining in her group.

That by making herself lowly,

She gave some ugly joy to a whole room.

A room full of ugly kids

With no reason to smile.

Could you ever hope to guess this by looking at her for awhile?

No.

So just listen.

Page 157

2010-03-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

I felt a bead of light escape from my mouth and I almost lost my breath.
It's like I was speaking for heaven.

I was stopped by what I was saying.
A line behind the song before I could collect the feeling.

What was that?
And then it became clear, but no less profound,
That I was speaking for heaven.
And so for one worldly second.
I got to feel it too.

Calm not sluggish

2010-03-24T15:22:00.001-07:00

I feel empty of all offense.
I feel heavy while I'm lying down.
Just right.
I feel like walking conspicuously slow on a warm day, in a cotton dress.
I thought I felt the sun sitting on my cheeks,
But I think the wind swept it away.
I wonder briefly where they went together.

I think I decided to feel this way today.
To feel calm.
To TAKE calm like it's mine.

And I feel like writing a poem.
So I am.

The world is sweet today.
Like a girl singing in an ice cream shop.

Old poems have new meaning.

2010-03-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

I came to swing
& sing my past a song.
like last night.

But tonight there were 5 kids.
I did not sing.
Not to them.

They didn't need the songs
I had in mind.
They didn't need to hear me say:

"Don't let this summer slip away."

Because they had it.
in a headlock.
Not fighting it...
But playing with it.
Wrestling there,
in the sand.

This summer is theirs,
& it always will be.

Notes from the Hunger Banquet

2010-03-15T23:26:00.001-07:00

I think it's worth noting that the opening prayer was given in Japanese, and that it was one of the most memorable prayers I ever felt.
Many people throw up their hands and say that hunger is a huge problem that will never be stopped, or advanced upon, but it can be. The poor are not helpless. They are hardworking, HOPEFUL, merely lacking in circumstance.
Belief, Faith, Hope, Charity: has the power of these four heroes ever been so underestimated? Progress hit no brick wall when we discovered the "new world". When we geographically quit expanding, we did not lose the opportunity to start over, to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We GAINED that power. We earned the means to become men of principle, rather than men of land. We earned the resources to help others, and not simply look out for ourselves. The pioneers are not extinct; they have found higher ground to conquer: humanity.
There is no "other" kind of people. There are no Americans and Africans and Arabs and Canadians. There are men and women and children, and dignity therein. Potential doesn't belong only to the rich. It is everywhere. In everyone. And there is power in those who believe that.
Let's change the world singing "Hare Krshna" and dancing and smiling.
Let's look back on our college years and be proud of what we were starting.

Then in closing:
"We pray that we will be able to carry these messages with us for the rest of our lives."

A poet was born in screaming.

2010-03-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

As we created new paths in our minds,
Some extended down to our hearts.
We were seized by the thoughtful beating.
We were seized by a great feeling.

And then we were given a way to deal with this new place.
The place where adrenaline escapes from your eyes.
Where suddenly life is at midday.
We stood on our desks.

We passed our fingers over ceiling tiles.
We got into our best animal stance,
And yelled out the poetic beating.
Yawping on high.

We were maniacs for a second.
For just that moment, we were in all seriousness... SILLY.

We discovered release.
And we shared it.
We discovered yearning.
And it brought us to our passions.
We discovered barbarism.
And it brought us to peace and meaning.
We discovered what it means to be poets.
And it made us human.

We are now, more than ever.
And we will ever be more than we are now.

:)

2010-02-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

a BOY and a GIRL looking at each other.

2010-02-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

He: What are you looking at?

She: The beginning of a very long love poem.

He: Psh. How long?

She: At least six stanzas.

He: That’s not very long.

She: (Indignant) Yes it is!

He: (Sadly) Oh. How does it end?

She: “For time and all eternity.”

I don't know why, but I wrote this and it reminded me of Siri Johnson. I love you girl. :)

Poem for No One

2010-02-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

Poems are like letters never sent.
Is the point just to tell the little worlds inside us the secret of ourselves?
"I feel this way, " I say to 'this way'.
"Good," 'this way' says, "Thank you for figuring it out."

I am now satisfied.
I shrug.
"Hum... 'this way', huh? Okay."
And I keep on going.

And the VMA goes to...

2010-02-21T20:21:00.001-08:00

Um. Wow.

2010-02-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Transcript:
Say Yes
when two violins are placed in a room 
if a chord on one violin is struck 
the other violin will sound the note 
if this is your definition of hope 
this is for you 
the ones who know how powerful we are 
who know we can sound the music in the people around us 
simply by playing our own strings 
for the ones who sing life into broken wings 
open their chests and offer their breath 
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving 
spare those intent on proving god is dead 
for you when your fingers are red 
from clutching your heart 
so it will beat faster 
for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else 
for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies 
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky 
this is for you 
this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom 
who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world 
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light 
for the mothers who feed their children first 
and thirst for nothing when they're full
this is for women 
and for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon 
but there are men who cry when women bleed 
men who bleed from women's wounds 
and this is for that moon 
on the nights she seems hung by a noose 
for the people who cut her loose 
and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn
about to learn they have scissors in their hands
this is for the man who showed me 
the hardest thing about having nothing 
is having nothing to give 
who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away 
so this is for the day we'll quit or jobs and work for something real 
we'll feel for sunshine in the shadows
look for sunrays in the shade 
this is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built 
and for the ones who didn't know the filth until tonight 
but right now are beginning songs that sound something like
people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home
this is for all the stuff we own 
and for the day we'll learn how much we have 
when we learn to give that stuff away 
this is for doubt becoming faith 
for falling from grace and climbing back up 
for trading our silver platters for something that matters
like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other
this is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass
to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree 
where the fruit would grow to laugh 
for the ones who know the math of war 
has always been subtraction 
so they live like an action of addition 
for you when you give like every star is wishing on you 
and for the people still wishing on stars 
this is for you too
this is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn't have to 
for the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful 
this is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful 
for the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance 
cause what's the chance of everyone moving from right to left 
if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS
this is for the no becoming yes 
for scars becoming breath 
for saying i love you to people who will never say it to us 
for scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine 
for the dime you gave away when you didn't have a penny 
for the many beautiful things we do 
for every song we've ever sung 
for refusing to believe in miracles 
because miracles are the impossible coming true
and everything is possible
this is for the possibility that guides us 
and for the possibilities still waiting to sing 
and spread their wings inside us 
cause tonight saturn is on his knees 
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings 
that whatever song we've been singing we sing even more
the world needs us right now more than it ever has before 
pull all your strings 
play every chord 
if you're writing letters to the prisoners 
start tearing down the bars 
if you're handing our flashlights in the dark 
start handing our stars 
never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart 
play loud 
play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken 
and you're their last chance for sun 
play like there's no time for hoping brighter days will come 
play like the apocalypse is only 4...3...2 
but you have a drum in your chest that could save us 
you have a song like a breath that could raise us
like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue
play like you know we won't survive if you don't
but we will if you do
play like saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that we give every single breath
this is for saying-yes
this is for saying-yes

Pipe-cleaner hearts.

2010-02-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Today I bent up about 50 neon pipe-cleaners into the shape of hearts and hung them on little branches around campus as I walked from class to class. Solicited many smiles this way, but I'm pretty sure I also gave my name to an administrator who may or may not be out to get me for this. She seemed legitimately "foofy" in some respects, claiming that she was going home to blog about this later, smiley, wondering what made me want to do this... But--she also (for some reason) asked for my name. Sketchy. I know she's going to turn me in, whether that's to the Vandy authorities or into a blog entry, remains to be seen. At any rate, she sort of ruined my fairy-mood with the implicit threat of human practicality.

Why? There is no why. I just wanted to hang hearts on the bare twigs. It's my way of loving people.

My consolation was that when I finished and went back to my room, I saw a girl-photographer already taking advantage of what I had done. I wanted to thank her for understanding, but that would have positively ruined what I was doing.

Who knows from whence magic comes?
Who needs to?

Thank you for understanding.

Ha. Ha ha. Haha ha.

2010-02-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

Listen girl. boy. whichever.
You are serious. That's for sure.
Life isn't a joke and you're figuring things out.
And you're right about a lot of it.

But remember when you learned the most?
You were dizzy and laughing.
That wasn't a passing lesson.
It's a lesson we all keep learning.

Think think think.
Alone. With others. Alone.
Seriously. Life is so intense.
But you...
You are not.
Not always.

You are not always peering.
Trying to get to the middle of things
Remember when you used to glance.
Glance and on the surface...
Look.
There is understanding on the surface.

You used to glance and have immediate ideas.
You used to skip and get to school on time.
Remember?
Skipping?
It is like speed-walking.
But more fun.
And less serious.

Look.
Yes,
You're learning things.
Wonderful things.
Soulful things.
But!
There are other things.
Remember the parts of life that showed you who you are.
And what you're in love with.

Remember running to a math class.
A school girl.
With an idea.
An EXCITING idea.
And knowing that we were going to light up the moment you spoke of it.

Remember enthusiasm.
Not just ideas.
Remember your fiery passions that lasted only a day.
Not just the ones you'll take with you.
Remember screaming and laughing so loud you got embarrassed.
Not just the coffee-shop discussions.

Remember, O remember.
The good times.

And remember.
O remember:
Your love to create.

And go out again.
Become foolish.
And trust me:
You will remember.

Because when we were silly, outlandish, and running amok.
We were still sincere.
It is all real.

A Walk

2010-02-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces

-Rilke

The more I read and think and write, the more I come to believe that a poet isn't a repertoire of fancy phrases; she is a napsack of feelings.

The Fire in Me

2010-02-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going and what are my demands on life? What makes me tick?

I am trying. Trying, trying. So many things. And trying to perfect myself. I want to be the best version of Brittany that could ever be possible. I want to happen to life; I don't want life to happen to me. I don't want to wake up every morning and just live because it's required or because that's what people do when they're awake. I want to have a reason! I want to know exactly exactly exactly why I'm walking to class or work or wherever. Because I want to. Because my insides point there. Because that's where I'd go if I knew everything. I want to believe that. That I'm going to the right places and pushing forward in purpose. I want to do everyday whatever it is God wants me to do.

"[I] believe in being in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. Indeed [I] may say that I follow the admonition of Paul. [I] believe all things, [I] hope all things, [I] have endured many things, and [I] hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, [I] seek after these things."

What do I demand from life? Everything. I want life's life. I want us to be in a committed relationship constantly doing everything we each can to enhance each other. I want to be romantically involved with my life. I demand romance. Forever. When I'm alone, when I'm silently walking around, I want to always know exactly what color the sky is, no matter my hurry. And when I get married some day. I want to be two whole people that are not just madly in love with each other, but with everything they discover.

I want to leave this world in better shape than it began in. I want to always forever be a poet. I want to forever be learning and learning about everything. I want to be a manufacturer of hope.

And I will have what I want. Because these are things that can't be taken from me. No one can pull the sky down, or the flowers out, or put the butterflies away. No one can rob me of the option of taking a picnic. No one can take away the way my eyes see or the way my soul feels. And that is a beautiful security.

RAHHHHHHH

2010-02-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

Clayton cancelled. He "doesn't like cameras" and doesn't know how I got him to agree in the first place. BUMMMMMMMERRRR. But filming went awesomely in spite of his bail. Just... yeah, somewhat disappointed.

I'm especially sorry to Casey, Justin, and Abelle.

Sequel of "The VandyEdward" Installment.

2010-02-15T21:23:00.000-08:00

Do you remember VandyEdward?
I'm sure you do... Silly question.

Hayden, Erin (new girl in the ward), and I are making a music video for a church activity coming up. To be honest, we've all been itching to make one anyway, and this just gave us the final push to get on with it already. We were struggling to come up with a song, when wonderful-wonderful Hayden says to me: "What about 'Decode' by Paramore--the Twilight song?" I immediately and without any control over it became maniacally excited and in a fit of joy that I think I blacked out for, I text my friend Clayton.
That's right people--the Vandy Edward himself. (haha, sorry I'm so theatrical, I'm just trying to help you find the pocket of excitement which are my insides right now. Moving on...) What did I say to him, proper and correct and seemingly unfoolish Clayton?
Stupid: I straight up ask him. And tell him my happiness depends on it.
Oh gosh.
But wait: He says, "Then it's settled. As long as I don't have to do anything too unreasonable." (key word here for me is "too". Something moderately unreasonable is okay, right?) And then, "What is it I'm supposed to do?"
Already I am climbing up the never-ending beanstalk of excitement and am much too far up to come down, and I cannot fathom him rejecting my proposal anymore. So I blurt it out: "Haha. Um... Well... We are planning on playing up the fact that you look like that vampire guy ((casual sounding, no? :))) and that I look slightly like the girl."
Him: "Oh... I should have known. Where is it being distributed?"
Me: "Just some people from my church"
Him: "Oh, ok. Should be alright then."
Me: WIN-OF-LIFE.

So basically: At the many requests of Anabelle and Casey, I am finally going to be able to share him with you via online media. And how better to do that than to put him in the context in which he belongs? (There is no better way. FYI)

2010-02-10T14:52:00.000-08:00

I will have whatever life I am willing to have.
I think I want a simple one.
with lots of magic.

What matters to me.

2010-02-10T13:52:00.000-08:00

Today in my ethics class we started to talk about Stoicism. It brought to mind two questions for me:
1) What matters most to me?
2) When I achieve these few things, am I then content, joyful, happy, what-have-you?

My thought process is this: shouldn't I be in a state of happiness when I have or am working towards all things that really matter to me? And shouldn't everything else be insubstantial when considered alongside those greater achievements? For example, I care about God, family, love, virtue, and making the world better. So if I am cooking and I burn the food or cut my finger none of those things are affected, so shouldn't I therefore go on being happy. It seems like this should be the case, but how does life really work??

I think that parts of this philosophy are very very strange, but the broad idea of not allowing my days to be ruined by things that I'm honestly not concerned about in the long run is a good idea.

Love

2010-02-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

He doesn't know.
...Finally something I can show him...

checkmarks and things like silence

2010-02-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

That [was] the moment that matter[ed].
That [was] it.
That was the one that lead to this.
My defining moment.

O, I can remember it.
The short Greek man demanding answers
As he went to go press STOP and REWIND and PAUSE.
And I was silenced.
Infuriated by those mouths that broke down the logistics.
This is more real than reason and theory.
This is real. Those are lives.
Can we settle down with our entitlement for one second,
To commune with those bare feet?
Can't we please be shocked by this?
Silenced.

But I do remember another,
Sitting on a bench under a willow tree.
And he was staring off into a place he understood.
Into the place he was going.
And I. I know I felt the place there with him.
It was the first time I ever listened.
And I couldn't remember anything.
This was the only moment that existed.
Because I suddenly had tunnel-vision for him,
And whatever he was telling me.
I only know that I was listening.
And saying nothing back.
Silenced.

Then to go on.
Dressed in white and listening again.
To a different sound.
Even more silent than before.
Me and the voice I heard.
Both of us--Silent.
Silent and feeling.
And dripping with importance.

Each moment to another.
All defining who I became.
What were the moments I missed?
...Almost all of them.
Who am I becoming?
I am becoming something. Let me tell you.
This [is] the moment that matter[s].
All of them do.
This [is] it.
My defining moment.

Be harmless as doves.

2010-02-01T14:07:00.001-08:00

There is something ever more beautiful inside us, a person.

What above people can be called beautiful?

Yes, alone, I can see it too in things.

In messes, in nature, in careful art.

But a person is all things.

We are helpless little things,

Plopped down into this world,

And we are all ushered along a timeline.

On our timeline we run into stuff,

Bumping a situation, a person.

We are acted upon.

Now: make sense of it all.

But I look around and say,

“What’s going on here?”

We all go our way,

Go it with and without fear.

But go we must.

And feel we will.

And hope and love,

And fast and still.

Then just try to imagine,

Looking down on it all.

Watching them bump along,

And hoping for them, each one.

That they, when they bump,

Or pass by another,

Will please say “Hi” and smile,

And lovingly roll along.

That when one is putt-putting.

Fearing, angry, or alone,

The others might bump lighter into him,

And whisper “Shalom”.

We can do so much by stopping to say,

“I’m here, and I care, and I’m listening.”

And you’re there and you’re imperfect,

But I see that I am too.

There is no reason for me not to love you.

There never has been,

And also there never will be.

So we are destined to forever collide,

But pass along an envelope with this message inside.

We all are here together and can’t help the lot of it,

And we will love each other without command or fit.

I have figured them out.

2010-01-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

I just discovered the secret of the universe.
Sorry, Sir Isaac Newton but the answer was not in the apple.
It was in the tree.
You see, trees have ever fought gravity.
And they would have won too!
But they have roots that attach them to the ground.
And, well, trees are boring.
At least they find themselves to be.
Standing by each other all their lives long,
And never share a word together.

So this is the plan they came up with:
If ever a human begins to float,
If ever they figure out that they can, and how...
We trees will be so very lonely.
So we ought to hold out our sticks (just in case).
Over their paths is over their heads.
And if one should begin (to float, I mean),
Then surely one of us will catch him!
We will cage in the world.
In a tangled up web of branches and twigs,
And if we let go of the leaves,
We will still not let go of the sticks.

As another precaution,
To slow the progress they could make,
Let's leave them in a daze,
If we can manage, let's take their analysis away.
And when they are walking safely
There beneath us on their path,
If they even dare to look up,
We will paralyze them.
Those people will bump up and down,
As they do when they walk around...
But when they look to a tree, sixty feet up,
The bumping will stop.
And they will feel our still advancement.
THAT IS HOW WE CAN MOVE.

Are we all then agreed?
Keep the people inside.
They must not be allowed to float away,
Up into the skies.

my hopes for hope

2010-01-24T21:53:00.001-08:00

I watched The Duchess a couple nights ago and it made me sad, to say the least. Georgiana endured so much more than I can even fathom. And I wanted to pray for her afterward. But how does one pray for a thing that's passed? What could I say for this long dead woman for whom I wish so much? The most I came up with was to pray for hope in the details of her life not known. That there was some secret joy or comfort that was afforded to her. I prayed that she could have known, somehow, that people then and now are rooting for her.

I wish I wasn't helpless to people that have suffered. People who lived out their lives and for whom circumstances never improved. I wish I could have some hand in the lives of those who were never checked on by the people that should have cared for them. I wish I could hold the hand of everyone who has ever forgotten what hope feels like. I wish I could hold the hand of and 18th century widow, the hand of a slave, the hand of a sick person. But I don't know how that could ever happen.

This is what moves me: the spreading of HOPE. The proving of humanity. And this is why I will never stop loving, in any direction. I want to share goodness with the world. I want to exhaust goodness. I want to meet the world in an embrace and show children in Iraq and in the UK and in Uganda that they are my brothers and sisters. I want to sit with a stranger on a bench and ask, "What happened?" and just listen until he runs out of things to say, dreams to describe, passions to uncover, and pains to reconcile.

I want to be what the world needs most. I want to write charity in my countenance.

Week one.

2010-01-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my first 15 minute date with the sky. It started out exactly how I wanted it, perfect. I was just lying there completely in control of my thoughts and everything else.

Then an emergency helicopter flew diagonal across my view.
And I thought: What a different world I occupy right now. I am lying flat on the earth caring about nothing and thinking about how beautiful the world is.
And in that helicopter... something else. Something hard and stressful and out of control. Something miserable.
And I was allowed to walk away from my reality, even this pleasant one I created on the grass spot, as soon as I felt 15 minutes go by. And that helicopter had no right to a new agenda. The person inside, the people?, would have in an instant chosen the reality I just left. And this to them, this glorious grass spot, went by the wayside in my life when I rolled over to grab my bag and go home.

And now... I'm typing on my blog, while wondering what the last 34 hours have done for the person in that helicopter. I hope he/she is okay. I really really do.

courage.

2010-01-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

{orange} means live.

i resolve.

2010-01-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

I decided to stop being a cynic about New Year's Resolutions.

Mine is to stare at the sky for 15 minutes every week. To spend 750 minutes this year laying flat on the earth thinking about nothing else. I think that by stopping to not-think, I might learn something, might tap into some sort of awareness that's was written into the constellations before Adam. I can imagine it. And I know that I'm very far from that point right now, but I want to get there. And I want to be able to sit and call it out from the middle of myself, and just feel aware. I want to eliminate all the false dichotomies in the world and become familiar with the correctness of the universe. The answer that is literally hanging over my head all my life. I want to find it, then own it.
Besides all this, I just really like the sky. I think he and I can become friends.

Pedro Jose Ortega Espinal

2009-12-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

Dasha and I are trying to decide if my life is real, and if it is, then why?

I'm currently engaged in a month-long project with a couple of friends in which we take on picture per day. The photo is supposed to be of whatever strikes us during the day, whatever we find that is hidden and extraordinary.

So today, I was walking around with my camera in-hand after a bronze statue of Margaret Branscomb that I had passed an hour earlier while delivering inter-departmental envelopes. It was pouring, so water was rolling off of her like her entire being was crying. I was stricken. But on my way to go take this photo, a man crossed my path, and walked passed me. He was gorgeous. Here's the weird part, he stopped on his heel and turned back around to ask me a question.

I thought I died, then I came to the very quick realization that I had no idea what he had just said to me. Wha??? His words were lost in a beautiful Latin accent. I awkwardly search for the words I am looking for, fidgeting wildly and just being generally pathetic. Then I remember the words, "I'm sorry, what?" He repeats and I discern that he either wants a picture with me or of me or for me to take a picture of him. He gets his camera out and hands it to me, removing the ambiguity, explaining that he's going back to his country soon, but would like some photos as a momento. So I took some.
End of our story? Goodbye lovely foreigner.

Then he, remembering the camera in my hands asks me if he could take my picture to "repay me for my work". Pahaha. I, again, misunderstand him and so I say sure without knowing quite what I'm agreeing to. He offers to take my camera, which again, clears things up. He takes his pictures of me standing in incredibly awkward poses, and as I'm walking back over to him to grab my camera, takes one more. This one stops him and he notes aloud, "This is the one. You have a beautiful smile."

And that is how Brittany Bailey died.

I suddenly notice that he's not just beautiful and adorable in all foreign ways, but that he's sophisticated and makes me feel even younger and even awkwarder in his presence. Get a hold of yourself, Brittany.

Small talk: I learn he's from the Dominican Republic. He also tells me his travel plans, for what reason I cannot fathom. He's going to Pennsylvania tomorrow, but coming back from the 16th to the 22nd and then returning to the D.R. His Vanderbilt office is in Calhoun. He might apply here for a PhD program.

Then he gives me his card, points out the phone number and leaves.

The most astonishing thing, to me, about this story is how awkward I am for the entire duration of this exchange. I only reason that, with our apparent cultural disconnect, he assumed that girlishness was an eccentricity. Whatever. I can't call him, Dasha said he'll try to seduce me because he's 25ish and gorgeous and foreign. And I'm an American girl.

And that is why Dasha wants to take my life.

The end.