simple things.

In the last 24 hours I have been filled up with joy from the simple things in life. Sweet, quiet moments inside myself that make me feel so good to be breathing.
Like
-a bowl of ice cream on the porch-swing with a chorus of crickets.
-a few thousand people snapping their fingers in rhythm to one of my favorite songs.
-a very thick islander woman dancing with all of her heart, and ALL of her body to an awesome dance-y song.
-a random free ticket to The Head and the Heart.
-$1.80 being exactly how much change I had for exactly the right amount of time for the parking meter.
-being alone, but not feeling alone.
-grace and peace at the open house to the Ogden LDS temple.

What was your simplest joy today?

middle way

Life is constantly presenting me with metaphors for itself.
Today, a beautiful, not-too-hot spring day, also happens to be my day off, so I thought I'd venture on a hike. I have new-to-me hiking shoes I needed to break in, and I'm in desperate need of some exercise, so off I went.

The hike started out so lovely. I fell out of my body into my senses, my eyes overwhelmed with color from wildflowers all shapes and smiles. My face tickled with a breeze and ears the sound of a breaking twigs and crunching gravel with each step. Organic air soothed my breath. It was at such an incline that my heart thumping in my chest was at once soothing and rhythmic. breath. beat. breath. beat. My mind's volume turned down to a quiet hum.
Blissful. Thoughtless. meditative. Alive.

Then... about a quarter of a mile from the top I almost stepped on a snake. My heart flew out of my chest. I'm not a huge fan of snakes. I'm not terrified, but after seeing this one, I recalled all of the signs warning of rattlesnakes on the way up that I quite cheerfully ignored. "I am alive and it is lovely, don't bother me with that stuff." I don't know what kind of snake it was that I saw, but I wasn't really trying to stick around to find out. Now. I'm scared. Each step, my eyes glued devoutly to the space of ground only about 5 feet ahead. I am vigilant. On guard. Anxious. Completely in my head. I keep pausing to scan the stretch of path in front of me. I end up not making it too the top, but instead conclude that the longer I am out on this hike, the more of a chance I'll be bitten by a rattlesnake. I've already seen one today, right? This canyon is probably teeming with them. I all of a sudden hate hiking. I'm thirsty and hot.

It was hiking down the path about 15 minutes like that, completely miserable, that I realized the metaphor.
Sometimes in life we get caught up in our bodies. Pleasure. Beauty. Whatever it is that makes us feel nice... completely oblivious to the dangers life offers. Whether its danger to our mental health, spiritual, physical... and sometimes we decide to blatantly ignore warning signs.
And here is the flipside, my friends. Sometimes we are too vigilant. Too watchful, that we miss all of it. The wildflowers, the breeze. Every step we take being only motivated by fear.

Not to sound cliché, but somehow, we have to find the middle way.

life's soundtrack

To me, a movie's soundtrack is a fundamental, incredibly important part of the movie itself. Some of the most emotive parts of movies are when some perfect song builds to a crescendo in a very perfect part of the story, am I right? Like "The Only Living Boy in New York" in Garden State ( look it up) or Harold and Maude (the entire movie's soundtrack) or in Wicker Park when he's watching her dance and that Mum song is playing. I can think of a hundred other moments but you get the point.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling like Mary Catherine Gallagher, (like a Superstar), like my life is some great passionate, riveting movie, and I'm the lead actress... My character is quirky and awkward, incredibly impulsive, changing and evolving probably too much to keep any movie goers attention for long. But. My movie has a soundtrack, and its probably my favorite part of my movie. Songs get placed in moments or memories or montages of my life and if you ask about any song in my music library, (any of them) I can tell you what part of the story it belongs, and what feelings are associated with it.

Right now, my life's soundtrack includes 2 songs. The first one is a repeat song from another time in my life

Bon Iver- Re: Stacks

The lyrics chew me up and spit me out someone new. This song makes me feel a lot of things. If you listen, you might get a glimpse inside my head. I have sat on the floor next to my speakers and listened to this song with my eyes closed many, many times. Its the song that gets played on repeat after I mess up. Its an anthem to me, of rebirth, after being someone or doing something that isn't really me. "this my excavation, today is Qumran" In my life's movie, moments of this song will play throughout the whole thing.

The 2nd song has a very specific moment in my life's movie.



Wake Owl- Wild Country

Picture me in an old Buick... and its fit to burst with everything I own... and I'm driving away.

What is your life's soundtrack right now?

the violent act of picking a flower.

your bright, blooming, orange, paper mache flowers
i snapped from their stems
now sitting in a glass by the window
sad and lifeless drooping.

they bled and pussed in my hands
the whole walk home
the whole walk my palms
became more stained and stinking.


I never learned how to make a tourniquet for a flower.

So now can you see,
darling,
how my scrubbed and soaked and silken hands
didn't stand a chance?

wasted.

-you feel
like you're wasting
my time.-

this is playing
on a loop
in my head,
on repeat
in my mind's ear,
over and over.
just this
one
thing
from so many things
that were said.

from so many lives
that i've lived.

and my reply,
softly and sweetly
like a whisper:
yes. you are.
respectively,
it is still my time to waste.

so
stop your damn crying.

its my turn to be delicate.

A conversation I had today

L- "its alright, there will be other, warmer days."
me- "the sunnier the weather, the warmer my disposition."

L- "you are a sunflower"

me- "in a poem, I can be a sunflower, in real life, I'm just a crazy person."
L-"Life is a poem and no one, not even yourself, can say you're crazy."

mud (a poem)

I can't decide if my mood is contingent
on the weather, or if Mother Nature knows how
to mourn with those that mourn.

The ravens hover precariously over me outside,
wobbling like kites in uncertain wind.
Ravens shouldn't wobble,
ask Edgar Allen Poe.

My eyes burn and fidget and then leak
as big fat raindrops fall from the sky.
First... slowly.
Then a drop for every heartbeat.
Then a drop for every thought.

Today I am as 'bright and cheery'
as the mass of dark, bruised clouds above me.

My heart, folding back up into itself, pumps
from its chambers and hoses
mud
as thick as the mud in the driveway
my car will be stuck in tomorrow.

i am cold
and quiet
sludge;
if you give me a hand or a foot,
i will hesitate before i give it back.