tonight.   i got home from my week and a half of travel, tired and weary…

and……

my friends put milk in my fridge, dinner on my stove, flowers on my table and cookies in my bed (yes, they’re weird, that’s why they’re friends with me!)

sigh.  it’s good to belong.  i needed that.

on the road again….

sans internet, sans cell phone mostly…for a week makes me feel incredibly disconnected.  i mean, it doesn’t have to be that way.  but it is, for me. 

sure there are sometimes where i enjoy turning my phone off and shutting the computer down for an afternoon.  but it’s my choice.  not imposed on me by rural pennsylvania. 

sigh. 

okay. so we’re traveling and i’ve been around someone all the time.  and it’s starting to catch up with me (the extravert, i know!!) traveling is good for my heart.  i love going places.  but i got a cold this week and so the in and out and up and down and shaking of hands (or rather not, since i don’t want to infect anyone) is a little maddening. 

i’d like to curl up in a corner and sleep for a week.  me?!?  the same person who just said she didn’t want to be isolated from people wants to sleep for a week. 

whether or not it’s true, whether or not people mean it, there’s a real sense of hurt and pain for me around people sometimes.  i mean, i have a safety net, sure places to go. but some folks (lots of folks in fact) are interested in sizing me up and weighing me (proverbally, thank God!), and deciding whether who i am is legitimate or not.  i don’t like this.  i don’t like feeling like i have to prove i’m a hard worker or that the things i pour myself into matter.

the truth is truly that those people don’t know what they’re talking about.  the end.  i can’t judge them because then i’d be just like them.  but it’s really unfortunate that they’re missing out on my best parts. 

i’m a good’un, i am.  (is that too weird like the poofy haired guy looking in a mirror?)

i just realized that the last time i was traveling so long, i wrote a post about how i didn’t need to convince myself that i was an artist. 

i see a trend developing here.

why am i so prone to caring what people think?  who in the hell am i trying to please? 

i am going to be free.  i am free.  free, indeed.

i’m up at 5 a.m.

no really.  okay, it’s not 5 a.m. now, but it was, and i saw it on the clock.

man!!! i hate not being able to sleep sometimes.  it sucks.  on the other hand, getting up this early means i have time for luxuries like blog writing!

this has been a sad week.  i’m sad.  the work i’ve been doing getting ready for this trip we’re taking means that i’m reading and writing and hearing stories of people whose lives are unbelievably hard.  i mean, i know we all have hard things about our lives and i won’t even try to minimize that because damn…we’re in this mess together.

but in the west it just feels like people are obsessed with comfort.  if they don’t have the right shoes or the right car, they feel downtrodden and oppressed.  and it’s insulting to me when there are real people who experience real oppression.  what would it be like for us if the richness of our lives outweighed our temporary troubles? and if we poured that richness into the real oppressed? the truly downtrodden? the poor and the needy?

it just might change the world.

a one-liner…sorta

i keep noticing something popping up these days: a thing of wanting to help, to do something, to mean something, to matter.

such a silly thing to wonder when you’re royalty.

horizon

i am precariously perched on the edge of the cliff,

the tiger behind me

jagged rocks below

reaching for

the bright

ripe

crimson

strawberry

horizon

in my reach.

you?

russian house. abandoned russian house.  russian kitchen. etc etc etc.

THIS is where a lot of my blog traffic comes from, in case you were wondering who those people are you keep bumping into when you come here. 

a friend asked me recently if i made my blog public and i said, “hell, yes!”

i’ve been thinking about his question.  it’s a good one.  i mean, there are personal deep things written on these walls, exposing my heart to strangers is vulnerable and risky. which is why i love it—i’m a sucker for drama.

have you noticed i’m a drama queen?  maybe you knew already.  and maybe i did too.  but i noticed it today. i don’t always notice it.

here’s to taking it slower and a little less melodramatically:

“everything will probably be okay. tomorrow’s just another word for today” –the burning hell

soooooooooooooooooo……….

i keep saying that a lot. it’s my stall word.  my “i’m pretty sure that i can’t really say exactly what i’m thinking here, so i’m gonna stall with this lovely word that is so trite it should be banned” word.

except, i can say what i really think here.  i mean, that IS the point of a blog, isn’t it?

what i think is: it is terribly tempting to succumb to the pressure from all sides–like i’d rather stay in bed, hiding under the covers than get up and face another day of certain hardships and ambiguity.  and that feeling rage, then admitting it will lead to life, i’m hoping. or that there are moments of free flowing joy that threaten to overwhelm me in perpetual bliss.  And that it’s perfectly normal to live in between those places.  I am not crazy.

mostly…..

it was the first time i ever felt freely loved and accepted by her.

tragic:  we have to die to know how to live.

beautiful: her tender fingers stroking my cheeks to say good-bye.

a list or two…

things i am sad about:

• my grandma is still dying and i don’t know how to keep saying good-bye over and over again.
• my 10 year high school reunion is this weekend.  i am choosing to go camping instead (they wanted $75 for me to go hang out with people i didn’t enjoy hanging out with the first time around.)…still, i kind of wonder what happened to some of them.
• there are stressful things about life.  i know this is vague, and everyone has stress in their lives.  still, it’d be nice to just sit and have zero responsibilities.  ever.

things i’m happy about:

• i am going away!  getting in the car and driving tomorrow to a new place i have never been.  this is thrilling to me.
• i’m going to a meeting tonight, a meeting where i hope to gain some more understanding of why things are the way they are and what my responsibility is or isn’t.  mostly, i’m going because i’m thrilled to know there’s hope for crazy people like me.
• a new project at work starts today too.  and i’m also excited because it involves some little girls who are so delicious i could eat them for breakfast.

that’s it.  as far as i know, anyway…

here i am.

somewhere between a cozy blanket, a cup of hot chocolate in one hand, book in the other and a fall festival race in burlap sacks in a cornfield.

i’m pensive today about life and longing and destiny.  i watched “marley and me” for the second time last night, and of COURSE it made me cry.  but it was a good cry.  a really good cry.  the kind where your whole heart feels clean afterwards, and you know that there’s something so true, so meaningful in the things you’ve faced or seen. that kind of cry.

and those kind of cries are so good for me.  i need to know that i’m not the only one who feels disheartened sometimes at the way things don’t turn out like you planned.

or who thinks there’s some magical perfect order i can figure out to make my life work right, constantly looking for the next box to check on a list.

or who grows quiet in reverence when i realize just how small i really am.

it feels so great.  so peaceful, so loving.

the trees right outside my window haven’t turned yet.  they’re still very green.  but they sing to me.  they sing patient sweet songs about how there’s so much to celebrate and live for, they won’t waste their time worrying about whether or not they’ll get to be orange or yellow or red tomorrow. they’re green today.

i’m green today.  lime, of course.