Sleep

When sleep presses upon my eyes, I battle. It is for stubborn independence's sake--one part of me against another--that I fight for my mind's control over body. In the morning, my body wins But nighttime is thoughts' playground, and thought will not be cheated its game.

Words

How many words are there in a language? Untapped recorces lay at my fingers even now, if I would attempt to express them. And yet why does it take more than the few to echo the songs of my heart, now, where more articulation would fail me? Few words rightly hold the meanings they govern when used losely on the tongues of many.

So perhaps words are not the answer, but a deeper knowing and understanding within one's self which even words cannot tap or express without ruining and cheapening for meaning.

How else to communicate that knowing if not with words? Perhaps that, too, is in knowing.

This is the life
I have chosen.
Some day, when
my heart is ready
I shall move to the next.
But for now, this is the life
I live.
Why mourn the path that
my feet trod?
Why belittle the things
I see and am.
this is the life I have chosen.
When choice reaches to my
heart again, I will
perhaps chose another.
But for now, this is
my existance, not to
bawlk at or seeth for
pitty.
Cause this is the life
that I have chosen.
Until the next path sees
my fate.

So much of humor is in context. So much of love is without.

Page One of what is going to be a very short but long-winded account.

Here you go chicas. The beginning of my masterpiece, just for you, jeanette and dianna. Enjoy. ;)


What would it be like to live in my own world--to have fantasy as my beckoning call and reality only as the subtle foundation on points such as gravity and photosynthesis? I suppose some may know. Those who answer the call of the voices that repeat over and over in the corners of the mind, begging for escape. But I don’t have such an outlet. As I lay my back on the hard, warm concrete, reality becomes all the more oppressive and substantial to my mind.
Sweet, hot air pours over me as while I lay still, listening to the meows of the neighborhood stray and the ever present swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of the cars on the nearby Interstate-15. The garage has become my reprieve in the recent months as the heat and pressure become heavier both inside and outside the one-story rambler that I’ve grown up in.
Summers are always hot in this part of the country. You learn during the summer time to love the color brown—for it means that there must be some sort of consistency in life when comparing it to the less impressive tan of the winter season. But as the time goes on you learn to look past the brown and see varying shades in the rainbow. The dusky, the sour and the palest of sage mingle their way in with the copper, sienna and umber.
I’ve lived in the same blue-painted brick house for my entire life. My mother’s uncle built it in the early fifties and it has been modified exactly once in that time—three years ago when we added shag carpet to the before hardwood floors and painted the walls a pale shade of sea foam green from the former egg shell. Every floor board creaks and occasionally, despite Mother’s best efforts for upkeep, we have a friendly mouse skitter its way across our kitchen floor looking for a morsel to sate its gnawing pangs of hunger. Out here, only the fittest survive.
The garage is the one place where I can feel like my own person. The bare beams of the ceiling seem ageless. I imagine myself a mountain man in the old west honing and stripping beams from giant trees to build a house for my family. I imagine yellow-stained door that leads into the fenced back yard as the tent to a teepee leading into the forest of a mythical Native American story. Reality shows that it leads to more concrete and a half-hearted attempt at a rock garden—my mother’s latest attempts at feng shui and water conservation. The car under an old grey tarp could be Ford’s original prototype and I the apprentice to the master.


And there ends my creativity for a couple of years...until I get antsy again. This particular fountain pen perhaps has run dry...

Starting, but how to proceed?

The mind blots like ink from a fountain pen charged with too much substance. When nothingness finds itself shaken, I'm faced suddenly with a tidal wave and a gush of thought unable to be stoppered. I fear reinforcing action as a habit while at the same time find myself unable to repress the hunger to create.

On Art

Scarce a dream, the repreive from life that art brings. There is an escape to be found in that world. As the music drifts on the sun-filled beams the music becomes alive with it. Each spec of dust in the air holds a microcosm of the music that surrounds it.
When you step into a room with art, be it a play, a gallery or a symphony, the world stops. You are swollowed whole, enveloped in the sensation that is creativity. You're allowed to believe in something that is better than yourself. For half an hour, an hour, two, you become lost in a world that all together different than the one you're in. This world is full of plot, action, ending and begining. Even in the simple glance of a picture a whole world is contained--a story in a portrait made of oil and pigment that depicts hardship, social status, hopes, fears and the captivity of the soul therein.
What would life be like, to never leave that room of art? To be that painting, living within the frame? To live in the world of a dance? The angle, the movement, the line--the emotion all more than mere expression. All previews into another world--another life--another existance.
That stop is what my heart cries for. The leap from reality to reality. A taste of it makes you hunger for the next, and fasting makes you more impatient rather than tolerant of the lack.
To lose yourself to the world of artistic creativity would be to lose yourself forever. For who would want to surface from such a existance? A form of insanity that is limited only by your own creativity and desire to pursue.

From the Life I Now Live

Mostly poetry now. Snippets of thoughts. But this should catch us up from the end of my Rexburg time to present.



And the Library burns
And the ashes rise
From the ghosts of each
Slip of paper--
Simply words,
Not meaning lost
In the suffocating
Vapor.

The green, the black and
The red-spined novel
Simply products of
The game--
Such Precious Knowledge,
Such Humble papers
Gone up with the
Golden flame.

But though they be lost
For the minds of new
A slate: grey, cold and clean--
The ashes hold the
Knowledge still,
They show what those
Books mean.

__________


The pathway of grey
Has memory’s shadow altered.
The shadow sees the sun
Beyond stupefied gaze.

But lo, what happens to memory
When shadows are gone
And color returns
To that directionless mind.

The path to color
Has no memory
But only existences found,
And yet to be known.

__________

A blade of grass
changes from one day to the next
The first day it is thin
short and small
The next day
Due to light and life
it grows and changes
no longer thin
no longer small
It now is a part of the whole

__________

People expect you to have a good story. When pen is put to paper they expect magic. They expect to be moved. They expect miracles. When they read a book, a story, a poem, they expect an effect. No one reads to have a refresher course on their ABCs.
But what happens when the author runs dry? What happens when there is nothing left in the wrinkled soul to fill the space between the lines? The pictures and childish fantasies escape in the paragraph break.
A journalist is taught early in her career to be frank, concise and to the point. Straying from the main focus to relate one’s own personal views is not desired by the readers of USA Today or Time. Facts. That is what is necessary. That is what sells papers. Hard, cold and impersonal. That’s what you become with a story.
When conducting an interview you must be witty but benign. Captivating, but only as a supporting detail in the background.
I have nothing. But I’m expected to have everything. This is what I’ve been taught. But, alas, I’m captured by my own monotonous living. How can I expect to escape? How can I expect to move beyond this dreaded phase of boredom… and, in the process, move others?

___________

I am but a pawn
In the game of life—
But can a pawn win
The prize as well as the queen?
Is destiny something of
My control, or of the other players’?
A pawn’s true virtue shines in his moment
Of glory.
And yet, I find myself pushed around by other’s
Influence.
For I am but a pawn
In this game of life.

__________


Look not to be remembered, but to make a memory.
Look not to be heared but to listen.
Look not to be seen but to view.
There you will find the contented desires of your heart.

__________


I think that sometimes we work too hard to remember the grievances against us that we forget to see the recompense which is boiling to the surface. We see the injustices and the problems in the world without having the thought of it being our responsibility, because of notice, to answer with the solution.

____________

Not so much in
Reading but in Superstition.
Not so much in
Superstition but in Love.

____________

I don't know which would be the worst: To be oversimplified and prejudiced or to be mollified and coerced?

____________

It's funny how the people we meet in this life influence us. Each contact in our life leaves a bit of a flavor--a slight residue. The people who we surround ourselves with make up the bar for which we are willing or unwilling to overcome.

More Thoughts From a Past Life

This time, it's thoughts from my time in Rexburg. Mostly written while in the Spori art gallery--my favorite place on BYU-I campus and one I frequented almost daily.




To what dream do I lean on in this world? to what reality? The face not beautiful but real speaks to me. I wish to reach out--to feel the texture of the work. I wish to bask in the eyes that remind me of my own.
But to touch--to feel--to experience is forbidden. Fruit only for the eyes--too rich for the soul --shall escape the taste once more.

__________


How much power do I hold within me?
All of he knowledge of the world came through the human mind.
What power and ability has been endowed to me by God?
What am I capable of?
More strength and wisdom and knowledge is held within my being than libraries or congress.
Oh, the depth!
Oh, the responsibility!

___________


I've discovered that one thing that cannot be replaced or replicated is age. And so time becomes my allie and my enemy. I write for it--waiting for my turn.

____________

How, too, do you handle yourself when you find that another's attraction is greater than your own? Such an alien concept in the mind such as my own becomes suddenly common place when placed in a situation where the ravaging wolves called men are anxious to feed.
However, when given a choice between ravaging beast and adoring puppy would I chose the latter?

_____________


Is it learning to feel that is the problem or learning to feel in the right direction?
For what is a feeling but a moment and a stop? A moment...and a stop.

______________


What is the difference between bullying and independence?
How much of opportunity makes you great?
How much of greatness is purely opportunity?
What is reality?
What, or who, gives you power?

______________


The life wind's gone
In this shattered tale
A Fairy Land under siege.
But who's dreaming state
Awakens now
And for which game's
Minor league.
I will not let the
Fates prevail
In this cold life of mine
For what I do,
I do of me.
The future holds
Only time.

The hardest thing for me is to comprehend all the wasted time.

Thoughts From a Past Life

The following is a grouping of passages from a time before blogs were common and a paper and a pen were what kept my mind company. From April 2006-March 2007.

It could, more realistically, be titled "A look into the heart of a young, love-sick girl" haha. But it has fond memories.


This written in the Home Fashions and Tools cash wraps of Sears in Provo, when I was a young cashier of 18. haha. The good old days...

(home fashions)
The greatest obstacle I am ever going to encounter in this life will not be to get along and to "play nice"--will not be to forgive and forget. The greatest obstacle and lesson for me to learn in this life will be one of self-acceptance. Easy though it may sound, I know myself. When somebody asks the question, "what was she thinking when...?", only I will know the answer to that mystery.
No amount of validation, consolation or therapy will pull me away from myself. Conceited to the point of being inept, fake, I loathe the love I feel for myself and refuse to accept it as my fate and demise. And what, the casual reader may ask, is the cause of such a cynical temperament? Although I have been warned time and time again against finding excuses for my problems, they all culminate to one giant, earth-shattering, five letter word: males.
Don't for a second think that I am prejudice against the "greater" sex. Quite the opposite, in fact. And therein lies the problem. I cannot claim that their stupidity, naivety and carrying on of false pretenses is entirely their doing, and am entirely willing to take some due credit upon myself. However, one point needs to remain clear: My life has never been a game to me, and I will not be played.
Tying my stream of thoughts back to earlier points, there is something in a man's eyes which, while one second tells you that you are gorgeous, wonderful and perfect, even at the same time causes a depreciation of one's self-worth.
It is in this eye contact which causes the "gentler" sex to act on rash whim or say things which perhaps can attract an undesired consequence.
I am not, as of yet, speaking of love or any other such emotion. Rather, I am speaking of attraction--an often times fatal subspecies of Love. It is attraction which oft-times causes the most damage to one's psyche and which, in cases like my own, creates hostile feelings of self worth.

______


There is, in the wake of attraction's wide breadth, the encouragement--the wink, the smile, the glances and the casual, cheerful greeting while in passing. What, during these times of encouragement, is one in my predicament supposed to do? Either back away with the possibility of missing out--or rise to the occasion. Bur rising means you may also fall.

_______


Rising to the encouragement of attraction means that you may fall--in pain or in love.
The worse?

________


(from tools....)
The plight that a new face has upon one's heart is an interesting matter to behold. Is the fatal attraction simply a matter of convenience?--of fresh serenity, working her way into the gentle, trick-filled chasms of the heart? Or is it an earnest desire to get to know another of similar age and social stature who consequently has the immediate appearance of availability and openness? Oi! The heart!

________


The hungry mind, when gone unfed, starts to feed upon itself with hopeless indulgence. It thinks, dreams and feels what it will, when it will--completely uncaring as to atmosphere or surroundings. It is within this situation that true self-honesty is announced. What is it in those moments that makes you think of the one who you want near? What is it, in those moments, that allows someone to feel for another completely unlike his/her self? Something so self-indulging while at the same time so phenomenally kind, sincere and loving toward an outside element?
And so, with this uncontrollable element, I am forced to wait To wait, to wonder and to see.

_________


After the waiting, when at last the goal has been met, there starts the feeling of inadequacy. Knowing one's self is either an all powerful or an all decrepidating thing. Knowing of my own insecurities makes the situation all the worse. I know my weaknesses and inadvertently bring them into full light and view when attempting to woe the being of my choice. With chance after chance for discovery floating away by the minute. I wonder--can I make it? Will anything happen? Or will this once again be a chance which has slipped away, unaided into the abyss?
Blast these accursed feelings!!!

__________


To wake up from a dream is a harsh reality check. One minute smiles envelop all senses, leaving the body paralyzed to the caressing softness of the mist-filled images the next-it is awoken to the harsh cold that surrounds. This switch--from reality to reality--must be swift in order to be complete. It breaks a bond that the mind holds over the body. It must be clean.

__________


Being fake is what I do best in my life right now. It is much easier to be false--to become the character that is universally accepted than it is to be the one who I really am who, although not universally accepted, is genuine.
How is one to be one's self when surrounded by the idiocy of others' juvenile behaviors. A behavior which, though at first glance may appear non-existent in an individual, is in fact embedded within every soul of the male sex.
Woe to the sickened heart of a girl looking for love.