archive: 27 February 2008: refreshing and reclaiming

I need to do laundry. Pack it up and take it somewhere. This is never fun but I am done to nothing clean. And then it snows, which makes me even more want to stay inside and not go anywhere to do something like Laundry.

AND... I just now have the opinion that I want to rearrange my apartment. I want to move all the furniture around downstairs, upstairs. I need to get RID of stuff.

archive: 26 february 2008: tagged

Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 15 weird, random things, facts, habits, or goals about yourself.

You can't tag the person who tagged you. Since you can't tag me back, let me know when you've posted your blog so I can see your answers.

1. I grew up in Mississippi. I don't plan to move back there.
2. I prefer walking at night.
3. I am extremely nervous calling people. I didn't used to feel this way.
4. I don't know how to ride a bike.
5. I love wind.
6. I could watch leaves and tree limbs and moving clouds all day long.
7. I got rid of my TV in June 2006. I have not had once since then.
8. I do like anchovies every once in a while on a pizza.
9. I was scared to death of learning to drive because of the number of car accidents on the road. Now I can sometimes feel like a policewoman; I know the rules of the road.
10. I have an espresso machine and yet I still buy my cafe mochas at the coffeeshop (for the atmosphere and people).
11. I wish I could have a little house in the mountains, have my own garden, paint and write all day, have no debts, no work but my own.
12. I'm more sensitive than I let on. Sometimes I don't know how to express how disturbing or sad something really makes me feel, but I do feel it.
13. I am just now accepting me (personality/inner self) and all my little inconsistencies at age 31. I know this is a never-ending process.
14. When I go to sleep I pull the blankets in a pile next to me.
15. I have a fascination with numbers lately.

archive: 24 february 2008: strange dream

I had a strange dream on Saturday morning and day... I slept most of the day, trying to recover from a nasty cold, but I was also being lazy. The dream was like a movie in length, it seemed. It was set in the outskirts of a large city, and for some reason the characters in it made me think English in 1950s or 1960s. There were three children, two boys and a girl. During the day they could play outside, going up and down the neighborhood streets. They could go exploring, but they were always without parents or any kind of guardian. They lived in an apartment building, and the flat they lived in I remember had only white walls, and the furniture very indistinct. When the sun was beginning to set the children would race back home and close the door behind them, locking it. Then night would come. This is when the dream would get spooky. Someone would come knocking on the door. Sometimes it was a man's voice, sometimes a woman's voice, but the children knew that the person was always the same and that it was someone who would harm them. What made it difficult was that the woman's voice was someone they had once loved, but was dead. I couldn't ever tell if she had been their mother, or an aunt, or a nice neighbor. The person who would use her voice was trying to trick them into opening the door. The girl would cry when she heard the woman's voice 'cause she missed her and wanted to believe that it really was the woman come back to take them away. I never really saw the man, but I did see the woman, from the viewpoint of maybe a bird sitting in a window down the hall... The lady was wearing a blue dress, very formal and dated further back than the 1940s, possibly Victorian age. Her hair was blonde, swept upward, and pinned under a small hat. She was young, somewhere in her late 20s, early 30s. This dream went on and on like this: the children playing outside by day, and by night sleepless from someone knocking on the door. I never reached any kind of conclusion from the dream and I wonder what it might mean, if anything at all.

archive: 14 february 2008: i love mountains day

This has been a wildly amazing day. I don't know any other way to describe it. I had an exciting and busy time in Frankfort today with fellow Kentuckians, Bereans, members of KFTC, and other folks. I loved it. I felt riled up. I felt like I could do something.

I better get going though. I want to change clothes, eat, get some coffee, and then meet up with a friend to go to Lexington.

archive: 8 february 2008: love song for bobby long

I probably shouldn't write anything after the quiet night I have had, but I feel like filling some silence even if it won't be with my voice. Hrm...

I just finished having a couple glasses of wine. I practiced on my banjo a bit, thought about people some, and then watched "Love Song for Bobby Long" again. I forgot how good a movie it is. I forgot it was set in New Orleans! I miss 'Nawlins. I haven't been down there since maybe 2000, maybe 2003. Actually, I do rememebr going with Erin to the Howlin' Wolf for a burlesque show, and then another time I went with some friends to see Rasputina play. That might have been the last time, and it was night, very late, when we got back to Hattiesburg. I do want to visit New Orleans again. I miss the nightlife there. I have not been there in so long I know I would see the city in a completely different set of eyes than I had when I was 21. Ten years does make some difference, and yet it doesn't in some ways, in some circumstances. Ha... I'm Lawson in that film. In some ways, I am.


I need to sort through all my photographs. I just thought of a picture I took of Dad that I love. He's sitting in a chair outside the Cafe du Monde and I tooka very centered photo of him. His glasses are on, and the city and myself am reflected in the glasses. He's wearing a teal blue plaid short sleeved button-down. His beard is greying, he's actually smiling a little (I can tell when he does) and things are good, this moment. I like this picture, morning light. Every one, every memory is beautiful in morning light.

I wish I could take off and just go visit the city for a week or weekend. I do miss some parts of the South. I guess even parts of Mississippi I miss, even a few people. I know that coming back to a place you once knew is different after the memories have been buried under more recent memories. I'll look at things differently.

Oxford, Goodman, Hattiesburg, New Orleans... even parts of Jackson. Holmes County Park. Starkville. Rolling Fork, Vicksburg, Cary. Winona, West, Durant. Even Canton, some small tiny part, the courthouse square. I don't want to stay but I want to visit again, like a prodigal daughter returned after all her worldly travels.

I should sleep. It is 3:02 a.m. now. It is Friday. Damn this bed. Why don't I sleep on the twin one so it won't remind me? I guess I do like the space, but sometimes, just ocassionally, I would like that space filled. Ah well. Such is life. Such is the life I lead and it is good as it is, full and empty, good and sad, eager and anxious, loved and all.

archive: 6 february 2008: wind and rain -poem

So last night I met with a friend and he gave me a collection of his poems to read over so that I can provide any comment or suggestion. They're wonderful, and I've read through them once, a few poems twice. I'll have to distance myself to be unbiased when I make notes on them. But after reading them I had a bit of that "voice," the tone of his poetry, in my head still. So reading his poetry, laying down to sleep, leaving bedroom windows open during a storm and finding myself restless and not ready for sleep brings about a little piece. (caught the pun?) Maybe now I can sleep. I may extend it more later. Don't know why I thought about one particular past relationship... maybe it is I remember the wind on the lake. Maybe it is because the persons are similar.

(poem will not appear here; original entry deleted)

archive: 6 february 2008: saving bits of past me

I ought to go through this blog and print out the worthwhile blog entries and glue them into a journal. Otherwise, they might be lost. I wrote that poem last night not first on paper but in a Word doc. file on my computer. Why? Because I left my journal downstairs, I was comfortable in my bed, and the laptop was upstairs. I unplugged it, sat in my bed looking out the open windows, listened to the rain and typed up the poem. I had been laying down trying to sleep but the words were coming to me and I finally agreed with myself that if I finally did fall asleep I would lose the images, tone, phrases of lines coming to me. I think it took me nearly an hour to write it. I deleted a few things as I typed it. A line would come to me and then it just wouldn't fit; it was leading me in a direction I didn't want the poem to go.

Maybe I should stop going places for a while and work on typing these journal, printing the poems I have only written in myspace or facebook and tape them down into a journal, etc, etc. I need to work on me.

I also have some art project ideas. There's one I need to do first, a small collage I would then scan and try using as an image for the mudpi pages. I have a vague idea of what it should look like, but won't be sure of it until I start working on it. I think I can scan it at work, but that might be strictly black and white. Someone has a scanner somewhere.

archive: 6 february 2008: all the trees of the field will clap their hands part 2

Been loving this song by Sufjan Stevens titled "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" and someone, Jesse, told me it was a biblical reference so I looked it up just now. Yes, I like this.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed."

Isaiah 55:6-13

archive: 5 february 2008: child of europe

Feeling creative, hands on.
Visions bouncing 'round,
Need to stick fingers into
glue, paint, beads and ribbons,
trimmed images, mirror shards,
scattered about on a surface
to become a visceral compliment.

Today's inspiration for a future art project:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/837.html

I was reading this earlier today and imagined 8 small collages, art project. I could see how each one would depict some aspect of each part of the poem. Why is it I think of collages only in series?

Damn impressive images in that poem... A returned friend has reminded me the importance of reading poetry again, and here I am reading Milosz wanting to make artwork instead of poetry. :) He'll be amused at this, I'm sure.

archive: 3 february 2008: i have a map

(wrote this yesterday but Myspace was not cooperating with blog posts)

In a mood. Contemplative. I feel as if I should have some things decided, know the path, know the place from which I feel and the place to which I am reaching. From the mind or from the heart. I think I know. And in knowing this I want to reach out and say something, but without saying.

The sky is blue this moment.

This song is playing over and over again. I hit the play button every 4 minutes and 10 seconds. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands." Can you see them?

Shall I walk or shall I drive tonight?

I don't find it easy to deal with uncertainty. Work. Place. People. Love. Family. Writing. Art. Music. I have a map but there's only pieces of it labeled with street names and landmarks: all of which I am familiar with and have already seen and visited. The streets disappear into sections with no labels, the arrows pointing into those unnamed lands. It seems to say this is where I should go. Do what I am normally reserved about doing? Say what I usually hold inside?

I used to say that I want to refute my character. To go without looking back. To take off with nothing but what I can fit in my car. To work with no care if I get a job dealing with degree, my "profession." My profession would have been writing and art if I could have made a living with it straight-away. I am not of such talent and these days are not conducive to such pipe dreams. But then again, if you don't care, you can.

What is important? What and who keeps me here? Where do I want to go? Where do I want to be? Why do I feel tied to this place? Am I bound here because of people or place? And if they leave and I stay, will I regret it? Will I resent it? Will I long to go somewhere else, anywhere else, but here, knowing they are not here, too? And if I stay, will it become a prison or will it feed my fire? Will I wonder or will I be satisfied? Will I wonder about those who I did not pursue? What could have happened or what damage done if I had spoken what I felt? And is what I am feeling true or misguided? I don't believe it is misguided. I think I am aware of my feelings enough to know that they are sincere ones. Complicated.

I am almost constantly feeling as though I should be redefining myself, not to others but to myself so that I may be able to understand myself. We're always changing. We are never the same at 7, 17, 37, 57, 87.... Blood, memory, experiences, vision, and of course love. Maybe I just need to allow time and space for growth and change, be patient, and learn. Or maybe just accept this as being now and ever only friendship. Will 5 or 10 years change this? Maybe. Maybe not.

I once messaged a friend and said something like this:
me: I am afraid of moving because I am afraid of losing the people I love here.
him: But remember, you don't have to lose anyone you don't want to.

But it is more than that.

....back to typing free-writing journals....