eventually.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as astronomical number, body, break, cue music, descriptive language, EVENTUALLY, forearm, golden arches, gonna break, growth doesn, half, joy, kind, oh my goodness, pain, state, surprise party, terrible feeling, time, yoga teacher
“This makes me feel like my body’s gonna break in half…and then die.” I told my yoga teacher tonight quite seriously, as he was helping me do a forearm stand.
“Well, that must be a terrible feeling,” he sympathized, after laughing not unkindly at my, um,descriptive language.
But see, he didn’t stop there. He didn’t tell me I never had to do it, though I know full well I sure don’t. Have to do it, I mean. He didn’t tell me that many people go on to live full and relatively happy lives without ever mastering a forearm stand.
No, instead he said something about finding the pleasure in it. He mentioned how wonderful it is to find the joy in the pain and the growth it’ll bring to me, eventually.
EVENTUALLY.
Oh my goodness, we Americans don’t like to wait for eventually. The exclamation point is our state of mind, or so I’ve heard. McDonalds is considered a good idea–or at least it must be, considering the sign by the golden arches that states some kind of ever growing and astronomical number of burgers that are consumed. We don’t write nearly enough letters and we text too much. There’s nothing eventual about a text and who has time for eventually, anyway?
I do.
No really, I do.
In a year’s time, I will still be a year older. Still have watched 365 moons rise, still have eaten more than enough meals, I’ll wager. I mean to say, that year will pass no matter what. So I might as well come out of the year having invested some time in a forearm stand.
Or more importantly, finding the joy in the midst of pain. Growing, growing, growing. And we all know growth doesn’t happen cause life feels good and perfect and let’s never move again, make out scene with the perfect guy, cue music and roll credits, please!
No, growth happens because we’re discontent with something. Maybe even uncomfortable. And so we move to make it better. And eventually, the joy comes bursting out of the pain like the best kind of surprise party either of us will ever know. The lights get flipped on, and we’re standing in the doorway called Pain; we stand there with our mouths wide open looking the fool, able to say one thing as we stare raw joy right in its shiny face, “I had no idea you were here.”
“I certainly am,” Joy says, “Eventually.”
looking back on here someday.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as baths, break, crowded room, direction, final word, flair, friend kelsey, going in the right direction, goner, home, house, moon, piano lessons, pine trees, show, sister, spell check, thought, verygood, way
I played a show tonight and, man, it was such a verygood time. Yes, verygood. That becomes one word, see, when said the way that I feel it. The way that I felt it tonight.
Verygood.
(spell check is so mad at me; spell check can bite me)
But at one point I took a break from the hot and crowded room. I wandered out to make sure the sky was still there and the moon still knew about me. He did. And I suddenly remembered a bit of my childhood.
I thought about how I would go to my friend Kelsey’s house. We’d explore the woods behind her home and sometimes she would act like we were terribly lost and might never make it back. I believed her, and grew very scared. I thought of my family and how much I would miss them. I didn’t mind so much that I would no longer have to take piano lessons or baths, but I sure did mind the thought of never seeing my parents or brothers and sister again. I looked at the seemingly never ending stretch of pine trees in front of me and felt like they had the final word.
The thing is, we never did wander very far, and Kelsey had a flair for the dramatic. After I was good and scared and sure that I was a goner, she would carefully guide me back to safety.
I thought about how, back then, I wasn’t actually as lost as I thought I was. That sometimes all the signs pointed to that, but the truth was something entirely different. The truth was that I was closer to home than I thought. The truth was that I was quite safe. The truth was that I was going in a good direction.
This made me wonder.
And hope.
That maybe someday before too long I will look back to now and realize that I was not as lost as I thought I was. Maybe I will see that I was actually quite safe. And that I was going in the right direction, after all.
Yes, I think that will be the case. And in the meantime, the endless row of pine trees in front of me really do smell quite nice and possess their own kind of beauty that is worth seeing.
On another note, I wore a men’s yellow and white striped oxford shirt tonight. Um, along with shorts. But it was extra extra small. And the yellow stripes made me particularly happy. Still, it was a men’s shirt. So I balanced it out with some frilly socks.
Just to make sure people know I am a girl, you know. I may be a lot of things, but I try not to be confusing, at least.
You’re welcome.
so dance dance like it’s the last last night of your life life.
in Funny Stuff, Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as Arabian, b boy, b girl, ballerina, ballet training, birthday, birthday party, break, break dance, chance, dressing room, girl, hand, inhibitions, life, nutcracker, party, second act, specifics, training, trouble, variation, weird expression
I think that, given the chance, I would become a B-boy. No, actually a B-girl. I just wanna break dance. I went to a friend’s birthday party tonight and, man, people were dancing. It was fantastic. Most people had helped themselves to the punch, which in turn, helped themselves lose their inhibitions, but I don’t [...]
you’ve come a long way, baby.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as break, bridge, drew, faulty foundation, hell, life, musical chairs, mutual friend, something, suspension bridge, unsinkable ship
Yesterday marked six months since Drew and I broke up. And shortly after, I remember hearing from one of my good friends that a mutual friend of ours asked if Drew and I had broken up. She said it like that: did they break up? Like we were in high school and relationships were more [...]
