all full up tonight.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as airplane, beautiful mystery, black sky, body, cannot, choreography, contentment, face, feeling, fingers, free laughter, Furth, gift, hand, heart, holes, hou, kind, land, mind, mystery, patches, patchwork quilt, Peace, person, phrase, psyche, quilt, run, running through my mind, sense, shooting star, sky, song god, special person, thread, tonight, wear, wellness, yellow fire
All full up.
Oh, it’s terrible English, I know–and I cannot remember where I first heard this phrase–but it keeps running through my mind tonight. I have this sense of contentment, of wellness, that feels even bigger than my body, if that makes sense. Like my fingers only go so far when I reach; but, oh! this feeling of peace, it extends. Further than I knew, maybe.
And I feel, well, all full up.
Like the holes that have been poked through my psyche and my heart and my mind have started to patch. And you know what? I’ve always really liked patches. One of my favorite parts of flying in an airplane is looking down and seeing the land assembled like a patchwork quilt.
Which is something else I love. I’ve always wanted to make one, actually. And I’m gonna do it someday, too. And then I’m gonna give it to a really special person. You’ll see.
But maybe it was the shooting star I saw, falling like a thread of silver through the black sky; or the very short run I made with my dog in the kind of night that is so dark, it forbids you from seeing your own hand in front of your face; or the honest and free laughter that I shared with my parents (some laughter isn’t free; unkind laughter takes from you, leaves you in a debt that is hard to pay back); or talking to some friends late tonight in a house made warm by a yellow fire and happy by music; or the choreography I taught to a friend who loves to dance, sees it as a kind gift from an even kinder Creator; or maybe I could cite every last good thing I can remember and still not quite define what has me all full up tonight.
Maybe it’s like stripping the rose of every last petal in an effort to find what makes it smell so lovely–this peace, this life, this love–it’s big. Bigger than me. Bigger than one day or night. And I am happy, so happy to be included in it. I feel like traces of the song God first sung to cause everything in this old world to grow and breathe and bloom and be can be heard tonight.
And it has me all full up.
chance in the form of typos.
in Funny Stuff, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as card, chance, city, eleventh time, famous choreographer, grave matter, idea, Jaws, love, m street, merce cunningham, nascent ideas, phrase, slot machine, splatter, stage, time, typos, while, wild card
It’s been a while since a good typo has made me laugh.
There are lots of artists who love the notion of chance and how it brings an outcome that is not just borne of our own nascent ideas, but adds this wild card effect. It’s a little bit like gambling. Sure, the next ten times you will most likely get a big old nothing for your efforts, but then–on the eleventh time you pull the handle on the slot machine–you could just get three perfect and matching symbols all lined up and telling you that you were right to keep trying.
Not that I am espousing gambling and not that I ever do it myself.
But the idea, that’s what I am comparing.
Famous choreographer Merce Cunningham would employ chance all the time. He’d give each of his dancers a certain phrase to be done on a certain part of the stage at a certain time, without really planning it out or synching it with any or all of the other dancers. It’s like splatter paint. Or almost every city other than DC, which was planned and organized from the start, but seems a little less charming because of it. I mean, do you really want to tell someone that you first fell in love on M Street?
Okay, okay, maybe falling in love is worth it. Even if it involves M Street.
But my point is that the Cunningham dancers would just Go! and then Merce would sit back and watch. And the patterns that took shape could not be anticipated by anyone, but sometimes he’d say, “Okay, I like that. Keep it.” And there you have it, chance had choreographed for him.
Anyway, I like some chance, myself.
Mostly, anyway.
But especially in typos.
Like yesterday. Darby and I were discussing some very serious and grave matter over text. She told me that she was so sad to hear about this, that it weighed heavy on her heart. Then she concluded with this:
I will definitely be praying…And do you mind if I tell Jaws?
Yep. That’s what she texted: JAWS.
So I told her sure, cause I am pretty sure that old movie star shark can probably keep a secret.
And then she wrote a ton of lol’s and told me what I already knew: she meant Jase, but as auto correct generally does, it plugged in what it thought she meant and, by so doing, made life that much funnier.
And like Merce Cunningham, I was like, Perfect. Keep it. I love it.
Cause who doesn’t want Jaws to be praying too?
(i’m not your)broadway baby.
in Thoughts and Feelings
as alliteration, broadway baby, broadway tour, change, cliche, comic, half, house, Jim Gaffigan, laughter, pause, phrase, phrase cards, remark, song, way, yeah
He used to call me his broadway baby and I didn’t like the way that sounded. Because the alliteration annoyed me and also, I was only doing a Broadway tour, mind you, and I didn’t want to pretend otherwise. He wrote me a half of a song once. Half of a song. That about sums [...]
something large is napping
in Funny Stuff, Loved Ones, photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as armani glasses, beach, drew, family, finding solace, game, home, lullaby, napping, phrase, respite, sentimental/inspiration, silence, summer, taliesin
That was a phrase that surfaced in a game my family played at the beach this past summer. It cracked us up then and it still makes me smile to think about. It also makes me think of this.But in this case I should say somethings large are napping, I suppose. Letting go of the [...]
