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.
monsters.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as bed, bedroom, brother, couples, dirge, downstairs, everything, heart, innocence, life sentence, matter, monsters, pain, pop, sadness, sense, sentence, taps, thought
So, this:
It’s true, isn’t it?
I stopped looking for monsters when my heart stopped.
Well, partially stopped.
I mean, it kept beating.
But it sounded more like Taps than anything else.
A slow dying dirge.
I stopped looking for monsters when I grew up.
Well, I grew up and became a child at once.
Suddenly my love was old, older than the the years I had spent here.
And tired, so tired.
I saw people, couples, hand-holding and laughing friends–and thought how sad it is that they are fleeting; I thought about how maybe they didn’t know it yet, but that yes, they are fleeting.
That everything is fleeting.
And that made me curl up in bed.
I’d look at dinner like it was a part of a culture that I no longer understood.
And I’d hide.
I’d run downstairs to my brother’s old bedroom.
And that’s when my pop found me.
And he crawled into bed next to me and told me that I’d be okay.
But that sounded crazy.
Not like the monsters inside of me.
They made sense when they told me I’d never be okay again.
They told me the logical next step was sadness and pain forever.
A life sentence, despite my innocence in the matter.
But pop disagreed.
And he wasn’t the only one.
And the thing is, I am different than I was.
But I don’t hate the changes anymore.
And I don’t agree with the monsters anymore.
Most of the time, anyway.
And maybe more importantly, I am not so afraid of them.
should never have been.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as beauty, daughter, forgiveness, God, heart, hearts, look, look in her eyes, mess, mom, need, sad song, sad songs, sense, singing a song, situation changes, snapshot, song
I wrote a song tonight. I am not sure how much I like it. My mom could hear me writing it and finally said, “That’s a very sad song.” She said it with a look in her eyes that communicated how much she wishes her daughter didn’t have to write such sad songs like this [...]
since u been gone/i’m on my way remix.
in MP3, Performance
as ahoy matey, Auto, beginning, Clarkson, dead space, dr frankenstein, Draft, kelly clarkson, keyboard, rain boots, remix, sense, shame, sneakers, song, sort, space, way, would make sense, yellow rain
okay. I did something. I took one part from two different songs. And then I sewed them up together. Kind of like Dr. Frankenstein. Though I hope that this song won’t be misunderstood. And then end up killing some people. That would really be a shame. Anyway. I took some of Since U been Gone, [...]
shapes of grace
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Performance, video
as anthem, blink, body, burning, burning flame, sense, shapes, sun, sway, way
Don’t you dare give up, my dear you can’t see through all the tears, but I’ll tell you what’s here a bright burning flame, a strong sense that you’re so alive and yes, the sun will rise; you’ll do more than survive So don’t you judge this life by just one hand for such cruelty [...]
stop time.
in Loved Ones, photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as blowing out the candles, California, cat, David, Delaware, drew, God, Harry, iphoto, lot, North Carolina, north carolina mountains, Ollie, sense, sense memory, story, straight jacket, time
I just went through my pictures in iphoto. And deleted a lot of them. It was time. And it’s amazing how photos can stir your sense memory; amazing how the story is written in the colors and the feel of the images. And I love to look at this; it’s a good story. A girl, [...]
being outside makes me think of this.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as bottom of the hill, dirt, lightning storm, little stream, loamy, sense, sense of wonder, stream, thought, thunder and lightning
There is a little stream at the bottom of the hill my parents’ house sits atop. Only right now, the stream is not so little. I know this because I could hear it rushing by while walking to the door, all of that sound mighty in the darkness. They say that if you lose one [...]
what i learned from a broken rib
in Uncategorized
as fun shopping, life, pain, painful time, plaid tie, reactionary, Secret, sense, something, texas, texas roadhouse, time
Today was a tough one. But then a seventeen year old boy told me that my hair was awesome and that made it better. Okay. So not really better per se, but it did make me smile and that’s something. And now it’s no secret that things have been hard for me lately. But what [...]
finally weightless
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as basket, everything, God, last transaction, left lung, messes, pain, Peace, sane person, sense, sense life, sentimental/inspiration
Peace. But what about the experiences that would teach any sane person to be anxious?Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do with it, and it feels crazy to not feel anxious. But then there’s God and he messes up the equation and the sense life makes, I suppose. He talks about peace and it [...]
new normal
in Thoughts and Feelings
as bible talks, Club, drew, drop in the bucket, first wives club, God, Guy, home, Jessica, Jesus, kitty litter, right, second wives, sense, significant others, thoughts/life, time, tour
It’s not every day you rediscover what home really is. There are a few of us who are going home to husbands or very significant others and we affectionately call ourselves The First Wives’ Club. And right now I am so tired and have been trying to figure out the grammatically correct placement of that [...]
