Creative Nonfiction – Page 5

February 9, 2017February 9, 2017

Tension Me

What is up with my head–can’t think straight–tension pooling in my bones and sinews. Yesterday I felt that thick plastic cable reattach between and underneath my shoulder blades, the center of my upper back hating the heavy connection. So many moments of my life, my week, my day, my moment–wild moments of flashing blinding light and sickly shadowed sludge. I am a person of extremes. I hate feeling dirty. Trapped.

Yet other times, especially recently when I’ve been with him, tickling, waiting, living for a smile or a sparkle, and her, laughing and teasing, talking deep and long, playing and listening. Spark catching warmth in my veins–peace, happiness, acceptance, care, understanding, loyalty. (Love even. Maybe. Definitely.) My world, my universe, centered in its rightful place by hands I barely knew just days ago. Revolving in a wonderfully unbalancing, solid-underfoot, spinning motion, my feet firmly planted, toes spread in the earth, but head and shoulders careening delightedly, dangerously, in a white atmosphere of ethereal cloud. My center, centrifugal force, making all else blur out with its motion. Stars, stars, stars, oh my stars. Three stars in Orion’s belt shouting for the joy of living. Being. Of warm, hearts-beating-in-chests bodies held close. Humming warm skin, soft, barely touching, connected in a family of alive. Thrill. Stability. Rolling out faster, bumbling, strong and lithe and untamed, energy, growing out of control, reaching for Orion’s shout. I hold his hand. I hold her hand. Her breath in my ear, his laugh on my cheek. All is spring. New green grass and gold dandelion fire, verdant honeysuckle nectar, lavender syrup, river water, starlight whiskey.

I know the dark clouds burgeon, swell, brumble. Swirling outside my sphere, I can see them. An invisible boundary, firm, transparent and stronger for it, holds them back. Waiting for me to voluntarily breach the membrane, a sacrifice to the world–or a warrior to sacrifice it?–to offer up my heart.

They hold my hands. I grip back tighter. Tendons living copper wires, cool starlight, juicy green of dandelion stems.

And I know–we won’t ever let me go.

September 25, 2016

Whim

I feel like I am being thrown, spinning, at the mercy of some playful, surging force that tosses me up above dark clouds into brilliant, spearing light–and then lets me fall, plummeting, hard and heavy, through darkness and mist, wondering where all the light has gone and desperately dreaming of how I can fly back up, even as I fall, with a leaden, sinking feeling.

I grasp hard to memories, fighting off pangs of loss and black fear even as I experience some of the most beautiful sights and warmest moments and purest joys of my life. I know that I will lose them, even as they come to me and pieces of them stay and promise to return, and this tears me to pieces. I hate goodbyes. I hate searchings. I hate letting go. Somehow I manage to push this darkness away in these hours of sun-shafted wonder, yet I am aware of the struggle.

The grey road back to the city feels like the walk into the gladiator ring–inevitable, exhausting, flat, stony. In a way, almost without feeling at all, just a hardness in my body and my chest and my head and a savage bite in my eyes. The city closes about me like a cage, wrapping my world in slatted steel. I close my eyes to it all, holding onto the last vestiges of green tree and stormy, windswept sky. The van is quiet. The trailer rattling in the back makes it sound like we’re in a train. I wonder if the others feel like I do.

And now, in this utter free fall, indulging my despondent self with sleep and a warm red blanket and soft acoustics, I can grasp the essence of the past hours of adventure, the two days that seemed much longer than so, in the most beautiful way possible. It’s a funny thing, I can never grasp the essence until something has passed, and still I cannot put it into words–it is always a feeling warm and glowing somewhere deep inside my darkness, and I hold onto it like it’s my life I’m keeping lit. This time it’s like a wooden floor, and feathers on dreamcatchers blowing in the wind, the smell of loose dirt and pine needles and wood, laughter, peppermint tea, the wind on my face, and a warm touch on my arm. Even that’s not quite right, but it’s the closest I can explain it. It’s an essence, a spirit, a memory in a golden, transparent bubble. Something you let fill you and try to keep there by hoping with all your hope that it stays… not something graspable with flesh and bone.

In my playful moments, I call this ‘adventure withdrawal,’ although it really isn’t something that lighthearted at all. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it’s ‘no big deal’… but for me, it’s something between withdrawal and depression and an awakening and looking through a window to a world full of color from within a grey, bare, dusty house. Sometimes it lasts a day or two, and others a week or more. It depends on the length of the adventure, and the intensity of it’s grip on me. But even two days can be a heck of a lot more powerful than you’d think. I hate this stage of the experience–coming down from the mountaintop to realize that world has stayed the same since you’ve been gone, although everything looks weirdly different, and you have to return to it–yet, that’s still what it is, part of the experience. As much as I loathe the coming home from my world of sparkling moments and whimsical blue daydreams, I don’t know if these adventures (for that’s what they are, whatever they entail) would be the same without the pits. I don’t know if I would so sharply realize who I was and who I am and who I am becoming. I don’t know if I’d discover so bitingly what makes me happy and what doesn’t, how my life needs to change and what needs to remain. I don’t know if I’d learn so much about people, both in general and individually, if I didn’t see them when the rightness and personality inside is shining out through every pore and when the oppressive buildings of the city somehow bring out something unattractive and darker and equally true. I don’t know if I’d make these glorious days so much a part of my identity, if I’d hold them as close, if I’d treasure them up in my heart and hide them from skeptical eyes. I don’t know if I’d feel so alone, yet so found by others. I know that I am made up of so many other things, and some more important than this, but in some ways, these essences make up me. And I have never seen this more clearly than now, in the valley, looking up at the mountain I just climbed. I may not like the valley, but it sure does make the beauty of the heights stand out clear and sharp against the sky.

Every time it is a bit different. Today, I feel the sea–the salt, the wind, the air, the spray, the expanse, the colors, the sand, the shells, the energy, the storms, the foam–becoming a part of me in a way that it never has. Today, I don’t want to turn my heater on, because I know how much fossil fuel went into making that electricity. Today, I slept with my anklet of shells held close. Today, I think fondly on the ways I’ve been embraced and loved by people who barely know me. Today, I think of the ways I’m falling in love with them, despite our sins and flaws. Today, I think of how I followed my heart instead of my head, said things and did things and reached out and was terribly transparent in ways that I never would have dreamed many months ago. Today, I think of how I don’t know if what I did was right, but I think I can know that it was good. Today, I think of how I messed up and how I might of, and how I can do things differently, or maybe I won’t, and how the consequences are hearteningly small either way. Today, I think of how I love to create, and how easy and wonderful it is to create, and how everyone has this inner child that loves to see and touch and make and experience the world, no matter how much they hide it. Today, I think of how much of creativity and friendships and community is openness and acceptance. Today, I think of how sleep is such an intimate, revealing, trustful, growing thing, almost like eating communally but more so, and how much I love sleeping in a room full of people. Today, I think of how if one person reaches out in a touch, breaks down that transparent barrier, says lets be true friends who aren’t afraid to be present, then the other person usually readily does the same, and is glad and grateful you asked. Today, I think of how darkness breaks down the physical and emotional barriers we put up around each other, how bumbling around in the night on a beach with blindfolds experiencing something totally new and different and bizarre and strange and wonderful makes people giggle and grin and speak up and pull and push and hug and lean on and discover again a bursting wonder for the world and be silly and vocal and not put too much importance on themselves or anything else and laugh and laugh and laugh. Today, I think of how if you ask someone to share a piece of their soul with you, they often will. Today, I think of how there is always such a glorious tangle of multicolored threads inside someone’s mind, so much more value and activity than what meets the surface; how if you ask what’s going on in there, they’ll open a window. Today, I think of how much meaning and value there is in a hug, and much more in many of them. Today, I think of how the whole natural world is much more alive in unseen, almost spiritual ways than most people ever take the time to experience or dare to think, and how it is so easy to forget that the elements themselves are not gods, but have such deep essences because they are pieces of the God that created them. Today, I think of how freeing it is to be done with second guessing. Today, I remember flow and freedom and hope alive and ocean blue and grasshopper. Today, I remember what they all said out on that beach in the night and I just wanted to feel goosebumps all up and down my arms with the thrill and the wonder and almost wanted to cry, my mouth often open in a startled breath of wonder. Today, I remember how I will never forget. Today, I remember sea blue and fine tan sand and a dead black swan and the sound the feathers made as we pulled them out, wincing and apologetic. Today, I remember what it feels like to find your people, your kin, to feel like you have found another piece of your family. Today, I remember when my eyes looked out over the green Otago hills and my mind said ‘home.’ Today, I remember walking through the mud in my bare feet and digging up cockles and laughing as the boys tried to sink their way deeper and hanging around the kitchen and stealing the shells as they came steaming out of the pot. Today, I remember a long row of dreamcatchers blowing in the wind. Today, I remember the sadness I felt deep in my chest when I had to paint my coral white. Today, I remember his mischievous smile and warm brown eyes. Today, I remember how laughably expressive her face was when we played mafia. Today, I remember how kind and real her words were, how I could see the depth in her face. Today, I remember the wonderfully peculiar blue of his eyes, light and almost icy but with a hint of ocean green–I wanted to tell him that his eyes looked like the sea and knew he’d like that. Today, I remember what he looked like asleep–it was like seeing someone as they really are. Today, I remember how I was forgiven for something I didn’t even know was wrong, or not. Today, I remember how one small heater can give so many warmth. Today, I remember how the strumming of one guitar can make a room light up. Today, I remember how one hand on a shoulder and the sound of many feet in the darkness can incite such a feeling of deep, deep trust. Today, I remember we don’t need light to see. Today, I remember what it feels like to be surrounded by people who are all pieces of yourself. Today, I remember what it feels like to belong.

And today, as I struggle with the dead reality of being not in that place, not soaking in that essence and just being, today as I grapple with being not, I remember what I am, what the world is, what people are, what I have never really lost, and what I will soon be again.

July 31, 2016

Not the One

Hello there… um, hi. Is this Someone To Love Me? Yes? Whew, okay good. Thought maybe I had the wrong number. Happens a lot these days.

I know you say you’re someone to love me, but I don’t believe you, you see. I’ve been looking for a very long time, or what feels like a very long time. And I’ve found people, or thought I did, but they weren’t the right ones. They said they were, but they just weren’t. I can’t take that again. So this has to be real, you know?

What’s that? ‘Mm-hmm’? Mm-hmm’s not gonna cut it, pal. Try harder or get lost.

Just kidding, don’t get lost. Well–not exactly. Only get lost if you’re meant to get lost. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Whatever, just listen, okay?

I need someone who will love me all the time. Someone who loves everything about me… and even the nasty stuff, they can take it, they can love me with it. I need someone who knows everything about me, and I know everything about them. I know exactly what they think of me. They don’t keep secrets from me, or lie by omission, or hide things from me. They don’t tell me they love me, and mean it somehow, and make me believe it, and then go do things with someone else who’s their real best friend. They don’t keep secrets. They don’t swap me out for someone else, and then keep me in a drawer like a pebble, take me out and look at me whenever they feel like it, tell me I have pretty colors, make me feel special for a moment, and then put me back in the dark again. That’s not fair. That’s just not flippin’ fair. Don’t be that guy.

You would never do that, you say? Really? Prove it. Put me first. Be there for me when I need to talk. Care about the stupid little things about my day. Want to be with me every minute of every hour of every day, even when you’re not with me. Can you do that? I’ll do it for you.

Silence on the other end of the line. Just fantastic. You’re flunking pretty spectacularly. I guess I thought you would, I just hoped you wouldn’t.

I need someone, you see. I’m feeling pretty desperate at the moment. I’m missing something that makes me, me–and it’s another person. Weird, I know. I don’t really get it myself. And I’m terribly afraid that person doesn’t actually exist, and I’ll just have to be this way forever. Once I really love someone, I love them forever, no matter what. So right now, I’m just left with a bunch of faded love, empty arms, and an aching heart. I’ve cried out, ‘not fair,’ but there’s nobody to listen. There’s not many people that love like I do in this world. I’m the oddball, I know. But I can’t stop being this way. Believe me, I’ve tried. But love is all I know and all I believe in, and that is that.

Mumbling mumbling, cliche, mumbling. I hear you. That’s all you candidates do these days, is mumble. My love life is starting to feel like this year’s national election–pointless.

What? Yeah, you’re sorry. I’m sick of sorry. ‘You’re the one’? Nah, you’re not the one. I’ll know the one when I see them. At least I think… even if they exist… or maybe I’m just not lovable in that way… or maybe I’m just too picky… or maybe, maybe–oh whatever. Um, yeah. So I’m just going to hang up now… yeah, bye.

*Click*

Sigh.

July 28, 2016

חוֹפֶשׁ: Free Me

It’s hard, the way I’m living sometimes. Sometimes I just want to bust right out of my skin, feel like my head is going to explode. I need to feel free. My muscles and heart and skin and eyes and hands and small of my back need to be emancipated. I’m aching to live life with a passion I feel consuming me from the inside, burning up in my eyes, with nowhere to go. I want to love with a ferocity that I am not allowed. I want to move and burst forth and navigate and overcome with aggressive strength and confidence that I do not possess. I want to feel the sky flowing around me and the ground beneath my feet and the water pushing against my skin and the fire burning in my lungs. I want to hear and smell and touch and taste and feel like I never have before in my life. I have the capacity for it. I have the burning hunger for all of these things. I am desperate, I am feral, I am reared, pawing and the sky. I have felt alive, again and again, more so and more so until I have been awakened to such an extent that I can no longer go back to sleep. I cannot stop sucking these giant deep breaths and wanting more and more and more. I cannot stop wanting to be free, after I’ve tasted it, a thimble of fatal nectar, alluringly dangerous and perfect. So sweet, that I feel myself dying after I have tasted it, each moment its droplets are not on my lips burning me dry. I am hungry and thirsty and barren all at once. I want to find my home in the song of the earth and be swallowed up by it and those who love it, belonging, a part of something that is at once myself and not, better, more perfect, I am whole with it and with who. I want to enter the Spirit song of the One who made it all, and not be afraid to feel, and feel rightly, and with a brightness that surpasses everything I can see.

I want to be חוֹפֶשׁ, and חוֹפֶשׁ me.

June 2, 2016

Warrior

I kneel before him, one knee bent, the other pressed into the dirt. My head is bowed. My armor reeks with blood and the filth of war. I have been fighting. I have been fighting hard. I have the heavy, sick feeling that I have been fighting all the wrong things. Face away from the leftover ravages of empty war on monsters with black blood. Denying its existence. I delighted in it. The plain behind me is pitted with grey hollows, shrouded in wraiths of mist. I am alone.

He stands before me, a pillar of bright yellow light, vaguely man shaped. I know him–my heart responds to his presence. Guilt, shame, iron-shod heavy. Drawn to him, pulling, tugging inside me. Darkness. I hate myself. He is kind. I know his eyes are on me, I look at them, and know them. Even though I cannot see them clearly, I feel that I can, as if with another kind of seeing. My heart sees. My heart knows. My body, my soul, bows before its King.

He wants it, the dark parts of me. He wants me to surrender them. My spine rebels, hard, tensing, at the thought, the muscles in my back clenching. Anger rises, billows, smokes. I take a deep breath. I recognize this sickness, this disease. Own it. Love it even as I hate it. Let it go. This warrior must fall.

I will it up, the black, oily darkness, from every part of me. Will it up, snaking, from my toes up through my torso and in from my arms and fingers. Gathering in my chest. My head jerks back, my chest heaves upward, I close my eyes, mouth open. It leaves me, I can feel it, spiraling up from the center of my chest, wafting in the air. Repulsive. Infecting. Evil. Breath leaves me, whispers from my mouth as it escapes me. He absorbs the snake into himself, and it vanishes, as if it never was.

My limbs feel lighter, my shoulders more buoyant. I feel like light. I open my eyes, look at myself. Shining new raiment, cloth I have never touched, textured and real, barely kissing my skin, loose. A white, long-sleeved jerkin buckled over light brown, ankle-length breeches at the waist. At the same time the most real thing I have ever felt and the most otherworldly, like it could vanish at any moment yet leave me aching for the wonderful truth of it. My blood, my filth, my weapons, gone–just a weighted memory of a reality.

I look up at the King. He is smiling, I know. He reaches out his right arm and slides a glimmering sword into the leather loop attached to my belt on my left side. I draw it in a smooth, clean motion, lay it across my palms and fingers, survey it in admiration. Long. Light. Clean. Sharp. Shining. Mine. I sheath it again, and look up at the King. My heart, the thing in my chest tells him, I am surrendered. I am finally at peace. I am yours.

He looks down at me. Powerful. Righteous. Loving. “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” he says. His voice is strong, commanding, gentle, reassuring, authoritative, confident, kind. Too many things at once to think of, only feel. A pause. Then, “Now go out into the world and be my light.”

And I do.

April 26, 2016April 27, 2016

30 Day Creatives Challenge

One day in February, I decided I was using my busy life as an excuse to stop creating. To avoid something that is always so wonderful yet somehow so hard to make myself sit down and produce. So I thought… hey, what about just doing something creative every day? Just a few sentences, a picture, a piece of my head and heart. So I went for it. The project morphed into 31 entries over the course of two months and ended up becoming a kind of personal journal for processing my life. It’s a monster of a post, an unwieldy ball of thrumming, electric, dangerous emotion-thing, but I’m gonna let it out into the world anyway. Here it is… a month’s worth of creative (and sometimes not so creative) ramblings. I hope you enjoy them, even as nonsensical as them are 🙂

THE 30 DAY CREATIVES CHALLENGE

2/23/16

Little Things

The warm, blazing orange of a jacket on a gray, windy day. The sweet smell of clean forest air. A friend’s vulnerable sniffle. The unexpected squish of mud beneath my boots. A cup of coffee’s bitter-sweet warmth. The dizzying darkness of an adventuresome tunnel. Rough smoothness of tree bark rasping across my skin. That gift-walk that took me by surprise. The softness of deep red wool socks. That lightness, the lifting-up-at-the-corners giggle. Innocent sass. The words “accepted” and “known,” given to me. Assurance from the King. Messy chocolate chip bagels. The plip-plopping splash of rain returning to a puddle. Little things. Just bright, happy little things.

2/24/16

Seeping Color

Rainy day snaps. Sometimes it’s better to be late to class than miss the beauty. These photos don’t do these drizzle discoveries justice, only offer a glimpse.

beaded rain on a coral jacket canvas

oscillating rings traveling across muddy reflection

the wet sponginess of tree bark – green, brown, grey, and white

the unstoppable sun flaring shine through proud window cross

2/26/16

Response to Momentum

White dresses, spin skirts. Visible light shafts, hazy shadow border. Why can I feel what I didn’t know I did, why can I feel what I cannot express. Why can dance put my un-words to movement? Clasp-unclasp, hold, tuck close. Never separate, never apart.

2/27/16

For-Ever

A touch, a turn, a holding over, around. Smoothing and rubbing, hold me close comforting. Protect, protect, stay under my wing–I’ll die before release. Guide, lean, move, tuck close. You belong, you belong, I love you for who you are. You are special, you are loved, don’t forget who you are, who I am, I am here, let me land. Don’t forget, hold onto me, please, don’t let go.

2/28/16

Anger, hurt, tears, restless dreams–why, why does it have to be this way. It’s not happening, it’s not. Why give up what we have when we now know it would never be taken from us? Years of memories–thrown away–a sacred space, a sacred place.

I don’t need a blank slate.

—

You Know Me Better Than That

The promise of a promise, a probable, possible thing. Hold onto it, read it tight, clutch it close. Not going anywhere, he’s not. Green, moist warmth, fog, reflecting view blue. Heights, holding hands, I can see right through you. Hugs, holds, still there after let go. Fluffy white, moving orange, your hand on my side. He cares about me, he does. Enough to plan an adventure in the land of the clouds.

2/29/16

Your Turn

Stepping out vulnerable with my words in the dark and feeling shaky all over inside and out, why feels so strange and naked? I don’t know, just know that you’re here and you’re listening and your silence and minute responses, then conformation, is speaking words of life back into me where the dark empty spaces were that I didn’t even know were hurting, rotten and hollow bitter, until I let the air touch them and glow warm and expand until all is revealed and exposed and the flesh is sponge pink and healthy again and. And I can feel my heart beating.

—

A trio trip to D.C. to hear a legend speak of heights unreached.

I thought it was the White House, quite confused, but no–my homeschooled brain was simply deluded

an unexpected white elephant gift… literally

3/3/16

Last Promise

I don’t want to let go of you. I won’t. This has to last forever. Even if it means I’m the one holding on. You don’t know what you’re doing. You have feelings, you kind of know deep inside, but you don’t think about them. You don’t want anyone to be unhappy, least of all yourself. But sometimes love is a choice. The love that lasts, anyway. And ours will last. Mine will last. The last to let go–I won’t ever let go.

That’s a promise.

—

Fog

Sometimes it’s better to forget the destination than ditch the guide.

Sometimes it’s better to focus on the journey and less on the experience.

Sometimes it’s best to let go.

Come on, being lost isn’t all that bad, is it?

Not as long as I’m ‘lost’ with You.

Your good will come, whether I know it, or not.

3/4/16

chocolate cake + strawberries = happiness on a plate

3/9/16

Dreamy river house one-day getaway with my Daddy-date resulting in orange kayaking floatings, shining water droplets winging and winking off paddles, and an odd yoga tan line, farmer’s tan turned inside out.

the Mat River + the Ta River + the Po River + the Ni River = the Mattaponi River!

he’s more of an explorer than he lets you think 😉

3/10/16

I can be who you want me to be.

3/11/16

When the pain immobilizes the mind, enveloping it with humid fog, my body roars to life, rending air and snapping tree limb. Surging. Unstoppable. Insurgent.

3/12/16

“Open your hands.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Show me what’s in your hands.” More insistent.

“I can’t.” Clutches closed hands close.

“Why?” Exasperated. A bit angry.

Whimpers, head down, eyes full, hands open like an aching flower, slow, hollow–

“They’re empty.”

3/13/16

Something broke inside, today. Something fundamental, something that was once beautiful. Clumsy, and thumb(l)ing, my fingers are. Kindness makes me cry. My world has stopped, but everyone else’s keeps on moving. Numb–what an odd feeling, not even a feeling at all. It is not-feeling–describable just as the lack of something, even when you have it. Something cracked, something made of concrete, something still.

I’m afraid it’s irreversible.

When did we forget how to love? Someone tell me, no one can. Love has become selfish, a tepid, shallow thing. Not the all-encompassing, passionate, sacrificial kind. No greater love than this–that a man would give his life for a friend. Literal and metaphorical. Vanished. What’s the point of this love–true love–when no one will love you back like that?

I’m chasing you into the night. Stumbling after your vanishing form in the trailing tendrilling mist darkness. Cloaked. Suddenly impersonal and cold– Did I ever know you? Where did you go? I ask, like a child. I listen in the silence for an answer. So far, you haven’t looked back.

Come back to me, if you can hear. My heart is screaming for you in the dark. When crushed, suddenly discovering it is hollow.

Irreversible.

My heart is pale and cold and smooth. The stone table without a sacrifice. Waiting. Waiting in infinite uncertainty.

I thought we were forever.

But forever doesn’t feel like this.

I hope–I hope this isn’t it–because a piece of me would have to die, infinitely dead in its forever, so that the rest of me could live. Love? I don’t know. Crippled. Dragging one dead weight foot–but unable to bear cutting it off.

No one on Earth can love me like that (except family. And they are predisposed to love you, their pretending not pretending, made real). Maybe I can’t either. And if you can’t, then who will? No one. You. I picked you. I counted on you. I loved every part of you. Even when I didn’t always approve. I gave you the key to my heart, and you opened it, for a while. But now I’ve realized the door has shut without me noticing, distracted in the realm of warm and fuzzy rosy thrumming life-aura, not realizing it had stopped being real–when?! unsearchable–and you’ve locked the door. It echoes, it hurts, that click. I’ve woken up in the empty and the cold. Dark, unswept inside. And I hear you walk away, your footsteps echoing, hollow, the key clenched in your fist.

I feel every step. Stretching, but not breaking.

Come home. Will you. I want you to come home.

i was naked before you, vulnerable, the only one, trusting in your life, our love, your soul. Sisters. But you walked away, and now I’m only half of one whole, because you made me believe I could be.

I curl in on myself, hugging, head tucked–but the warmth, it is not enough.

Can You make this whole? Save me (her, us?), if you can. My everything wants You to be enough. Aching.

Fill us with Love again.

—

Sometimes, love is something you have to fight for.

one, and a two, and a three plus a right hook…

century… the century of what?

this side up… what about inside out? is that upside down, or something else entirely?

twist, all the power comes from your hips. don’t forget

I will fight for you even when you can’t. I will fight for you even when you cannot see.

“We love who we love. Sucks.” – Nick, Before We Go

3/14/16

Please just remember–that I know the way your heart beats.

3/17/16

Before and after. Which do you like better? Nevermind, it’s the words that matter.

“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?… For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

– Galatians 5:1, 7, 13 –

“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?”

– Jeremiah 12:5 –

Wise words from the wisest Being that has existed, does exist, or will ever exist. Take heed!

3/18/16

Before and After and Inbetween

Only a few minutes in this place can clean and refresh my spirit, return my childlike excitement about life. Smile, life is an adventure. As soon as my feet leave the ground, it feels like home.

3/21/16

“You know love is all we really need to breathe.”

And sometimes it’s all it takes to make us stop breathing.

Lord, ah, I’m so broken inside, waiting for a miracle for someone else.

—

I found what my ~~ looks like. A word spoken, felt, but not understood.

It is different for different people.

Sometimes my body aches to be set free.

3/23/16

before and after, the subject and the text

trust your heart

if the seas catch fire

(and live by love

though the stars walk backward)

– e. e. cummings, ‘dive for dreams’ excerpt –

hello there, little dandelion bloom. won’t you be my friend? you will? good. I was hoping you’d say that.

3/24/16

Close and distant depending how big and many your steps. Don’t be afraid, don’t forget to set your heart ablaze.

3/27/16

Some days are pink and some days are blue, and sometimes I want it to be purple.

3/29/16

I’m a little bit broken. (just a little bit broken)

—

You make me feel like I fit somewhere.

4/4/16

The patient record of the days stretch prostrate (sprawl desperate, clutch) across the strangled lines of waiting.

—

Jubilee comes in the morning,

Adventures reigns in starlight

My heart aches with shed daydreams,

Make me one with the storm tonight.

—

I feel just a little bit broken. Do you?

4/6/16

God to me, while singing “Good, Good Father” for an unexpected time around: “This time, sing it like you know I’m going to pick you up.”

I do.

—

How many mirror me’s can you see?

4/7/16

shiny and stark or dusted with magical fairy story dust, which do you prefer? neither answer is safe, either way you’re signing up for a game. be careful… the world is wild, not tame. but don’t worry, adventure only calls to the dauntless. if you hear its siren song, it knows you by name. you cannot long escape it, and neither should you want to. the scars are your strength. you will have your share of adrenaline shot-through, pure sunlight-injected glory days. infused with the crazed, reckless wildness of primitive life. and they will be worth every drop of blood you bleed. but remember–only the dauntless flame can face the darkness.

feel your wings sprout, prickly from beneath your skin, feathers shiver, rustle. it’s not an unpleasant kind of pain. you’re ready to fly. your body aches it. craves it. don’t deny it, it will launch you off the precipice. ready or not, here we come. a new, dangerous, life awaits. drink deep from its fire hose of color, flavor, savor.

are you ready? I am. let’s hold hands and jump.

4/11/16

Gardens full of dandelion down.

4/14/16

Animal, I Am

Sometimes I just feel like my body is going to explode.

I was standing in the shower. Tiny, tan-brown, claustrophobic cubicle. Feeling primitive and animal, shut in and constrained by forces invisible yet so magnetically repulsive, caging. The white curtain is there. I feel like that in the box around my heart, I’m always pawing at it, but can never seem to get the plastic sheet out of the way. It swallows up my hands, containing them, trapping them. Annoyingly sticky and sneeringly superior. So sterile. Back in reality, I open the curtain. The bathroom is there, as always. Brighter and more spacious than the wet shower cube, the humidity now slipping away and evaporating, the air cooling on my skin. It looks more open. It looks like the world I know, that I’ll step outside the bathroom and the world will be the way it should be. But as look at it and don’t feel anything. Definitely not hope. I know that it will all just be the same as that shower. That stepping out is only an illusion.

Clawing, violently curling up, sounds that won’t mix or come out together but feel like they should. I can’t name them, the feelings. Enraged, betrayed, confused, powerful, starving, aching, longing, wild. Crazed mustang scream, hooves pawing at the door. Wide, white eyes, snorting, flaring nostrils, nodding head. Tearing at the squeezing force around his heart. Biting at the dark.

My heart still cowers and rages in its box.

—

My Thumb Pot

I’m fine now. Healing. A normal, but a new one. Almost like when you were young and turned a new age, you felt older when the minute ticked over. But different than that… more like it did on my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be older, feel any different. I still wanted to feel sixteen, carefree. Seventeen didn’t make a difference, you know.

It feels like there’s actually something missing from my heart. Or where my soul is, I guess, because my heart feels like it’s in the middle of my chest, not where it’s actually beating, over to the left. So I guess it has to be my soul, or something. Or my real heart, not my physical one. It reminds me of a thumb pot, you know the ones we used to make when we were little. A little piece of creek clay or playdough, round and a little smooshed at the top and bottom, and we just stuck our thumb into the middle of it and pulled it out. That’s what it feels like… like someone took my round and plump heart, put it in the palm of their hand, smoothed it out a little bit, cocked their head to the side, considered it, stuck their thumb in it, and pulled it out. Incredibly invasive. Shockingly unexpectedly almost violated. Like you can’t believe they just went and did that, touched and pushed and shoved and left a dent in something so completely personal. It’s insulting and embarrassing and vulnerable and betraying. They did it with no malice, almost curiosity or disinterest. It’s confusing.

The person turns around and leaves nonchalantly, almost with condescension, but again, unmotivated by any kind of blackened (discolored, tainted, tinted) intent. So you’re left kind of staring at them without any thoughts or emotions, and then you look down at your heart, which has been disinterestedly placed back in your chest (kind of like, ‘hum, that was interesting’) where you can just feel that hole there, aching, where it wasn’t before. You feel it with your finger, tentatively, searching it out. Maybe your hand is shaking. There’s definitely this awful confusing aching, not necessarily located at or coming from the hole, but just kind of coming from everywhere. But it definitely started there. It had to. That’s the only thing that makes sense, right?

And so you sit down kind of dazedly and just look at it. Spacing out. Like, what just happened. And then there’s days you forget it happened at all, and are just genuinely puzzled at where this ache is coming from, and other days you’re just enraged by it, whether you remember why it’s there or not. No matter, anyway, it’s there, and you have to live with it. It gets easier to forget that it’s there, but it’s not a linear thing, day by day, no, it’s not. It’s an up and down, roller-coaster-like thing. For every handful of even really great days, there’s one truly, down-in-the-pits-in-the-dark-brown-slimy-river-bottom-sludge awful day, and it feels like all your progress has reverted again, back to the beginning, almost just as fresh. But then the next day, or maybe two or three after, things are back to normal again, and you smile and go have some childish fun and tell yourself that see, you’re going to be fine! Bright, cheery smile, almost fake but not quite. Just choosing the truth and where it comes from, and the joy is genuine. But you know—it’s not the same ‘normal.’ It’s not going to be normal anymore. Well, yes, there’s a chance… but you have to see if that person exists. And if they don’t—well then, I think you’re out of luck until you get to heaven. Sit tight, it’s going to be a long wait. You’re not convinced. Find a good distraction, will you? But there’s never a distraction good enough, or good at distracting enough.

I’ll be here. This bench in my world of white is kind of a permanent residence. I’ll be here if you, or your thumb, ever changes your mind.

—

Food can be art, can’t it?

4/19/16

I can be whatever He wants me to be.

(what a freeing thought! :D)

—

“My brain is stuck,” she says.

“I know. I can help you get it out,” he says.

She smiles, wags her finger. “Oh, and who will help you, Mister?”

“You will.” And there it is, that smile.

4/20/16

Impact, Lockup, Trajectory.

4/21/16

I don’t know what we are, do you?

4/25/16

Big or small?

I would like to be small. I’m tired of feeling big, in this human world. Big and dirty and awfully important. When I lay down I feel like a giant. Big and ugly. I would like to go outside, away from this concrete world, and feel small again. Let the mountains tower over me in their power, shrink me. I would like that. To be infinitely tiny, yet so happy, in my right place, in it. Beautiful. I guess I feel important there too… but important because I fit. I’m doing the things I love, in the places I love, with the people I love. And that is how it should be.

4/26/16

Private User

We both had the same scars. Yours went away, mine didn’t.

God is good, even when I look at the scars–even in them, I see good times passed I wouldn’t ever have traded for smooth skin. Even if you don’t remember, or choose not to.

I’m a half-believer in you–I know you believe your own words, but would rather follow your desires in the moment. Those desires are never me, I learned that a few years ago. Somehow I still have to relearn it, every day, because I don’t want to believe your actions. I really don’t. But there’s part of me that does now. Part of me that coexists, a dark half, next to the part of me that believes your words, that believes you believe your words. Please disbelieve your actions someday, will you? I’ll be here, waiting, but not waiting. I can’t wait forever, yet I will. Both are true. Just remember I told you it would be so.

THE END

December 7, 2015

Why

Why–the question of the day, the year, the hour. The second.

Why.

Why I like acorns.

Why He chose me.

Why the sky looks better upside down.

Why I can tell acorns are fuzzy but nobody else cares.

Why watching videos of people bungee jumping makes me shake but makes me want to do it all the more.

Why the mountains, the wild places feel like home.

Why adventure calls me.

Why falling feels like flying.

Why new grass smells and feels and tastes and looks like innocence and joy and the essence of life.

Why that color green makes me feel like me.

Why the savageness of drum beat and dance makes something in my heart awaken, catch fire.

Why protecting someone is my life’s heartbeat.

Why I’ve always longed to be a warrior.

Why I’m so certain that there’s good in the face of all this evil and it’s winning and all I have to do is fight for it, should fight for it, set the captives free. Break the shackles, hear them fall, can’t you hear them!

Why poking someone can mean I love you.

Why bare feet feel so much more right, more connect-y, more rooted to the essence of the earth, than wearing clunky, boring, blocking shoes.

Why singing loud and putting my whole body into it and shutting my eyes is something that makes me so alive yet something I have to hide.

Why climbing hands my joy back to me, makes me innocent, a child again.

Why laughs and hugs are the greatest things in the world.

Why I miss you so much.

Why I feel sad and alone so much.

Why I feel like there’ s something I’m missing, something more I should be doing, should be getting out of life.

Why life is all about love and holiness yet no one can see it.

Why our whole world is sick. Broken.

Why won’t it let Him heal it, redeem her.

Why there’s so much joy in every broken child.

Why climbing trees makes my heart beat so fast, that little bit of fear turning simple movement into a daring, rebellious adventure.

Why storms and the wind and the boom of thunder and the liquid, piercing flash of lightning and the moist darkness make me turn elemental. Make me meld with nature, something greater. Arbitrary, powerful. Make every nerve tingle, alive.

Why a dash of danger can make my life feel like a gift, every breath like a benediction.

Why laughter bubbles and overflows after a close call.

Why tears are healing.

Why I am who I am and you are who you are and why can’t we just understand each other and love each other and get along. Sympathize.

Why I didn’t realize til today that the Bible is a story God wrote personally for me. That He would have written it even if I was the only person in the world, or the only one that would listen. That He thinks I’m special, worthy somehow, although I don’t know why, and don’t quite believe it. But I know it’s true. Heart, wake up and see the truth?

Why he thinks I’m worth loving and dying for and sticking with me every time I break His heart, day after day after day. No, I DO believe it, because He came and told me so. Filled me up while I was kneeling there til I cried and shook, but I was so happy, so so happy. Because I knew it was all true. That His presence was there, in me, awe-some, overflowing me. That His message was all true. Still true. And I didn’t need to doubt and fear any more.

Why I still struggle to trust Him, although He’s shown me without a doubt that He’s beyond trustworthy.

Why with Him, every little aspect of my life makes sense.

Why everything is made new again.

October 18, 2015

Home

Today, I felt my whole world was right again.

You, something about you, makes me feel complete.

I laughed more than I have in a long while, it seemed. Felt that thrill in conversation I only get with you, of hearts connecting, uplifting, encouraging. Carrying each other’s burdens and somehow diminishing them in the process.

I’ve decided–your soul and mine are the same. Sisters, meant to belong together since the beginning of time. No, beyond time. Before it.

I am happiest when we’re side by side.

And today, you confirmed it again–you are too. There’s something special about the thing that exists between the two of us.

You understand me, head to toe, inside to out. I can tell you anything and you’d still love me. More than that, you’d understand. You’ll be there for me through everything, when life feels like walking through mountain-mist rainbows or slogging through mud. I can say things to you, things that would sound silly or stupid to anyone else, and you understand and appreciate them. Like how the sky is deeper upside-down, or how the farthest, palest-blue mountains issue a call that I can’t ignore.

Your soul is one of the most beautiful I know and will ever know.

I can be my complete self around you. You understand all the sides of me, not just engage with one or simply appreciate them all. You know me, see all of me. You make my heart happy.

We can be our goofy, so-easily-entertained, child-like selves around each other. Within weeks of first meeting each other, we were dancing in the rain… or should I say thunderstorm… and today, we hung our heads over the wall by the lake and stared deep into the pool of the sky and the ripples of the new water ceiling and talked and laughed and just soaked in the beauty of God’s creation. For a good ten minutes. Standing up was a new experience, and I was glad to share it with you. Who needs to get drunk to be tipsy? Not us.

There are days where my heart just aches for you, and yours for mine, but we know, just know, deep down, in the deepest part of us that knows and hopes and dreams and loves with a deep and abiding and fiery passion–

We will always love each other.

And best of all? We get to spend eternity worshiping the One that saved us both. Think there’ll be climbing in the new heavens and new earth? I sure hope so. Regardless, I’m sure we’ll have a blast.

Love ya, sis.

Ash 🙂

September 24, 2015September 24, 2015

Wondrously Dangerous Thing

I don’t think anyone understands how fiercely I love.

I don’t think anyone understands how intense love grows inside of me, how quickly it blooms, how loudly it roars.

It bellows its presence and dares any challenger to remain standing.

I don’t think anyone can really, truly understand what love means to me.

Love means this: you protect your own at all costs.

Yes, I know the women are meant to be the “nurturers.” The men are the ones with all that testosterone, the big muscles, the aggressive instincts. They are the protectors… right?

Yes, I say. Yes they are. They are better suited to the task. But…

Some of us are born just a bit different than the others.

Yeah, I do feel the urge to nurture once in a blue moon. But to tell the truth… I enjoy a good tussle over a pedicure any day. I enjoy things that get my blood pumping. I enjoy things that challenge me physically and mentally. I enjoy wildness and rough-and-tumble-ness and things that test my limits, push me ’til I break. I like things that are rough and raw and real and challenging. I think differently.

When I love someone, my first thought, my first instinct, is to protect them.

And I make that my mission.

This means that when we’re walking from the car to the dorm at night, and I get a funny feeling, my mind goes into overdrive. I walk a little bigger, stand a little taller, throw my shoulders back a little more, walk with a slight swagger. Walk like I own the street. The whole city, even. A walk that says, don’t you dare mess with me. I think of what kick or punch I would throw first, what I would say, what would we do. I’m always aware of the people around us, the vibes I get off them, always scanning, always looking. I’m analyzing places, situations, one step ahead, expecting. Listening to my gut.

When I dream up stories and put the people in my world into them… the plot always turns out the same.

I fight for them. I protect them. I sacrifice for them. I prove myself to be strong enough.

No matter what.

No matter what that means.

No matter what sacrifices need to be made.

I. Push. Through.

Yes, I care about feelings. Yes, I love conversations that have depth and emotion and substance and are just plain real. We all do. Yes, I care about romantic relationships. Yes, I care about the everyday ins and outs of caring for the emotional and spiritual well-being of those around me. I am human. And yes, I am a girl, after all.

But my first, primal, gut instinct that will not be denied–

My mission, my calling–

Is to protect you.

And this is why, oh this why, when something goes wrong and I find out and my gut just clenches and my breathing quickens until I find out it’s all okay and then I surprise myself and cry just a bit–

The first thought that goes through my head is why didn’t I protect you. why was I not there to protect you. why didn’t I see this coming.

And every single time that has happened… it hasn’t been a physical thing that I can prevent.

It’s been a sickness. A sad thing that’s affected you. An injury. Someone’s scared you. Broken your heart.

And outside I’m normal but inside the anger sparks and flares and shoots into the dark dark sky and I’m all big and bursting and aggressive inside and ready to lash out at whoever hurt you, make him pay…

But sometimes there’s no one to blame. And sometimes there’s nothing I can do. And sometimes I have to take a deep breath and realize that I can’t protect everyone I love from the world.

But I can try.

And I can be there.

And if, heaven forbid, it actually happens some day, actually happens that I have to put my life on the line for you–

I won’t even blink. Won’t even think. All this purposeful, cyclical, pointless thought will turn into action.

I will become so ferocious you won’t even recognize me.

A she-panther fighting for her cubs.

I will fight tooth and nail. I will take a bullet for you.

I’ll simply explode.

And you will know exactly how big and ferocious and burning and unquenchable my love is for you.

And so when I watch that movie, and hear the girl crying, and I start and my heart twists a little bit because for a second it sounds just like you… I’ll smile ruefully to myself.

But the truth is… I wouldn’t change a thing.

And if it all crashes and burns someday…

You’ll know.

Love is a wondrously dangerous thing.

September 16, 2015

Strong Enough

When I realize I’m not strong enough.

When I feel like I’ve failed when I thought I just might be good enough. Yeah, I was on the edge, but I thought I tried hard enough…

I tried my best.

But my best wasn’t strong enough.

I immediately think of all the things I’m doing wrong, all the things I could be doing that I’m not, comparing myself to all the other people–because, obviously, they were strong enough.

And I wasn’t.

They’ve got something I don’t–and I’m gonna run myself into the ground until I get it.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be strong enough.

Sometimes I don’t think they can know that the littlest word or phrase or touch or look can light up my day or rain on it.

I don’t think anyone understands how badly I want this.

I feel like I can almost guarantee that I want it at least just as badly as the most passionate person there–at least as much as the most determined, yearning, wanting to be included, to be strong, to win.

And yet–I still wasn’t strong enough.

I didn’t realize how bad I wanted this–didn’t realize until I didn’t get it. It’s always this way for me–there’s nothing I can do to change that. I always say I care, but I can handle the disappointment. That I’ll be fine either way. But no–and deep down I know I’m telling a lie to myself.

But at the end of the day, I know… that it’s not about being strong enough.

It’s about running ’til you can’t breathe, pushing ’til you can’t stand, fighting until you win or lose. It’s about straining every last muscle and pulling every last breath and shouting, rooting each other on until you lose your voice.

It’s about learning. And playing. And loving those around you. It’s about doing something fun and crazy and taking a deep breath through your nose and feeling sweaty and powerful and new. It’s about embracing the game and being there for your team. No matter what. Winning is great–but that’s not what it’s about. That’s just the icing on the cake, if you’re lucky. But that’s not what it’s about. Yeah, I know it sounds cliche–

But it’s not about being strong enough.

It’s about being you.

And when I think of it this way, think of it as the grass prickles my neck and two lone stars shine through the yellow light of the street lamp–

I remember.

Remember the way the whole team is so close, like a brotherhood. Remember how I want that, yearn for that, long to be part of that, accepted. How they didn’t act like I was new. How they didn’t disdain me for my limitations but accepted me with them. How I got passed to and messed with from day one. How I respect my captain, as a coach and as a team player and as a person. How I appreciate every high five, every look of respect, every team huddle, every “We are UR.” How I feel wanted whenever someone takes the time to help me out. How I felt on top of the world when he told me the strengths he sees in me–basically, that I belong on that team. That they all want me on their team. How I’m part of another family again.

And they’ll never know how much that means to me.

They see my commitment. They see how much I push myself for the last everything I have in me. They see how I smile when I play and how my face goes grim and intense when I’m determined, when I really get into it. Hey, I even got a nickname today, because I don’t go down easy. They hear me when I cheer them on, accepting them as I hope, I think, I know they’re accepting me. I love even the pep talks, even when others just smile, I feel something. I love this essence, this tangible thing, that we have with each other, on and off the field. We are family.

I think it’s called a team.

So whenever I get frustrated with myself, think myself weak. Inadequate. Insufficient. Not good enough. Not strong enough…

I will remember–they think me strong enough. More than that, they think my heart big enough.

And that’s enough for me.

-stone dragon