lunar soil

The whole idea of faith is such a magnificent concept in the face of despair. It feels almost fake until one is trapped between time, grief and loss. That space really is both the worst and most beautiful place to be. It's where the moon collides with the night. Where the stars disappear from the sky. Somehow it leaves one with the sense that beauty and pain must live under the same roof in order for there to be any light at all. Without blackness, there would be no need for the sun. And without the sun's brightness, there would be no need for life.

Somehow the knowledge that there is a sun that produces immense amounts of energy and light gives courage to the idea that the darkness has boundaries. The darkness can only last so long. And it's how one handles themselves in the darkness that is of rare value; almost more than how one may act in the light. Because it seems so easy to navigate one's way in the light. It's easy to know what to do in the light. But it seems far more difficult to know what to do in the dark.

Everything feels foreign when one is blindfolded and stumbling through familiar ground. Pain has a way of leaving one feeling like a foreigner even in familiar places. Everything around you turns into lunar soil. And somehow you are supposed to live the very same life you have always been living but trapped inside a spacesuit and breathing in dead air. Nothing stops with you. The world keeps ticking by while time has frozen for you. All you hear is the drone of your own voice and a few other ones. Ones that bring to mind everything and everyone who has hurt you or left you or forgotten you. And that same dead air. You wonder when you will breath fresh air again. And if there really ever was such a thing as fresh air in the first place.

The stillness. It's there with you. It's in you and surrounding you. It's haunting at first. It seems to threaten suffocation within your already close surroundings. Then slowly, curiously, it becomes the silent friend. It begins to fade from a shadowy mass into a crimson ghost and then, it combusts into a pure and simple light. The delicate glow begins to infuse a hint of hope into your being. Just enough.

And somewhere in a cold, hidden cavern within, you begin to believe again.

Green

I went to the store just the other to buy a bag of peanut M+Ms because the crave was on.  In the candy aisle, which was filled from top to bottom with all kinds of Valentines candies, I noticed a very strange bag of Peanut M+Ms.  They were all green.  Very, very green.  Each and every one of them were green.  And the same color of green too.  Sometimes they actually try and mix different colored green ones together.  But not these.  On the front of the package there sat one very large, round and green M+M looking rather enticing with long, draping eyelashes, plump, green lips, and dark, floating eyebrows.  All this was situated beside the slogan, "Green, the new color of love."  Very curious.  I put the bag back and found another bag of the peanut kind that held the classic Valentine's Day colors of red, bright pink, soft pink, and white.  I grabbed the all-green bag again and read the labels.  I read the labels on the pink bag.  All Peanut M+Ms alright.  And all for Valentines Day.  The thought crossed my mind at one point during the exchange that maybe the St. Patrick's Day candies were out too.  But after some debate I decided that the green ones were, in fact the Valentine's candies.   And after even more debate, I left the candy aisle with the pink bag.   

Not sure I'm ready for green being the new color of love.  I think of gang-green.  or puking over the railing of a sail-boat.  Mold growing on old food.  Dirty, crumbling spunges, the kind with the green rough surface on one side and the yellow sponge on the other.  I think of mildew.  And tangly, thick seaweed floating through the ocean.  Drunken green men posed as shamrocks slumping through bars.  I think of spinach unknowingly caught between my two front teeth and smiling at a very cute man at the next table over.  Yeah.  It may take me some me time to re-direct my thinking into green being the color of romance and love.  I don't even wear green.  Except for those opportune moments while eating spinach.  

long time

OK so to all my faithful blog readers I need to offer a huge apology because of my long absence in writing even one dang word on my blog site in the last forever months.  I admit I have not been good to my long-standing fans.  But I am back.  And this time I am in the control of a very special item.  It happens to give me the power to type away as much as I like, whenever I like,  and wherever I like.  Very cool.  

I'm sitting here next to a Mr. Aaron Strump in the Mine after the knitting circle.  If you are wondering if Strump is a knitter than you might be disappointed to know that he is not.  He just called Donald White "thee effer."  Anger management for the Strump is at all time low these days.  

I am knitting a very bright yellow neon hat with two power blue stripes for a miss taylor.  I'll post pics of it once it's done.   and now for a few more pics of the strump and I.   

a day in ned

yippee! i have some pictures to share! i finally had a much needed day of rest yesterday with my dear and lovely friends in the mountain town of Nederland. we ended up in a cozy old railroad train, turned coffee shop, very cool. we laughed and rested and listened to patty griffin and talked about pretty much nothing for 2 hours...it was sooo wonderful.








i know, even on off days i'm still mischievous as ever...oopsies.

today i went to the outdoor pool for some lap swimming, but it was closed. so i sat on a bench in the park for a while as a friend of mine came walking past with his little foxy pup. as we talked about art and architecture his little lady pup was very keen on watching the squirrels that temptatioulsy (not sure if that's a word, but it seemed to fit right) flaunted their way very near to her restrained, furry body. it's funny how mischief and restraint very often go hand in hand. and i had to laugh at myself.

overalls in namibia

today i put on my old, patched-up overalls and smiled. i used to wear those old friends everyday while on african soil, making pottery and wipping the red clay on their fading denim. everytime i put them on i think of namibia.

i went around barefoot all day and layed down in the grass. it smelled like summer. green grass, wet soil and lilacs. the sky was so blue and clear. the leaves on the branches above were a thousand little green flags clapping together and laughing. green and blue mixed with a little red makes deep purple. that was the color of my soul. rest, quietness and purging merged within.

namibia is a desert. but within that desert one can find an oasis. and on the oasis is the color of red mixed with blue, mixed with green. it rains sometimes there. when it does, the flowers bloom quickly and then fade quickly. hardly anyone sees the flowers that bloom in the desert. but they still bloom. they still show their pretty faces and smile very brightly towards the heavens. and then they fall asleep again.

kind of like old patch-up denim overalls.

dorothy and the red wagon

I was thinking about Dorothy today. She was trying to reach the Emerald City. But all she really wanted was to reach home. I wonder if I’m Dorothy. I wonder if I’m trying to reach a place that’s green and sparkly and pretty when all along all I really want is to reach home.

A friend told me today that my dreads are wild and crazy and colorful and that they look like the way her insides feel. And I wondered why I wear my heart on the outside of me.

Last night I dreamt of a massive, churning, violent tornado coming straight towards the place where I lived and I knew that if I asked God to keep it from devouring us, He would change it’s course. So I asked, I actually screamed the request. The tornado snarled it’s way towards us and in the very last minute it darted to the left and only took a small nip out of the side of the home. Prayer is a very mysterious thing. I wonder if it’s the language of change. Or maybe it’s the language of love.

Once I was given a leadership role over eleven young women. They would often come to me and ask for prayer. I often cried afterwards because I was asking God to work within them the very things I wanted to ask God to work within me. One day, while in tears I explained this to my leader. He told me about the red wagon. Say there was a little girl who knew that her little sister wanted a red wagon very much. And so the little girl goes to her father with some money she's saved up and tells him that she wants to use the money to buy a red wagon for her little sister. All the while though, this same little girl very much wants a red wagon herself. Would the father, seeing the little girl's desire for her little sister and the tears brimming in her sweet eyes not also buy a wagon for her?

Prayer is like coming home. And coming home is like love. And love is worth it…every time.

mystery

Tonight I want to write from my heart. I want to become alive with the mystery of my own heart. It’s strange how ones heart can be their closest companion as well as their greatest stranger. I feel I’ve spent so much of my life trying to become a friend of my own heart. How can something so near to one be so far away as well?

How can the sky be flush against my skin, hugging my being on every side, wrapping itself around me as a waterfall of invisible molecules, and yet seem so distant? I find myself looking heavenwards, my arms reaching, wanting to somehow embrace the vast breath of air far above me and feeling as though it is completely unreachable, completely untouchable. Little realizing that I am not only touching it, but am actually consuming it with every breath I take, with every one of my movements. It’s constantly dancing around me, flowing as a current of water over rocks and broken trees, the solidity of my being merging and colliding with it’s vulnerability. And the air fills me, the fusion of oxygen and blood creating new life within the darkness of my being.

I love the pulsing of my heart. I hold my breath quiet, stilling any movement from my body and I begin to listen. And there it always is. The methodical swishing of fluid in and out of my ears, the ever-so-slight bounce of my thumbs as the blood rushes in and out of veins. The existence of a pulse always means the existence of life. Without my pulse my body would hold no life. Without my heart regulating the currents of blood rushing through my being, I would simply cease to exist.

My physical heart speaks to me in rhythm. But the invisible part of my heart speaks to me in words. It touches me with emotions. It warns me, cautions me. It laughs, and sings. It weeps and heaves. It dreams. And sometimes it even seems to deceive me. The perfect stranger. The perfect friend. The perfect mystery.