where to go...

the past 24 hours have really changed a lot of my future plans... to start off, i fractured a small bone in my left hand called the pisiform. It was right after I learned how to do a cartwheel--something i've NEVER done before in my life, but i finally learned how! and then me and some friends decided to play soccer, so we did, and it was soo much fun. except we didn't have cleets and it was slippery! so i fell really hard on the palm of my hand and my wrist really really hurt. but i wanted to keep playing so i jumped up and got back in the game... then i fell on it again! and that really hurt! but i didn't think it was serious. next day, went to the health room, they tell me to get an xray, roxanne drives me to the emergency room and 3 hours later i have this green wrapped stint on my wrist and some pain-killers. a broken pisiform, a bone i never knew the name of or understood it's existence.... now robs me of the ability to play guitar for the next 6 weeks.

i had been making some big plans for performing, and this definitely gets in the way... but i'm thinking it could be for bigger reasons which i don't know or understand yet. for one, as much as it sucks, i do know i'm not powerless and i can still do lots of great things even if i can't play guitar (something i especially love). I wrote poetry about my music and how pivitol it is in my life as a means of communicating things i find so hard to communicate one-on-one.

i just finished writing a paper that i almost tried to get out of writing since this night has been so hard. but i called my brother and he reminded me of how much i am capable of doing. and so i did this paper, and it might be a B- instead of an A+, but it sure is something!

lots of little things have already helped me... like rach being up late on the east coast and randomly calling without even knowing all i'd been through today. and me getting to talk to trev, and krista coming in to talk, or listen to me talk and process through this stuff.

this broken hand-bone, has really already started to force me to depend on other people, in little, and big ways. and i think that's good for me, since i do try to give my focused time and attention to lots of people i love... it's good to be open to receive the back massages or the tea, or the hugs, or the phone calls. it's not that i expect them, but it's that they're there for when i need it, and people care and can help me out. i'm so thankful for that.

i think i'll get some rest now that this paper is written. farewell.

attention...

i took a walk this morning at 730 in the morning. i was convinced by two of my friends who have been going on 7 30am walks for some time now, every day, to start the day. i said i'd join them, but didn't catch where exactly to meet... so i ended up going on a walk by myself. (this was after i spent about 10 minutes debating whether or not to get out of bed, of course i wanted to get out of bed, but i kept thinking.. i only slept 6 hours, i have work to do, i don't know where to meet them, etc. etc... til i finally did think "i WILL just got back to sleep," but by then the counter argument seemed worse than getting up..)

okay, so i start walking towards tryon creek/state park. i'm noticing little things, like purple trilliums. i'm staring at tall trees, i'm wondering where the path is going. i'm starting to sing in my head "don't count the hours, don't count the days." i'm walking at a moderate pace as if i'm racing to the end of the path. i get to the end of the path i took, there is a parking lot and baseball field. i turn around, this time i'm walking a lot slower. ahead of me there is a snail on the ground with a beautiful shell. it reminded me of the ocean and summer. i stooped down to see the slow movements on the wet pavement.

another time i stopped and stared at this hollowed out massive tree trunk, with two other trees growing off the side of it. i thought about what i would look like if other people saw me, how it might seem like i'm "trying to look like" somebody who loves nature. people always assume everyone's so pretentious, i just thought it was amazing that new thinner tall trees could find their foundation on the rotting bark of another tree.

i think i go out of my way not to stand out sometimes. i don't want people to think i'm asking for attention. though, i admit i do want attention. but not just attention from random people, and not any kind of attention. i want attention for who i really am, and what i really love, and what i really want to be. and to get that kind of attention, i cannot be afraid to stop along paths and stare at trees or flowers. that's the smallest example i can think of.

so i was walking back through a neighborhood and noticed these beautifully landscaped yards surrounding houses. and parked on the side of the road as a truck with two guys carrying gardening supplies, ready to keep these yards looking as perfect as they already did.

their yards look so nice because they have money.

planting seeds is an amazing task, the outcomes are incredible. when i see a forest so green with sprouting flowers and unraveling fern leaves all around me, i'm amazed at how easily everything grows, when very few people attend to it. it's a sort of miracle in itself.

i want to plant the plants in my yard when i grow up, and tend to my own flowers. and know the process more than i know the hourly wage it takes to tend to these beautiful plants.

i think one of the easiest ways to enjoy life is to give your attention to things that matter to you personally, and to take the time to gain something from it that you didn't know you'd get. rather than constantly buying products you know will serve you in very concrete, practical, tangible ways... well that's fine to do too. but for me personally, i get enjoyment out of new things, like the snail that was on the path today. and the purple trilliums. and the thought of growing up and having a garden that i had time to pay attention to.

a different color hue on a gray day

woke up feeling so homesick.

but i don't want to go back home, i want to endure, and learn to fill this place with new things that i still feel a lack of sometimes. like being understood. and being understood requires a whoole lot of relational work that i'm so afraid to do when i'm hurting. like opening up, when i'm sad. it's what i want to do... and i am getting there slowly. but i'm not there, and i don't think you ever get there, i think you just have to keep up with yourself, or let yourself go through things, and trust yourself to come up with conclusions of your own that are good for you.

thats what being here is all about.

this "hue" i'm talking about is hugh prather's book "notes on love and courage," here's the quote on the page i opened up to:

"a new idea has energy, but like a new battery in an old five-battery flashlight, its power is temporary. it is natural for me to return to activities that are known, to once again think thoughts that are familiar. to be constantly reminding myself to change requires an effort i coerce myself to obey a concept that no longer inspires me, the more i must trample my own loves and instincts and natural interests. nothing is gained by pushing something good beyond its season. an idea can inspire me, but it is not inspiration. i can change in spurts, but i change. each new concept leaves its residue. each idea that excites me to temporary change does in fact permanently change me, even though almost impercptibly. i will be fortunate if i ever learn, really learn, one or two lessons in my life. the implication, of course, is that there is more to come."


i think what i especially got from this today is that... you can't change all the batteries at once in your flashlight at once, or... it's alright for things to be different, its okay for me to be really sad-- but thats what i'm most afraid of being in front of people. and i didn't realize that til i left my friends i was so used to breaking down in front of every couple of weeks. that was healthy though, to have someone willing to let me express my actual feelings and work through things with people who care about me. it's hard to find those people though, or its hard to start the process, and i can't do it alone.

let me be

my meditative words for the night... picture them sung on guitar beautifully.

i'm really finding ME out here. i mean... something about driving on the open highway 101 along the oregon coast, and staring up at a tree that is taller than you can imagine, and reading this compelling stuff in my poetry book about words, and hearing people talk about life based on how they feel it and know it... how people can use words to communicate something so real and devine and unifying.

i'm realizing that the more i can listen to people and take people seriously, the more i am challenged personally... because if you hear something compelling that someone tells you that changes your perspective on life... you can leave it at that, or you can really try to change something about your life.

i had lots of work to do today. i still haven't started it, and i said i'd be somewhere else right now (or 45 minutes ago). the sun was out earlier when i was planning on reading and a band came to play outside on the lawn (the 88), and they were soo awesome, i couldn't help but join the crowd of people and dance out in the field. People always warn about getting too involved in having too much fun because it will ruin your studies, or make you irresponsible, but i really want to argue that point. for me-- i have the opposite problem. it is SO easy for me to give up a good time in order to do shit that i don't enjoy doing just so i feel justified doing it. i think it's easier for a lot of people... to when there's somethign really genuinely GOOD happening, to shy away from it, or stay in their rooms, or complain about things that aren't good-- when the only thing to really DO in times when something genuinely good is happening, is to LIVE IT and enjoy it and be a part of it.

I'm telling you, I'm going to get my work done, and when the time comes when not much is happening later tonight and I have a few hours set aside, I will read and write and do my work and start researching. lol i don't know who the "you" is that i'm "telling," but i just feel like we humans limit ourselves a lot more than we have to sometimes, and that if we could just let go and let ourselves enjoy what it is we actually enjoy, then the things that are harder to do become more interesting and more worth doing (because you have other rewarding things happening in your life).

for the record-- off topic -- but part of the "me" that i'm letting myself BE tonight, I talked on the phone during dinner hours and decided to eat GOLDEN GRAHAMS for dinner instead of leaving the phone conversation to eat at the bon. Let me note that I missed dinner last night... and bought this very box of golden grahams for $6.60 at maggies (the convenience store on campus... you have to PAY for convenience) last night. I had golden grahams for dinner... golden grahams for breakfast this morning, and golden grahams againn tonight! only in college to such crazy things have to happen, you gotta make a way for yourself to eat! and this box was just sooo irresistable. chances are it will be gone by tomorrow morning.


i think the more we let ourselves be, the easier it is to let other people be. and we're all just wanting to be ourselves-- but small talk and other things we're used to just get in the way of all the real beauty that is inside of all us.

i love poetry because it really struggles to find an appropriate way of expressing human existence. all the metaphors and all of the methods used are meant to pull something out of the reader, it connects you to something bigger. the poet is just trying to see/show the world as it really is.

there is so much to LEARN and SEE and interpret and write about!!!!!!

i'm exploding with appreciation and curiousity! and the only thing that could hold me back is myself.

etymologies are fun

i had a poetry assignment to look up and try to use a bunch of germanic words in a poem... i saw constant gardener this week, put that together and here's what i got

first here are the words and their root meaning

Anglo-Saxon Etymology:

Window - From the Anglo-Saxon "vindr" eage," meaning the "wind's eye."


German Etymologies:

Rich - In Old French, "riche" meant "powerful"; it came to mean wealthy only by semantic extension. Originally from the German, Reich.

Bread – food

Sorrow – care

to be Sorry- physical/mental pain

Sate, satiate, satisfy – enough





Enough

My eyes open to a closed window.
The wind that connects my breath with yours
Is cut off by this glass.

I am not sorry for my sorrow;

I was born rich
With enough bread to satiate,

And you wait.
I see you there,
I remember your stories.
The windy seas glare violently against my eyes.

How can I care enough
To satisfy
More than just one
I,
For another
I?