a sunday adventure!

we.... both of us... needed to get out of the house and the weather here has been absolutely beautiful! so we headed out to wander and along the way we took a few pictures. the first two are by emma - of her dog who she loves more than anything and the second is a self portrait that she took. the rest are of what was around on the first part of our journey. after lunch we're headed back out to this great park and then over to a friend's house for dinner. more pictures to follow!

just realized they didn't all come through here... you can go here to see them! http://picasaweb.google.com/alexisgillmore/November2009AWeekendAdventure#

 
 
 
 

comin' home from cali and this life's so thick that you can hardly swim on through it

it was a long weekend in cali... i'm not ready to talk about it.

i haven't dropped off the face of the earth... i'm just processing the circle of life and what it means to really live. i'm facing what it means to be in my thirties and no longer be a child protected from black news and black days... to have to face what is inevitable about living and about breathing and that is that one day you will cease to do both.

i'm learning, processing, breathing and being grateful for absolutely everything in my life. sometimes when you can do nothing else you can recognize that you get today. there are no other promises and when it has to come down to it... today is enough.

i have pictures to post of trees. i have heartache to blog about. i have things to think about. tonight though, i have to sleep.

and this song is the new cali song... because as dawnielle said today it just makes her happy in her heart. and some days... because she is the one i've known my whole life and more days than not she is the best parts of me... making her happy makes me happy. and i'm grateful for that.

be still my beating heart...

i absolutely for sure no doubts about it know why i'm not married.... it has nothing to do with all the crap we usually discuss... it is simply because this man is married and he is without a doubt the ideal of perfection.... if there are anymore out there like him i would gladly put up with just about anything to have him make me pancakes in the morning, take naps with me in the afternoon and sing to me at night. (sam beam from iron & wine)

if you've ever had a question about if there is sheer goodness and perfection and loveliness in the world i urge to watch this and maybe if you're lucky you'll get little butterflies in your stomach just like i do.... i recommend "innocent bones" because "no one is the saviour they would like to be...."

phone calls into the valley

lewis & clarke - before it breaks you



there are times when things happen and i have to make an SOS call into the valley. it's strange because 9 times out of 10 the call isn't answered but the ritual of it after so many years makes me feel better. once the call is made and the machine picks up i instantly feel better and then i can usually walk away and make myself some tea, put my feet up and breathe. i can usually debrief myself or field dress whatever wound has become the most recent. sometimes i wonder if the person on the other side of the calls knows that i don't leave a message because i don't have to anymore. i wonder if he knows sometimes sending up the flare is enough to give me the chance to de-escalate on my own. i wonder if he knows that when it's all said and done i credit him with the save, the distress call answering and the feeling of security i get from reaching out to a place of safety.

when i learned to ride a bike i was at my friend dawnielle's house in stillwater, ok. she had already learned and i was excited to be the same as her. i rode the bike up and down the street with her dad holding the back of the seat. up and down. up and down. i wobbled and tottered and steered weird and turned my handle bars at odd angles. getting that coordination memorized isn't easy. in fact it was down right scary and i remember being concentrated, frustrated and excited all at the same time... just knowing that i was on the cusp of something amazing. finally he said let's do it one more time... and so i got set and we started off and when we got to the end of the block he wasn't there... he wasn't next to me. i think i walked the bike back because i couldn't imagine trying to ride without him. when i got close i could see him smiling and he said "you did it" and i said incredulously "i did?" and i had.

sometimes we all need a safety net... whether we fall or not... and sometimes we need to believe that others are the ones responsible for our safety because the idea that if you looked down or recognized how far you had gotten out of your safety zone then you might fall flat on your face out of the old fears and anxieties.

today i needed to make the call into the valley, and without worrying about what i would say or how i would explain or having something planned out i just called. i heard the machine pick up and then without leaving a message i hung up the phone and made myself tea. i don't think things are fixed but i know they are better than they were before... and even a small improvement is better than nothing.

little known facts

some little known facts about me:
i love the smell of morning and flowing streams and rain and irish spring soap...
i really love jameson, reading emerson, naps, the sound of the ocean and taking pictures of trees
i daydream of falling in love with a man that can live with me a cabin in the woods, sings to me in the morning and at night, will make me banana pancakes for breakfast and is willing to be honest with himself and others and live with integrity... everything else we'll work out.
i watch movies that are period pieces or historically based... i love great costumes and the feeling of being carried away... i also love foreign films and subtitles and quirky indie films
i don't like french toast or gin or any kind of carnation (even the milk)
i hate feeling frustrated or misunderstood and the idea and practice of karaoke
i write everyday here on my blog, in my personal journal, poetry and in what we're currently referring to as the novella of sorts
i never know what is going to come of those writing sessions and i never plan them ahead of time... i start by finding the playlist and then write how i feel based on what i wanted to listen to.
i find that my life revolves around music more than i ever knew... i have a soundtrack to most things in my life.

sometimes in my life i think about missed opportunities and the things that i didn't give enough time or effort to. i wonder if i had been different in the moment or ready for different things if my life would be different or if i would have gotten here regardless of the path that i took. sometimes i ache for the days back when i was just a child and everything was unwritten and unstarted and unknown. sometimes i long for these moments to be over so i can just be past them.

i worry (sometimes daily) that i am supposed to be doing more, feeling more, committing more, growing, learning, changing and experiencing more. sometimes i feel stagnant in the middle of change like a person feels in the eye of the storm... sometimes even with my life in upheaval things are so quiet and calm at the center of me. i wish that i needed less change and adventure. i wish that i would be content with a small life that involved less time on the battle ground.

i have become weary in the past few days of being on the forefront and wish that i could apply for furlough although i know there is no rest and there is no leaving the front lines. i hope for a person that can accept all the things that i have come to understand and own the battle with me. there are days when i wonder how i'll ever explain to someone how i got here and what the purpose is for continuing. more and more i've become afraid that there will never be another night's sleep without worrying about the things i've come to know and there will never be another moment of sanctuary or peace that i don't have to fight tooth and nail for. i find that in this particular time of beginning to understand and finally open my eyes that i hold certain people even closer to my heart... they have become an indelible part of my past, present and future. i could never release that bond because without the role model of living in love i think i would forget easily... or give up when the fatigue and the frustration at the state of the world became too much. they are my reminders and my talismans that true north exists, that there is a standard of gold and of love, that sometimes there are people in your life you are simply meant to love and lastly that all the answers are here if we are just quiet enough long enough to hear what our hearts are telling us.

tonight my heart is telling me to make tea, put my feet up and relax.... i don't have to do everything right now... just breathe and relax. and since my heart has had years of practice listening to that very sound advice i'm going to take it once again... while doing that i'm going to reflect on this:
"If we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and modes of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the Romans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler. There is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again,--not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul." Emerson

about today

this song is amazing. it's worth a good listen to.



how many days of your life have passed where you knew that soon you would lose something monumental? in death, in rebirth, in transition or in the general sands of time. in those moments and that recognition of that loss were you conscientious? were you careful? did you take that moments and catalogue all the things that you felt, smelled, saw, heard and touched? did you sit in the dark and see the outline of the person next to you and hear the rise and fall of their breathing and feel that ache spread into your rib cage because you knew that it would be the last time that you would be close enough to smell them? perhaps they smelled of musk and of sex and smelled exactly how they tasted when you touched your mouth to their shoulder and the soft indent in the back of their neck. did you exhale that heavy breath full of sadness and regret about the unfinished things and the loss of the goodness and beauty between you into the night air and feel it linger around you in it's weight and potency? did you see them that morning in the early light as it peaked through the blinds and memorize how their hair stood up against the pillow and how their skin was sprinkled softly with only a few freckles - three to be exact?

i recommend that before you live the next day you commit a few things to memory and you commit them so fully and with such detail that everyday beyond this one you have those moments to come back to. life is not worth living unless the precious details make an imprint on us... on our hearts and our minds. life is not life without those blaring flashes of impatient memories that bring us solidly back to a different time... the time before we know what we know now. that instant is so bittersweet and so powerful that without it i might go as far as to say you have not truly lived in your own skin.

some roadtrip advice... to myself... or you...

as i start this blog the playlist is playing in my ears and i have to admit the sound of the bass from the shins makes me want to dance a little...

not the kind of dancing that you do when you are out and aboot but the kind where you are sitting somewhere and you kind of shake your hips to the beat... sometimes we even move our head with it and make it a whole upper body kind of dance. a chair dance if you will. the dance you do in the car with the radio cranked while you're driving on the highway. perhaps even while you are driving there are miles peeling away and although you're on your way to a destination it seems like forever lays between you and there. sometimes there is a break in the monotony of the landscape that catches your eyes for just a second. a horse, an old farmhouse, a tractor rusting in a field, a sign with something bizarre written in red paint or just a tree that is outstretched and welcoming as if a picnic beneath it's branches would be welcomed and appreciated. your eyes snap back to the dotted line in front of you and you continue to drive. you think abstractly about life. about the things you've done. about where you've been. about the people you know. about the things you hope to do. about what you think all those things mean. you wonder if you are hungry or have to pee because there is a small town on the horizon. chances are you want to stop but somehow you just keep driving because we can't stop in every small town in america otherwise we'd never get anywhere now would we?

sometimes you do stop. you pull over and go to little restaurants like the wheat montana deli
or a little truck stop that has a bored clerk ringing up purchases beneath a dirty shirt and a flat smile. in those truck stops it's nice to wander the aisles for a few minutes and really see what it is that they have to offer. it gives a nice break from the constant stream of questions and thoughts that seem to have taken over the car. sometimes you chide yourself in an annoyed voice about how you should just stop worrying about so much and relax. enjoy the drive and whatnot. sometimes you tell yourself to shut the fuck up and buy a gatorade even though there is already one in the car... or a fountain soda even though they aren't good for you and you don't even really like them.

here is what i have to say to you. yes the chair / car dance is cute and yes all the questions are somewhat annoying. i understand that if you have to spend 5 days or so not speaking to anyone but yourself that you may get a little sick of yourself no matter how funny or interesting you are. what i don't understand is why you can't just enjoy the silence. wait for big ideas and thoughts to come to you. perhaps this time is better spent contemplating the space / time continuum or a clean energy source. why do we have to revisit the old shit? the old disappointments? the old ideas that have been discarded because they aren't applicable to our current life? i know you don't really want to leave for this destination and i know you have been somewhat homesick for connecticut. there is nothing anyone can do about these things. you simply have to move forward. you have to. we're taking a positive attitude and pretending that everything is fine because in all fairness possession is 9/10ths of the law and if motion and attitude invade your mind you'll have no choice but to be positive.

in fact i'll go out on a limb and say that this next roadtrip is just what you need to be able to process the last few months. there is a value in being disconnected... off the grid if you will... there will be some camping in iowa / nebraska and then you'll be with the lovely lala. between lala and phoenix there is another 1000 miles or so and perhaps there will be another night spent camping... although i hope not in albuquerque because you know how we feel about that place. it's not that it's bad... it's just that it's well... boring like a huge strip mall but not the good kind with a secret restaurant tucked into the corner or a little shop in which you can buy stationary that you'll never write letters on but the bad kind that has check cashing places and curio shops. god we hate curio shops. not antique shops mind you... just curio shops. we love old stuff and really are bored and disgusted by new shiny things that clutter lives and shelves... there isn't enough room in your life for new things to clutter anything considering all the old things we're still carrying around and moving from state to state.

on that topic; perhaps while you're on your roadtrip if you have time between melodies from the shins and little chair dances you may want to think about some of those old things and try to get them all worked out in your head. you may even want to stop in some small towns along the way and see if there is anything there that will somehow explain how it is that you are where you are and why the hell you're doing it.

cute hair, good music, great mood

so i got a new haircut and it's even cuter and sassier than the last one. i love love love cute and sassy hair! additionally there are pictures below but first we must take care of the playlist for today! find that below... but beware that i am in a mood for guilty pleasures and some top 40s music... it's my i can't wait to get the fuck on the road mix... and not because i can't wait to get there but because i love road trips:

so i've thrown down the gauntlet that i've never been cuter in my life and i never will. this haircut is my favourite in a long long time... to be honest it's been such a long time since i've loved my hair that i can't stop looking at this new do. maybe that's why i'm so cute because i think i am... they say feeling that way inside makes it look like it on the outside... whatever it is i am so thankful that caroline could fit me in for one last haircut and that she was generous enough to let me copy her super cute hair.

i'm leaving on a road trip on monday. really it's an excited nervous high - i'm leaving WISCONSIN!!! so long suckers and snow and i'm going to be on the road. i love pulling out with all my stuff in the car and being in total control of what happens for the days i'm on the road. remember i'm pretty much no maintenance these days - so camping on the side of the road, sleeping in my car, eating oatmeal or granola bars and fruit and drinking truck stop coffee are things that make me a happy happy girl. add taking self portraits while pulled over in random spots and taking pictures of trees and you have magic as far as i'm concerned. i just can't wait. i can't wait... oh and i think it could go without saying but i won't leave it... cuz well i'm just in that kind of mood... i'll be done with passive aggressiveness and i can officially say "i got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one..." already i can feel myself feeling restless and excited... happy... elated... i'm literally beaming. sometimes it's good to be free right before the shackles are officially locked onto your limbs again... after this it will be back to work until april... but it's been an awesome run -- october 1st to now without working one day. unless you consider dealing with family stress, 10 inches of snow and worrying everyday about how it's possible that everything is going to work out a jobby job. which now that it's all over i really don't... i definitely enjoyed my little hiatus from the slave force that is our economy.

the roadtrip plan goes like this: leave 'sconsin on monday sometime before noon. drive about 9 hours into nebraska - omaha (ish) and find a place to sleep for the night...
tuesday morning get up for some truck stop coffee and then drive about 8 hours into denver... where i will stay tuesday & wednesday with my sister the lovely lala who is great. i plan to have great times with her and meet her kitten optimus prime and then perhaps we'll have some drinks and stay up late talking about everything in the world and how the ocean makes problems seem smaller since it is so so so big. additionally we'll probably take cute pictures of ourselves in sunglasses and make funny faces.
thursday morning ish get up and drive to pueblo to see uncle tony and brigette. stay thursday night in their brand new nice house and have some drinks and good times... plus confirm our cabin reservation for our april trip.
friday morning get up and drive the 11 hours into phoenix and end up at shannon's house just in time for the weekend!
hopefully my cell phone will get fixed on the road - as soon as i can find a t-mobile store - those stupid mother effers. i hate that i have a $400 phone that doesn't do anything except hold phone numbers. it's totally stupid!

so many good good things. new hair, roadtrip and the planning of the april trip to the canyon.

the april trip is an awesome plan and no matter who shows up i'm going. i'm totally going. all the other suckers can sit around discussing if they want to go, if it's too early to plan and all the other sucker details. it may just end up being zach, liam and i. if that's how it all shakes out i think it will still be awesome! we're planning a week with some days up at the family cabin in flagstaff, at least two days hiking and one night in the grand canyon and then MAYBE overnight in vegas.... it's the best of all worlds: activity, a once in a lifetime event, relaxation and VEGAS! what other kind of vacation could you do all those things???? seriously it's four months away and i'm super excited.

so things are good. i have good things in front of me. i have good friends with me. i have good in my heart and i'm finding the good in things instead of being miserable about the changes. it's all a state of mind right? right?? yes. it's all a state of mind. i'm rocking my new hair and an awesome mix of songs while thinking about how everything will work out. it simply will.

move it along

"sometimes i think its a sin when i feel like im winnin when im losin again" - gordon lightfoot
" and i went crazy again today, looking for a strand to climb, looking for a little hope" - fiona apple

sometimes beneath all the truths is the kernel of absolute truth. sometimes there are opposites that are completely valid. sometimes i think i am just the same version of myself stretched thin between all the points of reference that i have created and that in being all things to all people i am changed. the same and changed. i am both things all at once. i am nothing and something wrapped up in a fucking wreck. seriously.... nothin' to see here folks. move it on along. keep it moving. nothin' to see here. just head on your way.

tonight as i tried to fall asleep i imagined that all my life i have been watching the outline of trees against the sky, building, the ground, windows and various bodies of water. viewing the way the jagged jutted limbs catch light and cast shadows onto whatever is next to them. how the shadow or the outline dances ever so slightly as i breathe. how the branches look like lace if i catch them in my periphery... if i stand so still and watch the light filter down and don't breathe then i can almost see the magic of the earth. the magic of life. the simplest and most complete process that there is.... breathing, drinking and being nourished by the earth. i fucking long to sleep in a tree house like i did when i was a child. i wish that i could feel the big branches that are covered in bruised and darkened yellow leaves touch the palm of my hand right in the middle where it tickles just enough to make me want to rub it on my pant leg and then rub my fingers against the spot and then do it all over again.

perhaps i am simply one sundown or one sunup from understanding what it is that life is about. really thats all that keeps me here. really it's all that makes me believe that moving forward has a purpose. understanding. some fucking clarity. some sharp distinction between what should be and what should not be. justice. black and white. the moment in the movie right before the credits where everything becomes clear and everyone is left smiling .... or dead... whichever. i'm not picky.

have i mentioned that i haven't slept a whole night in a few days? have i mentioned that i feel very distinctly the sensation that i will fucking break? perhaps other people don't worry about it but it's whenever i find that i am lonely or afraid or just close enough to the edge – the edge where i’m absolutely certain that this is the time that i’ve gone too far, pushed too far and i’m certain that i'm going to fall apart from the sheer fucking force of my own uncertainty and failure closing in at my heels. but it hasn't happened yet... but it seems that this time may be the time.

what the fuck do i know right? someone once told me that i over think everything. they're right. it's one of my good qualities...

mondays are mondays

i'm standing here (metaphorically speaking of course because in actuality i'm sitting) and i'm surrounded by trees at the end of season, cool crisp weather and so many things that i cannot begin to process. i'm treading water emotionally. i'm getting really really tired and i'll be honest and say i don't know how long i can keep it up. i don't know what that means. i don't know what happens when you no longer keep it together emotionally.

i came here... i drove here and i believed while on the road that when i arrived there would be this moment. this fucking crystal moment from an after school special. people would be so proud. he would be so proud. he would see me for the first time. i would know him and he would know me. he'd be sick but we'd work through it and it would all be fine. things would naturally go back to right. people would fucking weep when they read of how it became right. it would verify and justify everything that has happened in the past. we would meet on new ground. higher ground. i have no reservations about saying that i was fucking deluded. i was crazy. there is no higher ground. there is no making it right. i am what i am. i cannot have more than this in my relationship. i have so much grief and frustration in that. i wake up everyday and look at myself in the mirror and ask why... why. it's the same question i've always asked and the question that i ask in my other relationships... why. why aren't i worth it? why not me? the funny thing is that i really like myself. i really really do. it's confusing that there are men in my life that don't. they don't see those things.

i feel like i love them... flaws and all and in return they love me with qualifiers. i wonder mostly why i haven't found a solution to this problem. seriously? seriously! i'm fucking 31. i'm so fucking frustrated i haven't grown past this. i haven't become an adult. fuck. ugh.

here is what i know for sure... these things i am certain of:
1. going to the gym was like having my own personal trainer. a personal trainer with a bmw m6 convertible. i'm not much for that sort of thing but i'm just saying it's nice. it's nice to have a new friend. it's nice to have someone who doesn't live in this house. i know that when we hang out part of the lump in my throat goes away. i don't feel on the edge of crying and not stopping... it's a distraction. sometimes i need to be distracted.
2. i've made a mess of an old friendship. i may have ruined it. for once i just can't forget it and smooth it over and stuff all the feelings inside. because right now i'm full of all the other feelings. i want to make it okay. i want to say i'm okay but it's just more than i can do right now. perhaps if i was a better daughter i would have the fucking sense to be a better friend. but i'm not. i'm simply not and so i have to just put it on the back burner and walk away and hope against all logical hope that when i get back to it that it won't be ruined. perhaps when i can get back there it will still be edible. in the meantime i feel like shit.
3. i thought that perhaps i had found god... or some close version that gave me solace. (yeah, i didn't know he was lost either but people are always saying that they found him). i felt so sure. i even felt like we had a mutually interested relationship. but since i've been here.... "home" the voice and the certainty have gone. i don't know what's true anymore. perhaps that's just another set of expectations that i can't live up to. i don't understand why when things were easier that i was so sure. i don't understand why when things are so hard right now... a fucking struggle each day that i feel like that peace is completely gone. not enough faith? let's just put it on the list of opportunities that i held in my hand and somehow let go.

i'm going outside... a bike ride perhaps. everyone is gone and still i feel like i have to escape this house. escape my own thoughts.... how fast do you think you have to go to escape yourself?