Dream Big

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...."

schools out for the summer

or indefinitely... i'm not sure on this one.

it's time that i had some space and time for some personal renovations. in being honest and hopeful about that i have to spend what energy i have on the direction i'm going... and well, it's not been tested by the fda yet so i can't say that it's fit for human consumption.

it's simultaneously a huge deal and not a big deal at all. i'm sure i'll be back blogging soon... in the meantime keep checking out these things:

cover lay down - the best music blog and insight into the relationship between the human soul and the love of music itself
hypem.com - the place to check out new tunes and listen to them online in their whole goodness
this american life - the most amazing thing in the world... true life... real life captured and perfectly painted over the course of an hour
radio lab - mr. science meets this american life... for insightful and intelligent goodness

additionally don't forget to love, save the world, be still and quiet sometimes and as abraham lincoln said..... "whatever you are, be a good one."

the chorus of the universe

i was going to write a lot of things tonight.... but i am reminded as i sit down to this very public venue that not everyone likes their life to be read on the web. not everyone likes to throw their emotional guts out there and have others feast on the sweet meats like some internet hannibal lecter enjoying the salty and rawness of fresh destruction and death. so out of respect for the more squeamish i will abide to my first rule and only divulge here what is mine to divulge. i may be a cannibal and a voyeur but i'm not an asshole...
instead of the original post i wrote another post... long and poignant and deeply personal and then realized again that it violates the rules of opening up others to the public living that a daily blog can create... so i had to censure myself again.
in the place of those two things i can only give you this brief something..... something about making mistakes and having the opportunity to be forgiven, something about finding out once and for all what a person you love really (i mean no holding back REALLY) thinks about you, something about deserving that accurate and pointed judgment, something about giving up and then deciding i'd rather give in, something about being flawed and imperfect and finding out that it hasn't changed, something about how if jameson can't fix this cluster fuck i've created we're all in serious trouble, something about anxiety and the restlessness that comes from being on the cusp of failure and success all at once and lastly i was going to write something about the beauty and dichotomy of stark contrasts.
that last subject matter is the only thing i can manage for right now because the rest of it is a rat's nest of stupid emotional rawness that i still haven't had a chance to figure out... do i cut the blue or the red wire? will this shit blow up no matter what i do? this is officially the scariest environment imaginable... but that is not the point.
here my dear friends is the point.....
as my plane glides over clouds, not the puffy ones but the ones that are stretched out and thin as gauze over the landscape, i see beneath me a mountain range. i identified in the landscape the beauty of contrasts - the elusive wonderment in only seeing one thing because you've seen another - light for dark, life for death, love for hate, smooth for rough and internal fulfillment because you've been through the void. i have seen and felt all of those things, sometimes it's all the good ones, or all the bad ones, or in the good moments they come in paced intervals one after another in waves that i can breathe through. stark contrasts illuminate what we want to see and what we like about the picture of ourselves and others. i myself have seen the dark overwhelm me and the light fill me in the space of 2 long days, been loved and honoured and cherished and then discarded in the space of 24 hours and have felt the smooth feeling of flying and then the rough realization that flight is no longer even an option. now i suppose it's up to me to find that ever escaping and twirling and curling mythical beast called fulfillment because if we're all being honest and i don't know why we wouldn't be here... i've seen the void and i'm frustrated and sick to death of it.
funny how different things can come together to say exactly what it is that you've been searching the dictionary of the universe for the chorus to...

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.