Understatement of the Year

"Lynne Spears' book about parenting has been delayed indefinitely, her publisher said Wednesday." -AP

An Elegy

I wax elegiac today in memory of a brave and inspiring soul. As he makes his way through the arched trees and into the calm and peaceful valley of the afterworld, I reflect on the way he has touched my life.

My sophomore year of college brought change and heartache. I began the year with a new boyfriend. I moved into an on-campus apartment with a few friends, or so I thought, and I had a class with a sworn enemy. Okay, not really, but Tiffany and I were not friends in High School, and while I knew our paths would cross as English Majors, I still wasn't prepared to see her so soon. The class was was an English core in Fiction, reading it and writing it. I hardly remember what we read because I was engrossed in the writing. At the helm, the soon-to-be-Doctor Professor Scott Odom. He was a father and a Ph.D. student, a writer of published and unpublished works. He loved his students with a passion that is rarely seen amongst the professors and teachers in our lives. He helped us write, encouraged us to have our writing read by others, and apparently, had cancer. We never knew.

He is gone. With him he takes the stories, the tears, the elation and frustration of hundreds of writers. The confidence and trust placed with him will follow him to his early grave, and for this, I mourn. He was a wonderful man, a talented writer, and a positive soul. He worked so diligently each day, something i can't say I would have the courage to do were I struggling with his disease.

He was in my life for a mere semester, but he affected some of the changes that would affect me forever. I started my novel in his class. I read it to him in his office. I sent copies of it home with students and peers for their parents to read. I emailed it to my entire family and heard their feedback. i have never been so open with my art. And you know what else? Tiffany and I talked, she shared with me the troubles she faced, and I gave her mine. We made s'mores over the burner in her dorm stove as she listened to my problems with my roomates, and we became lifelong friends. I became a lifelong writer. i believed in myself and my ability.

I suppose my sadness comes from my own failure to communicate this to him. He was young; I guess I assumed I had all the time in the world to gather my stories, write them, have them published, and present him with a copy and a note of thanks. That time, like Dr. Odom, has passed. I am sorry.

Bittersweet

Ah growing up...

Why is it so difficult to say goodbye?

It sit at my computer in my cubicle at my new job, surrounded by the sounds of progress and professionalism. I type away at a project descripion, reveling in the information about groundwater and wells, the headphones digging into my ears, and the first strains of a familiar song enter my brain. It is a song by Death Cab for Cutie. I close my eyes and lean my head back and let me thoughts drift where they will. I am in college, freshman year, in the dorm room of a friend. He takes a cd from a case and places it in his computer's disc drive. The music begins and, almost instinctively we both fall at ease, sinking into uncomfortably hard chairs. It is my junior year. The Los Angeles sky threatens rain, my favorite weather condition. I pull my iPod from the depths of my bookbag, setting it to rest atop Complete Works of Shakespeare. The sounds of Death Cab enter my headphones, forming the perfect musical companion to grey, cloudy skies. I trudge uphill, across campus, toward home. The campus has been decorated for Christmas, one of the lovely things about attending a Catholic University. It is so beautiful it almost hurts. The chapel, its large, circular window surrounded by a lighted wreath, forms a foreboding shilouette against the contemptous sky. I pass a large Christmas tree, its ornaments shining and glimmering in the last light of dusk. I make the familiar turn past the building we called Gotham, three stories of stylized concrete and glass, steaming in the cool damp. I pass the residence of the Jesuits and reach my favorite vista. i gaze across the sea, take a deep breath of the cool, stormy air, and watch the threatening sky swirl and stir. I walk into my dorm complex, full of light and laughter. It is similar to an apartment complex, the kind kids like me could never afford. the center artium glows with orange light and the fountain plays and teases the light. Up one flight of stairs, across slate hallways, and into my door, emblazoned with holiday greetings. the warmth hits me, and the familiar sounds flood my ears. I pause Death Cab, and greet my roomate and best friend. I was not in the place where I was born and raised, but I was happy, content, accomplished; I was home.

Why can't I return there? Christmas reminds me of the freedom usually associated with the holiday. School would let out, finals finished, papers submitted. How did college pass so quickly? Why didn't I stop and enjoy it more often. I tried to. I would stop, like the night described aboved, and try to breathe it all in and save every feeling. But I knew, even then, that I couldn't. I sensed my own mortality, the mortality of the moment, even then. I can't say whether it tainted the experience or made it more beautiful and telling. Now I work in a job where much is expected of me. I write for the good of the earth if not the good of my soul. I will work on Christmas eve and the day after Christmas, New Year's Eve and my birthday. I will spend the majority of my time here. I leave, and my head is full of ideas and themes from the proposals I have written and not the justice involved in public policy creation or Richard III's motives behind killing his nephews. Life is different, yes, but better, worse? I don't want to make that distinction. Things are always better, things are always worse, things are just different. What is consuming my mind now is the knowledge that each progressive era had its place in my life but each one has ended. There is no going back.

Dreams

Do you ever find yourself thinking about something that had happened recently only to discover that you had dreamed this event? After recent conversations about this, and my proclamation that people, in particular, can appear in dreams as symbols of a feeling, I had one of a series of unsettling and serene dreams.

I stopped being friends with one of my life's closest friends over four years ago. I have thought the situation over many times and become complacent with the realization that I had done the right thing. She wounded me in ways that I had not known were possible, wounded my idea of self-worth, my beliefs on friendship and love, and my relationship with my favorite institution to complain about (really, more than the government): the church. Despite the pain, the anger, and the disappointment I have felt toward her, I have had a series of dreams in which we are friends again. The dreams are serene and feel quite wonderful. We are happy; we laugh and talk and I miss her in my waking hours. Or do I?

I first associated these dreams with guilt. I know that I am quick to remove offensive particles of humanity from my life. People, unlike things, I discard quickly. I sum them up, and, once judged, I expel them from my sight. This is strange considering my habit of saving everything else: ticket stubs, birthday cards, anything to preserve my precious memories. So when I started to have dreams of this person I attributed it to guilt in expelling her so quickly. She had, after all, approached me in an email and asked if we could be friends again. She had also said that she did not regret what she had said to me in our "final conversation." her mistake. I decided against contacting her if she could not apologize. The dreams continued. They were never confrontational, only happy, joyous. Then she called me. Hearing her voice on the message sent a chill down my spine. I don't handle confrontation well. I avoid these moments. However, because of my dreams, I called her. I decided I was more comfortable with email, and we sent a series of messages back and forth. All they taught me was that she was (still) exactly who I thought she was. I felt silly for wasting time and thought over our interactions. the emails dwindled away and I felt healed.

Then I had another dream. Last night. This morning I felt slightly lost, tinges of pain washing over the farthest reaches of my memory. Was it because of her? Do I miss her? I don't think I do. I know, in the present, coherent moments that she is not a person that enriches or enhances my life. Hell, she's not even nice. So I thought about it today and this is the sad conclusion I came to: I miss having a best friend. I have one, and she is amazing, but we are distanced by many miles and some strange circumstances. In part, her boyfriend across the globe has caused friction between us, especially since I am not one to lie when asked for my opinion, and only honesty spills from my lips, if I am required to give any other answer, it is silence. It's not all his fault of course, or hers, I know that my relationship with my significant other, as it grows and blossoms every day into something stronger, more beautiful, also forms a sort of roadblock in communication with anyone else. I am used up, loved and spoken for, and expressed, until I have very little, or nothing, left to say. And yet I am fulfilled and refreshed by his love and want to scream it until my lungs burst and can't (for fear of being annoying). He tells me that I am his best friend and he should be mine. He is so much more than a best friend, and the designation of best friend, in my mind, is a girlfriend.

So, if you are still reading this and you find yourself wondering over dreams starring characters from your past. Rest assured that their meanings will become clear, whether you like it or not.

More to be thankful about

I'll make this quick, because I have a lot of work to do in the last 5 days of my career here (at my current job).

My little dog (all 70 pounds of him) is feeling much better after a scary vet visit and scarier prognosis: pancreatitis. He is on a special diet and is back his old self, which means energy to spare and lots of licking. We're working on that... As I bought his new food last night, spending $30 for about a one-week supply I thought, "wow, this is insane, but he is so worth it!"

My little man (all-I'm not going to say how much Josh weighs!!) is safe! He finished the Baja 1000, crossing the finish line around 3 a.m. I had been tensely watching the little dot that represented his car on the map of Mexico since he started his shift around 6 p.m. I finally feel asleep around 11 and was awoken by a phone call. Josh's mom had been watching the screen non-stop. Both our hearts stopped when his car stopped, for about an hour. We worried in our separate houses if he had crashed or gotten hurt or was stuck, or broken down... Linda was so upset she told me she got in her car and went for a drive to stop herself from staring obsessively at the screen. But the little dot that said "1610" made it to Cabo San Lucas and I got a phone call from the victorious race car driver! Safe, in one piece, and probably very tired. Too bad he has a 24 hour drive home...

My journey

I don't have much time to write.

That is a motto for me right now, I think. I don't have much time to write this time, right now, and in general as well. But I want to say one thing.

I am thankful!
I am thankful for my life, my circumstances, most of all, my journey. I so incredibly grateful that my life has worked out the way it has, even though portions have been painful and overwhelming, and probably will be again. For now, I am reflecting on what is right rather than what is wrong. I am starting to see the direction my life is taking, and it is shaping up to be everything I wanted it to be and more. There is so much more that I can offer, and I feel as though my potential is shining through, so brightly that even I have caught a glimpse of it. I am optimistic and hopeful. I appreciate every moment and how each one has led to where I am now. I feel at peace with my circumstances.

I am lucky.

Thank you!

Halloween

So this has been a crazy week, but I do not let my favorite holiday go unrecognized. Ashley and Brittany joined me for a pumpkin-fest. We ate themed foods, starting with spiderweb soup and black-and-orange sandwiches, bone sticks, orange candy corn punch, and ending with worms and dirt.

Happy Halloween!!

Yep. That's all.

I love this holiday!

Quest for the Dress

I went to about the fifth dress store that I have tried this past weekend, and I fell in love. Well, to be honest, I had already fallen in love with this gown, but when I tried it on again, I really loved it.

And then I found out how much it cost.

Back to the drawing board...

Stop it!!

Okay fires, I've had enough. I don't think I can take any more of this. Please stop. PLEASE.

Tonight, I plan on driving the twenty minutes from where I live now (north county) to where I grew up (I know I went so far away--south county). I have been told that 200 homes have burned in the canyon, and as the fire rages on in one of my favorite places on earth, I urge you to think not only of the houses, displaced people, and lost possessions (as they do have insurance, after all) but to also think of what nature has lost at the hands of an arsonist. Silverado, Modjeska, and Santiago Canyons are full of some of the most beautiful, breathtaking, and stunning creations God ever made-live oak and sycamore trees. many of them are hundreds of years old. They have witnessed the changes that are so emblematic of California. The Native Americans moving into the area, the Spanish entering the canyon and using its timber to construct homes and missions, the last Native American massacre in Black Star Canyon, the gradual progression of other settlers, and eventually increased commercialization and track homes. However, as part of its appeal, the trees have not witnessed as much change as most areas in Southern California. Many areas are still completely untouched, and the majority of the homes are tucked away in extremely rural locations.

The trees, the native landscape, the natural habitat, to me has always spoken of the past, what California has been. I could not count the amount of times that I have driven through the canyon simply for therapeutic reasons, and gazed out at the colors, the fantastically muted greens, purples, and blues that speak so clearly of the true California landscape. I have driven the canyon road and I have thought, so many times, about how lucky I am to like in the midst of such beauty. I thought about my dream home, on some remote plateau with views of nature and its miraculous bounty, even its times of want and lack, and how each phase compliments and leads into the next.

Of course, we are not only losing plant life. The canyon is home to countless species of wildlife. Deer, mountain lions, coyotes, rabbits, and hawks to name a few. Hawks have always captured my attention. The make lazy circles in the air, not like vultures signalling a source of food, but, in my mind, simply for the pure joy of it. They soar, they slowly circle, and I imagine them breathing in the scents of the air, taking in the scenery, and just reveling in the feeling of the wind in their wings. They are intelligent creatures, especially in tune to their surroundings, with excellent senses and above-average perception. It is no wonder that royalty in ancient England chose them for sport, respected them. There is much we could learn from hawks.

Among the natural landmarks stand several that are man-made, including the beautiful Modjeska House built by Madame Modjeska, a famous entertainer, in the style of Shakespeare's England sitting among the trees. Another landmark is the Rancho Las Lomas estate, where Josh and I should be getting married next October, God willing it makes it through this week. I remember my adventures in this canyon, hiking along hidden streams and finding the ancient grindstones of the canyon's first inhabitants. The mysticism of my friends in school as they discussed the ghosts that lingered from the Black Star Massacre and the Native American burial ground. Although the landscape looks nothing like this, I always pictured the knights of my daydreams to come galloping through the trees and off to another adventure.

I suppose I always believed that I appreciated the landscape enough, more than most, but facing the flames of some evil human I suddenly realize the strain of humanity on nature, my inability to fully appreciate what was there before it disappears, the longing I feel to be there now, and my gut-wrenching fear to see what is left.

This is why I will travel there tonight. I feel like I need to see it with my own eyes before I can heal. I need to understand what I will be dealing with this weekend, when the fore casted drizzle hits the embers of these fires and sends up the last plumes of sooty smoke. I need to know what we have lost, and then I need to grieve.

Fire

I have always been terrified of fire. I don't remember one singular event that brought this on, but I don't remember a time in which I wasn't scared of it.

Maybe it is this fear, or maybe it is because I have feelings, but for one reason or another I just cannot get my head around the act of arson. Why would someone want to start fires on purpose, knowing the destruction they cause? Does this person get some sort of thrill out of hearing the roar of the flames, the shrill call of sirens? Does this person feel a rush when looking across the land, once green and lush with vegetation, and now black, smoldering, inhospitable? I like to hope not, and yet I am faced with this harsh reality.

Venting...

I think I have worn out the ears of my fiance' in the last 24 hours, so i am venting to my blog. Oh dear blog, please never tire of me.

I try (operative word being "try") to choose to be happy, to make decisions that make me happy each and every day. In spite of this, I still get frustrated. I need to feel worthy. I need to feel as though something I do makes an impact. I need to work harder at making decisions that make me happy. I wish I had more spare time, but I don't, and it all boils down to this: I need to do things from one minute to the next based on the happiness of myself and those I care about. I am going to try, at least.

Photography Experiment

On Saturday, Josh and I drove up to Big Bear to meet up with his parents. He wanted to live out his *great dream* of riding up to Big Bear on the Harley. He informed me that his dream didn't include a windsheild, so we went without. Yeah, my neck hurts. But it was fun and the results were pretty good. See for yourself...

We were able to pull over and oh-so-quickly take a few shots. My wonderful guy was patient and excited for me, and never minded that I was throwing him off balance a little... I like this one because I think it could be used in an ad for the "Harley experience." If only there was a sound clip to go with it!

Did you just make the sound effect in your head? Well I did.


Can you see the super-stealth ninja photographer in this self-portrait?

Pain earned

Yesterday was wonderful. It really was. I woke up on my own (that took a while) and let myself linger in the warmth of the sheets for some time. I picked up the book I am reading (The Alchemist if anyone was wondering) and absorbed its message for a while.

Later on that morning, my aunt came and picked me up. We went to Home Depot to my favorite section--the garden section. We spent around $100 on plants. We took them to my grandparents' house, and we went to work. My grandparents were enjoying their last day at the Atlantis in the Bahamas, a well-earned vacation, and a nice way to spend the two weeks in between chemotherapy treatments.

Four hours later, covered in mud, sticks, leaves, brick dust (don't ask), and probably spiders, we packed up our shovels and headed home. It looked beautiful, if I do say so myself! We planted flowers and grasses and ferns in the two planters by the door that had been empty since I could remember (empty aside from ten million bricks). I crouched in the mud of Saturday's rain and weeded her roses. We raided the side of her house and her planting table for plants she wasn't using. My grandmother is amazing at taking cuttings from plants, especially plumeria which she has brought back from numerous trips to Hawaii, and making them grow. We planted them in the front yard. We washed the sideboards of the house, we hosed down the walkway. We swept, dug, and pulled until what was left was orderly, colorful, and alive.

My grandma called me this morning, and the conversation went something like this: "Korey Ward I love you."

I could hear the tears choking her throat.

She described to me how she entered through the garage and missed what we had done. My grandpa walked to the front door and starting banging on it. When she opened it (sounding annoyed, I'm sure) he covered her eyes and led her out slowly. She couldn't believe what we had done. We couldn't believe we had done it all in one day. I couldn't believe how dirty I was.

Wonderful.

My red-faced inner creative

So I like to write down ideas I have for things to write on, and I write them anywhere, on any available piece of paper. One place where I stashed a group of ideas was in a tiny notebook with necessary insurance information that I have been carrying in my purse. I also have a friend with a propensity to look in women's purses. She finds mine especially entertaining because it is large and I have been known to stow strange things in it.

So on one of these occasions she asks if she can look in my purse.
"Sure" I answer, because why not?
She starts to pull out various objects, like a collection of nail files, recipes I cut from Martha Stewart Living, and a full-size lint brush. Then she comes across the notebook. Before I can remember that I had stashed ideas in it and not just the phone number of my insurance adjuster, she has come across the page of writing topics. I can see on her face that she is about to read them out loud. I stop her. I blush.

She would never understand.

Similar experiences?

September 11

Just typing those words makes me shudder. Why does it feel as though it were just yesterday? I remember, as all Americans do, exactly where I was when I knew what was happening, although I remember not understanding it. Rather than discussing 9/11 again, I want to focus on what has happened since then. Americans were softened, scared, and caught off guard. We clung to each other in an attempt to reclaim the safety we no longer felt. A war started, and we were supportive, angry and vehement, we wanted blood. Once again, this was an attempt to reclaim something we felt was now missing. Then we began to turn, one by one, the more aware or more cynical citizens first, and began to hate the war, to resent it and all who supported it. We felt misled. We felt as though we had been reduced to sheep, duped and fooled into something that we were told would quell the pain, the anger, and the fear, and we became bitter and resentful. Once again, this was an attempt to reclaim something we had lost.

What America lost on September 11, in my opinion and among other things, was our innocence. No longer would the term "American" mean what it did before "the fall." Like the Fall of the Bible, we entered a post-lapsarian world and reacted in stages to the grim reality we faced. It was something more sinister and more psychological than pain, coldness, and hunger. It was a fall that had us challenging our sense of self, our relationships, our culture. Suddenly we did not know who we were, and we wanted someone to blame. We needed to know who offered the apple, and we needed to send that individual to Hell.

Was it hard to believe that the apple may have been offered by us? (Which I am not saying I necessarily believe) Or is it harder to admit that there was no apple? The question I am asking has very little to do with politics or nations, and everything to do with humanity. Did we face our greatest fear that day, did we face the apathy of our peers? Did we accept the grim fact that humans, in fact, are capable of such disgusting and terrible actions? Did we turn to one another in an attempt to blot out all of that hatred, (but it was so much worse than hatred, this apathy) and try to overwhelm it with love? Did we realize the futility in this pathetic facade?

How far I have come since 9/11...on that cruel morning I was a High School senior, getting ready for first period honors English, my favorite class and the sole reason I got out of bed in the morning. It was cold in the pre-dawn of 5:30 a.m. I was a much different person than the person reminiscing on this moment today. I still retain some of my latent cynicism, but much of it has gone by the wayside, thankfully. I was pessimistic (yes, more pessimistic) and my motto was, "if you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention. Fast-forward through my final year of high school, four years of trials, heartbreak, and the slow but necessary process of finding myself at college, one year of life after leaving Eden and joining world of work, and you have the person in a blazer and slacks, typing away at an office computer. Would my self today even recognize that self six years ago?

I hope not, although sometimes I miss her.

Goodbye summer, hello fall.

I love fall. Every year I feel refreshed and excited, even considering California's meager change of season. Sometimes I think that I am excited for every change in season, but I know I like fall the best. It is a beautiful and magical time, lacking the oppressive heat of summer. I do love summer's long nights and balmy breezes, and there is something about summer that feels like happiness, even after so many years have passed since I had a truly "free" summer. I think my excitement with fall also has to do with the school year starting, new beginnings and endless opportunity. While those days have passed, I retain the optimism of the early years.

Here's to fall!

Dude! This is so not cool!

So I really hope karma exists. Someone is gonna get it...

I was home on Saturday, not feeling well at all, and watching the Notebook. I ordered a pizza for Josh and I and he was on his way home from working from 6 am to 8 pm. I remembered I had a case of Pepsi in my car. I decided to run outside and get it. And I saw this:

Seriously, who does something like this? I am SO PISSED OFF!!!!

Events like this really make me doubt my faith in humanity. What kind of a people are we when we ignore the destruction we cause others to save ourselves the expense? Where I have to pay to repair the damage I had nothing to do with?

Take responsibility of your actions. Prove that you are a part of the human race. Try to think of others. Think of the danger we are all in when we begin to think of people as numbers or figures and not humans. Stop dehumanizing and start living fully!

Detroit, part II

So maybe I took this off-center on purpose?
Downtown.

Opa!!

detroit, part II

My dad dancing on the bar in a classy establishment called McNasty's Saloon.



Rock on!

Greek Town.

Memories, fun times.

First Day of School!

Well, sorta.
Since I work at a college I get to watch the blissful, nervous, and expectant faces of college students as they walk across campus on the first day of yet another school year. i remember all of the feelings, and as a person who love, love, LOVES school, I envy them. Not that I need to...

As I walked through the corridors of Santiago Community College last night, I thought of the sounds, smells, and sights of a new school year. *sigh* I love them! While I haven't always been excited outright for the start of school, it is still a treasured memory. I can remember the smell of my elementary school, the walls covered in paper leaves, children standing awkwardly in their new clothes. I think buying clothes and school supplies was my favorite thing about starting school for many years. I remember the aisles of pens and paper and the excitement of getting organized. I remember the one new outfit that would hang expectantly in my closet for that fateful day.

I can still see (still, because it wasn't so long ago) the waxed black and red checkerboard floors of St. Robert's, my favorite building at LMU. It would be full of hushed excitement, the pregnant pause before an onslaught of activity. I remember the joy of buying books for my college classes, having an excuse to purchase $90 collections of Shakespeare and Whitman, the shudder of excitement down my spine as I ran one hesitant finger down the book's corresponding spine.

Yeah, I know, I'm such a dork!!

And now I feel so fortunate for the classes I am taking, the hectic pace of life that replaced my studies has brought forth two opportunities to relive my school moments. I take a tap class with my future mother-in-law, and, if I don't chicken out in the next 24 hours, I will be taking a Renaissance Lit class at Chapman. For the master's program!!!! Oh grant me the courage to follow through...

hehe.

Detroit

Detroit, originally uploaded by koreyward06.

I spent the past weekend in my father's hometown of Detroit, MI. It was an interesting, tiring, and emotional weekend. It was also tons of fun, probably more fun than it is safe to have within three days. It rained, it was muggy, there was lightening, there was a tornado, it was hot, it was smoky, it made me miss my family that lives there even more and appreciate my home here in California as much as I should.

I have a wonderful, large, CRAZY family out there that misses me, loves me, and would do anything to protect me (really. anything.) In the midst of what was a pretty terrible week, I had a group of people waiting to see my face again, waiting to hug me again, and hear my voice again, and I realized all that I am thankful for.

I'll admit, it's hard to be there for long. They stay up late, smoke, and drink, none of which I do. There were arguments and fights, and Josh was basically tried before a biased jury of Wards. It was noisy and boisterous and real. It was emotional to be back in Lincoln Park, the suburb where my grandparents bought their house right after their wedding and after the war, the house they raised five kids in, the house my grandmother still lives in. I had a flood of memories of this place where I spent the summers of my youth. My mom would take my brother and I at least a week earlier than my dad would arrive to see his own family so that he could work as much as possible. My mom was always so well loved by his family that I never understood that marriages were the combination of two families, for mine has always just been one. It was hard to enter the airport terminal, remembering when my uncle Dave took us there once at the end of a wonderful trip. We sat in an airport restaraunt and talked and he left only when we had to go through the metal detectors and prepare to board. I could remember watching the sky outside of the terminal windows turn black and start to pour. My uncle turned right around and picked us back up, as though he knew instantly that we wouldn't be able to fly. He was all smiles as though the rainstorm was part of his plan. We spent one more night with him and repeated our goodbyes the following morning. That was the last time I ever saw him.

I teared up several times on this trip, for various reasons.
I appreciate my circumstances, and the fact that I can afford to travel there again to see this wild, unpredictable group of people who love me with hearts so large. Their love is limitless and perfect. It is rambunctious and angry at times. It is just what I need to reaffirm my existence on this globe. Thank you, God, for giving me this family. I only hope that I deserve their love. Thank you, Ward family, for teaching me countless lessons about how to live and love.

Old Proverbs, New Shoes

Some old proverbs ring true.
"Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes" is one of my favorites. I like it because of the simplicity of the prompt, the straightforwardness of the language, the image it evokes in the mind of the recipient, and because it is such a difficult thing to do.

There are people whose "shoes" I know I could not wear. I worry that I do not have the courage to get even a few steps forward on that journey. This is something that makes all of us unique. We have different loads to bear, and we handle them with different levels of comfort and skill. i believe that God never gives us more than we can handle, and this is something that I have repeated to myself in my darkest times, and it has carried me through. I look at the characters in my life story and find some that seem miraculously well-fitted to tragedy, and they handle it with grace and honor. There are others, and I hope I do not fall into this category, that struggle with the few problems they face. We are all given our own loads to bear, and we have to trust that someone more powerful than all of us knows which weight He can assign to each pair of shoulders. Let this idea carry you through your darkest times, let it lift your face when you feel burdened and weighed down. Let it give you hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Sean and Michelle

Sean and Michelle 056, originally uploaded by koreyward06.

There's no crying in baseball!!

That was a League of Their Own reference for Krysta, but I thought it was appropriate for someone who is (in)appropriately crying right now. It's me, in case you didn't notice that already. In my frustration and sadness, through my inability to communicate the words I fear so greatly, I sit alone in my office crying into a tissue and hoping no one walks by. Am I more of a coward because I cannot talk about this? I always cry, and I hate it. It is my response to anything, happy or sad, and I get so upset with myself for succumbing to tears that I then cry even harder. I feel right now like breaking down and getting it over wtih would be more prudent, more healing, but I cannot.

All I can say is this: I hate you, cancer.

My Morning Pages (or lack thereof)

I am working on The Artist's Way right now, and as part of the healing process, I am supposed to be writing three pages longhand every morning. Well these are my thoughts this morning as I begin week three and sit here reluctantly. I do not like morning pages, I do not like mornings, I do not like longhand. It takes forever, my thoughts move so much faster than my hands, my handwriting is awful, my thoughts are jumbled and insignificant at best. I enjoy writing on the computer, I am used to it, I love it. Please don't forget that I am a child of the computer generation. I wrote my first story on a black and green screen computer. It was about a lion. I found the sensation that came from the empty black page and pulsing green cursor as exhilarating as I had once found an empty white sheet of paper. The computer is my ally. I measure my success by the abundance of clicks coming from beneath my fingers. That's all for now...if I have any more thoughts I will force myself to write them...


in the morning pages.

I am a coward

I have to admit to my own cowardice today.

I have become increasingly aware of my desire to enrich the lives of those around me, the lives I have the power to impact. As small as my desire is in scope, it has proved no less difficult than world domination or any other lofty goal. I have tried, I have succeeded, I have failed, but I have not been broken.

To quote myself, "I want to become a shelter from the storm of humanity to the people I love. I want to become a warm blanket to shroud them from the frigidity of hatred. I want to become the sharp blade of a sword, threatening and still, to protect them from anger. I want to be a resource in the confusion of living. I want to be a source of joy in the otherwise sullen lives of my loved ones. I want to be a candle in the darkness of the soul, and to illuminate all those around me. I hope to be all of these things and more. I am willing to sacrifice, to shelter, to protect and calm, to enlighten and enrich, and to exalt each precious soul that has turned to me and will continue to turn to me in the search for love."

I guess this was a very optimistic day for me. A diamond in the rough.

Now, as I am faced with the very times in which I must draw upon that strength I find myself cowering in some imaginary corner of my universe. I am faced with with a situation that I have feared and expected for so long and I feel all strength leaving me.

Lift me up, help me be the person I want to be, fill me with promise and hope so that I can truly be the beacon of Your light that I want to be. I need You now, to help me stand up straighter and face what I have known is coming for so long with dignity, respect, and grace. Dry the tears that fall at the merest suggestion of upcoming loss, quench the thirst for love that I fear will dry and crack from disuse, lift my soul from the depths of despair and fill it with your Grace so that I may help those I love in their times of need. How can I let them down now? I see the path You have for me more clearly each day and yet I find myself less capable of walking it. What has changed? Do I have more fear now? Am I hesitant? Was I once so strong because of my ignorance, my false confidence in my own bravery?

Get it over with

So I have to get this out.

I'm pissed off right now. Big time. And no one is helping!!!!

This is why my best friend is who she is, because she knows what response I want when i have news that TO ME is really obnoxious and terrible. She knows that I DO NOT want advice, no matter how truthful, because I CAN FIGURE IT OUT MYSELF and that I just want a kind ear and pity. Yes, folks, I am having a pity party for myself right now, and only Harry Potter has been invited because my best friend happens to be, oh so conveniently out of the country.


I resent the fact that I dwell in anger here and that it seems to block my creativity. I resent the fact that I have done very little, if anything to change this, although I think I am trying. I feel like I am wasting my life away while great ideas leave my muddled and angry mind. I should be anywhere else, thinking and writing, but instead, I am here.

Okay I'll stop now.

Role Reversal

Remember when you were little and you wanted to be just like your parents? You had good reason to, after all they had been around longer than you and had gained more experience, know-how, and most importantly, money than you would see for a long time. I remember thinking that I would never own anything as high-tech as my dad's waterproof camera...

Well now the tables are turning. Our parents, seeing the ways we spend our money, are turning to us for inspiration. Again, this makes sense, as we now have money and know what is new and trendy. The Internet has made up for experience and know-how in that we now know how to use message boards and reviews to decipher which products are best and which prices are lowest.

Exhibit A: Josh bought me my cotton-candy pink, flowered beach cruiser for Valentine's Day two years ago. Since then it has been enhanced with a matching bell and basket. I bought him a black cruiser for Christmas, with foam grips, a headlight, and a cup holder. As Josh's parents live nearby, we ride them over to their house often. They borrowed our bikes and took them to the beach, only to show up two weeks later with bikes of their own. His mom, on a cherry red version of my bike with matching bell and his dad on a black and silver bike like Josh's with the same headlight and cup holder. I thought how cute it was that his parents are now looking to him for stylish advice.

Then I received my wonderful camera for my birthday. My dad loves photography but has not owned a nice camera of his own in ages. He also loves digital photography and understands it quite well for his generation. He has bought my mom nice cameras and has been disappointed that she didn't get more involved in learning their unique and pricey features. He seemed impressed by my camera, and more impressed that I was learning to use it so well. He loved pictures that I took on a weekend trip with the family and his praise was substantial--for him. Now he has bought himself one. I am quite proud, actually. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, as they say...

Just like a child

Why was it so much easier for us to utilize our creativity as children? When did we develop the crippling inhibitions that prevent us from living and loving art?

When I was young, I would have described myself as an artist and nothing more. Now, I am intimidated. I feel as though I am not worthy. It is this feeling that has given me the terrible writer's block I have been suffering through for years now. It wasn't always this way. There have been times in my life when I was able to sit and write, when ideas overflowed my brain and I couldn't write them down fast enough. This led me to become a faster typist and a more composed speaker. I embraced the speed of the ideas and learned to cope with them and later use them to my advantage.

It is not as though I lack ideas. My mind is always creating stories, both imagined and true. I pull from the experiences around me and tell myself stories constantly. So why don't I write them down? I have been embarrassed and nervous about what I would create. I have this feeling as I go along that what I am writing is not good enough. I wonder constantly what type of audience I am writing for, if my words were published, what kind of person would buy them, where would it be reviewed? I am stopped from creating by the thought that what I will create will not be good enough. This is completely wrong. I need to write for myself, because the stories are inside me and need to be let out. The stories themselves deserve to be written and I deserve to empty my head of them. I need to create simply for the pure joy of the creation process and the feeling that I get from it.

Last night I painted two pictures, not to create something worthy of a museum or of accolades from friends and family, but simply to enjoy color and the pure tactile feeling of the brushes in hand. I had a difficult time doing this, I'll admit, and my self-consciousness almost go the better of me, but I fought through it. I definitely need to work on letting go of my obsession with creating something that meets the standards of others and simply enjoy the process. This is true art creation.

The best part was that when Josh called me to say that he was on his way home, he asked me what I was doing, and I was able to tell him that I was painting. He was happy for me. He was tickled at the paintings I made, and wanted to hang them up. He was genuinely happy that I was doing something that made me happy. It was just the support and affirmation that I needed. I went to bed with a smile.

Storyteller

This morning I was told that I should write my stories down.

Krysta had an idea last night that I should write stories. I didn't tell her that when i was little my family called me "Korey Story" because I always had stories to tell. For me, the line between truth and fiction was blurred and inconsequential. I knew, even then, intuitively, what people wanted to hear, and I delivered. I have written many stories, but not recently. I need to work on writing more of them again.

A while back I had this idea for a book that I was going to write. It was going to be about America, the people that make it up, the formation of families and the stories they have to tell. It would not all be pretty, but it would not all be Gothic either (despite the fact that Southern Gothic is my favorite style of literature, and anything I write is tainted with it). My view of America is a multicolored, ever-changing, beautiful nation, akin to the very American quilt. As simple a metaphor as it is, it works perfectly. The fabric of our lives are of different colors, textures, and qualities. Some of the pieces are worse for wear, some new and untouched by love, anguish, or emotion. Up close, a true quilt of scraps and leftovers is a cacophony of noisy prints and gaudy colors, but from afar it is beautiful. I would like to write my American family quilt and piece it together with the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

If ever a person was suited to write about the inhabitants of this great nation, it would be me. of course, it could be anyone here. This is not a country club or a church where length of membership qualifies you for anything more than what every other member enjoys. An American for life, for generations, or for one day is as much as American as any other. This is what makes me love this nation; the diversity and the beauty. I have to focus on what I love about the country because there are so many things I dislike. When it becomes time to write about the dynamics of American people; their families, their work ethic, their diversions, and their sagas, I draw from my experiences and those of the people around me, as well as the rich traditions and lessons offered up by some of the most stunning literature that has ever been written. Ecstatic at times, elegiac at others, American literature is vast, diverse, noisy, and ugly, but taken in context it is honest and beautiful. This is what intimidates me about writing anything in the tradition of the great American authors.

Of course, if I don't try I'll certainly never succeed...

Do you have something to contribute?

Saturday night I cooked dinner for friends, invented a recipe, played a board game and held a three-month old child. I felt at remarkably at ease, sitting amongst friends, a baby balanced on my lap, shouting out answers and laughing hysterically into the night. It made me crave to have a child of my own.

I have been at odds with the idea of becoming a parent for most of my life. In high school I decided that I certainly would not become one. I was angered by the accidental pregnancies and lackadaisical parenting I witnessed in my society, and I decided that unless you were predestined for parenting, you should smartly stay away from it. I was also pretty angry with the way the world was heading and my view of the future was somber at best. Why should I raise another human being to travail in this world when i did not have much hope for its future? I believed that I was too selfish to be a parent, and that procreation was too pointless. I thought the best, most mature and selfless thing I could do would be to own up to my inability and avoid having children. I still believe that this is a very mature decision, and one that should be highly respected. I believed then, and still believe now, that being a parent does not make you a saint, a respectable member of society, or even a good person. it only makes you a parent. In fact, some of the most despicable people in our society are people that were ill-suited for parenthood. I was determined not to be one of these.

In a college theology course we studied theological perspectives on procreation. Of course there was the Catholic view of God's plan for us, ad that doing anything to prevent His natural order was a sin. I disagreed. Later on, we studied a theologian with a refreshingly honest view of procreation. His idea was that anyone who denied to bring life into the world was hopeless and pessimistic. He said that to bring a child into the world was to believe that there is something here worth attending to. To have a child meant that you believed in a redeemable quality of life, that you felt there was something here worth noting, worth appreciating, and you wanted to bring life into this world to find that quality. I found myself pondering the things about life that were truly breathtaking. How could I deny a potential life the smell of wet grass after a sudden rain? How could I deny this life the first sight of the sun sinking behind the ocean? How could I deny him or her the exquisite and masterful sounds of Beethoven or the nuances of Milton?

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
-Shakespeare, Sonnet I

In college, I also found something else: an appreciation for myself. As Shakespeare says, a child is a reflection of one's youth after it has passed. I always avoided those who had children in some attempt to be reborn and to live life again. There are those who have children only to see themselves in the face of a child, a selfish desire to live on past death, or a vain ideal of maintaining the height of one's beauty by recreating it in a child. However persuasive the arguments of Shakespeare, I like the idea of passing something on to your children, of believing that there are things on earth worth being born for. In college I discovered many things about myself. I discovered that I have a unique contribution to this world, and I now feel as though I have a duty to pass this along to another generation. As this is the case, I do not feel tied to a biological string, although I look forward to the experience of being pregnant; I know that I could contribute to a life that bears no resemblance to my biological background.

I have only recently put this into words, only because the words have been provided for me. But I know now that these words explain the way I feel. The stirring in my being, the desire to parent a child, to raise, teach and foster the growth of another living being.

I suppose all things have a season, and the season that I could not have seen as a headstrong fifteen-year old is approaching, closer now than I could ever have imagined. I walk toward it with confidence.

Journaling

I suppose "journaling" is not a word, but I like it.

I am going to try and record my thoughts and goals in a journal which will remain in my purse. Wish me luck!

I am not particularly skilled at crafting goals for myself. For one thing, I am pretty adaptable. I don't have a place where I MUST see myself in ten or twenty years. Another thing is that I know how often i change my mind, and I don't want to tie myself down. I don't want to create a goal and then feel as though it has become an obligation. I should work on the visual goal board suggested in The Secret, but I haven't had time. Maybe that should be a goal!

My main "goal" in life is to be happy. I know it is very vague and I am comfortable with that. The upside of this goal is that it doesn't require any one life path, but any one that I follow which brings fulfillment to my life. Some people want to be rich, but if I am happy without money, why would I need it? When it comes down to it, aren't most goals intended to help a person reach a place in which he is happy?

Weakness Finder 2.0

Hi friends. I know we love to discover our strengths and work on them, and it does make a certain amount of sense to focus on ones strengths rather than his weaknesses, but that has not stoppered my curiosity about my weaker points. So I present: weakness finder 2.0.

Do you have underacheiver?
Perhaps naivete?
Or my personal favorite, judgemental!

Here are mine, according to weakness finder 2.0:

1. Retrospective
2. Negativity
3. Self-Doubt
4. Judgemental
5. Undisciplined

Let me know what yours are!

Friends

I have had many friends come and go in my lifetime. Some I was comfortable with leaving in the past, and others still sting to remember. The strange thing about having friends is the realization that they can change your mood completely from one minute to the next. They can cause you more pain than you knew you could feel, or bring you more joy than you knew you were capable of.

In my constant quest for truth and my place in this world I have relied upon many people. Some will leave you when you need them the most, others you know you can count on for anything.

I know that I am not the best when it comes to telling people what they mean to me. I try to improve, but it has always been hard for me to say what I feel. I know that if something happened in my life I could turn to my friend Michelle and that she would listen. Michelle, I hope you read this so that I can take this opportunity to tell you that I love you. I appreciate all of the things you have done for me, and the things you will do in the future. I appreciate that you are the type of friend that remembers every birthday and will call just to see how I am doing. I appreciate that you put the needs of others before your own consistently, and you do this without a second thought. God bless you.

In High School I had an argument with a guy at lunch one day and left school crying, only to find a bouquet of flowers on my door two hours later. It was a time when I needed to know that I was loved, and nothing more. I had a birthday where she distracted me with strange-acting friends at the drugstore who couldn't figure out how to fill out the photo envelope just so she could fill my room with roses, streamers, and my favorite candy. Yesterday, amid the confusion, frustration, and discontent of my day she wrote a beautiful response to my writing, and I found that it was just what I needed to remember why I write and why I should not give up on this dream.

Thank you.

And to anyone else that I do not express myself to often enough, please try to read through my words and find the meaning within. I am so appreciative.

Top Ten Fears

These are the top ten phobias in the United States
A phobia, by the way, is an irrational fear.

1. Acrophobia: fear of heights
2. Aerophobia: fear of flying
3. Agoraphobia: fear of panicking and then not being able to escape (usually explained as a fear of crowds, as in Emily Dickinson)
4. Arachnophobia: fear of spiders
5. Brontophobia: fear of thunder
6. Carcinophobia: fear of cancer
7. Claustrophobia: fear of closed spaces
8. Emetophobia: fear of vomiting
9. Necrophobia: fear of death
10. Sociophobia: fear of people or social situations

Why do we have phobias? And how many of these can you truthfully say you have been stricken with at some point? I can admit to 1, 3, 4, and 6, at least. Do phobias help us in any way? Typically, fear is learned as a helpful response to avoid danger or injury. A fear of say, cancer, is only a waste of energy, and yet why do some find themselves victims to these fears? What can we do to avoid them? Are some of us hardwired for fear?

I think that perhaps our fears are a reflection of an insecurity or a projection of fear onto a common or inane object. For example, perhaps my fear of spiders is a projection of a more rational fear (say abandonment or failure) onto the simple insect? Another thing: no one ever said that the things people fear the most are irrational because they are not scary or dangerous. Perhaps some of us have evolved a super sensitive sense of fear to things with relatively low risk through one bad experience or a simple neurosis. Flying can be dangerous. It is rational to fear heights to stop one from plunging to his death. Crowds can be very dangerous, as a person could be trampled or assaulted, and we all know the dangers of mob mentality. Some spiders are poisonous, (and well the others are downright gross) and should not be touched. I do not need to go into all of the fears, but each has a reason for its legitimacy, and yet the phobia is like carrying this fear past normal boundaries into obsession. Any thoughts?

Inner Strength/Outer Turmoil

"Lean on me, when you're not strong,
I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on.
Because, it won't be long, till I'm gonna need
somebody to lean on."

"When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella "

With the knowledge that I just posted lyrics not quite as poetic as they are catchy, I will proceed to explain my reason for this:

This weekend I got to thinking about love and strength. I believe that women in the U.S. are conditioned to believe that a man should step in and save them, and that this is the man they will marry. This is a theme prevalent in Western culture, reflecting the patriarchal values of societies in many countries. We look at Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Snow White as our guides. They are beautiful and privileged women (except for Cinderella, a testament to marrying up) who were saved by love. In these tales, the women are on the verge of destruction until a Prince Charming sweeps in to save the day. What is so strange, to me, about these stories is that the male counterparts of these ingenues sacrifice very little to save the ladies in peril, and always end up marrying them. Do we ask to be saved?

Sometimes I find myself falling into this feeling of codependency, and i wait to be swept away by love. I have been. There is a difference: while I have been saved by love, I have also done the saving. I know that there have been many instances in which I have been the heroine to my love, and I have sacrificed much in the meantime. In our sacrifices to each other we have found not only the allure of love, but a long-lasting relationship and respect. We save each other. There is no dominant partner here, only a realization that we need one another to survive in this cruel world. Because of the reciprocity of this claim, we have come to appreciate and respect one another, and on this is a true and equal relationship born.

The heights

Okay well I am not quite there yet, but I am getting there.

I realized today, concretely, the power of communication. I spoke to my mother on the phone and I was able to say things, more things than I knew I had to say. I communicated things that, until the moment they left my lips were known only subconsciously. They had been there all along, but I had not so much as thought of them willingly. But they were there, and I found them, and vocalized them. I felt the words leaving my lips in a flurry and listened intently as idea after idea flowed into the phone and my mother's ear. I was enthralled at the idea that I was communicating on such a level that even my conscious mind considered it unconquered territory.

I have a better idea now of who I am and who I want to become. It is coming together in my mind piece by piece as each day passes. I want to become a shelter from the storm of humanity to the people I love. I want to become a warm blanket to shroud them from the frigidity of hatred. I want to become the sharp blade of a sword, threatening and still, to protect them from anger. I want to be a resource in the confusion of living. I want to be a source of joy in the otherwise sullen lives of my loved ones. I want to be a candle in the darkness of the soul, and to illuminate all those around me. I hope to be all of these things and more. I am willing to sacrifice, to shelter, to protect and calm, to enlighten and enrich, and to exalt each precious soul that has turned to me and will continue to turn to me in the search for love.

I can be all of these things,

and I will.

The depths

I am feeling...defeated. I don't know how else to communicate the way that I feel right now. My mind is absolutely overwhelmed. I wish that there were more I could write, but words are not coming. I can only say that I feel defeated in this instance. I want to have the answers to life's problems, and I am faced time and time again with the reality that I do not and will not. And yet I continue to hope.

Admit.

After a conversation yesterday with my life coach, Krysta, I had a serious thought session inside of an MRI machine.

Perhaps I should back up and explain myself.

I asked her opinion on whether or not I should ask the fiance' to go to the hospital with me for this test. Her best friend had one recently and had brought her husband, and I was looking for some insight. Her answer made me think. She said that Jen had appreciated her husband being there, that knowing he was outside waiting for her had helped her remain calm. She said, besides that, "sometimes it is good to let them know that you need them." I thought about the enormity of this thought. It is hard for me to let anyone know that I need them. I go through life like so many people protesting my need of anyone to survive or enjoy life. I thought of the small ways in which I refuse to concede, even now. The times I will bang jars against the counter top and pull on their lids until my hands turn bright red before asking for him to open them. The times I get a chair from another room and carry it to my closet to reach the top shelf rather than asking for assistance.

But these are small matters.

What is more important are the matters of the soul that I refuse to ask for assistance with. We have had these conversations before, and I am certain we will again.
"Why don't you talk to me about it?"
Well why don't I? Because I want to figure it out on my own? It is hard to explain but each time I acknowledge my inability to do something without assistance, I feel as though I am losing a little bit of my self. I suppose it all boils down to the mantras of the single girl: yes I can, yes I will!
You feel that if you get used to the help of a guy, and rely on him, and someday he is gone, it will be hard to accept. You will feel inadequate. And being a kick-ass female is all about protesting your adequacy loudly and proudly day after day!
Why? Because I can! I will!
So here I am, contemplating my inadequacy to ask for help when I truly want and need it, while inside of a white plastic mask, under a sheet, locked into a tunnel of excruciating noise. My eyes start to tear up and my brain screams, "let me out of here!" but suddenly falls calm as I realize that when my 15 minutes is up, I will be let out, and he will be waiting for me. And he was.

Krysta's Thought for the Day

Question: How often do you assume that what you hate most about yourself exists in other people? More importantly, what do your relationships look like as a result of not loving yourself completely?

I know the answers to these questions intuitively, as I have raked my soul across hot coals to answer them truthfully before. I know that there are things about myself that I resent existing; I can feel the sore spots in my being. Those also seem to be some of the things that I resent most in others. Now I don't think I need to write them out for the potential world to see, but i do think that it is vital to my understanding and appreciation (yes appreciation!) of myself that I know what these things are. You cannot hope to understand yourself only by focusing on the things that you feel confident about. You should be able to understand the weaknesses in your character.

Why?

Well this takes us to the second question. We need to heal ourselves and forgive ourselves in order to give ourselves fully to another person. There is no part of my being that i have not inspected time and again in the past four years. I know that I have surveyed any aspect of myself that i could think of. I am giving myself to someone for all eternity, and I felt like I should know what HE is in for. I came up with a sort of mental list. It was refreshing (yes, I swear) to admit that I am messy and enjoy dropping everything on the floor when I walk in from work. Or that I avoid confrontation until i am too angry to speak calmly. I stopped denying things that I hated about myself. I stopped criticizing people for things (like being lazy or non-confrontational) and I started - gasp - appreciating and loving myself more. And guess what happened? I opened myself up to be loved and appreciated more in return.

Now that wasn't hard, was it?

My journey

My journey starts today.


Perhaps my journey started a little over one year ago on the day that I graduated from college. That is the moment that so many people feel defines the start of adulthood. I know I felt it long before then.
I have always put things into perspective. I always believed this to be an asset. I have had the ability to ruminate on conditions and events and put them into a larger context that would not define me, but enrich me. I never sought out definition. I viewed my life like a collage, each added picture contributed to the overall. I could never describe myself in one word, even ten. Imagine describing a collage in more than one word; it would be impossible. Each new contribution to my life has left a mark on me, never to be erased or removed. As I age, I become more complex and more beautiful. The stories that fill my mind and leave my mouth are the patches of my quilt of existence. I would be naked without them. Each fact, each moment, each experience I have carefully hoarded and saved away, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pull it out in all its glory. This being said, why would I want to define myself in one word?
In my culture, you do not ask someone what they are like or what they enjoy, you
ask them what they do. This is especially strange when you realize that so many people do not enjoy what they do for a living. So many people feel stressed, forced and pushed into categories. I defy categories. When asked what I do, even now as I sit behind a desk, working a job that certainly has a title, I never answer that question in one word. Some people probably think of me as merely wordy, trying to elevate my status with a series of words. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am merely trying to explain myself in a few words as possible, and nothing I do is plain enough to be described in one word. I hope it never will be.
I don’t have to be anywhere or do anything special. The things that may end up defining my life may seem simple to others, in fact I can guarantee they will. All that matters is that I am confident in my choices or my refusal to choose. Maybe not making a choice is my choice, and there is nothing wrong with that. I have tried to steer the people I know and love into decisions which will make them happy. I try to help them find a way to succeed that fulfills their purpose and brings them joy. I suppose it is easy for me to encourage someone else to find the “path not taken” while I enjoy a life of privilege and worry about nothing. I would make it on my own, I am confident of this, and yet I do not have to, not completely, and I use this to my advantage. I take advantage of every minute that I have to follow my passions, and for this I have no regrets. If the experiences of my life, good or bad, were spread in ink across my skin, despite my young age, it would be full. I am proud of this. I see beauty even in sadness, doubt and defeat, because I see life in it. I do not see the beauty in holding a job because it pays well and marrying a person because he or she fits into the life I am joining. I will submit to nothing. I will follow my heart.
I can see myself holding many positions and titles in my life, and this does not bother me at all. I am not focused on the long term ramifications of my career decisions. I focus from one moment to the next on following my heart and doing something I enjoy. I could list endlessly the things that I am passionate about, and this may come close to describing who I am, but any good writer knows that passions alone do not make a character. Of course there are reasons, facts, feelings, and stories behind them. There are always stories. I, for one, will not be placed in any box. In my lifetime I hope to hold a multitude of titles, in fact, I hope to hold many at once. I sincerely hope that at the end of this life, whenever that is for me, I can walk confidently into the next knowing that no matter what I did right or wrong, I lived. I want to know that I did what I thought was right for me in every instance, that I chose the decisions of my heart over my head (or anyone else’s for that matter), and that I lived from one happiness to the next.

No!

I refuse! I refuse to be a person that dwells in anger and frustration and sits, day after day, in a situation that displeases him. I want to do something with my life! Something inside me screams these words and yet something else urges me to stay, to remain complacent. I can picture what I want from life. I can feel it, altough it is not concrete, it is not spelled out or actual. I will know it when I feel it. What I feel now is that I should wait for the right moment to come along, and yet I do not yet know what that will be. I should be more clear. I desire to change the path in which my life is heading, and I do not feel valued, however, I need the money that I make, pitiful as it is, and I need to ensure that I would be making the right decision.

I want to take the strengths finder test. Not because I don't know what my strengths are, because instincitvely I do, but because I need to affirming power of knowing (rather than feeling) them. I will do this, and I will write about them, and hopefully that will help me decide where I want to go and what I want to do.

Wow, I just made something like a plan.

Anger addict?

Hi imaginary blog readers,
I am in a really bad mood. Have you ever had someone throw something nice back in your face? Have you ever been confronted with a person insecure enough to try and undermine and injure a family member with a heart so pure that he only wishes this person the best of luck, as trying as she may be? Well I am marrying into such a person. I knew this wouldn't be easy, but I didn't ever think she would stoop as low as this. Before I continue my sales pitch I suppose I need to explain myself.

This person I speak of is probably part of the reason that I despise Christian hypocrites so much. i don't call myself an anything, but I try to live my life after the basic moral tenets in my heart and the teachings of others that I find to be true. One of these is Jesus, but my moral guideposts are not limited to Him. I also look to my parents, friends, and others for the "right" in a sea of wrongs. I am constantly confronted with people who call themselves followers, and yet they do no single action to define themselves as such. It is as though some people call themselves Republicans, and yet they keep voting for Democrats and having abortions.

Hopefully such people don't exist, and if they did, we would all realize what a joke they are. However, do some spiritual name-dropping, add a touch of the mystical to the mix, and no one questions you.

Well I do.

Right now I feel called strangely toward Christian soldier-ism, and yet my kind of soldier is a sort of Pulp-Fiction-era Samuel L. Jackson, complete wiht Jeri-curl, gun, and an abundance of the word m#&%^r-f@&#er.

Why is it that I am so easily angered by people who protest their observance to a faith and yet follow none of the tenets of that tradition? I think I care because Christianity means something to me, as hard as it is for me to admit. I have never been hurt so deeply as I have by the most blatant, sticker-affixing and card-carrying Christians I have ever known. I'll be honest, it has made me reluctant to befriend such people. That, my friends, is pathetic and unfair.

Now as I sit here, becoming angrier at the minute, I question my desire to align myself with anyone else for eternity. I am fine with my choice of mates, and I want nothing more than to grow old with him and his every imperfection, but I am forced to align myself with others who share his past and his DNA. What have I gotten myself into. I do not maintain long-term relationships. Not with boys, not with girls (who would be friends, last time I checked my sexual preference). I don't know why I ever thought that I could possibly get along with other people without my Samuel L. Jackson hair, weapon, and vocabulary.

I am taking a trip down memory lane this afternoon. I am remembering the past friendships I've had and how they have ended, and i am becoming very skeptical of this magical realm of "love" and the less magical realm of "family."

Just when I start to be on good terms (possibly, hopefully) with my brother I enter into another drama-filled and anger-laden relationship. This is not what I want for my life. I protest! I want peace. I want happiness. I want to focus on the problems of others, heal them, and turn to another. How can I do that when I feel drawn in to and obsessed with the problems I face?

Undecided

I am trying to pull together my thoughts right now and finding that difficult. I have really run the gamut of emotions today. I was scared, exhilarated, nervous, happy, upset, and sad. now I feel just strange.

Sometimes I just wish that I could turn off whatever it is in me that causes me to over think and overdo everything. I give myself the same pep talks when I am frustrated and upset and they do not work. I feel like I can go from a place of exaltation, utter and complete joy and pride in myself, who I am and where I am going, to the depths of despair. I should not be able to, in a day, go from elation to sadness, pride to disgust. I think I care too much, and it even stops me from doing. I could do more for others and care less. I feel so overwhelmed sometimes.

In high school my motto was, "if you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention." In my eyes, if you didn't see the problems that plague our world and you didn't feel anything about them that you were morally flawed. I could not get my mind off of every little thing outside my control. I don't know why I care about things that do not concern me in any way, but I do. I know that my feeling bad will not improve anything, but I feel morally remiss to go on with my day while others suffer. I need to take things as they come I guess, evaluate them, and do what I can, if anything. I need to stop thinking about revenge and focus on something positive. I need to channel my advice to others (appreciate, rejoice) and dump it on myself and actually believe it and practice it. I want to feel accomplished and I am one of the many things that stand in my way. Can I change that? Will I ever escape the feeling that I am uncomfortable where I am now?

I need to do what I feel is right. I need to follow my heart. I trust that things happen for a reason. I trust that if I continue as I am now, good things will come of my life. I feel that retribution comes to those who deserve it. I feel that by living positively and doing what I feel is right I will be rewarded in the end. I think I am already being rewarded! I think I am very fortunate to be where I am now. I need to remember that!

We are the wounded

Okay, I'm pulling out the soapbox, yet again, for another discussion. this is not a new one for me, it is something I have spoken about time and time again. If you had been in lit. classes with me, you would be sick of this by now, but I think it is important for all of us to hear. I am my rant at Americans, because it is the culture I am in and the culture I know, but we are not alone in this. There are two forces at work here:
what I call "un"original sin, or the "sins of our fathers"
and
guilt.
If I were to write a Milton-esque mythical journey, Guilt would be my tragic hero. That is, I think guilt is underestimated in its scope and importance. But before I jump into guilt I must first explain my first force.

"Un"original sin.
I am not talking about the religious idea of Original Sin and the Fall, although it is important to note that we live in a postlapsarian world (that is, we are not in the Garden of Eden; we exist after the fall) and things are in no way innocent and perfect. In our current time, many years after the Fall, people made mistakes, if you will, and those mistakes have left a scar that does not diminish with the decay of flesh. This scar continues on through many generations of people and is passed, like a genetic disorder, from father to son, mother to daughter.
The "un"original sin I speak of is the sin that has commenced since the Fall of Man. It is the sin of fathers and mothers which is transcribed to sons and daughters of the flesh. Within this idea is the notion of inevitability. We know, as part and parcel of this new world, that humans will err, and to accept this is to accept humankind. However, what I don't think Adam and Eve considered as they left that garden, was that on top of their own physical pain and embarrassment, each passing generation would amplify and increase human suffering in a never-ending spiral until salvation. This is why: If Eve supposed (as she must have as an intelligent being) that after her generation her children would adapt to pain and become stronger for it, adopt the idea of foraging for food and shelter and assume it as natural, and suppose she believed that eventually the pain of their mistakes would disappear. There was one small factor that she did not consider. Entire generations do not start and end simultaneously. Children are taught and guided by their parents and society. The ideas that begin with one carry on to the next. Each passing mistake, ill deed or word, murder or betrayal becomes a part of a human, just as is his skin or bones, and just as parents pass along astigmatism or ashtma, so is pain transmuted from one generation to the next. not just pain, but predjudice, hatred, bitterness, hostility, and bias. We are never going to experience a new group of people who will wipe clean the slate of humanity's mistakes and start again, and even if we did, who is to say that the same things would not occur?
To sum that up, we all have baggage.
I have baggage as a woman in our society, knowing what has gone before and what is yet to be conquered. I have some new baggage, only as old as my parents' generation, due to my knowledge of the things they fought for. On top of this I have baggage only as old as my body, for as long as I have possessed this frame things have been done to me and by me that have left me forever changed.
Can we fix it?
This is where guilt begins. As if we weren't all damaged enough, we also have the guilt of those who came before us. We borrow and eventually take over the pain of our forbears as well as the guilt. We are all broken.
Now I didn't tell you how you could fix it. I should.
Acknowledge it. It is the only thing you can do. Take credit for it. Stop convincing yourself that because you "weren't there" it is not "your problem." I wish you all could know how hard it was for me to reach deep, deep, deep (thanks, Krysta) down into myself and acknowledge my guilt about racism in the United States. My protests were varied and sounded pretty solid: I wasn't there, my ancestors weren't involved in the slave trade, hell my ancestors were some of the persecuted. But it was a healing moment when i could acknowledge that I am still guilty. As blood runs through my veins of ancient origins, I am complicit in their crimes because I benefit from them. Can I dispute that fact? I do. I am white, therefore I benefit from the racist policies of older generations. It will not disappear with a Proclamation, laws, inclusion in public policy, or discussions of the pain that minorities felt. It is not fair to say that because you weren't there, you weren't hurt by it. Remember that humanity is old and we are all one, across years and generations. it will not be erased with a few kind words. We still benefit from the systems that were in place then, the ideas in place now, and the decisions that will be made in the future.
We are all complicit.
If you think that not being white excuses you from this, think again. We all have something in our pasts that we need to seek forgiveness for. Men, this is where you should pay attention. Women were not created in an inferior manner. Because Eve was symbolically created from the rib of a man does not make her a lesser being, she was an improvement on the first design. Just because you feel that you are kind to women and that you do not subjugate us does not mean that you are or do. You are guilty, as was your father and grandfather. You are guilty now because you benefit from the system and continue to do so. You are guilty because your sons will benefit as well. Do not make light of this situation. You need to acknowledge that you are guilty. Apologize to a woman and feel the weight lift from your chest.


You think that with new life comes new possibility, and that is a beautiful and optomistic thought that we all should have. Truly we can form new life, we still have time to push our children toward change. However, we cannot change them. With something as old as humanity you must not assume that simply by way of birth one gets to re-design all of human history. The act of being born does not clean the terrible history of the United States from our faces, let alone our older ancestors. We are an ancient race, and our ancient ideas come with us. Perhaps this is where the idea of reincarnation comes from. It is not that we are born again, it is that our souls are never new. Even from birth we are tainted and old.

Do you ever?

Today I have been thinking about the strange things that I do, some of which I hardly realize.

If someone were to ask me if I were superstitious, I would laugh and answer that I am certainly not. With my stringent belief in free will, choice, and authority over one's life, it does not make sense that I would put any trust in superstition, and yet I do. I can sum up my reason for this quite simply:
I do it just in case.
Life is hard enough, I don't need to add to the constant travail of life by carelessly walking under a ladder or upending a salt shaker. Why risk it?
Yes, that is ridiculous, and i know it. I know it while I am throwing salt over my shoulder or changing directions to avoid a black cat crossing my path. I know that superstition and fate are ideas that I do not subscribe to, and yet when I get a fortune from a fortune cookie, you better believe that I stick it in my purse. I tell myself that I do this just because they are "cute" and even inspirational. I wouldn't be surprised, dear reader, if you didn't believe that.
My last one warned me to be attentive because someone is interested in me. Hmmm....