Friday, December 31, 2010

2010

is over.

Time goes so fast when you get older, especially when you are moving half way across the country three times a year.  This year has taken me all over the globe, brought me back to some basics and helped me make some changes I needed to.

2010 way good--really good.  It's made me super excited to see what 2011 has to offer.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Poetry Experiment

When I was in 10th grade I had this teacher--the kind you only get once in a lifetime.  The kind like Robin Williams in Dead Poet Society.
He was so rad, and he really taught me how to love literature.
He taught us that when we create things it is often an abundance of ideas rather than a lack of them that hinders our creativity.
He handed out novels and had us open to a random page.  From the words on those two facing pages we had to write a poem.
This was mine:

What I liked about you, 

for one thing was hard to picture.
It wasnt just one thing,
it was everything,
everything i could tell about you in an hour.
I know where you hung out mostly

I wanted to find you,
walking along

but the sun still wasn’t out

and it wasn’t too nice for walking.
I knew it wasn’t too important,

but it made me sad anyways.


Monday, December 13, 2010

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider
--lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--should be clear:
the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

Friday, December 10, 2010

GBH

"Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is so high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is so great that you cannot weather it. You are not destined to be a scrub. You are a child of God, of infinite capacity. Believe that you can do it."

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

confirmation

One of my favorite things is when I finally figure something out in my mind, and get it pinned down where I think it should be, and then something happens to let me know it's in the right place and I am okay and everything is going to be all right.

December 08, 2010
Quote of the Day
"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."– Thomas A. Edison


This semester has been everything but what I expected. It's been a good one though and I've been streeeeeeetttttcccchhhheeeeeeeed--which mean I have grown.

Thank you Lord, for all that you give me. And for letting it happen in your timing. And for preparing me in the past for now. And for not giving me what I thought I needed.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Defying Gravity.

I have started, stoped, edited, changed, deleted, and restarted this entry several times over the course of this semester. The closer it gets to the end of the semester, the more I feel like I need to write something to try and capture part of this before it is gone. It also gets a lot harder to put that something into words--nothing I write ever seems quite accurate enough to capture what exactly I am feeling right now. No combination of words ever seem to be able to explain all the things this semester has taught me. A list of all the things I have experienced could never include all of the things I am grateful for.
This semester was pretty much the exact opposite of what I was expecting it to be and all of it only strengthened my belief that an unwritten life it the best kind.
With Thanksgiving under my belt, Christmas just around the corner, and the weight of the last week of school right on top of me I find myself thinking...a lot--but come on, what's new? It's not that the fact that I am thinking is so out of the ordinary, but the way I am thinking is what surprises me. Instead of trying to take the parts of my life I think I need, and doing all I can to make it work with what I have, I've discovered it's a lot easier if you just let life happen around you and let things fall into place where they really should be. If i can just take care of the big things: school, church, homework, calling, scripture study... the rest will fall into place.

John Keats

When I have Fears that I may cease to be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, 5
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more, 10
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.