I took out pen and paper a moment ago--I was going to write a poem. My mind is too full for that though.



Maybe not overflowing so much as disorganized; full of things I should've thrown out long ago. That's the mess that keeps me up at night. Some people say they can't sleep in a messy room. I can. There's laundry on the floor and ribbon and books, and I think that's a knitting needle under the pile of guitar music in the corner--the dog's corner so now he has to sleep somewhere else. But at least I know exactly which pair of jeans I left that ten dollar bill in: the stonewashed pair with barn-dirt on the hem. They're crumpled up near the ferret cage.



But in my cluttered mind I can't find Rest, and Simplicity is buried deep in there. If I could find that I'd remember where I left Freedom. Somewhere near Self-Forgetfulness--I've been looking for that for awhile now.



It keeps me awake--the looking--and some nights I wish I had someone to sing to me.



It's underestimated, the theraputic effects of a lullaby. At least I imagine so. I honestly can't remember ever having one sung to me, though I know my mom sang them when I was a baby.



Regression, most modern psychologists would say, but Freud would probably tell me that I never completely progressed past the Oral stage to begin with.



In a way, I think that would be right: lack of progression, as opposed to regression. It's not so much regressing as it is never having let go of the Simplicity of childhood. Or the longing for it. It is definitely gone now.



But it seems to me that it would come back a little, with being sung to.



When you've spent a long day waiting for words that will never be said--and maybe they're not supposed to be said--it seems a nice thought that one could curl up in bed with sheets that smell of the same fabric softener your mom used when you were a kid, face the wall close my eyes and hear a sweet but tired voice sing some sad-tuned lullaby; melancholy breaks and a little off-key. Human.



I know I've done it to myself in part, caused this lack of contact. I'm quite a hermit and that's alright with me, usually. Sometimes its not enough, though.



Like when I remember rediculous promises made as a littel girl and I wish I'd kept them.



'Let's never cut our hair; not till we're thirty! I'll swear if you will.'



'Next summer you can come back and we'll build a huge tree house, and it'll have a secret password and a rope ladder and we'll never let the stupid boys come up!'



'Let's promise to always tell each other everything, no matter what.'



'I'll never take this bracelet off; not even when I'm a grown-up.'



'Let's swear that both of us our favorite color will always be purple.'



Let's swear that things will always be this easy. Let's promise we won't ever lose this innocence, and we'll always believe that band-aids make the pain go away.



Even the unspoken promises, broken.



We had such big plans, didn't we--all of us? We really believed in them, too. Sometimes that's enough; just being sure you'll do something even if you never really do. Plans for the future, when you believe them, can be the bridge that gets you over those rifts that are just too wide to jump.



But I'm not sure of anything anymore.



I know I echo the sentaments of so many people. I know I'm not the only one. I don't presume to think that I've felt things no one else has; that I'm at all original in my words.



This is just laying it all out for me, sort my thoughts like sorting dresser drawers:



That goes there, that's for that, I'll keep this but this doesn't fit anymore so I'll throw it away with the one that's full of holes and--what the hell is that?! I didn't even know I had that. No, it isn't mine; someone must've left it. Oh well. Looks like I have to deal with it now.



The only difference is my brain recycles, so its all there forever and even if things change there will always be that vague essence attached to whatever--to a name, a campsite or a city, a certain food or book or a green guitar pick.



Some Tibetan Buddhist Lamas are able to reach a higher mental plane, one so far above forefrontal consciousness that the clamour fades and not only can he escape the anguished conflict his own thoughts create, but he evades physical pain as well.





The secret was taught to some outside the religion and they used it to be completely silent under torture. Their minds were at peace, and the pain was nowhere--just vague pressure, and the comforting warmth of blood as it flowed over cold, bare skin.





Because the body is only a body; just a dirty, tangible thing that rots in the earth when it stops working. A vessel. A windowed litter for the soul. To detach mind from body once in a while seems only right; to allow the mind some escape from the sinew-and-bone cage that can cause so much trauma, depending on what happens to it.



It sounds so safe, to exist in that kind of world where your body can be broken or abused or diseased and it doesn't affect the mind. When you've gathered your soul up from your toes and back from your fingers, pulled the residue from between muscle fibers, out of porous bones; when your soul is all together in one place high up, then it won't matter what the body feels because it is only a thing.



And then to take the next step--to escape not only one's body but one's own relentless thoughts as well--that would be the greatest reward.



I like the idea of Buddhism, or Hinduism. Religions of cerimony and dedication, of stillness and peace and contemplation--hush. Low chants in dead languages, temples with ceilings so high it doesn't feel like a stretch to imagine that God might reside there.





I know it is beautiful that God doesn't really require swaths of gauzy fabric and marble pillars and inscence and sacrifices. I do see the wonder of the fact that it is in Christianity I can find the Simplicity I crave: I already have all I need to come to Him.





My body is His grand temple--my bones the pillars, wrapped in the intricately-woven fabric that is flesh (1 Corinthians 6:19).


My prayers are the incense; all I need to set the atmoshpere for Him (Psalm 141:2).


And I don't even need to bring anything to sacrifice. All He asks is that I soften my heart toward Him; tell Him that I am tired and broken and I need Him because I just can't do it anymore--was never really getting along to begin with (Psalm 51:17).





It is hard to comprehend that that's all it takes. Just As I Am; that coming to Him is the important part--not what I do or what I have.


Especially because I've always been one for cerimonies; for grand, complex recognitions.


When I was eleven years old, a friend and I indulged in this romanticism.


It ocurred, of course, at midnight--as those things always do. From the kitchen we'd sneaked a package of cold-cut turkey from Price Chopper and a large metal strainer. We already had the candles--we were experienced enough at cerimonies that both of our rooms were always full of them.


This particular night, we were in my bedroom, surrounded by all of our traditional cerimonial ware: a pale-gold blanket, journals, favorite stuffed animals, pictures. And of course, we were dressed for the occasion in tacky hand-me-down negligees; the classic little-girl formal wear of basement boxes and grandmothers' attics.



We scripted flowery--and misspelled--prayers to send up with the smoke of our burnt sacrifice. While we held the turkey-filled strainer over a candle-flame, we prayed that one day we would be granted artistic abilities.



We gave up eventually. The meat refused to burn and only bubbled a little at the bottom, and mom's good strainer already had a dark smoke-stain flowering from where the fire touched it. With a last quick prayer that we wouldn't get in too much trouble for the discolored colendar, we went to sleep.



Now we are aware of how odd our cerimony was, considering how, under the New Covenant, God no longer desires those kinds of sacrifices. So we laugh about that story, Abby and I, like we laugh at how I used to pray every night for a giraffe when I was six.



But the fact is that Abby and I didn't get in trouble over the strainer, or even over the entire package of meat we ruined by forgetting to put back in the fridge.



The fact is that we did indeed become somewhat skilled artistically.



Of course, those things could easily be seen as coinsidence. Mom was probably too overcome with silent laughter to punish her silly, Old-Testament-minded charges. And we obviously wanted to be artists--that might have been accomplished to an extent whether or not we prayed for it.



But here is another fact: nearly two years ago, I was presented with the opprotunity to get my own real live giraffe.



About a year after I was diagnosed with lupus, my parents and doctors conspired to have the Make A Wish Association--a volunteer organization benefitting children under eighteen who suffer from chronic illnesses--grant a wish for me.



To pass the months until I would be able to meet with a MAW team, I researched them extensively and read as many wish-stories as I could find. I discovered that Make A Wish could, and would, do very nearly anything a child--or wildly imaginitive teen--could think of.



One boy wished for an elephant. The Make A Wish team located a willing zoo-like facility near the boy's home and secured a tame elephant for their purposes. They were able to make the boy the honorary owner of the elephant, and after throwing a party during which he rode his new pet all around the outdoor location, they informed him that he could not only go and visit his elephant whenever he liked, but also pet, feed, and ride it, providing there was a staff member available to supervise.



For several minutes after reading that story, I sat frozen and stared unblinking at the picture of the boy on the back of his elephant that glowed on the desktop monitor. I couldn't believe it.



Even as a child when I began praying for a giraffe, there was a subtle challenge in my mind. I had grown up hearing that God could do anything, and that He answered prayers (of course, to a six-year-old, 'He answers prayers' means 'He always gives you everything you pray for'). I didn't even particularly want a giraffe. What in the world was I going to do with it? I had no idea. It would be amazing, of course, to have such an exotic pet, but I knew that in reality I would rather have a horse to ride. I was really just experimenting, trying to find out exactly what insane things God would do for me if I asked.



Over the years I had forgotten about that childish challenge. I'd thought about it a few times, when thinking about how at that time I also prayed for a lizard (of which I eventually aquired four), a cat (God gave me twelve), a turtle (I was granted three of those), and a horse (and I was given two of my very own, and surrounded with dozens of others to pet and ride at my whim). I would remember that and think to myself, "He gave me everything I asked for except a giraffe", and I would smile in a wave of faith because in my mind the giraffe didn't really count. I knew that, though I would have loved one, I wasn't truly asking for it like I was all of the other animals.



And the story of the boy and his elephant caused me to recall everything once again. I was absolutly stunned as one thought ran on a loop in my mind: I could get a giraffe. The elephant story wasn't even close to the most complicated wish the association had granted. If I asked for a giraffe, they could make it happen. Eleven years later, God presented me with the opprotunity to recieve the most rediculous thing I'd ever asked for. He had answered my forgotten challenge, and not with an iron fist to remind me of how I am less than dust compared with Him and how dare I challenge the God of the universe, but to remind me of His love and faithfulness with this exciting blessing that made me feel as if I had the world laid out at my feet.



I didn't use the opprotunity to get a giraffe. I considered it, but ended up going to Hawaii to swim with dolphins (originally I requested to go to Africa, but due to political unrest their resources there were disabled). It was utterly amazing, and I'll never forget it. But I have a feeling I'll remember the weird and wonderful faith-story just a little bit better.

I've been losing weight; not trying to but its happening anyway. I'm by no means too thin, but I don't recognize myself--my reflection, my body.


I feel sixteen again, and at that time I wasn't myself--removed, tormented--so I feel like I'm in someone else's skin with someone else's bones.


Hip bones that press against the waistband of my jeans when I bend, pinching a thinned layer of flesh between denim and bone.


Shadows beneath newly-defined cheekbones reveal a more solumn, weathered face in the mirror; one that seems to once again have lost the scraps of childlike innocence I've been fighting so hard to regain.


Even my scars look different, standing out, pale against skin slightly darkened by renewed density.


My clothes hang more loosely and I check my right hand a dozen times to make sure my ring hasn't fallen off, because sometimes when its cold I can feel it sliding back and forth between white knuckles.


It isn't bad yet, the shrinking; isn't worrysome besides being further evidence of the physical manifestation of stress.


But it is different and unexpected, causes tension and suspicion of past demons rearing their heads once more even though for my part I know I defeated them years ago.


But food is ash on my tongue sometimes, and I eat to quell the icy emptiness in my stomach though the thought of another bite makes me feel sick.


Occasionally my appetite will resurface and I can enjoy food again, but mostly I swallow for health's sake only and I miss the solace that chocolate once brought me.


Someone once told me that I was full of inspiration--that my eyes shone with it. I believed him then. And maybe it was true, but if it was, if my eyes did shine months ago, they don't anymore.


They're missing whatever it is they once had. As if my fire is dwindling with the rest of me.


Once upon a time, my eyes were alive. I look at pictures, from when I knew how to smile.


I've forgotten now. I have to do it consciously, carefully considering how my muscles move to make sure they aren't doing anything I don't want them to. I have to think about my eyes, about how the tightening of my face frames them.



I learned the necessities from seeing more recent pictures, ones from the past year or two. In most of them, before I learned how to smile, I look frightened. In others, I look dead--a cadavour whose mouth has been stretched before rigor mortus--a wide grin beneath two spots of blank where human eyes used to be.



I'm still learning this art, this paper-way of the smile. But in some pictures I've got it--I look spirited and alive like I was all the time, years ago.



I still look tentative in some though; awkward, unsure of what to do, head pushed down and forward like a submissive dog, folding in on myself to avoid touching others.



Because I just don't touch people. It just doesn't occur to me. A hug is fine--intentional and brief, to-the-point. But it isn't something I initiate, mostly because I just don't think to, but also because of the same awkwardness that ruins my smile.

Sometimes its my idea--a hug--with people I'm very close to like Valeri or Melissa or Abby, or my family. But even then, sometimes I just forget how to be in my own skin. My movements are stiff and puppet-like, because I just don't remember how.



Even growing up, I didn't touch people except to accept a hug that I didn't initaite. I didn't mind that, but holding hands or even a pat or a poke during animated conversation just felt invasive, like staring into someone's eyes too long. Like they're setting foot somewhere that is mine only.



It probably isn't really as dramatic as all that. I have always thought of personal space as a thing to be respected. My lack of physical contact has always been for other people just as much as for myself--touching someone without being asked just never seemed appropriate.



I never really thought about it in my early years. Until I was thirteen, it just didn't occur to me to hug or poke or take a hand. I was slightly taken aback when others would touch me, but I never really minded. I still don't. It seems something like drinking filtered water after years of drinking tap: it is strange and different and given the choice you would have picked what you're used to, but it doesn't really matter.



I don't know if its a bad thing that I've never really 'needed a hug'. Most people I know need physical contact, but I am perfectly fine sitting in seperate chairs while we talk, a brief handshake when we greet, foldout our own respective hands together for prayer.



The only occasion in which I've ever thought I would need physical contact is in a romantic context. If I was with someone and he didn't want to be touching me in someway nearly every moment we were together--holding my hand as we walk, feet intertwined under the table, cuddled close on the sofa--I'd feel as if he didn't really want me.



I suppose, in friendship and family, I do enjoy the bond that physical contact represents. But in all cases, platonic or romantic, my touch is purely responsive--never initiative. Platonically, because it is my general tendency to keep to myself. Romantically, because I am shy. Painfully, awkwardly, debilitatingly shy.



I have always been a private person of sorts. I kind of think of myself as a room with one of those doors that swings closed on its own. It isn't locked; you can come in if you like. But hardly ever does it stand open, actually inviting you in. I post these notes, yes. But I don't tag anyone. They are there for you to read if you want to get to know me, because I do want to be known, but only by people who really want to know. So you can open the door, but I won't ask you to do it. And there is a closet in this room of mine that is locked, that won't open even if you try.



There are a select few who have keys. But in the cieling of the closet, there is a door leading to an attic. Locked, and painted the same color as the walls--camoflaged. There isn't a key for that one. In the attic there are dusty corners that not even I will truly look at. I know what is in them. The vague knowledge of their contents haunts me as I crawl around, looking for something to turn into art or a prayer. But I will not define them, the things hidden there beneath cobwebs. Not even in my mind will I dress them in words, let them stand before me in the bright, undeniable garments of truth.



The Devil can have his way with those things, take temporary delight in the fact that there are things in me that are shameful. I know God will not let the infection spread, as miserable as it is to endure while I terry in this waiting room that is earth, waiting for His sanctifying amputation.



I've written before about a certain tree, one I would gaze at through the kitchen window every morning while I ate breakfast, beginning when I was thirteen.



It started that winter, that Red December that burned.



The smoldering embers tormented me, like laughing cigarettes snuffed out on the raw flesh of my heart. But mornings on the edge of the kitchen table were cool, chilly white tile and dawn-fog soothing the burns.



I was restless, and searching for courage within myself. Not for anything in particular; just to prove to myself that it was there.
So I thought I'd run away.

I had a pillowcase of stuff and I was walking away, out in the woods, but I knew I wasn't really going anywhere. I was going to, but not really. I told my friends that I was really going to do it if Dad hadn't found me and I thought I really would, but I wasn't.

There was the tree, a few acres away from my house. It was on a hill, so I could always see it, and once I packed a bag with some food and blankets and my stuffed tiger and a book or two, and I went to that tree. I spread a blanket out under it and I stayed there for a few days. No one looked for me there. It was too obvious, too close. I even sneaked into my own house sometimes when my family was gone, to get stuff or to watch TV.

The whole time, I was sitting at my kitchen table, waiting for my toast, looking through the window at the far-off tree. Every time I looked at the tree for six years, I went there and was brave, but not too brave; run away but not far. Sitting above white tile, eating toast and running away in my mind to my tree where no one would find me but they really would; where I'd sleep under the stars but really I'd get chased back inside by the ghosts that are out there, cause they really are out there.

And I'd be so brave but I'm not, so I spread the marshmallow fluff on my toast and pretend it was marmalade or butter or something else more mature; something my brother would put on his toast. I tried, but I didn't like the butter, cinnamon, and sugar that he used. Salty and wet and sweet and soggy and spicy and crunch.
So I was filled with me and my toast was covered in fluffy, insubstantial sweet; no room for refined flavor combinations.

But on those mornings, I could imagine myself to be something bigger, something braver than I was. I don't know why I fixated on that particular tree and that particular fantasy. I was full of adolescent angst and thoroughly maddened by drama. Absolutely nothing I did or said or thought in my thirteenth year of life can be logically explained.

And even though I realize the legitimacy of this early-teen insanity--I realized it a little even then--that tree has always represented some particular inexplicable melancholy that lies dormant, raising its groggy head only occasionally to remind me that pain is relative, and be kind to my past self because if it hurts it hurts, and it doesn't matter why.

It represents the courage I've always longed to have--the courage to just go; to make some big decision that is thoroughly my own because too often I use 'seeking wise counsel' as an excuse to make sure that, in the event that I make the wrong choice, the blame won't rest only on my shoulders.

The courage to take risks. Voluntarily. Sometimes, when I'm warm and at home in my green, familiar room, I think that if an opportunity for risk presented itself right now I'd take it. But those opportunities really only come when I'm unprepared, in some strange place surrounded by strange people I don't trust yet and so I back down.

I know, I know--if one was prepared and confident it would not really be a risk. But that's what I mean. I wish with all my heart I had the courage for real risk. The tree stands like Avalon in my mind, whispering that maybe next time I'll get it right. Maybe next time I'll be brave and run away from what is safe, what is solid--and what will ultimately get me nowhere.

Six years have passed since that tree's roots twisted themselves into my ventricles, and I have not even attempted transplanting. Why would I? Its part of me, memories whispering in the leaves and bark rough to match me, scar for scar.

I've loved it for a long time. For more than 2,190 days it's been mine. And I had never gone to visit it until a few weeks ago.

Something determined tugged, telling me that if I didn't go now--right now--I would never really do it. That I needed to stop saying 'someday' and start saying 'today'. And then keep my word.

I was tired, but I tried not to listen to the protests of my muscles and my dizzy head. Plugging my ears with headphones, I let Roy sing to me about robin's jars and cinnamon as I paced up and down the bank of Pony Creek like a panther, looking for a place to cross.

Finding none, I ducked my head and plowed through the dense brush that lines the edge of the woods like a moat of foliage. Cracksnap crunch and it tore my coat but I came out the other side before drowning in the loam.

The sun was bright like the crack of a gun and the shadows it cast were stark; black construction-paper cutouts that satisfied my perpetual craving for definition.

Bob's fence stood a ways ahead of me, and beyond it I could see a shallow section of the creek. I snagged every piece of clothing I wore on the barbed wire and my calves and forearms sustained dense thatches of tiny shallow cuts--from the wire or the thorny vines twisted around it, I'm not sure-- but soon I was on the other side.

I'd seen Bob's land hundreds of times. I've seen this very part, every time I walk into my front yard. But it felt very unfamiliar, this side of the fence, as if by stepping over it into a pasture where I'd never set foot I had passed through a portal and everything around me seemed open and wide--far away.

My insides felt spread out too, like I suddenly had more room to breathe; my heart more relaxed in its beating.

I don't usually smile when I'm alone. Usually in solitude I just feel it, an inside-smile. There are special alone-times when my face smiles too,though--like when Caspian's fallen asleep on my pillows or I'm curled in the corner of Spirit's stall with his curious nose snuffling my hair or when I feel Gypsy's glass-smooth coils wrap me in a reptilian embrace. I smile alone then. And when I feel free.

On that side of the fence, with more room inside me and all around, living out a six-year-old dream in weather so cold it woke every sleeping fiber of my being, I felt the fleeting freedom and I smiled.

As I walked I hoped vaguely that Bob wouldn't shoot at my distant figure in a fit of old-farmer's paranoia, but I was more concerned with how to cross the creek without drenching my feet in the icy flow. I had part of a tree branch and a few slimy rocks for assistance, but mostly it was up to my balance and God's grace.

Utilizing every resource to the full, I made my unsteady way to the opposite bank and began ascent--the bank was steep. By digging my toes into deep furrows carved by the cloven hooves of cattle, I made a stair case of the cow-trail and hopped the last foot to level ground.

I could see it, my tree, now below the horizon line, standing alone in the pasture with acres and acres of field between it and the woods. I smiled again as I closed the distance between us, feeling my heart swell and fill up some of the extra room with dramatic, sentimental indulgence. Hello, old friend.

It was exactly as I'd always imagined. No, better. The branches drooped low around the edges, many even touching the ground. But they met the trunk of the evergreen higher up--maybe to my waist--so the tree formed a kind of tepee: Its trunk the center pole, and the branches with their fregrant needles weaving themselves together at their ends to form a sheltered hollow inside.

The ground beneath the branches was less grassy than the rest of the pasture, with large, flat rocks dotting the tepee floor. The roots, instead of protruding all around the tree's base, reared up from the dirt in only a few places as if to form specific areas for sitting or curling up to sleep. As if God molded it for me, just to fulfill my fanciful 6-year daydream.

Hearing a footstep, my head snapped up and I turned to confront the intruder. And smiled again. The cattle had gathered and formed a half-circle around me. Their heads were low as they snuffled my scent in the air with their huge wet noses. They looked very interested in me, with their ears perked and dewy eyes bright, but ready to run at any second. All legs stiff and pushed forward, a muscle twitched here and there.

But their faces were full of niave sweetness--adult versions of the little orphaned calves I bottle-fed and raised for Bob. Oliver, Nairobi, and Kenya when I was fourteen; Seto and Dodger a year later. They left me with good memories, my calves did, chewing on my socks and dashing around the paddock; delighted confusion when first presented with fresh-baked molasses muffins, followed soon by excited calls the second I could be seen walking up the driveway with a batch.

I was caught between my tree and Bob's cattle; caught between memories of things wished for and memories of things missed.

Slowly, I raised my camera to capture the sight of these poor confused cows, but some movement or scent brought by the wind spooked them. I watched them scatter across the pasture, then ducked back inside my tree-hollow.

I had already taken several pictures of it, but the roots there below my tree called to me. I wanted to see what it would have felt like, if I had really run away and slept here when I was younger. I had to walk about stooped beneath the branches as I looked for a suitable place to nap.

Pulling my coat more tightly about my shoulders, I bunched my scarf up around my neck and circled my spot like a dog before finally curling up against the curve where a thick root and the trunk of the tree.

I closed my eyes. I don't remember what Roy was playing; I think it was something soft, something light. Maybe The Beatle's "I Will". Whatever it was, the music sent over me a fresh wave of space and openness, as if everything in me and outside of me was spread so far, so scattered, that I was both completely safe and totally free, all at the same time.

So once more I smiled in complete solitude, this time without even any animals to witness.
Since then, another such solitary smile has yet to break on my lips.

Naked, the Judas in Me Fell by the Tracks but He Lifted Me High

Lately I've been thinking about Judas. Judas in the Bible who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Was it thirty? I can't quite remember. But with blood money it hardly matters. Anyway, I've been thinking about him and wondering if he made it to heaven.



I'm inclined to think that he did. Yes, he made money his master. He betrayed the Son of God with a kill on His cheek. And afterwards, when the regret became too much, he killed himself. Yes, Judas made several mistakes that still echo in the hearts of the saints.



But am I any better? The Word says that a sin is a sin; they are all every one a betrayal to our Lord and not one is worse than another. Lust is as bad as adultry; hate as evil as murder in God's eyes. A prideful heart is an abomination to Him, as is a lying tongue.



Yes, Judas' mistakes changed history, but according to God's Word, his sins are no worse than mine.



How many times have I 'edited the truth'? How many times has my heart been grossly prideful and I didn't even care? How many times have I dishonored my parents? I still wear scars of dishonoring my body--His temple--like a pegan.

Direct disobedience. Is that not a form of betrayal?



No, I am no better than Judas. He is remembered as a shameful traitor, but he must have had good in him. He must have loved Christ. He was one of The Twelve; selected by God to represent one of the precious tribes of His chosen people. Jesus thought that Judas deserved that honor, and because of a few weak moments--with catastrophic consequences, I admit--he is shamed forever.

I wonder if he would consider this tarnished legacy's fate worse than being completely forgotten? Probably. His guilt and regreat was so great that it drove him to suicide. He loved Christ. Isn't that the bottom line for salvation?



The only unforgiveable sin is written as 'blaspheming the Lord'. I've heard it interpreted as 'continually denying Christ until death'. That interpretation makes sense to me, when cross-referencing it with scripture that speaks about mercy and forgiveness; about all of our sins being washed clean by the Lamb if we let Him. Not ‘all sin except for one’. All sins. And so, it makes sense that the only sin He doesn’t forgive would be ‘denial until death’, because that would mean the sinner never allowed Christ to give him the fullest extent of forgiveness.

Judas loved Jesus. Judas let Him in. Judas was repentant. Judas was a sinner. Christ came to save the sinners, if they will believe in Him. Judas believed. I believe. If Judas is doomed, then so am I, because a sin is a sin and not one of us is righteous—“No, not one.”

I’m not a biblical scholar. I haven’t done research or consulted with anyone wiser than I. But from my limited knowledge of scripture and the mercy and grace He has shown me, I think Judas will be in the community of Paradise. Stripped of guilt and his own humanity, as Christ does for every believer, all that’s left is love and praise for the Savior. If God is truly as loving and merciful as scripture claims—and I believe He is—it would be just like Him to forgive Judas and I and welcome us into Paradise with open arms.

Maybe you don't think its ok that I relate to Judas here. Maybe you aren't as messed up as I am (or have been before). But I'm getting tired of pretending that I'm any better than this; any better than I am.

Sometimes doing the right thing really, really sucks.

A restlessness haunts me, even when I have so many things to do my stomach is knotting knotting and twisting with dread that only feeds my procrastination.
I had the antidote before me—text and statistics and class notes—but some irresponsible inner force kept me from reaching for it.
No, out into the chilly evening, damp sidewalks, I went to shake the feelings out. My skin tingled in anticipation of raindrops, but none came. The shower had ended, leaving behind its shining signature smeared on the ground—making the concrete to sparkle in the lamplight.
I searched for new campus scenery, by the tack behind the library. The same old paths seemed used and jaded, stony-cold to my thin-soled shoes from all the walking I’d done on their granite faces.
Escaping their bitter solidity, I stepped out onto a new sidewalk, thinking I might be brave enough to take it tonight. I walked further than I had before, halfway down the side of the soccer field. A shed loomed in the darkness, creating a dark tunnel with the tarp-covered fence on the opposite side of the path. The shadows there shifted and moved; ominous warning, trust your primal fear. I stood frozen for a moment, too afraid of the black passage to turn my back on whatever lurked there.
I turned the volume down on Roy (my iPod) as I turned, throwing frequent glances over my shoulder. I pulled a headphone from my ear, listening for footsteps my logical mind knew I wouldn’t hear. But still I kept up an urgent pace until I was safe in the heart of the campus again, where golden light cast small, comfortable shadows.
The nervous fear had dispelled my earlier dread, like acid dissolving clumpy rubber.
I’ve read about how things like that work—how more illogical fear can help soothe legitimate stress. I’ve felt it other times too—like being exceptionally relaxed after watching a good horror flick. It’s hard to describe, though; how those adrenaline-fueled rushes of fear can make everything else seem more manageable after they’re over. The conceptual idea, the physical practice; ambiguous psychology pretending to be a science. Only vague descriptions for those who haven’t witnessed. They are inaccurate, word-pictures as confusing as Picasso’s work to some logical thinker. Indescribable.
There are some things—sounds and feelings, mostly—that words can’t describe. It’s often times the little things that no one’s really tried to give a clear word-picture of. At least, I don’t think so. But there have been so many writers and are and will be that are not me, and so I suppose my words are not unique. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
But apples are one of the things I’ve never read about. The way, after you hook your teeth, pop the peel into the flesh, pull back--the crack-tear of the piece coming away from the rest; moist and tart with scandalous reminders in the pulp of what it was to be Eve.
Eve in her last moments of innocence. I wonder if she truly believed every word of the serpent—if she was absolutely certain the fruit would bring her good fortune? Or was she even a little scared? Maybe, as the perfect lips of the First Woman parted, her heart leapt into her stomach and she felt for the first time the biting grasp of fear...but it was too late—she had made her decision and now must follow through. And as her teeth sank into the seductive flesh she felt the first dull pang of dread—the first anguish of regret.
When did she realize the weight of what she’d done? Did she ever? Did she realize that, thousands of years later, her descendent daughters would resent her?
You cursed us with this pain, Mother. You cursed us with this loneliness. Adam stood by passively and watched, refused to rescue you, but it wasn’t only you he left to fall. You set the example for all of us; you passed down this addiction of choosing our own ruin.
Sometimes I think we have it worse even than Eve. At least she spent awhile basking in the pure glory of God; unfiltered, undiluted. At least she knew what it was that she would spend forever seeking. Though the memory of what she once had must have been painful, at least it may have held her true. Kept her from becoming lukewarm.
But, maybe ignorance is indeed bliss, and we daughters are blessed in the absence of this knowledge. No paradise torn from our horrified grasp; no being forced to our knees under the first crushing, puzzling weight of shame.
When we are born and experience things for the first time—cold, hunger, fear, loneliness, abandonment, shame, pain, loss—at least our awareness isn’t complete. We grow up with these feelings, never remembering a time without them, and when we realize what they are and why they are, at least we are somewhat used to them. Early conditioning; we are accustomed.
But for Eve it was all new. And she was fully aware—conscious of its legitimacy. Would the shock make it even worse? Would her soft, uncaloused soul be even more vulnerable to the rough claws of sin’s consequences? Or would her past bliss, like a balm, provide some soothing escape; take the edge off the sting?
Eve is nothing like her daughters. A distant mother to whom we can’t relate; resented for her closeness to God, blamed for the sin that cursed us all.
Are we supposed to love her? Is she a mother we must honor?
How could she possibly have disobeyed God? If she really did experience His ultimate love, untainted by the separation of sin, how could she possibly have wanted more? How could she have been tempted by anything? Was He so unfulfilling? It seems blasphemous even to consider such a thing, but if she had the fullness of what every believer is searching for, what every human soul longs for, why would she go looking for more?
I have to be honest, it makes me wonder. She had it all—all of Him and what else is there? And still she was not content. If Eve was so close to Him and still so easily made to feel dissatisfied, what chance do I have? What chance do I have of finding a place in me where obeying Him is truly more important than anything else, when innocent, untainted Eve herself was so quickly enamored with the black tongue of a snake?

Snakes are entrancing. I can see how Eve, upon seeing the chorded muscles undulating beneath smooth scales that sparkled in Eden’s sun like liquid silk, might have been hypnotized by its cloying beauty. Moving so alive, yet cold like death. A fluently twisting, elegant corpse: darkly captivating; luscious macabre. The hint of tantalizing sin would stand out especially lustrous amidst the righteousness of Eden, successfully luring the first naive girl’s soul to those sparkling stygian things that so easily steal precious innocence. Innocence that can never be reclaimed.
I have my own Eden—a make-believe Eden—in the woods behind my house, just past the pond and into the trees. No fruit grows there, except for the walnuts that feed this town’s red-furred squirrels and irritate its red-skinned farmers. But my dad only mows out here occasionally, so he doesn’t mind; he lets the squirrels keep sustenance within easy reach.
They—the squirrels—have gathered most of the walnuts up now, though; I noticed their absence while walking there today. And well they should—it is growing so cold so, so quickly, and the minute the wonderful pungent scent of fall flees my nostrils my heart aches with a thousand things I forgot to do in the summer sun.
I couldn’t stand the outdoors being snatched away from me so suddenly. That’s why I went walking in the woods today. That, and I was filled with a restless, impatient inspiration.
I knew what I wanted to do and my heart quickened with the thought of it. Something so small, blurring the line between innocence and sultry so thoroughly that I still am not sure whether my blushes were really called for. Probably not. I know I tend to be more shy than most. Regardless, they happened and the heat my body generated in the personal excitement caused my skin to dampen slightly as I gathered a robe and flashlights, a coat and my camera. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Caspian, a furry black lump on my bed. I’d leave him behind this time; I needed to focus.
My feet sunk slightly into the cold mud as I tried to envision myself doing what I had in mind. Such a small thing, an amateur thing. Laughable, even, I was sure. But why, as I set my camera on the concrete ledge of an old well, did I feel like Eve must have as she reached toward original temptation?
But it didn’t make any difference--no one would see this. This was mine. Secret art for me; pictures to make me feel beautiful as I am—real and imperfect—and using my real self to give this sequestered piece of art something beautifully flawed and immaculately scandalous.
I stopped when I reached the woods. Paused. I almost went back. The living room sounded nice; snuggled into the leather sofa with a dog and a book, hot tea on the table beside me. But I had to do this. So simple, so small, but to me it meant I was brave. To me it meant I was an artist in my heart, because no one would see these pictures. An artist for myself, not for an audience. It simply meant I could. I would. I could do things contrived of myself; I would do things that some others wouldn’t. I could suffer the cold—purposely put myself in discomfort and try to make it lovely. I don’t know why this humble project mattered so much to me. But it mattered and so I began.
I took off my shoes and socks, my feet immediately turning blotchy and purple thanks to my circulatory disorder. I stood on the concrete that spread about a foot from the base of the well, and its tiny peaks pressed into my bloodless soles; scratched my toes as I curled them against the chill autumn air.
For a second I studied the red nail polish, months-old remnants of a last tribute to the Golden Years. It looked sad and empty now, chipped and dull against the orange of the fallen leaves in spite of valiant attempts to maintain its bold, symbolic scarlet.
I hunched under the thick green robe I’d brought with me, fixing the auto settings on my camera as cold wind sliced through the gaps of my skin-warmed shelter.
I looked over my shoulder, back into the woods. Listened for sounds; approaching footsteps, voices. Nothing. Silence but for the tree branches above, tapping and scraping against one another like overcrowded children.
Tentative, I pressed the silver button on my camera and waited until the last possible minute to step away from the patches of ground that had been heated slightly by my presence.
Cold cold cold and I felt my skin tighten as goose bumps formed while I stepped in front of the camera. Shyly, I tried to make my body graceful and waited to hear my camera’s satisfying click.
Click. Second shot is coming. Shift my body; different angle. Be strong like the trees, hands in fists—no, too tight, too masculine. Too late. Click and I trot back to where my miss-matched socks lay in the grass, stuffing the tips of my icy toes into their tepid folds.
I squinted at the camera’s playback, mentally critiquing the pictures I’d taken. Looking at myself on that screen, appearing so foreign amidst the trees, I felt myself shrink with embarrassment. That surprised me. I thought I was brave. I thought I was liberal and spirited, artistic and uninhibited, capable of self-assurance in my ideas.
I was. I was or I would make myself. Right now. I would be, and be free and proud and brave in my being.
Push the button, kick away the comfort of socks and with my head high I mingle with the trees as the camera beep beep beeps and clicks. A few more seconds—I face the camera, bold and open in my stance.
With the second click, I knew I could and for a brief moment I felt empowered—like someone proud of the way they occupy space.
But my feet were numb, and my fingers had grown cold and sore under the nails. They fumbled clumsily as I changed clothes and gathered my things, tripping over my faltering feet.
After a walk in the cold that felt longer than it was, I stumbled back into the warm house, satisfied. I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the hall mirror and saw a smile playing there; a secretive smile, the knowledge of a simple but beautiful mystery that was mine.

I’m tired. Not just tired, but desperately exhausted. Don’t tell me to take a nap. It isn’t that easy. Sleep is a fickle friend of mine; won’t always do business with me. It’s a commodity I continually chase with spotty success, and there’s no end in sight to the insomnia.
I’m tired for more than just sleep, though more sleep would help tremendously. I don’t just need a good night’s rest, though. I need days of sleep; days and days swimming in the murky depths with no dreams to show their wide-eyed faces, begging me to follow. I can’t; not now. I want to, I really do, but I can’t.
I’ve been saying that a lot lately: ‘I can’t’. I can’t because I’m tired and I have to prioritize, but here is new and they don’t know me, so some of them are offended, I think. There are voices out my window—laughing voices and running footsteps and I want to add my own because I want to make it here; make a life here that is more than resting alone in my dorm. I know that, and I know it usually makes me sad, but tonight I’m too tired to care.
I’m so tired, my eyes are literally sinking deeper into my face. There are hollows by them that haven’t been there before; dips and crevasses I’ve only seen bordering the eyes of women much older than myself.
I’ve been losing lots of things lately, and forgetting things too. For awhile now I’ve felt older than my age, but lately even more so. It would be easier, I think, if I looked as old as I felt. Maybe thirty. Some days, more like sixty or eighty. Then people wouldn’t expect these things of me—these things when I just can’t do them. I’m sorry, I say, but I can’t, and they say alright but it isn’t really because their faces go all closed and flat when they turn to walk away.
I don’t want to explain myself anymore. I’m tired of these complications. A few relationships have even been ruined because I discovered non-understanding sides of people that never would have had anything to do with me if I wasn’t sick. But then those sides became colossal walls between us, proportionate to the amount of my life that is affected by my disease. Which is all of it.

It’s not just big events in stories that are nothing like real life. It’s the little things too. The artificial dialogue and the moments when the small things come together like they’re supposed to and that makes a blossom of content that lasts.

One thing in particular I’ve never believed happened in real life is when a character is wandering aimlessly and their feet lead them to where they need to go. Even as a child I didn’t understand it. How could you be walking without knowing where you’re going? How can you go somewhere without intent? I didn’t believe it could happen, but it happened to me the other night.

It wasn’t a big thing. It had no part to play in any grand scheme; any story but my own. I finished dinner in the crowded cafeteria; a tasteless sandwich because food is always tasteless for me in the absence of comfort. It was still light outside and going back to my plaintive dorm room just seemed wrong when Indian summer played on my skin with the brush of a light rain. The sun still filtered through the clouds, so I donned my headphones and walked to the rhythm of Sufjan’s Seven Swans, looking through the kaleidoscope that the raindrops made on my glasses.

I looked at the grass as I walked, at the way the water sparkled there. A fork in the sidewalk; I had to choose. I looked up to decide, to see where each path might lead, and there before me was Weatherby Chapel--a tiny, always-open place for trysts with God. Right away I felt a chill; a shudder move through me, mysterious and mystic. I know I tend to over-romanticize things, but still I smiled at the thought that maybe God had guided me there. I’ve never really believed in coincidences, so this as well, to me, had to mean something.

I opened the first set of heavy double doors. They cracked as if stuck to the jam, like they hadn’t been opened in a long while. They led into a lobby about the size of my dorm room—quite small. An old woman, painted with meticulous strokes, gazed out at some middle-distance from her frame over an oaken table, set with half-burned candles. The wicks needed to be trimmed. They arched, thin charcoal and black and braided, graceful and coy from the opaque wax.

Muffled sounds, the firm yet plush notes of an old piano pushed their way through the cracks of the doors that led into the sanctuary. Though the music was pretty, I had to try to catch my heart as it sunk with disappointment. I couldn’t keep my lips from setting a grim line, though—I had hoped I’d be alone. Still, I wanted to see more of this place, so I crept into the dimly-lit sanctuary as quietly as I could. These doors—heavy and white and gold—popped and creaked as well, like an arthritic old butler--stiff and sore but still intent on serving a stately master.

I ducked my head as I pulled the headphones from my ears, hoping not to be noticed by the young man playing the worn, weathered upright. His playing faltered; I’d been noticed. I kept my head down anyway, pretending to be invisible as I shuffled to the opposite side of the sanctuary and perched on the edge of a plain wooden pew. The melody continued, simple but beautiful, and I opened my journal on my knee. My pen hovered over the page but made no marks, frozen in rapture by the music echoing from the quality acoustics of the room.

Everything seemed golden there. The lights were dim and gold and the wood of the pews reflected them from its cracked gloss, so that puddles of liquid light formed between the dull, splinter-like grooves all over the surface of the seats. The sound seemed golden too; each hammer on the string reverberating in air thick with evening and a sacred something, rippling vibrating undulating from the piano to my ears.

Too soon, the notes grew longer and less frequent, a signal that the end of the song was coming. The last chord—two simple keys—faded like smoke into the rafters, and I was compelled to speak.

“That was really pretty.” I said, my voice sounding harsh after the soft music.
“Thank you.” The young man turned towards me, sounding a little bit shy. “I was just making it up; I don’t really play.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well then that was REALLY good, for ‘not really playing’.”
He laughed. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” I said, looking back down at the blank page on my lap. The uncharacteristic boldness that had caused me to speak in the first place had retreated, leaving me alone to finish the conversation I’d recklessly started with this stranger. Silence descended for a moment just long enough to make me feel awkward.

“What year are you?” I asked, my go-to question for awkward silences with fellow students here.
“Junior.” He replied, rising from the bench to replace the hymnal he’d taken from the music stand. “You?”
“Freshman.” I said with a measure of humility; upperclassmen are intimidating.

We talked of majors, of why and how. I looked at him as we spoke, lifting my eyes from my journal. Even with my glasses on, I couldn’t quite see. The features of his face were blurred, though I could see that he hadn’t shaved it a few days. I could see his hair was dark; I could see he was tall. I could see the big white “IF” on his black t-shirt. But insufficient sight hid specific features from me, so in my mind I made his face to match his voice: dark, strong but humble at the same time.

“I’ll let you read.” He said eventually, his backpack crushed in the crook of his arm. It occurred to me how my shyness must have looked at the beginning, like I was enthralled in some literary hypnosis and would rather be reading than talking to him. Right away I felt guilty. That wasn’t true; I had enjoyed our brief conversation, making him perfect in my mind. I had started it, after all.

But I just smiled and said, “Ok.”
“I’m going on a walk. It was good to meet you, El.” He said.
“It was good to meet you too!” I waved and he nodded back, his hands full of backpack and heavy white door.

Pop crack, soft echoing boom, and I was left alone in the chapel to ponder this ships-in-the-night meeting of two people who enjoyed walks in the rain and solitary chapel visits. And music.
The silence was big like cotton in my ears, every one of my movements amplified in the solitude. As quietly as I could, I walked to the piano, opened the hymnal on the stand above the keys. I played a chord, a note or two, stumbling my way through the first line of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”. I paused, pulling dusty piano knowledge from the attic of my mind, scrubbing the grit from lines and spaces and key signatures. I tried the line again and again, but eventually gave up. It’s been too long now; these days my fingers are more accustomed to the callusing steel strings of my guitar.

But I had no guitar to play in worship, so I decided to use my voice, weary and rough as it was that night. Many of the hymns in the book were unfamiliar to me; others only vaguely reminding me of songs I knew as a child. I flipped through the pages, though, and once every several I came upon a song I knew well enough.

I flinched at the first notes I sang. They sounded sharp and intrusive after some minutes of absolute quiet. But I pressed through a verse and soon settled into softer tones. I tried to mean every word; to sing like a prayer, changing a word here and there in attempt to sing to God, instead of about Him.

Somehow, I always feel like a little girl when I sing or speak to God aloud. Awkward, vulnerable and helpless, but with a beautiful sense of innocence and trust.

I can’t explain it, though I suppose not many things about God or interactions with Him are logical. If these things could be explained—if we could break down exactly why one feels a certain way when praying or singing or reading the Bible, or if we could wrap our tiny human minds around the fact that God had no beginning and all of the hows and whys that have been discussed for centuries—if these things were logical to us then where would be the proof of divinity? If something—or Someone—is as much greater than humans as the Bible says He is, it stands to reason that humans would be nowhere close to comprehending Him. If we understood everything, if everything about Him had an answer that made perfect sense to us, wouldn’t there be some sense of disappointment? I think it might be even harder to trust a being simple enough to make sense to me.

But I tried to block out the more complex thoughts, all the hows and whys and ifs and whens. Tonight was for worship; for simplistic, child-like faith and wonder.
When I grew too tired to sing anymore, I crept to the alter table at the front of the sanctuary. I sat tentatively on a small wooden wall-like structure, my muscles tired and sore but my mind curious to investigate the books and papers and basket resting on the table’s dark wooden surface.

I picked up a spiral-bound book, yellowed and battered and torn from years of quiet service. It was a notebook, full of prayer requests and answers from anonymous believers. All seemed to have been written quickly—either in the desperation of need or in frantic joy of provision. For all its worn appearance, the book wasn’t full. So I took up a page of my own, writing a date but no name, like the others had done.

I used up my space, the margins dark gray with crammed scribblings, so I tried to find out what the blank papers were for. The basket was full of them, all folded in half and with the light shining through the thin white I could see writing on the other side. I didn’t want to pry, but I was confused. Were these notes to a pastor? More prayer requests? Confessions?

I squinted and craned my neck, trying to make out a backwards word or two. Awkwardly tilting my head, I tried to see the other side, as if reading the note didn’t count as snooping as long as I didn’t touch it.

“Dear Beloved,” was the first line. I sat up quickly, feeling as if I’d disturbed a pair of lovers. Because that’s what these were: love letters to God. The few random words I’d been able to read inside-out made sense now.

I picked up the pencil that lay on the stack of blank pages. For a moment I just stared at the stark white, willing new words to come to me. My love letter was short and simple; recycled words. But true ones; ones I wanted Him to know so much as to repeat them over and over and over again. I folded the paper, neat yet humanly imperfect, and let it join the other white squares whose corners spiked up over the basket’s rim.

For a moment I was still. Scraping pencil noise done, crinkling paper hushed, cotton silence once more.

I felt dazed as I gathered my things. It was time to leave; the black of deep night had filled the windows. It felt wrong to make an exit as simple as walking out the door. But, I thought as I left the sanctuary, that is one of the many facets of the beauty of Christ: He doesn’t require a dramatic exit or perfect eloquence of speech or an angel’s singing voice. All He really asks of me is faith as I step back out into the rain.

Blacks and Bays, Dapple and Grays...

Last night I dreamt of horses. Horses and horses and hoof-thunder all around and my thighs are gripping the bare back of some chestnut stallion. I am knee-deep in a surging sea of power, electric charges packaged in glossy fur coats. Flashes of shimmering earth-toned bodies all engulfing me, flowing like a single wave yet shifting like a hundred tree canopies in a violent wind. One but many; many to make up a breathtaking whole.

They bob in and out and around one another, undulating miniature hills of black and gray and brown and white and buckskin and bay and spots, and out of control they all seem to roll wildly over the open terrain. I’m not afraid; it’s wild and free but normal, too.

Routine ecstasy.

I can feel the chorded muscles bunch and stretch beneath me like the arm of some Olympian god, flexing to showcase his strength. My muscles tighten and wave; stiff and loose to mold to the movements of my mount. Lean back for every stride; sway and lift my body to absorb the jarring hoofbeats of the stampede-galloper beneath me.

Horses brush and push against my legs on either side, trapping them briefly, and for a moment I feel the hot pressure of being caught between two great wild beasts. But I’m never crushed. My balance is threatened, but I never fall.

I am a part of this sacred herd-rite. I am one with this tribe of rugged creatures and drowned in their raw beauty and rough, ragged grace. Terrifying power and deafening sound and wind that whips my hair and I feel it’s sting on my face; tears in my eyes from the speed. And I am unaware of myself, unaware of whatever it is that makes me human; that separates my psyche from that of the equine’s. I am unaware of anything, besides my belonging, melded into this band of horses.

Second day of real college (I say "real college" cause I attended JCCC for a while but that was for dual credits and it felt like more of a purgatory between high school and college than an actual university experience). The number of activities they have us running to and fro between should be considered freshman abuse.

I'm making myself take some pictures, cause even though right now I don't have any friends here and I don't feel like a part of things, I know (at least I hope) that I will eventually and I'll probably want to remember my first week.

I'm sure every other freshman is feeling this way: I can't see myself really being part of this community. It's hard to imagine, when there are no familiar faces; no go-to group where I have a place and a character part. It's hard to imagine that it will ever be that way. It never got that way at JCCC, but I didn't live there (though I practically did) and that school was huge and not Christ-focused like MNU. So I'm hoping that living at a smallish school that centers around something close to my heart will make for a good place for me; a setting in which I belong.

I haven't had that feeling anywhere (except home) for a long time, probably since Faithwalkers week in December of '05. An essential part of an essential group, full of life and passion, making innocent trouble and eating tea bags, just because they were there and we were hyper. Not worrying about anything. Not about looking good or looking bad or appearing immature or seeming like an "attention whore" (yes, I have been called that) or how many calories is in that. Just doing and being and no thinking past "is this morally ok".
People think it's hard to think about what's "right" and "wrong"...and it is, but think about how much simpler things would be if that's ALL we had to worry about.

There were times before that week that were like that too. Ugh, I miss those times more than anything.

So now I'm hoping and praying that times like those will come again with starting school here. If they never come again...I don't know what I'll do.

When the road finally gives me back, I don't think I'll unpack, cause I'm not sure that I live here anymore.

I'm moving to MNU tomorrow, and I haven't packed a thing yet. I'm about to get started though, as soon as I finish this post (and the next episode of "Arrested Development"). Just for kicks and giggles, I'd thought I'd share a few of the more random things on my packing list:

1. Singing black lab stuffed animal
2. Lion King collectable plates
3. Glow-in-the-dark hang-from-the-cieling thingies
4. Robotic parrot
5. Bottle of dirt from the Garden of Gethsemane
6. Cool menu from a Chinese restaurant
7. "Cricket in Times Square", "The Incredible Journey", and "Hank the Cowdog" audio books
8. Simone's (a deceased ferret) paw-print impression
9. The painting by an elephant I got on my 18th birthday
10. Fake vines
11. Pink teddy bear Dad got for me the day I was born
12. "Clothing Optional Beyond This Point" sign

And it goes without saying that I'm bringing my favorite stuffed animal, my tiger Peploava (I got her when I was four, and made up the spelling of her name when I was six, so don't ask me why it's spelled that way). And, I went to Toys 'R' Us the other day and got this awesome robotic lion cub that's crazy realistic (since they don't allow real pets in the dorms, I had to get something that was as close as possible to a real animal. Eventually I'll probably get a fish).
I think that's everything especially unique.

Steadier Footing

The sky has been gray for awhile now. A few days, anyway. I like it. And I'm looking forward to winter, when iron clouds will hang above me most of the time. I'm thinking of it as a trial run, because lately I've been thinking I'd like it in Portland.
I lived there when I was little. I don't remember much about it, but I like what memories I have. Blustery beaches and big waves, steel-tented cobalt with shredded white edges beating themselves against wet-blackened rocks to shake the salt spray from their roiling backs.
They were all around me once, and so was my brother and my dad and Otto and Gretchen, our two Dobermans. Their black fur was beaded with seamist and fine salt crusted their whiskers. They looked old and dignified, like Poseidon's hounds, in spite of the long pink tongues dangling from their mouths.
The tide had come in, and the five of us were stuck there, on that rock in the sea. I think the rock had a name, but I don't remember it now. And I think there were pictures from that day, but I've lost them.
I know I wasn't afraid. I don't remember how we got back to shore, but it wasn't frightening.
I was only four years old then. No, maybe I was three. I thought our house was called Portland. It made sense to me. Everyone said we lived in Portland, and everyone referred to houses as places in which a family lived, and so it follows quite logically in a child's mind that her house might be called Portland. No one else seems to understand the logic in that thought process, but I still do.
And I understand why, for a few years, I was sure I would grow up to be a pony. My parents would tell me, "You can be anything you want to be." And I wanted to be a pony. I imagined myself as a pony, yellow-gold with long, flowing, white mane and tail. In my vision, my eyes and hooves were blue, and I reared on my hind legs on the brown shag-like carpet of our living room, whinnying in celebration of what it was to be a pony.
Now I want to be a criminal profiler, or a dolphin trainer.
Or a pony. Those were simpler times.
I wouldn't have to go to college to be a pony. I wouldn't have to move away from home.
Everything is here. It seems like such a waste, to have built such a life here, only to leave it so soon. Why did I bother with painting my room green with jungle vines, or hanging pretty things from a tree by the creek, or carving secrets into it's trunk? Why did I bother to invest so much of myself here when it is only a place for me to wait out the first quarter of my life? Always knowing I would leave someday soon, why did I let this become home to me? Only to uproot. I know that's the way things are done, but maybe it shouldn't be that way. Maybe the focus of "home" should be directed more towards that ambiguous place where you'll end up. The place you move into, planning to stay forever. Even if you don't end up staying forever, it's better than tethering your heart to a place when you know for sure you'll leave it.
And how can I feel at peace in a bed where a dog has never been and will never be? It isn't right to sleep without a dog. It's lonely and cold and just...not right. All my life there has been a dog at the foot of my bed. Or at the head of the bed with me, fighting for my pillow. There's always been twitching paws in the dark, deep groans of contentment, a heavy warm body to guard me from the cold, and sharp-toothed protection from things that go bump in the night.
My loyal companion sleeping beside me now--a black mass of softness and friendship sprawled across the blankets--he has no idea that in three days his master will abandon him. That she'll leave him to occupy this king-sized bed by himself; won't be there throughout the day to offer a scratch or table scraps or a soothing voice.
He has no idea, and it will take him by surprise and he won't understand why. He'll be pitifully happy to see me every time I visit. Me, who chose a white-washed dorm room over him, my constant, loyal dog.
He'll be old when I graduate. Almost eleven. But then, wherever I go I'll take him. Maybe we'll go to Portland and find a rock and let the tide trap us there.
Because, frankly, I'd rather relive childhood than go on to whatever comes next. Nothing is as blissful as childhood; nothing as care-free as ignorance. Knowledge cannot be unlearned. Maturity can't be ungained.
The avalanche has begun and time won't stand still for me.
There is no steadier footing.

On Saturday I move to MNU. 30 minutes away from home, but hey, I'm not a fan of change of any kind so I'm still quite apprehensive.
I get a private room, so I am looking forward to having it all to myself. Decorating, playing music, etc. without having to allow for another person's taste.
I know that sounds pretty selfish, but with my health and energy levels, I really need my room to be a place where I can completely rest and relax, mentally and physically. It's hard to do that, sharing a room with someone. Believe it or not, it does take energy just to have someone else to worry about "will this or that bother them" (I am generally a people-pleaser so I will inevitably stress over this). And there is the risk of the roommate bothering ME, waking me up at night or even during the day when I'm napping, or having a bunch of people in the room making noise etc.
So yeah, God answered prayers when He granted me a private room.
I'm still worried though, especially about the first week when they'll have a bunch of activities for freshmen. I really don't know how I'm going to have the energy for it. I'm trusting God to provide me with extra strength and energy so that I can be a good student as well as have a social life. That is hard to comprehend, though, when I hardly have the energy for life right now (no school, quiet house, parents to help me with laundry and shopping and all the rest of the things I will have to do on my own once I move).
And, of course, I will be terribly homesick (yes, even though I'm only 30 minutes away from home). I'm very close to my family, and my pets too. I'll be hard to get used to not having a dog to sleep at the foot of my bed, a cat to curl on my lap while I watch a movie, ferrets to jump on my ankles, a mom to talk to at breakfast, and a dad to read Redwall with at night.
I'll survive though, just like every other freshman.
And I am a little excited. About my own dorm room, being up in town, and I'm really looking forward to my psych and criminology classes.
I guess this isn't an interesting post for anyone who happens to read it, but my college apprehensions have been building up for over a month now so I had to let some of the overflow out.

You can paint your nails lime green...

Today I got a pedicure for the first time today, and last night I painted my fingernails (yes, lime green). That's getting really, really girly for me. I think I've painted my fingernails five times ever (if you don't count coloring them black with a Sharpie during my punk phase), and I've never painted my toenails.
So while I was sitting in the massage chair with one foot in a hot tub and the other being painted red, I had lots of thoughts about the concept.
At first, I felt bad for being so "girly". The "tough girl" image has always been important to me (stupid, I know). But then I started thinking about how being girly sometimes makes every girl feel pretty (God made us that way; I'm afraid we can't help it), and when girls feel pretty they feel more confident, and sometimes I need that. For example, even though I prefer more casual clothes, if I need a confidence boost a pretty blouse will help in five seconds, whereas losing five or ten pounds will take two months and use up a lot of my limited energy.
And, God made girls the way we are because He liked it like that. There is no shame in femininity. Of course, like everything else, it can be taken too far, and when femeninity is taken too far it becomes vanity. Celebrating God-given femeninity is different than indulging in vanity.
That got me thinking about what can happen when femeninity turns into vanity. It can happen for lots of reasons in a variety of life circumstances, but no matter the reason, the results are never good. Irresponsible ammounts of money spent on clothes, spending hours in front of a mirror, even becoming obsessed and developing an eating disorder (eating disorders are developed as a result of psychological trauma, and the rammifications of that trauma manifest themselves in vanity-like qualities, egged on by society's glorification of vanity).
Why are girls and women prone to vanity? Sometimes it's pride, but I think that in most cases it is our lack of self-worth. It causes us to turn to trendy clothes, expensive jewelry, weight loss etc., because we think that if we're prettier we'll be worth more. Not that clothes and jewelry and healthy weight loss etc. are bad things; not at all. Like I said, they can be an effective confidence boost, and the former two are good tools for celebrating femeninity (weight loss can be a good tool for improving one's health, but not femeninity. One does not have to be any thinner than they are in order to be femenine). But it is sad when those things are used in exess because a girl/woman feels that she is not worth enough without them.
In a song called "White Shoes" by Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley band, there are lines that go "You can wear your new white shoes in the dirty afternoon; walking through the traffic fumes, a flower in your hair" and "You can paint your nails lime green, rent yourself a lemosine". To me, these lines can be interprited as speaking about the way some of us (girls/women) throw ourselves into fashion and nail polish and make up, but we are still unfulfilled.
Because we, as women, are supposed to find our worth by seeing our beauty through God's eyes. Every one of us were made exactly how we are because God thinks we are beautiful that way. We are tailored to His taste, not to that guy who made fun of our hair or that girl who made a catty remark about our pants size. We should wear pretty clothes and polish our nails and put on some make up in order to celebrate the beauty and femeninity that God has already given us, not to try to make ourselves "worth more" to small-minded humans.

That turned out way more rambling than I'd originally intended, but the points are: a) I'm getting a bit more girly than I used to be, and I'm ok with that, and b) I got my first pedicure today and it was a lot of fun and it felt really good!

At Every Occasion I'll be Ready for a Funeral

Funerals get a bad rap, I think. I think they're healthy; they provide closure.
The word "closure" gets a bad rap too, because of its association with pop-psychology, but it has validity as well.
But back to the funeral thing.
I have lots of private funerals. For animals, mostly. But I've also had funerals for people who haven't died. They just ceased to be part of my life. I think that kind of loss is underestimated.
Another kind of loss that I think is underestimated is the loss of a time in one's life, or the way one's life used to be.
If you find yourself constantly bogged down by the memory of "better times"--those times before that out-of-control pivotal point that changed everything forever--I think you should have a funeral for it. For the loss of the "before" days, I mean. Get some mementos, put them in a box, write a poem or something, and get rid of all of it. Even if the things you put in the box are hard to get rid of. The things that are the hardest to get rid of are usually the things that need most to be gotten rid of in order for one to let go.
Like a certain green guitar pick, but that's still pending.

"Life is a comedy for those who think. Life is a tragedy for those who feel."
True. But I think that, in general, life is richer for us "feely" types.

I haven’t seen the sea for a long time, but I try to make up for it by walking by the pond or watching the fish in my mom’s fish tank. I’ve named them all after artists or authors: Andy, Monet, Leo, Edgar, Vincent, Lewis…they’re sick, though; a flesh-eating fungus. It must hurt them, because they aren’t moving as much as they used to. I think Lewis is contemplating suicide. He swims by the filter, barely resisting its sucking grip; won’t even come away to eat fish flakes with the others.It makes me sad when fish and bugs are sick or hurt. They suffer as much as any other creature, I think, regardless of their significance. They suffer just the same, but there’s not much anyone can do about it besides put them out of their misery. Most of the time people don’t even care.I’ve read different things about whether or not fish and bugs can feel pain. From what I’ve read, I think they can. And even if there is no absolute scientific evidence, the best one can say is that we don’t know for sure. But, based on the fact that all the rest of God’s creatures are capable of feeling pain, it seems cruel to assume that fish and insects are not and thus squash them more freely. Even depriving them of the sympathy one would feel for a wounded mammal seems more callous than I would like to be.But I’m more than I’d like to be in a lot of ways. More selfish, more lazy, more prideful, more....me. So what difference would it make if one more flaw was added to the mix?I don’t know; I suppose there are some things that are good about me. But they don’t seem to be as relevant as the flaws, sometimes. I remember them, see them in myself or absent in other people; watch others excel as I stay the same.I used to have more talents to my name. I used to be better. Before I got sick I had the focus and energy to make myself into the person I wanted to be. I used to run six miles every day; I was fit. I used to practice singing every evening; I had potential. I used to play my guitar often; my fingers didn’t get sore so fast then. I used to ride Spirit over jumps every time I rode him; we could ride anywhere. I used to lose myself in complex literature; my brain functioned better in a healthy body. I was less inhibited; seven months of near-isolation during diagnosis built a maze in my mind that still confuses me four years later. I used to be a great friend; I had the strength and energy to be there for people to lean on. Now I can’t be there consistently. I’ve become unreliable, a part-time friend, and so people rely on others and it kills me not to be the one anymore.Often I want to announce to the world, “I used to be someone! I used to be exciting and fun and full of life! It isn’t my fault I stay at home now. It isn’t my fault my grades have slipped some. It isn’t my fault these dark circles under my eyes won’t go away; still show through my makeup. It isn’t my fault that I’m not the person I used to be. I used to be someone; don’t forget who I was. Remember me like that, please; not this crippled racer, struggling to keep up with everyone else."I know it will work into God’s plan; I know He works everything for His good. And because of that I wouldn’t change it. But I may still mourn every now and then, and I don’t think that’s wrong, is it? Even Christ sweated blood as He mourned His fate. So might I do the same for mine, on a smaller scale? Might everyone?And I don’t think it’s “punishment”. Maybe it’s not even about lessons, though I have learned a lot. I think it is bigger than that; bigger than me. Part of the grand Plan no one can see yet. That can make it both easier and harder to accept at the same time. Easier, because I know it is not purposeless. Harder, because I can’t see the purpose. All I see is a rough outline in my own little world. All I see is a height above me, one from which I’ve fallen.I suppose I can’t blame all regression on my illness. I can say that it weakens my resolve and makes progress slow; makes it hard to make myself do the things I’m still capable of. But, I should be able to rise above and, progress is not only slow; it’s nonexistent. It’s negative. As if I never was the person I used to be. Like she never existed. Maybe it would be better if she never had; then I wouldn’t have so much to let go of.I’ve let go of lots of things; everyone has. Even if they don’t mean to. Time just does that; pulls things from their grasp as their grip loosens, cause it matters less and less. A dream shatters and slowly you pick up all the pieces; sweep the tiny fragments up and throw them all away. As you move on with life, occasionally you might step on a piece you missed and get rid of it. Eventually they’re all gone. Right?I thought so, but I’ve been dreaming lately—dreams from nearly six years ago—about old wishes coming true. And dreaming makes me wish again, a little. Just a little. Does it mean anything? How much stock can one put in dreams, anyway? Sometimes they’re revealing a deep part of subconscious psyche. Sometimes they’re indications from God. Sometimes they’re just random. How can I tell the difference? How can I make them stop? I’m already in my head too much when I’m awake; I don’t want to hang out in there when I’m sleeping, too. Not that I sleep much, but when I do it just confuses me instead of being restful.And home is no more restful than a strange bed, I’ve found. Nor a strange bed more so than home. Dreams find me still; little films of hopes and dreads, past and present, playing out on the backs of my eyelids.So even in my sleep I’m reminded of how horrible I am at meeting new people. At finding ease in a crowd. Red campus or yellow, I still feel separate from it all. Watching but in a separate dimension. Thoughts go through my head…things I would say if I was who I had been. If I was still the girl who used to participate and even be the life of the party sometimes; or at least part of it. Giggles the Otter. Not anymore. Why can’t I be her again? I miss it. The words come to me, the words she would say, but I don’t say them. I know what she would do; I can see her doing those things as if her ghost was before me—my private phantom. But I can’t follow her. I should be able to. To order my tongue to speak, my lips to smile, my legs to take me where the life and action is. But somehow I can’t. I know I’ll never make my own life in the world if I don’t do these things, but I can’t.Maybe because my situation is not yet desperate. Maybe when I’ve hit the rock-bottom of loneliness-- when I am no longer content to be the hermit I am now—maybe then I’ll be able to push myself into the light where the others are. Where I used to be. My eyes have adjusted to these shadows, though, and the sunlight will inevitably hurt them.I know that, and even though I know it I still don’t want to shut my eyes. There is so much to see and I want to see it all, even the ugliness that is there, because in order for it to be judged ugly it must dwell amidst beauty.Just like now, though it’s late and tonight I feel like I might get real sleep for once, I don’t want to turn out the light. I don’t want to close my eyes. It’s been this way for the past few nights. By halting my pen or closing my book and lying down for the night, I feel as if I am ending some story prematurely. The close of the day no longer seems to fit where it comes. It seems too early; there’s too much left but I have to follow just hours behind the sun, though the moon illuminates the most inspiring things. I must sleep through them. Or dream in code. Or toss and turn in frustration—too weary to soak up the inspiration of the night, but too wakeful to indulge in its peaceful purpose of sleep.The other night, as sleep evaded me, I read some of Psalm. Lots of them are divided into two parts, you know. The first part is the cry to God; the crisis, the confusion. The second is the joy when God has provided some relief. A beginning of mourning, an ending of praise. Sometimes the line is blurred. There is praise in the suffering; a different kind of praise. A strange, but beautiful kind. As if the pain of the psalmist is in itself a demonstration of faith. Some are about war with others. Some about battling with one’s own humanity. If I were a psalmist, I think mine would be mostly about the latter. I know I’m never there for You, though You’re always there for me. I reached out and plucked the apple. The knowledge is too much for me; let my innocence return. I want to put You first. All these other lovers keep getting in the way; I’m weak and I can’t fight them. Why can’t I let go of things I never should have grasped? Even now they tempt me. Why is everything I do for such selfish reasons? I just want to love You. Such a simplistic request, and still I can’t hide my left hand from my right...Can’t? Or won’t? Can’t, because humans can do nothing good apart from God, or won’t, because of my selfish humanity? What is the balance between waiting on God and not doing my part?I’m tired of concepts; I need a course of action. If climbing Mt. Everest in shorts would change my heart, I’d to it. That seems easier to me than the intangible steering of thoughts and emotions that I have no idea how to control.I’d have a better idea if I could keep my focus long enough to figure anything out, really. There were things I wanted to write, just a second ago, but I stopped to hug my dog and now I’ve forgotten them. They seemed important, too. I thought them out, studying my reflection in the mirror as I waited for the water to warm up. I knew what I was going to say; could almost feel my fingers type. But I can’t remember now.Something about seeking knowledge, and how I’ve been trying to do that lately but it hasn’t satisfied the…something. The wise seek knowledge, Proverbs says, and I’ve been trying. I did well for awhile, too. But it’s like everything else: being “better” requires constant, consistent effort and I just can’t keep it up for long.I start up again eventually, at everything I try to do—eat really healthy, read complex books, read every news article I see, improve my concentration, improve my character—but when I do I’ve lost ground and have so much to recover. Always one step forward, two steps back and I don’t know what to do.The screen is glaring into my eyes but I’ve so much left to say and I wish someone would just answer all my questions.Primarily, am I the only one with so much confusion? I know I’m not; I suppose that’s not really what I’m trying to say. What I mean is, I don’t want to be tieless forever, and I don’t think I’ll ever “have it all together”. At least not for a very, very long time. But I don’t want to wait that long for some establishment. There are things I want in life, things that are within other people’s control; not mine. Will they give me those things when I ramble on and on like this? Or will I not deserve what they have to give until I figure things out? Am I being overly-emotional? Purple prose? Immature? Dramatic? Do I cross the line of acceptable melancholy indulgence? “A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back.” (Proverbs 29:11) Am I being a fool, venting my feelings? I can’t tell. Maybe it doesn't matter. It's not like anyone actually reads these anyway. In fact, I don't know why I bother. Maybe it's just relieving to vent without having to be vulnerable face-to-face. Oops, there's that 'vent' word...Sometimes I think everyone has these kinds of raging mental storms. But maybe we aren’t supposed to talk about them. Maybe there’s a reason most journals—even edited ones—are kept secret. Maybe “stability” isn’t reached until one can roll all this up and swallow it, wash it down with a swig of reality and keep it from coming back up. Maybe I’ve said so many things that aren’t supposed to be said and so I won’t get what I’ve been hoping for. Won’t get it for a long long time. If ever.Do I have to be as close to perfection as humanly possible in order to receive fulfillment? Fulfillment. Maybe someone would tell me that my fulfillment should come from Christ. And it does, ultimately. He is my foundation. The durable canvass that upholds my life’s-work-in-progress; allows me to indulge in different colors and try techniques again and again and again because I know, no matter how much I smear the paint, He has reinforced this life-art I’m making.But I still have desires unfulfilled. And I think that’s ok; I think God gives us our desires, partly so that He can give them to us and we in turn will give more glory to Him, and partly to help us accomplish His will. I think He wants us to be happy, and that He won’t force us to go our entire earthly lives without that thing—or the concept of that thing—we want the very most. But I don’t know if I’m right. What do I know? Just because it makes sense to me doesn’t mean it’s so. My mind has a way of making connections that don’t exist in order to stop me when I’m on the verge of freaking out. A subconscious sanity-preservation mechanism; a security measure for complacency. So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, before any of my earthly desires will be satisfied, I have to stop wanting them. Maybe I will never know how amazing it would feel to have a desire satisfied when the waves of wanting are most intense. Maybe, when I’ve ridden out the wracking storms of yearning, when I’ve ceased to really care whether or not I ever feel my heart swell with that kind of joyous disbelief…maybe my wishes won’t be granted until then. Maybe that’s the truth. And that terrifies me. But there are promises, right? There are scriptures about fountains of blessings and fulfillment. “May He grant you according to your heart’s desire, and fulfill all your purpose.” (Psalm 20:4). God even acknowledges that receiving desire is good for the soul: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12). And He indicates that He will give us what we want: “I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” (Jeremiah 29:11). He says we’ll be so happy, we “shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice.” (Jeremiah 31:4). I know, all of those verses could be referringto heaven, the ultimate fulfillment. But what about his one: “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13).In the land of the living. Of course, I have seen much of His goodness already, here in the land of the living. But my hope is deferred and so my heart is sick, and its life support is the belief that He will give me my heart’s desire in the land of the living. So maybe the acknowledgement of the fact that He exists--maybe that's not enough for us and He knows it. Maybe He made it that way, so that we could have other deisres and He could give them to us or we could learn from them. Maybe...His existence doesn't fulfill all of our desires, but through His existence all of our desires are fulfilled.When He created everything, He said everything was good. Except for one thing: “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18). Man had God, but he needed something else, too. Isn’t that an example indicating that we are designed for earthly fulfillment as well as Devine? That the two should work together?Am I reaching? Am I twisting scripture—making false connections—as a guard against hopelessness? Could it be that this wish will eat away, forever ungranted, at my soul until the day I die and it won’t stop gnawing until I get to heaven? I don’t think that He would do that to me; to anyone. I think, either the current wish will be fulfilled, or my heart will change to wish something new and then that wish will be satisfied. Either way, I think He will grant the desires of my heart. But maybe I’m wrong. I’m afraid that I’m wrong. And why shouldn’t I be wrong? I’m no scholar of scripture. Maybe I’m way off. Like I said: what do I know?

I think I missed my soul mate by nearly two hundred years. At least I found him, though, in the yellowed pages of leather-bound, ink-smelling books. No, that is a lie. I wish I had found him that way--in a thick, dusty, ragged book on the top shelf of some grand old library somewhere--but that’s not how we met. We met in the glossy pages of a sixth grade English textbook. The pages smelled like chemicals and I sat at a fake-wooden desk, praying for class to end. Beside the childish cartoon of a scruffy black bird, I read his name and didn’t like it. It was old-fashioned and silly. But I was made to read the poem, and I believe I fell in love with him then, though he would pursue me through paper for years after before finally keeping a grip on my heart. And even now, I have still far more to find out about him; still more of myself to give.For him I’ve been Lenore, and Helen; changed my name to Annabel Lee. I’ve dreamt of being Virginia—to have been his muse. To have been the inspiration for so many brilliant black roses, scrawling their dolorous vines across the parchment. To have been the reason for such deep throes…Fifteen years of life is enough, and two as his bride the best of them, I’m sure it would have been. Maybe his heart was not the purest, but neither is mine and in his verses and tales I can tell we would have connected deeply, if in a stygian way. He is known for darkness but knew so much of beauty and recognized it as no one else, the beauty that lay in the dark. “The pleasure which is at once the most pure,” He said to me, “the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.” He saw the mystery in a cat, the wisdom in the irrelevant, and the value of dreams by day. His mind penetrated the truth of man, and saw what we really are, not what we so blindly pretend to be. He would have understood me in my silence, I think. He would not try to fix the clog in my throat or my dislike of small talk. Upon meeting me, maybe we would have sat together in silence for a long while before uttering any sort of acknowledgement to each other. Then, when finally he spoke, he would dispel all apprehension, not by asking me how I’m doing, but by asking me if I, too, could feel the secret pleasure when my mind reveals it’s more masochistic capabilities. And I would tell him yes, but that I’m afraid to tell anyone. He would tell me not to be afraid. Or maybe he would tell me to be very afraid and to cultivate my fears of any kind and then when I can no longer stand the level of terror, to charge into their gaping mouths and let them consume me while my pen scratches desperately at scraps of paper, recording the chaos in my mind. He would tell me the chaos is beautiful, and no, don’t try to organize it, dear; don’t try to clean it. Let it out raw—bare your red, pulsing heart for others to see and hear. Listen as some of them run screaming from you, but take gently by the hand those who stay, and lead them from the light to show them the intricacy of what is beyond. Drown them in luscious, tenebrous depth.Yes, I believe Edgar and I would have understood each other. Well, he would understand me. I don’t presume to be able to even come close to understanding the wonderfully deep, aphotic labyrinth that was his mind. I would give very much to have been his pupil; for him to have guided me through his winding mental maze. What more could any wanna-be writer wish for? Finding a mentoring mind still living is as hard as anything else, though, and nothing is very easy anymore.No one told me life was going to be easy. Or that it was supposed to be. Or that it was supposed to be mostly easy or easy at all at any time. So why do I get upset when it’s hard? Why am I disappointed when it doesn’t go well? When I get hurt or when I hurt someone else or when I thought I’d found the answer but it was really just a thousand more questions in disguise, and I know that in an eternal quest for happiness no one’s ever really found it and that can make me feel so hopeless…But Amy Charmichael said “In acceptance lies peace”, and I suppose that makes sense. If pride and laziness will allow me to stop fighting—or start fighting; I’m not quite sure which I need to do at this point—maybe then I could move freely enough to escape most of the cramps. Because life is supposed to hurt, I think. I think we’re supposed to stub our toes on the uneven trail and we’re supposed to fall down and break and, no, we’re not supposed to heal completely. Keep the itch; keep the cramps. Then the end matters more. Heaven will be all the sweeter when we’ve lost everything we have to lose here. Besides, mistakes are the best of teachers.And yet, I still grasp so selfishly at tiny means of luxury…I wish self-improvement didn’t require such self-control.Because I have no self-control. It’s not very often one breaks one’s own heart, but I pulled it off with my lack of discipline. Because I’m like a rabbit or a deer or a bird or squirrel and I frighten so easily, dashing off before I can even see if I’m really in danger. I wasn’t, at least not so soon. And I dashed and I left something behind that I hadn’t realized had grown roots inside me, so now I have a hole in my gut where it used to be.I’m trying to fill it up, trying to stay busy. I’m writing, I’m writing; I’m exercising and playing my guitar, though I’m tired of all the songs I know. I’m running errands and running with my dog and running to outrun the sense of pointlessness and futility that’s always catching up. But I run slow cause I’m always tired; I haven’t been sleeping. So I’ve been taking pills to sleep, and they make me sleep late so I sleep a lot and I don’t have time to live the life I want to live between all the sleeping. And that’s getting old but there’s nothing I can do about it.But there are things I’ve realized in all my sleeping of late. I’ve realized how delicate, how thin and lace-like, my ideals were; like spider webs. I thought I had them for a reason, you know? I thought I’d been made especially with them inside me—my specific ideals that would guide me to where I am supposed to be and to whom I am supposed to be there with and what we are supposed to be doing. How fine is the line between faith and the naïve, book-fed fantasies of a shy romantic? Apparently it is thicker—no, thinner….it is something other than what I thought it was and I’ve been forced to take another step towards realism, because the world just can’t bear to let me hang on to the shreds of perfect dreams that I actually--foolishly--harbored some hope for. I’ve figured out I can’t have it all, not all in one place. I’ll have to choose. Prioritize. Settle. For awhile I wanted to scream, “Is it too much to ask?!” but now I’m feeling myself slide towards the point of resignation. Of resigning myself to what appears to be the fact: being easy is the only way to not be alone. Not “easy” as in “whore”, but easy as in, easy to get along with. Easy to understand. Easy to be with. Easy to read. Easy to interpret. Easy to catch. Easy, easy, easy. So suck it up and break. You’ve read too many books if you’re waiting for someone to gently chip their way to your core; if you think someone actually wants to get to know you--really know you--so much that they’ll put in the time and effort it takes to extract the elixir of your true essence. Society screams constantly for ease of personality; for the smooth-thinking, unflawed mind. Psychology may be the new religion, but outside the therapist’s office those subjects are taboo. Even inside that office, the object is to be “fixed”; to become simple, really. To avoid conflict. To embrace difficulties and ponder their meaning and reason and clarity—that’s not the goal anymore. Maybe it never was. Regardless, now it is a search for emotional anesthetic; a honey-coated reality check meant to numb and placate. Remove the cloying margins meant to accommodate spoiled fragility and all that remains to do is cash in:Afraid? Get over it. No one has the patience to coax you out over time.Complicated? Too bad. No one should have to work hard enough to unravel the mysteries of you; stop being so difficult.Confused? Get used to it. Everyone is too busy looking for their own answers to help you find yours.Shy? Deal with it. If you’re not going to easily offer up your deepest secrets and thoughts, no one’s going to bother to dig for them, no matter if you want them to or not. They're not mind-readers. That’s your problem; fix it.I too often make the naive mistake of assuming that everyone is willing to labor for intimacy at a soul level. I always thought it went without saying that if you cared for a person—in any way; platonic, romantic, or family—you would want to really know them. How they think, what they think about and why. I want to know these things, and more, about everyone I care about. I want to delve into their minds and know them as well as I know myself. Toss away social standards and propriety. I don’t want to ask where they went to school or what their major is. The brushing of souls—what I want in theory, but what I am too reticent to attempt to gain.I wish I had finished that Rubix cube. I wish I hadn’t given up on it. I wish my resolve hadn’t dissipated in the presence of more pressing life issues.Cause it’s those kinds of little things that can etch the word “failure” into your mind, sometimes even more deeply than the bigger things. Or it’s the pile up and that little thing—that unfinished Rubix cube—is what finally makes things push hard enough to make the engraving. The wrinkles in my brain…I wonder what they look like. I wonder if they might make pictures, like the dots on my ceiling, or if they’d make words like the swizzles in one of those kid puzzles on the back of the Cheerio’s box. I wonder if they’d say anything more meaningful.It’s been a long time. Since a lot of things. It’s been a long time since I learned a new song on my guitar; so long the calluses on my fingertips are fading. It’s been a long time since I held someone’s hand and it just seems like a dream now. But that’s ok; I meant to wake up.It’s been a long time since I’ve gone swimming. I know I’m not the only one who thinks swimming is as close as man can come to unaided flight. Someone else said it; someone important. I don’t remember who but it doesn’t matter. I just know that it’s been a long time since I felt like I was flying.Birds can fly because they have hollow bones. And special feathers, but the special feathers would be useless if their bones were not hollow. Maybe it’s only a matter of time before my bones can be hollowed out, too. I’m sure it would hurt for awhile, but then maybe I could fly, holding a plastic sled behind my back like I did when I was a kid. Only this time, maybe I wouldn’t fall.It’s been a long time since I was a kid. It’s been a long time since I was born. Six-thousand nine-hundred and forty-six days. It doesn’t seem that long written out like that. And it seems even shorter when I say nineteen years and eleven days. But it feels like a lifetime. And maybe it is; if I died today it would be. The only difference is that it keeps feeling longer because it’s getting longer. The time between the memories, I mean.But I’ve been making fresh new ones, freezing them while they are fresh, and they get sweeter with time like a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. They will be so rich and nectarous that I will save them until a night when I have nothing else palatable, and I will savor the bouquet before I sip their essence slowly. I will make them last until their sweetness washes every last acrid taste from me.It’s been a long time since I’ve been cleansed like that; since summer began. Now it’s half over. I haven’t done anything with it yet.I had a list of books to read—books and plays and poems. “A Tale of Two Cities”. “Of Mice and Men”. “Hamlet”. “The Scarlet Letter”. “Song of Myself”. Things I’ve always wished I’d read, or that I’ve read part of and never really finished. Closure is important with books too, you know. I thought I’d have them finished by now, but I’ve only just started one. And time slipped away without telling me so I don't think I will accomplish any of my summer goals now.Maybe I’ll make new ones for the fall. I’ll be living somewhere else then; not too far away but far enough that it isn’t home. It’s new. Or it will be. I haven’t lived in the city for so long, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. Not that I sleep well now, anyway.Maybe my new goals will be about being independent; self-sufficient. That would be a good place to start. After all, it’s come to that. But maybe that won’t be so hard to achieve. I like to be alone most of the time. But the constant of home—of family and pets at home and friends at their own homes and everything remaining in its place so that I know exactly where to find things when I need them—it is something I have always had and therefore something I’m not sure I can do without.It doesn’t matter, though; I’ll have to. Do without, I mean. I’ll just keep some music playing while I get used to it. As long as the music doesn’t stop, I’ll be ok. Can someone be addicted to music? It’s nearly like self-medicating; an escape. A healthy one, as far as I know. A new form for emotion to take—to give you the power to cry without tears; maintain your dignity and feel your pain at the same time. Maintain control of ecstasy. What does that besides music?My own or someone else’s. It doesn't matter. As long as I can lend it my voice when I’m alone and pretend it’s mine, it is fix enough to get me through emotional extremes with sanity intact. Or almost intact, anyway. But would it be so bad if I was addicted to music? It makes sense, doesn’t it? It makes sense that if the music that has once kept a heart from breaking stops, the heart might crack a little.It’s irrelevant though, because I’m not addicted to music. In fact, I haven’t been playing it as much recently. My thoughts stumble over the notes blowing through my head and it didn’t used to bother me but these days I haven’t been thinking as clearly as I once did.I’ve been thinking more about California and the nights on the beach when I would go jogging. There were tall lamps, but they only provided a small circle of light every ten feet. And for those ten feet, those few moments as I ran in the dark, I felt the thrill not knowing. The light ahead made all around seem darker still and the deep, undulating hiss of the ocean filled my ears and blocked out other sounds. All before me a point of light and I must get there before something reaches out from behind or beside to pull me somewhere because I can’t hear or see and my feet crush crush crush slowed in the sand and I’m hindered. But then I would reach the light and with the return of clear vision my ears ceased to amplify the sea, and I looked and listened and knew I was safe; until I stepped out of the lamplight again. And I would step out again, and again and again, and even when the salt-breeze began to scrape my throat I still ran. My muscles worked and the lapping waves numbed the sand-blisters on my bare feet as they were rubbed further towards calluses and I could feel myself growing stronger—making myself stronger. The thrill of it all invigorated the appetite of my stride and so my legs ate six miles before climbing back to the shelter of the veranda. Now days though, my legs are only hungry for maybe two miles on landlocked gravel roads, and I run close to home, in the safety of sunlight. And I miss the night-blackened sea, though I know I’ve grown too cautious to run with it now, were some miracle to take me back there.