signs of life.

Hello.

Contrary to popular belief, I actually haven't died. Also, I still write blogs. Just...only less often.

This is what I am listening to outside my window,


I am being serenaded by a cacophony of cricket creativity. The cicadas take the bass section while the treefrogs improvise solos on the viola and violin. Crickets add rhythm and cello and the symphony is complete. I love this sound. At the end of every kind of day, if there is cricketsong, I can find home in some corner of my heart. At sleepovers, when everybody else is asleep, and I am feeling homesick for my own bed, I'll listen for the faintest of cicada sounds. Once found, it is like a lullaby. I focus my whirling mind on their steady, sweet voices, and I can sleep.

Right now, the symphony song is reminding me that summer is lingering in the foyer. Her weathered hand is poised and waiting on the knob as she prepares to step out of our lives once more. With eyes filled with visions of cooler winds and falling leaves, we turn readily from her long goodbyes to look into the wide open future; but summer is not gone yet. She's singing her warm-weather lullabies to me every night, still. And although I delight in the sound of it, I am so ready for autumn to walk through my door.

It is the transition that gets me every time.


My favorite days of the year are always those in-between days when summer unfolds into autumn, or when winter breathes out the first fragrances of spring. You walk outside expecting the suffocating closeness of the summer heat, but are instead greeted by a wind that feels like change. You can taste the tension of the seasons. My life feels this way today, only less divine and more....difficult.

I can taste the tension of the new colliding with the old. I can feel myself being confronted with anxieties and ominous foreshadowings that I've not yet faced. I walk outside the door of my heart and find...change.

Today was a hard, good day.
School was the good part.

The rest of it was just plain tough.


Even at school, I felt the bigness of the world into which I am leaping. I felt the awkward grinding of consistency against uncommon experience. I had the life-saving friendships of Steph and Olivia there to keep me from completely overloading, but nothing can really save you from how cold the water is on the first jump.

It just is.


I am okay with this. I just don't know everything, and I feel like I am coming unwound.


Anyway.

Remarkable Things Concerning Today:

1. I left my house at 8:40AM, and still walked in late to my 10AM class. Commuting is such adult business. I want to fly to school.

2. I didn't eat or drink for eight hours, approximately. I worked for most of the duration of that time. I'm just sayin', when you don't eat for that long and all you do is work and drive in between...you don't even realize you're hungry until you suddenly become aware that you seem have no blood sugar. Like, at all.

3. I worked for the first time. This was bittersweet.

4. I locked my keys in the car. Again.

5. I made the guy at the gas station smile. By being honest! He asked how I was and I told him I was tired. He said he was about the same. But he seemed genuinely happy to be having authentic human contact. That was nice. :)

I'm sure there were other things. Like how I talked to my boyfriend on the phone or how I pulled my first Hotlanta traffic driving stunts. But I am a sleepy sheep. Thanks for reading. Sweet dreams, world.

identity crisis.

There are days when, from almost any place in the house, you can hear Lalo screaming.



For those who are wondering, Lalo is not a baby, or an angry teenager, or even a person at all. He is my cockatiel, which, for those who are still wondering, is a bird.

Today, he is loud.

A lot of people (including myself, pre-cockatiel) make the unfortunate mistake of believing that all tame birds are magical singing creatures that exist solely to make your life brighter. But, like any new addition to your life, the brightness is bittersweet. Lalo does sing, and he makes these endearing smooching noises when I give him kisses, and overall he is extraordinarily personable. But. He does know how to scream.

Lalo spends entire days listening anxiously to the birdsong outside my window and replying with just one single note, at varying always-loud-sometimes-louder volumes, trying to get the attention of the birds on the other side of the glass. He climbs every wall in his cage and cranes his entire being in the direction of the other birds' voices, but all that he can do in the end is just yell, and yell, and yell.

Naturally, this breaks my heart.


Lalo's scream, the sound itself, is completely repelling. He tweets at the top of his little bird lungs, and all I want to do is strangle him. Generally, I'll just get far enough away to avert the storm until he finishes his soliloquy. But when I stop to remember the heart and reason behind the noise, I melt a little more every time.

There is just something so inherently wrong with a bird being on the wrong side of the glass. And yeah, I know the whole spiel about tame birds versus wild ones, and how Lalo would never survive, and how he really believes he belongs with people and not birds. Don't worry. I'm not going to cast him out into the wild to live his dreams; I know he wouldn't stand a chance. But no matter how many times Lalo acts like he knows how to be a human, it is when he screams that you can tell: he has not forgotten himself completely.

So, the question becomes, how much of myself have I forgotten lately?

Lalo has wings. He is obviously not meant to be on my side of the window pane. I get the idea that maybe he knows this when I try to clip his wings. He is generally the sweetest bird I've ever met, but when he sees scissors he'll do anything to be free of my hands. Biting, screeching, clawing; Lalo would break his own wing to keep from losing his flight feathers. Am I fighting that hard to remember who I am?

It's like this:

C.S. Lewis said that "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

I have a soul. A soul is like wings for the human frame. When the earth is shaken, my soul will still be here because I am made in the image of the Creator: I am eternal. But how deeply do I believe that? How often do I live as if my body were the end of me? How often am I content with the wrong side of the window pane?

So, while it breaks my heart to hear Lalo screaming, knowing that I cannot set him free, I think it must break God's heart to see us pre-occupied with life in the cage. And although I'd give a lot just for my bird to learn to be quiet, I think that maybe God is most pleased when we are kicking and screaming to be free of the things that hold our souls captive.

Bottom line-

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth."

Hebrews 11:13

We don't belong here.
Maybe we're just here to learn some things; to love and to illuminate the way to our Lord as often and as joyfully as possible.


I think I sometimes forget that I'm gonna last forever. I forget that nothing satisfies me except for the love of God, and I forget why that is. Learning identity is hard. I think it sometimes feels like being all by yourself on the wrong side of the window, screaming.

And sometimes it feels like being on the right side, screaming to the world through the glass.


Anyway.

Today is a day for turning off my phone and turning on the internal radio station that actually listens to what peace and quiet sounds like. I think I fight twice as hard than I really have to when I don't give myself time to power down. Today is a day to find the little lost parts of Annie that got left behind on the battle field. Usually, if I sit and wait, they'll all come wandering back to me. Sometimes it takes a couple of conversations, but eventually I'll be all in one piece.

(: thanks for reading.

peace.

rushing.

I have so many things rushing around in my head that want to be said. They are all interesting to me, and mostly all comprehensible in my own mind. I guess most things are, though. It's the getting-things-down-in-writing that makes writing a craft, and not just a way to pass time. Although, I don't know that blogging can be considered a craft. I guess it would depend on what you blogged, and if it changed anybody's life or not. So, let me know on that one.



I watched the beginning and end of Elizabethtown, the movie, tonight.

I think it should be said that I liked it much better the second time around.

Anyway, what I was thinking about is to the tune of what's happening in the above picture. For those unfamiliar with the plot of the movie, all you really need to know is that, in the end, the Hero and the Heroine find inner-healing and a wonderful love for each other, plus a pretty sweet end-of-the-movie kiss to match. As I watched Orlando Bloom run handsomely into Kirsten Dunst's arms for a life-changingly adorable embrace, something occurred to me. I watched as they pulled apart to fondly examine each other's faces in deep affection before going in for the kiss. I smiled a small and happy smile as the credits rolled after one last endearing shot of the two lovers leaning forehead-to-forehead, looking in one another's eyes. I found myself wishing for a moment like that of my own to inhabit my very near future, and then I did an internal double-take.

You have to understand, I have no shortage of adorability in my life. I have an adorable boyfriend who takes me on adorable dates to take adorable pictures of us doing adorable things together so that the whole world can adore us being adorable. But, still, when Kirsten and Orlando are star-gazing in one another's eyes, a part of my heart leaps up in hopeful yearning. It says, "let's do that for the rest of infinity," and yet...I know better.

I know that living from cute moment to cute moment is the kind of heart-dependency that gets me leaning up against the wrong tree. Eventually, the tree will snap, just like that. You just can't lean on affection like that, and I think that might be one of the ugliest beautiful things about love. When you find the real thing, you can lean on it. You can even find just little baby pieces of it and start to lean on them. But when it comes to the moments of heart-melting adorability, maybe the only way to find the right leaning place is to look for the deeper roots of love within affection.

I don't know. I think that the reason all these words are rushing around within me is because I have very often felt like I am in pursuit of something that so many people just do not see. It's like if the world was walking around in the Sistine Chapel without ever looking up. They'll see beautiful things, but they'll never see the utmost beauty. I mean, it's just what loving Jesus is like. It's what loving is like. The world parades around with banners proclaiming the fame of love, but they will not acknowledge its Origin. They pursue skin, and affection, and sex, and passion- but never the thing that weaves them all together. They're in the Sistine Chapel, and they're staring at their shoes.

I want affection, founded in love.


Just some thoughts.


More thoughts:

1. Late-night freedoms. I have been so tired lately. Life is moving so rapidly, and there is so much I am choosing to face that makes me feel like someone is holding a gun to the future. There's this list of things I have to be able to be and do, and I can live in peace. Sans the ability to accomplish these things, everything explodes. Obviously, this is the dramatized way-it-feels version, but at least I'm being honest about that. Anyway. I've been so tired, but I've been such a night owl. You're probably thinking something along the lines of, "great logic, Annie. Why are we talking about this?" What I am trying to say is that the PM has become my place of refuge and silence. So much is being crammed inside my daytimes that I and the quietness for which my sanity begs are being shoved out into the night hours. How sad is that? I like my little nocturnal refugee camp, but I'm thinking it's probably not a healthy pattern to live speedily all day until I want to just sleep, and then rob myself of that privilege in order to listen to the quiet house for a couple of hours. It's a lovehate situation, but I'm too tired to organize my emotions, so I'll just accept the habit for now.

2. Three hour sleepings. I adore naps. Napping is a lost art which should be forcefully and rapidly re-instated as a weekly, if not daily, ritual. I slept for three hours today to make up for a sleepover last night. My body is begging for more, but it was still so wonderful. Even if I wake up in a weird mood, the mental slowing-down process of falling asleep is a beautiful thing, even in the middle of the day.


3. Dangerous trustings. I still need to work out the job situation. Or, I still need God to work it out on my behalf. I know he's got this. I'm just trying not to be stressed about it.



Oh, man. I've got to sleep.
Thank you for reading.
I hope this all made sense, considering my state-of-brain.


Love to you all.
Sweet dreamings.

change is good.

It has been so long since I've been here.
So much is happening.



Originally, when I began blogging in Perspicacious, I said it was going to be a summertime thing. I guess I knew intrinsically the intensity of the struggle for timespace that happens every year in late August/early September. Always, there are the back-to-school rumblings of billions of public schoolers marching out to the bus stop every morning once again. You can usually catch the sound and smell of fresh notebooks being labeled and old textbooks being bought at ridiculous prices. For me, this time of year is usually a slightly disorganized cross between attempting to invent some semblance of a self-regulated schedule, and trying to finish out the remains of what didn't quite make it on to the must-do list at the end of May. This year, I suppose, is much the same, and yet...completely different.

Everything is changing.

Whenever I step back to muse over the plans and possibilities for the 2007-2008 school year, it kind of blows my mind. I can see me in my mind's eye, a bright-eyed and slightly terrified senior, braving Atlanta's morning rush hour to try and make it to Oglethorpe University on time for my 10AM math class. Me. Taking a college class. Learning how to function in a world quite outside of the one with which I have been well-acquainted. Re-learning to work for the things I want. And, learning it in a way that doesn't leave much room for laziness. The way things are looking, all of the schooling that I am really excited about this year is going to come via me either a] paying for it myself or, b] paying for the gas to get there. Don't get me wrong in this. My parents have given me the enormous gift of covering the tuition for Oglethorpe, and my grandparents have provided me with the Beautiful Buick I need to be able to get there. The plans have been well-laid for me. I simply have to step into my role in fulfilling said plans. In other words, I need a job.

I think I have a plan, though.


Anyway. All of this to say that, things are changing. Life is moving quickly and with much uncertainty. It's like, I know what's supposed to happen. I know what the syllabus for this year is, in my head. But can I really know what will happen? Can I really know what changes will take place in my heart, my mind, my beliefs?

I feel like I'm being given a set of wings, with the option of returning to the cocoon still readily available should I grow too weary. Or just, to remember where I am from, and where I want to be.

So. What else?

Someone anonymous left a wonderful comment on my last blog and said some words about how they and a friend purchased coloring books together. So, when they want to just chill and be together, they color! I thought this was a brilliant concept and a very reasonable way to spend one's downtime, so I bought a book of my own.

Remember these?



They were the only really colorable-looking pictures in any of the books at Kroger. Whoever was making all the easy-to-color pictures in all the coloring books must have gotten bored. All of the Disney Princess and Barbie books were printed in mind-boggling detail, especially when Crayola is your primary medium. SO. I bought the simplest, sweetest one I could find. So far, I love it.


Today, I...

must do something about "the room situation." Everything in my roomspace is begging for a makeover. Piles of unread books adorn the screaming-to-be-vaccummed carpet. A slim covering of bird-dust (a phenomenon known to an unfortunate few who are not pro-active enough to bathe their birds) rests on every lampshade and windowsill. There is a small-but-menacing mound of recently-used purses holding counsel on the floor by my bed, and the little shreds of half-eaten bird food are making a slow, steady attempt on my sanity as they somehow end up dominating every square inch of everything in my disorganized domicile!

Deep breath. So. I need to do something about that.

should color some more. To combat the intense side-effects that disorganization has on my brain.

will probably write a couple of letters. I can barely go to the card-aisle in Kroger without buying at least one just-because card and probably a birthday greeting or two. So. I'll be filling in the blank spaces around the inner-punchline of aforementioned greetings in order to make the people I love a little bit smilier. :)

Other than this, all that is left to say is,
smile! leave a comment! thanks for reading!

and,
I'll see you soon.