hither and yon.

How do I begin?

Finally I am here again. It seems I always come back when I am too full to keep holding all my observations in just my heart's two hands. Actually, I think my heart may have far more hands than two. I plow through days and days of life-happenings without giving it a real chance to stop and sort through what it carries. That awkward conversation, this look in his eyes, and the homeless man on the street all stretch out open hands toward my heart like abandoned children- waiting for someone to do something about their existence. I get so filled over the span of my days, I lose count of the anythings and everythings that I'm supposed to be thinking about.

Erin sent me a message via myspace today, with pictures of us making memories before a Copeland show we went to back in 9th grade.

I smiled at first, and read past the pictures to the end of the message.
But then, I got stuck.

Scrolling back up, I let my eyes just sink into that photograph. I must've seen it fifty times before, but something about it landed right in the middle of me tonight. In the background, my daddy was playing acoustic guitar and singing the song he wrote for me when I was little. Just then, it was like my heart looked at all the many, many things in all her hands and shook her head sadly. Somewhere in me, I got caught between then and now. Who I have been and who I have become.

There is so much tension in this transition.

Because, I miss the girl who looks back at me from that picture. But I think I only miss her because I don't know how to live in the world I have stepped into. I walk through crowds of people whose faces are veiled and undisclosed to me, and I don't know how to meet their glance with mine. I go to malls alone and buy clothes alone and eat alone and walk through rainy, damp parking decks alone. Alone because there's no one else shopping at Lenox? I assure you, no. Alone in a crowd; we are alone together.

What is hard about this is not that I'm not always with someone. I can be perfectly happy on my own. It is a question of belonging, of having a place.

If only I had this worked out within myself. Then maybe I could make sense of it on your behalf. But it is so unclear and messy to me, so gritty and unrefined, that probably most of my thoughts on the subject will be the same.

Here is sort of how it feels,

You live in the same house for the first 10 years of your life. Then you move. A month later, you come back to see how the new owners have taken ahold of your old place. Within moments, you're in tears. Unbeknownst to your mental faculties, your heart is overwhelmed by the feelings of no longer knowing what wall your bed used to face because your room is now an office. Or of your closet being re-carpeted from where your dog once destroyed it. These are your memories; this was your place. Now, where can you stand? Even just sitting on these unfamiliar couches is strange- it is time to move on.

That feeling is, in addition to being inexplicable, very, very hard.

I think it's got something to do with growing up.
I know it does.


Anyway, it seems much of my thinking is melancholy these days. Sorry if this is less fun. (:

It would be no good if I didn't write from where I am.


In addition to this,

Things to Smile About:

1. Raspberry Milk is excellent. I tried it on a whim the other night. I made it myself using raspberry syrup. Definitely recommended.

2. New Dresses. I am going on a 5th-monthiversary/going away to BJYUK date this Friday and needed something snappy to wear. Dates are snappy events. So, I found the American Apparel store next to Lenox mall today and went bravely in to face the brazen advertisements in favor of a greater cause. After much deliberation and conversing with a very hairy young man, I emerged victorious. The brilliant thing about this dress is that you can wear it more than fifteen different ways. I've been wanting one since my lovely Ashley friend showed me the two she has. They are lifechanging. click here, ignore the sketchy models, and watch the video. AMAZING.

3. 5th-monthiversary dates. This gets its own smile. I'm happy.:)

4. Happy parents. This one I am adding in lieu of the fact that my mom just came chasing my dad up the stairs from the basement, exploding with laughter. A beautiful sound, and even more fun to watch.

Now, it is time to consider showering and sleeping.
Thank you for being here.

and p.s.:



good days. :)

though i feel alone.

Today has been so strange.

I have this ache in my heart that I cannot seem to make myself tumble through, or over, or around. You know what I mean? There are pains and bruises that you can make friends with, and live on the edges of, until they wane away. Not this one. This pain wraps itself around my heart like the rain on my windshield this afternoon; softly, at first, and then the bottom falls out. I left school today and drove to Five Guys and parked. I didn't want a hamburger. I didn't know what I wanted. In the background, Fernando Ortega quietly played. There is a line in one of his songs that goes, "And when I am alone, when I am alone, and when I am alone...Give me Jesus."

Something in me tripped and fell to the ground, and I began to cry. There, parked on the outskirts of the Atlanta perimeter, I couldn't help but feel so by myself. People walked by on the outside and didn't glance up to see the girl who was crying in the driver's seat of her Buick. I don't know what I wanted them to do, I guess. Half of me wished somebody would go in and buy my lunch, just to show that they had seen me.

Loneliness is just so unfamiliar to me.

My life has always been a veritable inundation of social opportunities. I'm not used to feeling alone in a crowd. It used to be such a breathe-again kind of feeling when I went places where no one knew me all that well. I could be just another face to pass on the sidewalk, or a casual-but-interesting first-meeting. It was a thrill to be able to isolate myself, if only for a little while.

Today did not feel this way. Today I longedfor something- I'm not sure what. A heart-stirring conversation with someone whom I could trust. A confident look in the eyes from a wide-open face. To cry with someone, and not alone in my car.

I'm not sure how to think about this.


Something in my heart feels amiss, and I don't know where to turn.
Maybe it's just for today.


Another thought.

It rained today. On my way in when I got home from school, I was loaded down with any-and-everything that had been lying around in the front seat of my car. In order to not have to make two trips through the wet, I had gathered up a hundred million pounds of books and sweaters and cups and whatever else I had brought with me this morning. As I stepped out into the downpour, I was a snowplow, a steam engine; I would not be stopped.

However.

I was.

A butterfly was perching on the side of one of the cars in our driveway, most likely trying to not get pelted in the storm. It occurred to me, for some reason, that it would probably not resist the idea of being re-located to just about anywhere. Offering my middle finger as a possible solution to the issue, I watched in complete captivation as he unhesitatingly accepted the offer.

So, for lack of any better idea as to what I'd do after having made this new friend, I tip-toed inside and set everything down on the counter to spend some time watching him open and close his wings. Eventually, after showing some family members and letting him climb up the bridge of my nose and into my hair, I watched him carry himself away. What a beautiful way to spend ten minutes of my day.

And it occurred to me.

God is like this.

You're plowing through your day, carrying everything you can possibly carry, and with plenty of things to do, but still, you see him. Like an open ended question, he's waiting in the rain. The holy spirit, when you stop to offer your hand, will lead you to somehow find yourself, all your burdens settled on some remote countertop, with you staring straight in the face of something beautiful. Spend time there, and when it is gone, the powder from its wings will still cover you.

Is this not the way he works?


Anyway.

I wonder if anyone still reads here...
I know I write so little these days.


Thank you to the ones who are still here.

I hope to see you soon.

oh, inconsistent me.

I danced today.



One of my favorite parts of this whole experience was in coming out at the end on the first service to be greeted by my best friend. Now, Julisa is far from being what you could call a "physical" person. She doesn't give obtuse amounts of physical affection, to anyone. She sort of just...lets me hug her, on a regular basis. But when she found me in the church lobby this morning, after having seen me dance, she threw her arms around me and held on tight, exclaiming bright words about how wonderful I was. What I loved was how she said, "I was so happy for you. I know it's what you've always wanted to do."

In some pretty corner of my heart, I treasure the fact that she knows this about me. How many people in your life actually really know your story? I have this intricate and beautiful framework to how I have come to the place of being on the dance team, being a dancer, but really so few people have any idea that it exists. I'm okay with this. Not all stories are story-book stories, for all the world to greet. Some are stories to whisper backstage and behind closed doors, while eye-to-eye and in careful moments with the ones who know you best. I'm not even sure if I have explained the whole story to anyone completely, really. But Julisa has watched me decide, undecide,and re-decide to be on the dance team for years. Actually, she's probably relieved that the reign of uncertainty is coming to an end. Her knowledge of my backstory, and the fact that I trust her implicitly with such information, is what ribbons our hearts together so inseparably. We know each other.


Anyway. I just stumbled across those thoughts as I sat down to forge through the attic in my head, trying to sort out the unwrittenness of the last few weeks.

Which brings me to my next thought.


I'd like to publish the following message to the general public of people I love:

I know we need to hang out. I know I say that a lot. I miss you too. I still love you. Don't give up on me yet.


Okay. Now. If you've been trying to contact me at any point in time for like, say, the last month, this applies to you. Or if you just feel neglected and like I wouldn't even know your favorite color anymore if someone asked. I do. Try me. I'm just learning to live at a new speed of life.

I mean, honestly.

So much has changed. Example:

I used to go to bed between midnight and two AM, and get up between nine and eleven.
I now go to bed between ten-thirty and one AM, and get up between 5:45 and 7:30 AM.
I used to be out of my house for church, miscellaneous appointments, and hanging out on weekends.
I am now out of my house for an average of eight hours, often more than twelve, almost every day.
I used to babysit every now and then for cash.
I now work 24+ hours a week in a Customer Care office.
I used to drive a half-hour to church and back several times a week.
I now drive a half hour to church, 40 minutes to work, and an hour and 15 minutes to school, on various days of the week. Without traffic.
I used to have all the time in the world for schoolwork.
I now have whatever time is left over between working, driving, being at school, and church.

SO.

This is not to prove to you that my life is busier than yours. My life is actually prettyokay compared to like, most of the people I know. This is to show that the reason I have been buried beneath a fortress of busyness is because I have never done this before. I have never been a part of the college, corporate world. Traffic to me was what happened when someone got into a wreck. The eighty bucks a week I spend in gas would have been enough to last me a month in a previous life. It is all so utterly different from the "normal" colors of my world. I spend most of my time trying to understand the chemistry and paradoxical grind of "what I want to do" and "what I need/have to do." And yes, in the midst of all this, I really do miss the people that should be the loudest sounds in my life-symphony. But I am hoping above hope that there will be a way to keep at least a hand above water so I can hold on to them. I like the circumstances of my life. But I love the people in my life.

That said...
I should probably go do homework.
Maybe I will let myself sleep.
But I wanted to do this first.

Love to you all. Thank you for reading.

:)

weighted words.

I have a few things on my mind.



Mostly you could say they all come back to the general idea of first loves.

Which is unusual. Everybody knows how this works. Annie sits down to write with a hundred scattered-and-completely-unrelated ideas and considerations and somehow relays all-or-most of them within a 5-10 paragraph thoughtsplosion. Any method which could possibly be employed to line up aforementioned ideas in some kind of sensible outline (lists, bullets, numbering, etc.) is readily at hand. With reason in one hand and a fistful of tangled musings in the other, I usually just go at it.

And I guess you could pretty much expect the same this time around.

So, by "general idea" I think I really mean to say "I'm pretty much gonna still talk about whatever I want."

So. A list? Quite.


Thought 1: Cycles frustrate me. Actually, I am beginning to believe that cycles have frustrated everyone who has ever been caught in one. No one likes the "two steps forward, three steps back" feeling. If I ever found someone who did, he could have my share, and probably everyone else's, gratis. But the thing is, nobody wants that. Nobody wants to feel like they are caught by something from which they have no ability to free themselves. In particular, I am thinking of this as it pertains to me and music.

Always, it seems, someone is asking me, "Do you ever play (insert instrument name here) anymore?" To which I reply, "Not really, I just don't have any time."

Almost invariably, the reponse (uttered with either utmost fervency or relative passivity):

"Annie, you really shouldn't give that up."

Now, dear small audience, let me once and for all clarify the weight of the struggle which this interaction causes within me. Take my word, if anyone is aware of how much she "should" be playing her mandolin, violin, and piano, (preferably all at once and with great passion) it is I. However, I seem to be caught in a cycle which I have yet to conquer.

How do I push through the barriers and entrapments of my very busy life as a student, employee, daughter, friend, girlfriend, and God-chaser to find a releasing of my full musical abilities on the other side?

Or, perhaps the better question- would I even find such release if I tried with all my might?

Maybe.

Recently, I was told that there was still music inside me; an ability still lying partially dormant and unopened to the light of day. How do I respond to this?

I am thinking maybe the answer lies in first loves.

Did my heart first fall in love with the long, deep sounds of bow on string? Was I first captured by the weight of music beneath my fingertips?

Or did I tumble head over heels into a junkyard of sentences and pieces of my thoughts? Words, letters, punctuation- did they find me first?

Truthfully, I think yes. I played piano as a little girl and then stopped for several years, but I've been putting words together for what feels like my whole life. When I play piano, people smile and compliment me on the sounds of sixths and thirds laid out nicely beneath my fingers. But when I write...when I write, people can be filled with movement, laughter, hope, realization, understanding, peace- whatever. I know this is because the Spirit of God is my currency. His breath brings to life the jumbles of my heart that I put to page. Because of this, I don't want to ever stop writing. The presence of his words in mine is inspiring in and of itself.

But music. Music is...harder.


I am moved by music. I cry with it, dance with it, sometimes even laugh with it. But who in their right-brain hasn't done these things? The question is not "does music stir up passion in my heart?", the question is "is my heart made to make music?"

And honestly, I think yes.

I guess I am just wondering how to keep pushing. Perplexing, to say the least.


Anyway.

Thought 2: The ends of beginnings.

A melancholy thought, isn't it? You know what I'm talking about. It's that feeling you get after you paint the first few strokes onto the canvas. It's done; there's no going back. Cover it if you will, it will be there beneath the surface, still.

If I wasn't so abomidably sleepy, I would expound on this one. As it is, I can barely even spell expound.

Thought 3: Kings of Convenience = a first love. Perfect background music for any and all writing-type activities. Thoroughly recommended.


Now, despite the maelstrom of thoughts still leaping between the bunks in my heart's inner chambers, I've got to put myself to bed now.

Thank you for reading.
I know consistency is not my forte these days.

Nonetheless,
sleep sweet.

my soul alight.

Good morning.



If you know me, you know I am not one for addictions. Freedom and free-will appeal to me much more deeply than any compulsive habit I could form. Now, I am aware that anything can be an addiction, but I'm talking substance here. So, in light of this, I generally stand far enough away from stuff that's culturally labeled "addictive" to avoid getting consumed by what I consume. Sodas, cigarettes, whatever- I'm not a huge fan.

However.

This morning, as the crispness of fall comes in like a deep breath of change, a warm yellow mug of coffee and a long overdue slice of perspicacious are my companions of choice.

Today feels like what I've been waiting for since July. I think I am just not a summer-weather type person these days. My heart was almost pounding as I took those first few breaths of real autumn air and spoke aloud to the weather, "please stay as long as possible."

And then, remembering Georgia's propensity to forget the timeline of the seasons, added, "but I would like winter sometime in November."

Anyway. All of this to say that I am in love with today. I slept in and dreamt a fairytale dream full of the kind of feelings that persist even into the daytime. Good feelings. I ate lunch first, and then had coffee for breakfast and dessert. I'm wearing a jacket that smells like a boy I like, and pajama pants that feel like rest and home. Caramel coffee is warming me all the way up and down, while the sun hides behind the gray-blue autumn clouds. It is just a good day to unwind.

It's the kind of day that would unwind me if I didn't have time to let myself unwind, anyway. I have needed this change for so long. It feels like the weather finally caught up to transitional whirlwind my life has been lately, like we're finally on the same page.

Now, granted, it's Georgia, which, when it comes to weather, is the universe's center of false hope. Our blizzards are an inch deep and one subdivision losing power for half an hour is STORM WATCH 2007. So, it might be a couple of weeks before days like today take up permanent residence...but it will be worth the wait.

Anyway.

Thoughts.


1. The Dream. In my fairytale dream this morning, there was one scene in particular that I cannot seem to shake. I greeted mom this morning with something like a "Good morning, I'm making lunch, wanna hear about my dream?" It's just been stuck in my mind so unrelentingly. And I don't necessarily want to rid myself of it...I just keep turning it over in my mind. It's this scene of a girl weeping in the grief of her true love having left her. He loves her, but believes her to be in love with someone else, and leaves in the belief that he is doing what's best for them both. She is, of course, completely distraught.

What captured me most was the way I saw her sadness in my dream. She literally came apart with mourning. As I said, it was a fairytale dream and I think she was not actually a person like you or me. She was made up of these threads of braided silver, the way we are made up of atoms and molecules. So, when her love left her, there was a crowd walking by her wondering why she didn't appear to be mourning at all. Suddenly, though, I could see clearly the silver threads inside of her; they were trembling and shaking and coming undone with grief. As the threads trembled, they began to sweat tears, and I could see her skin shining and wet from it. From the inside out, she was weeping with every fiber of her being. She was falling apart. After all of this, streams of tears began to pour from her eyes, but the ache began on the inside. People wondered why she looked so composed, but she quaked on the inside and unraveled completely, all for the love of this boy that had gone away.

Needless to say, I have never before dreamed anything like this.

My heart wept with her. I was completely involved with her and her story; a very strange feeling.

Anyway. That's just a snapshot. The rest of the dream was similar, but very jumbled, and it would be bordering on fruitless to even try to make it turn into writing.

2. Rest. I am learning that rest and sleep are two very different things. I sleep often. Every night I collapse into bed and smile at the idea of taking refuge in my sheets, if only for a few hours. But bordering on both edges of this are demands from life and living, the kind that can neither be put off or avoided in good conscience. I have come to appreciate sleep more deeply as it has come to feel like a rarity in my life, but rest is a different kind of treasure altogether. I appreciate sleep the way a soldier would appreciate a well-hidden foxhole on the battlefied; I can be safe there for a little while, but it is neither permanent nor the end of my struggle. Rest is like coming home for Christmas, or the war ending altogether. I'll go back to the fighting eventually, but for now I can just love where I am, and breathe deeply without the smell of shots being fired.

Honestly, I really like the way things are in my life, even when I'm not resting. My job, my school, my endless driving up and down I-85...it is a good life. But it wears on you to be working twenty-something hours, schooling and home-working, trafficking and spending infinite amounts of dollars on fuel, and doing it all from dawn til way-past-dusk for at least five days a week.

So, today is much needed, and much appreciated.


3. The Roses. My wonderful boyfriend, upon the anniversary of our three months of dating, gave me a sweet little Parade Rose bush to keep in my room. It was so lovely, with its flourishing throng of golden yellow blooms. I adored the idea of keeping it alive in my room until it was too enormous to keep inside any longer, and I even did research to find out how to preserve such a thriving state of floral euphoria:

"The Miniature Rose also called Parade Rose among other names, is an extremely common and beautiful houseplant. To me Miniature Roses seem to add a bit of elegance to a home. These houseplants require more work than most houseplants." - some blog about houseplants


Okay so, I'm thinking, "Eh, I got this. A little pruning, a little watering, the right light...it'll be fine."

And yet somehow, here, a week later, what do I have?


A dagum rose GRAVEYARD.

I feel awful.

I still have hope though. I really want to save my little plant. It was so darling in the beginning. I believe we can persevere.


So.
If you have any suggestions for how to sustain my darling's life, please let me know.

Anyway, it is time to move forward in the day. A shower? A nap? A phonecall to a friend? Anything I like.

Resting days are wonderful in every way.