A sanctuary of my own.

How am I supposed to begin to grieve? How can I let all pretenses go and just exist? I am so worried and so tense, in all aspects of the word. TENSE> TTTEEENNSE. I am valid, no? I don’t feel validated. When I read this again, I’ll think to myself, “Oh, I’m so stupid and immature and disgusting.” I will.

How I desire to transcend. How my spirit desires to call OUT! How that flame in my heart wants to burn afire. I am so imbued with sadness. How can I sooth my disconsolate spirit? I am so, so sad.

I. have. not. received. any. emotional. comfort. in all. of. my life.

Really. There wasn’t anyone to sit with me, look upon me, and recognize my worth. Not their worth reflected in  me- you know, what I could do for them and all that.

I might be slightly drunk. I might. I had 1.5 glasses of delicious wine that slid down my throat in two gulps. That never happens. But this wine was so smooth, and so comforting. Can I find solace in wine?

I desire soothing from something that responds and can resonate with my heart. I want to feel something through my chest, into the deepest and most hidden chambers of my beating heart. I can’t feel, and I can’t feel, and I cannot feel.

My therapist told me I don’t feel.

That solves why I’ve been unable to create.

Why has someone put the plug in the thing I was made to do?
I am so in need of a sanctuary of my own.

Who can provide it for me? Who can give me the grove in the trees, the treehouse? That safe place with a hammock and a view of the blue sky. That sunshine that beats on my back with its millions of rays penetrating my skin. I want to feel. that. now.

How can I, God? Is that you? Because that sure ain’t what I’ve been taught.

Anxiety.

Exotic. Rare. Exquisite.

Advertisements are funny.

During my drive to school this morning, I was thinking about the ephemeral quality of things people consider to be so important. Staples of our existence are passing and really not important at all. For example, take Starbucks (where I am right now, and what I passed about 5 times on the car ride). Starbucks is so well-liked and so prominent in the Seattleite’s life. I mean, it’s no longer, “I’m going to buy a coffee.” It’s, “I’m going to buy a Starbucks.”

Since the morning I was shaken, life has taken on a slightly new meaning. I have, bit by bit, been trying to take things slower. I’ve been putting people first more, especially on the road. I dehumanize people in cars. So, I let people cut in front of me more often without getting upset. Also, I’ve been thinking about loneliness more- I’ve been spotting it more. When homeless people come about, I think more about helping them or just talking to them. I want to take more notice to the small things. Let me try now:

The baristas are happy. They smile, and there’s one in particular that laughs a lot.

A man near the window wears a fabulous mustache.

I appreciate the advertisements, even if they are propaganda.

There’s a man with Napoleon Dynamite glasses standing in line. I imagine that he mostly keeps to himself.

There’s a girl a year older than me standing in line who went to high school with me. Either she doesn’t remember me or she chooses not to acknowledge me. Or I have her mistaken.

Christmas cups, red Christmas barista aprons.

Christmas trees and holly depicted in the ads.

Ah, Christmas Christmas Christmas!

I worry too much about finals and tests. I have a test tomorrow that I am not prepared for, but will be prepared for in the morning. Why can’t I simply trust myself to study? I always have to fret, fret, fret. I wouldn’t let myself fail. I must trust myself in that.

The mind is a funny, funny thing. Everyone’s mind uses the same language but functions and thinks very different things. People judge people upon first glances. Heck, I did just a second ago: I imagine he mostly keeps to himself. Why? Because he’s wearing glasses that aren’t trendy? Perhaps he’s extraordinarily outgoing. Who am I to say? Yet there’s a certain beauty about thinking about people this way. And then again, there’s a certain trouble that comes with putting people in boxes.

I desire to know more people. God meant us to exist in community. If he didn’t, there would be no such thing as love. Therefore, I must aspire to know more people. To love more people. To love on people like I was meant to love on people.

I really enjoy life.

Bull[Beep]

Oh gracious.

Catch this. I’m trying to read about the Holy Spirit and these two late 20, early 30-something-year-olds are swearing up a storm to my right and keeping me from any progressive train of thought.

It’s interesting hearing two people act as soundboards for one another. They don’t reply to each other in a constructive way at all. This girl is talking about how fat and out of shape she is… she’s complaining about her arms but then redeems herself by saying how she has decent muscles. The guy across from her is talking about his extreme hair loss, saying he might start taking pills. But the girl keeps speaking of her clothes, how she’s sick of them, how they make her look bulky. And the guy keeps talking about himself, and the girl keeps talking about herself… Deary me, what is this place coming to?

I woke up early this morning with a worried mind and through the darkness I received this:

“Never be in a hurry. Do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God, and then lie still and be at rest in his bosom. Whatever happens, abide steadfast in determination to cling simply to God. Maintain a holy simplicity of mind, and do not smother yourself with a host of cares, wishes or longings, under any pretext.”
— St. Francis de Sales

 

And the truth is beginning to shine. Not the missionary truth, not the truth of the cross… All of that has deceived me. All of it. In every light it has. But now, the arts are bringing the sweetness back to me. Oh, God, grant me this sweetness.

He begins to tell a story. She pulls out her iPhone. Mission complete.

 

I’m ready to be a little more concrete now.

This morning during counseling, I began to cry without my consent and with no relief. This has only happened to me once before. God, it’s so humiliating crying in front of someone you don’t know. And I only began to cry when I spoke of my family.

I am learning to feel, by myself, of myself, for the first time ever and it’s really, really, really painful.

The Black Cascades

Perfect. Erfect. Rfect. Fect. Ect. Ct. T. . . …….

“I didn’t even know this was all buried here,” said Explorer Anne.

“Yeah, neither did I,” said Explorer Cricket.

The two scouts surveyed the wreckage. Fish guts, Starbucks cups, rusty toys, moldy food, and broken video cassettes made up the floor of a litter-ocean that disappeared into the horizon. The smell was overpowering- both Anne and Cricket were fighting the urge to vomit.

Mayor Hon ordered the city carpet to be pulled up. All buildings, restaurants, houses, and parks were to be flattened. People whined at first, but soon they understood. Some rancid smell had been coming from the ground since July of 2004. The city would not be able to prosper if its foundation was defiled.

“Something’s rotten in the state,” he declared.

___________________________________________

I wish to be pushed in at the shoulders and become a cube. If someone would apply enough pressure, I’m sure it could happen. Mother always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I want to be a cube. I want a hundred people to come alongside me, push on me at all touchpoints, and fold me into the most perfect cube that ever existed.

_______________________________________

If this cloud of disillusionment wears off anytime soon, I’ll be back to normal. People will see my ugliness like they always do. That frown I put on every morning will reappear. I wish it wouldn’t.

*    *    *    *   *

A peaceful, heavy-eyed morning.

I’m growing to like these Tuesday mornings. It’s a sacrifice to get up at 5:00am- technically 4:45am (I am neurotic)- and begin the day. You know how I began today? By discovering 4 little repulsive, struggling fleas stuck in the wooly cotton of my socks. The mystery of my crimson ankles is solved. Disgusting.

But onto better things. I’m sitting in the (upper) Queen Anne Starbucks reading short stories before class. I ate a reduced-fat turkey bacon sandwich and am sipping a drip coffee. I watch the better half of Seattle amble inside and stand patiently in line. Some of the women bitterly eye the pastries. Some of the more awkward individuals stare at the menu and scan- toffee mocha, pumpkin spice latte, Pike Place roast, bold pick of the day, caffe misto– although they get their “regular” like they have for three years now.

Some people have unusual pep and vigor for 7:00am. They’re made wrong. Whose clock sets sunrise as prime? There are groups of men here laughing boisterously, from their gut, as if they’ve been in a pub downing beer for the last few hours. But then there are those who are normal, noiselessly reading their papers and sipping their lattes. Having just gone to the dentist, I think to myself, “The sipping is causing corrosion in their molars.”

I like sitting in front of the window and watching night turn to day. The sky is the same color as the shirt I’m wearing today: grayish powder blue. The volume of vehicles on the road increases as people begin the day. We all share this one day, and yet there are hundreds of millions of days occurring simultaneously. Hundreds of millions of individual insecurities, problems, worries. There will be hundreds of millions of new jokes created, new loves formulated, new friends made. This is everyday, and yet it is so unbelievable. The mass of existence is great.

I was looking at photographs of my travels last night. This past trip had fused with the school year so quickly that I didn’t get the chance to process it. I was looking at my pictures, thinking to myself, “I have seen so many great things.” The experiences are so palpable, and yet so distant and dreamlike. I surveyed photos of Tyler and I standing in Versailles, in Sanssouci Park, on the “prideland” of the Masai Mara, in the countryside of Tallo near Barcelona… And I thought back to my times in Managua, in the orphanage, and in Alaska performing puppet shows for Native American children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. When I think, as I so often do, that my life is inconsequential and that I don’t have stories to tell, I’ll set my mind straight. It’s strange how these spectacular events get buried in the folds of my present insecurities and troubles.

It’s raining outside now. Please enjoy the weather today 🙂 I know I will.

 

P.S. Hamlet was awesome.

Take. Time. Take. Time.

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” -Albert Einstein

 

GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!!!

I think I should plan to start every blog in such an exhilarated manner. If I plan to begin by a customary droning- you know, “life is horrible, life sucks, please, someone hand me the noose,”  kind of talk, then my life as humanity knows it will fade into existence. Everyone has something to complain about. No one’s life is going right. So why should I add another marble to the jar? Shouldn’t I be the exception? The happy one? The odd man out? The Ugly Duckling? Oh, wait. The Ugly Duckling appalled others. He was the hideous thing that acted as the center of his peers’ ridicule. Ah, the story of my young adult life. Maybe I shouldn’t be so happy. But wait- didn’t this Ugly Duckling turn out to be a swan? Okay, then, maybe we have a light at the end of the tunnel! I’ll continue to be cheery in hopes that people will begin to hear my swan-song somewhat soon.

Now, to find something to talk about that’s happy. Hm, let me think.

As you could see, I was planning on reserving this entry to discuss the concept of time. Time- the thing that really doesn’t exist. However, I sense a hint of depression in that discussion. The concept of time really only comes about in existentialist theoretical talk, so I’ll reserve that for conversation for my boyfriend 🙂 We enjoy discussing such matters. But then we have potty humor to take us back up, so we’re in no danger of melancholy.

Oh, yes, now I remember: the other reason I brought up time was daylight savings. We gained an hour this time. Here’s my good side/bad side conversation that’s taking place:

GOOD. We gained an hour! I get to start my day off on the right foot. You know, take that extra hour and do something productive with it.

BAD. Yes, but soon that extra hour will disappear into the folds of your busy life without you ever remembering it was there. You’re so busy that inevitably, your time management skills will deceive you come tomorrow and this extra hour will only be a momentary delight.

GOOD. Oh, don’t be so negative. There’s a chance that this hour will be a more permanent thing. My clock is wound an hour back, see. I’ll be able to get up for school tomorrow with more ease. Maybe I’ll even get a chance to read with breakfast.

BAD. Yeah. Dostoevsky is a great way to begin the day.

GOOD. You’re missing the point.

BAD. Anyhow, the next daylight savings will be the opposite. So, theoretically, you only have half a year to enjoy this hour before it’s snatched away from you again.

And you see how it would continue. Sometimes I really do have the angel and the devil on my shoulders. They like to pretend they’re not there. Often, the angel’s sick.

Let’s transition to another GOOD thing.

Tyler and I are going to see Hamlet today at the Centerhouse Theatre. We’ve never seen a Shakespeare play together, and Hamlet’s been one of our joys. When I had to memorize “To be or not to be” in high school, Ty memorized it with me. Since he’s much better at memorization than I, he inevitably helped me memorize it, but we did it together and discussed life and death and the plagues of life. So today will be a good day.

I’ll end it on that before the angel gets sick.

 

 

 

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