the place between your heart and your head

is your throat.

that's kind of interesting, hey: the place where your words are made is the place where your heart and your head meet up. i think this is important and i just realized it. that's really cool though, because that really fits with what i've been thinking about this morning (and what i need to purge out of my mind to make room for the entire book i need to read today)...

"out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks"

or does it??
i used to have this accidental dissociation between what i really felt/thought and what my facial expression said i was feeling/thinking. but now that i think about it, it was probably just that i was putting my thoughts or feelings too much in my head and i just looked like i was thinking too much when really maybe i was happy or angry or excited...i think i got over that, but now it's turned into this thing where what i say is overflowing out of my head more than my heart. in fact, yep, i definitely remember saying a couple weeks ago "i usually don't let something out of my mouth until it's been in my head for a day." isn't that horrible!!?! i'm trying to figure out why i don't let things out of my heart so easily. in fact, if i were to adapt this i suppose i would have to admit that "i usually don't let something out of my mouth until it's been in my heart for a year."

wow. whoa. wow. okay. so i just looked down at the glass case beside me and noticed the reflection of the window and outside in it, where it is snowing these wonderful, electric, fluffy flakes. and this dull, upside-down partial reflection of an image through a dirty window is the perfect illustration God is giving me right now of what my love is like. it's not even close to being outside in the snow with it hiding itself in your hair and brushing past your face. it's dust locked up in a box forgotten in an old house. (i had a dream about an old house full of dirt and cobwebs last night. i just remembered that. hmm.)

i had a moment in there where i stopped and just listened to the music playing and the one line sung in my pause was "lose your head just for your heart." what an obvious morning i'm having--one of those scripted days. oh but seriously now, copeland. copeland. oooh. i don't even know what to say. i have been so absolutely dumbstruck and content since friday night. which is maybe awful but maybe wonderful. i won't let myself decide because i don't trust me with it.

their music has always just been this strange secret thing that has snuck past my defences and made me acknowledge things i'm hiding or trying to escape from. and my head loves it because it's such a one-sided conversation where my heart is not accountable to anyone because they're not really there. another awful admission of how my head gets me in trouble. i'm not living how i'm meant to.

and i wonder, have i ever really loved someone? i mean i know i love my family and friends a lot, but i can't help but feel like i've been giving them a lot of logical love. it's like--like living off your talents instead of your gifts. you can use the things you're good at to make a life and to make people perceive you as successful...i could use my talents to do an administrative job hands-down. but there's no passion there. on the other hand, you can choose to use the gifts God's given you (which often are complemented by your talents) and spend your life on something worthwhile, something that you are passionate about. my passion is Truth. and i'm probably going to say something about that in a minute. [feel free to stop reading..this is basically a novel..i suppose my blog is my new place to sort out my thoughts since life has switched from dorm days with jen analyzing ourselves to alone days at work analyzing myself]... umm but yeah, head love and heart love, talents and gifts...i apologize to anyone who is reading this because chances are good i've been giving you pathetic things i've pulled out of the dusty old forgotten box and that's no kind of good.

hmm so on the way home from copeland, karl asked me what my favorite season was. he said his favorite time is when it's changing from winter to spring. i realized as i drove to work this morning at 14km/hr. behind a street scraper that this (literally and metaphorically) is the time i am anticipating so hard when i let myself realize it. God i want to let my heart feel something and say something. last night i was thinking how interesting it'd be to take a vow of silence over Lent. i'm quite upset that at this point in time it's not feasible. i cannot wait to be done school. it seems to be the one thing in my way. hahah which is terrible to say, but honestly, it is, and it's the weapon i've chosen to amputate my heart and it's a heavy jacket i can't wait to take off.

finishing a degree...also the time to start letting yourself freak out a bit because you have no idea what to do next and it's that part of your life where you could completely forfeit it and send everything to hell or find out the right way to go and get on it. i don't think i've been freaking out over it 'cause i've got plenty of options and my passion for Truth and teaching and talking and junk is pretty flexible...i just haven't been satisfied because i had this nagging feeling that i was looking through a catalogue when i was supposed to be drawing something. BUT..i think a light (or just another bulb on a strand of christmas lights i'm following) came on this weekend at YQ.

there was a guy named Brett Ullman doing seminars and i went to a couple. the first was as if he'd taken everything crucial i've learned and been on fire about in all my years of college and in my own personal studies and condensed it into one amazingly effective and spectacular presentation on media/faith/culture. i was so stoked on it. and then i got to thinking. i would love love love doing stuff like that--seminars and conventions and presentations on being media-literate and culturally-aware. but then i got to thinking how it's kind of limited to stuff like YQ or bible colleges, and how people who really need to hear it and realize the impact this stuff is having on them and the potential it has to really screw up their lives, aren't hearing it (outside the 1 commercial they run on muchmusic occasionally about being media-literate)...and how cool would it be to join the masses of random characters who speak at junior high/high schools every year (motivational speakers, drug and alcohol-awareness, etc.) as a youth culture specialist who speaks on media and culture and all the stuff that our young people are buying into without knowing it? i don't know if i'm really saying what i mean here, but that's exciting because this is actually something i think i'm letting out of my heart on a whim...i would be so pumped to do that kind of thing! and like, doing similar stuff for parents and other adults who deal with teens...gah! i know for a fact people in that situation are totally hungry to know all this stuff i've learned and the things i study...i don't want to keep it to myself! i really honestly feel like this could be a huge open space just begging for adventure to be had in it...hmmmm.....

"it's a fight between my heart and mind .. no one really wins this time .. in the endless fight of grace and pride .. i don't want to win this time."

mahah...thank you again copeland for one more perfectly placed lyric i found in a pause :)
and thank you Brett Ullman for the lightswitch.
and thank you Kim for inspiring me to give an Oscar speech at the end of this blog.
and thank you all for graciously accepting my counterfeit love and not complaining about the dust i got all over it. i promise i'll give you something nicer soon.

<3

is it any surprise...

i've basically banished myself off the face of the internet (except for myspace..quick-visit/low-commitment internet is still allowed) because i have so much homework to get done in the next few weeks...oooh i miss people and feelings that aren't dread or overwhelmedness or exhaustion. i mean, there's definitely inspiration in all of this but it is in my heart and the other feelings are sitting on my chest. it's hard to breathe when i'm awake.

yesterday morning i was going to read a textbook before i went out to my grad interview and independent study meeting. but textbooks and course notes are all i've been doing day and night for the past 2 weeks, so i decided instead to curl up in my favorite old blankie from my grandma's house when i was little and watch Little Women. i just love that story so much and a story is like nutrients to me in malnourished times. i admire a story with so many parts and characters who make you feel so agonized and so joyful at the same time. i'm finding lately that's how i feel all the time when i notice i still have feelings...this interesting agony fused with happiness. isn't that strange how you can feel so good about feeling so bad. i'm not sure it's normal. but it's nice. i guess it's maybe peace. or hope. it's something alright.

i love the main character in the story though. her name is jo. maybe i love her because i relate to her and understand her. she writes stories and she is ridiculous and restless and the thing she needs the most is the thing she tries the hardest to get away from. i know for a fact that is what i do. i'm becoming acutely aware of it. it makes no sense! how can a person be always avoiding or distancing themself from the thing they know they need and even probably want? most of my best friends are the kind of people who have this really logical series of steps where they 1. want something and 2. go get it. none of them understand me and they think i'm an idiot. i think i agree with them.

i started writing this story a week and a half ago that i was really in love with but i had to stop partway through because i didn't have time for it and had to read textbooks...and it's haunting me. and a friend who is dreaming up a really creative film just asked me if i would adapt one of poe's short stories into a screenplay...but i can't yet..and it's really painful. everything i am doing right now is waiting. i'm really good at waiting. but when everything you do is waiting, it feels like wearing shoes that don't fit. i know i've used that analogy before and how uncreative of me, but it's really just the thing it feels like.

yesterday i had my grad interview scheduled and i spent the whole day and drive trying to think of answers to questions they would ask me and the only thing i could think of that i would really mean if i said it was "fuck!" and that's crude but i'm not sorry, because it's the only answer to any question i ask myself these days that i can come up with! there's something awfully wrong about that! my interview got cancelled anyways, so just as well i'm sure. maybe i will think of better answers in the next couple weeks. or maybe by then my answer will just be falling apart and crying. hard to say.

there's one wonderful thing.
i'm absolutely aching for it, and it's been the longest wait yet. 5 years. and i finally get to let copeland break my heart in person.

the morning quiet

scene:
at work, alone, dear solace--the chill stuff on quiet, the heater squeaking in the background, keeping me cozy while i watch the slow-mo snow out the front window

things i'm thinking about:
. i just aligned the interac machine, the receipt printer, and the stapler on the counter..which suddenly, vividly, reminded me of a scene from a movie i watched the other day ... i was going to tell michelle what movie i had watched but i couldn't remember what it was called so i stopped before i started ... then 2 minutes later after i explained pan's labyrinth to her, she related it somehow to another movie, which was coincidentally the movie i was talking about in the first place ... and out of all the movies on the planet, there we had it. i like when things happen like that.
. i just found my movie stub in my back pocket. i admire myself for wearing the same pants way more times in a week than a person probably should.
. this song is so pretty it could stop time
. (i think i keep secrets from myself..is that possible? i can't tell)
. i bet when i was a fetus, i loved being in the womb. that might seem gross, but hear me out. things i love: the quiet, being warm, semi-small spaces, muted noises, and knowing something is just out of my reach but not quite knowing what it is. i think i'm a tiny bit claustrophobic, but for the most part i like having things closed in around me..i hate big empty spaces (unless they're outside and i'm outside in them, but even then i'd prefer there be trees around or over me)..like the store for instance, it is kind of big and open, and that's pretty vapid. but there's a big window in the front that i can look out and this morning there is slow snow occupying the air, so that feels quite nice, and there's pretty music inside, so that fills in the empty spaces a little. i love my bedroom too, i'm pretty serious about making it a cozy quiet place with lots to look at and get lost in. i was in chad's room the other night and it was depressing--bare walls and empty air and fluorescent lights...gah! what a nightmare! that would scare me more sleeping in than a room full of threatening shadows and secrets.
. if i were to get a tattoo, i would want it to be in the script from the opening credits of alice in wonderland. but i'm not going to get one. that's just silly.
. i just watched alice in wonderland for the first time ever the other night . i think i liked it. i liked the cheshire cat. but i did NOT like any of the birds. just so you know. very important stuff.
. my favorite place might just be the place where you've laughed so hard that you can't breathe
. i wonder if people who know me think i'm a person who knows what she's doing in any given situation.. i wish i could go outside myself and see me and make assumptions about myself, and then go back into me and laugh with myself about them because i would know the truth.
. time to read books