you'd be wise to doubt every word i ever said

my friend jennie tells a story of a "blustery day" that set the stage for an extraordinary moment involving polite strangers-passing-as-they-cross-the-street conversation. the miniscule comments on the weather suddenly became a scene from a musical as the nameless man went all gene kelly on her and burst into song: "come away with me!..." offering her his outstretched hand. what a magical man to create something so colorful on the grey day's canvas * * *

the story had a sad ending, though. jennie chose to deny her true self and rather than taking his hand, she just looked at him. oh the heartbreak--the loss--the muted magic-- ...

i suppose there is a seed of tragedy waiting in every otherwise lovely moment. waiting for you, for me, to crack it open and let its poison out because we dread the good that threatens it? i am not sure i would have taken the man's hand. a girl has got to be wary, afer all. maybe he is not magical--maybe he is a hunter...maybe he doesn't want to make her smile--maybe he wants her to make him smile...maybe he is horrible.

or maybe Someone else just wants them to make each other smile. maybe no one is the victim, no one is the winner, no one is anything at all. and if no one is anything at all, then how can you or i hope to become anything alone?

i am an epic loner. it's not a cultivated image that i bask in or flash around--it's not something i think is good. it's maybe just the biggest lie i buy. i stop short at armslength and i somehow dread everyone, what they think of me, what they want from me, what they don't want from me... and all of this is completely unfair to all of them. it's prejudiced and mean. why should i withhold God's blessings from them and instead offer them unsubstantiated judgements? and even if all they really are going to do is hurt me, i am not undeserving or immune--what makes me think i can guard myself against it? i am a silly, misled girl building fences where i should be planting flowers.

the sneaky shadow

have you ever had a friend who made your ribs run on ahead of you and your lungs feel like air isn't good enough? the kind of friend who made you soooo excited just at the thought of them (and just imagine, in their presence)?? ohhh i want that kind of friend again. what fun, what adventure! secret things and magic and hours quick like minutes if time actually existed and flecks of moonlight trapped in mischievous eyes and surprises that neither knew were coming but that the rest of the universe seemed to've schemed up all around them... ah, i think there's one out there somewhere...but where?! i'll keep my eyes peeled. sneaky, sneaky.

what i found there

ah, today they are taking away the last of the ancients.

two summers ago they took my old friend in pieces--took her apart and tossed her into the box of a shabby old truck. a very unregal escort for a classy dame such as herself. i mourned her woefully and held a makeshift wake with the window open, hoping johnny cash's sad song would drown out the chainsaw's ravenous howl for her.

i miss her silent splendor and the way she waited like a silver spectre in the summer nights for me, when stars forced light in vain to mimic her. she didn't even have to try, and they didn't look half so nice sprinkled on the velvet alone as they did sprinkled through her lovely hair. in the quiet hour i stood beneath her and gazed heavenward, knowing i could stay forever, not knowing that she couldn't.

i hear that old familiar tune, the song of doom and beauty's requiem again...the final stand.
her right hand is all that's left now, jutting like a skeletal farewell from the earth who just the other day whispered old invitations to come back to life.


and now what? the street makes no sense. the little ones will ask "birch drive? mommy, what is 'birch'?" and maybe someone will remember them. and i--i will find their dear old sisters and mothers and tell them of this urban tragedy i've seen unfold. and maybe if i ask, they will let me stay, and the stars will look right again..

brb

going outside.
be back someday.

" mirror, mirror on the wall...

...in the closet, down the hall
i think i thought i heard you fall...
turns out i wasn't there at all"


i know i knew me once before
(but it's been a long time since i've seen me around)
(around town)
(downtown)
(drowntown)


today i can't keep it a secret somehow
(my feelings and face finally aligned)(bad time)(ing) ?

he and he and she and he
caught a glimpse of absent me

i let them see
the thing i fear
hear
the whisper in my ear
but
what
we
want
is to be
homemade physicians,
cooking up prescription
alibis


( you: "so where were you last night?"
her: "she was with us."
me: *lying eyes* )


i guess i'm sorry
to've made you worry
but don't--
because despite what i've forgotten, i still remember
how to fold me
(or the lack thereof)
up neatly
and find my way to the closet
i can toss her there
among the shards
(that way it won't be so hard)
let's make this easy.
easy friendships.relationships.spaceships.
just you and i
into the sky
inside our shiny silver lie


count
down
.
.

*

going under the knife

this morning a breeze blew in, and something came riding on it. maybe it was an idea. or just an impression. but i think if anything, it was only a hint of it. like when you think you smell rain, but you can't see clouds 'cause maybe it's night and you wonder if you really even smelled it at all...

i remember when i was an RA, at least once a day someone would show up in my room asking for some completely random object--and i always had it. i think maybe one time there was something someone needed and i didn't have it. i've always been "that person"...the person who functions like a convenience store or like some kind of contraption that the dad off of Gremlins would have invented to meet every conceivable practical need (alright, and well, seeing as how it's me we're talking about, every ridiculously impractical need as well, eg: "shaina! i need a fluorescent fanny pack full of troll dolls...can you hook me up?" "you know it! i'll be right back!" *descent into the abyss that is the storage closet*)

so anyways, i've been sitting here considering my closet (and the room downstairs full of boxes of junk from years-gone-by that i've yet to go through one final time before leaving home base)...and i'm considering how i'm in this strange state of suspension, between who i've been in the past and who i'm becoming in the now/future. who i was (the convenience store/person who would never throw nostalgic or "period pieces" away because of the amount of times my mom said "i used to have that, but i threw it out" about really rad things, and who was a complete Ariel about collecting one of a kind treasures and hoarding them away in my life full of loot) is still somehow inside of me because i never really bothered to exorcise her. and now she is resurfacing as i consider amputating my treasure trove from my progressive existence.

want to know the first bible verse i ever read that actually tangibly convicted me? "do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

and i mean, i'm a different person now too. i don't need endless supplies of various things. i pretty much wear the same 8 pieces of clothing to the exclusion of all the "shaina" items that have ironically become very much "unshaina" as i've turned into a fashionably negligent hobo. (maybe i need to go on one of those makeover shows. where they secretly video tape you and show you later and all your loved ones laugh at you for being so lame and shiny strangers whisk you away to spend ludicrous amounts of money on ludicrously small amounts of designer clothing. YUCK! i honestly wouldn't be surprised if my mom or someone recommended me to them, but i honestly would give everyone involved a very big lecture about it. i wonder if they would air that?)

anyways, all that to illustrate how very strange it is to be your old self and your new self all at the same time and to try to figure out what parts of each you need to keep.

lately i've been disciplining myself to not think about the time beyond the immediate (quite yet). i have too much to keep in my brain for the moment, it's kind of a hand-to-mouth, one-day-at-a-time lifestyle for the time being. timetimetime. would you agree with me if i said that time is our culture's most valuable currency? mmmwell that's completely beside the point. but think about it. (not my idea by the way, i read it somewhere once).

but i've been sneaking in little moments where i indulge in the future, and they're kind of fun. this morning i even let myself briefly peruse a magazine that came for me while i was away and there was an article about vancouver in it (they always have an article about a city full of culture in each issue..usually american cities though). that made me wonder (as i had already been wondering while reading an old roommate's blog who thinks i should come live out there with her)...it felt kind of like a tap on the shoulder, like when you've had your eyes on something you're supposed to be looking at but then you got distracted when someone was like, "hey look at this!" (eg: a couple of friends lately saying "don't go to BC...come to ontario!"), and then the person you're actually supposed to be paying attention to gives you a nudge to get your gaze back where it needs to be. that's what that article felt like. i think.

then i let myself consider a little bit who i'm going to be and what i'm going to be doing in half a year's time. and that made me all the more excited to .. what's that word .. ah, prune. to prune my life. i think the treasure collector / practical princess inside of me has planted a tree and just let it grow to epic proportions, and the time is approaching where some edward scissorhands-esque action is going to be required. to take what i need, cut off what i don't, and let this life take some sort of shape.

i think that instead of being a multi-multi-purpose gadget, i just need to be a swiss army knife.

kill the seed

"an ode to passover"

nah, just kidding.


[ prologue ]

today was the first day of the year where i ran out the front door without even considering to consider whether or not to put on a jacket. that is always a good day. i also got to crack my first springtime opaque ice in the gutter on my way to my car. technically it's not spring yet...but it's close.

the other night, ashley and i had a blockbuster epiphany (i mean..it was in blockbuster) :
most 'holidays'...involve blood.
we had a very impressive presentation wherein we highlighted this fact numerous times.
"Easter? Blood. Halloween? Blood. Valentine's Day? Hearts--blood. Christmas? Bloodline. (and placenta)." (there was a previous discussion involving dogs giving birth..i'll spare you the details.) it went on and on. i was pretty impressed with us. i'm not sure vange and dayn were.

last night emily and i had a pretty good discussion about the Holy Spirit and about it being a foundation rather than a feature of a person. we talked about "self" and dying to yourself and how you really can't allow the Spirit to function properly if you're treating it like a consultant instead of an operator.

it's almost time to seed. my dad is a farmer. and i've been to bible college. so obviously, the concept of a seed needing to die to do anything productive is instilled in me. i guess it's kind of one of those cliche things that most christians are familiar with but probably don't take to heart as much as they should.

[ chapter 1 - death: i'm not goth--hear me out ]

so back to blood.

this time of year is covered in death.
depressing dead trees pressed against gloomy grey skies..brown grass matted with mud..farmers getting ready for the mutilation of the land and the mass genocide of their seeds..everything leading to Easter and the crucifixion..

what a perfectly good time to kill yourself.
well i mean, not literally. metaphorically.

[ chapter 2 - resurrection: not a horror movie, a love story ]

do you like putting an album on random mode? i do. it kind of gives you this feeling of someone else being in charge of what you are going to hear even though you chose the album you wanted to hear it from...almost like they could tailor it from wherever they invisibly are into a special message just for you.

do you like letting go of your life?

cigarettes'n'stuff

isn't it great how we're so prone to addiction.
we're so good at just getting hooked on things and buying into them to the point where we hand our lives over to them, the things.
and then one day, after a longass time of devoting all your time and resources to the thing, you stop and look back over it all and say to yourself, "did i seriously just do that?"

and who ever knows until it's way too effin' late whether it was worth it or not.
i'm one of those irritatingly content people who can usually swing any thing to seem like it was worth something in the end.
i just spent a week on a paper that i do not give a rat's sweet behind about. was that worth it? mmm probably not. i didn't really learn anything i didn't already know. except some stuff about chairs and ancient marriage customs. however, i did take a break tonight and write a few letters. i'm much happier about the 20 minutes i spent writing letters than i am about the week i spent writing that paper. i just spent 5 years and i don't even want to think about how much money on a degree. but i'm pretty sure it's useful for the most part. but there was definitely a lot of wasted time in there.
but i think i have a tendency to save up wasted time like toxic materials i'm waiting to detonate to make a really good point about something someday. so it probably works itself out.

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

(what has love become?) it's not like we used to hear in those old songs. and it's not like yours..

tonight i watched Les Miserables.

if you want to see something that will make you think about grace and love and mercy, that's a good place to begin. it's a very good story. do you remember a time when stories were built by characters who reflected God's mode of love?

me neither.

i wonder, just what love is. lately i've been feeling like mine is broken. my love i mean.

i've also been reading a book, and a quote in the beginning of this book says this:
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart
'Tis a woman's whole existence.
(-Byron)
oh really? then i am reallllly broken. absolutely defective in fact, i suppose!

but just hold on because honestly, what is love? who ever really told me, or you, what love is? i bet our parents tried and i bet God tried and i bet movies won. don't they always win? because the definition we hear the most repeated is the definition we expect a thing to embody. i think i knew better once...i think i knew God's love better once...but then i watched too many movies.

but maybe love ... well i don't feel qualified to define it or discount the definitions that i don't think define it. but here is the thing. in that movie there were a lot of different loves. but the only one that remained steady and true under all the tumultuous, selfish, seeking versions, was grace.

grace is a love that nobody tells us stories of anymore. we don't even tell ourselves stories of grace, do we? do we daydream of giving gracious love? or do we daydream of love that is received..love that comes to us..love we can capture and keep. even if we suppose the one we dream of receiving this love from is one whom we love...what is that? what is the love we think we have for them? is it more often than not greed masquarading as love?

the villain of Les Miserables is a police inspector whose life ambition, whose motivation, whose love becomes the hunt for jean val jean--the former convict who has turned his life around as a result of an act of grace and devoted it to multiplying that grace. it is absolutely tragic because this "villain" wastes his entire existence on the lusty pursuit of his heart's tainted desire.

is our love tainted? is that why we can't love very well? is that why we long for love that never seems to find us...because it is too busy longing for its love to come as well? is that why we doubt what we feel pieces of and label "love"--afraid to give it because it might not be returned?

has greed become the new definition of love? could you ask yourself why you love someone? could i ask myself that? if i love because i lack, because i want, because my own love is tainted and i need someone else's virtue to compensate for my failing...what has love become?

God's love is not greedy..he does not reach out to capture us up in his fists. love cannot clutch the loved. it cannot own. an open hand, extended to the loved with a gift of grace is maybe real. and to be loved in return might be once the gift is extracted and the open hand lies empty..the beloved takes the hand. did we forget that part? oh...what are we doing..

li - li - liar

i never say anything i don't mean.

i might if i could...but i can't. but even if i could i probably wouldn't do it on purpose, maybe just sometimes by accident when someone caught me off-guard and i needed a quick lie. but i can't even do that--if i get caught off guard and need to give an answer, i always say some part of the truth. mahah sometimes though the truth is a secret, so i say it in words that keep the secret. there are so many interesting ways to say things. i wonder how many ways people can hear the truth through?

i forgot why i was writing this.

tonight, i really feel like going to a show. but not a Now show...a Back in the Day show...like where there could be 4 different bands playing 4 different genres that everyone in the crowd was too new and just plain excited that there was a show to even be able to label. where everyone didn't have to sound the same and look the same and where creative (even poppy) melodies were allowed among the breakdowns and where there were more people in the crowd and less people in the "VIP section" on the sidestage. where there wasn't a stage. where you could have a conversation with someone in a band at their merch table because they weren't hiding out from the groupies and making their merch friend fend off the life-sucking masses...

and i'm not gonna lie...i really like Marianas Trench...i've only heard their one song that gets played from time to time on MuchMusic. can't get enough of it. upbeat melodies just make me smile. they feel like summertime.

i just watched a moneen video...and i miss them! sooo good live. it's been a long time since i saw them last...it would sure be swell to catch them again.

i think this is the most i've talked about music in 2 years.

i also would like to know what i'm supposed to do after grad. i've got a few months though..so i guess i'll find out when the time is right. oh silly life. today Marv e-mailed me some instructions for the independent study some of us are participating in this semester...he wanted to know how my internship went and i always get kind of vague and drift off when people inquire about my "logical path to youth pastordom"...i still really don't feel built to do the logical thing...to be a typical youth pastor at a squeaky suburban church.... i really love my church and the people there but its demographic and system is much different than ... me and mine?

i'm not so much the preppy, cute young mom with toddlers and a love for contemporary music and symmetrical surroundings and charts and graphs. i always kind of smile to myself during the music section of the service...i think they use the same hyper drum beat for every song...and everyone is suuper smiley and stoked on life, and it feels like the carebears are going to burst out of the worship leaders' chests or something...which i'm sure really gets a lot of people pumped and helps them worship God. it kind of assaults my senses though. i'm not a particularly exhuberant person, so mirroring that kind of stuff makes me feel really fake. OH i just put 2 and 2 together there and realized why i have a hard time participating in those songs...because i can't lie! aaaahhh that makes so much more sense. here i was dreading that i'm dead inside. hahaha. i would someday like to hear a haunting worship song in a minor key though. that would be very beautiful i bet. or just a purely instrumental one. or to see a sanctuary that doesn't have microsoft-colored carpet and trim. or to visit a youth centre that is a-little-less-random-smattering-of-donated-items-and-pool-tables-with-a-"freeway"-themed-environment, and-a-little-more-coffeehouse/show venue/welcoming-to-kids-who-don't-necessarily-have-a-raging-addiction-to-floor-hockey-and-loudass-TFK-tunes. or to offer a small group based on media study, where it wouldn't be offending someone's anal rules to watch a popular movie and discuss it.

but yes it's kind of crazy when everyone is cheering you on to glide into the niche in life that they've been expecting you to, the one that "makes sense." i mean, my degree is super flexible so that's rad, it's not like i only have one option of what to use my life for. but everyone just seems to love putting the limits of logic on life. i still have no idea where i'm supposed to go. or just exactly what it is i'm meant to do with 5 years of youth culture/adolescent development/psychology/theology/history under my belt. but i know this: i love Truth. i love challenging people. i love creating and building things. i love helping people see things in ways they haven't thought to look at them. i'm not sure what that adds up to, but i think it's something interesting. my pastor/temporary-boss and i talked a lot last semester about calling. which is kind of a can of worms in my case i guess. but hey, i'm young and imaginitive, so it'll work out. no sweat.

"Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
--Luke 1:45

(...even if she hasn't quite deciphered what he's said yet! mahah)

Building a Mystery

So since I'm not really allowed to talk to anyone, here I am again...
(I'm not copping out on in-person communication...this is one of those topics that I actually have talked to locals and bestfriendsonthephone about...and have been met with vacant expressions or "Shaina, you think too much"s...sooo the internet = my last resort!)


D'you ever realize at the end of a day that you seem to've had a Theme Day?
I so had a Theme Day today!

One of the first things I did this morning was write a beefy check, which really should have made me wince because really I have no money and really have to pay the school even more money to graduate...but I really didn't care! No matter how much I try to make myself get concerned about money, I have never been able to work up a worry about it.

I carried on to church where the sermon was about ... money! But not a "the church needs a new carpet" sermon...it was a real good one about not being a slave to money, and about freedom. I really respected my pastor for putting the emphasis in the right place. He even busted out my very favorite Bible verse, and one of my Top 3 Verses to Build a Life On: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

[Extra Interjected Story: Once, at the end of a Briercrest year, around 3am... Elsa and I decided to "paint the town" so to speak. With a carton of sidewalk chalk and eyes full of stars and hearts bursting with secret excitement, we made our way all over campus, leaving kindergarten graffiti in our wake... I never felt so accomplished as a human being as when I scrawled that verse across the curving A-building steps. Oh the satisfying sensation of assaulting public property with a message no one can complain about!]

Now you might think the theme of the day was "money" but you'd be wrong. Because I don't even really know what the theme of the day was. But it was something, I'll tell ya that much.

Next thing that happened was that at church and after church (practically everyone from my church goes to DQ for Sunday lunch...kind of an unofficial tradition), was that every other person I saw said, "Oh you're still here! Are you going back to school? Are you staying here??" The thing that happens when you're one of those "responsible leader-types" who has gone to college and functioned in an official position is that people really really want to be able to label you. Well, that happens with everyone. But it becomes much more acceptable to overtly discuss with a person who has built up a "title" to apply to themself. I want to disintigrate when people ask me things like "What are you going to be?" or "What degree will you have?" because that's not who I am! Ask me what I want to do in life, and you'll get a very different answer that might even dare you to imagine or feel something! Aha, but not many folks want to know those things...they're dangerous...maha...

So this all got me antsy and edgy because I have issues with being stationary. It's just not in my blood. Not that I need to be a chronic drifter...but I'm just not built to settle in too deep. I can settle into people quite nicely (if they're clever and determined enough to trick me into it), but I can't seem to settle into circumstances long-term. I think that's going to be conducive to my role in this life, but I don't know how yet. I'm good at waiting though. My friend Jess--we used to stay up ridiculously late at school watching movies with beautiful art direction and then have long talks or read poetry and I miss that--she reminded me of one of my old favorites the other day, Mister Robert Service. She sent me a piece of a poem that perhaps perfectly matches part of me...

[ http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/8336/robertservice/men.html ]

I told Kim about it at lunch and she laughed at me for loving it and for getting angry over it all at the same time. (Personally, I think love and anger are very necessary for each other). I love it because a) I just love how Service writes 'em and b) it rings true in that people who have no sense of responsibility or dedication will ultimately fail at the challenge of life and c) the slow, steady image reminds me of my dad who is my ultimate role model....BUT it makes me angry because it makes it seem that those who wander and plough through life as adventurers and discoverers and pioneers are setting themselves up for disaster. That they will never know life
or love
or effectiveness
because they didn't follow the pattern cut out by old hands and laid before them. Nuts to that! I'm rubbing the pattern out of my eyes, dashing it to the floor, and I just dare anyone to tell me that there is no one else out there who will do the same
or will go along with me
or will know my message when I'm dead and gone.

I only felt more affirmed tonight when I saw this annoying commercial that plagues my existance from time to time. I think it's for workopolis.com and it has a voiceover that says "You want..." and fills that in with a dozen stupid things emphasizing career, economic, and social success. GAH! I think every time I see it my mind does a subconscious auto-response that I catch sometimes saying "I don't want..." (fill in the blank with: "a prestigious career, a 4-bedroom house, 2 SUVs, a hot tub, 2 blonde kids, vacations in Mexico, etc.") Hahah I really am going to fail at the life I've been set up for. And I couldn't be more excited!

I was watching a show, one of those crime dramas, and it was about this really smart kid who went to private school and was all set to breeze into an ivy-league school and become some doctor or lawyer or something (heavy emphasis on these boys' fathers who are gunner businessmen/dads with big dreams and heavy expectations). But as it turned out, the kid had a couple run-ins with cut and bruised looking chaps in his class who lured him into a pseudo-fight-club where they escaped the numbness of their copy and paste lives. The turning point for the kid was this really well written scene (accompanied by a fantastic Death Cab song that got me extra-energized when coupled with the speech this fight club founder was laying on the zombified guy--don't you love when something good is built on top of the perfect song??) umm...oh yeah the scene where this really savvy and passionate guy is riling the other guy up by trying to snap him out of his mould, by opening his eyes to the fact that he's not living his own life or doing what he's meant to do--he's just conforming to the pattern that's been laid out for him to put on, like a chalk outline.

And what happened in the end of a complex criminal mystery situation as it were, was that one of these kids' dads (in an attempt to cover up the fact that his son accidentally killed a guy, so that he would be sure to get into schools and be the success his dad was willing him to become)..the kid's dad brutally murdered this newly involved kid because he was going to man-up and do the right thing by telling the police what had happened. This guy killed a kid, not for any legitimate reason that a person's life should be taken. For the lust of success and prestige and money.

This made me think of investments. Which I've been thinking about a lot lately. Which also makes me think about resources and commodities. WHAT IS IT THAT IS VALUED? What do I save up and spend and invest? Hah, I can guarantee you at this point in life that it isn't money! And I don't think I ever want it to be money. "Spend time, not money" is what I always say to myself. Time. Love. Passion. Truth. These are good investments. Abundant resources. Precious commodities. Money is paper and scraps of metal. Status is a label they won't carve in your epitaph. And accomplishments can't be hitched to your hearse.

They're building bodies to fill buildings...tall glass cases, full of numbers and papers and spent time. Maybe I'll carve a cathedral?

dear world,

jamison says we're sticking it to the man in our exercise to avoid msn and myspace for a week...but i don't think i'm trying to stick it to the man...(and i know he's kidding)...but i do agree that it feels nice to be partially free of the internet. although i haven't really been doing many other amazing things with my newfound spare time. kim and i agreed to have a Star Wars-athon before she left and see all 6 movies. which was a wretched mistake. but we were dead set on finishing, so i think i've spent the better part of last night and today watching those. there was a shining moment last night at around 3am when Yoda did something i found excessively hilarious. oh and dear jamison (an aside): i was only wearing a hoodie outside here in saskatchewan in the middle of the night tonight...although i think i encountered an abominable snowman at one point in a Star Wars movie..it was COOL! i think more puppets/animatronics should be integrated in films...CG is soooo lame. but anyways, it has been a good exercise in self-control steering clear of these two avenues of communication (although i admit, i had to sign on to myspace very briefly to get in touch with a couple of my youth leaders about youth group tonight..but i avoided all other temptations like messages and comments!) um yeah it's hard though because i don't really have anyone literally here with me to have a good conversation with! except kim's here till sunday..except we basically know all each other's secrets and stories and lives, so it's not as exciting as faroff friends i suppose.

un-internet things besides Star Wars that i did today:
- began to make up about 4 stories in my head and then abandoned each of them once i got too wrapped up in them (they're awful, like big spider webs sometimes)
- saw my doctor/surgeon guy who is a very sweet man from Nigeria (he was happy to tell me i'm not as bad-off as they thought i was and then he prayed for me using lovely ancient words and his nice African accent, it kind of felt like magic i think)
- rocked everyone's faces off at youth group with my previously unknown pictionary prowess (i chalk it up to reading too much and being so "thesorelogical"--yeah. i'm that good. i have the authority to make up my own words.)
- spent some time with kim watching The Man In the Iron Mask (which made me happy because:
a. it fit with me and karl's discussion about honor and the characters in it were very inspiring
b. i was reminded how much i like watching leonardo dicaprio make me forget that he exists outside whatever character he's playing in a film
c. it renewed my appreciation for the modern accessibility that men have to showers)


i also spent a good deal of time feeling something growing inside of me and not being able to tell what it is...it feels like it's in my heart, but then it feels like it's in my throat, my hands, in my eyes... maybe it was just the stories. but it somehow seems to me that something is building, and it's not just in me but it's outside of me, but it's so safely contained in either place that it's aching to escape and threatening to but i'm having a hard time discerning things lately, too. there are many paths to the same end. are there? ambition? mission? love? going, staying, it's all the same, all the same... there is an end i'm supposed to be making my way to. i just can't tell which decision will lead me there. my distrust for myself looms unwelcome in the rooms i go to seek counsel in. and i know i shouldn't give my self so much credit. i'm awfully bad at this all. i'll keep at it though. and if anyone should entrust you with any clues for me, please don't hide them away...i could use a clue or two!

signed
sincerely,
Nancy Drew.

"a (Christmas) day in the life"

as far as this blog goes, i still have no idea how to add friends or really do anything but post pictures and words...so this is going out to you 5 or so random people who stop by to check in on me from time to time. it is an exciting look at Christmas Days in The Life of Shaina!

I haven't really been super into Christmas this time around, I guess I've been pretty tired and felt like it's come and gone a zillion times over with the amount of "Christmas" junk all over the place...I went to The Nativity Story the other week, but it didn't really spark any inspiration in me...I was kind of sad coming up on Christmas, because I usually really connect with the Christmas story spiritually and hold it dear..and I found myself not really even wanting to read it by myself because it gets quoted left and right and we always read it as a family on Christmas Eve anyways, and also because sometimes I dread that after so many years of Bible college and of reading the Scriptures and studying the passages, that they will become too familiar and I am horrible with the familiar...I always want something new and unknown, I am absolutely unfaithful to the used-to (or maybe I just fear that I am or will be)...but I knew, the night before Christmas Eve, that there's always something hiding there in that Book, and I was going to find it. (So strange how with changed perspective something old can unfailingly offer something new.) I think whenever I read that Story, I try to think of who I most wish I could be in it. This time I wanted to be the shepherds. Can you even imagine how magical and holy and overwhelming it would be to be nobody special out doing the same old thing, and to encounter angels in the quiet, dark night, and to hear their praises to God?! And then to be told to go and see God himself, just you, nobody, out in the dark night? To be among the first few people to ever be in the presence of Jesus? Oh if I dread anything worse than myself and what might be about me, it is that I've forgotten the feeling of the magical, holy, overwhelming presence of the Lord! Ah, how many words have fallen off mossy lips as shabby substitutes for gold, frankincense and myrrh...for wonder and awe and love...what's become of worship?

Yesterday morning, my pastor continued a December series he's been doing on Christmas songs. Oh Holy Night was the song, and it was lovely because there's a sweet old man with a beautiful voice at my church who performs that song every year and it's a huge tradition for Gerald to sing it, and it makes me want to cry every time. And then Jay did this sermon where he told us a really funny and action-packed story of his Holy Night: the night his first child was born. It was a really great and engaging sermon and we were all just riveted, but there was this one sentence that just happened in the midst of all the rest of them that I don't even think he had planned for or knew he was saying. He was telling us how he got to carry his daughter from the operating room to the little room with the baby beds, and how he made that the longest walk of his life because "I had this sense, that she had just come from God's presence...and I wanted to soak as much of that up as I could, before she grew up and forgot."

mmmhmm...


Last night was the Christmas Eve service at my church, which was wonderful because everyone was home and I got to see all my old friends and visit a lil' bit with some of them, and it just felt very homey and warm and special. Plus, there's some sort of thing at my church where pretty much everyone who's grown up there is amazingly ridiculously musically talented, so it was a treat to get to hear a lot of them perform beautiful songs and worship together! Plus this little teensy adorable girl with black pigtails and light-up sole knee-high boots did a wicked boogie and almost dove into the advent candles when her family was performing. (There always has to be something funny). Then they surprised me and gave me a gift, and the bag was as big as me, so I looked pretty stupid lugging it back to my seat in front of everyone! But there was a ludicrously amazingly lovely cozy plush blanket (that reallllllly soft stuff) in it, so it was worth the scene!)

Then the whole fam went over to Grandma Stella's house (she has a really pretty name, doesn't she?)...we have done that since before I was born on Christmas Eve...and it was just the most fun and special time! I just wish I could invite everyone to some sort of get-together with my family--they are the funniest people in the world. Basically what we do is laugh and eat and sleep. And laugh. Sooo much laughing! It's like not just one funny thing happens/gets said...something happens or gets said, and then it gets exaggerated, and built upon, and branches out to become even more hilarious, and sometimes even reaches outta-control status, where there is an epidemic of wheezing and near-vomitting. But anyways, my little cousin Robert was like the presents patrol, asking every 3 seconds if we could open presents yet. So my aunt and cousin Jess and I dragged out the pre-present portion of the evening really long with ridiculous Christmas trivia and stories, plus a premiere family viewing of "Big Mama" -- a home video Kalen and I made when we were like 9 & 11 with our now-20-year-old cousin Matt that involved him dressing up like a blonde dress-wearing, purse-toting villain and Kalen smoking pot (fake of course) and getting shot and kicked a lot. Ah we were imaginitive kids...

This morning Kalen put a ban on me coming out and joining the family until he had wrapped my gift. This was a gift in itself, because it left him no time at all to spend coating the gift in some form of tape that has to be removed painstakingly. The thrill of this blessing soon subsided however, when I discovered a hideously disturbing object in my stocking...SILLY PUTTY! I can't even begin to tell you the story behind that. It's truly awful. My mom got just the reaction she was fishing for when I took one look at it, shrieked in horror, and dropped it on the floor. sicksicksick...I don't even want to talk about it anymore. While I was pulling myself together, Kalen was unwrapping his gift from me. Immediately upon realizing what it was, he started laughing and demanded that I open his gift to me that instant. He couldn't even wait, and blurted out that he got me the exact same thing! We completely neutralized each other. It was very strange and very funny! My parents once again failed to sever me from "Santadom" and gave me a little plethora of cute presents instead of just one boring grown-up gift. I think it's 'cause they paid for Kalen's flight out to see Krissy and they probably felt guilty and like they should give me more junk. Pfff haha. Which, hey, y'know, isn't all bad...it's kind of nice to be at this stage of life and still be getting we-got-your-younger-brother-things-so-we-wanted-to-get-you-things-too gifts. Not getting married and growing up too fast has really paid off! jooooking..but they gave me a digital camera! Which is really sweet of them because they always try to think of things I need for "my career" and school and whatnot that I probably can't afford to buy for myself. But which also means that now I am going to have to set aside and devote an entire day to technology I think...because that ipod from last Christmas is still definitely in its box...I honestly appreciate and can use all the technological things they have given me over these past few years...I just...gahahaha....I'm ridiculous! But actually, I think I'm set now...stereo...normal camera...video camera...laptop...ipod...digital camera...and I already have a dvd/vhs player and a tv...I think I'm technologically-established enough to go ahead and get married and watch those boring grown-up/couples gifts start rollin' in! Pffff hahah. My parents definitely received a turkey deep-frier from my dad's older brother. What the heck! hahaha...Oh Christmas. I don't think I like gifts half as much as I like the stories behind them...and the thing I'm sure I'll remember past any of that, is just us sitting around in all our sweet sweatpants in the cozy basement, the smell of coffee, half watching A Christmas Story and laughing our heads off, Dad chiding Mom for "breaking the pact" and giving him gifts (after years of him sneakily doing the exact same to her and hiding diamonds in tupperware sets and the like), and that effing Silly Putty and the joy it brings everyone to taunt me during this particular season.

I'm pretty sure the rest of the day consisted of a lot of turkey and saskatoon pie with the saskatoons scraped out of it, countless hours of "Mall Madness" (an electronic board game that encourages poor financial management and excessive shopping) played with an 11 and 14 year old who just got cell phones and mock-designer purses from Santa (I know! RIGHT up my alley!) and then several hours of semi-consciousness featuring Indiana Jones special features and my dad snoring. And my grandma keeps telling me that I remind her of her mom, which I'm not sure if she's just kind of getting old and crazy a little or if I really am like this lady I never met. Her name was Lena and she was from Norway. I bet she was interesting. Wish I could've known her! In any case, I guess I look like her when she was young and I make lefse just the same as she used to, which Grandma hasn't done/seen done in decades. So now I feel extra-connected to my family. I always thought it would be fun to be a vivid continuation of an ancestor's existence!

Well, it's after midnight now, so Christmas is officially over...until Kim and I go to Regina for the Patented Ultra-Deluxe Shaina Strategy of Christmas Shopping: treasure hunt, buy everyone's personalized gifts for real cheap on Boxing Day, stow it all away for a year, and say "Oh! Hey! I'm already done my Christmas shopping!" when everyone else starts saying "Crap! I have to do my Christmas shopping!" and then just spend time hanging out with Grandma and helping her with her baking and watching movies with Kim and Amie. Hey now! Christmas is pretty swell.

Hope yours was delightful as well!

<3>

munday

"Okay wait,
so did you win?"

"No."

"Oh.
Did I win then?"

"No."

"Well that doesn't make sense.
One of us has to have won."

"No, I don't think that's it."

"What? Seriously.
Who won? Just tell me, k?"

"Neither of us.
No one ever wins at this."

"Someone has to have won at it.
Otherwise there's no point."

"Well okay, one guy won once."

"Who?"

"The guy who made it up."

"That's ridiculous."

"I'm serious. He won. The first time they played."

"How do you know?"

"I was there."

"No you weren't."

"Okay I wasn't.
But I kind of thought I was.
Just trust me."

"You're kind of hard to trust."

"I know.
I think that's why we lost."

"Sometimes I hate you."

"I know.
I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"I can peel my skin off...
d'you want to see?"

"No.
That's gross.
What makes you think I'd want to see that?"

"I don't know.
What makes you think you wouldn't?"

you just break me with your beauty

yesterday as i walked out of the restaurant i noticed the pale faces, the traces of life in the lack..but the want was too strong, strong like the descent of lead in the part of the ocean that's dark. disappear. they've disappeared. their ghosts haunt their gazes, on the brink of abandon. i can't tell if they've forfeited or if they never knew to come in the first place. and i feel like, "am i the only one really here??" the empty streets were not only in dreams, they are here, full of everything that's not, bursting and bustling with the nothing. the sound of silence pours into my skull like cold thick medicine, a prescription for a misdiagnosed condition. "i never knew you!" i said, "i never knew you before. i don't want to, i don't. you're uninvited and please go."

the pushpins on the wall beside the door: primary colors.
oh how i hate those hues.
horrible, ugly, reds and blues. greens and yellows. overused. trusted so quickly so lastingly only because they came first. oh i hate them and i always have. it's the unimaginitive decor in a toddler's nursery, a sentence imposed on an innocent, unwittingly intended to stifle his life and to ensure uniformity, conformity. "Die, Variety!" they shouted in their sleep, striped sleeves pumping starchy signs (painted up in primaries no doubt): a protest they all joined in the end (the end before The End, the one that came with the adoption of the color palate of their parents, the one that finished them before they even started).

everything in that place, in those few brief moments, strangled me. the apathy with which it grappled me was stunningly hideous. i curled my lips at it and said goodbye, and not farewell, for well to fare would not dwell there. i burst into the winter air, free and new and down the stair and on the ice and in my hair i felt the willing of the world--the canvas asked--for more. more than four, or maybe five. more than life... To Be Alive! i made a list i've made before, silly really: seafoam green. robin's egg blue. espresso. magenta. but it's mine. and they sky today agreed with me, i heard him answer with his ownly shade of blue. he made the frosted world, the branches coated in his breath, pop upon his sprawling chest like the mysterious fluff that sticks out of grandpa's shirt...oh he loves us even though we hardly notice him with his big arms around us.

but they keep asking me to stay. their vacant gazes, spectral summons, make my bones cold. a chill inside is hard to shake. i lay under layers, flannel, down, all around, because i know i have to stay a little longer. but the cold is getting stronger. it's not the cold that worries me now--i know it won't take me. it's the sickness. the sick is the stay. i need their help now, and they gladly oblige, because it's what they do. they survive. they will keep me alive, until it's time to go. but they don't know. no, where i'm going...they can't.

"these bright eyes were built by lies," they theorize, halfheartedly humoring me (if i accidentally idealize out of the bounds of my own mind). i wish they could see! oh i see so many things that could be...but here i am (here we are) in black and white, in lack of light that might reveal them. i'll wait, i'll wait until i go. but in the meantime, it tires me so to daily wake and cake on this cadaverous foundation. and you will argue because you see me doing it, but do you live this? do you know? i can't keep on with color, i'm tired and it's just easier to hide and endure. it's wasted here. isn't it? a tear may fall and reveal a tone, and that moment real may reach but one, and that's all i can give. because color loses its meaning when it's lost in blind eyes. "am i dying?" i wonder...can it exist if no one believes in it?

oh the beautiful are few and far between. "i never met you, oh but how i've longed to! are you lonely out there? are you dying, are you lying beneath layers, with cold bones? i hope you know i'm out here too, loving you!" mister poe, and brother weiss, kensrue, lewis, burton, Christ...you ignite my marrow and i thank you, from the depths of this long winter. i will join you in good time and bring you something somehow mine and somehow ours and somehow someday maybe it will shatter a buried beauty like how you have broken me. (hold fast hope!)



Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe
http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/poetry/annabel.html

There lived a girl who lost her love
(if you can really call it living;
if you could really call it love).

There was one who'd loved her in return and she'd kept him close, almost inside of her. She wondered why he felt so far away.

"so much time he spends with me, and i with he, but i never feel we have spent it together. i feel i'm forever entering rooms he's only just left..."

She kept him close to keep him away.
A million miles, a galaxy, can't separate two hearts one love cleaves...
But the space between two bodies, between two minds, separated only perhaps by the space of a breath, is the space she accidentally (intentionally) employs to let a chasm drop between them. ("A closeness almost realizing but simultaneously denying is intoxicatingly satisfying...")

She never finishes anything she starts.
Oh she ends it though.

Midnight Adventure * *

The sky is an amethyst tonight.
I looked out the window (I knew I shouldn't because I was at that very perfect tired spot where I knew I could fall asleep if I just went to bed...) and I was a goner.
I had to wait though, because I was just already waiting for the special secret midnight oatmeal in the pot on the stove.
That only made it better though, because then I got to eat it with the milk and the brown sugar like when I was little, at the old table like when I was little, and look out the big window like when I was little, at the first snow silently sparkling and growing like holy moss on everything outside.
Having to wait and watch something so new and pure and lovely as it happened right before me (but still somehow apart from me) was so wonderfully torturous! I just wanted to be out in it and I felt like I was on the verge of melting through the walls just to be in it...but first I had to wait and watch...but then! I noticed that watching it from inside got me ready to love it right, better than I could have if I just ran out the door at first sight of it. I absorbed the glow of the hazy heavens, starless but then suddenly full of sparkling bodies (the reflection on the window of the specks in the ceiling above me), studied the way the old white of the gnarled birch tree challenged the sky and harbored its beautiful orphans beneath his boughs, acknowledged for the first time this year the towering height and noble stature of the old evergreens whose knees grow weak as the time goes by, admired the bold virginity of this unnoticed midnight landscape...
I didn't anticipate how wonderfully deep it was. I'm glad. Shoefuls of powder were welcome in this girl's world tonight. I'm terrible about depth perception. Which makes for everything always being much more impressive and engulfing and interesting than I anticipate it to be! I'm not going to lie...I love snow...and I greedily covet first snowfalls...I just wait and pray that they will be during secret midnights when I can be the only one who notices them...(I prayed pleadingly today for it to snow just like this...for the sky to wait till everyone was asleep and then whisper its winter wish into the world, warm but just cold enough to make your nose run a little, so much snow, swirling and filling up the empty spaces fall left...and here it is! Exactly what I asked for! What a lovely gift!!)
Sometimes I think I should be a tree or something outside. I don't quite feel right indoors. Not that I believe in reincarnation or anything (pff), but I just mean that...well nature is so much better at all this than we are. Every branch and bush and leftover leaf I passed was just patiently reaching up to catch the blessings that were drifting down to them. How often do I miss that when I've shut myself up inside of some manmade dwelling? I am sooooo good at shielding myself from wonderful possibilities. I felt ridiculous to be shown-up by a dead bush. Super-humbling. Super-inspiring. I guess I have to ask myself if I'm going to file it away in my mind or live it now.
(I'm always bad at this part) * * *