Is it possible for me to say "it figures" When it comes to change? Is it possible for me to just take it as it comes? Maybe it's a sign of maturity. Or maybe it's a sign of fatigue.
Either way, I'm tired. I'm sick of work...but whatever. I'll just keep plugging through. Because some day it'll change.
My mother is pregnant. Merry Christmas! Who knows what this is going to mean for life? A complete change once again? For sure. Life is never going to be the same again. But then again, it never is the same, is it? Things change every day. Why should this be any different?
I'm happy for my mother. I really am....although I wonder if she's happy for herself? This seems to point a finger of direction for my life, where before I was questioning what I would be doing with my life in a few months more time. Staying here? Moving back to Provo? Now I know. I can't forsee myself moving. I can't imagine myself somewhere else. Not when life is beginning again here.
But not my life. Where is my life? I need a life. I want to start my life anew as well. Some day maybe it'll happen. For now, I move minute to minute, thought to thought.

Three Men

Time has been staring me in the face lately. Maybe not time so much as age.

The other day at work, this old man came up to me while I was pacing around the jewelry counter on the lookout for any unsuspecting customers that I could pounce on (haha) and just started talking. He told me that he had been married for 43 years, and that this was his first Christmas that he would be spending all by himself. He said that he had had a girlfriend, but he just couldn't love her. Couldn't commit. "After all, how could [he] ever love anyone else after 43 years of marriage?" He asked. I had no response. He said he was spoiling himself this eyar, because of it. He bought himself a watch and a wallet. He then gave me some advice. He said, "Find someone. Find someone and give them everything you have. It's not worth anything if you keep it all for yourself." How could he know?? How could he know how alone I am right now? How could he possibly know that though I am home for Christmas for the first time in a few years, I have no one to spend the holiday with--no one to give my everything to. How could he know that is one of the greatest longings of my heart?

There's another man at work--but this one a coworker, not a customer--that I've been meaning to write about for some time. His name is Robert. When I first started talking to Robert, he told me that he dreams in poetry. He said he dreams something, and this string of words just comes out when he wakes up. And he remembers it. He recites it to me sometimes. Or did. Robert is Dying. Cancer has spread through all of his body. It's only a matter of time, now...and not much of it. I encouraged him to write this poetry down. Preserve him. I told him the poetry was a gift and that he should preserve it for his family. Then I found out his oldest son also died of cancer. Poetry really is Robert's gift. He dreams of the eternities. He dreams of a renewal of the soul.

Before he worked for Macy's in his retirement years, Robert was a business man. I asked him how that was throughout his life, and he said that he never thought about things. It just was what it was. He didn't take the time to look deeper. After his son's death he decided that he neded to. That he must. And that's when he found his poetry. That's when he found depth in life...and sadly came to a realization that so many areas of it--his marriage, his profession, etc--were lacking it completely.

I'm not really sure that I have a good excuse about why I didn't write about Rober sooner...except that I haven't really known exactly what to say. He is the man who dreams of poetry. Poetry that has more meaning to him and his spirituality than he ever got from any book or man. He feels these dreams as if they are real. And so he believes them. And they are beautiful. And they are good. And I hope that God looks after him. I know he will. And I know that in Heaven, he'll dream of poetry more.

My next door neighbor is dying of cancer, also. Pancriatic. It's only a matter of a couple of weeks for him, too. It's sad. He's a bitter old man. Ornery. He and his wife live in the second half of our duplex. I don't know what to say to him. With Robert, it's easy to know that he'll be okay. He's filled with that inner strength and resolve. With Frank? It seems like he just doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know what to think. Doesn't know what to feel. He is a man who is weakened by the thing that he has always counted on. A man who is stripped of what he knows and loves and feels to be real. A man whose one power--one surity--one constant is now gone. And he's scared.

I think of these three men: A man of Heart. A man of Mind. A man of Body. And I see reality. I see the bones of mankind. The hopes. The fears. The strenght. The resolve. The memories of life as it once was, always has been and never will be again. I think of these three men and I'm not sure how to feel. I'm not sure what to think.

It's the middle of the night right now. I'm sitting alone in my room....thinking. Searching. Where do I fit in? Where is my place with these men? WHere is my place in this world.

I feel open. Like a door in my mind and in my heart has been flung open and I'm standing on the threshhold...my face turned toward the light and I'm searching....searching....but the picture hasn't flipped. I'm still looking at myself in the search. I have yet to find. I have yet to see the target of my searching. I have yet to find my mark.

I want to know what it is I'm searching for. I want to know so that I can pursue it with my whole life. Is it love? Is it education? Or is it just the never ending trail toward finding happiness? I really can't be sure....
...I really want to be sure....
...I really want to know.

The Phantom of the Opera

How completely different would we view The Phantom of the Opera if instead of the phantom being a large, imposing man with seductive prowess he was instead Christine's alter-ego. Picture it. She's singing into her mirror "Look at your face in the mirror--I am here inside" and for once Christine realizes that the person who has been causing these mysterious happenings around the opera house is her. The person who duals Raul in the graveyard is actually Christine herself--posessed by a power that she, because of her other weaker personality--is unable to override. Because of some abuse in her childhood or some other tragedy (the death of her father, perhaps?) she becomes the phantom. One part in the play she sings "I am the mask you wear" (when she is taken to the dungeon for the first time)...she wear that mask--the guise of Christine so that she can operate in the real world--but the source of her genius is the derangement of her mind. The whole show, then, becomes a struggle of self--rather than good against evil. It isn't until Raul says that he would do anything for her--and attempts to prove it (or perhaps that is also one of her mad dreams?) that she finally is able to let go of the phantom inside her and she is free to be the mask that she has shown to the world--however incommplete that makes her, and however painful the death/distruction/disappearance of the phantom will be.

Is that the lesson of the Phantom of the Opera? Or is it really just two really attractive (who cares about a little bit of face distortion, anyway? Have you SEEN me in the morning??) guys with amazing voices going after the same non-commital girl? Bad boy vs. good girl dillema?

Perhaps we all have a bit of the Phantom in our own minds....

Each of the last three books that I've read have had the name "Blythe" either as a dedication to or as a main character. Blythe. Did I miss this baby naming craze? Is Blythe the new Stephanie, Megan and Jessica?
Wow...I totally missed that one.

Language

I sometimes wonder what the point of language is if not to be beautiful--a beauty like the people who use it--each sentence different. Some coarse and unrefined...other smooth as silk. I wish every sentence could be a poem. Every paragraph a testament to language itself. I want to explore each new avenue that each new spelling entrusts in me. But life isn't that simple. Not everything is beautiful. Some things just are. Some things just need to be. And by their being, the beauty shines through and finds its place as something unique and special and marvelous.

Personification

I love personification in literature. There's something about making an inanimate object or idea--okay, let's just call it a noun--real, personable. There's something about loving Air as a thing separate from a necessity. Something about thinking that Hope is tangible. Is real. Is living. Not just a word and an idea used to describe the way you feel during a sporting event. Having those things--those concepts--those NOUNS be more than just words is what makes them relatable. Wondering if maybe Hope isn't always happy? What why is it that Air isn't always still? What makes the restlessness of her push the trees back and forth ever so slowly? When they become real--when they become more than a word in poetry or an idea that is commonly used then Hope breathes and comes to life. Then Air stirrs not only the trees, but my heart as well.

The first time I visited Oregon was three years ago. I was here on my first thanksgiving break from college. What a feeling. I didn't know anyone here or where anything was. My parents were living out of a hotel room. They had only been here a month and were still unable to find anywhere to live. The very last day of my visit, they finally had that house. We ate at a Black Angus for our thanksgiving dinner, and later that day we started moving boxes in. That night, we slept on the floor, all four of us (my mom, dad, sister and myself) in the living room in sleeping bags in front of the fire place. The heat hadn't been turned on yet...with the holiday weekend and all...
But still, you know what seems so weird to me? The biggest difference? Not that they're now in a different house. Not that I'm now living here instead of just visiting. Not that everything in life seems to have changed for me...the thing that I'm missing? Is the rain. We've had a few showers...last Friday we had a bit of a storm...most of the rain has been at night. But most of the time? I'd say over half the days have been sunny and dry.
Why is that? When I came here first, the rivers were all overflowing. The river that my parents hotel was next to had run over its banks and flooded the bottom level of the hotel. Now the gutters aren't even full during this, the second wettest month of the year in Oregon.
I love the sunny, foggy mornings here...but I want the rain. I want that fresh, cool smell. I want to see that green moss grow brighter with the wet liquid food. Bring on the rain!!!

I have decided that I need tolet go of my anger. Or, maybe anger isn't even the right way to put it...but there are times when I just feel resentful...when I get frustrated and upset and just kind of want to be left alone...when I resent having to do things, even though I know that they're right and good and helpful...but I just don't want to do them. So I have a bad attitude. And I complain. Both out loud and also in my head....over and over again I let that angry feelingbuild up.
I need to let it go. The other day I left the house angry. I left in a huff. I had slammed a door. I was upset at my lack of privacy in my home...I felt put upon for having to take care of my sister whne I was getting ready for work while my dad did nothing but watch TV...I was frustrated and upset and just wanted to simmer in my orneriness.
Then, while I was at work--sitting in the break room on my lunch--a girl that I work with asked me what I believe in. She asked me questions about my faith, what I believe, and why I believe it.
Although I was still able to answer her with words that I stumbled over and pushed out, I'm ashamed that I wasn't able speak to her from my heart...because my heart wasn't where it was supposed to be. I had preparedmyself that day with anger in my heart. I had prepared myself with nothing of hope or love or the Lord. So, when I was questioned on those things, I had none of it to give but the shrivelled portion that was left over in my reserves from another day.
I'm ashamed of that. I'm saddened by that. I came home and read and read my scriptures. I was like a wet sponge wanting to be filled--wanting to be able to feel that spirit that I knew was so lacking in my day. I want to never be in that situation again, although as I type this I realize that I was in exactly such a situation today...I need it to change. I need it to end. I need it to be difference. I will make that difference.

What is familiarity? Sometimes I feel like I get so comfortable sitting in the same spot, night after night, that when I actually take time, to open my eyes and see the world around me, I realize that it is alien. Strange. Not at all what I thought it to be. It's that familiar face that you never noticed had a scar....the familiar road with the house you've never seen. I have this feeling that, despite being completely aware of my immediate surroundings, it is most definitely not mine--most definitely not familiar as I would have myself believe. Most definitely not how I view it.
What is it about perspective? It is the view with which we see the world and make it ours. Step out of that for a minute. Then what do you see? Perhaps, when we step out, we realize that we never actually saw at all?

Birthright

Do you ever wonder, if your parents hadn't gotten together--if your mother had married/been with someone else, or your father--who you would've been with? Who you as your own unique spirit would have been sent to as part of their family? Your mother? Or your father? Or would you be in a completely different family? With completely different people? As if your name was never called from the queue? How would that this life--my life--be different if the people who gave it to me had chosen differently?

Wisdom

We often say that age is wisdom. That those who have lived long enough have acquired a knowledge that is more than self--that has come with experience. I say age is not wisdom. The young, too, are capable of wisdom...often without the judgment and prejudice that age can teach. Age brings experience, and once you get enough of it, people begin to believe you.
With age comes reputation...and if that reputation is a favorable one, we consider the possessor full of wisdom...and we consider ourselves wise in listening.
Confidence comes from reputation, also. Confidence moves from arrogance when reputation is formed.
Once someone has proven themselves, then they can say what they believe to be true. Then they can say what they know--and have perhaps always known, though no one would listen. Then they can be wise.

I chose the images of walls as the backgrounds for my blogs very intentionally and for several reasons. One, because walls are so often accused and used as a symbol for confinement--imprisonment. So often we are stuck on being enslaved within, that we forget what is without. We use only one symbolic meaning as the iconic symbol for captivity--when really it is the symbol of our lives--our homes, a place of refuge, a new, separate world contained therein. Another reason is that walls are wise.
They not only guard us from outside elements, but they know us in our most private moments.
Walls can define us as a society--the Berlin Wall (and its toppling...), the Great Wall of China.
They also define us as individuals--with pictures hung and holes re-plastered. on these blogs I have two very different walls. Both used. Both loved, in very different ways. Both abused the same. These walls are our stories, just as these blogs are mine--different in construction, but with the same purpose.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how the poetry in my life seems to get absorbed into the every day process of simply being--living. I often have strange, funny (to me at least....), meaningful thoughts that I cherish, and want to share with others, but I don't think that they quite fit into the criteria for my other blog postings....so, here's the new one! This one is just for my thoughts. Just for me thinking like I think. Not for creativity so much as just for being a person who thinks stupid, often pointless things that she feels like she just wants to share with whomever may feel the desire to read them. :) Here's to the simple things in life.