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.