Falling...

There's a moment, when you take stock of where you are, and you have to smile. Probably the same dreamy smile you've been wearing so often... or maybe a rueful, wistful one... here we go again. You know the symptoms.

It's not love... not by the way we usually mean it. And it's too tender to be lust, though that certainly makes itself known, too. It's an ephemeral thing, born of being caught in the edges of someone's wake once too often, for a little too long... a certain symptom of fascination.

You're not falling in love. You're not caught in the throes of a crush. You're planted firmly in the middle of a dream of what might be... romance for romance's sake... and if you relax into it, and make no rash moves, it will burn off as surely as morning mists in the sunlight. You get to see his flaws... he notices your scars... it's a graceful dance of discovery, cruelty hidden under pretty compliments and small liberties taken.

Don't take it seriously; it's fun, but not much more. But while it lasts... such a pretty delusion.

(no subject)

o/~ Now the years are rolling by me, they are rock-ing evenly, and I am older than I once was, but younger than I'll be; that's not unusual. Nor is it strange.. after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same. After changes, we are more or less the same. o/~

In a few months... I will be twenty-six. It's a good age to be, twenty-five, with a quarter of a century behind me and the standard rest of my life in front of me. But sometimes, I feel like I'm missing things. I started this year in tears and frustration over all the dreams I hadn't fulfilled... and I'm ending it in wistfulness, on the same subject. I wanted.. I want... to be so much more than I am. To do so much more than I have, or even can, that sometimes the prospect makes me want to run away and hide until I'm no more. Six feet under, consigned to space, lost in my own world... just someplace where I don't have to think, I'm a failure.

What have I accomplished? I've had three children. My hope, my faith, for the future, bundled up in three compact little bodies and three sets of soft brown eyes. Sometimes I think that's enough. And then I remember the world they're growing into, and I want to clear the garden for them, weed the snakes and the hurts and the heartaches out of one corner of the world and hand it to them, entirely perfect. An impossible dream, I know. But then, I have so many of those.

I wanted to be a veterinarian. That began at about the same time I decided I wanted to play the violin, and stayed strong, burning, all the way through high school. What happened then? Dream met reality, and something gave way. It took a long time after that for me to find a vocation, figure out what I wanted to do with my days. Now? Now I have a new love, and I wouldn't go into veterinary medicine now if I could.

I sing. Not star-quality, I'm an alto, and we're generally back-ups for sopranos anyway.. but I have, or used to have.. I'm sure it will take practice to regain it.. a fantastic range. I paid for my second year of college that way, on chorale scholarships. I dreamed a little of making a living that way, I think everyone does now and again... but I chose safety and security instead. Every now and again, someone who hears me asks, have you ever considered singing for a living? My answer is a smile, and a slight shake of the head. I thought about it, but the "starving" part of "starving artist" didn't appeal. Shorthand for, I was afraid to fail, so I didn't try.

That, too, is something that hasn't changed. Hegira, I call my journal. Hegira, a flight or journey made for the purpose of safety or escape. It's a little bit of a joke, for here, I expose myself in many ways, open myself up to ridicule, fail blatantly. But there's something else I do, too. I pick myself up, make amends where I can, and go on. I may hurt, I may bleed, I may cry, but not forever, you know? This is my testing ground, where I figure out what works and what doesn't, what I want and what I can do without.. and what works in here, I apply out there, in the world where mistakes have greater consequences than a sarcastic comment.

Having said that.. I don't mean that what happens here is unimportant to me. Nowhere else to date have I put so much of myself into a space, knowing that response will be immediate and specific. This playing well with others thing ... I guess I never learned it. Too much time spent alone. But there's something else that hasn't changed about me.. and that's the fact that I learn. Slowly, sometimes, and painfully. But eventually, I learn.

My dreams have changed, are changing. But for all of that, I have them. You'll see them here, though probably not in so many words. It's what's left in the silent places that counts. In the way I interfere, intrude, but sometimes get it right. The way the same people who love what I have to say one day find that I infuriate them the next. Heed the sign on the door.. work in progress. I'm not a static creature. Something catches my mind, and I pursue it, but unless it's central to me... life, love, family, friends.. each mood burns away in time. I'm not fixed, not immutable. Even if, after all this time, I am more or less the same.

Telling Tales...

In the beginning...

There was a word. A word which held all the meanings that were, or would be, or had been. And it was breathed aloud into silence, and breathed in with the first breath of things finding consciousness for the first time, and reflected back in the new-made sound of laughter. It scented the world, and cradled the world, and everything within it, it took unto itself and brought forth from itself again, and it was perfect.

But the speaking of a word, changes a word. And with each repetition, a little less heartfelt than the rest, the meaning of the word began to be lessened. And with the lessening, came the atrocity of the antonym, gathering strength to itself as perfect understanding was lost. The great light of the word was dimmed, and shadow began to creep in, and many shades of gray.

One might have begun to despair, then... and many did. And they made rules unto themselves, saying, let us not speak the word aloud, for to speak it is to destroy it, and so they did not. They hoarded the meaning of the word in their hearts, kept it safe in the fastnesses of their souls, and clung to it, as to a dream in the night... but they lived it not. For the living of a word, requires the sharing of that word, and speak it aloud, they would not do.

But some there were, who counselled within themselves, if speaking aloud diminish understanding, then nothing is lost, for what is understanding, but a byproduct of living the word? And they determined that they would speak the word, and live the word, and share the word when they could. They were looked on with disfavour, this second group, for they were changing the meaning of the word with each repetition. They were called fools, for the misunderstandings that arose between them and those to whom they spoke the word, and they were laughed at, for to speak a word and live a word is to embrace a word, and to let it also change you. And these changes were not always pleasant or painless, and with each new pain, each wound, it became harder to grasp the word.

There are many tales within this one.. as many as there are lives, and voices to speak, and hearts to understand. But the end thing was a thing wonderful to behold, and I shall share it with you. It has to do, you see, with repetition. When you repeat a thing, you learn a thing, and when you learn a thing, you create it anew for yourself. And with each repetition and learning of the altered meaning of the word, there came at last to be many meanings of the word, and each held within it a seed, a shadow, of the original word, and all of them together pointed back to the word, so that, indeed, nothing was lost. The word had been there, all along, waiting and cradling, and creating anew... and now it was replicated among the world. And that, my friends, is as it should be, and as it has always been.

And now, having said that, I say this.. I love you.