Welcome jean

Let's make a character named Jean. She is barely of height to reach the top of the fridge, but is often asked to. It is a frigid mountain in her eyes, and all rewards lie at the top of frigid mountains. Cookies, donuts, and bugs in jars.
    She likes boys when they don't smile easily, but do smile often. It makes life seem harder and more rewarding all of the time. She likes beating uphill slopes, eating bland cereal, and hugging the unhugable. She likes it because it is considered difficult. She likes being considered difficult.
    On Friday, September 12th, she found herself considering suicide and living. Why? Because everyone said it was impossible. She liked the odds. With a daft slip off the side of Mt. Erickson she fell without screaming towards the impossibly high snow drifts thousands of feet below. Like a military paratrooper without a parachute she aimed herself head first into the impending destruction with great precision. And then, like the last drop of chilled iced tea meeting the glass to which all were bound, she was reunited with the inevitable ice and snow that could only be her legacy. Inevitably it fell every year, and inevitably it melted. And, inevitably she met it head on daring death to take her.

It did, but not to where it normally does.

It took her back home.

There it sat with her and asked her once more to reconsider her position. After a short scalding, one she had grown used to, it reminded her that she was not in any position to commit suicide and that unless she proceeded to do what she had so far failed to accomplish with the right attitude (one of sadness, angst, self-pity, and remorse) she would never succeed. It was then Jean thought to herself. Could it be? Had she found something that she could not accomplish, despite the odds?
      She woke from an afternoon nap a changed woman. There are impossible things in life, she thought, because she had declared them such. The impossibility was one in which she had crafted on her very own. And, as she could not accomplish those things, why bother trying? She started adding sugar to her cereal since the bitterness had really no effect on her. On her way to school she still ran up the hill because there was no reason not to see the top sooner, and she still hugged the unhuggable because she wanted to see them smile. The difficulty was in place for a reason. The rewards were meaningful. Some challenges meant to be overcome, some to teach us not to. And, she plays monopoly with Death every Thursday.

A symbol

        "This bell, like me, is a symbol of the spirit of Christmas." Santa's words in the storybook retold movie Polar Express. He doesn't claim to be the center of Christmas and I don't believe he ever will or would. He, like we, are in a circle of celebration every year. Giving gifts, sharing in the immortal spirit of joy that thrives in all in these December days (or instigates all in some other fashion). In this sense is Santa real? As real as the Christmas Trees and gifts under it. An element of a season contrived to help us see and recognize the gift we have all received. Salvation at the hands of a loving God. How grateful I am. How grateful we all should be. Sometimes it takes a person giving us chocolates to remind us that there is a greater gift to be thankful for. And, just like the season inspires the gifts, the Father inspires the goodness in all of us. The spirit brings to all the joy of the gospel. Perhaps for disciples of Christ Christmas is a way of life and December is our Sabbath.
         Is a symbol real? Why, of course it is. As real as a person, a place, a picture. Anything can be a symbol. But, does Santa have a soul? A body? Is he a person? No. He was never meant to be. A person has to live, and to live is to face trials and have more than a tummy full of jelly and a cheery laugh. Despite the many attempts at making Santa become a real person, he cannot be. The instant he is he ceases to be a legend, a myth, a symbol of the season, much like a frightening monster finally seen becomes shotgun-fodder. Thus, he goes on unseen and retains his magic, mystery, and inexplicable joy: all so that we may not see him in the season (the season would surely fall apart), but see the true immortal whose day and month it is. And, thus we see the association and the similac power of imagination to help us embody, employ, and express our joy. Merry Christmas to all of you, and to all of you the most wonderful birth of the savior once again.

This year

Admittance acknowledged this has been a wonderful year. Lavender lotion and gated communities come with stirring conversations, Shakesperean sonnets, running charades, and axillian hells. Marriage happened and I am now sealed to an eternal companion. Light plays off our door every morning waiting for us to wake. Summer time featured mini-kites in a park and several lost boomerangs, Mexican food and NF realizations. Leaves fell in the fall stuck to shoes in the winter. We track them into our computer shop, as alien to them as a Neanderthal in New York City, 2047. Worlds were discovered, dismissed, and careful cases resolved in dramatic and logical ways. Sherlock Holmes has Finesse! A book was started and still hovers there, waiting to be finished, the character in the middle of an epiphany that the author does not quite have. A machine to render imagination has been constructed and will be in a state of perpetual upgrade. Distance was created and made variable. And, somewhere, a lost phone still needs to be charged.

Disparaging

         It is as great a crime to the reality of expression to understate as it is to overstate the truth of any subject. Artistic liberties aside, the expression of any fact is a serious responsibility. Think about this fact in the perspective of one who creates reality (as we so often do on a personal level). Any deviation from the truth--even in relative terms--is, in fact, a lie. For this fact do I find the disparaging man one of my greatest foes. How dare you undercut reality? What nerve to take my incredulous existence, my sincere curiosity, and give me a meager return! Unexcuseable! With more than reality the whole truth can often be found below the exaggerated levels, but to think that over-modesty bares any great advantage over the truth is entirely folly. Whatever you are speaking on you insult and decrease your own viewed intelligence in the process.
         I do not challenge this fault of factual-poverty merely because my tendency is towards the embellished. In this particular case I find an abundance of any subject more often the preferred over the shortage. Of course exception may include armies, temperatures, food, and gamma rays, but I like to call these silly. No.
        Really, any deviation from the truth, any statement taken from the real, can become poisonous if misunderstood. May we all avoid disparaging, may we all avoid embellishing. Truly.

Snow Flakes

Look at all the wind blow and see the thick white feather-like cascade of falling snow. Does it remember the land it lands on, the one it knew so long ago when it was just a pool of water? Did it know it would be traveling to Utah in the future and gracing us with it's chilling presence? It, like us, goes through many seasons. It chills us in winter and cools us in summer. It may have been drunk by a seasonal plant or swam in just months ago. Enough of that now, the snow says, now I am falling on your door step until the world is a warmer place. I will only leave you if I am shown warmth. Then perhaps I will go. Don't think you got off easy, next year you will meet more of my family.
       Strange then that for us this passing season should be comprised of the very water that bound Noah away upon its bosom. Timeless and still subject to the chill in the air. A weather-bound reminder that the sun rules all in his glorious dominion. Orbiters of his majesty, the snow-flakes melt at the very gaze. Still then does man speak with the God who can stop it's passage across our sky and juggle the planets like a performer without dropping a single spinning orb. But, here we are. The snow falls on us in mock-victory and renewal before we fall upon it on our way to work, school, and life.

Welcome

      Greetings to all and congratulations! You have looked at my blog. This is a small detached peace of me, something you can see without actually facing me. It is instructive to thoughts, attitudes, and abstract sources of my imagination. I welcome you all if you didn't all feel welcome already. You should, the purple border is mesmerizing, yes? For me it is. If anything this blog is an outsourced me and you are all invited (all twelve of you) to read through it. Like much of me you will have to look through layer after layer if you really want to find anything of value, or just admire the semi-coherent words that seem to flow from my mind. Welcome welcome welcome.
      Let me emphasize expression and the necessity of it. Expression in every form, light and dark. When one is expressive one is self-aware and when one is self aware one is able to grow. Expression requires an audience of some sort, even if that audience is ourselves (we should all make ourselves our own audience quite often to show ourselves what we can do). Nothing is better than being quite honestly impressed with what we are able to do (however the means, God being the ultimate source). We can't be proud of anyone else, truly prideful (only in our opinions of them), and thus it is when we see ourselves from an audience perspective we are not prideful, we are delighted. Wow, how did we do that?
      Welcome again and congratulations! You are someone and you have that someones abilities. Don't forget to perform, and don't forget to be an audience.

Cylindrical us

      A little bit of anything on a cold day could be counted as abundance. Some are reminded of the little match-stick girl outside windows, her last worldly possessions burning to keep her warm as she watches the festivities of us all. Chilling.
      In all actuality, however, I think most are well to do in America. In Utah, at least, one doesn't often see anyone besides the rare professional beggar by the side of temple square. A starving child wouldn't last five seconds before some casserole crafting mother did something. I didn't make it ten miles on the freeway without a mini-van asking if I needed a ride. Case and point: Utah is a happy place, right? I think more dangers lie in comfort for us than in poverty.
      In less than two weeks time we will soon be subject to "everyone look at a turkey" day. This proceeds into "Look at it fried, baked, and cooked." This leads to "Turkey sandwich day." This one bird, a bird that was once proposed to be the bird of America, is the sole subject of affection in our Thanksgiving dinner. How did this happen? Are we really all obsessed with its breasts? One thing is certain, you won't be eating a bald-eagle this Thanksgiving. The turkey is more America's bird than ever. 
     Am I speaking against eating much in thanksgiving? Nay. I am just bringing awareness to the strangeness of this wonderful season. I will say what it does do. It does bring family together. It does bring a unique spice to us. It does make us all feel like we have a bit too much, no matter who we are or what status our finances happen to be in. So come all, let's eat stuffing, cut down the turkey population (those frightening birds), and chat with our family in a merry sort of way. Much to be thankful for indeed.

Watch me, starlight

          Inadequate to capture the distant gaze of hundreds of speckled eyes. Inadequate to change the distance of the Earth from the sun. Inadequate to raise hell into the hearts of every cold living human. But, applauding those who can, I elaborate on something I do. Watch me, starlight, see that I don't bequeath your spider-eyes to those blind men on the sea of city lights, that distant floating vassal in the night valley. I may sail my ship over distant ridge and hill to your humble shops ere midnight to buy pizza, but that does not make you the harbinger of joy. Merely the recipient of it
          Ode to them who stop at night and say there is no longer any day. They should be sleeping if they cannot handle the audience of an evening walk. Stop. Before you bring me morning, listen. I don't know where my tomorrow is (it comes to me), all I know is where I am right now. Catch me if you can, then, as hard as I run the sink water and douse the night air with another reborn dish. A sprinkle of hope. Let me breath life into another dying moment and let home be home once more. People no longer burn the midnight oil, they start the unsung jobs.
           Hold, I'm not letting you get away that easily. There is still the matter of finding something you've always wanted to do and then doing it. Daring to do the undone, undoing the done wrong, and overcoming the obstacles of life. You'll never catch me student loans! Avast, Geico. Fear not car. Your gas tank will always be full. Forward!

Dear Worlds

            I have twelve followers on this blog (It sounds as if I have started some sort of cult. RISE MY FOLLOWERS!), and though that is a poor representation for a mass of the world I think that there is more detail in one person than most people examine in one life time in this world. So I speak to twelve worlds seen from twelve different sets of eyes, and for this honor I am grateful.
            It is essential to know our own world; to learn to see the wonders of life and to recognize how we see them. Grip the Meta-sight. Recognize the distinction between our sight, our world, and another's. It is simple to forget that how we see the world (Such an important thing to recognize) is not how others do. The simple question of "How" is quite prominent in this form. Think of the portent of wording the question "How do I see the world?" By simply asking we denote that there are other ways. Through recognition of our own abilities we acknowledge the myriad of others we do not have. What a humbling, respectful, brilliant acknowledgment for a human race wrought with differences. Oh to understand them!
            In this lies the ambiguity of my title. There are so many ways I could address fellow people in my life, in this life, in all people. Dear Worlds suits me best. May we all look through our eyes and recognize the stigmas, nuances, tones, and emotions we put into our world and learn to see their distinction from the worlds of others. In so doing may we all broaden our understanding of these countless people, These countless worlds.

Steps

        Walking is like climbing is like falling is like pushing is like pulling is like stepping into some new portion of reality. We can't help but be progressive, constantly leaving where we once were into where we shall be. Even in standing we only tempt time into one more second of progression. Everything is one more step forward, inch downward, rung upward. We are objects in motion, if not in the physical then in the ethereal, temporal, spiritual. This, dear loves, is the beauty of life. It forces us into the unknown second. We takes steps forward into time, changing position from one to the next, whether we like it or not. Best to like it then.
         Imagine for a moment a world of silent immovability. A world where no progress is thrust upon you. You are as capable as you have learned to be, you can move through every plain of thought, feeling, spirituality, and emotion only as well as you have learned to swim in them. But, no one will make you. It won't move around you. There is nothing there but what you can create. A nightmare or a paradise? Suddenly, when nothing is thrust upon you, what will you do?

Finding the lost

       There are always those distant things we can't remember, those silly things that could redefine our moments if we could recall them. Ever found one? It starts in a sudden moment of deja' vu. Then we recollect that this tidbit of wisdom is distantly our own, though perhaps has been found by a new owner. Do we express joy at our reunion? We have found a little bit of our lost selves! If this small revelation is that exhilarating then imagine our worlds beyond the veils of mortality when all our lost memories may return into play. Now to stop ourselves forgetting, forgetting all over again. Perhaps it is time to rethink keeping a journal.
        I feel there is always a distant scope of wonder in ourselves that will come with a greater understanding. There are lots of things we don't know or have not remembered that will surely redefine, change what we become. At least, I would hope so. I try to make it a habit to change what I am with what I know. Sad those that don't apply what they learn as if learning doesn't matter at all. When it does. It does and it always will.
        There are days when I feel like a child who has gained lost toys and every idea that came with them. Lost paradigms we once had. Compare, accept, discard. Where we have come from and where we are going. Where we could have been. What changed us? What have we kept? Self Inventory: Let's find out what we are, past, present, and becoming. And then, let's come to terms with it.

Me and you

      Me and you may walk different lines, speak different words, be different people, watch different sunsets, but the night still falls on us both in the end. And, I think I learn something from the sunsets I see in your eyes--watching you watch them. "What?" "Just watching."
     What am I watching? You, watching sunsets. How else will I know how you see them? This is important, you know. I like watching sunsets. You could say I am a sunset connoisseur, but I would be showed up by enthusiasts everywhere. I like to know what others look like when they see them. Perhaps I am not looking, I am simply seeing. Seeing you watching a sunset. What does this mean? It could mean lots, but perhaps it means I know just one more thing about you. I won't impertinently claim it reveals your life story to me or hordes of hidden depths of feeling. I will tell you it lets me know how you watch a sunset. That is a nice thing to know. It is nice to know the little things. Don't ask me what I see. You will be disappointed. I see you watching a sunset.
      Sunsets aside I do see staggered meanings in things, but these are most often wrong. Dropping a candle does not mean the light has gone from your life, and moving my stuff from a seat does not mean you wish to supplant me. Buying food does not mean I am starving you, serving breakfast does not mean I failed to serve you first. A gift is best seen as a gift, not a request for compensation.
       Let's not play hidden meanings until we both know the rules. Then it can be quite fun, mind readers everywhere. Then it can be a game worth playing, but let's get the basics down first.

Revelations and aptitude.

        I have been asked how one can tell what gifts they have been given. I didn't know at the time. Now I recognize a unified voice of query among all younger folk. "What talents do I have?" For many this question is a catalyst to self pity and sin. A wander into the web. When you're being eaten it is hard to tell when you are special. When you are all special.
       All have been given gifts. Given them from a loving God. All hidden by the world, buried beneath vice. Most common is pride. Looking at those who have not only found, but nourished, their abilities and we find that suddenly we have nothing. That discourages us from having anything. Why should it matter? What do they have to do with us? We may not receive praise for our acknowlegeably smaller successes, but we didn't do it for praise. We did it to fully live. Without the exercise of talents and expression of self accompanied with that how can we ever accomplish happiness in this life. Not knowing where to look for the pot of gold and not knowing what to spend it on.
        Where do we look? None-other than our best selves. Look when we are serving, loving, being the best we can be. How do we accomplish our successes? Deduce what is different, what we individually notice about the gospel? About love? About self-control? About humility? What does it do for you, for me, for us? Remove the dregs of worldly and see what lies beneath. We are archeologically uncovering our true selves from mounds of dirt. Remove it, the soil, use it to plant flowers in later (The best the soil can offer). Look at what truly is. And, now, we can see what we are capable of. Revealed aptitude.

Month ends

      In the records of time there is little to praise a month end for. A day's ending is marked by a night, a week's ending is marked by a day of extreme joviality and extreme spirituality (Saturday and Sunday respectively) and a year's end is marked by winter and massive celebration. All represent very distinct ends to a previous beginning. Perhaps that is where the problem lies. Can anyone really tell when a month begins and another ends. The content in between is definite (April showers. Spring time. Summer. Fall. Winter. Etc), but the product of each month fits into another category and a larger picture (usually two or three months in particular).
       Months are more defined then an even in them than a beginning or an end. December has Christmas and new years, November has Thanksgiving. June has... nothing. Sleeper month! Found one. So forth. So on. Months are hollow. Like those events in our lives that are drawn into a great length or awkwardly across time. They come like whispers and end like a passing breeze. Off off and away into the annals of history without the distinction of an explosion or a sunset. It takes a critical fellow adept at nuances to catch these things. It takes a savant to write them down.

Self 2 Self

Dear Self,
      
The day dawn is breaking
The sun has just set.
I've known you forever
I think we just met.

        Do you ever really get time to think to yourself? Truly now, the walk into tomorrow requires introspection. Don't lose your perspective, get back up again with a vivacity for knowledge; a vivacity for expression.
        Thank goodness we wake to give dreams an amount of silliness. Without consciousness how could we ever prove false nightmares or dreams? We would forever be limited to what we know or insinuate ourselves. There is so much more to gather from this Earth before we can reside in endless sleep (Endless tomorrow).
        There is a space required for plants to grow. If the pot is too small the roots bind and the flowers never bloom. The plant may cry out and say WHAT is wrong with me!? Nothing is wrong with he plant, just the conditions he is grown in. Sad the family that doesn't have a larger pot, a spot of ground. I think nearly any family would. Everyone has access to space and more world (most everyone, somewhere there is restrained and the persecuted). The world doesn't isolate itself easily. Easily at all.
         Waking tomorrow I could walk in a new direction, think a new thought, or see a new sight without worry. Really though, I need to be happy with where I am before I set out into the unknown. Give me a place to think and I will draw the world in, shadows and all.

The White Whale

         And Ahab sought him restlessly, one creature in self defense that gored him, gored him, gored him. No matter the spears that stuck from the side of the great white porcupine, no matter the wounds incurred for no reason other than a whale steak or a vat of oil, he deserved to die in anger for the self-defense he rightfully took.
         It was then that the voice of reason was so direly needed. Starbuck, Ishmael. But, their voices were the dust on a distant shore. Only too clearly was that evident in tatters and ruin. A great white porcupine is a ferocious foe when backed into a corner, especially when he has done nothing wrong. And, even those that know better will lay broken over the shark filled sea if they stand with those that don't. What about the innocent lives, they ask. What about the innocent lives echos the great white.
         If captain Ahab were anything he would be a gangsta'. Fighting off a wrong that he invented. How dare they hurt his brother for trying to hurt that innocent! How dare they! Morals aside, they are looking for some reason for bloodshed. As a whale Moby Dick already had reason to be harvested, Ahab turned it into a reason to be hunted. Ahab gave him a character. Ahab gave him transcendence.
          What made the white whale stream from the deep in legend and story? Not the whale. Oh no. It was the man who spun the tale. It was the man that called him forth, labeled and mythed. The man who made the monster.

Importune life

       Sufjan Stevens sang the words "I can see a lot of light in you," to the pleasure of all. Was he speaking to a child? A woman? The vague helps us use it in our own way. Creativity helps in taking something and finding meaning for it, like this song. We can all be artificers of the arts. Of course, what is it we are drawing? We are taking something and making it work in life for us. "I can see a lot of life in you."
       I have been reading books and playing games and watching movies and attending plays and thinking about it all for a very long time. My guess is that, for the most part, so have all of you (No vague here, you know exactly who I am talking to). The point being: is all this introversion, all this absorption and sorting, all this time inside of our heads merely something to pass the evenings or are we using it. Using it like the intellectual food it is. Or, do we reduce it all to a mere bag of brainy potato chips? Not that some of these methods don't at times only provide potato chips. And, not that potato chips aren't bad once in a while. But really.
         What we see is an age when potato chips are what anyone wants outside of work. TV is full of supply and demand, and the people demand BBQ, Ranch, Sour cream and onion, and just potato-y, potato chips. Plenty of flavors to choose. Perhaps if they, you, I, look at the back of the bag--or even just inside of it--something of health could indeed be taken from everything around us (if we dare) as it must be in a world of intellect. In order to find the nutrition we must first be looking for it. This is getting harder in a world where less and less actual substance is being introduced into our favorite forms of interpretive entertainment. Mmm. Harlequins. Soaps. First person shooters. Catchy broad-way hits (as long as it sounds good). It is getting harder to find anything of value without adding it ourselves, and even then under layers of symbolic babble we know there is nothing much. A crumb. Probably from a potato chip. This is why I raise the cry.
       This is why I raise the cry to importune life. Demand it so that somebody can supply it. Bring me more Miyazakis, Shakespeares, Psychonauts, and Ella Enchanteds. Maybe then I can have a three course meal of cosmopolitan tastes, but until that day--and as of always--I go through the carefully stored stocks of time to find the canned fruits of another season.

To see by

           I wear glasses to see by. I want to bring the world into my eyes. Without them (my glasses) I drink deep in a blurry picture. Something you can't quite put your finger on. A flavor you can't quite make out. How dissatisfying! Almost wonderful. Why settle for almost?
           I can see every detail with a piece of glass and two hundred dollars.In the middle ages I would never have been able to be an astrologer or marksman. Today I could fly an airplane or become an astronaut. In the modern day even our most natural defects are addressable. The Uncureable trembles. I mean this far beyond the physical. Intellect is as easily tapped as a keyboard. Advice has never been more freely given in any field. God has never been closer. I can see three steeples from the Provo Mall. I can read anything I want and watch any act performed from nearly ANYwhere. And do I feel powerful? There are days when I feel incompetent. The strange psychology of an age when our adversary tempts us to do nothing. Nothing when the limitless potential of all has never before been tapped on Earth in so many ways. Nothing, when there are more ways to make a living and prove useful to an evolutionary and unifiably civilized society. This is an age where nothing may be the greatest danger any of us face.
            The most wonderful thing about glasses is that once owned I could see things in a way I had forgotten I ever knew; in such a clarity that I was suddenly aware of things I wouldn't have noticed without them. All I had to do was be willing to try it. Make an appointment. Spend the money. Put them on. New worlds to be seen. So simply astounding.  Take the leap. Put on the new perspective for just one day. Stop myself from doing things the normal way for just one breath. See how it expands the mind. See how it deepens the contrast. Learn how it may clarify the world, or maybe how it won't. But learn something. Try something. May I run into the impossible, the new, the idea, at least once every day for the rest of my life.
        

We seem

          We seem. Callous. Unworthy of thought or remorse. Just one more person who will slip in our life of eighty-plus years. A face in a crowd that won't surround me for longer than two seconds, one hour, maybe four years of schooling. Feel no compulsion to apologize for what will only be remembered for at least an hour more. Time let it all slip away. Slip into a stream of fading memories. After all we can only see one memory at a time. We are only frail humans with frail eyes and frail thoughts.
          Thinking! thinking such faults! Look again. One more person is one more Godling. One more tumultuous storm of life that will change the world it strikes. You and they may forget. May allow yourselves to because this is life. This is time. This is human. But we are not. We are an excuse for a humans on a limited-time-only earth experience lease. We are eternal. We will spend an eternity thinking over everything we could have done, should have done. Perhaps would have. We will have an eternity to do things, but even the doing of things will not compensate for an eternity of thought when we are not limited to this earthly weakness. When we can do everything at the same moment, and that moment is eternity, will we be different? Will we be a virtuous harmonic? Remember what we seem to be. Remember we seem not what we are. We are not always what we seem.

Livid

       The term "went up like a marshmallow" is very descriptive. If applied to a person this describes not only a single event, but the state of the subject involved. For instance: "The Rock went up like a Marshmallow," would state that the famous action movie hero was feeling particularly squishy that day when he started on fire. If this sentence was applied to plans the plans would be seen as particularly sugary and sticky before they erupted into flames. The marshmallow had become livid. Deformed with fiery rage. Sticky, sweet, slightly crispy. Flammable. Most angry people go up like Marshmallows, just less sweetly.

        Other things respond to the heat in different ways. Everything can melt. Some things become harder, other things become fertile. Pinecones open to seed in one last sacrificial redemption. Grow children! Grow from my distress! A felicitous way to respond to the fires in life. We all face them. But, do we all become more delicious? Gooier? When the heat transforms what shape do we take?

         I would be a glass to see through when the heat is on. A glass that elaborates the truth and shows how things truly are. The most beautiful grains of sand.

Organic We

     Solemnly we enter a building, silently we glance. A whisper in the lobby is a shout in the eternities. Seeing her then on time and aware I found a piece of me was taken, that piece that was for one person. We walk past registrars and workers in white. Angels they are. or they seemed (to be). So kind, to direct me. A palace of gems in roses.We walked out as higher love. The elven king. The Eve, princess. Vines of the colored sea, a more colorful vibe. Festive reception most colorful rainbow in thy dance, and voice (I need).
     We leave a world of white angels and suddenly the world is sharper color. Orange and yellow and purple jumping. Sherbet polka-dots. Life brings it out and two amplify it. The color looks right on everyone, on everything, on me, on you.
     A light shining so bright, it shines through my heart bright red like any window. We can be inside and out all at the same time. We open up to the pendulum of gabe. A crimson hue..with turquoise more turquoise than it's name. This! This is bigger than love itself. An eternal creation, I believe we've been for years, and the veil only makes us forget, but we remember so fully with the feeling we feel.  And God's pure words and innocence and giggles and smiles make me free from it. In this we must remember to keep God with us always..and we will be free.
  

Little widgets

   I open up the sky and see the distant stars. Every night. They fly without wings. Combustible. THey say we pass through solar systems all the time, but we don't even wave. Maybe we should all wave at the stars.
   People often fail to acknowledge the grand little things. They never seem to make the splash that the boulders do. The pebbles of the sky next to our large empty rocks. Lifeless silver.
   Where do you hide when you can't find the Sun? Find skipping rocks across the sky. Streaming into the unknown we go and we fall into orbit, fall around the world without landing. We end up in the middle of the night sky if you look right, but only if you look right.
   Dream a little with me. Find a little space for yourself beside me. Yes, beside me with yourself. And let me see it. Come to my place and I will look into yours. If you can just find stillness. Still-point, then you could learn as much about yourself as I know. And I don't know as much as you could. If you find that point where you can wave to the stars. Where you could just stop for a moment and realize that there is nothing better for you to do then to exist as what you are, before burning into action. Erupting into Color. Causing growth on some distant planet far away.

Misshapen

         Sometimes in the night things show so little of themselves that the rest--the dark space--needs to be filled in with imagination. Walls disappear and objects elongate, fatten, separate like oil in water. You want to reach out and touch it to prove that it still exists in its glorious ordinary, but moving makes you dizzy. Moments come and go and even closing your eyes makes you feel odd, like you have been transfigured into half-cooled jello: Unable to keep shape. These happenings are no ones to blame. Brains just want to let you emulate them once in a while. "Look! This is my world." Maybe, just maybe, we become so aware of them in that moment we actually feel like the world has taken on their very characteristics. Soft pliable squishy elongating brilliance. Outside of the shell. Outside of the comfort zone. Outside of where it is safe. We are all just like brains.
          When we are wrapped in our layers and cushioned in our own squishy substance, hard shell to keep the world out, we find solace in existing. Let the shell go where it will, but we are well. Of course, things get in sometimes. Sometimes it gets a little crowded in there. No room. Our world isn't large enough. THe brain then squishily dies. What if it could crack it's way out of the shell though? What if it could rebuild a bit bigger and stronger. from the inside out? rise up brain! Do something about your small world, it is taking you and squishing you and changing your shape. You can't live long. But it can't do that. It will simply die. Unless, of course, a surgeon helps it out a little. Cleans up the mess, but the room stays the same once the professional lets it be. Just a little cleaner until it crowds again. But not I. Not we.
            We rise up! We crack the shell we stopped fitting in, grew too big for. We remodel, build new rooms, taller and grander than before. All so we can think bigger of course. So we can let more people in, more art, more music, more ideas, more everything. The importance of adding on. Of getting our space so we don't squish. That is uncomfortable. It hurts to be misshapen; even if we don't know it. So we build on.

Moonlight

         The night sky is breathtaking. Vast with texture. Depths of stars on infinite levels, galaxies and formations uncounted, but in the constant is the joy of the moon. Less time being full, it shows only parts of itself and always has a dark side. Theory has filled it's history; perhaps Earth's greatest friend. Sharing distant sunlight in the night sky, constant. But everyone needs a day off. New moon. Time for itself. It guides tides. Mysterious fellow, anagram for the human soul: A great place to start if you are on your way to the sun. I think we twinkle like stars before we play moon, then we must learn how to ignite.
          Of course, science writes it all differently. Stars are suns, moons are lifeless, the Sun is just a cute little guy in the grand universe we live in, but ponder for a moment what it means to us. This is our Sun, stars, moon. Luna. Our very own night guard to guide the waves and fill the fields with silver. My favorite walking light.

Honored

       Terms of endearment always speak to me, delicious candy coating to help questions and answers. Sometimes they don't taste right--like candy coating a Dorito--but many times they complete a most wonderful sentence. Honored is one of those. Honored is a word of words. It speaks of good and noble things. It insinuates not only gladness at doing, but class and responsibility and attention and thanksgiving.. Honored to be here. Honored to travel with you. Honored to share with you. Honored to live. I am honored often.
       I think being honored in life, taking carpe diem as a call to some joyous, is the essential of all Men and Woman that love life. A sense of gratitude and fulfilling at any given task. A sense of peace and joy and rightness. Rich.
      Truly being honored is beyond pride, it is finding greatness in things beside power. It isn't so much the being honored, but the what you are being honored for. Being honored to care, to love, to create, to play dolls with your youngest sister. Being honored to be with someone that according to worldly ways isn't valued, but because of greatness of a different sort (some of the greatest are invisible to the eye) you are joyed, attentive, and full in their presence. Truly being honored to find it.
       I have had many honors in life, things that have carried weight to me in a meaningful sense. My prayer is that the things that carry weight for me may be things that carry weight for my Father in heaven. That they may have been truly meaningful in his eternal eyes. I would match my honors to his so that I don't flutter at passing cars and raucous acts. But truly employ the word honor in it's best sense. Be honored with every insinuation of joy at life. True joy at having a full respect for the most glorious life I have been given and the people in that life.
       I am honored.

Differing styles

          I am an upholder of individuality. That everyone is of a different mettle, and that everyone must learn to understand one another. We all face the object of trying to realize that our eyes, though we know how they see, are not what others see with. A humbling sentiment. We face perspective, idea, and the unknown. Why do others do what they do? A valuable question (tool).
          "Understanding what we don't understand" Living with the acceptance that others live too and in their own way. Ways we may not understand. Like everyone's different language. A bucket in any other language is not a bucket. It is something else. But it is still a bucket, and we can let it be whatever it is for them. That is how it must be. Perhaps language is meant to help us accept differences in others. If someone can speak an entirely different language, then perhaps they can see something different when they look at a Monet or polka-dotted masterpiece. Or at us. Or at a hello. Or at a goodbye. Or at a joke. It only gets more complex from there, but no matter what it translates to we can put offense aside if we allow ourselves to give them their understanding. To let them translate and not be angry when what they see with their wholly unique eyes is different from what we meant, and be joyed when they give us the time and the thought to truly understand.
         To understand (or to accept and become fascinated with our lacking of it) is to become unified, to have friends, to love, and to enjoy everyone. To be open to jewels and beauties, to DISCOVER them in places not our own! Things that we needed someone elses eyes to see. Thus we can gain an entire world if we sacrifice the walls of our own. If we are willing to see stars and fields beyond our personal self. Living life with 6 billion people.

Who we are

              Sometimes, as an empath, it is easy to get lost in someone elses life, perceptions, and feelings. We lose our own and start to embrace something we cannot control: Somebody else. Oh! The importance of loving someone and desiring to understand them cannot be understated, but the importance to do so from the single strongest point we can stand (our own) is also un-understateable.    
               Our sense of life and love must originate from the mainspring of our own existence as provided for by a Loving father in heaven. We must stand on our own ground and till our own fields, watering them with the sweet life and Charity of a giving and eternal God. That water we must draw ourselves, and those plants hand chosen by our own interests. We must hold those things close to us, so that we can be what we truly desire and others can learn from that. Others can marvel at our garden as we marvel at theirs. And in our desire to acquaint ourselves with the sweet marvels of another person (especially those intimate with us) we can appreciate all that they are, and give room for it with the understanding it is their garden, and ours is ours. Grow life. Grow.

Here we have N

          Something like indescribable, we find intuition seeping from little cracks in the folds of reality. Little bits of everything that we want to know, and as we use it and try to take it into reality we think to ourselves: What is this mad mad thing called life? But no translation is necessary, that is the maddest of all things. Like trying to make words from a violin concerto. Flowery Powerly nothing describes it best.
          We follow those promptings, and with a little divine help we get it right. Just like sensing can follow reality, true reality, and never go wrong. We all follow reality, just different shapes of it. Different aromas, words, realities of the same thing. Going to the same place. Truth.
          Finding that the world likes to see so much of results, but perhaps more of how those results came to be; The journey of their crawl to the light of day, rather than just the fact that they made it: We see that those who cannot explain in a logical way must learn to explain in a differing and evocative analogy. And so with intuition it becomes like: Like the many beautiful and aesthetic facets and objects of life. Bubbles and sunsets and the smell of good books. Etc. Etc. Etc.
          Keep our own journals do we (do we?) all, in our languages each own for documentation.For the world through our eyes. Intution and wonderful sense.

Up one side, down another

        They say that life is like a rollercoaster. They also say that life has a high point (golden years) and then becomes falling action. These two analogies seem to clash. In one the falling is the action, in another it is the low after the high. On a rollercoaster it is the getting lower that is the high, and the highest point is also the fastest and steepest decline. I bring this up and out so that one may understand that I feel a deep regard for the past, and like so many times it has carried me to the brink of change and then watched me plummet through the ensuing choices with brilliant speed, screams, and laughter. Such points seem spontaneous: that moment over the hill seeming the only thing to give drive to the ride of life, but in essence these points are neither spontaneous or coincidental. The climb was just as important as the tipping point. Thus we go and work and toil up one side of the hill, and then experience the rush of the other as we let that work and these decisions take us. Take us speedily once more to the ground level of life, though that may be a bit higher now.
         Up one side lies a school of touch and the hard incremental lessons of friendship, consistency, self analysis and honesty. Happiness at existing and having and making the decisions and life around us; so masterfully crafted. Happiness at being what I am. Hard lessons full of emotional creation and humbling realizations, sometimes in shear magnitude. (It is humbling to realize the magnitude of ones abilities and that you had mistakenly thought they were meager. Humbling  to note that God has given you so much, and you refused to see it because you considered your self-worth so low). I know now much more than I did that life is ours and we have the means to live it. Full ability. The walking becomes  fuller, and the steps forward more meaningful, with such a realization. Up one side and the distance and height has become greater than ever before. The ability to be this much more be-able. The point of decision has become monumental and dynamic. We are crafting life with more skill now. And as one does so one finds that those screaming laughing parts of life, those accelerated and rich moments launch us farther then ever before, and to new grand heights.

Engaged

              It is funny how easily moments of time become life and legend in history. We are expected to remember things like our first kiss, our first car, our first time doing any number of things. Those moments can sometime sneak up on you. No fanfare like one would suspect. No culmination other than the chronic movement, the mellow building of life. The sudden awareness will hit you then. It has happened. It just did. Silent and sudden and brilliant, like a sunrise. It doesn't suddenly fly over the ridges of mountains, it climbs slowly until the glory of it is exposed.
             On May 31st I found myself watching a ridiculously unromantic movie with my sweetheart, Alex April Leeann Grover. Coraline is concerned with Spiders and Flys, But in any circumstance it appears words of the spirit can be heard, and God picks interesting times (mindful in the grand scheme I am sure) to help us make big decisions. Thus, at about 11:55 or so, without any romantic get-away or planned words, I suddenly asked her if she still felt too young to marry, all previous conversations ending in the conviction that we still needed time to grow (a conviction I painfully understood). As easily as I asked, feeling suddenly nothing to lose, she answered with an astonishing "no, I'm not too young." The words that came to me during an especially frantic and creepy scene of Coraline were then admonished "You had better propose to her Cory." Alex then lent forward and no fear in her eyes or word, said "Yes, of course I will marry you."
             Engaged now, life takes on such a double meaning. Things about me remain about my own life, but then there is the level of me being unified: what things mean to us. How from our own selves we bring to the table such strengths, and help eachother with such flaws. How we can fully live, but at the end of the day the young couple can come together and ask and be and fine a companion.
             Engaged us. Alex + Cory.

Just before tomorrow

           After a spring evening, days of sacrament and singing birds are essential. Arms around waists, shoulders, legs, and necks. Skies look bluer, and grass greener. A little more sunlight can brighten any day, but a lack of dust makes everything a bit crisper.
           We wear Sunday best for honoring, and feel our Sunday best for keeping. We can take the Sacrament and feel worthy. We can hold eachother as peers with great sustenance for one another. Support me on your shoulder, as I do for you: like a hand that draws itself. A relationship has no beginning and end, At least I am not the beginning, and I am not the end. We lean on eachother, and built ourselves up to do so.
           Starlight greets an evening walk, would make the perfect wedding band; so alight in the dark. Graves with flags and carry any amount of conversation, and the entire time we wonder. Best to wonder and to be our best, keep to our honest intentions and realize that they are good enough. We cannot be what we are not, so we won't be. I bring myself to the table. I'm slightly candy coated, but that is just me.
           Sleeping now.

Far-Fetched

            There isn't a place to hide that what you are is far-fetched. Out there. Abstract. A little bit crazy. You know you are.
            Don't doubt it.
            Don't tell me you don't think yourself just a little bit different than the man standing next to you, or even your brother. It is okay. ~You are~ No need to claim you aren't a bit out of the ordinary, because the ordinary doesn't extend past a few select interests or standard social norms, perhaps even beyond ourselves. We are normal (exactly what we want to be), do we want that normal to change? Our normal should be happy. Making Normal!
           Lets talk about shirts. Some like tank tops. Some like tees. Some people don't wear shirts. They are normal too. They are them. For some a smile is normal, for another it is a special occasion or bears a particular use. That is their normal, and perhaps in this world the acceptance that everyone is a small bit far-fetched--that understanding--will allow us to accept the unlikely. Meet the uncomfortable. Smile at the unexpected, and value everyone's own honest sense of style just a little bit more.
           Far-fetched us, oh be.

Diligence

        This is no praising, self indulgent post. This is more of a plea, a sharp desire for diligence. Diligence in all people and all matters of life. Diligence towards the Lord, towards happiness, enlightenment, and perfection. Wading through mud towards the final goal, working towards the very end. Keeping our word.
        Diligence ties with sincerity, hope, and faith. Diligence embarks into the night with the bright hope of tomorrow: reaches for the stars with the knowledge that we increase in ability to reach them.
        I've made goals (I have stars). I've made the decision to finish school, to work, to wait for the right time to get married. Now comes the diligence, the fighting against seeking after something else, losing interest, or losing hope. Stepping up, learning more and more, finding joy in the striving. I feel part of diligence is learning to enjoy the day to day and the working. Learning to enjoy the industry of it all.
        It may not seem a glorious battle, one where victory and dramatics play the grand role. It may seem as the gray of an unending day, the overhanging clouds that do nothing. But the day progresses, the night does come. Sleep, then morning, and we choose to make it interesting, advancing, and learning. We choose to make the day any better or honest or true; any smarter than the previous day. We can choose! Creativity in diligence truly does exist!       
       Then, Forward now into this day or night, gloom or shine, we go. We take with us preparation, supplies: spiritual and physical rations. Plans towards happiness and perfection. And we take the first steps with the first minutes: here in this Earthly setting where time will push on for us and never without us. Then come! We can be dragged by our coat-tails, if you will; or we can march.
I want to march.
         

Alex' Talking

           So many hands pulling me different angles. So energetic they are! So exhausted and yet I keep being led by them. Flying birds that look like painted wood. Savoring the air and every scent of it. It tingles when I finally rest. A walk. A breeze through my hair and a glance at history, tragedy. And then we breathe  and walk it off. And listen to amazing music! And lay here and just try to take it all in. And listen to people; sounds like whispers in the distance while they're speaking. And I breathe.
           But just yesterday finishing my report taking all day; needing to ignore people, that must be the reason why they are so energetic today! And then walking in the dark brightness with somebody you love. Finally being outside for the first time! Sharing, Believing, Grasping, Concepts. Understanding one another. Figuring each-other out through their eyes, and being too exhausted to walk  home I fall into bed. I don't know what else to say.
           

Being

        Sitting here, surrounded, one is to act differently. Sensory. Learning how to look and feel at a situation. Bring comfort to those around you, think of how to include the spirit in a place, a place that has so many different views and opinions. I write this with blaring music, awkward glances, but a feeling of happiness at being allowed to feel and experience something entirely different. Here there be learning, experience, schooling. And on this day, this day not many may admit or realize, I feel I can do good.

        Share a small glance, or a helpful smile. Be in your element, and perhaps require others to be included in it. If they see you, make that one glance draw them in. And wonder, wonder where you are. And want, want what you have got. And what you have got is the gospel. And what that means is more than words can write or thoughts can tell. I want to see the world, but more I hope they see God, and I hope they can see him in me.

       So I must be, and I must Be strong. I cannot falter here. I cannot cry, I feel in my element. I feel awake and asleep all at once. Controlled atrophy, powerful letting. Fall into me. Fall into the pool radiance that is peace. We keep ourselves from it.

       To let others look, but to not call them too. Completely voluntary. Completely whole. Completely innocent. Be what they look at, in your own way. We determine what we are

Blossoms and fresh cut grass

         Things grow in the sun-light. It may be a hot flaming ball of fire far-far away from the Earth, but in the glorious moments of spring it is the harbinger of growth and warmth in the seasons. I like to think of it as young in the spring, much like everything else. Youthful in its light, bright and fresh. Rising increasingly early with a whiter, faster, brisker light. It is our young sun raising our young plants.
         For any that have laid on the grass lately I should like to say that it is in fact alive. It is cooler than the sun, warmer than the cold, moister than the earth. And, they say, it breathes too. But, For all that talk I don't really think it minds us laying on it. No, not anymore than we mind our close and nurturing ones to lie on us. It gives us a good cuddle. Cuddle with that grass!
         The blossoms too, that bloom on trees in spring time; they are also alive. They aren't selfish, they grow in great splendor to be looked upon, and if one feels one lacks that certain natural beauty they hold they gladly share. Lie under a blossoming tree and the petals happily fall with a breeze to kiss and ornament your face.
         Often times I think they all chatter, though I do not know what of. They whisper in a great rushing voice as they talk back and forth, mingling words with wind, and one cannot help but think they tell of their recent return from wherever they go for Winter. They tell tales to eachother, and in one unanimous voice proclaim indeed that Spring is here.
         I would like to grow this season in or out of sunlight. It seems right, with the grass and blooms, to rise up and take day. Make what one will of it, but if such things as grass and trees can enjoy living so vibrantly I can scarce imagine what one can do with hands and feet. One must only ask himself in the morning what with these will I make today?

Simply

           "O be wise; what can I say more?" (Jacob 6:12, bold added vigorously)
           "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise." (Alma 37:6, bold once again added quite vigorously)
           I don't seek to define wisdom. Only simplicity. Glaring me in the face, the over complex analyzer. I am confounded (does this make me wise?).
           I see meaning, and that meaning is beautifully deep. I love the depth of life. I love the voices of common household objects, the relationship of clouds and stars (like blankets), the... everything! I love words and eloquence. I love reading you! Looking for depth! This means That.
           "Please bring me the your most complex entree! The one with more ingredients and dining rules than actual composing-molecules (They are scanty portions)." And it is then, as they bring you the chef's delightful creation smothered in twelve (12!) sauces that combine to do nothing more than destroy any hope of your tongue tasting normal food again, you look over at the table next to yours and see the culmination of goodness: The french fry. One potato, sliced long, deep fried and salted. It is then you realize your folly.
          The beauty of that fried embassy of simplicity (The humble french fry) is as desireable, fully and simply, as any mass and grand creation. As easy to handle. Smother in Ketchup. Enjoy. Though, of course, simplicity is a healthy and good thing and not innately fattening. (What happens when you try to complexly define simplicity? You end up with french fries). It is better done with single words. In simple purity these small things gain their great power. More power than loquacious speeches, dissertations, or the entire OED ("Madam! I wrote the O.E.D" -J.R.R. Tolkien).
                                                                      And then
          Fresh cut grass
                                                                                             Warm sunshine
                         Window struck rain-drops
                                                                Running through sprinklers
 Happy
                                         Tickles
                                                                                        Open windows
        Read with me
                                                                                                                        Smile
                        Hope                                             Simply Express
                                                         Be believing
                                                                                                                                                  Tangle
     Jumping up and down
                                                                                Embrace
Hold on                                                    Yours
              Milk and cookies 
                                          Fields and stars
                                                                     Good morning                    
               Goodnight         
                                                                                                                   
                                                                           Wonder
                                                       Wonderful
                                                                                Wonder-full
Life
                                                                     
                                                                               
                              

I want to hear them

         Oh world. You look. What is it you see? A moment of my day. A moment of my life. Maybe you look from the news caster's perspective: Short clips. What is pertinent. "The man was killed in a car accident, he had five kids." Poor fellow, whose life can only be told in moments. We feel for you who died and had five kids. Perhaps we also have kids. Oh my, now we attach our memories to your children. Associations. We never hear, no one ever gets to tell us in beauteous clarity, of the man as he woke early every morning to make a fire (to keep them warm). The man, this fellow, as he planned every Sunday to walk with them through a park. This fellow, how he would make them blush-(embarrassed!)-with his strange hobbies,  like pretending to be the vice presidents of the United States while they sat in ice-cream parlours. But, no. Only: "The man was killed in a car accident, he had five kids." I hate the news sometimes.
           People walking by, sitting beside me. Conversations over a distant side-walk. Like chatter from different countries, continents, worlds. As understandable as they are. They seem so distant. Just people. 6.5 billion someone told me. But what of them?? Do all of them have five kids, I wonder? How would the news summarize their demise? If they had only moments of air-time given them, how much more story would we be missing? How much more could any of them tell me on a spring day sitting beside me on a park bench? And I wonder, What are their eyes like? What did they do for fun, or how did they talk? Who did they love? And I see it now. There are stories. Oh truly, 6.5 billion stories. Lifetimes long. And! I want to hear them. I want to hear them.

Composition

           I may appear a fellow on a bed, hair unkempt and eyes closed. Glowing laptop on my stripey blanket, on my purple blanket, on my lap. I would appear relaxed. I am thinking, we all are thinking (I would hope). Why not me? Why not now? In FACT. Why not make a decision? Why not make the choice right now to create something?
           The world may be spinning right now. I can't really tell, but I'm sure someone thinks they can somewhere and is quite dizzy. Maybe he will blame it on nausea or some kind of inner-ear infection. His choice. Decisions.The heart of the matter would come back to what he thought. What he thought versus what is true. What bearing does that really have? Why not create something?
           In all the splendid coaxing of our media one might forget his perceptions matter. Everyone else' seem to govern the world. People spend millions on presenting their point of view. Mostly lascivious ones. "Our product IS better." Look at what they are making? While others go on destroying in their vicious game of top that, and all of our daily decisions are reduced to trying to decide whether product one is better than product two. Really now? Really? Is that the extent of our power? I don't like the options. *flick* and the screen can go as black as a pearl and a world of overwhelming ideas will be relieved off of my shoulders. Someone else can choose their products. Lets go and choose something else.
           I choose to feel wonderful right now. I want to. I choose to look you in the eye. Yes, YOU. Because... because. Because your pupil is black and I sink in. Because I can't think of a better way to go sky diving than in your eyes. Deeper. Deeper. I feel wonderful. I did choose to from the array of all available choices. I have tried many of them. And the ones I won't try? Others have tried those. I am good at watching and deciding. Deciding what NOT to choose. Deciding what to choose. And, I choose to feel wonderful right now. And, I think when one chooses to feel wonderful one creates something wonderful. I will create my wonderful life. My composition.

Only up

Saying what is essential. What we need in life on lists. Sustenance or clothes; a place to stay out of the weather. Home. Oh home! But what kind of existence is that where we only have what we need to live? We can keep people alive. We can hook them up to machines and make their hearts pump. We can feed them. Yes, we can keep you alive. That mustn't be confused with making you live. We can't make someone live, just keep them alive.
          One might call being alive a starting point. Where we begin. We climb from there. We choose to live. The question becomes not "what do I need to live?" But, "what do I need to be happy?" Truly, the correlation between living, and happiness: Between surviving and satisfaction, is a larger one. We move to more ethereal, emotional, realms. To be loved, to be understood, to do, to love. We start to grasp at life and shake it! Sift it, find what clings and climbs, and what sinks to the bottom. Start to understand what satisfies, edifies, personifies, self. Where we stand. Find confidence in that! Supplies provided by one who knows, we can build a foundation. Our foundation. This rock we've built on, sure. This divine rock. Then, we know where we stand. We are living now. We can sit in the still of night and know we exist. We live. We can smile. Now, now we may find joy.
         Then, one mustn't confuse living, being satisfied, with finding joy. Not just to live this good, but we seek excellence! We will Thrive. We will Climb. Higher. To not just live, but scream in vibrancy! To sail through the night sky of existence like some celestial flame, and one may look in wonder. Look! Look at life! Look at happiness! And, Living. Standing. Standing is a great place to start.
           

Gratitude, Joy; Core

        I walked the street this week, down roads that seem unfit for walking. Cars blaring by, trees scarce, and grass still just waking up and waiting for the emerald blood to rush to it's head. But, oh could I walk in the daylight and feel the sun and know that there is God.
        I exist. I really do. I don't disappear every night, or cease with the coming day to present myself. I wake. We all wake. Why do we all wake? I wish I could be there for the deciding moment when one gets out of bed. See the resolve. The grit. The determination. The "yes life is, but it is" in their eyes. But, I am privileged I can see it in my own. Look here eyes, speak; tell me what i want to know.
        Walking then, and taking stock of how grateful I am to exist. How grateful I am for the color blue in the skies, and being able to see the color blue, and being able to feel in it that deep mesmerizing. Oh blue sky, Oh sunset, for having no judgment on what I am. To feel strength in God's creations, all of them, and to feel that sure attachment to my divine father in those choice moments of brisk air. Alive. I am alive and I know I am, and he knows I am, and I know he is, and I feel him in me as he felt me in him and bled for that feeling. And dear father loved him for it. I love him for it.
         Expansive: Walking and knowing I am grateful for more than this. Expanding out, My fathers love for those I love. Expansive, all knowing, all giving, all allowing, and I follow. Follow me him that I may love them. Look at his trust that I may trust them. Oh Father, how grateful am I for that love held for them I adore. Them I adore.
         I have made many promises in life. Many agreements. Agreements I would hope benefit all. Hands to shake and signatures to give. Hugs and kisses. We part for a time, but just for a time, as a trust is given. You can see it, see it in the wake they walk. See it in their eyes and hear it. Hear it in the way they talk. In the way they say goodbye. And, though I cannot see it in God's step, he leaves other ques. See him wink between the branches. Watch the lights at night high above, and feel yourself slip away in confidence.
         One starry night and I could see it in brown eyes. Defined look, strong moment. Affectionate seal. Sliding palms. And she walks.
        How grateful I am we all exist.

Goals, Patience: Metamorphosis

               The sun is playing hide and seek with me. We have been playing my entire life, but recently the competition has been heated. He veils himself behind clouds and teasingly grants only a moment or only a minute or almost a full hour of warm desirable presence. Thus, vindictively, I have decided that I will also hide, shadowed in The Structure (echo echo echo), and only come out for moments or minutes or almost full hours. I make the excuse of calling it schooling, but now you all know the truth. There are times, however, when I chance to show myself that the outing is mutual (against all odds), and we meet full on. I prepare myself for excuses or a sudden disappearance, but the dear silly sun then acts strangely in that manner that is as if nothing has happened between us; as if there never were any game at all, and I find myself helpless and obliging. In those sudden unearthly moments my arms are free and embracing the embrace of my warm, callous, distant, harsh, soft, nourishing, hypocritical, friend. *Sigh* Then the game is on again.
                I find that like the sun I and my goals have a very off association at times. Hiding from them was never intentional, but the darker parts of my mind often choose just those things to shroud. Perhaps they know that a ship without a destination is nothing more than a toy boat. Who doesn't want a toy boat? But toys become tiresome and without purpose. Ships do not. Goals are as lasting and as eternal as destinations, One after the other with no end: the travel is the prize. The destination is the port before the next plunge, and every plunge builds as we achieve our purpose. Oh purposes. To have financial stability (or rather, to have finances). To read every book I own. To write every day. To speak what I mean at the right moment, when I speak. To give everyone the space they need. To improve upon all of my relationships. To visit the temple more often. To bear enough patience to do any of these things, and then, to not forget about them in the waiting.
                It is in the waiting I suffer most. If I appear calm it is because I am forgetting something. There is SO much I am waiting for. I write it down, plan the necessary steps, wait for a satisfying life-shatteringly gigantic change to suddenly occur, and then.... then wait.
                It is said that Time waits for no one, and I will say that I wait for time. I wish we could make some sort of allegiance. I feel so capably changeable and it restrains me with hours and days and weeks and years. Rules rules rules! Necessary (necessary necessary). Ouch. Painful. This metamorphosis.
                I feel like this room is my cocoon and that day by day my life is filling with colors and wings that I cannot entirely see, but that others seem to. The look in their eyes makes me question--question what I am--for the better. Maybe the look in my eyes does the same for all of you. Maybe we are all, in our best state, the most loving of mirrors. Maybe that is frightening. Maybe that is why we play hide and seek.

Comprehension

Certainly life is a scary thing. Never knowing what lies in that peripheral shadow: eyes unable to penetrate deep that dark ahead. We rely on someone who can. We find peace in divinity. We have a Father who knows. How very comforting! Because he knows, we can feel safe. Oh to feel safe! Oh to know! Learning, then, is a cure. Is mandate. Learning and taking to heart. Understanding. Not a normal knowledge we seek, but one that allows us the sight inside ourselves: lets us say "I." What an aware statement! To say "I" with confidence. To understand what we are as God does. What we truly are. And then, to begin to say I understand.

I understand: Me. I understand: this storm. I understand: this move, this question, this moment, this reason, this life. I understand ~this~ ?
           I understand why I did that...
                                                           I understand why you did...
I understand why!
I understand!
I understand!
...And when I don't I know someone who does. Divine someone, together we comprehend. We understand that there are no unfair endings. Only fitting ones.
And there:
Peace.

And so,

The close of another week, another seven days of pure life. All is at movement and play in the world. Glorious and of the epic have some daily tales unfolded; tales of victory: bright stripes of color that rise above the cloudy, the uncertain, the gray. The days where an orange strikes with chords of brilliant citrus: a flavor that scares shadow. Days when one finds much dark has been displaced.
Clouds have fallen! Defeated from their celestial heights, I see them fleeing. They flee from the sun. Bright victor, I give my praise to your wielder (whose hand has guided). A lament the clouds left; frozen tears falling like ashes--like feathers all the gray day. Reconstitute: add warmth. Like many frozen emotions, with the right temperature we water the world, and with the moistness comes the green, growing, living, breathing. Frozen things can't breathe: a little sun to warm them, and we all can.
I saw a bug this week! A bee! Portent of spring! Winter, your defeat is imminent: The bee (tiny bee) told me so.
Being, talking, reading, walking up a hill. Sitting, looking, feeling, laughing. A date. I went on a date. I feel I have defeated something... or rather, have succeeded at something. Have had a victory. Nothing need have fallen to grant this glory. A wonderful date. Hooray!
I felt a tree. I reached out and felt it. sturdy and solid. Rough, but graceful limbs spreading in the night light. A park in the evening, solitary and orange against street lamps. Serenity feels something like that tree, still slumbering. I read next to it.
The Sacrament. The greatest of victories. Once again that remembrance taken, that covenant made. Victory!
Victory.
A weeks victories.

Milk

I have often thought of death as a separation, A mere exclusion of one element from our progressive selves. One day with this understanding in mind I happened upon Milk. Milk, my dear readers, also separates. Cream and curd: Milk dies (of this I am very sure). In fact, some, when they drink their milk, want it thoroughly dead. Skim anyone? The cream can then be used for something delightfully fattening, while the substance we seek achieves a much more divine purpose (cheerios, 7:30 am in the morning). I wonder what they use the cream for? I wonder what you use milk for?

evoL

I read books and stories and poems filled with love or imitations of it, but after I glut myself on every description I find I still long for it. Perhaps love is not something to be quenched, then. Perhaps you do not dine on love until you've had your fill, but you constantly nourish it instead. Perhaps it is more like a tree that bears fruit. It isn't always sweet all the time, like apples, but it is always there, and then when it is properly nourished and taken care of you are able to feel the ecstasy of it and know what you have. And, perhaps dining on someone else' delicious love as captured by books and words is only temporary because you can never taste it or feel it again. It's kind of cruel.
Perhaps there is a purpose for Love in books, in poems, and in stories. Maybe we need to know what It is we long for. Maybe we discover the taste so we can cultivate it for ourselves. Maybe we have to taste it to know how to grow it. It might even be more than that. Perhaps we set our standards with what we learn. Perhaps we know what we want to be, and what we want love to be. Perhaps it helps us know what to expect, or what to look for. We need know the flavor we want. If we don't like the taste, than why did we grow the tree?
We need to know what we are getting into. We need to know what kind of fruit our love is. We need to taste it. It isn't a matter of simply what we can grow easiest. It is what will make us happy that matters. Us. That is how we quantify. We find that Love and we grow something unique just with it. That is where no book can provide a step by step manual. This is not unknown ground, though, it is our ground, and only our feet will tread it. There are no monsters there but what we have fed into our hearts. Be careful, then, there is no better measurement of who you are than what you find on that path, your path, of love.

Let me write

Make words, and fish for letters. Alphabet soup.
A resplendent day with every advantage of free will. My Tuesday begins in bed and ends in bed, with post-it notes and bright light in between. What weather! I soak up the sunshine and share it in class. Air is cool, the shine is warm. Shine on sun. (Shine shine shine).
Curious looks and curiouser reactions: there needs a fine line between expression and reservation. I know this. Being yourself has never been so difficult. Determine others! Read that: be according. We return to the sun: Steadfast, ambient. Ever after and always bright in the sky. Some like their cloudy days, some like their nights. Something between us and the sun. "Prolonged exposure" and cancer awareness, going blind. Then be we unified in this: need a darkened glass to shine through. Furthermore, does the sun rest from us? Clouds must make a fine audience. Have some alone time, you deserve it. We need it?
Understanding! With understanding comes confidence. Confidence is comfortable. Comfortable with who I am, confident in what, and understanding how. How I am. How to improve. How I act, how to, how not. Comfortable with who you are, and what you are, understanding that. Confident in that. I am confident in you. Oh all of you.
Jobs: I am getting one.
School: Learning!
People: Loving.

And life.

Skip Steps

Throughout my young life I wondered at my older brother's consistency. There seemed no reason for it; for waking up early and going to bed on time every night. For starting the day with exercise and a shower, for studying before doing any other activities. At these I wondered, but only halfheartedly.
I was what you would call soulless. I wasn't a being of thought; I was a being of impulse. From dawn to dusk I charged at whatever my temporal, temporary, desire was. Mostly games, the internet, and friends. Whenever what I sought was unavailable I would grumble and wait stagnantly. I was very impatient and always waiting.
“Stagnant” was my lifestyle. I was skipping to what I wanted most with such speed that I ended up ruining that which I skipped for. I didn't care. I would do it again and again and again every day, but eventually even I found I wasn't immune to the moments of reflection life thrusts upon us.
One day I was asked a blunt question by someone irrevocably close to me. My father queried at what kept me going. Was it the next great game? What about after that? It was then I realized I had no purpose. Furthermore, I was ruining what I had desired. My life was horrid as a person, and if not for my loving family and shining examples I would have come to this realization and have dwelt in despair, utterly humbling as it was.
It was at this time I really began to ponder my brother's non-impulsive lifestyle. I think it is only now I near fully understand why he had such consistency in his regime. I am reminded of a poster in my English teachers classroom titled “recipe for a good day.” While I will not relate the ingredients it listed I wish to use the perfectly phrased analogy it contained.
All of my brothers morning, afternoon, and evening actions were ingredients he mixed for a good day, and he always did them in order like a master chef making a cake. You couldn't rush to the end first or you would end up with a large mess; Disgusting to eat it, but also to live it. All of those days he strove to work and make perfect (though always fell short) were part of his preparations for something else, something I could only call his purpose. Slowly but surely he was preparing himself day by day, instruction on top of instruction, for his goals; his desires; his motives.
I watch now as he has achieved, succeeded, or surpassed all he originally set out to do, and yet still lives and plans on as an unstoppable force, and I likewise wonder at my own potential, still newly awakened. I wonder at my own consistent recipes for my own good days.

Thoughts on writing

            There is much to tell, and much to read, and not enough time to tell it, or enough time to read it, all. I can't say everything, and this perhaps is wise. Perhaps in saying everything you readers somehow devour us whole. But, I will give pieces; pieces that I want you to have inside of you. Chew with care.
            The extreme ambiance of a home where decisions have been taboo. Welcome to tradition, mundane and beautiful and predictable, in it's angular way. It is hard to get around a square. Like cutting corners off a circle. I wish this square were jello, smooth and soft and easy to eat a hole in.
            Book empathy. Feeling like an orphan girl raised in an abusive home and sent to a slummy girls school where emotion is supposed to be resented. Rising above it all and marching into the unknown! What a strange sense of helpless ire, stirred friendship, and butterflies. I feel like an emotional pogostick.
            Negativity, thrust at you like a spear destined for something vital; transforming it into the marshmallow of understanding and cutting it in fours to be served with conversation.
            Finding Nirvana, Sublimity, Peace, in the home of understanding.
            Love is refracted in the facets of crystal blue souls, both of them, staring at me.

Impulse

               Decisions are the lines of life. The things we stand on, the material time is made of. We progress with them, and to not make active decisions is still quite the decision. Coasting or not they carry us forward, but we are moving, and we are making. Thank you time, for enforcing us.
               Impulse has been the author of me. I see and feel and fail to show, but if you could see my thoughts you would tell that I am always deciding, always finding ways to go. And, when I find it you can all tell. You can see me walk away and walk into and express and fail to express. Every decision well thought but hardly spoken.                    
                                                                     My life.
               And so, this week has come. Frozen days and good classes. Dead bodies in a cadaver lab, getting stuck in traffic with friends, singing songs I don't know the name of. Inflicting pain and calling it therapy. Such a week. Driving to Clinical, and walking away. Not graduating. Living, learning, accepting. Feeling. A row of decisions, and I keep deciding, this is what I want. Forward, then, into unknown. Seizing and fleeing as necessary.
                                    

              

While the sun shines

                 I think it fitting to write while the sun shines. The sky is clear for us, and for those that live on the second story of a house the ground is a second sky. The light reflects off the snow and makes the room unbearably bright. I can have my blinds tilted up and be prejudiced. Only ground sun for me! None of this sky nonsense.Way to express yourself. Almost as bright without the direct credit. Thank you sun, Now the praise I give is slightly abstract. Once removed. Like thanking the Lord for American cheese. Processed and acclimated to our taste. A way of taking what our Father made, and making it ours. Is that flattery or debauchery? I choose to think the former.
                 Perhaps an all inclusive thanks is in order then, to make sure I leave no facet of humanity that I do love without my praise. Thus, I am thankful for free will and this gigantic sandbox to play it in, where we can objectualize the good and the bad and attach stigmas to those objects to make them moral decisions instead of just matter. But, if all things were created spiritually first perhaps we are just reacquainting ourselves with their less visible nature. Ideas ideas.
                 I am still writing while the sun shines, and while I speak of light and cheese and gratitude and decisions and objects, this much remains constant enough for me. The sun is still shining, the world still moving, and wherever my mind does wander the gravity of reality brings me back like a shout from below. All I bring with me are my perceptions and my decisions. I thank the Lord for this grounding limitation. Shine on sun; one of life's many anchors on my turbulent sea of thought.