slightly edited

dance.

2010-10-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

living in the "Live Music Capital of the World" has provided me with lots of opportunities to hear some amazing music. not the least of these was austin city limits. it's a legendary event, and i was completely blessed with the opportunity to go and be involved with it. there were at least ten thousand moments that weekend that were pure beauty. at each concert, whether i knew who was playing or not, there were so many pieces of beauty. the music was all breathtaking, the sight of each of the bands there completely surrendered to what they were doing and completely enjoying it, the thousands of people unified by a simple tune. it all added up to an unforgettable experience. and the culmination of it was sunday, which included two of the most memorable experiences i've had in austin so far. one was being blessed by an old man after the eagles show, which is an experience i'll definitely be writing about later. but the one i want to describe here was at the edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros show on sunday afternoon. at the end of the set, they played their song om nashi me, which means "oh infinite nakedness," "no meaning," or what i think best describes the experience of the song, "no boundaries." as the song built and built and built, we threw our bags down, discarded all hindrances, and danced. we freed ourselves from the constrictions society places on us, what's right, what's proper. it's one of those perfect moments of complete disregard for what anyone else is thinking of you. if you've never expereinced this, i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. everyone needs to do this at some point. just dance. i like the way david crowder says it in his book praise habit: "dance. dance until we can see your soul." that's the complete surrender we need to live out all the time. and because we can't be dancing around constantly, although that would be the best world ever, it's good to be reminded of this every once in a while. whether it's at an outdoor festival, sweating, singing, loving, screaming, dancing with 65,000 people or alone in your dorm with the music turned up loud, DANCE. forget what everyone else is thinking about you for a few minutes and let go. let go of the stress and the restraints that hold you down. dance so that you can look back and remember that moment and live in that freedom. cause that's the freedom that christ calls us to live in all the time. i don't know about you, but i find that incredibly exciting.

"Om nashi me
I love you
And I love you forever
And I'm loving you now "

Fireflies

2010-09-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went on a bike ride. It was a crazy day on campus as many of you know and I just needed to get out and do something. So I took off on my bike just before sunset with Jon Foreman in my ears and a half-formed idea of where I might go. Rounding corners, speeding up hills, smiling all the while. (sidenote: I find it hard to compare anything to the feeling of pure release that comes in flying down a hill on your bike). But, after a chance meeting with some friends at a stop light, I headed back to campus as it was starting to get dark. While riding through some neighborhood with overgrown lawn and trees blocking out the little bit of light that was left in the sky, I saw some flickering lights in the distance. In the lawns. As I hit the brakes to see what exactly they were, I noticed they were fireflies. Fireflies. Little beautiful flashing dancing fireflies. It's rare that things make me stop what I'm doing, hold off on where I'm going, take out my headphones, and just look and enjoy. Sometimes it's as if God puts things in nature purely for our enjoyment and to make us stop. Stop and smell the flowers. Stop and be overwhelmed by the fireflies. In the midst of the Chaos, He continues to provide small scenes of beauty in our lives. God-winks. Little things. A rainbow over the tower after a crazy rainstorm. A song that comes on just at the right time. The contrast of a fiery sunset against a purple sky. Conversations with a new friend about the beauty that surrounds us. Cool breezes in late September. Fireflies. But we can only enjoy them if we're paying attention. So this week, I'm gonna keep my eyes open for signs of peace in the midst of chaos. For little moments of beauty. And I'd like to leave you with a few lines from Anis Mojgani's poem Direct Orders as a poetic reminder of this:

"Rock out like the streets are empty except for you, your bicycle and your headphones.
Rock out like music is all that you got.
Rock out like you’re standing on a rooftop and the city’s as loud and glowing as a river below you.
Rock out like you got an empty appointment book, and a full tank of gas.
Rock out like Jimi has returned carrying brand new guitar strings.
Rock out like the mangos are in season.
Rock out like the record player won’t skip.
Rock out like this was the last weekend,
like these were the last words,
like you don’t ever want to forget how."

back to the future

2010-08-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

i realize it's been a year since i've posted anything...sorry. more for myself than for anyone else. as anis mojgani puts it, "i dream too much and i don't write enough." i'm just starting my first semester as a full time legit college student. it's amazing. in the whole 8 days that i've been here, it's already started to feel more comfortable and i'm more in awe of what's happening around me everyday. everything about this city is beautifully imperfect. i love the fact that after a ten minute drive, you might never know you were anywhere near a city of any kind. much less a city with nearly 800,000 people. just ten minutes (without traffic that is!) and you're surrounded by the natural beauty of water and trees and wildlife. wild life. that's it exactly. and that's merely the surroundings. the people are a whole other story. and the campus is another story on top of that. there are so many people that i feel instantly connected to. it's something i've honestly never felt before. it's that moment when you mention something you are passionate about and that resonates completely with the person you're talking to. sometimes i find myself just standing on a streetcorner, smiling. because this is where i am and i am so content with that. yes...content (definition: in a state of peaceful happiness). i hope to continue posting up here as often as i have a story. which could be every day. i'd like to end with another quote from anis mojgani's poem called For Those Who Can Still Ride An Airplane For The First Time as a commission for both you and me this week:

"Slow down and hold what you see
Just a little while longer
For in a world of fast faces,
I'm looking for God everywhere
Trying to figure a little better
This little thing he made called a man."

school...

2009-08-23T20:26:00.001-07:00

so, this summer's been a little crazy. obviously no writings have been posted, but tomorrow begins the first day of classes. if a good assignment comes along in english, it might get posted here. hopefully i'll have some more stuff up soon. lots of changes in the air, so no guarantees though.

goodbye summer: it was nice knowing you. hello fall: time to get back in the swing of things.

the wind...(05/13/09)

2009-05-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

the wind is a curious thing. i don't think about it very often, i just get mad at when there's too much of it or get mad at it when it's not there. but when it's present in a perfect quantity, do we take time to feel its breath on our skin? or as i tuck my hair back behind my ear, my hair that just a little breath of wind blew out of place into my face, do i wonder where it came from? do we set aside even minutes of our time to lay below trees full in the greening garb of may-springtime, to watch the leaves be moved by this mystery? how in the world does this...thing, this breath, this wind, there's nothing else to call it, it's not like anything else, how does it move leaves? how can it teach leaves to dance? and in teaching leaves this complex footwork, they teach the branches and the shadows. the clouds must be the first to learn. even when the air around you down here on the surface is stagnant, it feel like yours swimming in this mass of paralytic molecules, you have to force them out of your way, if we would just take time to look up above us at the things bigger than ourselves, these cloud bodies alive in the blue sky, we could see that they are moving. that ignites a small spark of hope somewhere deep inside. knowing that even though you don't have any tangible proof it's real and you can't even feel it's reality sometimes, you can see that it's still moving. it's still working and it'll come back down to you eventually. you can count on that. life's not all about you. there are other things that are more important than you right now. that's comforting, knowing that you aren't the most important thing going on in the world right now. but when you acknowledge its presence and the great gift of its being there with you, it's the best. if you take time to feel it breathe on your arm. to listen to its soft voice that calms your spirit. that voice, that breathing fans that small flame that was ignited. it doesn't extinguish it, it intensifies it. until the flame has grown into a huge bonfire of hope inside of you. the fire of humility and hope and passion and present being. when you take time to feel the wind, to hear the wind, just to close your eyes and listen to its truth, you don't want to be anywhere else. if only this could be all of life. if i could be this present, this aware of every hair on my body, of every exposed millimeter of skin. just to lay and ponder the mystery of wind. where does it come from? how does a breeze blow? there are somethings scientific equations can't do justice for me. somethings i'd rather have left a mystery. i don't want to know how the sun gives off heat or how the wind blows. i know that it does and i'd rather sit outside and feel the wind breathe on my skin and feel the rays of sunlight touch my leg and be thankful for them. for where would we be without the wind and the sun? how would the birds fly? how would the plants grow? see, life isn't just about us humans. it's so much bigger than us. if we would just take the time to realize that, we would live so much more alive.

pianos - (02/18/09)

2009-03-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

i've known many pianos. there's my little upright at home, i've known and loved my whole life. it's taken me from hot cross buns to shostakovich's second piano concerto. from faber to bach. it's where my love for playing music started. it's seen me through many hard days. it was there for me when i couldn't even reach the pedals. it was there for me when the judges were horrible mean. its' a part of me. and that's just one piano. another one that sticks out in my memory is the piano in the peppers house in uganda. i only played it once. i should've played it more. it's nice to have that constant all around the world. music. lyrics change with language, but melody is constant. i played the same tune on a piano in south africa and uganda and israel and houston. it's constant. i imagine that's why everyone's attracted to music. everyone understands it. i remember all my friends pianos and the songs that have been played on them. some pianos don't like to be played boldly in large groups. but who does? they've heard some bad stuff. i'm sure they've also heard some amazing compositions though. some badly out of tune pianos. they play the classic sing along's quite well. songs that are sung out of tune anyways, so it doesn't matter that they keys aren't in tune. some hear crazy contemporary pieces that sound impressive. i don't know what they are, but they have one too many dissonant notes for me. the pianos that are learned on with blue tape peeling off on the central two octaves, the keys a little sticky. there's the many pianos from gold cup. they've been touched by countless kids anxiously shaking fingers. and there's all the pianos at the church, the slightly out of tune grand in the sanctuary, the sticky e in the kids choir room. the almost always locked nice-but-slowly-going-out-of-tune one in 212. the sticky eb in the choir room. the once-gross piano played for many a christmas recital in the great room. the out of tune upright on the 3rd floor. oh and i remember seeing billy joel's piano at forshey with mr. marsh. impressive. i've had so many good memories with these thousands of hammers and strings. i love pianos.

singer/songwriter - (02/02/09)

2009-03-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

lately i've been on this girl singer/songwriter kick. i think as i've developed as a musician, i've grown to like stuff i relate to more. i can't really relate to the chick bands cause i don't really play with anyone. it's usually just me and my guitar or my piano. so i've grown to like band that are like that. gregory and the hawk, holly brook. and i like bands like that cause they're honest. and i know what they mean. when the girl in gregory and the hawk sings "i guess it doesn't matter what i am or pretend to be, cause it's her you'll always love and her i'll always envy...i swear i'm gonna cry, i'm sick of trying to be tough," i know what she means. she describes my feelings perfectly sometimes. "just leave me your stardust to remember you by." i like artists whose shoes i can walk in while they sing. yes, guy singers are amazing. i love to listen when they sing and play, but there's a different kind of connection when you really mean the words you sing. you don't have to interpret them for you. they're already translated into girl. broken-hearted girl. "cause no one listens when you wanna be heard." that's me. i mean, i love bands like dashboard confessional. buy they can only get so close to your heart when you can't directly sing them. you just have to imagine this invisible guy you don't know singing it to you. it's so different when you can sing the songs yourself and mean them. it's as close as i'm getting to writing my own songs for now.

Silence - (11/10/08)

2009-03-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

ironically, i'm writing this with music in my ears. but i love silence. real silence. it's not just having headphones off. because most of the time with headphones off i'll hear the tv in the other room or a timer going off or the ice cream truck wining across the neighborhood or lines of poetry being muttered to perfection across the room or the phone ringing or the voices in my head screaming that i have too much else to be doing and that i can't just do one thing right now. silencing these voices and distractions can actually be accomplished with music. for me at least. nothing can distract me from exactly what i'm doing when i'm listening to music. but real silence. is there such thing as real silence? one of the most silent times i remember actually wasn't silent, it just wasn't noisy. on the top of the mountain in colorado at camp this summer. just sitting there alone. early in the morning. watching the sunrise. there's still the noise of the river flowing and the first chirping and the wind blowing through the trees, but it's not noisy. the beach is another silent place. you still hear the obnoxious call of the gulls., the crash of the waves on the sand, the trash blowing across the beach, but it's not noisy. early in the morning is another silent time. driving alone. you hear the roar of the engine, the honk of the distant horns of hurried people, the wind blowing against your car, but it's not noisy. or sitting in the back of someone elses car with the music turned up really loud. if you lay your head back and let the thundering bass sink you into the car, it zones out the rest of the sounds. and although it may be loud, it's not noisy. it's one of the most relaxing experiences. or playing the guitar when no one's around. or listening to some simple live acoustic guitar. so i arrive at the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, silence is not the absence of sound, it's the absence of noise.

Ike - (09/29/08) & Bolivar - (01/09/09)

2009-02-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

driving back from floresville. sunday after the storm hit early saturday morning. i'm not sure what to expect. exit from i-45. the first thing i notice is the lights are flashing. my brain freezes for a second. what do i do? i follow the car next to me and as i turn left i realize it's like a stop sign now. they're all like stop signs. it looks deserted. power lines down. these are just open fields so they don't look to bad. cross highway 3 and there's whole trees uprooted now. this isn't clear lake. not as i know it. there's no pristine lawns. they're now covered with limbs of every shape and size and type. trees down. there's no fake front put on anywhere. the businesses are all boarded up. i take a right turn. fences are down. trees. there's trees everywhere. i turn into my neighborhood. you can't go more than 15 miles per hour because of shock. the trees. the limbs. the yards. it looks like a giant came around and tore everything up. like a giant toddler didn't get his way and threw a temper tantrum. i know these houses now. i pass the houses of my friends. i see them at home, so i pulled over to talk to them. one of them pulls out their iphone and asked me if i'd seen pictures of the seabrook waterfront. there's a picture of a boat on the road. another of a mast sticking out of the water. there's the tip of a boat. dead fish on top of a boat shed. it's getting dark fast now and the 9:00 curfew is quickly approaching, so i head home. we have power. how in the world? i'm so grateful. so a few of my friends who didn't have power came to stay for a while. to sleep in the air conditioning. houston in september usually isn't fun weather to not have air conditioning in. but a cold front blows through, making for perfect working weather. and boy did we work. now here i am, more than 2 weeks later. as i look around my backyard i don't see the effects anymore. except for the limb still hanging in the tree like a gymnast on a balance beam. as i drive around the only thing showing there was even a hurricane here at all are the piles of limbs slowly turning brown covering the front of the lawns. waiting fro the city to come. it was so apparent, but now you forget about it. the homeless, powerless, lifeless people. we're back in the bubble where you don't see the real world outside. we're back to clear lake.

refrigerators stacked like domino's. cars piled like trash with their hoods pulled back like the lids on those cambell's soup cans. debris everywhere. i saw galveston a few weeks after, but bolivar...and it's nearly 4 months after. the whole land is flat. a house here, some stilts there. the few houses left are few and far between. no dunes. there's actually lakes where the dunes were before. "we'll be back!" the spray painted signs scream. defying nature. how do you even start over here? driving along, looking at the flattened land, you see nothing for a while. but after driving for a while you'll see random objects. a couch nothing around it. just a couch. the sheer power of the water amazes me. i try to imagine what it would be like to see the storm surge come in. it's just hard to picture. i giant wall of water taking out cars, tree, houses entire towns. it just reminds you we're seriously not in control. and i can't imagine how you can be complacent about this. i can't believe we've just gone on with life and we hardly even think about it anymore. i mean, personally i haven't thought about ike in a long while. but these people are still living through the affects of it. it's crazy. insane. crazy.

shoes - (11/11/08)

2009-01-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

i've always heard that your shoes say a lot about you. well, my shoes died a couple of days ago. i was quite attached to them. it's gonna be painful to throw them away. but there are holes at the edge of the fabric where my toes bend and at the very back of the heels. and where the elastic opens up to swallow your foot is tearing off. so i decided i needed to get new shoes. if nothing else, just to say to the people who look at my shoes that i'm not falling apart. but i don't know, maybe your shoes speak your subconscious. so anyways, i decided to kind of copy my friends idea of decoration your own shoes. so i went and bought some $14.99 white slip-on vans style shoes at payless. plain white canvas. i was kind of scared of them at first. it's like free reign. you can draw whatever you want. and so, reflecting my personality, i started on that tiny strap on the back of the shoe that no one ever sees. one horizontal line, two, three. color, color, color, until a keyboard appears. tah dah! and the other shoe. c, d, e, f, g, a, b. now i'm a little more confident. i can do this. they won't look stupid. so i work on the insole of the shoe where not too many people will see. beatles lyrics. some diamonds. throw in some red and silver to make it a little more exciting. a sun rises out of the calling of a blank canvas on the other side. rays shine out. now i copy a papercut banner and make some stained glass. a few dots here, a few lines there, a little plaid and some swirlyness and a shoe's done! i have the parts i like and the parts i don't like so much, but it's my shoe. no one else will ever have another like it. go for the other one. stars. large, smaller, medium, fading, fading, fading to little dots. the other side. i decide to be bold and start at the toe. some more stained glass. i like the way it turned out. make another sun whose rays fade into the glass. a few more lines, coloring and i've got a pair of shoes. my shoes. now i can't be ashamed to wear them. i have to be proud of them. they are me. i have to not be afraid to get them dirty either. a little rain, mud, sand, dirt, coffee...it'll only make them more a part of me. these shoes will go to san antonio, dallas, floresville, downtown houston, abilene. many many many coffee shops. and many trips to freebirds. they'll press piano pedals and prolong the sound of hammers hitting strings. they'll see the dirty floors of small concert venues. many houses. many streets. many cars. they'll accelerate and they'll brake. and they'll break. someday. they'll probably end up with holes in them just where my others were. but they'll be more than a piece of clothing to me when i finally have to retire them.

why do i write? - (11/06/08)

2009-01-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

i write to understand. to make sense of happenings. writing looks a little less crazy than talking to yourself, but produces the same effects. i have these thoughts bouncing around in my brain and writing (or talking to myself alone in the car on a long dark road at night with only the deer watching) helps to keep them from going out of control. sometimes it feels like there are molecule thoughts and they speed up and collide and my brain starts to boil and i freak out. writing keeps them from boiling. keeps them at room temperature.

i write to be heard. for whatever reason, people don't listen to me. i don't know if i talk too quiet or if it's because i'm a girl or i'm short or what. but it's a fact of life. most people don't listen to me. but people do read what i write.

i write because i respect writers. especially songwriters and poets. i admire them. i'd love to write poetry, lyrics like jack johnson, jon foreman, derek webb, andy whats-his-face, kimya dawson. i think they are great writers. they lyrics connect to me and i want to connect to others with stuff i write.

i write because it's not permanent. spoken words are. you can't rewind and change your words. you can write pages and then erase them or scratch them out or tear them out and crumple them up and play dunderball with them. they're not stuck in eternity, forever. but...

i write because words are permanent. if you choose them to be. they can evoke feelings and memories and tastes and smells. writing can bring back memories you haven't thought about in years. or things you've never thought about. or things you think about all the time.

i write because it's necessary for me. writing keeps me sane. writing keeps me humble. keeps me open, keeps me thoughtful, keeps me observant, keeps me meaningful, keeps me wild, keeps me human. writing unifies. writing is beauty. writing makes sense even if the words or sentences don't.

that's why i write.

centered - (12/18/08)

2008-12-18T09:36:00.000-08:00

music centers me. i realize that i get most stressed when i run out of time to play guitar or sing or play piano. it calms me. and it excites me to learn new challenging songs or discover new singers i like. my life and emotions seem to revolve around music. i get bored with life if i've been listening to the same old music over and over again. i listen to what reflects my mood at the moment. or my mood reflects what i'm listening to at the moment. i'm not sure which way it works. i don't often listen to screamo. and it takes a lot for me to get really mad. coincidence? i'm pretty chill most of the time. and my favorite kind of music is acoustic stuff. random unrelated facts? i think not. i like songs that are pretty standard, but they throw a little something in it to make you smile. whether it makes sense or not. it just makes you smile or laugh. maybe that's what i want to be like? i like songs that make you think. i don't like songs with dumb lyrics that don't make sense, that don't make a difference. i like songs that make a difference to someone who listens to them. maybe that reflects me? i like songs i can relate to. i like people i can relate to and i want people to be able to relate to me. i like songs that are honest, not songs that pretend. in life too. i like songs that grab you deep down inside of you and then wrench emotions out of you you didn't even know were in you. songs that make you fall to your knees, that humble you. songs that slap you in the face. unique songs. i don't like whiny songs. at all. i like songs that expose the writer for who they really are. i think that is why music centers me. it subconsciously reminds me of all these things. it calms me. it reminds me of the good times past and gives me hope for the future. it lets me express things in ways nothing else can.

truth and beauty - (11/06/08)

2008-12-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

truth and beauty. those two words go together. true people are beautiful. there's just something attractive about the,. something that draws you to them, like a magnet. you want to be with them and talk to them, because they're real and you want to be real. so you think that some of their realness will rub off on you or radiate onto you if you spend enough time with them. i think that's why nature is beautiful. it's reality. the bluebonnets along texas highways are beautiful because they are. they don't like to you or try to present you with something fake. they just are bluebonnets. and sicamore trees are beautiful when their bark's pealing and their leaves are turning. the only dash of leaf color in clear lake. they're real. even trees are beautiful in the dead of winter. they're beautiful because they're real. they don't fake life. tree's can't put on a smile and say everything's okay. there is no faking it. not like with people. some people seem like the greenest oak tree in spring on the outside but inside they're the dead of winter. no leaves, no fruit, just cold. tree's can't fake it. they are what they are. i don't understand fake plants. it's like people don't want to risk the sight of a dead tree. it's too real. they have to be alive and pretty all the time. fake plants. isn't that an oximoron? plants are real. they are life. if you fakeify them, they aren't plants. they're not even worthy of having the word plant in their name. that's not what they are. i think solomon had it right: there is a time to be born and a time to die.

i am thankful for... (11/27/08)

2008-11-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

this is the typical topic. i bet there's a million people writing about this subject this weekend. but it's kind of unifying knowing that people all across the world are thinking of what they're thankful for. so i will write about it. no matter how cliche. i am thankful for...my family and my friends of course. but this year i am especially thankful for the vast number of opportunities i've been given. yes, things have changed. some were inevitable. some were conscious choices. but they've all given me new opportunities. opportunities to lead, to talk, to use the gifts God's given me. to develop gifts, friendships, relationships. yes, i am thankful for my family. but this year i'm thankful for the opportunities i've had to be with my family and they opportunities my family has had to do things. yes, i am thankful for my friends. but i'm thankful for the opportunities i've had to grow with my friends. to talk and deepen our relationships. to really get to know them. now by opportunity i don't necessarily mean experiences, because i may not have seized all the opportunities i've been given this year. but i did seize a great many. and looking back i can recognize the opportunities. and realize i'm blessed to be given these. how many people would kill to have some of the opportunities i've had. so i am grateful. i give thanks. i may not have been happy about them at that point, but now i am grateful. i may have complained and fought and avoided them at all possible costs. i may have cried over missed chances and i may regret choices i've made. but i have grown in the last year because of them. some of them sucked. but they were opportunities to grow. to show strength through pain. and i am a better, wiser, stronger person this year because of them. and i am a more thankful person than i was last year. happy thanksgiving.

stars (10/01/08)

2008-11-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

i like stars a lot. i get really excited when i can go outside my house and see more than 3 stars. i like that stars are the same everywhere. they're the same here, in the texas hill country, in colorado, in mexico, even in uganda. but it threw me off when i looked up at the sky in south africa and they weren't the same. different constellations. no big dipper, no ursa major, no belt. it threw me off. but then again, it throws me off when i can see more than 3 stars too. i'm so used to seeing just the few stars you can see in houston. while i was at camp in colorado this summer, i was floored the first night i was there. we walked outside after church group time and, on our way back to the cabins, i looked up and they were everywhere. it was so beautiful. like someone did one of those thrown paint paintings: white on black. they were everywhere. so, despite the cold, which i'm not used to in july, a couple of friends and i lay down in the middle of the road. we had to stop and look at them. for a few minutes people stood around us and stared down at us with that look in their eyes of "what in the world? why are are you laying in the middle of the road?" "the stars!" that's all we could say. someone pulled out their guitar and played us some soothing acoustic background music and then slowly people started fading away. just me and my 2 friends stayed. the soothing music faded as the guitar headed back to its cabin, but we stayed. rocks were poking awkwardly into our backs, but we couldn't move for the beauty. finally the adults came with their flashlights shining fake light at us and we went back to our cabin. but we will never forget that night.

umbrellas and elephants (9/8/08)

2008-11-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

"growing up the rain sort of remains on the branches of the trees that will someday rule the earth. and it's good that there is rain. it clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions and clears the streets of the silent armies...so we can dance."

i love poetic descriptions of rain because it's common to everyone. we've all seen how the rain sort of remains on the branches of the trees. and i love the description of sorry rainbow expressions. kind of like the way a little bit of rain can bring a little bit of sadness to your happy-go-luckyness. not even sadness. more reality. rain. i've heard many good descriptions of it over the years. "the clouds shedding their tears." "dropplet drummers leading a complex beat increasing speed." can't you just imagine that? a million tiny drummers all beating together. not in unison, but still together. and never constant, always increasing. "the window panes filling with tears." i love lyrics you can picture and you realize that's exactly how you've always wanted to describe it. i love the smell of rain too. actually it's the smell of potential rain; right before a rainstorm. it's such a fresh, clean smell. it's so hard to describe. i don't know why all the people who make candles try to capture it. they never get it exactly right. it's one of those smells in nature that you can never quite capture. you just have to savor and experience them while they're there and look forward to the next time they'll come. well, i guess you can't look forward to a smell. can you smell forward? i think you can. i'm smelling forward to coffee right now. and the smell of fall in the air, and that one cologne that smells so good, and the smell of fresh air. i mean real fresh air, not this chemical junk they stuff up our nostrils everyday in houston. i'm smelling forward to rain. rain that'll clear the streets of the silent armies....so we can dance.

africa (9/30/08)

2008-11-16T11:49:00.000-08:00

in natalie goldberg's book "writing down the bones," she says to write about your obsessions. so in my several months of writing practice, i've discovered my obsessions. music. coffee. africa. this writing is about africa. so many stories. stories that make me smile or cry or laugh or all of those at once. it's so raw, so real. you get dirty. there are no shiny cars, wasted hummers, manicured lawns. none of this crap about whose house we watch "the office" at. it's real. people don't put on a fake face to see you. they come to church and they dance and yell and drum and sing, and it's the most beautiful sound in the world. because it's reality, it's not a false perception. these people are infected with a life-killing disease and they still praise. their kids can't go to school because they don't have money for uniforms, because no one would sponsor them once they tested positive. they still sing. everyone within the pale white walls of the church has been affected in some way. their husbands or wives or brothers or sisters or daughters or sons or mothers or fathers have died from this killer. but they still dance. because God's real to them. they've seen him work in mysterious ways. they haven't just heard about how Jesus used to heal people; they've been healed. their perception of Jesus embracing people isn't the sunday school posters of white Jesus with a perfect beard and two little white boys on his lap; they've felt the sweet embrace of the savior of the universe. but they can't fathom the universe. their world's turned upside down when they discover the earth is round. a space shuttle? the international space station? you've been to space? what? it doesn't matter. because they know God. perhaps in a more real way than anyone here in the confines of america ever could.

begin again

2008-11-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

i've been doing writing practice this school year from natalie goldberg's book "writing down the bones," and the writings have just been staying in my notebook. recently i decided that i should release them into the world. the wide world of the internet. so they may ramble and they may be no good (after all, you are free to "write the worst junk in america" according to natalie), but they're here if you're curious. oh, and for those of you who don't know what writing practice is...first of all i would say to read natalie's book, but a quick description of it...you have a topic, a notebook and a pen and you write. whatever comes you your mind, you put it on the page. no editing, no erasing, no scratching out. just raw writing. so these posts will be my attempts at writing practice...slightly edited. i hope to have one up here every week, but it may end up being every two weeks. we'll see how it goes. this is quite the experiment for me. okay, well, here goes nothing. hope you enjoy my ramblings.