The black spaces between them are so enticing...

Have you ever spent a summer’s night lying on your back, watching the stars? If you tilt your head back—just a little—it almost feels like gravity plays a trick on you, and you’re about to fall into the sky. I would dangle my legs up toward the stars, and it felt like I was only attached to the ground by the thinnest of threads. I used to do that all the time when I was little. I would show my cousins too, but they always said the feeling of falling into the sky was too weird, and they’d go back inside. But I loved it! I still do, actually. I would look at the spaces between the stars and wonder what I would find if I managed to somehow loose myself from this tiny rock and plummet into the depths of space—only I didn't think of it as “space” back then, such an empty and lifeless word. No, the stars were placed in the Heavens, and I was sure that if I could get myself up there I would be able to hear them singing, and I might even be able to dance with them.

                I’m not sure when it happened, exactly, but gradually I stopped running outside after dark to stare up at the sky and wonder. It might have been because I found out there were little bugs and creatures on the ground that liked to climb on me while I was looking elsewhere. It might have been because no one would go with me, and I heard terrifying stories about children who went out after dark and were lost or taken. Perhaps I got distracted by people, tv, video games, or books. Whatever happened to cause it, I stopped. Then I moved to a big city, and the stars hid away behind the lights of the cars and the buildings and the airplanes. I stopped wondering what was out there, and I stopped listening for the songs of Heaven and the stars.  Instead I became preoccupied with myself and those small happenings that impacted my life. What I would do, what I would become, who I saw—or worked with, or liked, or didn't. I lost sight of the stars, and forgot how small and petty I really am—and I became overwhelmingly and agonizingly… sad.

                I forgot what I used to know so well as a little girl: just because I am so small now doesn't mean I have to stay that way. I am only half-a-breath from falling into the glorious song and dance of the Heavens themselves.

                I think I’m going to go stargazing tonight. Maybe this time, I won’t come back.

Something is better than Nothing... ?

I am trying to write every day--or at least on most days--but on some days it is immensely harder than on others.
On some days the stories flow, the thoughts pour out, and my heart is open and singing.
On others, today, the silence is ... disheartening.
On those days, the reasons not to write sound extremely compelling, and it's tempting to just ignore the discipline altogether.
On those days it is hard to string two words together, and all I want to put up here is a fun little message to the world to just bugger off and leave me alone.
On these days I want to run far & run fast away from... myself.

Somewhere along the way I got this notion in my head that problems are localized to the place they occur in, that if you leave that place the problems will get left behind.
In my head I know that this is false, but in my gut? In the core of my being? I still think if I change my address I will leave the old problems behind and get to deal with new ones.

Being an Army brat does weird things to a person's psyche.

But it doesn't work that way when the problem is me, and that's a fact I have had a hard time coming to terms with.
So I get to write about that. Not very interesting, not new, not terribly positive, but it's all my mind is stringing together at the moment. Rather than writing nothing, I will write this something, and hope for more at another time.

"You don't have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great."
~Les Brown

Winter

It's winter.
I know that seems kind of obvious--especially with the snow on the ground & the temperature being in the 20s--but it sneaks up on me every year.
And every year I struggle with my love/hate for this season. I usually enjoy the outdoors--for most of the year I would rather eat lunch in the open hatchback of my car than just about anywhere else. But this particular season evokes such strong & conflicting feelings...

I hate being cold.
I love getting to bundle up in the hats & scarves & coats & boots.
I hate that it gets so dark, and so early!
I love how vivid the stars appear in the wintry night sky.
I hate how scary driving gets in this weather.
I love the snowball fights.
I hate scraping the car off anytime I leave it alone for too long.
I love how awake & alive the bracing air makes me feel.
I hate how it gets so cold that just breathing is painful.
I love cuddling with Husband under warm blankets.
I hate the almost-constant grey skies.
I love the muffled silence that comes with every snowfall.
I hate how long it takes my car to warm up.
I love the warm drinks that heat me up after being frozen outside.
I hate the cold winds--"windchill" is an evil abomination created by Satan.
I love how everything looks so much more beautiful with a layer of snow on it.
I hate how dried-out my lips & skin get.
I love getting to experience winter & Christmas & snow as a married gal for the first time ever... getting to see all this with him has been amazing.

I am looking forward to Spring, as I do every year. Had I been born pre-Christ, I very likely would have been a sun-worshiper...

Apathy

Passion is contagious.
So is apathy.
The older I get, the more I realize the truth of the old caution: be careful who you surround yourself with.
It's not because of fear of "guilt by association", but fear of something much less obvious, far more... sinister.
The attitudes of those around me can very easily become my attitude.

Is this why Jesus was so vehement in His decrying of the Lukewarm church in Revelation?
Not only was this church neither cold nor hot, but their apathy was a poison that--left unchecked--could contaminate all the passion around them, the passion of new believers coming to this church would be soured and quenched.

Personally, I tend to be a bit... extreme... in the things I do. I like to throw myself whole-heartedly into life and all therein. But if I lose that excitement, then I swing very much the other direction & I become very difficult to motivate. I do nothing half-way, including apathy--which is why I hate it so much when I find it in myself.

Whenever I realize I've slid into that mentality again... It makes me so angry. Oddly enough, this is a good thing--it's usually when I finally get angry enough to act that the apathy gets burnt in a fire of outrage.

But there's always that stage before, when I am filled with this curious mix of apathy, simmering rage, and bitterness.
Or is that what bitterness is? Apathy and anger mixed with inaction--just stewing and roiling inside, poisoning every interaction and seeping into others? May I never linger long in that place!

I'd rather just get angry, do something, and move on.

A Meditation on Imaginary Friends

It's been so long since I heard her voice--years, in fact.
But now... I think I can, just a little, a faint sighing borne to me on a whispy breeze.
Her voice is so very faint, and the only one I can hear... for now.
Yet, I take heart--at least I can hear something. All is not that awful silence that it was...
The music is coming back... I can feel it in my bones, even if I cannot quite hear it yet.
Hearing is still difficult though, and exhausting at times.
Seeing though, that's a different matter.

She is hidden from me, from everyone who could find her. Shape-shifters can be difficult to find, and she has taken the form of a small black cat with brilliant green eyes. Her eyes is the only thing about her that she cannot completely change in her efforts to flee herself. The golden locks that reminded me of sunshine, the voice filled with laughter that always broke into song, the smile that gave fearless reassurance--all that is gone. But those eyes, green as emeralds, deep with sorrow and pain, they are as they have always been.

There is comfort in knowing some things never change--even if the unchangeable is pain.

The black cat wanders aimlessly, forgetting all that she once was. She remembers no more the battles fought and won, the friends now departed, the lover lost, the quest neglected, even her own name eludes her memory. She truly has given herself up to being no more than a feline. Hunting rodents, evading stones thrown by children, enjoying the occasional scratch behind the ears, and always always roving on--these are the only half-formed "thoughts" that fill her foggy mind now.

Yet, discouraged and silent though she is, she is.
This in itself is a wonder.

The Sport of Stat-Watching

In reviewing the stats on this blog, I've noticed an interesting trend. The two posts that have overwhelmingly taken the lead as far as "most views" are:

Sparrows, in which I ramble shamelessly about my weird delight in a common brown bird (148 views last I checked)
Inspiration, where I write a random story-start in order to get the creative juices flowing... (60 views last count)

It's weird, I didn't even think these two were very good, but they're the most popular on this blog... Apparently a lot of other people like reading about sparrows...?? The internet is a truly bewildering place.

In writing, one of the schools of thought teaches that we are to "write for your audience". This idea is a part of why I am so interested in the statistics provided by blogspot--it gives me an insight about the readers I have... But another school of thought says that we should write for ourselves.

According to the stats, those two cases are not so different as I may have thought. My own brainstorming sessions, unedited and unrefined, are just as interesting to others as they are helpful for me.
Who knew?
I shall have to brainstorm here more often, to share my delight in creating.
In the spirit of inquisitiveness, do you have a favorite post on this blog, your own blog, or any other blog that you'd like to share? Please feel free to!

Breathe

Breathing.
In, and out. The rhythm of life: in and out.
Heart beating,
Pumping the life-blood,
In and out.

Regardless of what comes to us, it will pass away from us as well. The question is: how will we let it pass? Gracefully, with peace and an open hand? Or regretfully, clinging to the merest shred of it, dragging out the inevitable with pain and suffering?

Do I fight to keep it in my life, or do I run away from its presence?
In certain circumstances, neither option is healthy.
In others, either could be commendable.

Everything has its time and place.

Breathe.
In,
and Out.
A breathe held, then released,
Then breathed again.

As temporal beings we are subject to this cyclical law.
What will we find when Time ceases to be?
Will the cycle stop?
Will we stop breathing?
Will our hearts stop beating?
I find such an existence hard to imagine...
Is it so entirely other from what we know that we simply cannot understand right now?
Does that excuse us from trying to understand anyway?

Perhaps the cycle does not cease,
Perhaps we will simply no longer be slaves to the cycle.

"Time is not the boss of me!" ~The Doctor

Will that be true for us someday?