Sunlight in her hair

Natalie called ten minutes after I woke up today (meaning Wednesday), asked if I wanted to go to lunch so I hurried into clothes, brushed my teeth and hair and went out into the ice and snow for the first time this storm. Had lunch and then she said they were planning to go to a friend’s house and do four-wheelers and the like, so I decided to go for that, too. Not an easy decision if you know me and my fear of people, four-wheelers, the world. Ha. But I rode them all and thought I would pass out on one of them, ate hotdogs and marshmallows over a fire and had more pictures taken than I think I ever have before. Hiding from cameras is a hobby of mine. I felt a bit sorry for Marcus (the guy whose house we went to) because I don’t think he was particularly a fan of my general silence, but nothing I can really do about that. Constantly my mother says ‘you have to talk to people, socialize, socialize’ and constantly I say nothing. Nothing. Talking is not an easy thing for me to do unless I know a person REALLY WELL. I can talk to Miranda, and James, and Derek, but very few others. It’s something I would like to change, but it’s a very slow process. If only they knew what a huge thing just this day was for me.

Anyway, it was nice, awkward blindie/sightie interactions and silences aside. I smell like campfire smoke now and I was an icicle when we got back, but I enjoyed it all, even the near death by four-wheeler I was positive I was going to suffer every time I rode another one. I think my mother would probably have a fit if she heard about it, but maybe that’s part of the problem. Time to stop worrying about that and live, live. Time to make her stop worrying about it, too. We both need a little freedom. She worries about the roommates and their idiotic drunken friends, and I shrug it off, ‘they’re harmless, stupid, just a little loud’ but really they scare me more than that. Drunken males always scare me and there’s something very creepy about these, I even go so far as to keep the door locked when they’re around. And that fear makes me angry. There are many fears in a world without sight but I think this, the fear of an uninhibited male, is one of the worst. It makes me feel trapped in a place where I feel like I have a right to be comfortable.

How do I always manage to go off on these crazy random tangents? Ha. The original point was, I had fun and it was a quiet huge deal and poor Marcus and poor Sarah who was so unsure and Natalie is adorable. And campfire smoke is a nice smell, but maybe not so much when I bring it back with me. And God please help me to overcome my obstacles, the ones I struggle with silently inside myself, the ones I sometimes don’t even notice until they’re thrust at me in a situation like that one. And if I can’t overcome them now, then at least help me not to feel so defeated by them.

Marcus offered to turn on a light for me when I was going down some steps in his house and then was very embarrassed and apologetic. Sarah asked me if I liked to ‘listen to TV’. Marcus was a bit awkward about asking me directly about my blindness and wanted to know if I ever got carsick. These are the things that make me smile. The only things that don’t make me feel my obstacles every second. And Natalie and Ashley’s coyote calls and random bursts of song and radio turned up and squealing pigs and horses and hay … so many nice things. Bed is another nice thing. Let’s go see about that.

—

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

“I was walking on my private beach, and I looked into my diamond ring and had a vision that God was telling me to ask you for more money.”
~ my stepdad, talking about a televangelist

We went to Los Cabos for dinner tonight, as a birthday/engagement celebration for my sister and her fiance. Pink penguin balloon animal from the clown lady and ‘happy birthday’ from the mariacci band and food, food, food. Cheeseburger burrito (which is just another name for a beef and bean burrito with melted cheese on top), enchiladas, chips with queso and guacamole, and hot, sweet, delicious sopapias. It was a pretty good time–finally got to meet Barba (whose real name is Jessica) and catch up about school and things. The rest of the family didn’t come, said they couldn’t afford it even though they said they were coming just three days ago, but oh well.

My sister is twenty-one, I can hardly believe it, and I will be twenty in March. I can’t believe that at all. We were just piling up blankets and pillows to dive from the top bunk bed and play swimming pool, just making pies and biscuits and mashed potatoes out of dirt and wood blocks and putting them in the sun to warm, just playing airplane in the loft. And then, blink of an eye and she’s engaged, I’m in college and we’re living, living. Always moving forward, but where are we going? What are we hurrying to? Once we could take the time to say our prayers every night, pray for everyone we knew and plenty of people we didn’t, pray for our animals and everyone up in heaven, and now we can’t even take time for a phone call. ‘I love you.’ No, we can just text them, squeeze them in while we’re doing other things, important things. Always such important things. ‘Oh, I’ve just been so busy.’ Our loved ones are relegated to just another checkmark on an endless to-do list. Sad, sad.

Ummm. Sorry, I really didn’t intend to go off on that ramble. Ha. It was a nice evening, and now I’m home in sweats, with cats and an electric blanket and a good book. Perfection. Think I’ll make some hot chocolate and eat the leftover sopapias.

—

“Baby Jah-Love,” Ping Chong sang. “Why are you so sad? Once I was sad like you. And then I met Valentine in a rain forest in Jamaica. He appeared out of the green mist. I had been dreaming of him and wishing for him forever. When I met Valentine I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew that my soul would always have a reflection and an echo and that even if we were apart—and we were for a while in the beginning—I finally knew what my soul looked and sounded like. I would have that forever, like a mirror or an echoing canyon.”

Ping stopped, seeing Witch Baby’s eyes. She knew Witch Baby was thinking about Raphael.

“Sometimes our Jah-Love friends fool us,” she said. “We think we’ve found them and then they’re just not the one. They look right and sound right and play the right instrument, even, but they’re just not who we are looking for. I thought I found Valentine three times before I really did. And then there he was in the forest, like a tree that had turned into a man.”

Witch Baby wanted to ask Ping how to find her Jah-Love angel. She knew Raphael was not him, even though Raphael had the right eyes and smile and name. She knew how he looked—the angel in her dream—but she didn’t know how to find him. Should she roller-skate through the streets in the evenings when the streetlights flicker on? Should she stow away to Jamaica on a cruise ship and search for him in the rain forests and along the beaches? Would he come to her? Was he waiting, dreaming of her in the same way she waited and dreamed? Witch Baby thought that if anyone could help, it would be Ping, with her quick, small hands that could create dresses out of anything and make hair look like bunches of flowers or garlands of serpents, cables to heaven. But Witch Baby didn’t know how to ask.

“Wishes are the best way,” said a deep voice. It was the voice of Valentine Jah-Love. He had been building a set for Los Diablos and had come home to eat a lunch of noodles and coconut milk shakes with Ping.

Valentine sat beside Ping, circling her with his sleek arm, and grinned down at Witch Baby. “Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.”

Because I don’t already have enough blogs, I’ve started this one. All my blogs serve different purposes, although they all have some things in common, some cross-posts. If you’re a reader of the others, forgive the repeated content you may see here. This is the only one that’s been given to people I know personally, in ‘real life’, so expect some more general day to day things than what I post to the others. But also bits of poetry, lyrics, videos, whatever inspires me at a given moment. In part an expanded version of my Tumblr.

Anyway, enough introduction blah blah blah. Since I’m nearly dead with exhaustion and I don’t have anything significant to post at the moment, have some lists, and a poem. Not written by me, I can only wish. Written by William P. Young, who wrote “The Shack”. Read it if you haven’t already, it’s beautiful.

—

Things I miss at school that I’m currently enjoying at home:
my cat -
my bed -
the quiet -
the comfortably cool temperature (it’s always hot in the dorm because I have a war going on with the roommates over the thermostat thing) -
singing -
feeling comfortable around the people I live with -
no phone!!!

Songs I am especially enjoying at the moment:
Blindside – Pitiful (so much emotion, makes me want to cry, omg) -
Tool – Opiate (Maynard Keenan, what else needs to be said?) -
Red – Never Be the Same
Chasen – Crazy Beautiful
Serj Tankian – Elect the Dead (just amazing and unexpected)
Mr. Big – Next to Be With You (corny cheesy mush, but so goooood)

Books I have read in the past two weeks:
Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous)
Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block (my writing idol in every way)
I Am An Artichoke by Lucy Somethingorother
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (currently rereading)

—

Wind Rumors
William P. Young (taken from his lovely blog)

The Wind…you don’t know where it comes from, you don’t know where it’s going…so is every person who is born of the Spirit. Philip Yancey has a book, “Rumors
of Another World”…Bruce Cockburn has a song, “Rumors of Glory” both speaking to the penetration into this world that seems to us so real, so solid, so
torn…of something else, a taste barely tangible yet lingering, a glimpse that escapes our direct look, something about freedom…and forgiveness, or was
it a ’surprise by Joy’, illusive and exquisite. The world of cause slipping in and out of this dimension of effect, leaving behind a trace, a tear, a touch,
a whisper, a soft pain, a longing. This world tries so desperately to dispel these rumors, whether with barbwire or acid verbs, but how can you stop the
wind? You can only know it was here because it rustled the leaves and kissed your cheek as He blew by.

Breathe in me…deep

That I might breathe…and live

And hold me close that I might sleep

Soft held by all you give

Come kiss me wind

And take my breath

Till you and I are one

And we will dance among the tombs

Until all death is gone

And no one knows that we exist

Wrapped in each other’s arms

Except the One who blew the breath

That hides me safe from harm

Come kiss me wind

And take my breath

Till you and I are one

And we will dance among the tombs

Until all death is gone