wild melody

damn i miss you. it's been 8 years now, and there are many days i don't. there are times i still think "i want to show perpa this!" but it's decreased to a wee blip of missing most days. not today.     (will the non-linear chaos of grief ever stop surprising me?) today it's the kind of sting that makes me breathe a little slower, as if it's a true physical ache and shallower inhales will ease it. today, it stabs me with a fierce shock, the way a mountain lake ices warm skin like a seizure. i wish i could jump in my car and speed my way across the st john's... i call it the house that built me, you know from the miranda lambert song? i need it. i need a forehead kiss. & your hug, smelling like outdoors & sunshine, wood dust & old spice; stability. i need a cup of coffee. the strong black brew with cream to make it "blonde & bitter". (i still can't recreate that perfection). in my favorite mug. mint green with the ha...

"Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you chose to call it an epic; that's when you start to see what celebration is.  When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong that's celebration."  __shauna niequist how i want this courage, this kind of fierce, joyful defiance. help me let go of my perspective so it may unbend & flex into something that can find celebration. may i find the epic within the ugliness. may i see beautiful here, in the uncertainty of my tomorrows. may i create restful solitude from within the loneliness. may i trade in the hollow for healing; the cynical & bitter for wide-eyed hope. fill me. here, in the in-between; let me become a woman who creates ...

i just finished brain on fire. everybody should read it.  it sparked a lot of thought about things i already think about--how to fight against mental illness stigma, how to create greater empathy from the neuro-"typical" of us. how to understand better & reach out to include better & what are the best ways to communicate love to those who battle mental illness. i think this book could do some good in that direction. but also. damn. i never had autoimmune encephalopathy i never hallucinated or experienced psychosis. i'm very grateful for this, and i wouldn't say that i have come close to experiencing what susannah did. it's incomparable. but the first part of the book...shocked me with how releatable it was? the memories it stirred. i know what it's like to cave in, to lose pieces of your thought patterns and feel disconnected from your own neurons, to hide it for so long until you appear to flip personalities overnight but really you've...

i told You to come after me. i challenged you, last year; to prove you loved me. remember God? even though i say i believe you died on a cross to save me from myself. from striving for morality but always too broken, from the failures & mistakes & chains of my humanity, the sharp taste of death being an end. but i asked, if you really want me? well that feels like a fairytale. it seems distant and strange. so even though i have the sacrifice of your life. i demanded more. because i didn't i didn't believe you would respond i thought you would say: "you're ungrateful look what i have already done? why can't you accept it just open your eyes i already proved my love you are selfish, blind, lazy too ignorant or too willful too scared? to receive it. why would i waste any more on you? there's a limit. you are too much." i'm still holding my breath for the harshness. after all the tiny love letters, all the individual alphabe...

this isn't supposed to be like this. i'm the bad guy in this scenario, i hurt you. unintentionally. but, if there's blame to lay somewhere my door is the only one fitting. i shouldn't have this war between mind & heart. my heart shouldn't be acting like it's broken. i know it seemed disconnected when you asked. but i really was thinking about grace. how much i don't deserve you. how incapable i am in this moment of my life to give you what you deserve. you didn't find me at my worst; but i'm still climbing up from it. i can't pretend that's ok. i can't give you part of me, when you should have all. i can't give you pieces when i would want all. i also couldn't say that if i had ever for one moment considered that an option...i don't know. it never crossed my mind. there's a lot of feeling hiding behind the things i don't allow my mind to access. damn... but even then i wouldn't have let myself fall for you....

"life doesn't discriminate between the sinners & the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes. we keep living anyway--we rise & we fall & we break and we make our mistakes; and if there's a reason I'm still alive when so many have died, than I'm willing to wait for it."  this song, oddly enough gives me hope. (the whole musical has become something of a personal anthem but that's a bizarre twisting path deep into my heart and mind that i'm unable--unwilling to take others down at the moment). it's true, life is indiscriminately harsh (with breaks of sunshine and rest). God directly alters at times, yes. but more often He lets the long long leash of natural law & free will play out. as He works within the laws of natural science He created rather than bending them; just so in all of life. He redeems more than He rescues. He's not at odds with the patterns of life. He created it, and when the fall altered it He chose a quie...

...and it's for my city. ((this tragedy isn't truly mine. everything should be centered around the victims, their families and friends; and the close knit LGBT community reeling today. that's why i'm writing this on my private blog. i need to process, i need a safe place to sort myself out away from public eye. but i know it's incredibly inappropriate to claim this has hurt me personally when others have had the fabric of their hearts torn in shreds.))   what? it feels surreal. Orlando isn't even a real city. i've often thought whoever taglined it "the city beautiful" apparently never traveled to cities like Washington DC, Savannah GA, Cardiff Wales or Vancouver BC, CA. it's always seemed like the kid brother who can't keep up with the big kids. trying to be cool with his untied shoelaces and popsicle-stained mouth, running after the vans-wearing teenagers on their skateboards. like "we've got the basketball team Shaq played fo...