set a fire.

i think this speaks for itself.

Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása

for i am convinced.

that there is nothing better than the words of a sigur ros song translated into english:::

I Slide Forward
Through My Head
I Think Half Way
Backwards
See Myself Sing
The Anthem We Wrote Together
We Had A Dream
We Had Everything
We Rode To The End Of The World
We Rode Searching
Climbed Skyscrapers
Which Later Exploded
The Peace Was Gone
Balance Leaks Out
I Fall Down
Slide Forward
Through My Head
I Always Return To The Same Place
Total Silence
No Answer
But The Best Thing God Has Created
Is A New Day

go.

from a letter written in April 2011:

"through Springs and Summers, Autumns and Winters we will walk. at times venturing on our own. but at all times- aware of the other promenading within an arms length. the parade of your beauty is one i want to watch from afar. yet at the same time one i want to cover my face and turn away from.

open your eyes. your world awaits.
i wish i could carry you always, but you must carry yourself."

Hi.

i'll bring my words back soon, but for now, the heart & mind of Uncle Walt. --- "ROOTS and leaves themselves alone are these,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods, and from the pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love—fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds, hid in the foliage of trees, as the sun is risen;
Breezes of land and love—breezes set from living shores out to you on the living sea—to you, O sailors!	5
Frost-mellow’d berries, and Third-month twigs, offer’d fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms;
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you;
If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall blanches and trees." -from Walt Whitman's 'Calamus Poems' --- love is alive. and i am living it.

content.

It's amazing how a simple cup of tea can make any negative feelings go away.

I am nostalgic for the past and the future.

I miss and long for them constantly.

I need to focus more on the now. The present. The current. The place I am now. The people I am with. The person I am. This present is reminiscent of the past. This present is creating my future.

I am so much wrapped into one body.

I will sip my tea.

beautiful, beautiful.

she gets it.
can i get it like this?

August 9th, 2010 11:30pm

I wrote this the first night of my senior year. A lot has changed and shifted and evolved and grown since that point, but everything is still eerily sort of similar.... here goes:

"And so I sit.
Intentionally skipping and avoiding the songs I know will bring tears.
I sit in a place unfamiliar and familiar all at the same time.
In a space with bare walls,
with clean floors, still fresh from having been replaced.
I hear the crickets. I'm not looking. I am listening.
There is a train.
I sit in a bed. Far too big for just one body.
The simplicity of this room is one that comforts and scares me even more.
To be here now is almost to be chained to a ship crossing uncharted waters.
To repeat the cycle. The yearly. The weekly.
The daily.
The hourly.
And when it comes to it - the minutely.
Where finding a space or a time to just exist becomes difficult.
The anxiety and the excitement is enough to cause trauma to my head and heart.
Memories, thoughts, and feelings constantly feeding off eachother inside of me. Exploding and expanding. Causing my mind to race and my heart to pound.
To wait.
To be weary of the potential heartache.
To be intrigued of the potential romance.
To be cautious of the potential. Potential energy.
But still, to be here is to be waiting.
But the questions is: what am I waiting for?
And is the wait worth it?"

---

WOW. WOW. WOW.

cycles.

sometimes i have to remind myself that the earth is not a cold, dead place.

which leads to me reminding myself that my heart is not a cold, dead place.

which leads to me telling myself that people are not stone; there is fire inside of them.

which makes me realize that God is breathing into people.

then i feel my own Self and heart being breathed upon; a Light being shone into this darkness.

then i find myself alone or waking up in the morning, and the perpetual cycle of this thought has to start all over.

but lately, i am feeling the Sun again.

i can't help it when i get into these moods. whats mine is mine, and i am not eager to share what i have. i can't help when i feel an invasion of my relationships is coming; when something i have cultivated and made my own feels tread upon. my self worth has been beaten into the ground, and just when i find myself building it back up, something always intervenes, causing me to retreat back into my Self, away from the crowd and those i care the most about.

where two or three are gathered, there i am content and happy.

i know i invent these in my head. i can't help it.

Live Oak, with Moss.

I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, lusty, made me think of myself.


But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near -- for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away -- and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as if my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token -- it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.

-from "Calamus Poems" from "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman.

--

This makes me want to cry.

did it hurt?

when mumford fell from heaven?




--

i can't get enough walt.

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and
   never will be measured.

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand
   on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs,
   and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we
   be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.

You are also asking me questions and I hear you,
I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.

Sit a while dear son,
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you
   with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every
   moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,
   and laughingly dash with your hair.




- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself 46"

process 1.

i am trying to process all of this newness i have been given. all within a few weeks time:
stress about school, graduation, camp, next fall, sickness...it's all there weighing heavy.

truths that i have forced myself to believe about life, love, people, and myself are being proven wrong progressively more and more as each day goes on. truths to me that grew out of this deep melancholy that has been the past several months. it feels good. in my chest i can feel a literal sense of who i was and who i imagine myself as pulling my heart open, revealing who i AM to myself. this melancholy is apart of me, but it isn't who i am at my core. at my core i am good, i am light, i am love, i am free. these four things i have hid from myself for so long; that i am so undeserving of those four elements that make a human being Whole. but i'm not. i deserve that. how have i fooled myself for so long in thinking i wasn't?

this is good. i am still trying to process it all, and it will be a gradual, changing event. i am thankful for the change happening inside of me, but i don't want to become entirely reliant on a person or medication to make me feel better. they help, and they are worth it and good, but i truly need to become okay with myself with those other things aiding me along the way.

this is just the initial rough draft of the process of my current thoughts of today.
today has been difficult for me, but i have come to learn i can't expect every day to be completely perfect inside of me.


i think i have found something special though. something different and real.
something making the sun come up again.


it is a good feeling.




this video is dumb but this song always finds a way of bringing itself back to me.

Perfect.

Ezekiel 37

The Valley of Dry Bones

¹The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. ²And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. ³And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." ⁴Then he said to me,"Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. ⁵Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD."

⁷So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. ⁹Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." ¹⁰So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

¹¹Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.' ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD."

mirror mirror

most hours of the day, i am content by myself.
i have become an expert of weaving myself through people on a sidewalk with little interaction. i have accomplished the straight face of empathy and apathy. and even in the most public of situations, i can diminish myself to dirt in the carpet.

i live inside the caged, locked up, without a key container that is my body.
i see people and i hear people outside, walking up the stairs and to the door.
just because you knock doesn't mean i'll let you in.
this porch light only illuminates for a few; insects.
and if you are in, you should reflect on that, and how difficult it was for me to grant you that access, and consider yourself one of the few lucky ones.

sometimes days are good, sometimes they're bad.
i hate that i am a never-ending calendar of feeling.

if you can't bear the f-word, you probably shouldn't play this. but i love her right now.

Open your eyes, boy, I think we are saved.

i can use the temporary to cover myself.
but i know they are just that.
temporary. fleeting.
vices to avoid the inevitable that will come,
surely as the sun, they will come.

i know so much.
knowledge that kills my head.
i feel so much.
emotions that weigh so heavy.

everything is one huge paradox sitting within myself.
i love, but i detest all the same.
i am happy, but am saddened still.
i aim for the truth, but hate to hear it actually revealed.
is this what life is? one huge cycle of being content and disappointed constantly?
simultaneously confused and spiraling onward and downward and beyond?
whole, yet always longing for more?

and i know. i know i go on and on and on about this and about how i hate everything but love all at the same time, and i know you're sick of it all. this isn't why i chose or what you chose. it's just the constant, never-ending revolution of everything swimming around inside of my being. i am conflicted and well. you have made me dead and alive. everything is together and apart. i know none of this makes sense. but i get it, and i'm allowed to write things that i get and you don't because it's my blog. but i can let the words flow from my head to the keyboard to the screen in front of me.

i'm not happy i have to write them, but i enjoy seeing them be created all the same.

post atbl & jmm.

i think i am (hopefully) starting to be what i once was. i hope its not just a high from hearing the Truth through song last night. but i felt my Spirit that has felt so dead for so long burst with a renewed heart. i can be excited. i can be melancholy. i can be okay. i can be everything.

here's to Lent being a season of giving, instead of taking away.
and as we journey a head to the day of the cross, to the end of the beginning, to the warmth of summer, it is my prayer for myself to become what i once was, only better and with more knowledge and love that will be spread to others.

i know a Love that is great and needs to be given.



all the bright lights help, too. i guess i got their album over a year ago when it first came out, and hearing them do this live was just phenomenal. here's a taste:

lila 11:03 pm est night spring break blues.

i didn't write this, but conor oberst did. and my youth will forever be attributed to him.

"and morning will come,
in all it's simple glory.
and you will find the light.
and i will be there,
standing in your shadow,
knowing that you once were mine.
all mine."


i find myself attributing myself to others lately.
am i not my Own?
is my own Self something that i cannot contain?
where do i find my Self? in books? in the bible? in others? in the physical? in nature? in God?
in this melancholy?


i am not unique.
i am a product of everyone i have ever met.
they have molded themselves into me. to make me better.
i am the combined spirit of music and realness and love.
i find myself most content with a beer in my hand and a moon in the sky, in a room with only one lamp, and still i am not complete. God show Godself to me every day whether by action or revelation - that is something i can neither explain or deny. but God is there. powerful, strong, and mighty. concocting my life into the perfected numbness i find myself in day to day. oblivious to others, content swimming in my own sea of maddening thoughts and writings and dreams.

oh to write and to write of the things i know but cannot speak or spell.
but i say them to God, and God hears and knows. and God makes it.
God makes it all whole.

prose poetry ( a rough, rough draft.)

I left the town with hopes high that this time would be different. I would set off on the open road, with the windows rolled down, coffee in my mug, and a precisely planned soundtrack as my guide; not stopping until I ran into mountains. Yes, I thought, this time will be different. The life that had so urgently drained from this body was now slowly, but surely, resurrecting within this lifeless form. The thought of a new love that came with conversation, dinner, and a movie seemed promising, and left me feeling a sort of renewal about my self and love as a whole. And so with the setting sun dinner came, conversation flowed, and hands were held. And, after seven hours of time spent together, a goodnight kiss in front of a purple front door was shared. And a seed of hope felt like it had been planted again where the land had once been dry.
And so I let the hope sit there for two days, taking root, crawling up from my toes towards my heart. The growth was familiar and warm, and every so often giving a tickle to remind me it was coming, and if I was patient, it would bloom again. After more coffee and conversation, I set back to the the town that had taken my hope in the first place. Do not let this hope fail, I told myself. And I drove, with the sun racing behind me to its tired bed. And as cars buzzed on the interstate, I drove by an empty yellow field where my eyes saw two young lovers dancing in a field. They bowed and swayed in the early spring breeze with the ease of two that had been together a thousand years. I felt deep within my bones that love was out there somewhere, and that until I found it dancing in a field, I could at least try to make myself happy.

going for the gold.

the word isn't even 'whelmed' anymore..

it is completely and inconceivably overwhelmed.
that keeps eating and eating away at every sort of insides that i might have left.

i am stretching the bounds of love from end to end. i fear my wingspan is going to tear at the seams and i will be left with broken arms, unable to lift up whatever and whoever i am holding up now.
i have been given too much freedom in time, emotion, thought, and writing that i am able to now word (for the most part) what is going on in this head and heart and body and soul of mine. but i can't say it.

i can never say it.

out of the most complete and sincere love i can never speak it.

i feel deep.
i wish i didn't have to.
but no one can ever love you how i do. i know that for certain.

where?

from a poem written in february 2011:

"confessions of truth and tears of loss and
moments of clarity are covered with the
exhaustive invention of self revival;
the birth of a new feeling,
both melancholy and joyous."



-----
here.



it's where i am.
and that is all, really.

find that dappled dream of yours.

sorry for the excessive videos lately and lack of writing.
but seems like all the good stuff has already been said the write/right way.


and i just forgot how good okkervil river was.

timshel.

an excerpt from a letter written in january 2011.

"you are Real to me because you have let me in. i thank you for that, for that trusting love you have given to me. it is unique and i know it can be unmatched by anything else we both might ever come across. i am thankful for this time when i have experienced raw emotion at it’s deepest. what it means to love at its height and to fall into the lowest. it is true and raw emotion like this that make being human real and whole - and worth being alive. you have taught me what it means to feel life at it’s most genuine, and i couldn’t be more glad.
you can be everything because you are everything. and i am for you, always."



--
in the mean time,
let it saturate you.

write right.

i write and write and write and write and write and keep writing.


it is therapeutic.

days are cold, nights are empty,
this pull and tug.

so i'll keep writing for you,
but mostly for myself.

The Sun is Bright in my Eyes.

I have heard that one of the greatest things to experience is love, and be loved in return.

This sounds mystical, magical and wonderful.

And that if you love something, you should give it away.. and if it comes back to you, then you know it was real....or something like that.

Why would I want to give it away if I love it in the first place?

I think I semi-agree with both of the above love statements. Feeling love in return is a phenomenal experience - it is something that I (especially) constantly long for - in all of my close relationships. The problem with this theory, however, is how is one able to gauge the amount of love one is harboring inside of oneself, and how can it be measured against the love of another? I do agree a lot with the second statement, though I don't know how I feel about releasing a love I already have and rely on... but I do understand the underlying theme that if you truly to love something, then you will be willing to be without that said thing/person because you only want the complete, absolute best for them... even if that means it isn't you. But you can still love - and still hope - but be content in knowing that you have loved enough to let something have the freedom to explore and find their own way - which could end up being you anyway.

I make this love-thing so complex. There are so many different types and levels and ways to experience love. Some are good, some are terrible - but in the end they all teach.

We (I, especially) were created to love.
To desire it.
To drink it.
To soak it in.
To make it.
To break it, even.

But in the end, no matter how heartbreaking or despairing we may feel, we still crave it.


Thoreau wrote that is that there is no remedy for love, but to love more.

And I couldn't agree more with that statement.

So that's what we must do.

To everyone.

Even ourselves.

white blank page.

i hate that i always find myself wanting to write about the same things.
but i suppose that since they are the things on my mind - that i face, that i struggle with, that i love, that i live in - then they are important to me. and my ideas keep changing. about. everything.

-

i have this idea about myself that i am asleep. i've written about it before. i just feel a lot of the time that i lack the energy to go out and do. there's life inside of my body but it hides a lot. i put my effort and my love and energy into things that have failed me. it's hard to think that another year is budding, and i still feel this dreariness of sleep inside of me. my head is cloudy. my heart is mangled. my body is tired.

i stand at the beginning of the end (as cliche as it sounds). why am i not longing to embrace this life and these final months at wingate and with my friends that i love to the fullest? why am i content to be alone, wrapping myself up into this melancholy that has become this time of my life. i have come to this point where i have been buried with the weight of truth and the weight of lies. the weight of real and the weight of what my heart longs for - the things i want to be right and true - even though i am content with it all.

a new year is barely a day old. and i have found myself being tired and dizzy and sad about this. this year brings both ends and beginnings for my life. new chapters in the book i've been writing for almost twenty-two years. but in my mind i find myself returning to the pages that are dog-eared, worn and stained from hands and tears. there are white blank pages ready to be written on - eagerly awaiting my hand to continue writing this story. but why do as i feel as though my time has already climaxed and i'm on the long downward spiral to the conclusion.. i don't want to be. i want to be excited and in awe of everything life is giving me and experience it as best i know how. but why do i feel like i can't even do that? this intersection of hope and apathy that i have scares me. its as if i know the Truth that i have been given, but chose to do nothing with it. chose to continue with how things appear in my mind rather than what reality is giving me.

and so this is where i sit going into a new year. a new time. a new chapter.


my challenge is to make myself awake this year. to drink up life. to soak it in. to devour it. to love. to love.. to Love. to be content with the hand i have been dealt. to be the best friend to the ones i have. to be free and honest. to find God in ways i haven't before. to allow God to reveal God's self and plans and Love to me. to try to figure it out. to be there.
to being real.
to being awake.
to being wide awake with eyes wide open.
here we go, 2011.
here we go.

awake, my soul.


listen to this, please.