and it's me

Caught up in my own mind

Overthinking, desiring perfection

But what is this perfection?

Doesn’t my mind change one million times?

I am my own person

I create Grace on every page

I’m crazy for independence

Outside the box

Spontaneous

There is beauty in plenty

Look left and right up and down

I see it here

Why would I need more than I have-

Is it insufficient?

Is there echoing space of empty?

Swirling lines of patterns drawn

Vibrating notes held out almost too long

Can you breathe now?

Warming toes with homemade socks

Braids in hairs undone, rebraided lots

I am chaos—I am a storming brain

Catch up, catch up, see I’m picking the pace here

I would fly if I’d been given wings

Tumble turning, belt the reason why

I wanna live until I die!!

Slipping falling dancing stalling

Laughing, holding secrets in

This is where it begins.

I’ll tease until I laugh and cry at the same time

Elbow just to prove a point

Scream if I’m surprised,

Tickled pink.

Real laughter comes with a little snort

Accept me,

Expect me to resort

To doing things the hard way

Or being the weird one

I don’t mind playing in snow barefoot

Feeling the cold brings the chill to reality.

It needs to hit home for me.

I mix melody and harmony for fun.

Why should I have to choose only one?

I am variety.

I melt molds of conformity.

Tiptoe into the garden

Eavesdrop on that Everlasting Voice

Bold be Strong, throw your note in

Sing loud, say what you mean

I have peace

I breathe a breath of relief

Stability

Christmas Break

I am driven crazy with the love that I am surrounded by.
The family that I get to spend time with
My peers, my very own academics, theologians, and companions.
There is so much beauty in the crossing of the lines in relationships because we are family.
We can argue/discuss SO many different things, but still get together next year to do it again, in love.

Laughter, being the best medicine, has rid me of negativity.
"Things", walks, showers, meals, runs, helping cook and clean, "Hahahahaha, weird"
Tickle fights with sisters, gas, joking about "spirits" with Grandpa
Discussions with avid thinkers on deep and relevant topics.

It calls me back to my first love: relationship.
Just being together, communicating, touching, relating, laughing.
Teaching younger cousins funny phrases.
Chasing other young cousins around in circles until we're both dizzy.
Swinging on swings like our preteen selves once did.
Reminiscing about the "distance" to the park, thrift store.
Running to Bethel and back with Mom (woowoo)

Doing new things. Welcoming and accepting the cousins who get older and more mature
Planning our future of everyone living together , or at least closer together.
Oh the growth that is happening now, in just a few short days.
I wish we could be around everyone all year round.
Our predestined best friend relatives bring joy, happiness, change.

The first, Ben married off and in love with Maddie, and an Ellie on the way.
Abi, only my age, ink-still-wet engaged to an army boy.
Graceanne in Sweden
Anna to go to Russia or Japan,
Joanna to South Africa or China.
Abi and Andrew back to school for Psychology
Marie for vocal performance to still-who-knows-where
Me, at EMU, for Social Work.

I am
*Loving the curious interest in my piercings
"What's that on your tongue?" --Cousin Katie
"You are so bad!" --Aunt Rachel
*Pondering and treasuring
this time, seconds of giggling, words of potency and beauty and love from my truth filled family's mouths.
*Jesus being a part of the family gathering.
--finding so much more depth in relationships this year
I hope it gets deeper and deeper as we get older.

God is good.

"Please follow your dreams," & Revolutionary Road

If you don't do what you want, follow your dreams, strive after your passions, you end up like April, in Revolutionary Road. Trying to get rid of one thing so significant that it killed you, in hopes of getting back the life that you once thought you had. The life April had in the story wasn't what she'd desired. She wanted to be an actress, she wanted to explore passions, get out of the house, as a parent, and do work, have a job. Her situation changed, her husband's job was promoted and she became pregnant, so they didn't leave for Paris. As the issues continued, there were affairs, declarations of hate, and then a failed self-abortion that led to her untimely death.
In my opinion, the reasons for her demise existed because she subdued herself behind her "I don't want to talk about it"'s. She lived uncomfortably in her little housewife role for too long. Want and desire become biased behind secondary thoughts and dreams as passions, and her real needs weren't met.
--This happens to anyone when we cover our core, empirical selves, with layers upon layers of "if"'s and "perhaps"'s and "someday"'s. These cause irritation to the deepest layer, weighing it down upon itself, until implosion. They make you fight about little things, they make you hold it all in, or spew it all out. They make you do crazy things (that you once thought were crazy yourself, but rationalized it enough that it became reasonable.) in efforts to reach your utopia.
So, instead of all those bad things,
pursue what you are passionate about
take baby steps toward completing your dreams
Don't hold it in or spew it out, have balance.
Talk about it.
Have a firm foundation.

I have a home (a home!)

This past semester has been epic.
Now I'm trying to imagine any part of my life not having significant moments in it, and since God isn't the boring type, I doubt there will be. Although not everyone will find it reading worthy, my life has had some significant adjustments since that August 31st starting gun was shot.
This shindig started with a declaration of social work: a promise to fight for justice, get riled up, sing and yell loudly, and throw pillows in digust at the world. This also brought about discussions of feminism, desire for change, and love for people who truly deserve to love others just like I do.
The party continued to thrive as I adjusted to living "off" campus, and in Maplewood, bonding with people who truly supported me. I ate lunch outside with Mila until it was too cold to do so, and we moved into Common Grounds (my third home). As relationships were stripped of pedestals and revealed their true colors from across the country, I submerged myself into an ocean of love: true supportive women and men who could listen to my cries of despair, of humiliation, of discouragement, and fill me with joy and laughter, help me pick myself up off of the carpetted floor, and encouraged me to write music.
Despair was changed to hope and passion for life as my feet tredded many miles in the right direction. With goals to reach, I left behind ideals of old and pursued local friendships, food, homes, justices. I sang music for residents at VMRC. I ate local, dumpster dived, and home made food on the floor of Maplewood lounge. I immersed myself with Walking Disciples ladies, Feminism, Take Back the Night, running, inner beauty, conversations that scared me, knitting, coffee, and music. I quit things that tired me, and started things that energized me. I let myself become intrigued by people, different perspectives, and now buds a different sort of relationship, again, though with several grains of salt added to the mix (as knowledge from previous experience comes to show). I got to skip happily across those darned  generation lines as I spent more and more time with my grandparents, inviting my people to come visit for dinner, to spend the night, or to have tea.
As the finals finished, the errands run, the last note on the piano was played, and a game of Twister was began, I knew of the validity of the relationships sprouted and bloomed. I have been surrounded by a BEAUTIFUL garden of flower friends at EMU. I have fallen in love with the people, the environment, the lifestyle, and community. I have a home.

Anonymous

I'm sick and tired of listening to this
I'm motivated, but there's so much injustice
And in our hearts, we're the cause of all this
We make this about us,
We give glory to ourselves

What does money matter?
Isn't it a number on a page?
Shouldn't we take care of
Our brothers in the cold?
Can you help my sister
Here she's struggling in the street
Give her Jesus, and put some shoes on her feet

It's not about me, take my face off of this
If you want representing, call on Jesus!
Remove my name, make it anonymous
All I want is for God to shine
Live God's shine, let God shine

No self, no lies, no bias, let God shine

Work study evaluations

so I'm normal. Not over the top amazing, not below the line horrid, on my work study evaluation. I'm a tutor for math. Not many people come. I hang out on Facebook during my hours here, or do homework.

Let's face it, tutoring math is not my passion. Just because I can figure it out and teach pretty well doesn't mean it's my calling in life. It doesn't mean that I like it. It means that work study is something I do.

I don't have to be passionate about tutoring math. If I was, that would be great--hey! I'd have a career path. But I do not. I am NOT passionate about tutoring math.

I do NOT experience flow while tutoring math.

So maybe I should play piano for my career. Or talk to people as my career.
Ha. What money would I make.
Entertainment is all about performance anyway.
Which I'm good at, but eventually I run out of steam.
Or the songs don't mean the same thing.
etcetc
yea.
that's what I think.

Simmer, and stir constantly

That's really where my head is right now.
I'm living at a new intensity, and it's spinning slowly. Everything I'm surrounded by--ideals, ideas, influences, perspectives--all these things are creating and defining new aspects of my life.
I'm starting to leave things behind, and to be okay with that.
I'm seeing that this change in my life is good, and God is good, and he'll lead me in the steps that I take.

I'm remaining independent, phenomenal woman, even as relationships take new, interesting turns.

I'm letting my music speak in my life, and letting God lead me to the chords that will take form in my life. I'm enjoying the challenge of stepping (even more) outside of the box.

I'm reaching goals I set months ago, and accepting where I have come with them. Even if the expectations are different than what is actually becoming of them, I think that the goals are still met with the acceptance of myself.

That's it for now.
No regrets.

Fire

Why are we so selfish as to deny someone the freedom to love? Why can we not even think that it could be an option? Why can I love those who do not give that freedom to others!
Why is the world in a place of oppression?
Why do people have to turn to drugs and sex and self mutilation to escape the pain that people LIKE US bring them into?
Why do we think we are right over all? That we are good over all? That we are superior?
Awhile back, I blogged about perfection, and how our society has defined perfection in some myth called 'normal'. This white heterosexual English speaking (with no accent) thin good looking person with a good education, a good paycheck, and a perfect nuclear family to go home to.
If we embrace diversity so, why can't we let people be diverse!
This world is diverse. There are so many people on this earth that if we were all white heterosexual English speaking thin good looking people with good education, paycheck and perfect nuclear family, then we'd all be clones!
God did not create us to be the same. He gave us free will instead. What a gift! God created me to be unique, to wear bunny freaking slippers around campus, to make weird facial expressions, and to love uninhibited.
I do not feel oppression for these things. No one judges me for my personality or my attire. I must fit somewhere into the Judeo Christian normal continuum.
Somewhere along the way, though, humans decided that difference is bad. That we can and should condemn those who do not fit into the blueprint that we have created. And we have hated them, or do not associate with them. We destroy their happiness by locking them within their very selves and cause them to assimilate into our heterosexual society.
Do you think Jesus condemned homosexuals? Jesus condemned hippocrites. What are we?
Jesus dined with sinners. He befriended them. How can we be Jesus to anyone if we avoid them?
I don't want to be angry and anyone in particular.
I think I'm angry the most at myself because I have been silent for so long. So many times I have heard the jokes and said nothing. I've laughed at the jokes. I've read the words out of context and judged.
I don't care if I am not theologically correct.
God does not condemn those he loves because they are the way that He created them!
God.
I've been clamping my jaw together for an hour because I can't put words to my anger. I don't want to put faces to my anger because it will be anger sorely directed. I want to support, and empower. I want to educate and open people's eyes, but I AM ONLY ONE PERSON.
I am not GOD.
I cannot change people's minds.
I cannot help them see the light.
I'm so frustrated in my helplessness to solve this problem.
I feel like the more words I say the more close minded people will become.
God.
The adrenaline that is rushing through my body has given me the hunger to seek justice. I see the injustice. How can I make justice? I feel hopeless.
I know I'm here for a reason. I know I"m in the right place because I have felt this emotion.
I need to scream and cry and throw things. I don't want to break things.
I desire to feel peace with what is going on in my mind, but at the same time, I know that feeling will not give me the drive to say what I need to say.
I need to pray.
The Holy Spirit is more than enough to speak through me. Or speak through my actions.
I was in a place of comfort, and I have been approached with this discomfort. It's digging through my skin and rubbing alcohol on it. I have this burning, itching desire to help, to support, to be real. To provide a place where real can be a reality for those who need it.
I feel sick and disgusted with the world.
And there is no one to pacify this. We shouldn't be pacified.

Stop being an onlooker.

How can we be silent?

Echoes in my brain.

It's so easy to dive in, leave everything behind.
But then look back and see all that I was missing.
Decisions.
I guess we know if they are right or wrong depending on how they pan out.
Mistakes.
I know I will make them along the way.
And I hate being on the someone's bad side.
But yay! That's life.
Accountability is a little uncomfortable.
But the depth and strength in relationships that come from it are so inviting.
Listen. Openly. Really.
And don't just think the world is against you. It may be trying to teach you something.
But I can hear it in a slight tone, and I can tell from the gestures you let escape your body what you really mean.
I don't want to offend, or belittle, or exclude, or condemn.
But I'm human.
Weak. Naive. Breakable. A Conquistadora.
I want to be honest, blunt, truthful.
I am imperfect. Selfish. A thief, when I take away what I once gave without inhibition.
This continuum is so complicated.

Teach me your Ways, O God,
And lead me in the way everlasting.