holding hands

I see that I write most about beauty and music. The two things go hand in hand to me, Beauty in a white gown, swaying her hips as she walks, her face painted with silvery vines. Her pale hand fits perfectly into the strong hands of Music, A thick muscled man with dark hair and wild eyebrows. He is handsome, and tan, and he steps hard on the ground. They have a lovely relationship, as Beauty can be hard and cold, or warm and sweet...and Music is the same. He can be heavy and angry, or gentle and rich. The two of them walk the world together.

It seems to me that film makers know this relationship, as you can often see in movies when something is beautiful, there is also music to lead you into a specific emotion connected to that beauty. Or even when something is graphic, and unexpectedly beautiful, made beautiful by the music being played. I dont know if I am expressing myself very well at the moment, but if you know me then you know what I mean.

I remember a moment when I was attempting to explain happiness to my mom. She was going through her shitty divorce (still is, actually) and she was struggling to find the balance between grief and joy. I pointed out the window and told her to look at the tree outside, and become grateful for its beauty, for the leaves that had turned pink, and the sun shining on it. Be grateful, and joy will flow into your heart. She didn't understand, so I tried example after example, until suddenly my little sister drove up in her car, the stereo on. I said to my mom "Look at your daughter. Do you see how BEAUTIFUL she is?" Of course my mom nodded, not taking her eyes off my sister. "Are you grateful for her?" I asked, and suddenly my mom starts crying, and smiles. I have to admit, that when I looked upon my sister myself, tears flooded my eyes and threatened to spill over. My sister is a light in the world, a beautiful beacon of hope and joy. She moves with grace and spirit, and I can only be in awe of her.

In any case, I find that I write about the things I believe in, the things that strike me as some kind of Truth, and though I repeat myself, or the subject of my writing, these are the subjects that consume my spirit. Love for those in my life, Beauty as a way to God, and Music being the bridge between everyone and everything.

consumed - two doors

I have passions with very little or no expression. It's hard to deal with sometimes, these bottled convictions.

I am afflicted by what gypsies call 'Duende' - which is the spirit that lives inside music and can tear your heart out of your chest. That's the thing you feel when you listen to music and it sounds too beautiful or too rich to be able to exist without a soul... because it has a soul, called Duende. I have been blessed and cursed with a sensitivity to the soul of music. Blessed, because nothing is more freeing than a song playing and the window rolled down. Blessed because without that spirit, my world would be less dynamic, less emotional, less interesting. Music makes my mind shut up for a second, and brings me to a place of beauty. But I am cursed to feel the soul of music because I have to expression of it, no way to free this spirit from my own chest. I cannot sing, cannot play an instrument, cannot dance. There is an art to each of these aspects of music that I cannot master, I cannot hardly invest myself in. I sing in the shower, as loud as I can when I am alone, just to pour a dribble of Duende out of me before I explode with it. It's like shaking a bottle of soda, and then opening it just enough to let the carbonation leak out, then closing it and shaking it again. I am filled to combustion with the soul of music.

And not only Duende fills me. I have a passion for Art, for painting and drawing and sculpting and tagging and tattooing and splashing my heart out into the world. I dream of art pieces, I see them in my mind just waiting like sails for the right winds. I walk into an art store and nearly cry, I want it all, my heart cries out for the gesso and the wire and the drafting pencils. I see a Sharpie and I might burst with the doodles that could escape me if I had that Sharpie in hand. It's almost more than I can bare, to smell charcoal on someone's hands, or to feel paper thick as skin. I wander the aisles like Alice in her Wonderland.

And more. I contain passions for Writing, for the novels I read and the novels I want to write. For the Poetry I fall in love with, and the words and verses that come to me. I have the deperate need to travel, see the world in all its splendor and obscenity. I hold within me the conviction that Massage can change the world, that not only am I destined to heal others, but also to heal myself. That I see the world in a way that no one else seems to see...

And yet, here I sit, praying for ways to fulfill these passions, to let the burning and aching desires of my spirit set something aflame. I waste so much time... and it sickens me, literally. I have no time to hold this in anymore, the clock is up, and I must either exert myself to live a mundane life, or I can set free these chained souls and follow them elsewhere. I suppose the tigers and dragons must be loosed sometime. Do I wait until they break free of their own will, or do I find the shining key and unlock them myself? It's like choosing between a violent outburst of passion, or giving in to the passions willingly. I dont know if surrender is door 1 or 2 at this point...

'cause i miss you

So.
I just miss my friends, I guess. It's increadible to me that I can go through a whole day, and all I seem to think about is how I wish I could jump on Paul's back, or grab Tas's face, or tickle Kurtis's back... I miss Nick's easy way, and how Rosie knows EVERYTHING, and how James smiles like a crazy person when he's intoxicated. I miss Megan for her silliness, and Corey's way of making everyday at Jamba Juice not suck.
And I miss Akasha. I miss how she knows me, all the way deep. She can make me smile when I want to kill myself, she brings me beauty in handfuls, and she has my sense of humor, and my way of opening her heart to life. Get us together and we laugh and argue and tell each other secrets. It's a rare sister that becomes your best friend, and she is certainly that.
All my friends are dear to my heart... they hold bits of my life in their hands, like puzzle pieces, and I feel incomplete without them.
That is all.

only love is all maroon

It is an amazing world we live in, and I can't help but be thankful for it all. The sun is shining, the wind is shaking the leaves of the tree outside, and I can almost smell the salt in the air.

I listen to music, feel the beat reverberate within me, shaking up my soul and pulsing with my heart. It makes every moment fuller, like an art piece. I can lay back on my comfy couch and close my eyes and breathe the music in.

Has anyone else felt that way? Yes, I am sure of it. That's part of the beauty of music. It touches everyone, somewhere within them. I have turned up Tool and sat with a friend and sang every word, involuntarily orchestrating the music with my free hands. I have rolled down the window as I drove through LA, Bob Dylan peeling away the dirty layers and revealing the spirit of the city to my plain eyes. The minutes I laid in peace with a boy, my head in his lap and wishing the world were just a little bit different, with Bon Iver breaking our hearts... I have danced with a distant aquaintance who became fused in my memory as the only boy who has asked me to dance. I have let go of all inhibition and body-slammed the nearest stranger, I have leaned into the arms of my lover, I have pushed myself just a little farther, all due to some song or another. And I can remember each song...

Music is the Great Uniter, the Shifter of Paradigms, the Eraser of the Mundane. And if for some reason you want to revisit your past, you want to hold the memory on your tounge and swallow it, tasting it all the way down... just put on the song that was playing. You won't be able to escape it

i have never seen a more beautiful thing

fever ray

The song is 'When I Grow Up' and it is worth watching the video.
Look it up, please.



When I grow up
I want to be a forester
Run through the moss in high heels
That's what I'll do
Throwing out a boomerange
Waiting for it to come back to me

When I grow up
I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
That's what I'll have
Staring at a seashell
Waiting for it to embrace me

I put my sould in what I do
Last night I drew a funny man
With dark eyes and a hanging tounge
It goes way bad
I never liked a sad look
From someone who wants to be loved by you

You've got cucumbers on your eyes
Too much time spent on nothing
Waiting for a moment to arise
The face in the cieling
And arms too long
I'm waiting for him to catch me

Waiting for you to embrace me

where i live

I live in a place where the train comes through on the hour, rattling on its tracks and shaking the mirror on my bedroom wall. Sometimes Marc’s car alarm goes off when the freight train passes at nine, and he has to run to his keys to press the stop button. Last night was one of those nights.
Anyway, I live in a place where the sunlight hit’s the leaves of the eucalyptus trees and bounces into our window, giving our apartment a green tinge, like an aquarium. But the light is rich and golden, and smells like the eucalyptus it reflects. I am in love with that smell. It smells like oil and deserts and wind. It makes me think of Santa Cruz, and where my step-dad lived. I cant think of a better smell. Maybe the smell of wet skin after a shower.
There are other trees outside. A pine, go figure. And a tree that my grandma thinks is a banyan tree, even though it almost certainly is not. That tree, the not-banyan tree, is Nani to me, and she is an old wise tree that pricks your palm before she lets you sit in her branches.
I live in a place where the pears are allowed to ripen all the way before you eat them, and where pasta is both lunch and dinner. A place where mold grows in the tub like paint, and the parking lot floods when it rains. I live in a paradise, an inspiring place. I cross the street and walk miles until I see the ocean, and then the walk is worth it.
I live in a place where there is always music playing, something soft and nostalgic, or hard and reviving. Sometimes it is played over speakers, sometimes in earphones, sometimes its Marc playing his guitar for no reason but the joy of creating sound. It is a place that hugs you with its plush furniture and rich colors, a place that points its finger at you when you have left the dishes undone. Again.
I live in a place where dreamcatchers hang over the bed, where pillows are numerous and highly sought-after. It is a place that longs for peace, where the couch is just as comfortable as the bed and slept on just as often. It's a place where books are treated like gold and paper like silver, and the tv is never on because there is no tv.
I live in a place where I cut my fingernails to the skin, where make-up is optional and rarely worn, where silence is held as precious and broken like your grandmother's china as the train rolls by, on the hour, rattling it its tracks...

new music

I am not sure I am the person I was yesterday. I have changed, something in me has been replaced by a ... by something new. I cannot yet grasp what it is that has changed in me, but I am different.
Things are richer. Life is better. Friends are more dear. I am cherishing every breath. There is music in this world that can only be heard by those who know how to listen for it. I feel like I have only just begun to hear this music, the dancing notes of a heart, the spiraling melodies of time.
Thank God for this life, and for the lives before, and the lives after. I want nothing more than to open my dancing heart and reveal it to my God.

this chance for beauty

abstract
ab-stract
adj.
1. Considered apart from concrete existence: an abstract concept.
2. Not applied or practical; theoretical. See Synonyms at theoretical.
3. Difficult to understand; abstruse: abstract philosophical problems.
4. Thought of or stated without reference to a specific instance: abstract words like truth and justice.
5. Impersonal, as in attitude or views.
6. Having an intellectual and affective artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content or pictorial representation:

beauty
beau-ty
n.
1. The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.
2. One that is beautiful, especially a beautiful woman.
3. The combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind

I believe, by this definition, that all beauty (the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind) is actually abstract ( considered apart from concrete existance; difficult to understand)
Yet beauty is there, you can feel it in your spirit, in your heart. I believe it is God's way of enlightening the world (bringing light in). But I read somewhere that it is a gift of the higher aspects of one's being when one can see beauty in all things. In even the grotesque, or mundane. It is easy to see the beauty in a sunset, or a flower, or a star. How many of us can find the beauty in human tragedy, in the suffering of souls? Who among us can look at the image above and think "That is truly beautiful"?

spring: an ode to newness

A thousand pieces of a thousand petals, 

drifting on the breeze 

like ashes from the fires. 

As if it were summer, 

those hot days at the river, 

and I can press the petals on my skin 

like pages of my favorite novel. 

Instead it is nearly spring, 

the winter dewing and wetting the tall grasses. 

I can feel the maiden season dripping over my roof, 

her blushing cheeks the pink new sky. 

Brave blossoms are budding, 

daring the bitter winter wind still blowing. 

The sun only now peeks its sheepish face 

around the corners of the clouds. 

It is time for newness,

for change and rebirth,

for the old to feel young again.

It is time for the sweetness of life to return, 

for the warmth to kiss away the cold.

It is a new season for lovers,

for those flushed winter faces to be replaced

by freckles and drops of sunlight.

I sweep the front step,

climb the nearest tree to sing,

gather up all those past transgressions and offer them up 

like flowers 

to a God that smiles.

I sew new buttons on my old good shirt,

pressing the simple cotton to my lips.

In short, 

these are the days of life. 

These are the hours of life.

These are the minutes and moments of life.

I shall take them and say Good Morning.

an opening

It happens when you least expect it, a grand opening of spirit. Your heart flutters like a bird in a cage, wings beating against the bars. And then suddenly the whole world is new. Everything is brighter, everything is clearer. You can see the dew on a spiderweb and it nearly makes you cry. 

I turned to my left, and there was his face, his eyes alight with love. I saw God there, or an echo of God within him, and he pulled me in and I was flying. No more bars, the wings of my heart pumped expertly and I was up in the air, attached to nothing, riding the sky on great white wings.