When A Girl Must Educate Herself

–Judge a man some by the books on his shelf, but more by the books in his head.–
Reading was the beginning of an awakening of who I am to become. The privilege of an education, this is what books have offered to me. Writing has been the fruit of sheer delight found in that creative world. I am writing to express what influence the education of books had on me.
My childhood, though I hold no bitterness, was a very religious one. All books afforded me were written from that perspective; I hardly knew there was another perspective to hold! All of this changed, however; like a sun that had been trying to rise for 14 years, the beauty of humanity shone upon me in the form of books. I was given books by friends. The first of which was the infamous Into the Wild. My initial judgment was that it was dangerously delightful. I copied huge portions into my journal. What my whetted appetite also found were Jack London’s Call of the Wild and Sea Wolf, Che Guevara and his motorcycle. Adventures and the things normally lost in time were all written down for me to read. Crime and Punishment, Nietzsche’s Superman, Kierkegaard’s despair, Sons and Lovers, Frankenstein, WALDEN, Jane Eyre, Brother’s Karamazov and the list goes on.. I do not list these books to impress. I only list such readings so that my reader may try to imagine what an effect such works of art had on my “looked-after” intellect (Again, I say this without bitterness toward my respectable upbringing). My hunger for life was ignited in the most innocent of ways. How can I explain the feeling? Everything became possible. The unknown became sweet to my soul; “Explore!” was the cry rising from a place deep within. I was freed by men I have never met; this is the power of the pen.
My awakening found its groaning consummation within the pages of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. My mind exulted in all he had to say; not in the sense that I feel I have much in common with Stephen Dedalus (though I felt that as well), rather, I found comfort in the universal experience of despair and I rejoiced in his. I was not alone, yet I am so alone. It was a beautiful book.
The experience I have attempted to describe is what I think of as my education. You may protest here and say, “What of science, history, and mathematics?” Science, history, and mathematics all contributed to the experience in their own way, but they excite me less. However, it is also a fact that the subjects in question are themselves found also within books, and so can be included in all I said above, a book of science and math should be among the books I pick up regularly. Education should be an exploration, never simply a lecture to be swallowed whole. The first creates individuals, the second has created armies.
I am the eyes reading the words that would never be spoken to me otherwise. I am the seeker. To my credit, I am not afraid of what I find. It is my future to help others do the same–to explore. Know thyself.

Admit No Defeat

Compassionate. Passionate. Passion Fruit. Words and names are funny. The fruit of Passion is memory and tangibility. Here are some tangible words on a screen for the passion that wells inside.

It is our plight and our delight to express ourselves. What can we say for ourselves if we do not mirror our love-like lusts?

I am intoxicating myself seeing the people rioting out their disgrace. For the most part we are a people of meaning without meaning. I adore the street lights and the night lights. I care deeply for the falling snow and for the swollen lipped. A brave thought was born on a street of Concord.

Expressionation. Create me. Caress you.  The less understood things become the more defined my steps become, but fading out are my relations.  Normal people Normal monsters normal night. Step aside while I rise famously. Only when I stop do I truly begin.

We lust. We love. We lust. Into a bedroom we scramble.  Sex expressing the wordless boys passing desire. Be not ashamed, only do not wonder at your pain when it is inexpressible, fallen off the bed into the carpet, tangled up in it, tangled up in a wordless night spent in a bed.  Freedom is falling with the mind. Freedom is doing that which will destroy you. I am born again every morning.   King of My World. I admit no defeat.

I am drawing my line into the ever progressing story of life. I hope to put words side by side that where never put side by side before or aft. I will have marked the ferment, scared it, shaped it.  And when I am done talking I will let you pour into me with the fury of your soul stuff. I open up for you to come inside, into my calm mind bring your tempting ways. Tempest, Tempt, Test.

I have no regard for correct grammar or for order. Chaos. Riot. Violate. Close your mouth and defy gravity by keeping your heart above the context. Fall in love daily and as often as possible, healing from the disease of idle hours spent other pleasing, rather be pleased. We shake our heads of hair and roar in our hearts. You know who you are my brothers and sisters. Public Self-Acceptance! Now make the choices you know you must and do the things you know you hate to get to the place you want to be. Evolution involves death.  Become giant, become the humans of the future.

A discussion with God left out is defiant. Defy all you wish but think careful to defy the God that gave you power to defy.  I may be a small woman ill with life, but alas, my caution stands. It is here that my line is drawn. God or else doom is the after taste of sweet life. Too beautiful are the threads that tie life to itself for me to become that downcast.

Compassionate. Passionate. Passion Fruit. Words are funny. Eat the Fruits of Passion but Passion Fruit is still just a fruit. I enjoy the slightly less than sane; Insanity keeps us all sane. The youth of America are strange and sane with their insane music, crazy rebellion, vain attempts at happiness, and their long lives of cigars, margaritas, and military boots coming down from the ticking of the future.

The thought that connects this slew of wordy words is that i refuse to put myself on hold. I will continue to speak even if, in the speaking, I break apart. I will begin again tomorrow. Define me today, change is tomorrow, I am renamed every moment. Begin begin again and on and on and on.

Music

Haunting the mind, it’s here and then it’s gone; an audible emotion, always moving, never still.

I am addicted to the sound of drums and guitars and voices of people I will never meet. It’s an irrational peace in hearing that other people feel the joy, pain, pride, lust, anger. Sensation. Possession of nothing but the experience. Turn it up!

Words come close to the magic of music; meaning and feeling flowing from the pen, provoking thought and saluting freedom. AH! Sell me tomorrow at the price of today. I will savor each moment just try and stop me.

The Way I See It:

Understand me when I say sorrow is needed to be strong.
Things done wrong give us the chance to move on.
Feelings hurt make way for feeling healed.
Pain is the mother of many lessons.

Understand me when i say being strong is needed in sorrow.
There are two ways to show your worth.
Giving up, and keeping on.
There is one way to give up but many ways to keep going.
Keep the fight alive. never never never let it die.

Understand me when i say sorrow and strength often go hand in hand.
No one can go through life alone.
The walls you did create can only strangle hope’s life.
Faith is the rumor of things you hope for.
Hold on my friend, sorrow is needed to be strong.

The way I see it, there are two ways to live.
Being strong is a life style.
Giving up is a life style.
Choose. Change. Overcome. Strive. Thrive.

Have you ever felt that burning sensation in your chest that sparks and pulsates with life around you? Have you watched a leaf, in the fall, loose its final grip from its branch and start out on its journey? Fluttering, swirling, twisting, and finally landing. Have you ever watched rain drops disturbing every square inch of a small pond? Breathed in at the exact right moment and smelt a slight hint of mint or rosebush from somewhere? Do these things totally escape your notice? They escaped mine for the longest time. My mind was a madhouse. Always full. Always running. Always planning. Always moving. Never still. Going. Going. Going. Going. Going. But where? I knew I was headed somewhere and that someday it would settle down and id be able to enjoy that great destination I arrived at, wherever that may be. I promise there will never be here and here will never be there. Until we stop trying to find a better time in space than right here and right now dissatisfaction will define our lives. I am convinced of this. Granted hard times will come and life won’t be enjoyable, but those times are the most valuable of all. A simple smile is more beautiful to the lonely than the greedy. When I am low I find my high. Enjoy life for what it is. Accept forgiveness, give freely, seek god, and never, never give up. The way I see it each moment holds something to gain. To be specific, not something we are given but something if we choose can gain. Live, love, cry, laugh, forgive, learn, seek, find.

I am a Writer- July 2008

I want to be a writer. And not just an ordinary writer. I want to write stuff everyone will want to read. Novel stuff that describes things and says things that no one has ever thought about before. Open people’s minds to things in a whole different plane of reality not yet explored. I feel the poetry in my hair and in every pore of my being. The theories are lurking back there in the recesses of my mind. The words to make the mundane, all of the sudden, exiting and creative. I want to write what I see in people’s eyes. I want to capture the human soul on paper. The task set out before me is reaching impossible. But with my task I’ve a passion that burns within me like a never ending reminder that I have things to learn, to capture, and to share with anyone who will listen. To be emotionless is to be dead. I want to be alive and feel everything to its fullest extent. When I am in pain I believe I can write the best. My emotions become impossible to keep in and so they spill forth onto paper in a way I could never do while in a pleasant mood. Writing is my release and my way of keeping my moral character. Everything I write is a part of me. A strand of my soul that was decoded into readable form. I could never write a lie. Not everything I write is true. But everything I write is honest. I am passionate and easily swayed. I love a lot and hate very little. I love everyone who is unashamed of themselves. I am moody. But not very emotional. I am level minded and don’t mind that I am misunderstood. Those who have seen me for who I am know I am not easy to predict and impossible to label. Deep things intrigue me to no end. Eyes fascinate me. I am a hopeless romantic. To be understood is to feel love. To be forgiven is to be loved. I am guilty of all the things I hate. I am a writer. May God bless me in my endeavors to write the things that have been left unsaid.

Old Poem

I wish to be alone.

Pen and Paper freshly cut,

Ink stained tree, come and see.

Peircing me because i am not,

capable of such divine thought.

I lament on thoughts inward.

I rejoice the considerations,

Genlte, wise, and noble are they!

The daily thoughts of some,

fill the eye with awe- suprise.

No reason, or goal to start.

Nearly absorbed, so many are you,

I am your humble learner.

Short order i am through,

I must live the ocean, her waves.

Wisdom come me, so i can survive.

Living in a dreary state, so far.

Life show me your sanity, maybe

then ill see the truth i long to compose,

set free in me of old. Empty,

Empty, only to be filled.

I will live the ocean, her waves.

I am in a sort of anguish, twisting,

I hold a multitude of secrets.

Still mysteries to me, How can it be?

Desiring an escape, limitation.

Lacking the channels on which,

to let my spiritual child-soul be birthed.

Oh you my teachers! Teach me this.

To end in an untimely resignation;

A complex verse on love i found..

Assert all strength, like the oceans,

Gentle as a kiss to the nose.

Boiling my blood, no one is there,

to know my song of gentle rage.

To speak of love is absurd,

Yet I relish the knowledge, love.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Bowing low you ask my name. Lean to kiss my hand? Shaping my thoughts by your every move. Ladies and Gentlemen there is power in every action. The source of what defines live and death, good and bad, smiles and frowns. Grace filled lady? Gentleman with kind eyes? Open your eyes.

You smiled through your words. Sharp eyes with nothing to hide. I step up to challenge your authority. Clear minded i pass you by everyday with nothing to say. Waiting for the unspoken word to find their target. Until then Ladies and Gentlemen. Lady of grace who waits. Man of Faith who seeks. There is power in every word said or left silent.

Carefree and sure. i want to know can you show me? Dance with me! laugh with me! My happiness starts with your smile. Choices don’t phase these hearts who are free. Yes there is power in our actions. But there is also power in our reaction. Mistakes laughed about are mistakes rarely made again. Good Sir, shall we dance? Sublime.

Ladies and Gentleman search for your hearts. Search for God. How will you find what is not looked for? Sit back no more. Ladies and Gentleman. girl. boy. father. mother. lover. fool. wiseman. im talking to you. Power is in your hands. What will you do now?

Apparently I am having a love affair with wind, this is my 6th journal entry on the matter.

 Wind awakens much in me.

She is a mistress to 10,000 men.

It could not ask to be more free.

I was asked today, by my youngest sister, how the wind makes me feel- ”it makes me feel many things”, she said. (clever child)

I am as restless as the wind.

She takes a little weight off my flight.

I think I love the wind, she is never finished speaking.

Never home for long.

I am calmed by the wind, she is carrying on a job I otherwise feel is mine, my subtle instinct to fly.

It is like kisses to my face, or quiet words in my ear. I shall say then, the wind is comforting.

A presence forgotten in absence.

I feel anxious to live when a breeze disturbs my hair and give me reason to ponder myself and the space I take up.

The obstical I am to the wind is symbolic of my mind’s presence amongst floods of knowledge, I feel her yet I am free from her. Wind is Wonderful.

Oh earth! You are too wonderful for anyone to realize you. -Thornton Wilder

The answer, my friends, is blowin in the wind. -Bob Dylan

Saviour

Salvation on a Highway,
Silent motion in a shroud.

Catch-less breath, rushed,
Capture it, no one will fail.

Sitting motionless, suffocate,
Saviour, self in pleasant sighs.

Passing a broken sign, incomplete,
Purple skies and yellow roads, escape.

Birds flew into my horizon, happy,
Backwards I came to find, suffering.

Salvation! Opened up in a field,
Slit, lacerate, virtue was freed.

Give me open skies over black roads,
Give me Salvation on a highway.

This path is my future, crucial,
This path is my future, awaiting.

Restless Ways

 A watery rhythm; the ocean waves.

Their moods that sway, suite me well today.

Deep and slow, there are waves inside my soul.

Welling up as if to crash, yet sinking back.

What am I that I should feel,

The burning spears that silence years?

I wait perfections steady climb

Like the sea and its salty line.

The Sea does make a lovely peace

Of my restless hand and tempted eye.

The seashore knows, with my secret she goes

Maybe to touch a foreign land

To set foot on foreign sand

Than seeks again a restless way

Sinking back into the scene of salt and grey.

I am conflict, in me are oceans and waves.

If when I stop my vagrant ways,

It will be to love beside the oceans and her pretty ways.