The Expansiveness of Art is Boundless

"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." --Eugene Delacroix

You rise and set
and I’m sure I do not know
why you bother with me.

You hold East and West
distant ever--unfortunate lovers--
You set the waves to harbor
and each pebble on the beach
has an ancient name.
And here I am.
I will never be ancient
though I was formed with timeless magic
I will pass from life to death
with almost no notice at all
and I’m sure I do not understand
why you bother with me at all.
I have simple few moments to follow
out to the end
and in those moments, I rarely walk
tall and graceful and proud
I stumble awkwardly
a perpetual fawn trying to gain footing
I am ever skeptical of beauty and truth
always questioning the universe
as if all the answers would be revealed
to a child-brain
that wouldn’t comprehend it
You are gentle with me
and I count it harsh.
You are bold to impose your goodness on me
and I name it punishment.

The million tiny noises of the morning
are powered by your breath
you hear each chirping bug
each trilling bird
and this chorus is how I sense Your delight.
You are the rhythmic beat of
my heart
its time is kept at Your center--
You who command the moon’s cycles
with precision and balance,
with power that could crush
my life to dust with a word
but You are not a careless God.
You are bark of the tree
going up and up toward the sky
and down and down to the
turning life of the earth
and I‘m sure I’ll never know
Why you bother with me at all.

Back to 1956...or at least the 1990's

I went on an adventure that took me all around the city of Greensboro. It consequently introduced me to office suppliers in the city who have been in the business since before I was born. The goal of this excursion: find a replacement ribbon for my grandmother's 1956 Adler-Royal typewriter, which I recently inherited. This machine is a gorgeous piece of history. It speaks of a time when things moved a little slower: I have to be careful, precise, deliberate as I push the keys I require one at a time. But the enchantment that the piece holds for me goes quite beyond its historical significance. It is a precious memory: the wild waking of the creative in my child self cheered on by my Grammie. My grandmother encouraged my writing. She was eager for me to pull out her typewriter and set it on the desk nestled before a window that overlooked her still, green back yard. She would check on me every once in a while to see stacks of paper--littered by stately letters side by side with black blotted mistakes--growing like a miniature Tower of Babel on the floor. Even when she wasn't at my shoulder, I could feel her approving gaze urging me on. It didn't really matter what I wrote--I think we shared this realization. I don't remember her asking to read the finished work. I'm not even sure where those discarded bits of language went. It was more about the act of creating than it was the end result.The weight and resistance of the keys, their ancient ivory color, the punch of letter meeting paper as each finger flew up to add its beat to the rhythm of the writing song--indulging my fascination of these things could have been the entire goal. Today, I tap out a disconnected string of words, just to hear the familiar beat once more after more than 10 years. The machine is a willing partner in the inspired process: ready to be admired, it stands at attention like a seasoned soldier, eager to say something new in its old voice. Somehow it has evolved even while sitting dormant for so long--now I hear in its aged tapping the voice of my grandmother. It endures, this lovely, antiquated thing. And all the more loved because it is not for its necessity that it is cherished.

Unexpected Creativity

I don’t know why I absolutely had no motivation today for anything other than making a coffee cake.
I just felt in my bones that it would make my day so much better.

Then, as I mixed ingredients, I felt compelled to capture, to hold on to the texture and color of the soft lumps of sugar and butter forming rocky terrain across the bowl. While I was snapping some photographs, I realized that I was being creative. I was creating. Not just an edible something, but also a record of the experience, noticing the small things, like the complexity of a grain of sugar, the mystery of egg refusing to mix with milk without the force of a beating fork, the contrasting color of spilt cinnamon against the granite of the counter.
Perhaps this is what The Artist’s Way (by Julia Cameron) means about living creatively—that it is the natural order of things; we just have to remember what that feels like. I love it—it makes me feel less unproductive, to see writing a beautiful e-mail to a friend, photographing a baking experience, putting things in order, mixing a salad for lunch, as part of my creative life.

In the distance, it rises

inhaling and exhaling

ah, a quiet class room day. time to think. space to breathe. breathe, breathe.
i love the word breathe.
it looks how it sounds (eeeeeeattttthhhheeeeee),
sounds how it looks. saying it is the action itself.
and breath as well, because it is curtailed
by itself: just one burst of air.
but i like breathe better because it is the kind of inhalation and exhalation i want to do.
a breath deep enough to last over all those consonants and all those vowels.
a breath that makes your whole self rise as you are filled,
then you deflate, fall, relax as you release it
and your muscles unclench
and you feel that you can start to discover the full movement of your limbs
and that you should probably get up and dance and enjoy your rebirth before
everything seizes up again.

i dont feel like myself these days. i feel more like a hollow shell
wearing the name-tag "Laura."
i dont feel joy in a yarn beautifully dyed, fantastic words like recarciate,
the feel of clean sheets or the aroma of strong coffee (with milk).
i only inhale and exhale in breaths, one abrupt gasp after another
like a fish out of water or an old train
trying to get up a hill.

this marriage

i know im not everyone's "cup of tea"
but you chose me
chose me
you know what i mean
when i say something else
and i love that i dont have to repeat myself
love laughing at jokes wordlessly shared
my telepathic friend
no one else has to understand
can understand our rhythm
but even so, this private-conversation way of ours
empowers others
because of the way
it shapes me
and shapes you

watching

i see you faintly stirring
behind the curtain of my awareness
movement stolen
from the palm of stillness
you cast light and shadow
across my thoughts
light and shadow

you are the author
whose hands create, release
cradle
you are the eyes
that watch
you are the very clay itself

porch

I follow the grains of your skin, follow them out you ancient love you wisened friend.

this is not real

i dont know why in movies, it's sexy when a woman's hair blows across her face. i've tried it before--on many occasions (sitting on the porch on a breezy evening, driving down the freeway with the windows down) and it never works like that. always in the moment, when i'm feeling the wind bring strands of loose hair brushing against my skin, i think to myself "wow, i am really hollywood right now. i'm sure i look irresistibly mysterious and thoughtful. i'm sure it is adding greatly to my overall aesthetic appearance." and then, when i steal a glance at myself in the rear-view mirror or the reflection of the sliding glass door to the kitchen, the spell is instantaneously broken. i find myself the same ol', now slightly obscured by a mess of tangled knots. somehow, rather than making my hair shiny, soft and brilliant, it has transformed it to a stringy, oily horror that sticks to my face in odd places, even when i do one of those gentle, alluring head shakes (the ones where you lift your chin just a smidgen to show your graceful neck) to loosen them.

no. i dont know who came up with that, but it is not real.

Lent: OE lencten. Spring.

I know what Lent is liturgically, but today I looked up the word because I wanted to know where it came from. That is something I have been craving lately--history. origins. Basically it means "spring" or "lengthen" because of the increase in daylight hours. It is curious to me, though, that in English, the word lent is also the past tense for "granting the use of something on the condition that it, or its equivalence, will be returned."
That's something to ponder over this month of fasting, developing new habits and shedding old ones. In some senses, this time that has been given to me, in which I live, is only on loan. Many of my problems, in fact, come from trying to immortalize the minutes that have passed and trying to determine the minutes of my future, as if they are all my own and I have a right to use them and shape them as I wish. The heartbreak happens when I realize how powerless I am to control my own Time, and that I have wasted the moments I could have spent learning to trust and enjoy in futile grasping. Hope arrives when I realize that lost chances past can be redeemed and there are more opportunities to grow ahead of me.
I am taking Lent very seriously this year. I have given something up for the past three years, but this year, I am moving forward with determination and joy, rather than obligation and dread. Could it be the changing of the weather, the lengthening of light, or the altering of my life circumstances that is making me so eager to be renewed? In some senses, I feel that I am being reinvented at this time in my life, even down to almost insignificant details like what I wear and how I do my hair. It's exhilarating...and terrifying: the famous combination of most of my life experiences. What kind of person am I?
My focus for this season of renewal is TIME. Giving up some time-eating habits to experimentally allocate those minutes elsewhere, in meditation and quiet, learning and practicing something new, and giving it to others in active, loving service. I want what I always want but never give myself--rest and quiet. But I also want to do what I talk about but often don't follow through with--to show someone love by doing something for them.
I also find myself wanting to be very aware of the process I am going through, so I'm cracking open my hand-written journal again for the season.
What a fine line it is, I am finding, between dutiful superstition and purposeful growth. I want to allow myself to bumble through the process of any church season, to be forgiving when I am not perfect, to take the good and leave the bad behind as a lesson well learned.
So you may read this and feel a sense of restriction, feel your cynicism on the rise. But when I look into this season characterized somewhat by somberness and, yes, gloom, I see shadows pierced by soft candlelight, I hear the quiet of still thoughtfulness and I sense the wonder of a mystery slowly opening outward.

Submitting a Notice

i am tired of this piling up
ready for a baring, a stripping down
ready to release my time from
this striving slavery to money
and give it to creativity
to the music and art of life
to people
i feel an urgency bordering on panic
when i look back at the hours spent in the service of income
the worry, the devotion
upholding something meant to uphold me
i survey the work of my hands
and mourn how few are the lasting things i have gathered
i am ready to release myself to the building of the eternal
and money is welcome to join me in this endeavor
but on my terms

gifts

this is going to be one of those blogs about divine appointments and questioning coincidence, just to warn you.

and dont judge me: we all look for God somewhere, at some point in our lives, so you've done the same.



the back story is this:

i left my phone at school, something i have never done in four years of working here, so i was without a convenient medium of communication last night and this morning.



i noticed this morning that i needed gas, so i stopped at the station, pulling in a little too closely to the post so that i had to squeeze out of my door. i had to maneuver my arm into the car to pop the gas tank open because i forgot to do it when i was in the car, and i had a momentary thought that it would be super bad if i locked myself out this morning since i had no phone to call mikey with. while my gas was pumping, i checked, and sure enough, i had accidentally pushed my lock down when i had reached into the car.



mikey and i went to small group last night and mikey drove; he unlocked the door for me on the passenger side, which unlocks all the doors of the car. because it is a part of my obsessive routine, i always lock the car doors when i get out of my car to go in the house at the end of the day. i dont know how or why, but mikey left them unlocked last night. thus, when i checked the passenger door, it was unlocked: voila! crisis averted.



current musing:

how involved was God in this little scenario, i wondered as i finished at the gas station and pulled back onto the road to continue my morning commute. it felt like a gift (like the time i had double booked myself and i was sick with the disappointment i was causing a friend, only to find that we had an unexpected rain that cancelled one of my plans).



a gift in the seemingly insignificant details of my morning that prevented no life-threatening inconveniences.



i know this is an especially poignant thought for me this week as i deal with yet another newly-discovered disappointment: finding myself decidedly un-pregnant. why this gift, God, and not the one i am begging of you? would i sacrifice being uncomfortable using the gas station phone, catching mikey on his way to work, being late for work, for a tiny human being to love growing in my womb (were you to offer me an exchange)? yes.



this is the type of question that many are asking as they hold you at arm's length. why this gift and not the one i am begging of you?



this morning's gift is not the only one you've given me of late. there are things happening in my life that i did not expect, that i did not truly ask for. i am on the cusp of experiencing a new freedom of exploration and creativity in my life. but i didnt beg you for this. i didnt ask for this gift. what is your rhythm of giving and withholding? it's a pattern i cannot understand or explain.



is this Time another un-asked-for gift that i will one day understand? most of the time, it feels like punishment, and pain. what are you trying to give me? what are you trying to help me understand? i hope, hope, hope that you know what you are doing.

morning routine

she swings her legs to one side of the bed to sit up with a stretch;
no sadistic beeping from a clock to shake her back into the world,
just a natural sense of readiness

the world is dark and still outside her windows,
the air cool...as far as she can tell.
will it be rain or sunshine? warm or cool?
it doesn't matter
she will wait for the day to unwrap itself like a gift

she cooks herself a morning bite,
humming in rhythm with the whir of appliances,
the only wakeful accompaniment
but eager to join in the song as always

she leans her head over the open stove,
letting the curls in her hair rise with the heat
beauty shop broiling

she is still inside
will it be rain or sunshine? warm or cool?
it doesn't matter
she will wait for the edges of the day to bloom outward
like a flower
carry it with her, enjoy its color and aroma
until tomorrow when she waits for a new day
to blossom

choosing

almost every time i am faced by an important choice,

i am transported to a remembered moment at the foot of my parent's bed. i was watching my mother gather laundry at the start of a saturday morning. if i could have conveyed to my mother the turmoil within, i just know she would have been horrified.

but there was an unconcerned look on her face when i presented my delimma.


should i go to the office with my father, who often had to work saturdays.

or should i stay at home with mom?

it was a terrible decision to make. no matter what i decided, there was a tinge of regret at the end of the day. did the other parent wish i had been around all day? what memories were made on the other side that i will have forever missed?




i feel a panic so deep that its impossible to root out and discard. i often have to remind myself of another mother-memory: her voice over the phone in my dorm room, telling me "Laura, don't live your life full of regret." She wasn't trying to help me make a decision, or even admonishing me for something i had done; she was trying to help me learn how to forgive myself for simply...making a choice.

im haggling with myself again. it's a constant back and forth that often leads me to a steaming bath, trying to find a brief respite. and im wondering: why is this so hard for me?



i'm worried that it's not in the "plan for my life."

i'm afraid ill be filled with regret and wish the decision undone.

i'm nervous about trying to explain my reasons to people...and mostly terrified they wont understand. they could be mad at me. or worst, they could say something that would make me question the decision in the first place.

none of these seem to be a root problem, though. so what ... is ... it ... exactly?

the pain that good reveals

her expressions are curious
one moment, tapping her foot with a smile
staring at the snow circling to the ground with a distant pleasure
the next, her expression pained
teary-eyed she writes
who knows what sounds she hears through those plastic headphones?
who knows what whips her from one emotion to another?
she closes her eyes,
meditating and still
a moment later, she furiously types
perhaps it helps.
id like to tap her on the shoulder
and ask--
well, what would i ask?

i imagine she looks up at me, and slowly removing one ear bud replies
"memories, good memories. they hurt.
i feel them deeper
than i did in the past
i see them with more clarity
then when they were happening.
i miss them
i want them played before me
i feel their loss like
a deceased love
their goodness
makes this pain unbearable."

compliments welcome

i am devilishly critical of


myself


and no one else more-so


this thought appeared in my mind


like a timid stranger


when i mistook a student's critical gaze


for being settled on my outift


i shook my head to rattle out the nonsense


realizing it was concern for herself, and not distain for me


in her eyes


so from now on i will


decidedly


accept the compliments i receive


about character and physical beauty


as a balm to dry skin


i will rub it in and let it soak


and enjoy the way it fills in the cracks of my


disjointed self to make me one


smooth whole again

a starbucks observation

who designed this place, i wonder? with its curving, dropped ceiling and its rows of uniform lights dangling over a counter stretching the length of the building? neatly painted pictures on canvas, that arent really painted at all. prints that look the same in every starbucks from here to seattle.

who designed shelf after shelf of beautiful ceramic, unique except for the mass quantity. row after row of syrups, organized by type, and bags of coffee categorized likewise. neat rows, neat processes, neat stacks of napkins and muffins in a straight line, parallel to pastries of a different flavor.

why do i want to bypass the barista to move the irish cream in with the hazelnut, and let the muffin types mingle? nothing inside me feels orderly. it's a mess of things, wave after wave of emotion undulating my reason and mixing up the silt so that nothing lies the same when it's calm again.

what do i want to be? this perfect, purposeful composition. not scattered, but grouped and lined up and facing the same way. am i saying that i dont want free will? the panic of the choice, the pain of the decision, the reality that there are too many variables out of my control for my decision to matter in the end? perhaps i am.

memories from a song #3

"although loneliness has always been a friend of mine
i'm leavin my life in your hands
people say im crazy, and that i am blind
risking it all in a glance
how you got me blind is still a mystery
i cant get you out of my head
i dont care what is written in your history
as long as you're here with me

i dont care
who you are
where you're from
what you did, as long as you love me

every little thing that you have said and done
feels like its deep within me
doesnt really matter if you're on the run
it seems like we're meant to be

i dont care
who you are
where you're from
what you did
as long as you love me

ive tried to hide it so that no one knows
but i guess it shows when you look into my eyes
what you did and where you're comin from
i dont care
as long as you love me baby"

i remember the moment i fell in love.

the catalyst was a lie, a desperate bid to be noticed--perhaps popular even, if my cards played out. i didnt even know who they really were besides a boy band on a billboard at the roller rink, but on one pass by their picture as we went around and around under the disco lights, i proudly pointed and said: "oh, those are my boys."

secretly, my best friend allison pearson was impressed that i was so culturally savvy even though she acted nonchalant. i wasnt even sure what songs on the radio they were responsible for, but i had to do something with her chattering away in my ear about how these four super hot guys in another band were "her boys." i was not about to be outdone.

she ditched her boys for mine in the end. we both fell head-over-heels after truly getting to know them...the natural way that people get acquainted: obsessive stalking via internet.

we each picked one out to be our own, like puppies at the pound. then we quizzed each other until we knew their backstories, favorite colors and restaurants and catch phrases. we bought magazines with center-folds to plaster over our walls. i kissed mine goodnight...i dont know about her, but i would venture to say: same.

the real gem was the coveted "all access" vhs that we rented at least once a week. once we found it, im sure no other person ever rented it again. it was hours of pure heartbreaking bliss (at sleepovers often called for the occasion) as we drooled over footage of them napping, practicing dance moves, pulling practical jokes, and stirring yogurt. every other word out of our mouths for the next two years was a quote from this beloved film.

something stirs within me as these first notes sound over the airwaves. notes that will soon have me nearly dislocating my jaw as i belt out each word, still memorized. she and i would sing those notes together and as two talented vocalists, when we got the harmonies down, it was actually something to listen to.

sorry boys, it's not the music; it's not the lyrics; it's not even your sexy sexiness.
it's the memories that fill me to the brim when i hear those familiar harmonies. the nostalgia of a time less complicated, when we could giggle and dream and enjoy. the warm longing of infatuation. the deep connection of simple friendship.

"as long as you love me" by the backstreet boys

a thursday night rendevous

I can hardly think about those fantastic nights at the Art Council’s replica Globe Theatre. They fill me with such longing that it feels like sadness. I wish for those nights, self-assured, overflowing with life and confidence and familiarity. We would arrive after dark had already settled in with its feet up for the duration. Cigarette smoke and soft light filled the air around the small wood-and-glass building, the doors thrown open to emit low tones of bass and trumpet and rolling drum beats. The cobblestone floor was uneven but deliciously cool to the touch when the sweat of a few dances led us to kick off our shoes. We were met with the expressions and words of the delighted. They led me to believe that my absence was emptiness in the room, a loss in the conversation, an unfortunately unmade memory. What did we speak of? Moments at school that I’ve already forgotten. But I do remember the dancing—the songs that played over and over and how the music became a part of me, as though it replaced the blood in my veins to move me. I knew which cobblestones to overstep, could read the language of the pressure at my back: “turn here,” “come back”; learned something new each week and made it bear my name with a unique variation by the time it was mastered. And he was the one I wanted to move with. We knew the feel of each other’s bodies, the height and length of step. The familiarity that required no thought allowed us to settle into enjoyment, to let it happen to us rather than to engineer its happening. I felt his approval like a beam of sunlight.

We would pause to greet smokers idling in conversation at the door before walking into the light and warmth: An open space with a stone floor under a high, open ceiling. We danced there in front of a rectangular stage used for occasional musical guests and the more frequent Shakespearean performance on weekend days. The usual round tables and accompanying chairs were moved to make room for bodies turning, promenading, swaying, sweating with delightful exertion to Billy Holiday and Glen Miller. On either side, overlooking the makeshift dance floor in the center of the small building, were balconies, accessible by short staircases at the end of short hallways and snug under the low part of the ceiling, shrouded by dim light and muted music. We observed the usual pleasantries before eagerly jumping into the music, meandering to the left of the doorway to order a macchiato or café breva and sipping it while standing against the long, cold glass of the windows.

The first request of a gentleman would begin that for which I chiefly came. A shy request, but an eagerly accepted one. A 17 year old, held close, gently to the body of a burly Irishman, smelling strongly of coffee and pipe tobacco. Comfortable without the pressure of exchanging words, without the awkwardness of miscommunicated steps. Hours and hours would go by, but it was never enough, and a week would pass before it was time to start the coveted ritual once more.

a 15 year old girl (in a tone of exasperation)

i want to be heard!
ive got words to speak and they may
not mean much to you
but to me they say that i am
worth something
my dog just died and my finger
got stuck in the door and Dad had to pry it open
and i am hopin'
that someone will read this and care
for what is my life if i dont
share
this moment and that with someone
and why do i have to come on
here
for people to
hear me?
hear me, value me, love me
please.

the stronger thing

it's with a cold heart that she washes down her dinner with a swallow of coke and a handful of pills
burns all the way down
she is stuck in the cog of routine as it turns
and turns
and she feels lifeless.
a series of steps she must take, her day a list of things to complete
before she can call it quits
she's ready to call it quits altogether and escape to something new
or is she?
she settles into bedsheets that feel like a cotton sack,
closing in on her, cinched at the top
she waits for rocks to be thrown in and to drown
she falls slowly under a wave of sleep
the silence, the still part of the 24 hour round and round
that she'll wake to in the morning
she's ready to say goodbye, to hop in the car and drive away
anywhere
but she hasnt convinced her body to follow her soul
even though it's crying out, it's begging, it's taking her by the hand and
trying to drag her to the door
she takes her morning dose to quiet the
raging and pleading
what is this stronger thing that holds her in place like cement?

self-hatred

is there no end to the self hatred, the self deprecation?
by the time i got to school this morning, i had already discounted every admirable quality i own
i had already begun to hate myself
the hate itself incites more hatred
damn myself for not liking myself more!

i am living in a golf-score economy
and according to my waist band, i have no currency to barter with
another reason to despise myself
thanks to living in a world of mirrors
that reflect every detail (except the ones that matter)
i can be reminded of that hourly

these rules are cutthroat
these standards are lethal

by the time i write this poem
i will have thought of other reasons to loathe Me
no discipline
no perseverance
no beauty
and cant write her way out of a paper bag.

even my self-hatred refuses to be a part of me out of disgust
and in an act of portentous independence, disembodies itself so that it can be critical from afar and
speak in third person.

look at how her clothes dont fit!
look at how one eye is wider than the other when she smiles!
look at how many chins emerge when she looks at her shoes!
she thinks she's a writer, but she cant finish a single thing she starts!

these rules are cutthroat
these standards are lethal
truly lethal