Earth-bound

Merciless tragedy
We are... graceful distortions
And angels with clipped wings--
Flying through this night on earth,
Waking up no further with the morning.

Florence in July

July 14, 2013

    It was so hot today. Walking through the Florencian heat for three hours with no water, I got a little heatsick, and felt like I was going to faint. I'm sure I was jolly company for my mother and sister, at that point... We went through the gardens, which were nice but no flowers, and then stopped by a boutique and market on the way back. An ice-cold apple has never been so good, and then I had some "limone" gelato which was ecstasy. Then we all layed down at the place for a while, gathering our strength. Octopus and pasta for lunch, biscotti and milk for dessert.
    I suppose I should talk about something other than food. We have to keep filling the AC, otherwise it burns out if there isn't any water in it. We're all getting tanner, little by little, and I feel like our legs are very strong from walking around so much. \no handsome Italians have taken us off on their vespas yet, but Ellen did get a wolf whistle today (she was wearing a crop top). I saw a very handsome Italian who served me gelato today; he smiled at me and dropped my cup (who knows what that means).
    It's strange to see dogs peeing right on the sidewalk, but there isn't any grass. People also pee on the sidewalk, probably because public washrooms cost money. There can be very foul wafts of smells in Florence, sometimes rotten eggs and sometimes excrement, but the houses and buildings are still so beautiful. I cannot pin down the city, cannot understand its many ways, which probably makes sense~it just has many ways because it has many people. And yet it is also so much the same~the same types of faces, the same cigarettes, the same heat and food, and the same peddlars hawking their wares hopefully and doggedly each day. Does no one get tired of it?
    And yet, I'm not tired. We leave day after tomorrow and I'm still intrigued. I guess that's how it should be.

Lopez lyric

Black sharp against the pearl of twilight

A heron wading, knee-deep in sheen;

Starlight breaks through a canvas shining,

Drops light like a tear on water clean.

What did I find

        Five days on Lopez island.... I feel slower, stretched out in a comfortable way. Even the clocks in the house where we stayed were all an hour late, and time seemed to slow down to oblige us all. Morning fog, quenched by a hot sun bringing the fish and bugs alive, followed by twilight's soft cloak and a stirring moon.
        The last day of our stay, I kayaked along the rough-rocked shore, encountering jellyfish, starfish, kingfishers and the occasional human. At one point, I saw a distant slick head appear, look about and then slide beneath the surface: funny how seals are so sweet-looking until they could possibly come up underneath your small craft and capsize it. A small curve of beach appeared, and I pulled up along the rocks so I could drag the kayak further up; the waves and barnacles were not helping at that point, but I managed. Out of the top of my lifejacket, my book was protruding, reminding me that I had stowed it away intending to read it on some reclusive shore. I read probably three paragraphs, of course, before I was distracted from Finding God by the massive pile of slate rocks behind me. Somewhere inside of me I was inspired by an urge to start moving rocks, to look for the bottom of the pile and whatever lay down there, covered with moss and algae. I don't know what I was looking for, or even expected, but I began industriously throwing rocks left and right, pounding out a rhythm of slate knocking against slate, and the pile shrank. Then, it appeared: a giant rock with a wide flat bottom sitting like a slug, completely immovable and non-negotiable and quite depressing if you are trying to get beneath it. Sweaty and determined, I began shoveling out sediment and pebbles from under the front and removed several small, burgundy crabs from their impending doom. At last I gave a great heave at the rock and probably a hernia to my midsection, but it began moving: like a limpet from its suction hold, it was pried from its home and I saw beneath it.... nothing. I kept digging with a sharp piece of slate, through pebbles, muck and dead crab shells, and as I hit the hard rock of the island itself I realized that I had found strength, something that cannot be given or bought, but fought for and achieved. My perseverance had paid off, and it isn't something I can explain to anyone but something inside which is different from before.

Driven

This thought that we're never enough...

There is a little voice deep inside, urging us to do better, to deserve our grace, to deserve everything....
And then we find out one day that we can always do better. Always.
       And then, from there, we find out we can always be better than we are, and that's when it begins. A tumultuous whirlpool of trying, striving, hoping, slaving and we just want to come up to breathe but then we remember, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, and so we keep fighting our way, swallowing water until our throats hurt and we can't think clearly anymore. We want to be the best, the best we can be, and of course, we can always be better... When God says, Stop. and the world stops spinning.

He says, "You don't have to live up to your full potential all the time, because you can't.
You may think you're worthless unless you're working, but my Word says REST.
Worship is not a reflection on your holiness, but Mine.
If you cannot be holy, lay down your torch and let me shine.
Don't push away the gifts that come because you feel unworthy to deserve--
Take them please because I'm trying to GIVE.
If your courage fails and your strength is dying,
Come to the one who roars strength like a lion.
Above all, don't hate yourself for things you can't do,
You couldn't save yourself, so I sent my son to save you.
You are precious, not because you buff my image til it shines,
But because you are designed piece by piece by peace of mine."

Then comes the letting go, with a sigh that moves mountains,
No striving is as powerful as peace: Truth makes unnecessary the lie,
We are free, no more whips of Pride...

Are You Listening?

We are humanity. Right? 

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, or an idealist, or maybe I don't know enough about life, but I wish humanity agreed this is not the best we can do.
Maybe I want my head in the clouds. 
Maybe I prefer to be a little clueless. 
Maybe that's how I would rather think, that we are ships built for a wider and sweeter ocean than this.
Maybe I don't believe in just the world that's right in front of me--a pale shadow of neon-lighted signs and places of pleasure as far as the eye can see.
I believe there is greater pleasure, purpose, meaning than what our eyes just want to tell us.
And that is confidence to keep hoping.
Because if there is anything I want most, it's something that is bigger than what I already know. 
More intense than I can imagine. 
More beautiful than anything my eyes can seize on this earth.
So when people say we've reached our potential, we've come to the greatest era of mankind, or that the world has never been better, I have to pause. 
Overall world hunger may have gone down.
Extreme poverty may be waning in several continents. 
We are enough for each other and we make this earth enough for us. 
But even with all the check-marks checked in this hungry world, even if everything were perfectly planned and executed and aligned and sweetened, I still wait for something.
Something outside of myself, yet near as the heart-beat of the person next to me.
Am I the only one, or is the rest of humanity listening for the heart-beat as well?
Please tell me I am not alone.

Beauty is Truth

Sometimes I can feel things of beauty so much better than I can explain them... words are not always sufficient for the depth that one needs to share an experience with someone else.

        Of course, there is always drawing and painting--both are so entirely different yet complementary to writing that sometimes it's the only way I can truly release a thought. It's best to save drawing for a time when you can't satisfy your creative state with words; then it flows and feels constructive. I have heard that a picture's worth a thousand words, and sometimes, I have to admit to the truth in that.

        Why is it that I always try to explain and describe everything? I had a friend say to me the other day that he spent much of his life trying to find a formulaic explanation for it, a sort of reason for why everything exists the way it does. But he found that after a while, the art of explaining everything got so tiring that much of the joy was taken out of things that can't be argued into rationality, like beauty, and relationships.
         The fact is, some things cannot be said: but that doesn't make them any less important and wonderful. Most of the things I can't explain are beautiful, sacred, solemn in a sense: I shouldn't soil them with my harried attempts at proving their worth through speaking or writing. They are above me, are something which can be enjoyed, loved, even tangibly felt at times, but are not captive by my descriptions of them. Undefinable, yet purely real....

          On that note, I shall say no more, and leave your imaginations to find the rest.