Hey, it's a blog!
I don't blog anymore, and I'm sorry if you care, and if you don't care... I'm sorry for myself that I haven't made the time to reflect on my life or been inspired enough to type out a few words. I wish I could share my heart with all of you who are reading this... because it feels so big right now. I feel like I've grown SO much in this last year, like I've become a new person. I feel more connected to the world and people and like I understand a little bit more than I did last year. Which is how it goes, I guess. In any case, I feel like I've lived my life this last year, and that is the most beautiful thing.
I was talking to Aaron the other day as I realized something. A year ago, I was a pretty selfish person. Self-centered. My life was lived for myself, because frankly, who else is there to live for? Friends and family, yes... I did love them and made little sacrifices for them on occasion. But my life was lived, minute by minute, for myself. But I've realized that love is a beautiful and a dangerous thing. Because it really is what we live for. Before this year I lived on my own survival and happiness, but now... I'm literally being sustained by the experience of loving and being loved by this boy. Which is insane and scary... but I've never been this happy. Maybe we're co-dependent, maybe we're just in love. Maybe none of that matters anyway.
So it's a new year and it has brought me so far from where I was. So where will this year go? Eh? I can only imagine. But I do have a few goals at least to kick things off...
I WILLLLLL:
1. practice yoga every week. Saturday morning classes at least twice a month.
2. attend contemplative prayer or some kind of lectio divina group. Check up with Dr. C on that one.
3. Save money. Live simply and pay myself back for the money I've borrowed from my savings.
4. Read up on vegetarianism. A scary thought, but one that's been probing me for a while.
5. Read everyday. From a novel, like I did when I was a kid. I didn't read NEARLY enough last year.
All of this to say, that I love you all and I want to keep writing. And I think I understand this poem now:
Lie still now
while I prepare for my future,
certain hard days ahead,
when I'll need what I know so clearly this moment.
I am making use
of the one thing I learned
of all the things my father tried to teach me:
the art of memory.
I am letting this room
and everything in it
stand for my ideas about love
and its difficulties.
I'll let your love-cries,
those spacious notes
of a moment ago,
stand for distance.
Your scent,
that scent
of spice and a wound,
I'll let stand for mystery.
Your sunken belly
is the daily cup
of milk I drank
as a boy before morning prayer.
The sun on the face
of the wall
is God, the face
I can't see, my soul,
and so on, each thing
standing for a separate idea,
and those ideas forming the constellation
of my greater idea.
And one day, when I need
to tell myself something intelligent
about love,
I'll close my eyes
and recall this room and everything in it:
My body is estrangement.
This desire, perfection.
Your closed eyes my extinction.
Now I've forgotten my
idea. The book
on the windowsill, riffled by wind...
the even-numbered pages are
the past, the odd-
numbered pages, the future.
The sun is
God, your body is milk...
useless, useless...
your cries are song, my body's not me...
no good ... my idea
has evaporated...your hair is time, your thighs are song...
it had something to do
with death...it had something
to do with love.
