In Repair

Another rediscovered blurb + a soundtrack to the message.


Being alone sucks sometimes, but we've got the rest of our lives to be with someone. The world is your gift so get out there & feel the things that only the brave feel. Succumb to your surroundings until your longings keel over & passions break free. Exhaust this world of all its got. Saturate yourself in something new & for that moment you are impervious to pain.

Some things can only be experienced by those driven by loneliness for answers...driven by the hopes that such feelings exist. Love is boundless & it's bleeding with possibility. There's no box, no boundaries... The unexpectedness of who we'll flicker souls with next is exhilarating & worth all the work of surviving without constant companionship.

Life is transient & it is that which makes it beautiful. Acknowledge the fact that happiness is not always tied to people or things. Let your environment be your lifeblood & take time for yourself to extract all its juicy marrow.

the breakfast blog

I wrote this blurb a few months ago & had forgotten about it. I stumbled on it this morning during my cereal & hot tea breakfast...


there's something beautiful about being young and brokenhearted...your passions are really free to latch onto the trade winds of desire...sometimes living through the questions severely amplifies our perceptions of our surroundings. all of a sudden, a rainy day becomes so much more than that. all of a sudden, it's that moment of quiet reverence taken to settle ourselves before the storm... it's all we need to sustain us. the weather becomes a savior, a companion...a saturation of soul into something bigger than heartache.

suddenly, the question itself supersedes our heart's desire for an actual answer. I'm proud to be a wayfarer...a vagabond girl. not getting the answers to those questions makes us who we're meant to be....some mysteries are custom fit for us & some will never be resolved, but therein lies the beauty.

we are byproducts of all that is unanswered in our hearts...& we're free to blindly feel the world over with our senses behind the wheel. living the questions is much more enjoyable than trying to force a wrong solution. so explore all those holes in your own life & be thankful for the cracks in your soul's hidden window... recognize that sometimes, its better to let the cracks & questions mold us into something more resiliently beautiful.

Let's go camping!

Pics of Hanging Rock State Park NC... where an upcoming camping trip will take place with my buds & I.





I'm already there in my mind.

Vol 112, Issue 1

(Blue Ridge Mtns. NC 2007 - sis on top of the world!)

A poem written by a UNCG student. And I'm majorly diggin it!

Fires in the Valley

I am waiting for the days
when night will fall & lead me down
beaten moonlit paths,
cutting through jungle vines & palm
fronds bigger than hippo snouts,
when the heat will drag my body,
a heavy mass of melted clay,
up & down the twisted mountainsides
& the fires in the valley
will send shivers through my heart
because a spirit is unable to remain quite calm
on feverish Indian nights like these
& a body cannot sit still
when it is finally in the place it yearns to be.

verbal diarrhea

Ok, so I've been doing a lot of free writing lately & on Tuesday night, I helped myself to a few top notch brews (Bell's Two Hearted Ale + Sierra Nevada Pale Ale)... While in my semi drunken stupor, I wrote the following... I thought about making a poem out of it, but I'm too lazy & I kinda like it the way it is:


i've been doin a LOT of art lately. this can mean only one thing... art keeps my worried mind quiet. my art is the product of a frustrated heart. my art keeps me a busy bee, too busy to see whats underneath. the work keeps me blind to the hurt my heart is trying to get to me... work keeps me safe from the truth...being focused on projects chokes the truth raw. the floodgates of secret pangs gush out any form of progress. the stars and headlights of cars. the diagram of my hearts constellations... my wall's running out of room and i'm running out of excuses. it comes soon, i'm used to being one with affliction but that doesn't mean i welcome the pain. i'm abstaining from inner shades of blue. my heavy heart takes refuge in the layers of my creativity.i plunge deeper into the work. filling my time with diversion. the more i create the more i shut away. constant investment in self preservation. art is an excuse to keep whats bubbling underneath oh so still on the surface. it keeps me sane, it keeps me strong. it sustains me. the infamous outpouring of emotion. my curse and my salvation. the louder the colors, the more elaborately my mind is bent.....the more i'm holding in, the more i should be confronting the subcutaneous storms of my heart's horizon. the more i throw out at the world- the more i resist the travailing downpour that breeds within. my true passion takes any form of artistic freedom. my creative motor hums hardest during my desperate stand offs with reality. if there's something welling up under my surface..you'll know it. thats when i strangle myself with a need to be busy with projects. the artistic process my savior..but also, my barometer for the intensity of pain to come.

that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of stuff

i've been repeating "Landslide" from the Fleetwood Mac Live LP (1980) & it got me to thinking...

the older we get the harder it is to know anything about love. we think we know. we act above the childish ways of first love...but i'm starting to realize, we really don't know shit. age brings complication. i think young love, the greenest of the green, gets the closest to showing us how it should be. as we get older, we're only getting more cautious, more practical.

practical? ugh, i HATE that word. i'm satisfied with going it alone because i've been all to familiar with that one dreaded word... practicality will not be an ingredient in my next love potion.

give me something reckless. something bold enough to not make sense. i'm tired of planning for the future. i'm tired of the notion that love means being economical. give me something cocky, something loud, & something unjaded. let's go against the grain & hold out for that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of stuff!

12 x 15

(photos courtesy of Concrete Cowgirl)

The older I get, the more my childhood home becomes its own wilderness. I stay up late in this 12x15 jungle & get lost in the thickets of my mind... Draped in secrets, I blanket this old ceiling with question mark clouds.


My room looks like A.C. Moore's schizophrenic sister... littered with colors & textures & mistakes. New projects begin before others finish & coffee breath scorches tangerine walls.


Here, isolation is my armor. Silence is my switchblade. And solitude nurses the scrapes of inquisition marred on the skin of my youth.

01-01-10

The first day of the New Year is up and at-em. Now, I'm not going to pledge all my 2010 resolutions, but I am going to post a bundle of some of my favorite quotes... hoping to stir hidden passions & light a fire under all our asses. Let's make twenty-ten the year we find that certain lust for life we had as children. Stay open. Stay vulnerable. Stretch yourself...



"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Albert Einstein


"True feeling justifies whatever it may cost." May Sarton


"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle


"I've come to learn that the only real pressure is the pressure you put on yourself." Pete Sampras


"To err is human, but it feels divine." Mae West


"So in a world dominated by the digital, the metronome I listen to beats inside of my chest." RJD2


"Do you want to be an artist & a writer, or a wife & a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings." Stevie Nicks


"Every man dies, not every man really lives." Braveheart


"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always." Rainer Maria Rilke


"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind." Leo Buscaglia


"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself." Anais Nin


"For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice." T.S. Eliot

M-E-L-O-D-Y

I think Kate & I should be BFFs... officially.
http://www.myspace.com/kateearl


No matter what has ever come to me
I got my own brand of company
I got da da da inside my head
And i play songs back to back until i got to bed...

...Wandering, waking in an empty wood
It is quiet here, I am powerful
I look down below serenade the world
From inside my soul

My top 3 according to itunes...

There's nothing better than waking up after a full nights rest on clean sheets... Now I've got my coffee and I'm listening to some music in my itunes library. Just curious, I clicked the play count tab to see what songs I've habitually gravitated to over the years. I was impressed (but not surprised) with what the numbers revealed. Here's my top 3 according to itunes:

1. In Your Atmosphere - John Mayer


2. I Still Care For You - Ray Lamontagne


3. Secret - Maroon 5

Battle Studies Premiere

Ok, so this is my first album review... here goes!

During my first run through of the track list, I'll have to say that only two songs really stuck out to me. The rest seemed like one giant blur of calm, simplistic sounds... Definitely not what I was expecting after devouring his previous bluesy beast of an album:Continuum.

One of my immediate favorite tracks was Assassin & after immersing myself in Battle Studies for the past two days, I feel that an assassin is exactly how this album operates. Simple, genuine, soft spoken... then WHAM! You're done for.

His 2nd track, All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye, brought out emotions in me that have obviously been lying in wait. That's where I think John gets it right every time. Honesty always prevails... An artist brave enough to broadcast his vulnerabilities will always draw out honest emotions in the listener. John never fails to uncover all those things I work so hard to avoid & bury deep within myself. His music is infectious because of that.

As the tracks progress, I feel as if it subconsciously draws out more & more of me with it. An immensely mature sound, paired with his heartbreakingly honest lyrics leave me wanting just that: more!

I drift & die during tracks like Heartbreak Warfare, Half Of My Heart, Perfectly Lonely, & Edge of Desire. Truly great music pushes us to explore & question the depths of our own lives, love stories, & self sacrifices. Simply said, John Mayer's art validates & sustains me throughout all the transitions in my life.

I live for music that makes me sink & swell into a restlessness for something more... & Battle Studies is doing just that.

The only fault

It's a rainy day & I've got my usual coffee, pancake, & music goin on... Then I came across this song, or rather this song came across me. Half listening, the opening lines hooked me & I immediately searched lyrics. Rachael is a refreshingly free artist as well as a graceful lyricist. The only fault I found in this song is that it only lasts 4 minutes.

Tuesday Oct. 13, 2009

Photo from atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris. summer 08'

Life's storms are bound by nature to rumble and threaten rain, but a soul that has weathered the storm before knows this. And if there's one thing this soul has learned; it's endurance. Endurance with a thankful heart brings grace... To be ambushed by adversity is a blessing.

My memories museum

I think we should all strive to live richly. Never overlook an opportunity to create a memory. The legacy of a life truly enjoyed will reverberate across the walls of time the same way the melody of a transcendent song bleeds over into new generations.





Pics taken one fall day with my sister back in my hometown of Newton, NC. Good memory. :)

Drake: Fear

Dont believe the lies.
Look me in my eyes.
Please don't be scared of me.

I remember you.
This feeling isn't new.
So please dont be scared of me.

The Sultry Escape

I was supposed to study all day... this is what happened instead.


The Sultry Escape

Cold feet, dark bottles, & heat
she taps to the street's
seductive bold beat.

The moonlit march sinks
summer wishes, & hopeful spoons
in dirty dishes.

Fuming with rush &
childhood blush, frail flowers must crush
in the tread of contingency.

Old faces were flushed as the
sensuous strut left an honest lush
on the kitchen floor.

Not studying paid off... this poem will soon appear in UNC-Greensboro's bi-annual arts magazine ! Ka-Ching :)

Rootless Tree

Damien Rice may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the way he plays is just so fearless. Every word is drenched in passion and intensity...

I think that's the main thing that draws me to this artist. He bares all. Unafraid of hurting those who have hurt him. Unafraid of exposing himself for his art. Unafraid of using his pain to fuel his fiery music.

Your Mother's Quilt

Another summer rain
trickled over the stain and
sent me steeping
into older kettles.

Another severed season,
August themes stir
autumn dreams
that will fade into winter.

The changing leaves brought us back
with stained socks and heavy breath,
that raggedy couch our sanctuary
sacred exchanges beneath your mother's quilt.

Another evening storm stained
my transparency white, like
the paint under my fingernails.

Another fated fall
left its mark,
on the only part of me
that is brittle and clear.

(photo courtesy of Concrete Cowgirl)

Yogi T

My absolute favorite Yogi Tea tab-message ever.

My Twin

Inspired by In my craft or sullen art by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, I try my hand at poetry... it's also the prequel to a poem I've been working on called Your Mother's Quilt.

My Twin

Someone once said
that lover's lie abed
on spendthrift pages and
stanzas ridden with guilt.

My youthful flowers wilt
on your mother's old quilt,
toxic with words once
whispered and spilt.

Never again to be tangled in
another lover's covers,
my Twin is my twin alone.

Born to suffer that cast-iron fate,
we cast out all others and
test the solidity of our will.

And so this lover lies abed
with the warmth of her quilt alone,
a dream of ashen petals on her bed
leaves a quilt long set in stone.