How ironic that today is the first rainy thursday I can remember, and here I am...blogging. I want to be able to forget everything about my day and its requirements, but I have just realized that this is a total impossibility...between the large plant that my toddler just pulled up by its roots, and while I'm recovering and backspacing from that...she poops in her little toddler panties. Argh..motherhood calls, and the woman inside of the mother must wait a little longer to emerge.

been a long time old friend, and now that i am certain no one is reading you anymore, I feel suddenly compelled to detox my mind. in my mind today were so many memories of my other life. or, at least, a-nother life. the life i lived in high school, filled with an acetic hatred of my peers, friends, and ultimately myself. the life i wish i lived in high school tagged along to drag out the precious memoies of should-have-but-was-afraid-to moments, or rather years. this to be interupted by the voice of my husband. i am rescued, only to reel into other me. other me is the girl that i see whenever i look at another person. particularly the female other persons. she tells me about the wonderful time she is having and the dreams that were meant for my life, the unfulfilled love affairs, the music, the smoky night clubs with my cigarette only and a piano. the soul that panders entirely to self and desire, with no thought of regret. the writer, the traveler, the learner, they are all there smiling smugly. in particular i see the form of the one i love in secret. he haunts me like a ghost.
he is my future. my mystery. i cannot decide if he is real...or if i ought to admit that he isn't.
i see that my season is gone. why did god take it from me? did i take it from myself? there is no taste to satisfy here, on this point i can have no rest. my talent. as milton said, (how strongly that burns within me) it is death to hide. i wonder if my talent is merely a fabrication. for i find no solace in my husband, no encouragement there. i used to believe that i needed only to be strong and the rest would come. i do not believe that anymore. not today.
today i believe that the lies everyone told me are not lies. i built my confidence in a sandbox, and it disappeared beneath me. all the longing within me cannot produce a reality, a realization. perhaps it was grace that allowed me to be passed by every time the wind blew, and i was consious each time it did. i saw it pick the others up, the ones closest to me. it carries them still and i can only stand on the ground and point. point it out to myself, as though this were the sacred task. and yet i am not alone. not even i believe that. the one with me will stand at my side and with joy allow me to gaze upon my unfulfilled dreams, and explain to me that they matter not.

Seed

The waste of sunset
billows through the mind
insatiable, because i fed my child to the television today
the animal rights people have decided to cross over
they are eating hay on my doorstep and shouting
sesame street! and clifford, you bitch...
but I have lost my remote
and the feeling of static soothes me

And the rest
Winter

an empty chair beside the ocean
lulling the seastars to break
from their toil of understanding the sky
overstating (me)
beneath the moon, another form of control
the pearl becomes a reflection, an icon
inside your mouth, another place of rest
while the stars break upon the the sky
filled with jealous rage, for you see
they cannot be empty

Matre

Encroaching and burnt to Sienna
Where cattle and women are beaten
Sown into dry earth, braided there
Like dough, until they may be nourishment
And beauty, always beauty
What foolish men to make such rhymes
Sealing our breath into jars, into gloss
Gouging out eyes with paper and wax
Can silence be anything but
The enemy?

Parable A

The burden of stone

There is a woman singing
Alone among the flowers
Pitch covers her face

And silence fled to the temple
To save Judas, Iscariot
The fool with two eyes
Fixed upon the field, the flowers
Have died one thousand three hundred
And fifty times over
Have they no grace period, no
Fall?

Beneath the pond, a scratching
Moves to the edge seeking freedom
And a loss of rhythm

The window expels truth, slain
On the floor beside
That which I in my fury and conviction
Am unable to find, though I have two eye
Myself is all I see

Sought

The lines in the carpet all point to something else
But I cannot find the seam, I cannot escape
Depth. Beneath, a pearl is buried unlost
Though unattainable
the point is: exit.

Revel

the world itself is left penniless and bold
Fitfull and frightfully red
How things can become better
And worse simultaneously
The angels have had it with singing
Now the pictures they paint are of vines
Heavy with grapes
And dust
The ground is littered with them (the angels’ harps)
Behind the door, where all light is
Famished

Crassus

Wall ends abruptly
A cavernous mouth, was there
Ever a door? Did air serve the mocker
His breakfast. How I am no less, although
Considerably less
In terms of space, in terms
Of terms, I am now liplocked
With the air, my own prison

I can see the way out, but not the way through
How can I blame him for choosing the bread, the wine
I feast upon it myself, it is the only thing
Keeping me

Confession

A glamourous dream, that lamp
Rilke points to it from the mirror
I have been studying me all day, now
To find it was him all along, sitting there
Pointing at the lamp he is
Trying to tell me something something
But my thumbs oppose
Him. They stick in my ears and breathe
With difficulty and I am only wary
Of a lamp, turned on
Its side.

Cold Morning

The uncertainty of breath
As I throw the rest of my toast
to fera
Watching the jam stain his lips
A curious shade of blue
Uncreated sky
Blue
It would have me believe that although
my breath is certain nothing else is
but worship and we
are all worshippers

The sky has been bitten and is now
Bleeding the branches
of a very tall tree,
tearing the flesh of air. the sound,

it (arisen)
was heard at the end of all things (called to)
The angel that cannot sing
but wields a sword just the same. Falling,
though by no means
from grace
Through the noise of torn wind, followed
by exhale
Such weight cannot be mirrored in mind of time
(Nonsense) is a much better pillow anyway
Where did that breath run off to?

It is tracing the edges of fera’s teeth

After some further speculation:

A decision, mainly.
The balance which is too delicate even to speak of, has been thrown. Throated.
In any case, what is left beside the expanse of breath, the hole. It is the same space between lips, where He lays whispering to the soil. He is spraying seed into the throat of delicacy, spilling beauty and filling our stomachs with it. The mind screams, piercing graves of the angels, raising them. The sound of a scalpel splitting a hair. The angels move across a field, stooped over. Old. Their white hair dragging the soil, entangling Truth with it. A second movment brings the rain, and sorrow is blown out over the water. Not to dissipate, merely regroup. The command, dilute. What else may melt away the gloss. Truth, Beauty, all things...

Two things on my mind...the power of words, my confrontation with a tree.

Words are power...no matter what people do to them, how they are arranged, they will inevitably produce power. Such is the idea that must feed my fingertips. I am cowardly. I waste my words or hide them lazily in my mind, refusing to birth them. Which leads me to my next thought...where is my tree? Will it not grow in the wild of my mind? Must it be tended to, toiled over? Fantasy tells me that my tree will come naturally, effortlessly into existence, after all, am I not made of soil? Is not soil the womb of thought? Trees, or at least, MY tree cannot be kept by fantasy. I am here, outside of that place, and I trace it only in my slumber. My tree must have been cut down for the wood long ago. Now I am lost. I gave my tree away, it is finished. But I know...and that is all that matters. I must chase away the fantasy and bend to the ground, using my very blood to water this place. Then I will have what I seek.

No rain this week.

I will say that I have learned some things this morning...one is that people, no matter what, will ALWAYS disappoint me. I used to think it was because my expectations were too high. For example, I expect people to do what they tell me they are going to do. And that's just too much to ask of those other people...I now know that my standards are not too high, I just happen to live in an imperfect world, and EVERYONE is affected by that. Though people are supposed to always do what they say, they can't...thank God, because if they did, I might rely on them for meeting all my needs and fulfilling my desires. Unfortunately, I often find myself trying to rely on people for those things in spite of my knowledge about their inherent failures. Which is what brings me here this morning. I tried to rely on my mother for happiness and love. Granted, she DOES love me, but not as fully as I want to be loved. By her, or really at all. My only inexhaustible source for love is my Savior. He gave his life proving that. I take for granted the greatest love of my life, while impossibly expecting this love from watered down sources. Then...actually being disappointed when the truth is upheld, and the weaker loves prove dissatisfying. Not to downplay love as I know it here on earth. Because, I myself am only capable of providing a cheap imitation of the love God has for me. I am sinful and selfish by nature...more selfish than I can even tell you about. So, anyone or anything I love is tainted by my lurking selfish desires and ambitions. I DO love, though. I love so much, more than I thought I could. The goodness in my love comes from God. He supplies me with anything tangible and worthy to give, including my love. So, why should I look to any other source for fulfillment? Instead, may I endeavor to be grateful for the love (from God) that I find in other hearts. May I be pleasantly suprised when God graces me with love from my family, friends, or total strangers. May I not be foolish enough to believe that love, REAL love, comes from any source other than the Lord.

P.S. Johnmark wants to repaint the bathroom.

Ok can I just say that I am also abusing my blog. All I do is complain. It sounds like I am not a happy person. I am though. In fact, to prove it, I will tell a recent funny occurance in my life that shows that happiness does in fact permeate my existence. Johnmark, my husband, wanted to paint our bathroom. This bathroom is cursed, but we didn't find out about that until later. The way it originally looked was so hideous, I can barely describe it. The cieling sagged from water damage, the light fixture resembled something out of a Frankenstein movie, the mirror also. It (the mirror)was goldish coppery and had a huge frame around the edge. Turns out the mirror is also a medicine cabinet, so replacing it meant tearing out part of the wall. Which was okay, since we already had to tear out the cieling. The sink was in an ugly wooden cabinet that made the already tiny bathroom feel more like a miniature jail cell (from one of those prisons run by the fashion police), so it had to go. Sinice we were replacing the sink, we thought, hey why not also replace the toilet, since it is losing its porcelin finish and looks like a big black poo smeared across the side and no one ever wiped it off. Now, to the walls...these were the most bizarre, ugly things in our ENTIRE house. They were, and I use the term loosely, sponge painted an "interesting" shade of blue. Something between royal and navy blue I would say. YOU DO NOT SPONGE PAINT THIS COLOR OVER WHITE WALLS...EVER. Anyway, the reason I say "sponge paint" is because I don't think the same person did all four walls, or else they were kind of learning as they went. One wall was mostly white, one mostly blue, the other two somewhere in between. On top of this, there was a border. Of course, the border did not go at the top of the wall, where and sane person would put it...and yes, the border was wallpaper, and it was hung around the middle of the walls (I suppose it was meant to be a chair rail, but there was no trim or anything, just the wallpaper randomly halfway down the wall) IT was hunter green, pink, and blue diamonds, with some gold little design at the top and bottom. Now, do not be fooled, the blue in the border was NOT the same blue as the wall, not even kind of close. My favorite feature of this bathroom, however, must be the pink "sponge painted" trim and back side of the door. Now, when I say pink, I mean like a deep Pepto Bismal shade. SPONGE PAINTED on the TRIM and the DOOR. Not the whole door, mind you...just the recessed panels of it. This made scraping the trim and door quite necessary, which led to another surprise. Someone had painted the trim and door with oil-based paint, then covered that with water-based paint. This means that you literally have to peel the paint off but cannot use any type of paint remover to help you. What a pain. Ok...so this bathroom needed some work. We chose a nice powdery blue to repaint it, got a pedestal sink, a new toilet, hung Davey board (white wood panelling) and replaced the cieling and fan. Now, I won't go in to all the problems with plumbing that went on in the bathroom, but be assured there were several. Well, the blue paint dried and turned purple. We didn't want purple, because that is already the color of our bedroom. SO, Johnmark wanted to paint it again. Yellow. I like yellow, it's a great happy bathroom color. My huusband HATES yellow. I cannot imagine why I agreed to letting him paint the bathroom yellow. But he went and got some yellow paint and boom, it was yellow. Johnmark walks into the living room, paint roller still in hand and says "I hate it. The bathroom looks like a baby nunrsery, we have to repaint it." OK, so I suggest that since we haven't got any more money to spend on another gallon of paint, that we ask the people at the paint store to add some color to our yellow paint and make it more cheery, less pastel. Bad idea. We got them to add some color, came home and re-repainted the room...now it looked like Big Bird swimming in an ocean of bananas. Now we both hated the bathroom. Ok, well, we painted our guest room orange, maybe if we sponge paint some orange over the yellow, it will tone things down. So we try that. Now it looks like Big Bird ate too many candy corns and exploded in our bathroom. So, Johnmark now wants to paint the bathroom silver. Fortunately, he had used up all his bathroom idea coupons, and I was able to stop him. Now the bathroom is green. Green like our living room...and we are going to paint words all over the walls with a cream color. So, it's just possible that the bathroom WON'T look hideous and possessed by Monday. I'll let you know, and, by the way, I'm not holding my breath...

I just want money...all the dang time. I think about money all day, how we don't have any (even though we have all we need). I am just a stupid selfish person that can't trust God to provide, though He does whether or not I believe He will. I wouldn't provide for my ungrateful butt though. God is way better than me.

Tabitha is growing, growing, growing. I can't believe how big she is. And so beautiful. I am so blessed to get to stay with her all day. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a blessing, but I know it is. It's amazing how easily I fall into sin. I should be so joyful about getting to stay at home and not having to work a 9-5 job. Instead, I focus on the negative, how I am stuck here and it's soo inconvenient to have a baby along with all the housework. What an idiot. I feel sorry for my poor husband who is working two jobs in ordr to provide for our family right now, and give me the privilege of staying home with the baby. Bah on me, I suck.

I am afraid of work. I don't mind moving furniture, scrubbing toilets, writing papers, traveling, cooking, making a book, taking pictures, selling clothes...I can do all of these things well. What I am afraid of is actually the phone. Calling people on the phone...people I have never met. Asking them questions, trying to talk fast enough that they don't hang up or have time to think of anything other than what i am telling them. Hoping they will want to buy my talk, but more afraid that if they do buy it, they will ask me something I can't answer. They will tell me I am worthless for calling them and hang up. No, I have no reason to fear talking to these people...they may hate me, but they'll never tell me that, because I live in the south where manners supercede logic. But I still feel nervous each time I pick up the phone and hear the expectant dialtone. The toll of death... then I know I must push the numbers and wait nervously for some secretary to answer and tell me that I can't talk with whomever I am calling because I am a salesperson (they're in a meeting, can I send you to their voicemail?) and they are paid to keep me out. Like a phone roach, I am an unwanted dirty pest that no one can get rid of (not even congress) Bah to me...

Death

The spiders have now, for the most part, experienceed it. Where are their spider souls wandering right now? Who really cares...I am certain it's not heaven or my house, so that's all that matters. OR, if it is heaven, it must be in the special spider section of heaven. Although, these creatures have to be resultant, after the fall.

Fall...my husband loves the fall. I have never been a huge fan, I would rather roast forever beside a blue swimming pool in the hot Georgia sun. But, I love watching him love things, and so because he loves fall, I now have a growing affection for it. My mind is boggled today by the presence of fall on my front porch. Wasn't it just the other day that I was married?? Has it really been a year? How is it that time is going more quickly for me than it is for my friends? We experience the same 24 hour days; yet, somehow time is rushing by so for me that I can't even relate to my college friends. Their time is spent leisurely and needless of sleep, that it doesn't even resemble time to me. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

It's the stupidest reason, really, that I am even thinking about this. But I must share it because that's what blogging is all about. This morning in the paper, I was perusing the week's events and perchanced upon the Brumby (a college dorm) beach party. I remember going to that party my freshman year of college and running into this guy David Talley, whom I had met a few weeks prior at my orientation. I remember when I saw him, wondering if he would even remember me, because so much time had passed since our last meeting. How funny. That was five years ago. It feels like a few months. It wasn't a particularly important moment in my life, either. Nothing like the birth of my child, which was less than two months ago and feels like a lifetime. Here is my life, flying away like my favorite season, which I swear never lasts all three months. Is it the mercy of God? That the pace of time is just slow enough to cope with, but quick enough to nip at my ankles and make me zealous for a full life. At the same time, this same passage brings me closer to my eternal home.

"And if I weep, may it be as a man who is longing for his home"

Spider War: Day 2

After spending about 20 minutes on the front porch squishing and squishing the guts out of nasty spiders...I am pretty much nauseated and ready for a shower, because I am so sure that I missed one and it maliciously crawled up my pants or something and now it's biting me and spinning webs all inside my clothes.

After the shower:

I really hate spiders, and I think killing them is about as bad as letting them live. As if they know about my challenge, suddenly I am finding dozens of hairy spider sacs (spider eggs, if you will) hidden all around my porch and gutters. They are stockpiling their offspring, but now that I'm on to this little scheme...beware. If all else fails, I'm getting a chiuaua. They were originally bred in Mexico to be spider hunters. So, as often as I have made fun of these goofy, stupid, yipping kick dogs, I would now like to own one. The neighbors have pledged to help me hide it from my husband until he gets used to the idea. HE won't...I think it's because I call him Chiuaua man when he buzzes his chest hair in the summer. As weird as that is, I must respect his decision, because I have no clue what a hairy mane like that must do to body temperature. Just as he has no idea what bearing a child does to body temp (and sex drive) in the summer. Back to the mat...

The simplicity of the gospel...

Today I spent some time talking with a friend about quality time with God. How neither of us feel like we have enough, and here's the funny part. It's not because we just can't find spare time for God, it's that we feel guilty for not doing what we know we should be. How ridiculous. Like a marriage where the wife only spends time with her husband in painfully boring, short sessions all the while knowing she ought to love him or something. Why are they even married, those poor fools, we might wonder. Of course my relationship with God must be based on my desire for God. What I mean is, I can't love God unless I want to know Him. I can spend time with Him, but I must enjoy this time in order to genuinely portray love. God wants romance! He wants my heart. What makes me love Him more? The cross, of course. When I truly understand His great sarifice of love (that goes beyond anything my husband ever did), then I love Him madly, I love Him shamelessly, I yearn for His presence, for His touch. How often does Johnmark come home with me panting for his time and attention. It's been only 4 1/2 hours since I've seen him, and yet I can't wait for that little kiss and the loving gaze into my eyes when he says he's home. THAT is how I ought to desire Christ.

On another galaxy away subject. I am determined to kill all spiders in this house! The porch and garage count. This is my warning and my challenge...Spiders everywhere, listen up. You will be dead in 7 days or less. So pack your bags and kiss your loved ones good-bye. I hate you all and none of you will live. Including, and especially, you big hairy ones that keep buiilding webs over my front door. You will die a slow, agonizing death that I will rejoice in performing upon you. Mua ha ha ha ha!