Finite. Falliable.

I am amazed at life.

How does it do this?

I'm listening to Greensleeves. Can you believe that Henry VIII wrote this?

Once upon a time, Henry had a huge thing for Anne Boleyn.

He was so enamored with her that he started his own church in order to divorce his wife.

This man threw down with the POPE to get his way.

After that went through, he married Anne.

They had little Queen Elizabeth,

and then they had three miscarriages.

No one thinks about what that was like for Anne.

After this, he had her beheaded for failing to produce a son.

No one thinks about what that was like for Henry, because obviously Henry had no feelings.

We're wrong. He did.

That man wrote Greensleeves, which to me is proof of feeling.

He felt many things, especially for Anne, the girl this song was written for.

How could we understand him?

Sometimes people tell me I am strange.

I think they're right.

Sometimes people tell me I will not find another person to match me.

You know, like I don't get to marry someone I've been hoping for.

I don't get to feel what that is like.

Because I am just an odd girl... maybe I'll just do my writing thing and be fine alone.

Sometimes I hear these things.

"I just don't know how you'll find a boy who rolls outta bed in his t-shirt and plays in the mud with you-- but also bears his soul. I don't think there are boys that do both."

And plus... if you were to find him... he'd still have to want you back.

And so somewhere in my subconscious,

I was preparing myself to settle.

Because I am strange.

And I might never be understood.

That was a few years ago,
before i found out they were wrong.

I get to be loved too.

But there is an element of truth to this idea,
the idea that no human can completely understand me.

Or you.

Because there is one word that applies to all of us: complex.

com-plex 

[adj. v. kuh m-pleks, kom-pleks]

2. characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc.

3. so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with.

"You cannot confine someone 

solely to the story that you know of them," 

my professor said.

That was in September.

I think about it all the time.

There is always more that we don't see.

That we don't quite feel.

And no matter how far I dig to find out who you are...

You have memories I've never seen,

and choices that even you can't explain.

Greensleeves.

They found the manuscript among his old things.

Written for Anne Boelyn.

Signed Sincerely, King Henry VIII.

Understand?

Today.

Today I am crying so many times.

First, out of guilt.
Once from a talk I watched by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Twice from this book I am reading.
And once because I realized a very big question I have.

What you're imagining is not right, I don't cry that way.
Each time lasts about 4 seconds, my eyes get sad and watery,
but nothing falls down my face.
I am almost overcome, but then, it's over.

Why?
Why so often?
And why so short?
How am I so immediately back into normal?

I am getting a little sick today. Steph let me take some of her herbs. This was strange. Little plastic medical capsules-- full of something that once grew straight from the earth. Is this what it means to be "organic"?
Is this the best I can do?

My Dad used to pick blackberries in the woods. He'd bring them back on his horse, and his grandma would make pie. Sometimes he would find arrowheads from the indians-- the land was that untouched.
One time him and his cousins made such a mess in the creek that the added dirt acted as a damn and re-routed the whole thing. Someone down the line who depended on the water had to follow its outline upwards, trying to find the reason why his creek had flowed elsewhere.

I know what a blackberry looks like, but have never picked one myself.
I remember how to find poison ivy, from when I used to play in the woods.
But I never play in the woods anymore. I don't know the way.
I wish I could find the herbs and crush them myself.
I wish I did not depend on someone else to package them for me
into eerily labeled bottles: All Natural!
The plastic fixation of the new-age hippie.
All I need now is a hip new shirt with the word GREEN on it,
maybe one of those reusable grocery bags that feel like airplane pillowcases.

I wrote a story about my Dad and a horse.
I read it in front of my class with his picture on the overhead projector.
I want to tell you I'll post it. No promises.
I have written many stories about growing up with my Dad.
Though I now find I am more interested in when he grew up, without me.

And this.

There is a tiny booklet of poetry
which is published monthly 
for a very humble readership
in one town
on the coast of North Carolina


And they took me.
I'm published.
Numero Uno.


Mine was called Fireworks.

Verb

Two nights ago I wrote a paper called LET THERE BE WORDS.
Thesis: All human disharmony is rooted in unspoken words.
I turned it in at the top of the JFSB, headphones in.

On the way down, I danced in the elevator. Alone.
Because this is my life! Yeah!
Because though I did spend all day in the library-- it was with powerful books. It was with ideas that are new, even spiritual to me. And so I refuse to complain about my homework. I do not refuse to experience a personal revival in the elevator with sweet Beyonce beats. I was dancin to the finale of 2 papers, 2 quizzes, 2 midterms, and 3 presentations. Whew!

Yesterday I got my paper back.
"The passion behind your topic is evident, but more supporting quotes would be helpful. 89%"
Fair enough.

I read a story about Nanapush, who was pushed to the brink of death by a fear-motivated silence.
He'd adopted a girl he found in a cabin, she was wild and savage, raging around her cold, dead family members on the floor. They'd died from the white-man disease. Her name was Fleur. Nanapush tied her to his horse and brought her home. He held Fleur still and sang healing words for days until her spirit healed and her face was calmed. After that, they felt the ghosts of her family in the new house-- and stopped talking aloud. They were swallowed up by the horror and questions of all they'd seen since the tribes began dissolving. And for a length of circular time, the fearful underbelly of his silence took all but the edge of his life.

Then, someone came to visit him.
Nanapush offered this visitor food-- a custom of his tribe.
The silence broke.
He spoke first out of politeness, then out of desperation.
Fleur joined.
They talked all into the night and were healed by their own story.

On a shelf in my living room are 38 journals. They are my personal narrative, the evidence of God in my life. With words I am placed, I am healed. I get well by talking.

There is something in you that pulses with innnate necessity.
It is fueled by complex needs that will take time to understand.
Even if you never learn how to explain WHY, follow it.

Mine is to write.

And while I have been gone from this blog for a while, the words are still coming.
With words I am placed, I am healed. And I'm still a believer.

There's a sun in my front yard.

Here’s what happened today:

I found a song.

It hit me.

I hit: REPEAT.

…and then, exhausted my laptop battery entirely on the music.

Never bored, only soaking.

Wishing I had life-size speakers to blare the words.

It’s called “In your Atmosphere,” By John Mayer. Live.

“Wishing I had life-size speakers to blare the words.”

This makes me think of a picture.

I saw it in a magazine today: It was Bright colors and Broad daylight.

It was a girl jumping in the air with a megaphone.

Not a cheerleader, just a voice.

She wanted everyone to hear.

Looking at her determined face, it was hard to assign a label.

Should I deem her NAIEVE or HEROIC?

OBNOXIOUS or BRAVE?

A difficult question,

but I knew that the image was me.

“By John Mayer. Live.”

This makes me think of the highway.

I love live music because of my Dad. Because of my night drives in his passenger’s seat. He drove a Saturn with the sun roof open. The engine was loud and untrustworthy, but the stereo? Loyal. Freebird was his senior class song. He knows all the guitar solos. He knows that before Sweet Home Alabama, Johnny Van Zant yells “Turrrn it up!”

He knows all the Oooo Oooo’s and Oh Yeahhh’s.

He can tell me where he was when he decided he loved the song.

And now we can sing you The Eagles. Bob Segar. Bruce Springstein. Boston. Eric Clapton. America. James Taylor. Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Because my Dad’s engine was loud, unpredictable.

But his stereo has always been loyal.

And now we can sing together.

John Mayer is singing “I don’t think I’m gonna go to LA anymore.”

This makes me think “I know what you mean, but I still want to.”

I went there once, with the Jordan boy I write about sometimes.

He had never been to the beach at night, and while we stood on the sand, I stared down the ferris wheel. It was a distant circle of lights. I wished we would go. Things got in the way.

But then

I did go to LA again.

It was barely September, a Sunday night.

I was on that same beach, in my church clothes again.

But the lights didn’t seem so distant anymore.

I felt the difference.

The hope that their promise would only seem closer

With each

Adventuring drive toward the coast.

I sent my words into that night,

Declaring that when I came to LA again,

“You best bet I will ride that ferris wheel.”

I am a strange girl, needing to type out all these thoughts before I can get back to life. But this is my life, here in the kitchen, scrawling for words. And that’s enough for me, even if I can’t make you see what those lights mean.