Courage, teach me to be shy.

These are pictures from some time within the past two years:
I have something to say about them.


I'd just been born into a new era of my life and had no idea what was coming.There was something in my countenance that isn't there anymore--
A simple oblivion, a younger innocence.


The phases of the coming storm were on the tip of time's tongue.

I know now that I was ready back then.
The strength was within me, but still dormant.
When the quaking came, I found it.
It grew and drew back in waves, but I was never alone.
And then, much later, I overcame.

Mark 5

She felt in her body that she was healed of that plague..And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; .
Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

I see myself now...I know that the specific innocence of that girl is no longer detectable in me, because I traded it for something I needed more. I miss her sometimes, though I do not regret what replaced her.



I am growing up.
I cannot define what was or what is.
I know only that I am a tough girl,
a strong and grateful woman.
I am not afraid to see my efforts in ashes--
because I know that I will rise.

...Even so, I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free.
Mosiah 23


* * * * * * *

THE DATE: December 21st, 2007
THE TIME: 7:08ish AM
THE MUSIC:
THE MOMENT:The airport; sitting by the paintings with the notebook Shavondah made me.

M o u n t a i n s.

The quaking of the earth woke her core as it surged to the surface. She remains native to its shivering, yet somehow still solid in her perpetual upward reach. In time, the stoic stare of her winding angles will soften with the sundown, nurturing the wild horizon.

* * * * * * *

THE DAY: December 30th, 2007
THE TIME: afternoonish maybe.
THE MUSIC: Cannonball; Damien Rice
THE MOMENT: I miss Kennylove.

I saw us before I fell asleep…

We were UPSiDe dOWn like divers,
but with chaos added to the grace,
our pulse could not evade the gravity of time.
There is a fine line between the lucid art we claim and the circus they see.
Our truth versus their logic
Still,
though I sometimes can't move the kaleidescope from my eyes,
my foundation in you remains—I am not afraid.

* * * * * * *

THE DAY: December 26th, 2007
THE TIME: 1:30 in the mornin
THE MUSIC: Its Rainin In Baltimore; Counting Crows
THE MOMENT: Drivin home at night.

B r i d g e s.

Though the moon hung distant in the sky; the reflection of its light stretched eerily across the water beneath. I stared back as memories from my moonlit past rocked out of my bones. From its floating linear path it reached, like a ghost, for me. But I had built the bridge I stood upon, and so I trusted my resilience.

Like me, these trees are heaving for a breeze. We both are often blocked by mystery, wilted from the anticipation.

Still, I know the solid placement of each stone beneath my feet, and thus I am stronger than the reflection before me.

"Snap her up in a butterfly net and pin her down on a photograph album..."

**Two Scraps from some study breaks**

THE DAY: December 10th
THE TIME: 11:36
THE MUSIC: Doubting Thomas
THE MOMENT:Lights Blurrred

Wintertiming walks silently beside me as I walk the street. At the end of this stretch, there is a potential for rest. There are lights on the houses and debts in the wallets; the doors are all closed, but a chimney is no place for God to enter in. Chemicals clear the roads and by morning the black grids line the city once again. We rely merely on empty cardinal direction. There is a force above, frozen deep beneath the surface, compelling my red arrow northward… though I can't bring my hands to leave my pockets. Still, I feel the fire within me. I know this winter brings new chills of the unknown and not-yet loved. I stare into the cloud that has sunken down to swallow the mountains—I will not be overcome again.

THE DAY: December 12th
THE TIME: 1:26 pM
THE MUSIC: I Need You; Faith Hill with Tim McGraw
THE MOMENT: underground in a library

Relief escapes my lungs for what my life has not become. The mysterious future spreads out beneath my running steps. The space behind me ignites, smoking with the beautiful destruction that occurs when completion is the sole thing exhaling from the land. The smoke signals the helicopters of those who are searching for where I’ve gone. Here are the remains. My Father scavenges for what he did not preserve. The drunken boy across the lake never made it back to his own ashes. From my Father's mournful music I learned of trading "cold comfort for change." Let them live on in their own roads. Let mine intertwine with the windings of other’s. Inside of the calm and the urgency, there is hope in the certainty that nothing will defy the sunrise.

THE DAY:December 10th 2007
THE TIME: 10:03 AM
THE MUSIC:Silence Magnifies Sound; Six Parts Seven
THE MOMENT: More LRC... and more. And more.

Its Ten.
I've been awake since 6:15.
I have a 7 page paper due at 4.
I have done nothing.
Hello Life, who are you?
Somehow you turned into school,
and I haven't seen you since.

A few nights ago I was sitting in the hall with some kids.
I wanted to slam one of them in the face, multiple times.
Then he asked me on a date, I said yes.
I just love food... and I'm poor.
Free-dinner-yes?
K thanks.

This weekend Katie asked me if I was goin to mack a certain boy.
I answered in great detail.
Oh girl... not tonight I said.
Maybe later, but probably not... I dont know.
On account of I just love my Kennylove.
Then, I accidentally texted it to said boy.
I suck.

Also,
I love my Kahiliaulani.
Mmmm Hmmm.

I feel like one permanent goosebump.
Shiver.

BreatheouT.

THE DAY: December 6th 2007
THE TIME: 9:29pM
THE MUSIC: Anna Begins; Counting Crows
THE MOMENT: i CANNOT DO SCHOOL WORK ANYMORE. Parts of my Katie letter.

* * *
I have fever dreams and restless feet.
In the cold morning, I am what once filled your lungs and now hangs frozen before your face. Exhale me, it is time to float away.

* * *

Today I was sittin on a couch on campus thinkin.... what if someone were to come to me 5 years ago and say "Hey, so I walked into the future today and saw you." And I would ask them what I was like. Maybe they would say that I had brown hair... which I would think was weird. And then maybe they'd say that I was wearin a brown baseball hat with a bird on it... and a sweet white shirt with green baseball sleeves. I was on a couch at snowy BYU in cheap fake converse shoes, eatin a wrap and readin "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life." What a great life huh? That was me today.I realized how happy I would have been to hear that, and as I stood to walk away, nothing else mattered.

I am so ready to come home.
I want to eat Sunday Best with you.
stay up late talkin to lacey
take jesse bowling
put lots of effort into havin good talks with corey
listen to brad laugh
drive the buick
see kaley and have a big huge thing with the three of us
olivia too maybe
i want to drive at night with the windows down
i want to feel the difference in me with my world
i want to see zach
i want to feel that difference, but separately.
i want to write pages
i want to feel the humidity
i want to sing with the windows down and i just need to feel and cry
i want to breathe the air that way.

Walkin off the plane and down the escalator.

nex·us

1.	a means of connection

2.	the core or center

Some of us, we don't say.

THE DAY: Pre-thanks giving.
THE TIME:12:38pm
THE MUSIC:Sister; Sufjan Stevens
THE MOMENT:a question.

I am not sorry for the things I said in the moments before I left.
I am not resistant to this feeling that-- I am in the antonym of home.
The desert highways.
The blackened bottoms of my feet.
The palm tree over head, the dry earth beneath me.
The pale air, the attempts for irrigation.
All of these things are also within me.

So many climates I’ve yet to absorb.
Here I am,
in a flat desert town,
longing for a landslide.

Am I lonely?

Drivin' under the stars and into an arid sunrise.
Becoming the western songs I never before understood.
Eatin real Mexican food at marias.
Skateboarding with skinny rocker boys in empty parking lots.
Hoping for sunshine, layin under the overcast sky as goosebumps sneak up and down my skin.

Hello Blythe, I am Lyndsi Shae.
Where is my world?

.The calm and the Urgency.

THE DAY: a while ago
THE TIME: afternoon
THE MUSIC: Blue and Green; Julie Moffitt
THE MOMENT: Study breaks in a new corner.

I wrote something the other day.
You know how that goes.
So I figured this time I'd post it up... and then write a little scrambled explanation about everything I was trying to say.

* * *

The rain falls down, like our April on Amelia Island. Me and You. I left my ink and paper on the sand and we ran into the falling water, the crashing foam, the storm, the ocean, the honesty you allowed in your eyes…the force of you within me. Our secret set free for a time, and though she quietly ate dinner in the house above, she never knew.

The rain falls down, like the July off the coast of Carolina. Me without you. I opened my ink and paper to the falling water, letting it run down the words that confirmed my needed escape, my opened heart. I was wrapped up in my release, with no way to truly express to the world how liberated I had become. My new secret sang from within me… she knew everything.

Today I rinse my memories in live salt water. Evaporation leaves them covered in grains of freedom, a complacent glaze between the past and myself. No longer your pretty girl in the dark, I am laying down my weapons…collapsing the impatience of my limbs, spreading my novels across the sand--- As the pages blow open behind me, I walk along the water with anticipation, communing with the coming tide.

* * *

*April on amelia island- me and zach swam in the ocean in the rain. I left my journal to get soaked on the sand. He was really that way.
*July- me and katie, when we let the rain blur over the ink in our journals. The page I let the rain splash on was that CS Lewis quote about how if you never love, you'll lock up your heart to be unfeeling and dormant. (“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
--C.S. Lewis)


*The rinse my memories thing... they're clean and content, but with a slight taint (salt), like that feeling that makes me feel as though he's an old movie, or the feeling that makes me know its absolutely past, like he's not on earth anymore. If the water were to evaporate, it would leave the salt behind... which is what I mean when I say covered in grains of freedom- a complacent glaze between the past and myself. There is a small wall there, but not one that keeps me from going back. Just a content divide. The important distinction is that I could go back if I wanted, I am stronger than salt... but I don't.

*Commune- I know you know what this means, but read how great the true definition is.
1. to converse or talk together, usually with profound intensity, intimacy etc.
2. to be in intimate communication
3. interchange of ideas or sentiments

*There's also supposed to be an evident contrast between "your pretty girl in the dark" and the light associated with walking on the sand.
*Another evident contrast between my journal in the first rain-- closed and left behind. The journal in the second rain-- open and held by me. The many journals in the third rain-- blowing open by the force of nature, behind me but still acknowledged, still free in their numbers and open gates.

*The coming tide is the change I can feel, the one that hasn't happened yet. A natural force that will inevitably reach my life and mold it in some way.

Prone to Wander

THE DAY: November 5th 2007
THE TIME: 2:42AM
THE MUSIC: Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing; Sufjan Stevens cover
THE MOMENT: Flopped out writing with my Siovan

Lately, I sit down to write… and find that I have nothing new to say… Nothing that wouldn’t harbor the same underlying themes of my other words. This, is driving me crazy.

I know who I am. I know what I want. I have exhausted myself writing about those things.

My first thought was that I would love to go to another country, let it mold my perspective… let new images burn words out of me.

My little brother Corey and I used to stand in the ocean and karate-chop the waves that broke at our knees. Eventually, we’d swim out to the big ones. Ten years ago, North Carolina waves were huge to us. We always called the risky ones whoppers. The kind that sucked you beneath the surface, spun you down through the bubbles ‘til you didn’t know where the sky was… and then chucked you on the sand with no idea where it all had come from or how to get the water our of your nose.

(I find myself restless… for a whopper-wave kinda change.)
Though I would rarely expect this of myself, I am hoping for one.

I am the happiest I have ever been. I don’t want to let that fact fade into stale neglected thought. I know that because of this freedom, there is so much new space in me-- for new people, new life and new challenges.

I am ready for something new. I am thankful for this chance I have to focus on things I choose to focus on.

I know I don’t have to go to another country.
I’ve really been thinking about charity, and how I want to feel that love within me, to gain a greater understanding of what that’s like. I could do that. I recognize that I could have done that before… but its just easier now. Everything is easier, because I no longer am exerting so much energy into getting through my own trials. I have a new buzzing within me. I can do so much! There are so many opportunities for me to serve and learn that I am totally ignorant about. I want to seek those out and let them absorb me… rather than fall into some type of pride-cycle where I forget to be thankful for who I am and what I am working towards.

One pivotal day this summer I was in a shop with my loves Katie and Kaley.
Someone painted one of the blank clocks with the words:
“She knows the time is now.”

I am ready.
I am willing.
I will search for ways to discover.

"And now as ye have been delivered by the power of God out of these bonds[…] even so I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free…"

Mosiah 23:13

THE SEASON CHANGES.

THE DAY: barely october 28th 2007
THE TIME: 2:31 AM
THE MUSIC: Stand Beside Me; Jo Dee Messina
THE MOMENT: Ceiling fan chilly bumps. The pages blowing around on the table.

Tonight I'm sitting on the floor in Siovhan's living room. She'll read this later. (Honey you fell asleep again so don't flip if you can't remember this part of your life.) We watched a movie, a sappy girl lovin movie. Which I love shamelessly. Which I will now quote, shamelessly. K thanks.

"I think I would miss you even if we'd ever met."

Outside there are crunchy leaves, living out their last nights. Was it worth it to them? To detach from their core, fall to the ground, and drain slowly of their sudden colors... Can the tree see them fading? Or maybe their most living stems are still up there, waiting to grow new expansions, until its time to burst red, float away, and start new. And so the leaves they release are really just shells, the exterior that could no longer hold what grew within them; they were ready to let go.
Maybe they actually think its worth it.

I sit here in my slouchy pajama pants pulled up to my knees, with too much hairspray in my leftover indian braid from halloween dancin... surrounded by glittery watercolor paints. I live down the hall. I consume grits and ice cream on a daily basis.
Sometimes I feel like I can't write as well as past years because these days-- I am happy always. (Guess what: I actually think its worth it.I was ready to let go too.)
I have two anklets on my right leg and tangerine joy nail polish on my toes. My forearms smell like aloe because I still use my after-sunshine beach lotion. My lips feel odd. I have to pee kinda. This is my life.

I found out that this weekend was BYU Preference and something within me said "You went there once. Remember who you were then?" My reflex-typer wants to tell you that this realization was a reminder of how much has been found in the last year. The truth is though, that I never forgot. I am thankful every day for the verbs in my life, the movement, the progression within me.
Though I am ready for more, and so I also shake with a restlessness, an anticipation.



vernalization (vûr'nə-lĭ-zā'shən) The subjection of seeds or seedlings to low temperature in order to hasten plant development and flowering. Vernalization is commonly used for crop plants such as winter rye and is possible because the seeds and buds of many plants require cold in order to break dormancy.

.SOME THINGS I WANTED TO SAY.

THE DAY: October 22nd and 23rd, 2007
THE TIME: 9:33 AM. I am awake.
THE MUSIC: The Secrets In The Telling; Dashboard.
THE MOMENT: Blurby.

"They say that anger is just love disappointed."

--The Eagles.

Hi.
My name is Lyndsi Brown.
But I always ignore the Brown at the end because there is actually a Shae in the middle...
...which I like better.
Sometimes I theorize that that has something to do with resentment for my Father and the way his name directly affiliates me with him upon introduction.
I then quickly decide to leave the possibility of that truth floating in my subconscious.
This is because my newest energy has been intentionally devoted to forgiving my Father.
Last night I told God I was ready.
I also told him that I may not know for sure until I see my Dad again.
And so, I wait for Christmas.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"I'll steal your honey like I stole your BIKE."

--LFO

Neal called.
He thought I was engaged.
Thank you Brian Fukumoto.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."

--Counting Crows

I used to have three best friends. I was in love with one of them. The other two are still here.
He asked one for my address; he wants to send me a letter.
No matter what he says, he cannot have me anymore.
And by that I mean, he cannot alter my sleep patterns or occupy my pages.
There was a night, a summer dress, a backyard, and the two of us... I reclaimed myself from him.
This morning I thought of him without fear or apology.
You were a part of who I was, but there is no room for you in who I am.
I remain uninhibited by this distance between us. Every distance.
Spread over landscapes that recede behind me, descend beneath me: you are a handful of stories-- our commemorative ashes.
As you faded, I emerged.
Until further notice, I am my own, though I am not afraid
to belong to someone else.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Is there truth in your pain? You decide."

--DC

I am the happiest I have ever been. I know my Heavenly Father understands what I have endured. None of my new friends do, and I surprisingly do not feel distanced from them because of that. I know past struggles are mostly over, and that they can be entirely over very soon. I know this joy I've found is not coincidental. I know he sees me out here. He knows me. I am thankful. I am happy. I am myself, one hundred percent.
Relief.

rusty trucks.

THE DAY: Tuesday October 16th, 2007 THE TIME: ninethirtyseven pm THE MUSIC: the temptations THE MOMENT: hallucinatory rainbows in the misty fog mountains

*Disclaimer... remember last time when I said my surroundings were mediocre? I was talking about the LRC, not provo. K thanks.*

A certain attitude is dancing around in my brain today...
I care very much about the trees.
About my Mom saying she's worried for my younger brother and when my next road trip will be.
I care to play with my friends and eat walrus-portions of ice cream on dollar-scoop Tuesday.
I care to wear flowing summery shirts that make no one in the world look fat... ever.
I care to read a book and drink apple cider and go for a walk in the rain.

I think these are lovely things to care about.

I do not, however, care about my humanities assignment due tomorrow.
Or my philosophy essays.
Or really any aspect of academia.

And so, despite the vast black holes of studying I conquered last week, I am now considered an unproductive member of society.

I would like to clarify that somewhere within me, general authorities speak.
"good, better, best..."
"mediocrity will never do... this is your time, your opportunity..."
"seek not just a degree, but a true education..."

I don't want to be the annoying slacker kid.
I do want to be the freedom child.

Oh bummer.


Also... Man Cravings. Have Mercy.

More from the LRC

THE DAY: fRIDAY oCTOBER 12tH 2OO7
THE TIME:6:28 pM
THE MUSIC: sONG oF iMPOSSIBLE tHINGS; tHE sIX pARTS sEVEN
THE MOMENT: the library, involuntarily resistant.

Swore to myself I’d never get lost again
that you’d lead me home like a fire leads a siren
well I’m just lookin’ for a door that’s always open
that doesn’t need no pushin’ doesn’t need no shovin’
oh please
won’t you let me in

Swore to Myself
By Sophia.

Some songs bring a certain feeling. I don't have the word for it quite yet... or maybe I'll decide to never find that word. Regardless, this is one of those songs.
The lyrics aren't really enough for this one though.
Download it.
Hit play.
Close your eyes.
Let go.


Today I am restless.
I am wide open.
Somehow, despite my mediocre surroundings, my previous motives, my fully obligated agenda,
I am floating through my own longings.

Something within me sways from side to side.
She is a musician.
She is an artist.
She is everywhere.
She swims across the oceans, she passes through the walls, she jumps from her own eyes, off of high dive cliffs, falls freely without fear of the future.
Arise.

Week 5- Brain

THE DAY: October Tenth TwoThousandAndSeven
THE TIME: ThreeFortyThreeAM-Crap.
THE MUSIC:Counting Crows (I'm imagining them)
THE MOMENT:After my Kahiliaulani. Before I go to sleep

There is so much life inside of me. I feel like there has to be more ways to set it free. The other day I was sitting in class next a love of mine: Camille. She was typing messages to me on her laptop. (Sneaky huh?) Letter by letter, I watched her spell out the insides of her brain. She said something like this.

Isn’t it funny to feel like that yet we sit here silently in class?

Like…I wonder how many people feel like that. Feel like jumping up right now and running around. Or feel like bursting into song. Or feel like crying.

I feel like that all the time. I would love to find a way to saturate my moments with the purest kind of life. No doubts, no inhibitions, just power.

There is a newspaper clipping I keep with me, a headline singing…

UNCHAIN MY HEART

I’ve had it for close to four years.
Five different houses.
Four jobs.
Fifteen boys.
Two nights runningaway from home.
One change of my favorite color.
And Seven journals.

I am more free now than ever before.
Still, I long for further release.

S u n d a y, o k n o s a y?

THE DAY: 10/07/07
THE TIME: 6:07
THE MUSIC: Tim McGraw; Taylor Swift
THE MOMENT: My new hat. My old pajamas. Bum on the bed. Laptop on the lap. A Sunday.

I have this habit of people-watching. I tend to try and interpret those in passing. Example. “Ooooo there was definitely a mysterious disposition about him” or “What an optimistic way of walking.” But sometimes I think something mean about them. No examples necessary on that one on account of it would negate my entire purpose which is as follows: lately I’ve been working on being less judgmental. Whenever I think something negative, I shove it out of my head and then pray that I can become better, that I can see them from the more loving child-of-god perspective. I’ve been getting better! However, the one thing I especially struggle with, is bleach blonde kids. Boys, girls, doesn’t matter. My head has a spaz-reaction to them. I almost want to claim that its involuntary, but I won’t because that’s a dumb cop-out.

There’s a big window in the Smith Field House that overlooks the courtyard-type area by the RB. I sit up there on a couch with my loves after aerobics while we’re waitin for Family Life to start. It’s a great time to read or write or just breathe and de-sweat your raunch-nast-aerobics self. (One time Tyler Yates walked by, personally witnessing the lyndsi-shae-raunch-nast-aerobics experience. I was almost embarrassed, but, knowing that I have surely not fooled anyone into thinking that I am the victim of perpetual glamour, I got over it pretty fast.) I was writing up there two Thursdays ago when a big group of Samoan boys walked by underneath. Oh the distraction. They were just GLORIOUSLY MANLY. Havvvvve Mercy.

Some words get on my nerves. Example. Chloe. It’s a pretty cute name to say, but annoying to read. The type of annoying that’s not too overbearing, but just agitating enough to be absolutely obnoxious. I mean c-h-l-o-e… are you serious? Something in there should tap you on the shoulder and say “Hey, I’m two syllables… just so ya know. K thanks.” Honestly. It makes me crazy.

Guess what?! The other day I was walking home from class. As I cut across the street, a boy passed in front of me. He was wearing a black t-shirt and bright blue pants. He also had those shoes with the fat tongues that poke up bravely above ankle-level. It was just BAM enough to make him unique looking, but not so much as to overpower the entire campus with some kind of arrogant sauntering implication. Without thinking I look at him and said “Alas I am truly in love.” Luckily, I‘m pretty sure I only said that in my head. And the biggest deal is… he had bleach-blonde hair! Yeah! Hellooo? Progressionnnn!!! I am getting so much better.

Today my Stephy Jay was making wheat bread. I’m talkin standing over a kitchen table covered in flour, kneading dough. Her hair was all loose around her shoulders, kinda curly. Her face was focused and kind. She was singing in and out of different country songs….
Who would not want that woman?! I feel that way about all my loves. I often find myself wishing I could save our moments and show them to strangers.

L y n d s i S h a e

Love is a Battlefield.

THE DAY: Wednesday, October 3rd 2007
THE TIME: 2:14 am
THE MUSIC: Jesse's Girl; Rick Springfield
THE MOMENT: Zip up hoodies

A few nights ago, I was scrunched up in a tent all night long on a mountain.
Yes. I was.
At one point, there were anonymous animals snudging their noses at me from outside. I was the only one awake. In the morning I stuck my head out of a plastic zipper flap. I saw a sky and upside down trees. All my molecules were chilly from the air. "Hello World!" I said involuntarily.

It was a wonderfully rough feeling.

Right now I am nast from aerobics, layin out on my 102 couch, right inside of my 102 life.
Where the most valuable thing I own is a gallon of skim milk in the mini fridge.
Where my friends are very huggy and I'm unfortunately annoyed with the boy I'm kinda dating-ish but not really. Where I have a new appreciation for pineapples, rice, and going for walks. Where I tie things around my head like a ninja turtle and dance in my underwear. Where I was very opposed to the raunch couple in front of me in the library today. Who makes out in the LRC? Honestly ya'll...







One day I will be in love, and we will watch the fireworks.
I think about that some times.

I just need to say,

that even though I have no makeup on

and I smell like a sweaty kickboxer,

and I am watching a movie all by myself...

I love who I am.

And sometimes,

other people love it too.

But if they didn't, I would be okay.

I am on a revolution to be the woman I'm supposed to be.

I am strong enough to be her.

I will become.

Written after the pinapple juice.

***Ya'll might want to copy/paste this into Word... its a long one.***

There is a woman on an interstate, her arms a lonely brown from the same sun of many different towns. She rides a hard-earned motorcycle, packed with a change of clothes, a humble savings, and her last letters. There is a mysterious determination in her countenance, a scar on her right shoulder, a rip in her jeans. Her son’s green bandana flies in her hair. Though she steers toward a hopeful horizon, the sun seems to always be setting. Ears ringing with power chords from her anthems of the seventies, she drives into the night. I am this woman.

There is a woman in a city. The type of city that makes lists of top twenty _____'s. Though it bellows with the cold metallic shriek of man-made structures, scraping the sky with its screams, she finds an art that sings from within it. She sees it in the brick-wall mural of a Cajun restaurant, owned by a foreign family, long forgotten by business men a few intersections north. She feels it in the exterior vent of the high-rise apartment building that breathes warm air on sleeping homeless families. She creates it in her pawn shop guitar that leaks chords onto street corners, feeding her need for the open air. She communes with it through the faint glow of distant lights, the breeze exhaling through the alleyway, the mirror glass in the sky, the paint that squeezes from tube to life onto her layered skirts. I am this woman.

There is a woman in a tribe, atmospheres away, who paints the corners of her eyes with deep violet juices that seep from fallen fruit. Whose soul dances around a fire, to the sound of her grandfather's drum, which mirrors the heartbeats of the elk and the rhythm of the river that keep her people alive. Who knows her friends not one at a time, but by the unity of their mothers and fathers and their strings of ancestors that watch them all from a perpetually returning moon. Who knows nothing more than the dust of her paths, which blanket her wise and weary feet. I am this woman.

There is a woman running down a dirt road that is flat for miles and days. Eyelids falling, she inhales the mint fields as they clean out the oxygen beneath her skin. She closes her mind to all but the steady rhythm of her feet, knowing her love of these paths will soon become distant. The scent fades, and she senses the wheat fields that now run alongside her. Deceivingly soft and swaying, she knows their surface is painful in reality. Her history is rooted here, she wonders if this is the same dust of her past. Has that earth blown away, or is it buried deep beneath? She struggles with these questions, longing to substitute them with the peace of blank spaces. Instead, she is intercepted by the memory of the summer before the change. Stowaway corn stalks slither up through the wheat, confining her with their indifferent stares. She turns her eyes instead to the road that lies before her, knowing she is strong enough to survive her transformations. She sides with the bordering canals, soaking up the column of coolness which promises life to the dry country surrounding them. Behind her, the soft dust kicks and swirls upward, proof that she is alive and progressing in this moment. I am this woman.

There is a woman on a suburban street. Who lives with her family of seven in an oddly skinny house half the size of the newlywed's across the way. Who prefers her windows down, her music loud, and her feet bare. Who, regardless of the season, has summer in the back of her mind and is wishing for the ocean. Whose favorite drinking water is un-bottled, streaming from copper-mouthed hoses in backyards of her past. Who measures life in words and thoughts rather than square-inches and dollars. Who is strong enough to no longer love the drunken boy across the lake. Who runs against her weak legs, fueled by the pulses of her immortal longings. Who flies to and fro across the country, between two towns: one upholds a reverence for who she was, the other, a fighting faith in who she is becoming. Both have combined to transform her home from a geographical definition, into fleeting and transient resting-place that she must now keep within herself. Who knows that though most minds passing by would see her as less, she is this woman, and yet all of these women speak from within her, the anatomy of her soul.

I know that it is freezin but I think we have to walk...

THE DAY: Tuesday 9-25-07
THE TIME: 12:03 PM
THE MUSIC: Somehow; Good Morning Maxfield
THE MOMENT: Cowlick'ed hair and pajamas at Noon.

Yesterday I was a sad girl.

Today I am too, but maybe a little better.
The goal is not to be a mopey-helpless sad,
but instead a hopeful-keep-believing type of sad.

Within the past few days:
I have stood, sat, ran, twirled, screamed, and sang in the rain.
I have watched confused rock and roll boys, in their tattered skinny jeans, sing into microphones in the middle of the street. I have stared a boy in the face who somehow had nothing to say to me. (I still know I could love him.) I have been the elusive girl on the crosswalk, shivering in the wind, singing myself home in the dark, staring down the headlights of those forced to wait on me.



I have come home to the calm feeling of my friends.
I am thankful.

Here I am.

THE DAY: September 20th, 2007

THE TIME: 12:55 AM

THE MUSIC: So Long Lonesome; Explosions In The Sky

THE MOMENT: Reach

I've been struggling with this darkness left by my father. I've been walking past fenced off broken buildings. I've been laying under sycamore trees and stretching myself around, as if I could reach to embrace an earth that would soak through to me. I've been hoping to find out who these people are behind all the doors that surround my new home. I've been wondering what it is I'm anticipating. I've been trying to inhale, trying to show myself, trying to find a peace of timing. I've been walking upside down, though I still can't feel today's road in my eyes. I've been chasing after the tides of my own longing, my own security, my own core desires. I've been searching out my name, peeling through the skins of my feet, listening for change. I've been under bells of silence, bombs of indifference, forests of a petrified past.

Will they find me?

THE DAY: September 8th, 2007

THE TIME: 6:23 PM

THE MUSIC:

THE MOMENT:

These days the sun tauntingly sinks,

Sprawling herself provocatively across the mountains,

Flashing vivid colors from within her organs.

Underneath, I walk monochrome.

Barely let in by the air, I float home.

step.step.step.

Time squeezes and sneaks through hidden alleyways.

I spin the night. I shake the hours.

Stretching in and out of stale corners, I try to wake the moments that surround me.

But nothing reaches.

Nothing swallows.

tick.tick.tick.

I am waiting.

Ssquaress

THE DAY:Friday August 31st 2007
THE TIME: before843inthenighttime
THE MUSIC:Yellow; By Coldplay
THE MOMENT: My new self stretched out on my new bed inside my new apartment.

* * * * * * *

Tonight I had a spaghetti dinner with a boy that wants to marry my friend. My friend wasn’t there. I made the fruit salad. I asked him so many things: his favorite things in the world, the reasons why he loved her, the flavors he likes in his ice cream, but could find no reason not to like him, though I’m sure that was the goal at the beginning. I cannot say which conclusion would have been more comforting.
In my room across from me, there are four round pill boxes on top of a pillowcase, on top of a table I stole from a dumpster. I bought them from a hippie type store on the island I’ve gone to every summer I can remember. In the living room, some stow-away island sand suffocates in a glass Sundrop bottle. Brooklyn's seashell stares it down alongside our other sideline attempts to create an ocean in our land locked apartment. It’s not quite convincing, but there is something unseen in the air around here that squeezes sunsets into you and filters down through all your back stage foundation thoughts… and so our tabletop beach, though meager, is enough.
Today I sat on the edge of this bed with a boy I know I could love. I think he knows it too. I don’t think he plans on letting me. (There is an anticipation, a longing in me for who he is, the kind that compels me to wear a white sundress when I see him again, but not to change it when I drip red popsicle all over myself.) As I think of him, all that we were, the absent feeling of what is now left over, the knowledge of what we could work to be… half of me is overcome by a comfort that silences all surplus thinking… though still, in an undeniable corner towards the back of my mind, a dial tone rings out.
It is him.
I catch myself wishing he would reach for me.
There are five girls in my life here. I am one of them. The other four waited for me to come home from home. When I did, they were ready for me. This alone is a baseboard blessing inside of me. We made a beginning though we did not actually end. They know my summer. We know our fears, our intentions, our stumbling blocks. We know the strengths, the forces of the women we are. We are a flash flood, a sand storm, a funnel cloud, a natural power watched from a distance.

Lyndsi

Oooooooooooo Oooo

THE DAY: August 23, 2007
THE TIME: 1:07 Pm
THE MUSIC: Walkin' On Sunshine: By Katrina and the Waves
THE MOMENT: like Yellow flipflops.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Nelson Mandela


I got my Stephy back yesterday!
I just surely love life, even the bad parts.

Also, on account of this sweet breast cancer fund raiser I now have a pink streak in my hair.
This has filled me with the insatiable desire to punk my face off and dye myself every obnoxious color that was ever on the earth. Hello BYU! I am like a box of highlighters!

I love the fall for one reason especially... Heaven bless school supplies. I LOVE that kinda stuff. The other day my Mom brought me skinny markers and fat markers and classic colors and bold colors and just... holy cow. I love that woman. She knows me. I used to get pens and pencils and post it notes instead of toys. No barbies for me ya'll. Holey Jeans, Footballs, and Kickballs and lisa frank notebooks were my world.

I feel the need to add that actual school doesn't excite me. I was thinkin about my first year of college the other day... I rocked my fall semester towards the beginning... and I couldn't think of why. I don't remember swooning over acedemia. I had physical science, sociology, stats, HEPE, and book of mormon. Then I remembered.
Physical Science- There was Jon Swift. Oh man. Talk about motivation for attendance.
HEPE- Brody Day. Okay.... a big Oh Yeah for that boy at the time.
Sociology- I sat with the baseball team. Howww did I get that? I did that. YES.
Stats- No foxes. Bummer. But then again, I never went to Stats.

Part of me wants to be disgusted with myself for that realization. And then theres the other part that says, No Shame. No no shame.

Especially now after my life revoloosh... I just want to bust into provo like a firework.
I am here.
I am new.
I am strong.

Chuck some life at me.

But... my new eyes have never seen Provo. I wonder what they'll think.

Also I'll be surrounded by return missionaries. Good thing?

Maybe I'll just continue to run around in my base ball hats and bare feet and be a spaz and then no one will try to marry me.