I am this woman.

I am on this bed, all showered and ready to be hopeful.
I am a hopeful person.
I am gonna write this paper,
apologize to my friend,
keep my mind open to what I prayed about this mornin.
Today I will make things happen.
Today I will be okay
with the things
I cannot make happen.

Today I will think of all my pages and how I want to show them to everyone.
I will be sad when the publishers
don't bang down my door,
dying to share in my enthusiasm.

and when my paper is done and my body is tired,
there you will be.

Today I will work hard to make my words and myself align,

to push for truth

and then show it to you.

Because you need that.

We need that.
Both of us scrambling for words.
Face down on the floor,
big exhales for the answer that is not simple,
that is not shining above us.
For the release we are seeking, and the question:
do I get to have that with you?
Yesterday you asked, "Are you worried?"
I am. I told you.
How can I show you?
How can I do this
again
and tomorrow
and again?

Today I will do this again.
On purpose.

Today I will exhaust myself with the choices I am now proclaiming.
I will revere and follow these convictions.
I will go to bed without answers,
and I will not want for clarity.
I will trust.

I will be tired, but I will not wonder...
I will not question myself.
I am a hopeful person.

Today I thought about things, with sand in my clicky pen.

November 26th, 2009. 9:52 am.
I am on the beach alone today, sitting in the sand with my runnin shorts on, reading aloud to myself and the small breeze that hears me. When I look up at the ocean, I feel only gratitude. Pure. Thankful.
* * * * *

10:33 am.
I put down my book in the sand by my face. I am on my belly now, but I stand up and brush off what sticks to me. There is a place in the shore now, a print of myself by my book and my shoes. I leave it there; I've stood-up to do cartwheels. I haven't entirely realized this until I am already doing them. And soon I am running in between. Running and flipping, my eyes open and closing. I used to do this when I was younger. I'd draw a line in the sand and play gymnast on my balance beam. One step at a time. One flip. One turn. Then I am pickin up a purple rock and watchin the little girls in rainbow colored clothes. It's their hair I am watching, wild and curly, red~gold  like another country. They take careful steps toward their sleepin mother in the blue dress and all the while their hair is bouncing, blowing, spiraling. I have never had hair this way-- so defined. My hair is curly, straight, and in between. It is up and down... sometimes both... red, brown, and blonde. This is exactly how I feel-- malleable. I have always felt like I am in the middle of a transformation.  I see another rock in the sand and I think I like it... it is not purple or green but all colors at once and more. I hold it in my hand or a second before I step back and throw it hard into the ocean. Because I know I should. And like the cartwheels it is flying before I understand why. One flip. One turn. A balance. Some things are this way for me-- I know I cannot keep them.

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.