breath

the other day it was so cold. I climbed into my car and started singing and my breath rolled out in swirling clouds. I stopped. there is an extent to which a person is contained in their voice, in the words which fall off their lips, but its all so intangible. its just noise. but words for me are such a part of who I am, my voice, gosh, the only other time I get to see it is when its on paper. but those are just black shapes on white space, two dimensional, noiseless, almost formless. and here my voice was taking shape; part of me suspended in the moveless, icy air. and more than words it was song, words with life. I almost didn't turn the heat on the whole way there.

no shalaque for me

there are two types of people in this world: those who are messy, and those who are pretending not to be. some people are just better painters of pictures of who they want to be perceived as, but really they're just buying time. I have yet to meet a person who within a few months did not prove to be as flaw-full as me. and so I am finally at a point where I am more concerned about growing than picture painting (except for in the literal sense. I'm all for a little sketch on the side of the sunday morning bulletin) and I'm banking on the fact that just being honestly in process will be worth what I learn, and hoping that I prove to be that stone upon the beach that is easy to pass by because it seems rather rough and dull, but when polished proves a million times better than the ones you find in hoards, covered quickly in cheap shalaque, at the souvenir shop. and so I might seem childish or naive, and maybe sloppy and definitely messy, but hopefully honest, so be patient with me.

and the dam broke

I used to have to poke myself in the eye at funerals. not really, but only because I didn't care that I couldn't cry. it was almost a claim to fame for me, something I was proud of: my inability to shed a tear. once I passed the age where you cried about splinters, it almost slowed to being an annual (semi-annual if I'm generous) event. I carried my own pain around at arm's length with a limp hand, and other people's pain never went past my brain, none of it could get all the way in. and then something happened. and the dam broke. and there was no holding this pain away, because it's point of origin was the deepest parts of me. and I cried more in a month than I probably did in the entirety of my life. and who knows, maybe half the tears weren't even about that, maybe they were just leftover from old funerals and friends' heartaches. and now it seems everything can get in, and it doesn't matter how many times I swallow I still have to look out the window. but its ok, its great in fact. because I think its called compassion, and its called the ability to feel, and apparently someone had to take a hatchet to my heart to get me there, but it broke the dam, so it was worth it.