we bought our first house last month. we owned a condo before that, but this is our first stand alone, four walls, no-hearing-the-neighbors-snore-or cough-in-the-middle-of-the-night house. we are getting used to the creaks and light and nuances and unique voice of our new home. it does not feel like home yet. i haven’t seemed to learn that i can’t have everything now, and i let myself get stressed when i think of all there is left to do yet. one of the many reasons i fell in love with this house is the abundance of rooms and the great potential. it is by no means a fixer-upper, but rather an “updater”, and this allows me to unleash my dreams and visions of all that could be done. but dreaming can quickly lead to frustration and stress as i realize that, though there is so much potential, i can’t realize it all right now. so that is my first lesson (or one of the first) i am learning: i can’t do it all, and i can’t do it all right now. But it will come in time.
What do you do
Blue
Speckled violet
With rain
Sad little globes of life and hope
Heliotrope
A sparrow to fly
Who am i
Traipsing about
Puddles splash
Worlds crash
Thin rays
Better days
Pitter patter
What does it matter
Mud splatters swish swish
Sunday drive
Release, cry
Deep sigh
Deep in the ground
Lost
Found
Plant
Grow
Be.
Do you ever live life looking over your shoulder? Not because you are looking for justice that you have so often escaped, but because you are always looking at what everyone else has accomplished. Like a glutton for punishment, i just read my cousin’s latest blog. a poem. i am amazed at her writing. In fact, i am surrounded by talented writers in my family. i read their thoughts, seemingly scribbled off in passing…accidental brilliance. And then i consider my own words. my writings come out awkward and clumsy. i type and type and then i see that all i have written are some words that don’t describe very well what i’m trying to convey. Why is it that i am compelled to compare myself to everyone that i have already prequalified as better than me? Granted, i know better than to think that all they do is sit down with pen and paper and let the words flow. i know how hard they work, fingering each word like a puzzle piece, holding it against the already laid pieces and checking meticulously to see if the fit is true. But i still compare my clumsy words with theirs, holding fast to the fantasy that, while i’m agonizing over every nuance, they effortlessly jot down whatever comes to them, casually creating masterpieces.
I know better than this.
Someone once said, “you have already lost when you compare what you know about yourself to what you think you know about others…”
So i will put my head down a little more. watch the ground i am walking, and then look straight ahead at the approaching tableau. And when i do pause to look around, maybe i’ll do so with eyes that are not so much jealous, but humbled. Instead of bemoaning the fact that so many people around me are so much better than me, i should recall the words of Emerson, “Every man i meet is my superior in some way. In that, i learn of him.
I was watching Spiderman 3 last night and one part stuck with me. There was this man who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and somehow, i am somewhat sketchy of the details, his molecules morph with sand particles. All that’s left of him was dust. But slowly, those small specks started to gather together, and then I thought that maybe I could make out a shape of a hand…maybe a shoulder and perhaps a head. A torso of sand slowly began to rise out of the lifeless dune, struggling to mantain its shape. But it was unable to, and with an almost human moan, it blew apart and fell to the ground. After catching its breath, if sand could do that, it tried again…a head, a neck, shoulders began to emerge from the sand and with the newly formed arms and hands, the form once again tried to lift itself into existance. This time, it was successful, and with one last struggle, he began to walk on his own legs.
I do realize that it is a bit cheesy, and my sentiments might be clumsy and clouded by fatigue, but for some reason, I really connected with this image. I am finding out who I am. I am learning to be autonomous, but I am not fully formed. My head emerges and I lift my face to the sun, but the weight to conform is too heavy sometimes and I come crashing down to the ground again.
I don’t know. This is entirely too dramatic and touchy-feely, but as I said, I connected with it.
A new blog has emerged to join the millions of voices already out there, typing their mind for all who will bother to take the time to read.
I am feeling my way in the dark, both in blogging and in life. I am new to this world you call “blogging”. i find that i get so wrapped up in making sure that i am prepared that i forget to just do…or just be. so before my blog is all pretty, before i have a theme picked out, before i know where all this is going, i am sitting down to write. this time, i am not waiting for the perfect words or the right time. i’m just here, right now, letting my mind breathe and my fingers take over. tippity-tap, tippity-tap. and i find that my breathing is slowed, and i am smoothing out. maybe, just maybe, instead of waiting for the perfect, i should just jump right in: in blogging and in life. perfection never comes and the journey and the honing and the sculpting…that’s where the beauty is. that’s where the the stories come from.
So who knows what the next post will be about. i will find my path, and “paint pictures along the way to mark my existence.”
