fresh start

"why is life all crazy like this?"

"bhuta ia, dewa ia."
"what does that mean?"
"man is a demon, man is a god. both true."
"so what can we do about the craziness of the world?"
"nothing," he laughed, with a dose of kindness. "this is the nature of the world. this is destiny. worry about your craziness only - make peace in yourself."

positive tension

create your own little world.


that way, nothing can get to you.

i turned to you and say
you're just as boring as everyone else
why'd you have to get so hysterical
success success success is over
why'd you have to get so useless

laugh so you dont cry
laugh so you dont cry
laugh so you dont cry

destination unknown

[its always harder to go back]

i know its meant to be a balance of pleasure and devotion
but what do you do when you are used to favouring one ?
and it seems to me, once you've crossed the line
its hard to bring it back into balance

the potholed road of circumstance

"the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding. i consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind." - bhagavad gita

you've got to stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone should be

open wound

sometimes i feel like im a walking open wound.

records

i see it on the television, in books i read,
in people i know and love, in strangers
and yet i sit here and move myself farther away from it
when will i stop dreaming and let it become reality ?

until then... ill dream of days
of dancing to records and deep belly laughs

a million little pieces

The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.
I broke something, Old Man.
How badly is it broken?
It's in a million little pieces.
I'm afraid I can't help you.
Why ?
There's nothing you can do.
Why ?
It can't be fixed.
Why ?
It's broken beyond repair. It's in a million little pieces.

"I turn and look back across the Lake. The mist is gone and the ice is diminished, the drip of the icicles quick and heavy. The sun is up and the Sky is blue empty blue light blue clear blue. I would drink the Sky if I could drink it, drink it and celebrate it and let it fill me and become me. I am getting better. Empty and clear and light and blue. I am getting better."

wings

in my dream last night
i opened my mouth
and words came rushing out
poetry of all kinds

words rushed out of my mouth
and i had no control
weaving together to make perfect sound
sending chills up my spine

this morning i woke
and i was sure
i had grown wings in my sleep
i felt them deep in my shoulder blades

my old self

"you're a few years overdue
i spent them waiting here for you

went on a limb for you
capsized when i turned twenty two

do hope i won't learn to make the same mistakes
that you would make me aware my only fear
my only hope
is letting go"
- get up kids

as the music met my ears i drifted up into air
and hovered over myself a few years back

and to be honest
i didn't recognize that girl at all

[i say what i have to and hold back the rest]

you are subtle as a window pane
standing in my view
but i will wait for it to rain
so that i can see you
you call me up at night
when there's no light passing through
and you think that i don't understand
but i do

we don't say everything that we could
so that we can say later
oh, you misunderstood
i hold my cards upclose to my chest
i say what i have to
and i hold back the rest
'cause someone you don't know
is someone you don't know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep your eye on that one
anticipate

if there's anything i've learned
all these years on my own
it's how to find my own way there
and how to find my own way back home
- ani difranco

gratitude gratitude gratitude

i want to make books and take pictures and drink more tea
and lie on more couches and listen to pablo neruda poetry
and read sark books
and go to bed early and kiss more cheeks
and play heads up 7 up when it rains
and giggle more and worry less
and dream up funny possibilities and brave endings

making your life feel better...
i think it takes a lot of things
[1] let the tears roll where they will
[2] honey on anything
[3] a very soft old hand saying "you'll be okay"
[4] a bubble bath with candles
[5] praying
[6] listening to children explain
[7] watching the branches let go
[8] gratitude gratitude gratitude
[9] sharing your colours

with my freckles and messy hair, bruised knee and chapped lips --
this morning i am splendidly imperfect and alive.

"one runs the risk of weeping a little if one lets himself be tamed" - antoine de saint exupery

fire

beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel

there's a fire thats just waiting for fuel

you tell me

how does it make you feel ?

you tell me whats real.

there's a fire just waiting for fuel.

nostalgia and true feelings

"all this makes me want to go home and be a kid again"
"yea, when everything was simple and you didnt realize how disappointing people were"

im like a hurricane on a mission
no direction but relentless none-the-less
you might not want to cross my path
bc there is fire in my eyes and pride in my chest
and no one is gonna take that from me this time

thumbsucker

[IT FELT LIKE EVERYTHING WAS WRONG WITH ME]

That's because we all want to be problemless -- to fix ourselves.

We look for some magic solution to make us all better but none of us really know what we are doing.

And is that so bad ?

That's all we can really do as humans.

GUESS. TRY. HOPE.

But just pray you don't fool yourself into thinking you got the answer, 'cause thats all bullshit.

THE TRICK IS LIVING WITHOUT THE ANSWER.

I think.

some good advice from an old dead poet

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
- Charles Baudelaire

e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
[with up so floating many bells down]
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men[both little and small]
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed[but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer]
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
[sleep wake hope and then]they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
[and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down]

one day anyone died i guess
[and noone stooped to kiss his face]
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men[both dong and ding]
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

smile

i caught you smiling at me
and your smile
told me a whole lot of things
that im not sure
it was meant to

im tired of being pushed around

ive been so worried about how you feel

ive forgotten myself

if i could say goodbye to you
to everything you ever were in my life
i think i would take it right now


and i would pass you on the street
and you would be another stranger
and i would smile as you walked by

winter wonderland

these good times and laughter
are being strung around my heart
like christmas lights
and they are building me up

the snowflakes on my eyelashes
are bringing back the magic
and the crisp snow beneath my shoes
make it all a little lighter

just for one second
i felt as though
i had opened my eyes
and i could see in all directions
at the same time

heart song - part 2

i guess it must be something like freeze frames
holding onto moments of perfection in the middle of the mess
i spend too much time wrapped up in you
i give too much of myself to something that is nothing and everything all at once
i take it all back, or at least i try
im so weak i dont even believe in my own attempts
nothing that comes out of me is fact anymore
its all twists and turns and fantasy and hope
its lost endings and false beginnings
its everything i ever wanted. nothing at all.



lets start this over.

heart song

I felt for sure last night

That once we said goodbye

No one else will know these lonely dreams

No one else will know that part of me

I'm still driving away

And I'm sorry every day

I won't always love these selfish things

It was my turn to decide

I knew this was our time

No one else will have me like you do

No one else will have me, only you

You'll sit alone forever

If you wait for the right time

What are you hoping for?

I'm here I'm now I'm ready

Holding on tight

Don't give away the end

The one thing that stays mine

Amazing still it seems

I'll be 23

I won't always love what I'll never have

I won't always live in my regrets

sleep tonight

we don't want to sleep tonight
still young like that i count the lines
beside your mouth that smiles now

with buried heads we both forget
all of the past and its regret
wind picks up the window shakes
but we won't hear the morning break

and i try to hide it all

but with you i wear it on my sleeve

we talked about nothing

which was more than i wanted to know

i somehow believe you less and less
and i guess i trust you about as much as i should
which could be another way to say i wonder if i ever did
wonder who's hiding behind each eyelid when you close your eyes

i said goodbye

[and you too quickly replied goodbye]

and its done now

[but it still hurts the same]

sing sing singgggg

but you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living
because its the ones with the sorest throats
who have done the most singing

let me go

and its ok

'cause i feel grounded these days

less like a bullet that strays into a crowd

looking for a home

wonder what you did with that cape

i used to keep hanging in my closet

let me go

let me belong to myself again

then stand back to back with a mountain

and ask am i taller yet ?

'cause i kinda have my heart set on being huge

and i figure maybe with a bigger heart

i could love strangers a little more

and laughter would be my encore

isnt it strange

how when your heart breaks

the only person you want to talk to

is the one that made it ache

got all your secrets written down

you hide behind your shiny, flawless ideals
and you hurt everyone along the path of your yellow brick road
you mold me and hope for it to match to your dream
when i can't be molded and i sure as hell
don't want your shiny statues in my life

to idolize

you don't even see the butterfly you could be
you're stuck in this cocoon
and completely content
but i dont want to stay there with you
in that cramped little space

dirty old town
dirty little town
got all your secrets written down

well maybe i'm in love with possibility

and i've kept you like a secret
since that day i found you

and you have to fight to stay in control of the situation
but its time i let you go

where the wild things went

your entire body shakes when you laugh

as if your sense of humour was built on a fault line

and the coast of your heart falls into the ocean of yourself

and im left looking for this atlantis

left looking for this place that exists in stories

told by old men who were there when

mathematics assured them

their willingness to believe was greater

than their determination to dismiss

im left looking for atlantis

regardless of the scientist that insists

my efforts would be better spent

unearthing clues to where the wild things went

we come from a mentality

that rarely sees the horror in symmetry

or the beauty in non conformity

we insist for us everything must be clear cut

we deposit our faith in fear

but clear our minds to the possibility

that maybe we as adults

still get scared of the dark

we're all shipwrecked on this idea that everything needs to be explained

maybe the best we can hope for

is that those we leave behind

find comfort in knowing

that we're born out of love

not out of science

that biology explains the how

but love explains the why

this is for those that scour the streets wondering where the wild things went

stop signs

its all stop signs

its all lines that shouldn't be crossed

its all interpretations that have been lost in translation

even when the meaning is embossed on something that redefines stop signs

something that erases and redraws lines for all the times

curiosity gets the better of us

but until it gets the best

we test the lines

until it gets the best

its all stop signs

he loves to pull feathers from his pillow and watch them fall to the ground

eyes like recycle bin blue

you look at things as if you can make them new

and more than once

i caught you staring

gravity

maybe its gravity
thats getting us down

all at once i realized....

and you said to me
"you're a good girl
and i never told you that"


.... and all at once
i realized....

just begin - one...

I never look at the masses of my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time- just one one one. So you begin. I begin. I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up one person I wouldn't have picked up 42,000... The same goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin- one...
-Mother Teresa

and i'll play at being brave

i am still sleeping

as we walk through the city

our hands turning red

and our breathe leaves a mark

the sky that is too bright
from all the skyscrapers

ps. tomorrow night, going to a-trak ! yip yip

here comes the light

i feel the pressure settle over me
the same old thoughts
my own little private hell
and yet like so many others

and i think
if i could stay in your love always
be in constant movement with you
and here comes the light

here it comes rushing in
in the face of a smile
of a beautiful melody
in the leaves falling to the ground

nobody's little weasel

"with wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day"

- amelie

rise and shine

grandma told me
stop trying to calculate the difference between people
people don't need division
gotta stick together
gotta love one another
she said we will only find equality
in the number of our tears
and she was right
because i don't know what injustices you've suffered


justice isn't justice
it just is
and you can't change it and i can't change it
so we just gotta try and rearrange it
and i could offer you this miracle
a chance to see what i see
to see the way people see me
because if seeing is believing
and you see what i see
who would want to see anymore


grandma told me
young lady
you can't be concerned
with whatever it is they've got
the only reason they think they are beautiful
is the same reason they think you're not
and young lady
you have beauty beyond measure
you're a treasure
entrenched in this earth
you can't let strangers determine your worth
rise and shine



so i rose and i shone





ps - here is a photoshoot from the weekend in whistler, with two of my favourite people. check out anastasiachomlack.typepad.com for amazing photos

moving forward....

"because no matter how badly a thing is hurting us
sometimes letting it go hurts even worse"

choice

i say you can choose darkness
but it never once has chosen you

"spelled out your name and list the reasons

faint of heart don't call me back

i imagine you and i was distant not insistent

i followed suit and laid out on my back, imagine that

a million hours left to think of you and think of that"

- tegan and sara

poem for meee !!!

crocker wrote me this poem today, i think its called an acrostic ? anyways, it rocks so here it is, thanks crock !

Free-Spirited
Elves
Rarely
Reheat
Irish
Stew

'Cause
Ecoli
Can
Injure
Livers
Inside
Animals.

bwahaha. what a masterpiece.

stepping outside of the person you've been

and hansel said to gretel, "let us drop these breakcrumbs... so that together we find our way home. because losing our way would be the most cruel of things".

and losing your way on a journey is unfortunate. but, losing your reason for the journey... is a fate more cruel.

this year, i lost my way. sometimes i travelled alone. sometimes, there were others who took the wheel -- and took my heart. but when the destination was reached, it wasn't me who arrived... it wasn't me at all.

and once you lose yourself, you have two choices: find the person you used to be... or lose that person completely.

because, sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been. and remember the person you were meant to be. the person you wanted to me.

the person you are.

- one tree hill

who inspires you ?

here we go again.

its times like these, that come out of nowhere, where it feels as though my chest has been ripped open and exposed; even the slightest breeze is felt against my insides.

times like these i want to write it all down in a letter for you. that the thoughts that don't have words could somehow make their way onto paper so you could peer into my heart and explore it like a secret garden.

you would know what i know and see what i see and feel what i feel. as i breathe out you would breathe in.










.......... and the past comes rushing back in.

photograph of yourself

think im going for a walk now
feel alittle unsteady
the neon sign on the horizon
rubbing elbows with the moon
and out on the porch
the fly strip is
waving like a flag in the wind

you know
i don't forward
to seeing you again
youll look
like a photograph of yourself
taken from far, far away
i won't know what to do
and i won't know what to say

in the backroom
there is a lamp that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on
it swings gently side to side
there is a change in constellations
of balls as we are playing
i see your eye and say nothing
the only thing i can think of saying is....
- ani difranco

what is deep inside you ?

trapeze swinger

please, remember me, happily,

by the rosebush laughing

with bruises on my chin, the time when

we counted every black car passing

your house beneath the hill, and up until

someone caught us in the kitchen

with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank

a vision too removed to mention

and please remember me, at Halloween

making fools of all the neighbours

our faces painted white, by midnight

we'd forgotten one another

and when the morning came I was ashamed

only now it seems so silly

that season left the world and then returned

and now you're lit up by the city

and please remember me, as in the dream

we had as rug-burned babies

among the fallen trees and fast asleep

beside the lions and the ladies

that called you what you like and even might

give a gift for your behaviour:

a fleeting chance to see a trapeze-

swinger high as any saviour

i want to hear jazz with my eyes closed
and dig my toes into the sand dancing
i want to climb to the summit and yell
and sleep under the stars
i want to laugh my head off and play marbles
and sleep in and eat croissants in bed with marmalade
and spill coffee and wear lace
and trip holding your hand
because i am listening so closely.

i think we are negative in habit.

how easy it is to be affected by one negative comment than be affected by many positive ones. i see it in myself. i will have a great day and something small will happen that will turn it all around.

this is my new resolution. to let go easier, to move on and to dwell on the beauty and good of each day. so often im rushing around and dreaming up what comes next, i miss all the good in front of me.

i want to trip holding your hand
because i am listening so closely.

forgotten among the lilies....

i abandoned and forgot myself
....
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies
- st. john of the cross

we have all been known from the very start.

our eye colour, our hair line, our jawline, the shape of our big toe, the tone of our voice. these things have been designed from the very beginning. what kind of music we listen to. the sort of skirt that looks good. the sort of shirt that fits right. we have been made to find these things for ourselves and take them in as ours, like adopted children: habits, hobbies, idiosyncrasies, gestures, moods, tastes, tendencies, worries. we are all these things. they have been put in us for good measure.
perhaps we don't like what we see: our shapeless hair, our bony legs, our shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our disposition. we have disclosed these things in secret, likes and dislikes, behind closed doors with locks, our lonely rooms, our messy desks, our empty hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression.
don't worry.
put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your books on tape. there is someone right here who knows you more than you do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting on your favourite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say, who is standing there with you, face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. there is no space left uncovered.
[there is nothing about you they don't love.]
- sufjan stevens

journal of a solitude

i am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up 'real' life again at last. that is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened.
- may sarton

i think it will be a very sad journey...

how tragic would it be to go through life not being fully myself and therefore not FULLY alive ?
we change ourselves to be loved and yet we never give ourselves the chance to be completely and wholly loved for who we are, exactly as we are made.

i want to treat myself with love and know that i am loved fully for exactly who i am.
i want to stop covering, shifting, prettying up, and hiding up parts of me.

i want to be loved for me.

"i must ask myself 'what am i trying to be that i already am?'
if i don't love those parts of me, the tucked in sucked in silent parts...
i think it will be a very sad journey, and a pathetic waste of time.
'if you're not yourself, who will be?'"
- sabrina ward harrison

the way it goes

so much is spoken in what is left unsaid
i'm leaning in to hear the whisper of your silence
barely audible
and i wonder if its worth the risk to ask
or if i should just allow the way it goes

what do you carry ?

i carry with me

i carry with me a broken blue wallet
i carry with me chicken pox scars on my eyelid and a pink dot on my lip
i carry with me old receipts that i am too lazy to throw out
i carry memories of late night talks and boat rides at the cottage
i carry my mother's hair colour and my father's laugh

i carry a cell phone with hundreds of names of people i've met
i carry with me most, but not all, of my heart
i carry with me three sisters and time spent laughing at movie lines
i carry a ring from thailand
i carry all the houses i've ever lived in, and the place i call home

i carry hope and fear and confusion and joy
i carry my mother's compassion and my father's generosity
i carry broken dreams and endings
i carry the true and the questions


what do you carry ?

change

change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains of dawn
it comes like the stealthy perfume of wild flowers hidden in the grass
- john steinbeck

today i was talking with my friend mark about change and the tension and anxiety that comes before you know a big change is about to occur.
and how i've learnt that when i feel this tension within me to expect a change in the future, before even knowing what it may be about.
mark said its funny how as we grow older we learn about ourselves and almost get to know ourselves better, that you know why you feel a certain way or what is causing certain emotions.
i'm ready for the change that is ahead of me.
i'm ready to flip over and rearrange and shift pieces in my life. to take who i have become and build on to parts and drop others. to grow into someone more resembling myself, at the core.
i once read someone write "it has been a year of losses, but i like who i have become".

rise again, nod to me, shout !

there comes a time where we must
wash the gum from our eyes
and dress ourselves for the dazzle of the light.

long have you timidly waded
holding a plank by the shore
now i will you to be a bold swimmer
to jump off into the midst of the sea
rise again, nod to me, shout !

and laughingly dash with your hair.
- walt whitman