Tears

My tears are weighted
With held-in heartache
Because though I've always known the value in a 'good cry',
I've been crying for all the wrong things
All these years
And now my tears are heavy
With unsaid words,
Buried hurts,
Built up pressures,
And pushed aside needs.
And my lids have weakened
Under their weight
Unable to hold back the flood
that is
Tragically & beautifully
Me.

Torn

I know you hear
My pebbles pinging on your window
And I know too
That you won't answer.
Or possibly that my impatience
Will not allow you the time.
Either way
I find myself in that all-too-familiar place
The place where I'm wandering and lost
Needing your help
Yet not getting my answer
Because you've got your own life to live
And me,
Well, I hang up after two rings,
I only throw a handful of pebbles,
I whisper my questions to you in crowded places.

Sometimes I wonder
If you are amused
At how I mask my fears with stubbornness
Fears you know all too well
But also know that I must face them alone.
Perhaps I, too, know this
Because if I really wanted your answers,
I'd simply work on my patience.

Instead I
Walk away,
Slam the phone against the wall,
And resent your inept lipreading skills,
Blaming you
For leaving me
To face these demons alone.

Yes, I know I never gave you the chance to save me.
I'm torn.
I've always been the 'saver'; then again so have you.
I just don't know how to save myself...
Or let you save me.

Knotted Threads

Pull at the thread
That nagging little
String of a thought
That's been poking its way
Out of place.
Begin to unravel
Things held within
And watch the little thread
Grow longer
Revealing the unaddressed
The good & bad of your past
The ignored & pushed away
Feelings of your heart.
And while the knot you feel
Is as strong as the day that you placed it there,
The unknotted thread
Now flowing through your hands,
Is laying out a path
Easy to follow
And untangled from your past.

Worth My While

If only I knew then...

All those moments
When my heart ached for the unknown,
Worrying there may never
Be an answer to the
Questions of my soul;
Pushing my way through doors
That should've remained unopened,
Fighting battles
I'd lost before even beginning.
And all the while,
My heart,
The one to deal with the aftermath.
Time after time,
Finding her way
Back to her feet,
Stumbling and scarred,
But hopeful
Somehow
Against the odds.

And perhaps,
All this time
It was merely my head
So confused about what lay ahead.
Because while my heart
Would fall and break,
Ache and attempt to heal,
Somehow,
She knew there'd be You.
The answer I needed
To questions I'd never even think to ask.
You.
Making that journey,
Missteps and wounds included,
Worth my while.

Because without my bitter past,
This present could never taste so sweet.

You Make Me

The ease of my happiness
In these moments
Makes me feel whole
Makes me remember
Just the way
Home feels in your heart.

And the way you hold me together
Pulls in those bits of me
That get lost in my extra spaces
And makes me remember
Just who I am
And why it's who I want to be.

And the laughter
That pours from me
Seems to come straight
From my soul
And makes me remember
The smiles of my heart
That belong to
The real me.

And the calm I feel
In the quiet moments
Makes me forget
All of the
Sidelining worries
And frivolous fears
Of my heart.

Because you make me...
You just...
Simply...
MAKE me.

IN & OUT

Sometimes...
I just feel I need a minute
To breathe
IN. & OUT.
Because in all this
Commotion
Sometimes...
I don't even know if my lungs
Are filling themselves.
And if I'm not even sure
that I'm breathing,
Sometimes...
I wonder
How can I be sure of anything.
Consumed and enveloped
By all the OUTside
Affecting my INside
Creating INner turmoil
But allowing no time
To sort it all OUT.
Just compiling the chaos
WithIN
WithOUT my considerations.
Because
Sometimes...
All I am asked is to pour myself OUT
For the things that need
What I have withIN.
So
Sometimes...
I do.
Pouring OUT
my heart,
my soul,
my effort,
myself...
Sometimes...
Wondering just what's being put IN.
But withOUT the time to even
Check if my chest is rising and falling,
What's finding its way INto
My heart & soul
Will have to wait
For my considerations.
And
Sometimes...
I hope that all that I come to find INside
Doesn't leave me withOUT.
And I know
That I won't know
Until I have the time to put IN.
But
Sometimes...
I just find myself OUT of time
And OUT of breath.
So
Sometimes...
I just need to breathe
IN & OUT
IN & OUT...

It's Time

All of you
Play-it-safers
And
Creatures of the comfort
Of the familiar,
It's time.

Time to let go,
To loosen your grasp
On the life that was never meant for you,
The life that your heart never
Drifted to in its musings.

Time to start seeing the world in technicolor
And dive into those colors,
To paint your world brightly,
Mixing new hues, uniquely you,
Creating a masterpiece
The world has never seen.

Time to let your curiosity,
Who's been flashing his crooked little smile,
Get the best of you
And question those things
You didn't expect to want to know.

Time to listen to the voice within,
That sings of the beauty of your passion
And silence those without,
Who harshly scream of what you ought-to-do.

Time to stop buying into
The 'supposed-to's' and
The Fall-Back-On-Plans
Because soon,
You'll find it's years later
And have nowhere to fall from.

**A piece created by pulling bits from poems past and present**

OhSoManyThings

My heart is longing
for OhSoManyThings
And while that's nothing new,
Someone's made up my mind
That OhSoManyThings
Isn't too much.
So I'm letting my heart find her way
Soaring through the
Whipping winds
That confuse and confine
To find the smooth breezes
That comfort and calm
Her worries about the
OhSoManyThings
She desires.

Casting Call

I'm making a movie of my life
But I'm unsure of where to cast you.
The soundtrack is in place
Yet I'm still figuring which role you'll play.
The hero?
The villain?
The silly sidekick?
A lesson to be learned?
Or possibly just an extra in the background?

Images of love and memories
Flicker in the filmstrip
Playing in the screening room in my mind,
With you waiting and watching,
And I doing the same,
Wondering when you'll
Jump onto the spinning wheel
And ride the twists and turns
And appear on the wall, a part of my movie
With music that tells our story,
Beautifully tragic
But full of promise
Of a spectacular twist ending.

Age of Innocence

A time so simple
Yet unrealized until harder times.
A place where one can only reach
Through the notes of a song
That wraps your heart in sweetness
But breaks it all the same
Because it taunts of a time
When smiles were free
And decisions second nature.
When worries were few
And consequences something you could not forsee.
So as your mind brings you back
And breaks your heart
By suffocating it in the lack of simplicity
That your life has become,
Smile as it cracks
And be happy that in this moment
Both Pleasure and Pain
Come from a moment that few know or understand.
And once again they are free
And felt with more emotion
Than those times
You had to PAY to feel.

**A piece written in college while listening to 'Tiny Dancer'**

Piecing Together My Present

I'm piecing together
Scraps of paper
Scribbled with words
From my past,
Trying to create a present
Even though what I'm longing for
Is a future.
And these pages
Of words
Transform themselves
As though my former self,
Who was just letting
Letters leak from her pen,
Knew I'd need these words today.
Eerily pertinent to my present,
It makes me think that
There's a me
Who's placing these words here
For a girl I don't yet know,
Advice for a future someone
Who's searching to
Piece together a present.
It's as though my story's
Already written within
But my past me just won't quiet enough
To let the present me
Paint the picture of my future
In beautiful meter and rhythm.
So I'm clipping
Words and phrases
From my past
To create a poetic present
But also smiling at my
Present fragments,
Knowing they'll piece together
Quite nicely...
Someday.

Words

So here I am
Just surviving on words,
Trying to fill my lungs
And feed my hunger
With letters arbitrarily
Thrown together.
And I can't be certain
About their substance
Or confident
About their truths.
But I breathe them in
And chew them over
Hoping they'll somehow become
More than just
Letters wrapped around my tongue
Or lingering in my ears,
More than just
Symbols streaming from my pen
Or dripping from your lips.
Because many days have I found myself
Spitting out phrases that don't suit my taste,
Exhaling written pages that strangle and suffocate,
Because my comfort in words
Leads me to blindly believe
In all that they have to say.
And though they've failed me time and again,
Both in their absence
And in their lack of content,
I cannot help
But let them fill me up
And breathe new life into me,
Thinking maybe this time
They'll lead to thriving
And 'just surviving'
On words
Will be the story of my past.

Overtaken

I find myself
Tripping on phrases
Because you've overtaken
Those tiny spaces
In between my rational thoughts.
Sliding through
The pathways of my mind
Coating all of my
Reason and Logic
In the Sweet Elixir
Your words leave behind.

And I'm glossed over
By your enticing and
SmoothlySweetSyrup
Dripping its way down,
Oozing and seeping
Its way through my being.
My joints oiled well
But only in the manner
YOU desire.

Only to find myself
Melting
Into a puddle,
A pool,
A
smooth,silky,swirling,swooning,saturated,sidetracked
state of
simple....

Surrender.

So my tongue gets twisted
To where it no longer
Tells of
Perfectly Planned Prospects and Proposals
But instead
Spontaneously Sings of the
Sweet Secrets
Spinning and
Spiraling
Through those tiny spaces.
All because I find you've overtaken

all. of. me.

My Destiny

It's dreams of you
That keep me whole
And help me see this through.
You belong to me
And me alone.
Those secret wishes no one else can see.
I hold you deep down in my soul
Even though I'm still waiting for you
To fill me up,
Wondering what you'll make me.
Because I've been wandering for so long
With nothing but
Thoughts of you
To keep me moving.
Be my voice
And speak those words I don't yet know.
Be my feet
And take me to the places I need to go.
Because I'm running to find you
To find those answers about me.

What I See

There is a side of you
That very few know.

I wish you would not hide it away from the world.

For it is that side of you
That makes you worth knowing.

It's a shame you worry so about it showing.

Submerge Yourself

It's ok.
Put your toe in the water.
I promise not to splash.
I won't let the tide roll in
And drag you under.
Just ease yourself in
And believe in your steps.
I'm your adventure
Calling your name
The one you've been staring at
From your safe ground.
I'm ready for you
To jump right in,
But I know that's not your style.
So find your reasons
And discard your doubts
And step into the waters of your life.
The waters that are full of things
You've only dreamt of,
Full of parts of yourself
You've not met yet.
I'll hold them here forever
Until you're ready
To take the plunge.
But yes,
Someday you must be ready
And one day you must let
The waves of life take you for a ride,
Lest you find yourself
Standing alone on the shore,
Sure-footed on your safe ground
But forever wondering
What might have been
If only you'd had the courage
To dive deep into this life.

Time

She pulled back the film
That coated my eyes,
That helped me to
Gloss over your truths
And helped me
Color you beautiful.
She's brought me to a place
Where street signs are spelled out
And I need not try to decide
Which of your contradicting arrows to follow.
Yes, Time held my hand
And pulled me along.
She stood me on my own two feet
And gave me air to breathe.
She slowed my racing heart
And picked up my pieces that had crumbled in your absence.
And though I grow impatient with her
And doubt her in my darkest days
I'm starting to trust her consistency
And believe in where she'll take me.

Of You

There are places I should go
But my feet are cemented in my mind
Firmly planted in thoughts
Of you.
There are things I should do
But find everything
Just motions I go through
While my heart is a world away, dreaming
Of you.
Perspective on importance has become
Tilted and shifted,
Smart decisions in the eye of the beholder
More so than ever
When every decision is made with thoughts
Of you.
And I'm wondering
If you knew these thoughts of you
What might you do,
But every possible outcome
Still leads me to hopes
Of you.
So, Open yourself to me
And my
Cemented feet
And my
Dreaming heart
To my
Shifted perspective
And my
Unwavering hopes
And let them sing
Into your heart
The beauty of my thoughts
Of you.

My Pen

Slow can be so uninspiring it's mind-numbing.
My pen doesn't want to speak slowly
But rather wants to
Barely keep up and cramp my hand
From all that she needs to say
And all that she tries to catch
As it races through.
Give my pen material;
Give it life.
Stop the stagnant,
Cease the stillness,
And surrender this slow.
I'm ready to write this story,
Tapping my fingers,
Waiting for plot.
Ready to write pages
But instead can only piece together
Fragments and phrases
All truncated
All halted
Just breaking my pen's heart
For she longs for flow.

Bits of You

When your tiny secrets
Uncover themselves
They dance in my heart
And whisper wishes
To the ears of my soul.
But eyes hidden
Behind the faceless conversation
Conceal my longing & mask my hope.
But I'm putting your truths
In a box for safe keeping
Which resides on a
Shelf in my soul
Where I might visit
And thumb through
When I need to spark
The light of hope behind my eyes.
And while unaware of
The files I'm keeping on you,
There are bits of you
That are making me
Whole again.

Agreement to Greatness

Do you push yourself to engage in experiences that expand and enlarge who you are? The types of experiences where the self that comes out of the experience is different, larger, bigger than that which entered. Often we engage in experiences that we enjoy, that fulfill us currently and that cause us temporary happiness. But rarely do we engage in that which forces growth, that pushes us beyond our current state, to make us more complete in the big picture of our life. Experiences that push us beyond the 'now' and force us into our 'tomorrow'. Those things that challenge both our thinking and our comfort zones, that fulfill the temporary and the long term. And if we don't, our rate of growth is slow and we will perhaps find ourselves stuck.

At some point we must sign up for the enlarging experiences. We must sign up for life and then choose to sign up for those moments that make our life bigger and better. We must sign up for the growth of ourselves, for the challenging yet life-enhancing moments. Our life may not suffer if we choose not to sign up for these moments, however, it surely won't be what it could be. We won't even realize how incomplete this life is. However, our ignorance to the completeness does not change the fact that it is quite incomplete.

It takes courage and strength of self to choose these experiences.

Those who do choose to live, to challenge themselves, to seek out moments to fill themselves beyond the current capacity, become larger than life. They grow beyond their limits and find a fulfillment bigger than they could have predicted.

Have you signed up for your life?
What moments do you create and engage in to make your life bigger than it is at this moment?

Luckily, every day is a chance to turn it all around and create a life that exceeds your wildest dreams. You just need courage, self-knowledge of what you really want, discipline of follow through & the belief that it's worth it. You just need to sign up...

X________________________________________________

Your Words

The words you say
Fill the empty space between us,
An echo in my eyes
Dancing in the air
Just lingering there.
They don't say much
But they say enough
To make me 'see' you.
The you that you hide away
From the world.
The you that you think
I cannot see.
The you that you let
Off the hook time and again.
And for a moment
I get more than I expect
But not at all what I want.
So I sit and watch your words,
Lazily fall through the air
just as a lifeless leaf
Drifts downward.
And I let them fall to the floor,
Knowing that they yield
Only more questions
And very little answer
To the many musings of my mind
And the endless yearning of my heart.

Road Trip

Sometimes
The fun of getting lost
In the momentum
Is the journey back
To the cruise control,
And creating the
Soundtrack of your soul
That blasts from the speakers
And ties itself
To the moments
Memories were made.
This winding road
Is headed somewhere
But that destination
Needs side trips
And pit stops
To make it worth my while.
And no matter
The bumps in the road
Or the detours put before me,
It's my path on the pavement,
My song in the speakers,
My foot on the gas.
So I'm taking some turns
And heading back towards the
Highway of life,
Looking out for
Memories waving from
Unknown exits and
Small town streets and
Curious little landmarks,
That surely don't hold my destiny,
But call me to pull over
And take in
Something new and unexpected,
Changing the way I drive
The next leg of my life.
Yes,
I'm looking back on
The avenues I've taken,
Some that have led to dead ends
And others that have
Taken me to beautiful unknown places,
And I'm
Facing the music
That makes my heart beat fast
Because of the places
It has planted itself,
So I can find the
Regular rhythm
And the repaved road
Of myself again.

Unexpected

Putting it all on hold
And filling my cup once more
Because I've found
Some answers I've been searching for
But not until
I took the time to stand still
And let you find me,
Offering a role I wasn't meant to fill.
So I'm letting this storm
Interrupt me
And finding myself in a moment
I'd never see
With all my running
From place to place.
So I'm drinking my wine
And uncovering yet another empty space.

Want to save all your phrases
As pictures of
My smiling eyes
And giddy heart.

Excerpt

I was sure my face was red and streaked and splotchy, but I had to look. I knew I’d be disappointed, but after all these years of wishing, I just had to look at him and see if this, too, he could fix.


He looked as though he hurt for me and when I met his eyes, he tried to manage a weak smile. He turned, then, and stepped off the boat and I looked back out over the water, disappointed. I knew it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t help it. He had been my knight in shining armor, my fix-it man, but he couldn’t save me from the one thing that I needed saving from the most. I felt the lump in my throat release and I leaned forward and sobbed loudly into my hands.

................


Standing at the water's edge, I seemed to feel something I couldn’t find anywhere else. Sometimes it was sadness, sometimes anger, sometimes even a calm, a sense of peace. Regardless of the emotion, staring out at that ever-changing and yet always constant water, it felt good to feel something. It was one of these nights, staring into the water that distorted reality in its rippling reflection, that I realized I was punishing him for things that had come before him, things he could not control or handle and to move forward, somehow, those things could not be a part of me anymore. But how do you rid yourself of your own past? How do you separate yourself from things and people who have defined you for so long?

I walked down to the water’s edge and stared at the wild water. I removed my shoes, stepped into the lapping tide and asked it to wash away the things I could not handle. I walked home and decided as I snuggled down into bed that tomorrow I would let him be my answer again.

Longing to Celebrate

We used to sneak downstairs
And stick our faces between the bars of the banister.
We'd watch the world below
With wide eyes & wishful feet.
The beat of the music pulsed through the room,
So much that it entered our bodies
And soon our hearts had picked up the beat
That was vibrating through our bones.
As our hearts would pound with the rhythm of the music,
We looked at the people below,
Each individual just a piece of the whole
Moving and swaying to the rhythm.
The sea of faces smiling
The sea of hips swishing
The sea of feet stepping
Skin glistening as it moved to & fro.
It matter not if you knew who stood beside you
Because in a single moment
All became one.

Each time there were new faces
That moved to the music,
But it seemed it would be incomplete
Were they not there, moving to the music.

Some played instruments
Some clapped hands
Some danced with feet and arms
And some only swayed.
But everyone moved
And everyone laughed
Long into the morning
And for the rest of their days.

And as we watched, we tapped our feet,
Dreaming of the day
We too would sway.

I'm A Teacher...

Write Your Story…is the assignment I gave my students today. Followed up by a list of questions probing at who they are now as people, who they want to become, what their goals & dreams & fears & frustrations are. And on & on. A challenge I set forth to them as they begin our poetry unit, as they finish up an experience of 9 years together, as they embark on a new journey as whatever person they want to redefine themselves as in high school, in life. Quite the task for a group of 13 & 14 year olds. Quite the task for anyone, really. But I feel they are up for it. Even if I know the answers to those questions will change continuously and at moments will be challenging things to tackle.

I looked out into the faces of kids who put on certain facades daily and asked them to think deeply about themselves, in a way they hadn’t done before. I told them I believed that there was more to each of them than what they put out into the world each day, that who they were, what they felt and thought matters-because it does. It’s funny to watch as they question me on format and length requirements and then deal with my answer of, “Whatever works to tell your story.” These are kids who are used to the ‘GUIDELINES TO RECEIVE AN A+’ & here I am asking them to just let go & pour themselves onto the blank page. Apprehensively, some begin to write, while glancing around at others whose pens have begun gliding across the page as though they’ve been waiting for this moment. Some cannot seem to stop their chatter or their nervous giggles, for that would mean really looking within. While others move to a new place in the room and sink into their thinking. When given the free pass to ‘Put your heads down & think if you’re stuck’, some smile & look at me as though I’ve lost my mind. Funny what happens when a structured world is suddenly given some wiggle room, creative room, thought-filled room, simply put, just ‘room’. It’s as though these kids are so closed in by the world around them, by expectations, demands, constraints, activities, social worries & judgments, that they’ve never been given the room to really just sit with themselves and think about who that person they are sitting with really is. And writing it down, even stranger…no computer to correct their words to what they ‘should’ be, to provide a menu bar of distractions when the thinking gets tough, to tempt them to leave the moment and travel via the great ‘world wide web’ so far outside of themselves that they no longer need to face those deep-reaching questions.

But in time, they are all writing. And I can see them thinking. And soon enough, I am asked to read their stories. As I read them, they hover, watching for reactions, wondering what I think of them (& if I’ll give it an ‘A’). It’s probably frustrating that I make no judgments on their writing or their story other than to say, “Thanks. I like it.” I won’t answer their questions of, “Whose was better? Hers or mine?” I won’t answer the “Is it long enough?” question. I only reply, “Thanks. I like it.” They want more from me while I’m just letting them turn that into wanting more from themselves.

Expectations are a funny thing. I believe that no one will ever rise to low expectations. I think expecting things of ourselves and others is necessary and beneficial. I know there are people who view expectations in a negative way, worried about what others expect of them, worried about the implications of expectations. However, I think expectations push us to new places we may never have gotten to, that they challenge us in ways that we sometimes would forget to do ourselves, that they show you care. Yes, I expect a lot from myself and it would be nothing but insulting for me to expect any less from my students. I expect them to think about their lives as unique. I expect them to be able to decide the best way to tell their own story-it is, after all, theirs to tell. I expect them to find their voice. I expect them to believe that their story is great without a teacher saying it is. I expect them to find their way in this world & if I cannot guide them to believe in their own steps, their own voice, their own decisions, then I have failed them. They are worrying about failing my assignment, but I worry about failing them-which I would have had I not give them the opportunity to find themselves. To try without restraint to hear their voices within. To believe that whatever pours from the pen is worth writing. I believe they hold great things within them. I’m not sure if they all know it yet or believe that this assignment will reveal anything. And for some of them, it hasn’t yet revealed much, it’s still hovering on the surface of who they are. But I am hopeful. I believe in them. I expect it of them.

And the reason I do is because I know it’s there. The kid who stayed after class writing & thinking in silence while others packed their bags and gossiped around him showed me so. Those are the moments that tell me it’s worth it, even if it only lasts for mere minutes. Even if it’s not on state tests. Even if it’s not ‘measurable’. Those minutes matter. Those minutes will lead to something greater than a test score or grade on the report card. Sometimes, people let TRULY valuable moments pass them by because we are blinded by the things that have been deemed valuable by others. I will not let my students deem these minutes, the ones where they looked closely at who they are and what they care about, invaluable.

Write Your Story…is the assignment I gave my students today.

Binded Hearts

Of what are the chains made that bind your heart?
What would it take to pull the links apart?
And give you the vision to see inside another man
To see that it is the same motivation that makes him stand?
Take a moment and look through his eyes
And feel the chains on the heart of the man you despise.
His chains are made just as strongly as the ones in you
Causing the ignorance to consume him too.


**This is a pat on the back to my 17 year old self. This is one of the very first things I ever wrote & tonight I felt like saying to that 17 year old, "Good job, girl...you just started a journey into words...a love affair that will last longer than you know."**

Soul Song

Your guitar is strumming upon my heart
And your words are singing themselves right into my soul.
And I'm finding I'm made of nothing but your song.
Nothing but the notes that pour from your fingers
And the letters that live on your lips.
So I wander through this life
Until my inner self finds those familiar melodies
Calling its name.
And while the song may change
And I have no way of knowing,
When you play,
All that I am and ever should be,
Fills me completely.

A Toast

Let us raise our glasses to the guest of honor.
You, you sneaky little one,
are so cunning and sly,
ever the jokester,
But always coming to our side when we're lonesome
And mussing our hair in times of need.
Yes, we've all known you for quite some time.
And though you're quite the traveler,
popping in when we least expect,
Only those who've known you well,
those who've let you crash at their place
for days on end,
Only those people can truly appreciate what you really give;
why this world wouldn't be the same without you;
why, even when you overstay your welcome, we love you just the same.
So here's to you, Uncertainty!
May you creep in when we least expect it,
May you rock us down to our core,
And may you stay just long enough to flip our world upside down.
Because without you, Uncertainty, Old Friend,
We'd never know how gratifying it is
when we close the door after you've left us...
Cheers!


(this is what happens when you find yourself contemplating the direction of your life....you start personifying Uncertainty, the creep, for causing you to question & then thank him once you realize that WITHOUT the questioning, WITHOUT the UNcertainty, CERTAIN could never feel so good)

A Letter to You

Writing to you is sometimes
the only thing that gets me through.
Because I know that if you're listening,
this moment has passed
and I've come out on the other side.
And I know that you see me more clearly than I see myself,
so I'm asking for you to listen to my troubles
and maybe even asking for a little help
as I stumble through.
Because I want nothing more than to get to you.
And as I wade through
the murky waters
that my soul has become in this moment,
I hope you're smiling that knowing little smirk,
the one reserved for
the moments you've eased right through
those dismal depths,
just waiting on the bank
for the rest of us to clumsily find our footing.
Because if that look is on your face as you read this,
then it means there's an answer,
a reason for this moment
And that my journey to find it will bring me to you.
So I'll endure my aching heart,
And I'll navigate the tumultuous waves of my worry;
I'll silence the doubts of my screaming mind,
And I'll whisper reassurance to the ears of my soul.
Because you're listening.
Out there,
Somewhere,
I can feel you listening.

Yes, writing to you, Future Self,
is sometimes the only thing that gets me through.

Love,
Me...Presently

Today I saw a girl. Bundled up in the cold Chicago weather. Starbucks coffee sitting on the bench beside her. Cigarette in her left hand. Pen & not-so-blank page in her right. She looked sad. Though the sadness may have been due to not having quite enough hands for her needs at that moment, I think there was something in her swiftly moving pen that told me otherwise. As I walked home, I imagined that this is what she wrote:

All it really is
Is one unhealthy addiction
Replacing another.
But this one
Is a choice.
And as the smoke
Curls about itself
Disappearing into the air around me,
I watch the pieces of you
Still in me
Float into nothingness.
And though I hate
The taste it leaves in my mouth,
Soon there will be
No traces of you
In me
And it's gotten my pen moving
In ways it hasn't in years,
Writing off all those pieces of you
Still in me.

Introduction

An introduction, I suppose, to start it off…

Just take a look into my Borders bag (which instead of grading papers, was being filled with whatever I could find to keep me away from reality a bit longer)…Perhaps this will paint a fairly good picture to start with:
-magazines on publishing & writing, magazines entitled Adventure & Outside, a page-a-day calendar entitled 1,000 Places to see before you die, books about doing the things you’ve always wanted to but never had a ‘reason’, books on traveling far from home to find yourself...picking up pieces you never knew were there, etc. etc….Ok, I'll admit it, also an US Weekly.

Yes, I think you can piece together something about me based on this small assortment. The stumper though, was the calendar…not the page-a-day (very small commitment in those-rip away your crappy yesterday or gingerly remove the lovely day passed each day), but rather the one that should take its place prominently in my kitchen; the one whose days I’ll mark off, some days proudly, other days wondering how I let that one pass so uneventfully; the calendar (unlike the work desk calendar) that a blank page gets me excited, lets me think of the possibilities for that month instead of the to-do’s(as the aforementioned work calendar always holds)…

Why, oh why, should a calendar be such a tough decision, one might ask. Well, it shouldn’t be. I should have gone earlier when the selection was ridiculous, when any image you could conjure up would have 12 months devoted to just that ideal soul-connected image. Instead, I go on the 2nd of January…when my selection includes various puppy calendars, lighthouses from every angle, Miley Cyrus photo diaries & of course Warcraft fantasy calendars. Nope, none seem to fit…And being what my calendar means to me, how much I value staring into the blank squares & making plans, this is not to be entered lightly. I did find one, though. One that’ll have to do. One that contains some great waterfalls & beautiful predictably unpredictable trees. I’ll have to suffer through the few months that contain a cornfield. Or perhaps those months I’ll challenge myself to find the beauty in the corn…

So, I’ve settled on the calendar & proudly committed to myself that not one of those days may be crossed off until this is done; until I’ve pushed myself out into the world in some revealing & meaningful way. I often tell others who write (I could say fellow writers, however, I always feel quite pretentious saying I’m a ‘writer’; nope, I’m just someone who writes), “Do NOT erase, DON’T throw away those scraps of paper with your words on them, do NOT burn those poems of your heart that you’d never want anyone to read (both because they are revealing, but also because you deem them crappy writing).” I tell people, "You never know when those exact words may be needed & you are unable to un-erase the musings of 2 years ago, or dig through Friday night’s trash, or piece together the ashes of yesterday to find them." So, no, I don’t erase, I don’t throw out, I don’t burn the words of my own….guard them with my life & keep ‘Viewable By Others’ & ‘Never In A Million Years’ books of writing, yes, but I never destroy them…they are me…or were in one brief moment at least.

However, saving them has become for me, in some ways, my own way of destroying them. Placing them in a book that sits by my bed, jotting words on napkins & shoving them into a binder of random musings, carrying a book where, when the mood strikes, I frantically jot down pieces of myself only to throw it back into my purse. So, this is me pushing myself…the way I push my students, the way I encourage others that write, the way I believe everyone should throw themselves into a passion-without restraint & with confidence in who you are. So while others might simply be learning to hold on to those bits of themselves, I’ve held mine for quite a while….I think the next step is putting it out there, sharing that self with, well, whoever might want to know it, believing that somehow, these words matter. Because if I never let them matter, it’s as though I’ve thrown them away or deemed them unworthy…or even more accurate, as though they never were. And they are here…they are me…