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…