there comes a song with the dawn

We wait. We are a culture of waiting. The next big thing, the next phase in our life. The next person to be with, and the next idea to grab onto. But we are an impatient culture. We want that life, that thing, that person or place to be here and now, right now. How do we convince ourselves that what we have right now, this minute, is what we need, what we want and what we are supposed to have?

I don't think we can. I think the best we can do is slow down, look people in the eyes and tell them what we mean to tell them. Not what we think they want to hear, what we want to hear or what we think we should say, but what we mean to say.

I am constantly amazed by my friends. You are all wonderful people - strong, resilient and beautiful, so much so that I can't imagine wanting anything more than the here and now, because that's where all of you are.

There comes a song, with the dawn and it is one of hope and patience that maybe someday, we will have all of those things that we are waiting for. And if we don't get them, perhaps, they are not things that we were meant to have.

"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness." - Leo Tolstoy

sing it if you understand

I wanted to write. I wanted to write about about truth and beauty and life. I wanted to shake the core of someone and make them believe things that they might not have believed.

I still do, but instead I feel stretched. Stretched to the limit of what I understand and believe this world to be. I thought I was one person but it's amazing how things change. How the things we want, the life we want to live and how we might obtain that, changes. You think you want one thing and that drastically changes, even in the course of a year.

Stretched to find that balance between work, friends, school and myself. We had to attend a session on our personality types for work last week and though the woman that ran it was completely obnoxious, she did have some good things to say. One of them being that in order to be the person we want to be, we need to take time for ourselves. Sometimes, we forget to do that and then we wonder why we're so tired, or cranky or annoyed with life in general.

And on that note - you'll find me posting some of my writings for class here. Because it's nice to know that even if it sucks, someone will read it. And they may not understand it or even want to, but they'll read it. Because I need to find time and energy to get back to why I decided to go to school in the first place. Anyone have a good coffee shop that I could go to that will not be distracting?

And for those of you that requested to know what some of our writing assignments are - think about the things you take for granted and why you do that. Write about that as it pertains to your landscape and surroundings or as it pertains to people.

Quote o' the day:

"Life is a long lesson in humility." - James M. Barrie

and tell me, where is the faith?

I feel like it's not fair that tonight, after I've already written about the moon, there was a lunar eclipse. At any rate, it was extremely cool to watch and funny that they were playing songs on the radio about eclipsing. (NOT Total Eclipse of the Heart, the Current has better taste than that.)

I did end up going to the yoga class tonight and found that I need to go more often. Because I used to be able to do some of those things a lot more easily. And then, when I was running on the treadmill, I got distracted by trying to change the song on my iPod and fell off. Completely embarrassing, but now I understand why they are trying to get teen drivers to not use iPods in the car. You can get wrapped up in that and not even notice that you might be driving off the road (or falling off the treadmill, in my case).

Things that made my day today:
1. I made every light on Park Avenue on my way home from work today. That NEVER happens.
2. Apparently, the VP was extremely happy with the way our session went yesterday. That means I did something right.
3. My hair froze on the way out of the gym. I've never had that happen to me before. It was kind of entertaining.

On a random tangent, how fun would it be to work at MPR? I started looking at their job website today, even though I have no intention of leaving where I am until I'm a) vested and b) done with school. Which, as I discovered yesterday, if things go as planned - I won't be done until I am 30. This makes me want to vomit a little bit.

I think, since I am deliciously tired from my yoga and running, I am going to finish my lemon zinger tea and crawl into my bed. A writing assignment for you all: write about a tree or body of water that holds special significance to you. (And please SHARE!)

Quote o' the day:

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information." - Oscar Wilde

you move on because you’ve come here to do that

Moon is hazy with cold, icy crystals hang in the air like forgotten ghosts. Wind blows through layers of clothing and swirls of snow pattern pavement like webs. This same moon, hangs just under frame of an unlit streetlight, creating illusion that instead of dim orange light, whole world could be illuminated from this light. Haze of blowing snow creates softness in the coldness, to telephone wires and an old Exxon station on the corner.

Quote o' the day:

"Moonlight is sculpture." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

you know, it’s nothing new

And I forgot the quote. I hate it when I do that.

Quote o' the day (about trees, what did you expect?):

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit." - Robert Louis Stevenson

if I held my straight edge I’d be fine

When I was about 10 years old, one of my favorite things to do was to help my dad in his garden. I would dig up weeds, plant bean seeds, transplant seedlings that had grown in the dark of our basement with the help of fluorescent lights that I would run down stairs, turn off and then feel my way back through the cool darkness of our basement, and I would help collect the crops that we'd gotten at the end of each growing season. I loved listening to my dad tell me about the various plants and the way that he gardened. My favorite part of all of it was simply that I got to spend time with him. We'd chat with our neighbor who was a wise old retired plumber that loved his yard and garden more than anything. He'd give my dad advice and my dad would give him advice. It's such a simple thing, growing plants - simple, therapeutic and when you're done, you have something to show for it. A flower bed, vegetables, apples, a tree - a pretty landscape.

Where is this coming from - you might ask? In class tonight we talked a lot about ownership of nature and landscape and how we make patterns, we create things that nature might not have, and, is that a bad thing?

That year that I turned 10, I found a maple sapling in the black dirt in the back corner of our lot. I was ridiculously excited about it and made my dad let me plant it and take care of it. It was 'my' tree. Eventually, despite the fact that I truly think my dad thought it would die (probably the only reason he let me do it), we planted that tree in our front yard. It's weathered a few strong storms, it's trunk is split and it perpetually leans towards the street instead of standing tall and straight like the ash trees that line the street, but it's taller and bigger than ever before.

It now provides shade where I'm sure my dad would prefer there not be shade and at the same time, he always comments on the way it shades the front of the house, making leafy patterns of the fading afternoon sunlight. It filters that light that comes into the living room, dancing from the piano, to the couch, to the spot where he inevitably falls asleep doing the crossword puzzle. Now the tree is referred to as 'julia's tree' and sometimes, that's not necessarily a good thing. But, regardless of whether I took any ownership of it after finding it (amongst what I'm sure were millions of small trees), it is my tree. It stands there, a reminder of those hot summer afternoons when I would help my dad in the garden and then in the fall, though it's not straight and majestic, not perfectly uniform in color like the sugar maple in the backyard, it's stunning. And though I can't take credit for it growing, I do feel ownership in the sense that it belongs to me. And, I suppose, I to it.

everything has its plan

Sunday night and instead of relaxing and doing the crossword puzzle like I had hoped, I'm reading frantically before orchestra about "Landscape and Memory," hoping that I get out early so that I can get ready for this massively big week I've got. My only respite, hopefully, will be a yoga class on Wednesday night.

As I was driving home today, I nearly got rear-ended. And the funny thing is, I sat there and braced myself for this woman in a huge SUV with a zebra striped steering wheel to hit me from behind. I watched in my rearview mirror as she stopped, millimeters from my bumper. Why, I wondered, didn't I move away?

Sometimes, I think, we're all such masochists that we can't move away from things, even though we know we are too close for comfort and that we will get hurt. You wait for it. You brace yourself for the moment when it will hit and something new will happen. It's usually not a good idea, and you know it, going in, but you do it anyway. Because it's exciting and thrilling and maybe even a little bit scary.

And what about the moments when you get so close and then, voila, something good happens? But instead of savoring it, you run. You run like hell. You get scared and need to get out. You start hyperventilating, you become a person you never thought you'd be and you run.

Maybe, instead of running, we need to take those tiny steps. Tiny steps towards healing ourselves and move on with whatever we were running from. Use the memories that have soured us against life and make them work in our favor. I'd like to think that there are moments when we change and subsequently, things around us change - in our favor. All because of one small, encouraging step in the right direction.

Quote o' the day:

"To the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light." Ralph Waldo Emerson

am I making all the right moves

For the men in my life who will appreciate this.

Eric Ringham's commentary in the Star Tribune this past Sunday was about how we've gone by the wayside of that "old" style. No more barbershops, or haberdasheries, no more fedora hats and silver cigar cases. Ok, so he doesn't mention all of those things specifically, but it's extremely well-written, which is why, I suspect, he writes for the Trib and I do not.

Short on Style - please read it - even if you are not male and can't appreciate great writing, because if nothing else, it's humorous.

Quote o' the day (do I detect a theme?):

“Things are never so bad they can't be made worse.” - Humphrey Bogart

same maze of love and fear

Coffee before/during class always seems like a good idea. And it never is.

Today I had a lot of things that I wanted to accomplish. But then I got caught up in last minute discussions about billboard art and slogans and my whole day seemed to be gone. Tomorrow, I have a million meetings, one of which is off campus and I didn't know that until today. I am slightly aggravated by it all.

But enough complaining. Class tonight was good, as per usual and I have decided that I have a goal for my class. It makes me feel like I have a purpose going forth in the semester and that's a good thing to have.

And here is a website for you all to check out - because it's pretty cool: http://writersrisingup.com/.

Just keep breathing and maybe you'll make it through the week.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." -Sir Winston Churchill

I give up, I let you win

And here we are friends! I have, once again, a Monday night class. And it is Sunday at 10:20 and I can't seem to get myself writing the things that i should be writing. Instead, I am listening to music, feeling still a little embarrassed that one of the bass players in our orchestra has now busted me twice singing at the top of my lungs at a stoplight on the way home. Apparently, we live by each other.

I'm also cursing myself and the stupidity that said it was a good idea to go full force at the gym yesterday and then sit all day today reading for class, because needless to say, I'm kind of sore. But I guess in the grand scheme of things, that isn't so bad. But I do think that the fact that I'm sore is good. I had every intention of doing some yoga today, but then it was ridiculously cold outside and my sister and I ended up hibernating in our pj's all day with hot tea. She watched Six Feet Under while I read and tried to block out the noise of the wind, the TV and the cats. It's amazing to me how such small things can be such great distractions.

At any rate, a couple of things to note. My parents invited me over for dinner tonight before orchestra and as a result, I got free dinner, some fruit soup that I shall have for lunch tomorrow, some muffins, coffee and a chocolate bar from their fair trade shop at church and a cookbook that is all about making desserts. My dad has caught on to the fact that I am, without question, my father's daughter and cook when I am stressed and love to make sweet things, especially cakes. Cooking is an extremely soothing past time, I recommend it.

I also am recommending the book A Very Long Engagement. I am willing to bet that some of you have seen the movie with French subtitles and the actress Audrey Tatou, but haven't read the book. It is phenomenal, without question. I know, you're all saying that I say that about every book - but really. If you enjoy historical novels, you will enjoy it.

As for musical recommendations, I recently have been listening to Grieg violin sonatas while I read and they are also amazing. So yes. If you like classical music - check it out!

And now, I'm going to write about landscape and memory as it pertains to my dead. Because that is the best thing I can write about right now.

Quote o' the day:

"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on -- have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear -- what remains? Nature remains." - William Wadsworth.

sooner or later, one of us must know

It is eight below and the wind is so strong that I feel I can actually use the words, "the wind is howling" and not have it be a complete cliche. We are under a winter wind chill weather advisory for another hour and the wind shakes my window panes and I feel that my room is actually colder than usual because of it.

The landscape of Minnesota winters is difficult now, and though I remember it being difficult as a child, I also remember it being more fun. I used to love shoveling and making tunnels in the large piles of snow that lined our driveway. I remember when we'd have days that school was canceled because of wind chill and we'd make hot chocolate and popcorn and watch movies. My dad would be home from school, we'd play games and do puzzles. I loved those days and tonight, one of the coldest nights that we've had in awhile, I was out and about and eventually decided that I needed to get home. And how as an adult, these kinds of days are not as fun, shoveling is a chore and we don't like to embrace the time that we have at home. In fact, there are days that we fight it - at least I do.

So here I am, thinking rather introspectively about everything as a result of my class and aided by the fact that it is cold out and I have the house to myself. The only sound besides the wind and the cats chasing around the house, is the Writer's Almanac podcast and Mr. Keillor himself reading it. I guess if you have to have background noise and need some company, he's really not a bad person to have around.

And that brings me to my actual point of writing this. My class is called Landscape and Memory and very much is about remembering and making yourself remember things as they relate to the landscape, etc. But I've gotten of on a tangent with that and am thinking about how we choose to not remember things. And how we do that because we repress things that painful. And subsequently, how pain and remembering pain imprisons us in so many ways. We get stuck because of one thing - one small thing that has forever influenced the kind of person we are.

And that interests me. Because sometimes, that builds up and we become difficult for others to read and even difficult for ourselves to understand.

Now it's time for me to hit the hay, since today I joined Lifetime and was a little overzealous with the exercising and I know that tomorrow, I will definitely pay for it.

Hope that you are all staying warm and that the wind, instead of keeping you awake, is lulling you to sleep.

Quote 'o the day:

"Not that I want to teach you to compartmentalize, but it's worked really well for me." -DK, on our first night of class.