No One Mortal

A bit of bleak, emo poetry written back in high school, that matches my currently black, bleak mood.  I struggle with my self worth and have moments that are worse than others.  I am better able to recognize and handle these moods now than I was when I wrote this, but it does not lessen the reality.  Thankfully I also have the help referred to in the second half of the poem (after 'Can one really love me?').  I rely on the thought that even if I don't see myself in a positive light at the moment, Jehovah does and with his help I can break free from the darkness.

No one Mortal

I feel a weight,
heavy cumbersome,
throttling my life away
I feel a dullness
a cloud
hanging over all I do
Grey and bleak is the sky
Through the gloom
I see my family
is breaking away,
dissolving, eaten by acid
When I look to the source
I see nothing, but wait
into the pool of stinging liquid
I see . . . ME
The cause is my tears
NO! I am a stone, a rock,
Untouchable, Unaffected, Unscathed,
Unlovable
Oh how hated is a pebble,
an irritant in your shoe
something to be stepped on, discarded
thrown away, despised
Can one really love dirt?
Can one really love me?
No, no mortal has the patience
to find that the pebble
can make tools
is sharp
can make fire
is bright
has emotions
can carry your worries
can see your pain, your acid
you erode it
wear it to nothing
No one mortal sees how the
pebble is worried
pressured, kicked
tossed about
No one mortal
can support the
pebble in the current sweeping it
Only one can make it float
spark, sharp, be seen,
very few can love a pebble
but they can see
They are not mortal
Only one can lift
the weight
One immortal

Not gonna talk to you, but I'm going to marry you

The funniest thing happened on Sunday and I just had to share with those of you who don't go on Facebook!
My sister, one of our friends, and I went to meeting in Sandy on Sunday so that we could go to a movie with our friends there afterward.  After meeting I was standing in a circle of friends when I felt a soft patting on my lower back.   When I turned around a cute little blonde boy was standing there, staring at me.  As soon as he saw he had my attention he looked up at me seriously and said, "I don't know your name."
"My name is Leandra," I told him, but it was loud so he repeated that he didn't know my name and I repeated what mine was.  Afraid of it continuing, I asked him what his name was.  He rattled off something long in that not exactly clear English way kids have, but I had heard him comment during meeting so I clarified. "Your name is Izzy?"

He nodded and studied me for another moment, looking me up and down. "Are you a Jehovah's Witness?"
I replied that yes, I was and he gave me a VERY disbelieving look!  I'll admit I felt a little self conscious at this.  My dress wasn't short or revealing or tight, but I have a figure so sometimes I do worry about the message my clothes may be sending unintentionally.  After several more long moments of staring he informed me, "I'm not going to talk to you."
And with that parting shot he walked away into my group of friends.  I found this absolutely hilarious so I buried my head in Deanna's shoulder to keep from laughing and she was having a hard time keeping it contained too.   When I looked up he was looking at me but then turned and wandered away.
A few minutes later he walked up behind me again.   He told Rebecca and I, "You girls are very pretty. I'm going to marry you."
Playing along I said that he was a little young and I was too old so maybe we'd have to wait but he wasn't put off.   He said that since he was six and I was fourteen we could work things out!!
At this point it was time for us to leave so after a quick "see you later", another friend hustled me across the Kingdom Hall to get my bags.  He met us there and invited me out to lunch, Chinese, and after hearing that my friends and I were going to a movie (Wreck-It Ralph), he informed me that he had Madagascar 3 and 2 at home and that they were very good movies.  I agreed that they were very good movies, then Caitlin told him firmly that we needed to leave.  We said good bye and I just about died of laughter in the car on the way home, especially when Rebecca told me that she loved me too, but she had no desire to be a sister-wife with me, thank-you-very-much.

From "I'm not going to talk to you" to "Let's get married" in a matter of five minutes!  No wonder he has a reputation as a ladies man!  His poor parents and his poor twin!  XD

Day 25 - Searching, Impossible, Failing

August 25 - In search of impossible light (after Larissa Szporluk)

Music - Interlude VII from Fresh Aire IV by Mannheim Steamroller; The Impossible Dream from Stage Heroes by Colm Wilkinson


Striving
Hand outstretched
Grasping
Searching
Trying
Hoping
In vain
The struggle
To find it
To reach it
That impossible light
That unreachable star
That unreachable dream

What kind of crazy awesome name is Szporluk?  Wow.  I need a pseudonym that is half as awesome.

Day 25 - Failing Better

"No marks on paper can ever measure up to the word's music in the mind, to the purity of the image before its ambush by language."  - Mary Gordon
"What we need to do is think of all our failed drafts simply as steps toward the final one, the one that works."  - Barbara Abercrombie

You have no idea how many times I have bewailed and bemoaned the fact that we don't have telepathic abilities.  Star Trek, you are cruel for introducing me to the idea/possibility.  The images I see in my head and scenes I write have so much more depth and flavor and character and emotion than what I am capable of conveying on paper.  Sometimes I can rewrite or edit in some of what I miss the first time but there comes a point where there are too many words and they begin to obscure the image I am trying to paint/clarify.  See, right there.  We don't have a word to convey the thought/feeling/emotion I am going for so I resort to slashes.  Some day, my friends, I can only hope, some day we will have the ability to convey ourselves perfectly.

I was feeling like this was a little 'blah' so I am glad to be able to include pictures!  And on an unrelated note, I think Barbara is a weird name.  Bar Bar A

Day 24 - Drool in Z-Row Gravity

August 24 - Writer the place the landscape dissolves

Musical inspiration: Fresh Aire V album by Mannheim Steamroller
Songs: Lumen, Z-Row Gravity, Dancin' in the Stars, Creatures of Levania

The door this time does not lead to idyllic pastures and soaring trees.  This door is similarly small and rounded but metal and rivets have replaced wood and scroll-work.  This door is cooler to the touch as it opens on its own landscape.  This is clearly another planet, dusty and dark, stars lighting the silky sky above abandoned monorail tracks.  Behind the door, above us is an abandoned and desolate city, angles and blocks of crumbling metal surrounded by the gentler lines and curves of the track.  Beyond the city is nothing.  Well, nothing artificial.  Spires rise in the barren landscape, stretching to touch the looming, rosy moon, but they are made of rock and stone, not iron or steel.  These will erode some day, not be eaten by rust and time.  While the city sits in tones of grey and black, the spires and land are sepia, brown, red and blush.  The city ends starkly, a line drawn in the sand, but beyond the landscape simply dissolves, dust becoming dust becoming stars.

This is a companion piece to A World of Pure Imagination and both were very inspired by music.  Any of you whom have not listened to Mannheim Steamroller's Fresh Aire CDs (there are seven of them) or Saving the Wildlife (especially 'Wolfgang Amadeus Penguin') I recommend them.  Sunday Morning Coffee and Sunday Morning Coffee: Day Parts are both good too but a little sedate for anything but dinner background music.  :)  My favorites are Fresh Aire V, which is space themed, Fresh Aire 7, based around the number 7, Fresh Aire IV, especially 'Dancing Flames', and 'The Cricket' from Fresh Aire III.  The music is instrumental with definite manipulations mixed with some vocal and natural sounds (rain, a cricket, a fire, etc.).
I don't convey it well in the piece but there is a GIANT moon looming largely over the scene, almost completely filling the sky directly in front of the viewer.

Day 24 -Writing While Drooled Upon

Evidently Ms. Abercrombie got serious about writing after having two children and spent most of their childhood writing.  She isn't the first author I've heard of that started writing after the birth of a child and wrote during their naps and practices and classes.  Thankfully there are also plenty of examples of authors who never had children (Ms. Austen) or had children after they were published.  I want kids some day but I'm not planning on them any time soon!

Day 23 - The smell of winter and crazy writers

August 23 - The smell of air in winter

The air in winter is plain, smokey and boring.   Except for right after a snow.  Then the air is still, clean, clear, warm, and magical.  I love to stand in our backyard and sing "Winter Wonderland", preferably after dark so the porch light illuminates the snow and casts the prettiest shadows.  (Fewer chances of eavesdroppers too.)
Spring mostly smells like snot to me because I am so stuffed up I can't smell anything else.  Spring smells like mud and dirt and rain and new things growing.  And wet dog.  :)
Summer smells like sunscreen and chlorine and campfire smoke.  And it is not summer until I have used my SPF 15 Sun Shades Harvest Berry lipbalm. ♥♥♥  Summer smells like wet concrete ans sea and, if I have my choice, sulfur.  Yellowstone or airshow or both.  Acrid but comforting.  Home.
My favorite season to smell though is autumn.  There is a change come September and October (my favorite month ;)) that I live for.  As the cold air begins to creep in the first wood fires are lit in stoves and fireplaces in the neighborhood giving the air a warm, rich scent.  There is also a smell in the first week of September, psychosomatic I'm sure, but it smells like school.  Old musty books and new pencils and binders and backpacks and jams of people.  The smell of Eastwood and happiness.  Autumn is also when those bags of cinnamon pine cones show up.  When the shelves are stocked with apple and cinnamon and spiced candles and everything becomes cozy and happy.
Winter is nice, but I love autumn.

Day 23 - What Writers Do

Some authors have very interesting ways of writing.  One gets up at 4 am, sets his laptop screen so dark he can't read what he's writing, writes for a few hours, then goes back to bed until 8:30 am at which point he edits what he wrote.  Another writes 250 words every fifteen minutes from 5:30 am to 8:30 am.
They are both NUTS.  Or morning people.  Or both.  How the heck do you get anything coherent or legible out that early???  I prefer writing in the afternoon or at night, depending on my schedule and mood.  Some scenes only come out after dark, when I'm alone.  And that sounds bad!  :)
It also lists two authors who use different font methods: 8 pt so they have to squint to read and 14 Courier.
I'm more of a Verdana/Georgia myself.  Times New Roman if I'm using a word processor too.  I prefer rounder fonts to think with, in a comfortable 10-12 pt reading size.

Day 22 - Packing for writers

August 22 - You're packing a suitcase

The first step to packing a suitcase is print off your packing list.  Then your pants and shirts go squarely in the upper left hand corner, held in place by the underwear and socks packed on the bottom left.  Any skirts or dresses get packed next, folded on top of the shirts if there's room, rolled up on top of the socks or folded flat in the right hand quadrants if there isn't.  Next, make sure you have jewelry for every outfit packed in the tackle box and store with any makeup  that is coming.  Next is shampoo, conditioned, soap, hair ties, comb, brush, and tooth washing implements.  Anything else gets to play jigsaw puzzle to fit in.  Except any nail polish.  That gets wrapped in the socks or shirts (with the outfit it matches if possible).  Then you zip the case and you're done.  Ta-da.

I realize this isn't creative but that's all I could think of.  :)  Now I've got a vision of Tony Stark walking into Pepper's room and leading off with a very confused "You're packing a suitcase.  Why are you packing a suitcase?  You have clothes at all of our houses.  Stop packing.  Where are you going?"

Day 22 - A Writer's Lifestyle

"Writers don't have lifestyles.  They just sit in little rooms and write."  - Norman Mailer
While the act of writing may not be the most exciting thing in the world, I'll grant you, I would object to the statement that we just sit in little rooms!  I can't think to write id that is the only place I go/am!  I must have green at some point.  Blue sky is nice too but honestly, this is Oregon.  I'm soaking it up now.
I can agree that writers don't have lifestyles though because we are each unique.  There is no set way for a writer to live and perform their passion.  On pages 150-151 of A Writer's Book of Days it lists fourty three authors and the various jobs they had while writing, including pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish (Charles Dickens), selling roach powder and playing the piano (E.B. White), selling tombstones and playing an organ in an insane asylum (Erich Maria Remarque), banking (T.S. Eliot), compiling encyclopedias and teaching chemistry (Isaac Asimov), and serving as a University Postmaster (William Faulkner).  The variety and eccentricity of jobs is mindboggling and fascinating.  Some where married, some weren't , and a variety of religions are represented.  Each writer has their own unique lifestyle and style of writing.
Don't pigeonhole us!

Day 21 - Home in the spotlight

August 21 - The geography of home

Home is where the heart is.
Interesting that it doesn't say "the geography of a home".
I used to design a house I could live in with my family that would allow me to have cats.  It involved two seperate air systems, an airlock, and a laundry room between the cat and cat-free halves of the house.
Home is my family, a place to eat, a place to sleep, my pink blanket, and my dog. ♥  Which mean, when we are camping, home becomes our trailer or the tent I am sleeping in.  When I am housesitting, that house becomes my home after the third day, unless I've stayed there before, in which case it becomes home as soon as I've mostly unpacked, put away the food I brought, and greeted the animal I am caring for.

I cannot type today.  Spell becomes speel, is becomes id, would becomes woild..  -headdesk-

Day 21 - Finding the spotlight

The author discusses a guest speaker in her writing class who was "beautiful and forceful and self-assured" because she had given up "the fear of people getting mad at her".
I look forward to the day when I am calm and self-assured.
Evidently I can fool many but I always think of the illustration  my mother uses to describe my father.  He is like a duck on a pond; he appears calm and serene and knowledgeable, but under the surface he is frantically paddling.

I don't remember who took the pic, other wise I would credit.