all along..all these years..even when i didn't know it..

 "Your songs have Never stopped - You've been singing, always singing over me!
Your words are Still Enough - When you're singing, always singing over me!"

i'm twirling on the inside..
                                           ( and watching white blossoms doing the same in a gentle breeze)

thankyou.

Best Day Ever

I have never seen a magnolia flower. At least I know I must have, but I do not remember ever seeing one. They are huge, like something out of an imaginary land. So big and tropical, like water liles but all over a tree and standing up like candles. So amazing.

One thing about me, is that I rarely do things completely alone. That is one thing, I've lost with being married and with the socially surrounded times in my life. Being alone, being out in the world alone is one of the most magical times. Because I don't feel alone at all. I feel led and guided and accompanied
by God. From the moment I step on the bus, I am filled with all that could be ahead. There is Never any disapointment because my Joy and Peace and Silliness are perfectly understood and absolutely dignified. In fact, it's like I say, "It's So beautiful" and God says, "Isn't it - but there's more.." It's always More. I'm never laughed at - never misunderstood. I can walk around and around a tree for as long as I want, until I notice the cold and the night coming on.

I can gasp, I can dance, I can be totally bewildered by beauty.

Really? This is earth. This is a park. This is a tree.

I don't think so. It's something beyond human comprehension, it's a secret, and it's all for me!
God winks.

and I continue down the path.

p.s. i only planned to kiss the flower and ended up drinking a raindrop.

Time to be

Before I moved here, I went online to see what little cafe's and shops were about in this small city I was to live in. I wanted to have a few things to look forward to and to begin visualizing my life ahead.. maybe.. I don't know, it was just my reaction once I knew we'd be living here.

I found a wonderful store called, Be 
While reading what they stood for - a clothing label's ideals - I was almost emotional.
This was going to be my slogan, my direction, my moto.


be
-verb-
to exist
to live
to continue

It was simple - and yet to actually be. To live in the world as authentically and honestly you as possible is a dangerous and difficult thing to do. At least it is for me.  Because I know what to say and do to have everyone find me delightful, and I also know what to keep hidden from others because if they ever knew, well, they'd run or at least never bother to hang out with me. But, it's not so much the expectations of others, and the whispering dare's from sociaty, and the pressure to be an awesome wife and friend and disciple - yup. being kind and loving and realy treating everyone like they are precious creations.

it's more than that. 
It's My own expectations of myself. They go off in so many directions I can't even keep up with my day dreams let alone my actual life in all it's wishes and wants and should's and what if's. It's exhausting.

So what are all the me's I can't live up to - and why can't I give myself a break. After all - I don't place these expectations on others, or at least I don't think I do.

I have to be a blazing fireball of constant energy and excitement ..or I am nothing.

I have always wanted to find out where the greatest need is and sign up for that!
I read about Mother Theresa in Calcutta.. and i'm afraid, but I want to go. I hear about people living amoung the poor - living where it's dangerous and I want to be them. I hear about countries looking for people to care for children in orphanages and I want to go there.
I cry, I'm ready to pack. It's all i've ever wanted - it's the only thing that makes sense.

And then, I want to be on a farm - or part of an intentional environmentally sensitive community. Where people share everything and grow together as a unit. Where the whole idea of personal belongings and privacy, isn't really embraced - and where people embrace eachother. I want to learn how to plant gardens and tend to gardens. I want to get up at 6:00am and live according to daylight. I want to be dependant on and aware of nature as a sibling, as a presence, as something real. I want to be small and part of.

But then, oh I love the city! I want to be connected to the Arts community and go to cafe's that have live music, and poetry reading. I want to meet the musicians and know them and talk with them. I want to go often and join in. I want to sing again! I want to read poetry in front of a crowd. I want to
be somewhere where shopping is understood - where it isn't shopping.. but a wonderful respectable way to explore and inhabit living art.

perhaps the only way to still play dress up and live in a land of makebelieve, when you are in your thirties!

Then. As I have so prepared, I do very much want to be part of a school. To lead drama programs, maybe a musical - to teach environmental awareness and to have elementary children that care and are active in social justice and caring for those in their class, in their school, and in the world.

But, where am I in all of this.
how can I want to buy knee high leather boots one day.. and want to own nothing the next!
It might be a struggle of living, a conversation that is meant to take place, and is good.

I don't know much. I know that I am reading and it has been so long since I have really read. novel after novel. I have made the decision since returning to Canada, for the past two years I have been a vegetarian. I know that I can't breathe if Art is not in my life.. and I am SO thankful that Art is everywhere..

In the movement of a blanket, in the colours of the leaves, in the buttons of  a two year olds jacket.
In the brightness of all the shades of my friends eyes!

In the sunlight.

    The bible says it best,   Cease Striving and Be.

There are all the me's I'd like to me. There are the me's the whole world see's
and then there's the me.. the whatever-it-is I was designed to be.. that if I stop running after all of these things.. I already am.

See, it's a mystery. Just existing. living. continuing
but I think I'd like to try it

Hiding the thing that matters most

Japan changed me
as I was instantly more myself than I'd ever felt before
to have everything erased, can be a wonderful gift.

Like having a planet explode.. and then being able to rebuild it.. what do you do first?
Do you find a leaf? What leaf? What type of tree do you choose to begin with? What kind of seed?

You start to see what you really want.. You start to feel what you really need.
The few things that matter.

I know what my dreams are. I want to tell you. But, I'm not ready.
So many times I talk and wish I hadn't. Talking about things takes something away.
Like waking up so early you stumble, and catching that first bit of colour coming up
with the sun.
Then running inside to tell someone.. what can you say?
I saw a sunrise! I felt hope again! I stood for a moment so near to beauty I felt..small..almost invisible..and more real than ever!

None of these phrases come close to what you felt.

I like that a picture replaces a thousand words.
But, even a picture is not enough

I will hold onto the most precious thing I have, that glimmer of...

"Someday maybe I will"

P.S.

husbands don't count.

being me

I worry that this is all so narcissistic - but this is all the stuff i've been dealing with that is hitting me like a wave of ice in this time of standing on shifting sand. So, please be patient.

I have always had an ability, a gift to get along with pretty much everyone - and be cameleon like in my personality - but the down side to that - to blending with those i love- is that i am not totally myself.

I have always had a friend in every stage of my life, whom I not only cared for deeply, but whom I wanted to immitate in some way. It's not a following exactly, but more a gathering..like bringing rocks home from the beach, to remember. Like keeping the stickers and little coloured pieces of string stuck to my clothes after a day with kids. It's gathering, it's keeping.

I absorb my friendships like a sponge does with water, and find them sloshing around inside me
both in memories and in the things they love. but.. I get a little lost.

I can name the girls I want to be and be with - and they are not always my age. The best thing I copied, was a camper who was probably seven or eight years old - maybe younger. She wore several neclaces at once.. and after that.. so did I.

I really like being part-of.. yet I have a personality that stands out.
so strange. I would love to buy a matching pair of boots with someone, to have the same jacket as someone, to have the same jewlery as someone.

secretly I do. I have often gifted someone with something - and kept one for myself. It's the best friend heart neclace concept. I wish everything I had was second hand from someone I knew.

I'm a little bit sad that I don't have a bridesmaid dress from my own wedding.. course I don't, I had a wedding one.. but I feel a little left out.

(that's interesting to think about would i rather be one of the bridesmaids, than the bride?)

Then again, to go out there and find something that I like - not because of anyone else - just because I like it. I think there would be freedom in that.

Like keeping my hair long! It's me. Like wearing glasses! It's me.

But then again, I love the learning and growing togetherness of friendship. Suddenly knowing a song, or a poem that you never knew before. Suddenly loving something you never would have otherwise.. because they love it so much.

I should have been a twin.
I know deep down I'm longing for a best friend.
One person I mean the world to, who means the world to me.

I'm not so good at sharing.

now you know,

far from there

I don't know what to say, and so I have been silent. I think the truth is that I am afraid.
I'm trying to create a play list, so I can smile and be free falling amidst my favourite sounds, but the notes i have so recently loved and the words that have stirred me to laughter or tears, seem to have no affect.

I have sensed that what I need to do is bring in- accept- welcome.. whatever comes my way. So I have to somehow embrace this.

I don't know what that looks like, but to welcome it, not to fight it.

I guess a part of letting go - is letting come!

I feel like I'm living underwater - not that I'm drowning, but that I am down in the ground of the ocean - and can only see a blurry sunshine on the water and bathers that look like colours blurred together pale and taking no notice of me.
Yet, I can look around and see the fish and feel the seaweed against my arms as I move through it.. not yet.. because I continue to look up - knowing I should be on the shore.
Knowing this water-world is not for me.

But I won't be freed to break the surface of the waters, until I have learned to welcome the fish, the seaweed, the water in my ears that's crumpling sounds I recognize..turning them into something else completely.


p.s.
I want to say thank you to a friend for lending me her playlist, so i am forced to hear someone else's sounds. Somehow in this, I will find something of my own or better, I will find something of her.

An appology

I have lived under this: that my dreams are gone, that the best of my life is behind me, that all the things i want to have in my life, all that i see as a life worth having I don't have, may have to wait years for, or might never have. This is so painful and makes me carry a sadness with me. I want to hope that I will be freed from this, delivered, rescued.

What I needed, was to stop wishing for another life and to love the one I have been given.

So, I'm sorry for wanting my life. The life I design and dream up. I want the life designed for me

by the Creator. I can have a heart that's full of desire for change and not necessarily see that change in visible things, like where i live and who I hang around. It's not all or nothing. Once again. I must realize this.

When I say "this isn't the life I want - and I know exactly what life I want!" It hurts Alastair.

Of course it would. It would hurt me. Yet I say, that's not what I mean, that he doesn't understand and that it's not about him. Isn't it?

That's exactly what i'm saying. I want another life. That everything up to now is wrong. That it was right for a little while, but now it's all gone. It's over - lost.

It hurts Al & It hurts God.

I need to stop wanting to be someone else, and stop wanting someone else's life.

I need to have the courage to accept me, accept where I am.

not just accept it, but get excited about it.

Yes, I can jump into the life I want. But life should unfold naturally, it shouldn't be forced, it shouldn't be a constant striving.

Eyes to see Cherry Blossoms. Mouth to speak and ask questions. Heart to feel, pain and joy.

There is worth in that. My life has value. There is something I have - right now - that is of such incredible worth and wonder, that if I were to lose it, I would long for it more than anything I am longing for now.

For too long I have been a tree wishing that I were a river.

How wonderful to be a tree who wishes I were a tree.

I want to realize if I wasn't me, I would be wishing that I was.

It's time to wish for who I am and wish for the life I already have.