All sorts of growing up

December 14, 2008
Wow, it has been exactly one month since I blogged. I can not believe that I have been such a slacker about it, but honestly, I've just had a lot going on. My heart, my mind, my days...they're all busy, but in an effort to recenter I pulled two old journals down off the bookshelf tonight and decided to share some "poems" circa 1997. *smiles* I had forgotten how brooding I could be as well as how full of whimsy I was at times. Really, reading 16 and 17 year-old Karen got me thinking about the growing up that I'm still doing at 28.

Tomorrow marks the one week anniversary of finally getting my driver's license. I have to say, it's kinda nice being able to get myself places, but I still definitely like to be chauffered. While lots of people liked to taunt me about not driving, saying I needed to join the grown ups, it's not the actual license part that makes me feel like I did some growing; it's the deciding it's okay to not do everything perfectly and to let people see me make a mistake here and there. Todd Smith was a fairly patient teacher, and I am thankful it was him that I learned from. After 11 years, there is a best friend kinda comfort that you can't get with anyone else. We all know that I am a spoiled brat that can not stand to be anything but "right", and the boy was tolerant of my nonsense.

Anyway, tomorrow...it is also the day that I teach my very first yoga class. Obviously, I am an attention whore and like for people to take notice of me (positively, of course), but I am kind of nervous to be in front of people in that sort of venue. I'm told it's an audition, and to me auditions = a little scary (back to that only wanting to do things in front of people if success is guaranteed).

Not only do I love the practice of yoga, but instructing is another step in growing up for me. In general, I like where I am am but I need to put myself out there a bit more so that I can move on to bigger and better things. The fear of putting me out "there" isn't what kept me from finishing school though; however, I think it certainly certainly factors into what keeps me from going back. Things are both different and the same for me as they were 7 years ago when I stopped, and that is a falsely dichotomous life revelation that I just don't want to address.

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January 6, 2009

Goodness! It has been a while since I've written anything, but I heard a little cinematic dialogue that reminded me of something I was thinking when I left this one to nearly die on the drafting clipboard. I was watching a movie with my highly cherished nieces, and one of the main characters referenced something about how people were always talking about her artistic, musical potential as a child because they were impressed with her abilities at the time; however, when people talk about her present-day "potential" it seems lost because she is playing the same piece now as she was then.

I immediately empathized with the character. My writing seems dreadfully vapid now. My toes just barely test the waters of writing anymore, and I seem to have been reduced to a good copy editor (skills for which I don't technically get paid). I also see now that perhaps writing wasn't the path for me anyway.

I truly am smitten with the fitness world, and in particular, I am in love with the practice of yoga. That first class went well, and I am going back this weekend to teach again. Additionally, I was asked to take part in an extra-curricular program for 1st-5th graders this Spring in which they select after-school electives. Some of the little Girl Scouts I put in volunteer yoga time with asked for my class to be an option. I am honored and excited to share yoga with the little peeps.

These new ventures, along with both the acquisition of some amazing new friends as well as the remarkable endurance of existing friendships, are an invigorating start to 2009 that will hopefully bring me out of the darkness I fell into in 2008. I am eager to move forward, to forget about the things that I can not change, to dream of bigger, better things and to achieve them, to sincerely find and to know the joy that exists in me independent from all else.

So yeah..., just for fun here are a couple of high school Karen writings (both a bit o' the brooding and a bit o' that whimsy):

This is from the 1996 book:

Who will keep the human beat when we have all this money for bombs yet not enough to keep homeless off the street, while children live in boxes of their own discontent I want to be a cat, a dog, a mouse - then, maybe the world wouldn't be So insignificant.

This is from the 1997 book:

Staring at the back of a head my mind beings to draw a blank Turn the corner, and pass right by trudge on home and finally drawn to sleep So hard to resist the lure and bait of my dreams when lying on a pile of pillows beneath a weight of days that tend to drain Dream along the thoughts that rise while sleeping and fly perhaps for a time.

Sorry, this particular journal was almost completely lacking in the light and whimsical genre. Someday I might see what I can find in the garage. There is one that I wrote for our little "underground" newspaper that was all about growing up and would have been extremely a propos for this post, but alas I could not find it. Just be grateful you didn't get relationship-driven stuff from that time *rolls eyes*.

Upon, looking back at this one, I should have titled it "Dear Diary"...oh well.

I am wishing everyone the most beautiful day, night, week, month, year, etc.

Ouch

Inhale: the pain can be no worse;
I sink into nothing but spirit.
I breathe the pain inside out,
the colors subside into gray.

Exhale: the pain will be worse still-there's no scale
of one to ten or one million-

Blah, blah, blah...I'm just sayin'. Decent day w/my boys and awesome Old 97s concert tonight but still hurting :-(

Just coming up for air

I have been a naughty blogger and promise to try to whip something thoughtful up this week. Debate was entertaining, yes? Anyway...

You contained me in your universe,
fed me, educated me, bedded me in slippery

sheets, removed my blankets as I slept.
I needed not to leave you except to star gaze.

You were red, and crushed apples along
a stream frozen save for bursting rocks.

Stealing me away from I, we spoke,
listened, lingered over other.

A pearl is round and smooth and lustrous,
Yet your floors slant and porously grit.

You slam doors and disturb dreams,
enter without knocking, give me no key to lock

Your slide-shows warmed the cold church,
And articulated metaphor, design, and thought.

Hot

She was a golden flame that night,
Red as the fire upon a hearth on a cold night.
All was still when she began to dance,
As the licking flame dances.
Slowly at first she twisted her body, as though hungry,
Just as the growing flames twist and lick outwardly
and hungrily.
Her body was a living pillar of fire
Covered with the flowering glitter of a million sparks,
Turning, twisting, tossing,
As if in agony, and yet, caressing.
From the flaming red you were changed to a
sinister green,
A flame of poison, of treachery and of lust;
A flame one might expect to find
Creeping among the forest giants
to kill them while they slept;
A poison as choking as the gas from which you spring;
And the lust call dripping from every movement of
your lithe body.
And then to the silver flame,
A flame when only the moon is high in the heavens
A sparkling, gleaming flame, reaching upward,
While silver glitterings fall at your feet;
Then suddenly to turn and play with them,
Lightly, laughingly,
Until the shining call of the moon beckons,
And you seek to answer
With all the power of your silvery form.

Conscious Chaos

I've had a crazy week thus far and am ready for some down time this weekend!

Like a broken compass,
I don't know whether you're pushing me away
or pulling me towards.You seemed so alive then,
so soft and so bright,
yet quiet inside of you.
I never knew how to be
still like that.
I wrote your words on my arms,
never too clean to get a tad dirty.
The words are pungent and broken on my tummy,
but they are alive.
Alive, because sometimes you speak to me this way,
with touches and tattoos,
in whispers and shouts,
eager for your words I tug my hair out,
and I remember that you must have been
broken once, too.
I'm close to okay, though.
Almost fixed,
I've glued me back
with little thanks to you.
There are few cracks in sight
and then just this
seamless whisper
of your hands
on my shoulders
pushing me or pulling me
in every direction
of you.

(Sigh) Sometimes

Sometimes
when you are not here
and when I confuse
the cadence of your steps
with my breathing;
when so softly
your hands climb
on the sunny side
of my shoulders' hills
and I try
to meet them
in the stillness
of your non-presence;
when soaring
with the creeping silence
hangs
the echo of your voice -
then I am more than clear
it does not matter
where you are.

I had such a lovely time on the trail yesterday; it's just gorgeous outside.

Also been ruminating on some Rumi. Here's one of my favorites: "Out beyond the ideas of right thinking or wrong thinking is a field. I'll meet you there."
--Rumi

Maintaining

This was originally posted on my My Space on April 3rd, 2008. It's not called Maintaining, that's just what I happened to be doing when I posted it and also how I feel today so for those of you that have already seen it sorry. For those that it's new to, I hope you enjoy. I've been working on my Ron Paul blog for a while now, and there is no way that I am going to finish it tonight. I promised two people that I would have something besides report of my melancholy so in addition to this you are getting two other posts from April because while neither one is specifically about Ron Paul, they're appropriate for an RP theme.

I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded,
there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a photograph that I looked at closely for a long time,
like a verse that I finally understood,
like the lotion I use every day,
like the face of my dearest friend,
like a breeze
that carried me safely through the wildest storm of all.

Pieces of another restless night for me (an encore posting)

Recent My Space blog archival move (you're getting two today, and then something brand new tomorrow or later this week...on texting maybe...) For now, it's a bit of some recent prose, poetry, whatever you wish to call it; I don't care as it's just what shows up on my screen sometimes.

Originally posted on My Space May 20, 2008

A haunting shadow draws across my room.
This evening's remedy has yet to kick in.
I'm losing the bookshelf wars.
Not to a teacher, but to a dream horizon
dotted with cumbersome pillow sacks
of arrogance, longing and more gloom-filled nights.
I wanted more. There it is.
I wanted so much more to issue forth.
Wrong or right, I wanted to walk under a bridge
wearing a skirt made of words
and recite Yeats, Morejón, Alexie, you name it.
I wanted to be fire, water, air, idea…
forget earth for a bit.
I wanted it yesterday. I want it now.
My soul drank enough to know how thirsty it was.
Parched and starving, I could drink passion felt
and eat the breeze right off the curtains.