Anxiety

Breathe. Be kind. Especially to yourself.

stop already!

There is a certain futility in aiming for the attention of someone determined not to give it to you. (I think I have to include my landlord here, been trying to get leaking sink fixed for a year.) Back to piles of mindless work. Will not let anxiety get the best of me. Will not cry on my co-workers. (More medical crap.) Will not let zombies (or was that a human?) walk unimpeded through the building with nerf-gun drawn.  Suddenly feel the urge to go home and blast Hüsker Dü on the stereo.

Here's a haiku (a work in progress, good practice) inspired by a bunch of gulls conversing:

on cold wet green grass
strange congregation of birds
gather, squawk in turn.

Sunday

Trying not to talk about what's mostly on my mind, but the words surrounding that space are so few. I'm being serenaded to the day by bird song and rain, and tires on wet pavement. I don't know what this bird is, one long note quickly followed by three short ones...oh and now the geese are calling too. I'm not singing for now, so I'm not late for rehearsal. I had to make a decision with a conflicting class, and chose the class, it conflicts with rehearsals every quarter.  I can't do anything about this now...let go, let go, let go.

Cleaning. Cooking. Studying. Friends.

And on a different note, how much of ourselves can we lose and still feel whole? What parts of us do we need for our own identity? (And the parsley's growing like gangbusters...what to do with it?)

I am trying to be better at staying in contact. I don't know what to say so I don't call or write and the time passes and it seems like I've waited too long, not that I don't care, I do care. I'm just super-introverted and it's a struggle.

Very wet Saturday

Just made it home in between deluges. Started to dump rain again as I walked up the stairs into the house.  It was sunny, but cold, when I left. Went to the library to see if a book of plays had come in, but it hadn't, yet. I want to understand better a play I saw recently, thought it would help to read it, didn't entirely get why one of the character's speaking style changed mid-play, was wondering about the choice of that, or if it was written into the script. Also, curious if there was a symbolic meaning to it all. And then went to credit union to see if my tax return had deposited yet, nope. I need to be a bit more organized, I received a new debit card recently, but for the life of me, I can't find it now.

Ran into former housemates at the farmer's market just before the rain began. I was stopping to buy an empanada and nettles. Ducked into a church when the rain started and scrubbed down some walls. I had said I would earlier. Trying to follow through with things I'm capable of doing. People always try to get me to make phone calls as an easy thing to do, except for me, I'd rather have a camera shoved up my nose again then cold call people. I will put it off until I can't anymore. So, if you're reading this and I was supposed to call you, I'm sorry. It's totally me, not you. At any rate, I smell like ammonia now, from cleaning, so am off to wash my hair and another load of laundry.

Friday, early

It's 5:55 am. The rain was pounding against the window earlier, I should turn on the light, trying to type in the dark. I've been feeling a little blank lately, not down, just not much to say, yet I try to keep the writing practice, both here and on paper.

Here's a poem (well, I think it's actually part of a much longer poem) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (I think it's from Aurora Leigh, but I can't remember.):

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only [she] who sees, takes off [her] shoe;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Now that's it's spring the whole earth has errupted in leaf, and flower and song and life.
Hyvää perjantaina! (Happy Friday.)

The rain had stopped by the time I left, and I did walk.  The cherry trees have now dropped most of their petals with help from the wind. The ground is covered in them, looking like the scene after a blow-out party or parade. The petals swirl in the eddies of the wind like pink snowflakes, pile up in drifts like dirty snow. The bricks are slippery. The party has passed.  Crap, sometimes I am an emotional moron. (And I mean that in the most affectionate way.) I suppose that really was a date. (Sometimes hard to tell when both people are vague and non-committal about the whole thing.)

Evening

and I have to admit, with all my talk of singing, I sing because I love to sing. I'm not a great singer, though I'm getting better. In the one choir, I'm probably the weakest singer, but I add to the overall volume and I can carry a tune, generally stay on pitch and can hit some fairly high notes, but I'm not doing any solos. The other choir, I do get to do them if I want to, and again, the voice lessons helped tremendously. I have more control over volume, more volume in general, and, hello, I can sing vibrato, I just never did before. (And I kinda' like singing without it.)

I was thinking about Roger Ebert earlier. He was a good man, in the best sense of that word. There was this quote that the news used about him earlier, from his memoirs:

“‘Kindness covers all of my political beliefs,” he wrote, at the end of his memoirs. “No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

I think he nailed it. Boa noite.

Back to zero

to an even keel, the place music I like takes me (always.) I've thrown the idea of "back to zero" around for a while, and tonight I decided it meant being present, so not worrying about anything, or thinking about anything except where I am right now.  And the Billy Bragg show was awesome.  He's funny, a great musician, and he gives a damn. And with both he and  the opening act, especially the opening act, who was a solo act, I thought about the need to sing. The drive to make music, the compulsion of having to sing. That it doesn't even matter what your voice sounds like (and his voice is fine) but more the need to communicate something in song. It's so beautiful. And the other reason I feel at zero, is that if I can love one person, I can also love someone else (I might not want to, but it can be done.) And now as it's late and I'm inexplicably super cold, I'm going to bed...no late night ramblings.

Morning

It smells so clean outside. The air thick with clouds, golden-white light from the sunrise breaking through, and now the sun. The air near the entryway insists on smelling like roses even though there aren't any there. I'm thinking about the rambling post, might put it back up.  It's something I think about quite a bit but because I wrote it in the middle of the night, it got a bit convoluted. Also, I've (obviously) been unfiltered since no one had been reading this.

Here's another older Billy Bragg song, from Workers Playtime, She's Got a New Spell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w39CusifulI

Life is change

Just found out last night that this is the last month with our choir director. She's moving. Sad, but I feel blessed to have been able to have sung with her these past few years. It made me a better singer. It made the choir better, the recordings that were done in Finland on the camera were excellent.  And she challenged us with more interesting music and to get out of the box of what the choir would normally sing.

There are signs now near the cherry trees asking people not to climb them, but the writing is small, and people aren't reading them, so are still climbing the trees.

Back to it

After two weeks, with maybe too much free time on my hands, back into the craziness of school and work and everything else. And between the video we have to write a script for, film, edit, etc for Finnish and the outside rehearsals for the theatre class, I'll probably be busier than I was last quarter. And that's a good thing, I need to occupy my mind. My emotions are starting to overwhelm me, and though positive in general, still, too much.  My problem being that I'm an emotional non-eater, and it doesn't matter if they are "positive" or "negative" emotions, I can't eat. That would be the only time I can't eat.  The thing is, I woke up this morning happy and at peace with unrequited love, I don't know why. I suppose I can use it as fuel for writing or character development, why not?  I guess I like the feeling of that much love toward someone, even if it's not returned. I like that my heart is open enough for it.  When I look at him, I'm overwhelmed with it.  (It would be nice to feel that for someone who actually liked me back, but, it's a start I guess.)

Just received a wild email from a friend I now realize I haven't seen in a while, somewhere off the grid, in a car, not here, and all I can do is send her good thoughts and angels for protection. And if anyone reading this is the sorta' person that prays, please pray for her protection and hope, you don't need to know her name, just ask for help for my friend. Thanks.

Time for rehearsal. I realize I sound delusional, maybe it's the lack of sleep and calories. But there it is.