Just running forward

I cannot believe the entire month of February went by without a post from me! I guess you could say I have writer's block, but I cannot say that because I don't believe in writer's block. I am wondering what I could write that would be worth writing about, I am searching for something that won't be overwritten or overdone. But it's hard to find something I feel I can successfully produce. I don't believe the well of inspiration is ever dry. I just think we sometimes just lose the bucket. I want to believe that I always have something brewing in me that needs to get out, and I do.

All I know is that I always want to be better. I have a green shutter in the corner of my living room that's been there for about four months. I took it from someone's trash because I thought something creative could be done with it. I planned to nail some knobs or something on it and hang my coats and hats, but winter has gone along with the need for coats and hats, and the shutter is still sitting there.

I want to drink tea everyday at the same-ish time, from my teapot and kettle, and I still stick the teabag and water in the microwave. I want to eat more fresh foods, salads, sandwiches, soups, and all those are in my fridge and freezer in different forms, but I still grab the prepackaged, processed snacks from Walmart when I'm hungry. I want to display photos of faces more prevalently around my apartment, but they're still in an envelope in my desk. I want to write more, but the thoughts stay impermanently in my conscious self and eventually drift to my much larger subconscious before I have the chance to remember them.

I always want to be better. And I know that's a good thing, because if I were perfect, there would be no point in continuing my existence because I would be in the wrong species. I know I'm always growing, and I can never be at a point where I will never need to improve, but when I feel like I want to be better, I always feel like I'm reaching for something even though I know I will never grasp it. That's a hopeless feeling. Hopelessness is not something I want.

More than anything, I want to stop writing about myself. It is only natural for artists to internalize everything these days, and as beautiful as that can be, and as necessary as that was when the twentieth century came about, I still think the pendulum needs to go back towards the other way (preferably stopping in the middle). The world is so much bigger than that. The Romantics and the Realists saw that from two completely perspectives, and even though it was an extreme, they still have what we modernists and contemporaries don't. I wish there was a way to meld the two.

I wish I was Mary Oliver. Never have I encountered someone who could so beautifully observe and express nature in a way that so profoundly reflects the self the way she does. She is so external in her writings and yet so internal with her content. I hope that's something that can be learned, because if it is a gift, I shall find it very hard to accept if I don't have it.

So to those of you who read (and those of you who don't), I want to know you so I can write about you. And I want to learn to make steak in my skillet. And use up my spaghetti noodles and sauce. In different meals, though.

'Tis a familiar itch.

Today was that day. I worked physically demanding all day. I worked alone all day. I thought alone all day. I had plenty of space to think of all my problems all day. I ended up being angry at every person I knew by the end of the day. And I ended up hating this town by the end of the day.

I have had these days before. I'm only concerned because they are increasing in number with each passing season. It would not be as much of a bother if they had waited until I could do something about it. But no. These days come when I feel my most trapped. My desires to see the world are staring at me in my cage, mocking me. They come to taunt me when I feel the burdens of money, class, time, and age. They laugh at me as I scrub someone else's coffee stains off the floor. They glare at me as I sweep someone else's crumbs under the rug. They smirk at me as I wash someone else's dirty laundry.

I always believed that I was one who could be content whatever the circumstances. And perhaps I used to be that one, and I've changed. Or perhaps I was never that one, and I was merely a girl deceived by her own facade. And now the shell has cracked. And now truth and dreams do not have so pleasant a meeting. It's time to leave this town. And my feet are glued. And I glued them. Perhaps the burdens of money, class, time, and age are only there because I allowed them to be. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with this town or these people, and my familiarity has calloused me.

Perhaps . . . my dreams are too big for me.

In my brokenness, I collapse on the floor heaving tears, but my anger barely allows enough to sting my eyes before they evaporate. In the night, there is nothing more beautiful than watching storm clouds glide past the moon as lightning and wind that you know came from another world sweep over the fields with a peace that comes only from those who have seen it all. I never want to feel as if I've seen it all, but I sure would like to know that peace.

Oh, you're in my veins, and I cannot get you out.

The word "summer" connotes a medley of sweet sensations for everyone. We all seem to understand eating strawberries on the porch. We all seem to know sweet tea in mason jars. We all seem to smile at the memory of watermelon stains on our white, sweaty shirts. We all love the smell of cut grass (though not necessarily the cutting of grass), the ever abundant green outside the window, the tangled hair from beach wind, and of course, the kiss of sun. And with all this is the fondness of reading a good book in the bed of an air conditioned house, homemade ice cream which tastes just as good indoors as it does when in melts in your bowl outside, and whipped cream. Always a fondness for whipped cream.

Every year when September comes through my door (yes, it comes straight through; it never knocks) I always feel as though I never got enough of summer. We are good pals, Summer and I. You see, I am a July baby, and while I do love every day of every season, I have a special connection to the mugginess and the green and the closeness of the sun's heat and light. And I am always sad to see it leave, even though I know it will soon return. I love winter, I love spring, I love autumn, but to me, they are always transitions to get me to summer - a destination of sorts. Which is true when one has the mindset of a student. I don't care what you say, summer is a destination.

In heaven, it will always be summer, and it will never be hot.

A southern summer storm...

over as quickly as it began...