She Reads.

She reads Anna Karenina and discovers herself in both Alexey and Anna. She is disgusted with her own infidelity; she is disgusted with his apathy. She is disgusted with the way he refuses to communicate and the way that he refuses to address LIFE. Life and her ugly, vicious, bitchy problems.

She reads Persuasion and longs for a letter like the only part of the book she considers worth reading. She wants someone to care like that for her. She wonders and ponders whether that man really exists. Is it fair to set such an expectation?

She reads Twilight and has anxiety over the way the writer twists and wraps (and warps) her heart around the lead vampire. She learns to detach herself from the books and laugh over the silliness of it all.

She reads the Bible and sees herself in every fall of all of His children. She has been there before and frequently. Maybe not adultery in action, but in thought. Maybe not idolatry with gold, but idolatry with materials. She has turned her back on Jesus; she has walked away from the only intelligent and difficult choice to pursue the heart-deadening, alluring shards of glass the world has given her to slit her wrists. She comes and goes often.

She reads The Unvanquished and finds herself longing for a time when communication was solely dependent upon word of mouth. She wants to find herself in her kitchen, cooking with the servants, finding the soldiers dragging back from war, shouting the news of the finality of the war. She wants to provide the gift of shelter to John Wilkes Booth, while being completely oblivious to the death of her country's leader.

She reads A Brief History of Time (of course only the illustrated version). She illustrates his writings further for a better understanding. She looks into the strange thoughts of a genius man and wants to travel into space with His particles of light, His waves of light. She wants to become part of imaginary time, to travel endlessly at the quickest speed known to man. To feel the crushing weight of the Universe. To traverse the depths of the multiverses in which the rest of her soul lives.

She reads of Dorian Gray and relates to his desire to remain forever youthful.

She reads the Color of Water and ponders the struggles of a black man with a white mother in times when these things were taboo.

She reads Fight Club and relates to the violence, the chaos, and the anarchy.

She reads Frankenstein and relates to his inability to be human.

She reads Sex God and highlights the whole damn book because it all reminds her of her. And the rest of the world, which is obsessive about sex in every form.

She reads Abba's Child and cries at Grace and Love.

She reads To Own a Dragon and sobs at the effects of an absentee dad on her soul.

And then, she stops reading for a time.

Because although all of these books contain part of her,

None of them can withhold her entirety.

What was it that tore us apart?

What the hell was it? Where did it come from?

It snuck up on us one cold November day, and we never had a chance.

We never heard the sounds as it trod upon the forest towards the cave we used to hide out in.

We never saw the flood waters coming.

We were swept away, of course in opposite directions

Swept away from everything and everybody.

I will never be the same.

Good 

Bye.

Oh to be distracted.

I came out here to sit in my backyard and read the words and thoughts of others. I came to lose myself and my thoughts and introspections in Lamont or Tolstoy. I walked out the double sliding glass doors with the idea of escape from my head.

The wind is blowing the leaves of these trees so slowly, so beautifully, that I can't help but to be distracted by the quiet sound. The sun is slipping through the fronds of the palms, dancing across my feet, my pants, my table, my books. At a distance - just far enough to be soothing and not noisy - I hear the cars and trucks driving down Vineland. 

But there's one sound that breaks me: the whisper of notes that trail across someone's backyard, over the slats of my fence, and into my arms. I can't tell if it's a cd or someone actually playing the piano - it's very faint. The sounds drift by and fade out now and again because they are too far away. Part of me wants them closer - to lose my thoughts in the sound of the trilling melody, the repetitive keys. And part of me loves them just where they are. They are far enough away from me that I am not able to absolutely shut down my thoughts.

I just realized, before all of this distracting came to pass, while I opened Traveling Mercies, that my defense mechanism is nonchalance. It's being blunt and hiding in the attitude behind those thoughts. This revelation, as several others have in the past 24 hours, stunned me. It caught me off guard. 

It has been rather humbling in the past hours to realize how little I know about myself. How out of tune I am with reality. How much of my time I spend in the knowledge and perceptions in my head, and how little of it I spend outside. 

I'm still processing the perceptions others have so graciously given me of myself. I am terrified of their thoughts and yet, in some strange way, overjoyed to face the truth about me. 

I said this earlier today, but I feel as though I have learned more about my issues in the past 24 hours than I did in a year or so of on-and-off counseling.

So much to consider.

The Habitat of the Soul

I arose from my slumber,

One thought in my mind

To seek out the sunlight

And, of course, You.

Before I left,

I felt the rumblings of Your presence

The windows were open,

The breeze a cool wake up call.

My soul was situated entirely within my heart upon waking

(its customary home)

But during the drive, 

An explosion rocked the ground

As my soul threatened to break the physical bounds of my fragile body

It was nothing but glorious.

The joy I felt 

At the announcement of Your presence

Overwhelmed me

I sung, “You’re Beautiful”

Along with Phil

The words resounding in my heart

As if You inscribed them there in Your precious blood

(indelible ink of sorts)

as I sang.

I then spent hours in the gazebo

Looking out over the rose gardens

Incredulous at the emotional outburst

You inspired within

No words able to flow from my pen

Until hours later.

Serenity sat with me in that gazebo

and the evening found me giddy with laughter.

14 hours of waking pleasure.

Gratitude.

Monochromatic.

The world is very black and white to me. I am analytical, I am precise, and I consider vague-ness to be a cop out. I evaluate life, people, choices, and conflict in a methodical manner and lay out options in light of these evaluations.

Lately, this has caused me problems.

Apparently, everyone in the world is not like me. Seriously, who knew? No, just kidding. But the truth is that in my mind, the way I solve conflict and see situations is the best. It's efficient (yes, I know that efficiency is not always the best way to approach reaching the end, but when it makes sense, I can't deny its purpose!) Not only that, but it's clear cut and logical and I can write it down and make it ordered and sketch flowcharts and make anyone see its LOGIC.

So when this doesn't work, I get hyper frustrated. Like today. Someone tells me I haven't been a good friend. I ask how. The vague and confusing answer is the vibes I give. How do you measure vibes? How do you change vibes? How do you increase or decrease them? If all that I'm doing is done from love, how in the heck do I change your perception to be more in line with mine? Vibes, I think, are purely based upon perception. You might get a bad vibe from me, but what if it's more related to your bad day? Or your insecurity stemming from an issue unrelated to me?

To take a step backward, I completely understand that not everyone can work on my system that is so logical and worthwhile to me. I don't expect that. But for me to attempt to wrap my mind around this polar opposite form of thinking is beyond challenging. I'm considering myself a failure thus far, to be frank. I can't figure it out. I don't know how to improve and she is not helping me understand. 

I have realized, in this course of friendship, that I need to be a little more flexible with my black and white world. I might not go into the murky grey depths of the abstract sea, but I could certainly stand to bend a bit more.

If you wanna help me (since I have no clue how to start), I'd love it.

Maybe we should all screw the monochromatic scheme and find that azure sea and sky.