Floating In Deep Blue

Inspired by 

I Only Wear Blue by Dr. Dog.

"When you can’t be yourself

There’s just too much to be

Let’s get on with it,

We haven’t got too much time.

And I don’t want to stay here,

Where the sun don’t ever shine.

So say the word, and open up the blinds."

           

All these years we’ve lectured

Each other

About what’s right

And what’s wrong.

Lectured ourselves

About futures,

About cashing it in,

About being the best we can possibly be.

But now that talk means nothing.

Now we’re growing up, 

growing old,

and Time is picking up its pace.

We haven’t got a second

To spend on morals and plans.

We’ve got to live faster than the

Arms on that clock can spin.

Leaden arms circling around,

Marking the days so elegantly.

So painfully.

They sit in the corner,

Two fractions

Of a part.

Hindered by lectures,

Lessons and guidelines.

They’re two fractions

Of a masterpiece.

Puzzle pieces that

Hardly reveal the

Entire picture.

But they try their best

To fill in the gaps.

To be enough for

Themselves.

To be enough

For each other.

She gets anxious

As the days pass,

Because she knows

Time is shortening.

She can feel the tension.

What happens

If we don’t make it?

What happens

If we are wrong,

And have done wrong,

And have been wronged?

Who can save us from

The reality of that end,

Which lurks somewhere

Not too far in the distance?

What happens
If we play by those rules,

If we get sucked into the tide?

If we let time win?

Everything that can

Tear them apart,

Will tear them apart.

They will be torn apart.

Time wears on.

They just sit

And think and stare

At each other,

At the clock,

At the distance.

They just sit and

Reflect on all they’ve

Ever known.

It’s all they’ve ever

Been taught to do.

What happens?

We will be torn apart.

Timing

When I drive home, I always like the song on the radio so that it ends just as I'm turning into my driveway. This OCD-tendency has caused me to do some ridiculous things. Speed up, slow down, drive around the block, run red lights (no, not that). It's turned into a game, of sorts. I've timed many of my favorite songs by hitting play in my drive-way and then making a note of which S-turn or driveway I'm near when the song finishes, but this pre-planning takes out the game aspect of my tradition.

And isn't timing everything? 

Get caught at one red light, 

the bridge runs over, and you're driving 60 in a 30 

just to make it  home before that last chord is struck. 

Years ago, my parents were thinking of buying a new house and moving to a new school district. After some searching, it just wasn't the right time. And how different my life would be had it been the right time to move. I wouldn't be in the same school, wouldn't know the same people, wouldn't have the same college plans.

And isn't timing everything? 

You watch the avocado sit on the counter for days, waiting for it to ripen. 

But you wait one day too many and you're faced with a spoiled fruit.

So much for guacamole. 

Some people are masters at timing. They know when to say the right thing, when to duck out, when to bid higher, and when to fold. Whether it's luck or just a particularly developed sense of perception, these people make it to the top. Those who wait too long to take the shot hit the rim every time. Those who sit on a deal and ponder it risk their chances of striking it rich.

And isn't timing everything?

You shop around for airline tickets but decide to put it off till tomorrow.

But by morning, the price has nearly doubled.

Should have clicked purchase a little sooner.

Unfortunately, a small gray rabbit had some poor timing tonight. He ran out unexpectedly, and I think I nicked him with my tire. I was too nervous to go back and check. (I also had this slight fear that he was running from a coyote, so no way was I getting out of my car in the dark.) Said a little prayer--hopefully Peter Cottontail made it. As I was nearing home, I slowed to nearly 25 mph so that I could hear the ending of Dosed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers before putting it in park.

And isn't timing everything?

But perfect timing doesn't have to be naturally perfect. 

In fact, we ought to bend the rules and make opportune moments for ourselves,

Run life on our own watches, so that every decision can be made at just the right time.

Every Time A Bell Rings...

...an angel gets his wings. 

Inspiration from It's a Wonderful Life.

Baby, it's cold outside. I don't feel like moving from this deep sleep. 
Baby, it's cold outside. I need you close to me. 


She lights a candle and puts on that slow record,
the one that lulls her into sweet dreams. The moment pulls along,
like the long drag of a cigarette; like honey dripping off a spoon. 
She cracks the window and sits on the sill; she tucks her legs up to her chest. 
It's snowing outside. The moon's casting shadows across her bedroom floor.
That lonely bedroom. That lonely moon. 
Lasso it. She wishes she could lasso the moon. 
She wishes she could find someone willing
to make dreams like that come true--
wishes she could find someone worth wishing for. 
The snow sparkles on her sill like shattered panes of glass.
If only she could pull the moon down from its high palace. Then she'd have someone
to spend the night with--someone to whisper her dreams to
in the dark, black night. 

Where do those dreams go, into the darkness?

Into the night sky?

Out into the storm, to get mixed in with the snowflakes

and built into an igloo in some child's front lawn? 

I hope so. I hope they make their way in a world as

cold as this one. I hope they make it long enough

to see the ground thaw and the spring bloom. 

I hope they make it.

She wants moonbeams to shoot out of her skin. 

She wants to dance until the sun rises and makes the hillside pink. 

She wants to live in a perpetual dream, in which the record never

stops spinning and her feet never tire and her dance partner never tires.

She wants to look at her flower and watch it multiply into a garden. She wants to be 

foolish enough to believe, fully, that the real world can mesh with her dreams.

She wants beauty. She wants to be made of moonbeams.

Dream a little dream for me, 

for  all's fair in love,

isn't that what they say?

That's why she lights up

like a firefly,

that'd look so pretty in a jar on a bedstand or

on a printed postcard--

That's why she shys away

like a secret--
when you're around.

For, all's fair in love.

Her taken heart jumps just thinking

of walking with you.

All's fair in love. All's fair in love. All's fair in love

and war. Well, I don't know about war.

Baby, it's cold outside. Won't you climb in next to me?
Won't you catch that moon, ring that bell, sing that tune?
And take these fallen petals and tuck them away, for
they'll be worth something, someday. 
Let me have your vacant ear, 
let me whisper my childish dream,
though I know you'll never hear,
Baby, it's cold out, hold me close, hold me near.

 

Que Sera

Yesterday I posted about waiting and the feelings of futility and frustration that take over one as she waits by the mailbox. Or by her inbox.

Today, I'm optimistic. Enthusiastic. Hopeful. And all sorts of emotions with strong, positive associations.

Today, I have two options. (Well, we'll limit it to two) I can sit here in a pit of fear, with knots in my stomach, anxiously awaiting answers about what will be. It's risky to put yourself on the edge, to hit submit, to build yourself up in front of a person or an institution with no idea how they'll respond. I could pace the floor, mug the mailman, go insane.

But I won't. And here's why.

We have this theory in my house. Maybe it's not a theory, but rather a portion of our belief system. We like to say that whatever is meant to be, will be. Some think this is false comfort, that there's no such thing as fate. We don't agree.

When I was in middle school, I used to drive past this big, beautiful high school just up the road. It had a great reputation, academics, sports and the lot. I wanted that rigor. I wanted to go there. When it came time for high school, however, I decided to go away. My year in Farmington taught me a lot, and was worth the journey, but I knew I didn't belong there. I ended up transferring to that same school I'd thought about years earlier. The past three years have given me all I've wanted, and now I believe I was meant to end up in Lakeville. At Hotchkiss. But I also believe I needed that time away to learn just how much I could withstand before breaking. (Turns out, I can handle a lot... but that's not the point here.) It all worked out on its own. I barely planned for this multi-staged educational saga, and yet it played out just as it was supposed to.

Some may say this has nothing to do with fate or things "being what they're meant to be." And that's OK. See it for what you will. But with these pieces of my past, it's difficult for me to worry and fret about the future. Maybe it's naive to trust the way of things as much as I do. Maybe I should stress a little bit more and harass the mailman for my envelope, harass some computer programmer to hack the system a day early. But would it change the results in the short term? In the long term?
It wouldn't. So I won't.

Ultimately, we'll all get the results we're meant to get. I believe that. Now, this doesn't mean we can sit around and just wait for the universe to do its thing. It doesn't mean we can stop trying. We still have to apply for our coveted positions. We still have to present ourselves and make our wants clear. But we have to relax once our work is through. We deserve that much.

So, today I'll take the second option. I'll go out for coffee with a friend. I'll burn Christmas candles. I'll organize my sock drawer and read A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I'll probably get really anxious, understandably, around 3:00, so maybe I'll go for a run then.  I'll do my best not to think about things to come. I'll let it all unfold as its supposed to. Timing is everything. Most of the things I'm aiming for right now are out of my reach; the results cannot, to an extent, be determined by anything I can do in the next day, week, or month. I find comfort in the belief that whatever happens will be good, will be right. Whatever will be, will be. Que sera, sera.

I have too much to lose, she said, if I cross that line.

Like what? I said. 

She could not think of anything that day so she said she'd get back to me. 

Since then I've been thinking what I would lose if I cross my line.

I haven't come up with anything either. 

There's always another line somewhere. 

 

 

 

Quote credit: StoryPeople 

Photo credit: Random Photo Website 

 

Angels and Bears

She walked back alone that night—unused too strolling alone, in the dark—she began to think of her bear dream. Terror had run through her fingertips as the image of a 500 pound black bear tumbled into her mind. She wondered, quite seriously, if things in our lives, the things that make us smile or cringe or laugh or break down--fresh fruit gone bad in the fridge--babies being lifted onto tall shoulders--were placed there fore a reason. Did fate exist? What pain was that in her chest? He pushed her to the ground, out of the bear's path, into a new kind of nightmare. What kind of magic was  at work there, toiling that messy ball of yarn into a massive knot that sank to the pits of her stomach? 

She slowed her pace from a brisk walk to a walk to a drag to a staccato arrangement of semi-steps. At points, she stood frighteningly still. The dream took over. She was fierce enough to ask for what she wanted. To demand it. To act on it. Why couldn’t that virulence succeed in daily life? Why did she drag her legs so sunkenly behind her body, walking back, alone? She couldn't die without knowing what it was like.

Everything in this world could be taken. Won. Earned. Deserved. This was true. She had hoped that upon waking, the shambles she’d created would be miraculously fixed. That some angel, with big bushy wings and tufts of golden hair, who spoke in a mixed tongue of charms and melodies, would slip through her window at night and take over her helpless body.