on true intentions

when making connections, when remembering names and details and paying compliments with a simper & smirk, it is critical to allow one's self to wonder why. am I merely endearing myself to people, to feel secure, to seem indispensable?

though self-absorption and utter selflessness may be two very different specimens rooted in quite different places, their fruit can bear an uncanny similarity. it's wise to be keen to such, troubling as good discernment may be.

on moving forward and staying behind

the bitterest of self-truths can be realized through repetition: that many of my actions are selfishly motivated.

similarly, many of my greatest insecurities are diminished through a similar slow process: I have big hands, such long fingers, for a woman.

tuning in the former allows me to tune in to my true intention.

but as for the latter, the awareness alone is not sufficient--one could say that awareness if the problem. in private situations I move and use my hands freely. but in public, to do something as simple as brush my brow would seem as to brandish my hands and risk drawing attention to them. very truly, I am crippled by insecurity.

I would rather concentrate my focus on the first problem. how I interact with others matters more than my own self-concept. but I know that my physical insecurities must be addressed, to, because how can I wholly focus on others if a large part of my attention remains fixed on my own self?

on shadows on display

one who craves more from life than aimless adventure, for he knows that nothing grants more excitement and pain than living with purpose.

one who relishes more than his own firm form, or the softness of a lithe young woman. who lets poignancy sing in his heart but pursues that which lacks artistry, too, because it is good. sometimes good isn't immediately beautiful.

on what is required

I must get more moved, more motivated.

on dark jeans and decisions

in my usual fashion, here are a few thoughts--scattered so far, but that is an acceptable state for them, for now.

I've been reading Deep Economy by Bill McKibben and he makes the point that many of us spend more time with the anonymous rich than we do our next door neighbors. "they inflate the viewer's perceptions of what others have, and by extension what is worth acquiring--what one must have in order to avoid being 'out of it.'" 

with our eyes on a more popular, polished, and well-off crowd we align our standards for assets and attire with a transient and literally unrealistic breed. this elusive ideal is like an ivory tower growing ever-taller, its foundation girded and reenforced with a myriad of sources for what is new, and cutting edge. instead of taking our cues for what is acceptable attire from our friends and neighbors, we can check photo albums of distant acquaintances and movie stars alike thanks to facebook and flickr and TMZ, and tap into this compendium of cool without ever venturing beyond our own bedroom door. 

am I advocating that we all look and dress the same? of course not. as McKibben says, "we would not discard individuality for some drab collectivist future; instead, we would re-rembed individuals in some context where our impulses make more sense and do less damage."

so, perhaps my impulse for individuality would not mean I buy a new pair of jeans just because they are a cooler wash than what my buddies and I currently have (but maybe the exact same wash that the cool kids downtown wear) ... and because I have a 30% off discount code. perhaps it means I consider the tired hands of the twenty year old in Vietnam who stitched together those jeans for me because he had to make money instead of go to college. perhaps it means I do something that doesn't require me spending money to adorn myself, but rather takes only my time and attentiveness to others. 

I pride myself on being aware and tuned-in to what's going on, fashion or otherwise. what's that worth compared to tuning in to my community?

on asparagus and its life after death

dead & dying-off stalks from mature asparagus beds can be reused as mulch and, better yet, between rows and along raised beds. they'll break down eventually, but pile them high and for a growing season they'll keep the weeds down & the bulk of soil in place--and they distribute your weight across a broad area, so you can walk on them without compressing the soil beneath.

on human bodies

insecurities about our own physicalities may be rooted in the faulty belief that idiosyncrasies are undesirable. why so, when we're organic beings?

on growing pains

it would appear that I am being weaned off of the friendships I have clung to for unhealthy reasons. the change is a splintering stretch, but surely for the best. in the meantime, there is pain.

on sinking your teeth into the intangible

on this day I drove in some very good fall weather--50's and dim beneath a rainy sky which seemed at times to ponder the possibility of sun. there are few hills in Johnston County, which is where I make my money, and so encountering a rise in the road makes one pay extra attention to the landscape on the downward roll.  and indeed, before me spread stacks of tree-stands framing browning grasses and yellow soybean fields. I thought about the colors, and why they appeared so much more impressive on a day when there was no sunlight to illuminate and lift them. it was all like a fat moth perched stationary, instead of some lilting monarch. things were solid. what occurred to me was the sky was really making things right: it was silvery-gray in parts, with bits of white and yellow where the sun was almost parting the clouds, but a few sets of clouds had charcoal underbellies which, though they shifted above the land, seemed somehow to underscore each big hill and burgundy tree. mmmmmmmmmm.

on singlehood

there is no one. I do not have my eyes set on a known soul.

finally, peace.

on skinny bodies and well-rounded ones, too

lines splay: they run opposite directions, from shoulder peaks. they drop to clavicles and chest bones, and rest on ribs, and pop out again from hip protrusions and repeat at the knees, the toes & ankles.

and lines spread: they open up over and over, they sway and swagger, down the friendly mounds & mantles of hidden biceps and overwhelming breasts, and swaths of rounded bellies. they wash over the deep dimensions of hefty hips before sloping rapidly down limbs which slim and straighten towards the sturdy heel.

Rescue those being led away to death;
       hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"
       does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
       Does not he who guards your life know it?
       Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

Eat honey, my son, for it is good;
       honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul;
       if you find it, there is a future hope for you,
       and your hope will not be cut off.

on renouncing the self

well, there's a tough one. "renounce" sounds very final. surely we do ourselves no favors by speaking in such absolute terms--it can be so very daunting.

john 3:30 says that God must become greater and I must become less.

those in contemporary christian circles like to throw around the word "journey" quite a bit. it carries an air of holistic and sustainable growth (there are some more buzz words for you). sometimes I think it's overused. but alas, it's so suiting. and surely, if patience is a virtue (and more meaningfully, a fruit of the spirit) than God has it in unimaginable abundance.

honestly though, I decided to write another little entry to express my exhaustion with myself--with negotiating the expectations of others (of friends, of men, of family) and of pouring so much time, energy and money into curating my own condition.

but I should not throw up my hands in exasperation and write it all off as something negative, to be taken care of and swiftly remedied. some delineating is in order: the weight of others' interests is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when others those others are folks I care about--or should. to slough off those connections would be reckless, and wrong.

still working it out.

on blessings

here is one of many reasons why J. Tillman is my favorite singer/songwriter.


If you have a day’s work
And a good word
And a night’s rest
After keeping
The company of your friends
And a woman
To greet the morning with
Then you are blessed
You are blessed above all men

If you have a garden
Or a houseplant
Is there an old man
Who gets by
From the toil of your hands
‘Cause you’re the only one
Who buys floral prints
Then you are blessed
You are blessed above all men

If you have a minute
To get it
It’s so simple
If you let it
If you let it
‘Cause we are blessed
We are blessed
We are blessed
Lest we forget
We are blessed
We are blessed above all men.

on my future

"hypothetical" has been a term I've applied to myself for some time now. one of those adjectives that can be safely acknowledged within the windowless halls of our own conscious minds, but rarely shared with others, for to do so may mean to explain it.

more on that later. for now it's worth noting that I sometimes forget my age, or that it may matter to some people. while growing up I had few of the objective parameters that ordinarily delineate one's progress through life--no normal school, so no precise grades, class trips, graduations, or big summer family trips to get away from the skirmishes of every day living. I am twenty now, and I can't decide exactly what that means for me. am I oh, so very young--with years to zero in on who it is that I should be, you know--being? or does my being on this earth two whole decades now mean that it's High Time I got my act together?

(those sentences are painfully reminiscent of the patterns of thinking I embraced when I was in my early to mid teens: either-or, and very self incriminating. I'd like to think I've grown beyond such an approach and can better realize the nuances, but sometimes I default, and often without realizing it.)

when I was just a few years younger I felt very distinct in taste, virtue and intended vocation. now, things have contextualized--I can appreciate and even love some art I would most consider garish, I'm more inclined to consider deeply the spiritual beliefs of others than to dismiss them, and I no longer want to paint pictures for a living. my father has long identified a profound sensibility of fairness and justice within me; I did not recognize it for a long time. but it has abandoned the hand of cynicism to take up that of compassion, and now it's easier to recognize.

wait--what was I setting out to write about again? I'm super duper off track. 

I think I was going to say something like this: despite my vagueness, and my lack of distinction and definition, I feel some shapes emerging and desires converging, the old ones falling away. the movement and change alone is encouraging. 

so, I'll share the most prominent one: I ache--I actually ache--for land. it's such a pronounced and unmistakable desire that it's almost startling. 

now that I've mustered the gumption to admit as much, I'll really shock myself by taking it one step further: I don't want land just to have it. for starters, I could hardly consider it mine. as nice as it would one day be to walk out on misty mornings and snatch up blueberries for cereal (just enough for that one bowl, and not a berry more) and return to the porch to spend my days reading and drawing, I could never be a landowner for my own satisfaction alone. nor even for the sake of land conservancy or biodiversity, as important as those are.

nope--I've gotta have it to share. I would like to have land to tend it, to curate it, and to share it with those who most need to be on the land and be with the land and within it. if I ever have acreage, I want it to be an extension of my already very long arms, and my already very large hands, to beckon and embrace. 

gosh, I'm such a sap.

on taking care

pouring over permaculture texts has left me with a satisfied spirit but a loss for original thought.

instead, I posit these simple words with their respective definitions.

tend
to care for or look after; to give one's attention to.

curate
to select, organize, and look after the items in a collection.

if I truly embraced the notion of my being a steward of my own time and resources, what would change?

the undergirding of a permaculture approach to system design is the thought which is put into the arrangement of elements, with each piece being thoroughly considered: weighed, measured, and handled with care.

but even the less tangible elements like wind direction, geothermal temperature and passive solar heat shrink to the weight and proportion of little wooden chess pieces in comparison to the indeterminate parts of our days.

for now, I hope that my education in permaculture will inform not just my choices in garden design or career path, but also the ways I decide to curate my collection of hours and days: I wish to be a good tender of time.

on wishes for clarity

let me write simply; let me speak precisely. 

if only my thoughts be could be as a drop of distilled water

hovering in the darkness, forming slowly, and hesitating until the molecules have gathered. at long last they are bound together in a weight complete, with neither need nor room for anything else.

it's time to go: hesitating no longer, the drop releases itself cleanly

it plunges straight & swift

and confidently kisses the surface of the glassy pool below.

its affection quickly binds it to the rest

and immediately its wholeness, and all of its parts, become incorporated.

oh, if only!