B A R A C K O B A M A
peaceful passionate leader
prevail with God speed
BARACK me the house
Roe/Wade me my body's RIGHTS
Speak to me of H O P E.
wind whipped sun-licked brow
furrow curse pretend to care
stand blame or just VOTE.
19 January 2009
14 January 2009
Orange black sky
Survival:
Extant Leftover Remaining Residual Surviving Vestigial Viable Continuation Endurance
Natural Selection Relic Subsist Survive Weather
Survival: of, pertaining to, or for use in surviving, esp. under adverse or unusual circumstances: survival techniques.
Survival: Anthropology. (no longer in technical use) the persistence of a cultural trait, practice, or the like long after it has lost its original meaning or usefulness.
For me, the word ‘survival’ resonates most closely to an experience incurred when an almost teenybopper girl. One cold, wintry morning, I awoke coughing, choking almost, on a grey cloud of smoke. Disoriented in the dim light of a Sunday’s predawn, I turned over in the tossed-sheets of my single bed, in the tiny room of my adolescence, and started screaming. The ceiling of my little bedroom as well as the hallway outside my door was ablaze.
I was not dreaming.
Whereas fight or flight should have kicked-in, for some reason, the proximity of my dad’s beat-up old pick up truck, to what seemed the origination of bright orange flame, had me in a state of panic. Wouldn’t it blow up? Additionally, in my discombobulated state, I was yelling, with a red-hot-with-ache, scratchy from smoke-inhalation sore throat, for my parents, that there was a Fire! Fire! Fire!
Enduring the minutes between my awakenings into the inferno, which was once my family’s home, and the moment I realized I needed to extract myself, I sat there, on my bed, trying to determine whether or not it was safe to stand upright. Wondering if there was any way I could squeeze through the narrow, uniquely house trailer-specific frames of the tri-paned crank-out windows. Disillusioned from the smoke and flame-beset shell of a structure, soon to be emptied into a heap of ash, my actions were leaden.
Although ‘prepared’, in grade school as well as by our parents, for the worst sort of emergency—tornado, fire drill, wind gust or an Alberta clipper snowstorm, there was little familiarity to the seemingly foreign, and most certainly unwelcome, morning scene I had awoken to.
During those drills, you discuss how you might react to ‘emergency’ situations, but I can tell you with the certain truth of a bleary eyed twelve year old girl, that you simply have no way of predicting action of any kind—how exactly, for example, your sleepy body might react? (for me, not nearly as quickly as I likely should have—what, for example, you might think about (Nike hi-tops?). How, for example, you might feel when you see your sister’s stepping to safely out the back door; or to note the color of the sky, a deep black orange, as you glanced backward, as you ran in your bare feet and nightgown, up the snowy hill to an oblivion you had no capacity to imagine.
Extant Leftover Remaining Residual Surviving Vestigial Viable Continuation Endurance
Natural Selection Relic Subsist Survive Weather
Survival: of, pertaining to, or for use in surviving, esp. under adverse or unusual circumstances: survival techniques.
Survival: Anthropology. (no longer in technical use) the persistence of a cultural trait, practice, or the like long after it has lost its original meaning or usefulness.
For me, the word ‘survival’ resonates most closely to an experience incurred when an almost teenybopper girl. One cold, wintry morning, I awoke coughing, choking almost, on a grey cloud of smoke. Disoriented in the dim light of a Sunday’s predawn, I turned over in the tossed-sheets of my single bed, in the tiny room of my adolescence, and started screaming. The ceiling of my little bedroom as well as the hallway outside my door was ablaze.
I was not dreaming.
Whereas fight or flight should have kicked-in, for some reason, the proximity of my dad’s beat-up old pick up truck, to what seemed the origination of bright orange flame, had me in a state of panic. Wouldn’t it blow up? Additionally, in my discombobulated state, I was yelling, with a red-hot-with-ache, scratchy from smoke-inhalation sore throat, for my parents, that there was a Fire! Fire! Fire!
Enduring the minutes between my awakenings into the inferno, which was once my family’s home, and the moment I realized I needed to extract myself, I sat there, on my bed, trying to determine whether or not it was safe to stand upright. Wondering if there was any way I could squeeze through the narrow, uniquely house trailer-specific frames of the tri-paned crank-out windows. Disillusioned from the smoke and flame-beset shell of a structure, soon to be emptied into a heap of ash, my actions were leaden.
Although ‘prepared’, in grade school as well as by our parents, for the worst sort of emergency—tornado, fire drill, wind gust or an Alberta clipper snowstorm, there was little familiarity to the seemingly foreign, and most certainly unwelcome, morning scene I had awoken to.
During those drills, you discuss how you might react to ‘emergency’ situations, but I can tell you with the certain truth of a bleary eyed twelve year old girl, that you simply have no way of predicting action of any kind—how exactly, for example, your sleepy body might react? (for me, not nearly as quickly as I likely should have—what, for example, you might think about (Nike hi-tops?). How, for example, you might feel when you see your sister’s stepping to safely out the back door; or to note the color of the sky, a deep black orange, as you glanced backward, as you ran in your bare feet and nightgown, up the snowy hill to an oblivion you had no capacity to imagine.
from 1.1.07
...for me, i guess, today is a perfectly appropriate excuse to take advantage of a number of things:
a dreary, mid-Michigan late morning where the rain, grey and somewhat sad that it escapes from the skye to us in liquid and not ice-laden form...filling puddles in the streets with a seemingly hope-less moisture...a cesspool of sorts, reflecting that global warming is upon us in a frightening way...that winter in the great state of Michigan, may not be as it once was...that the times, they are a changing...evolving into a place where we strivers of goodness, rightness, justness, happiness, light-ness, must remind ourselves, remind each other, to AGAIN rise and shine and dance the dervish of our lives, all of us, here, keeping hope afloat...clearing life's puddles of their muddy cess. i splashed in two large puddles this morning, in my wellie's, after a
lovely time spent with a dear old friend, chomping a hearty breakfast at my very favorite spot in Old Town, Golden Harvest, i splashed some of that cess away...i cleared some of those cobwebs, and darted upstairs, to further the clearing of them, spending time with another dear heart, dreaming into a new year...collaborating for tomorrow's dreams. we ate chocolate cake, i drank my coffee with honey & cream, we danced the cats around the hardwood floors with a laser pointer, and we jammed to 70's disco tunes, tapping away on our respective keyboards...a blooming bouquet of red roses set between us, smiles, on
the insides of our chests, from the laughter & moments spent, watching "whose afraid of virgina woolf" last night, and imbibing with good food and the most delightful kind of company...
the reality that it is the end of another year--a year that has been, for me at least, about challenge and risk; sadness and deep-personal loss, purposeful change and the stall in time between when that change is ready to be embraced and the incubating-time where growth is inevitably on the horizon...it is in sight...it is there and is not lost, i have taken a step back, taken a look, and realized, that all the upheaval is not all for naught. as i mentioned above. it was purposeful change. it wasn't filled with whimsy. it wasn't fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants--proverbial or otherwise...
gee-whiz, that sounds a bit dismal....let me interject...that, in addition, it was a year too, where my creativity was ignited, delved into, branched upon...(for example...i sold a lot of my artwork for starters! i also worked on a few more chapters of 'that book' i've been writing for years it seems...i even decided upon a title for that work, which for me, has been the most exciting part of the autumn that just came to a close. i feel like the title actually is igniting me towards threading all the pieces of this somewhat-dilly-dallying/gallivanting project into focus!!) the positivity in the year centers itself here...where the belief in the center of my self was the one thing i trusted, and although doubt reigned herself in a moment (or maybe a month??!!) or two, for sake of that doubt, i am here today, extending myself to you, in hopes that i can erase her from my world altogether, that i may remind myself that it takes a village. i cannot do it alone. i need the love, the wisdom, the criticism, the double-dog-dares, the cynicism, the light, the grace, the acceptance, the judgment, the charisma, the charm, the beauty of each of you; encouraging me, knowing & accepting me, all idiosyncracies included...thank you to all of you, for that, most of all.
and so, i guess with that, an attempt at a close....
i guess part of the reason i've spent this time, pecking away on this laptop reflecting upon the end of a rather melancholic-expanse-in-time the past week(s) where i've been called-to-the-carpet by one closest to my heart...(thank you wanderingo) where i have realized that in all my attempts to reach out and encourage connectivity, to hasten the depth that i share with so many of you; in my new surroundings; that i have learned a lesson on patience. i have learned a lesson on the responsibilities undertaken when we have a heart of our own to take care of--and that we may have forgotten a bit, about her somehow, busying ourselves with the love and care of others, our family, our dear friends, the new ones who titillate our fancy...in the spontaneity that life sometimes allows, entertains; cajoles our senses with with, we unabashedly become immersed in momentary distraction, that, can be reckless. that can hurtful. that, it is dangerous to let go of that red-hot-muscle of our own. it is irresponsible to trust too quickly. it is fateful to speak without thinking. it is even more fateful to act without thinking; or to take action on something massive, hastily. the turmoil i sometimes feel, living the life i live, comes down to this seeming-warning label in my last paragraph....to live unabashedly, or, to be careful/cautious...
Can we instead carefully live unabashedly, or unabashedly live carefully?
i guess i'll leave you with the idea of living consciously. being unabashedly aware of the beauty of every single moment of life.
whether measured steps, or galloping gallosh-splashing skips, i'll steal an I hope not overly-cliched-phrase...may you LIVE all the days of your life.
for me, life is busied with work, with the details i often put aside, and wait until tomorrow to complete. i can't even manage to get to the post to retrieve appropriate materials to mail all the holiday greetings, new year's wishes, congratulatory & celebratory messages, and birthday woo-hoo's to those of you i left a few short months ago, or those of you who it's been years since i've seen...i think of you, all of you...in the way that i do...my mind is a kaleidoscope of collaged-memory... i am a mixed-media artist in all the various facets of my life...whether it be my diverse and ever-evolving collection of
dear hearts, who i would live and die for; the music compilations i enjoy mailing out; the stream-of-concsious-attempts at explanation or thought-sharing...the words sometimes splayed viscerally, other times abject and simply stated...the actual artwork, i paint or seam together...the dishes i enjoy preparing...it is no wonder that my life is a patchwork quilt of sorts...attempts made, risks thought about, some plunged into head first; others, skeptically awaiting further consideration, fears realized, dreams discussed...hopes dashed and then then zoomed back-into-view...
and so, as i do every year, i'll strive to be a better friend, a better lover if i get the chance; a better sister, a better daughter. i'll hope to travel, to see you and yours; to share immeasurable amounts of laughter...to cry a little less than in 2006!! to seek & find, to risk, to let it all out & sayitsayitsayit, but also know when to keep the lip zipped, breathe deeply, and wander elsewhere. i'll try to mail out those cards and thoughts i have, randomly, for you, when the mood strikes me, instead of months down the road, or more often than not, never, left in a pile of keepsakes for what might have been a connection re-established...
as i am wont to do, i'll wish for all of you, light, grace, hope, and all the love you'll let yourself inhale....deeply, and all the way to your toes.
be well my sweets!!
forever yours,
justadreamer jennryan
a dreary, mid-Michigan late morning where the rain, grey and somewhat sad that it escapes from the skye to us in liquid and not ice-laden form...filling puddles in the streets with a seemingly hope-less moisture...a cesspool of sorts, reflecting that global warming is upon us in a frightening way...that winter in the great state of Michigan, may not be as it once was...that the times, they are a changing...evolving into a place where we strivers of goodness, rightness, justness, happiness, light-ness, must remind ourselves, remind each other, to AGAIN rise and shine and dance the dervish of our lives, all of us, here, keeping hope afloat...clearing life's puddles of their muddy cess. i splashed in two large puddles this morning, in my wellie's, after a
lovely time spent with a dear old friend, chomping a hearty breakfast at my very favorite spot in Old Town, Golden Harvest, i splashed some of that cess away...i cleared some of those cobwebs, and darted upstairs, to further the clearing of them, spending time with another dear heart, dreaming into a new year...collaborating for tomorrow's dreams. we ate chocolate cake, i drank my coffee with honey & cream, we danced the cats around the hardwood floors with a laser pointer, and we jammed to 70's disco tunes, tapping away on our respective keyboards...a blooming bouquet of red roses set between us, smiles, on
the insides of our chests, from the laughter & moments spent, watching "whose afraid of virgina woolf" last night, and imbibing with good food and the most delightful kind of company...
the reality that it is the end of another year--a year that has been, for me at least, about challenge and risk; sadness and deep-personal loss, purposeful change and the stall in time between when that change is ready to be embraced and the incubating-time where growth is inevitably on the horizon...it is in sight...it is there and is not lost, i have taken a step back, taken a look, and realized, that all the upheaval is not all for naught. as i mentioned above. it was purposeful change. it wasn't filled with whimsy. it wasn't fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants--proverbial or otherwise...
gee-whiz, that sounds a bit dismal....let me interject...that, in addition, it was a year too, where my creativity was ignited, delved into, branched upon...(for example...i sold a lot of my artwork for starters! i also worked on a few more chapters of 'that book' i've been writing for years it seems...i even decided upon a title for that work, which for me, has been the most exciting part of the autumn that just came to a close. i feel like the title actually is igniting me towards threading all the pieces of this somewhat-dilly-dallying/gallivanting project into focus!!) the positivity in the year centers itself here...where the belief in the center of my self was the one thing i trusted, and although doubt reigned herself in a moment (or maybe a month??!!) or two, for sake of that doubt, i am here today, extending myself to you, in hopes that i can erase her from my world altogether, that i may remind myself that it takes a village. i cannot do it alone. i need the love, the wisdom, the criticism, the double-dog-dares, the cynicism, the light, the grace, the acceptance, the judgment, the charisma, the charm, the beauty of each of you; encouraging me, knowing & accepting me, all idiosyncracies included...thank you to all of you, for that, most of all.
and so, i guess with that, an attempt at a close....
i guess part of the reason i've spent this time, pecking away on this laptop reflecting upon the end of a rather melancholic-expanse-in-time the past week(s) where i've been called-to-the-carpet by one closest to my heart...(thank you wanderingo) where i have realized that in all my attempts to reach out and encourage connectivity, to hasten the depth that i share with so many of you; in my new surroundings; that i have learned a lesson on patience. i have learned a lesson on the responsibilities undertaken when we have a heart of our own to take care of--and that we may have forgotten a bit, about her somehow, busying ourselves with the love and care of others, our family, our dear friends, the new ones who titillate our fancy...in the spontaneity that life sometimes allows, entertains; cajoles our senses with with, we unabashedly become immersed in momentary distraction, that, can be reckless. that can hurtful. that, it is dangerous to let go of that red-hot-muscle of our own. it is irresponsible to trust too quickly. it is fateful to speak without thinking. it is even more fateful to act without thinking; or to take action on something massive, hastily. the turmoil i sometimes feel, living the life i live, comes down to this seeming-warning label in my last paragraph....to live unabashedly, or, to be careful/cautious...
Can we instead carefully live unabashedly, or unabashedly live carefully?
i guess i'll leave you with the idea of living consciously. being unabashedly aware of the beauty of every single moment of life.
whether measured steps, or galloping gallosh-splashing skips, i'll steal an I hope not overly-cliched-phrase...may you LIVE all the days of your life.
for me, life is busied with work, with the details i often put aside, and wait until tomorrow to complete. i can't even manage to get to the post to retrieve appropriate materials to mail all the holiday greetings, new year's wishes, congratulatory & celebratory messages, and birthday woo-hoo's to those of you i left a few short months ago, or those of you who it's been years since i've seen...i think of you, all of you...in the way that i do...my mind is a kaleidoscope of collaged-memory... i am a mixed-media artist in all the various facets of my life...whether it be my diverse and ever-evolving collection of
dear hearts, who i would live and die for; the music compilations i enjoy mailing out; the stream-of-concsious-attempts at explanation or thought-sharing...the words sometimes splayed viscerally, other times abject and simply stated...the actual artwork, i paint or seam together...the dishes i enjoy preparing...it is no wonder that my life is a patchwork quilt of sorts...attempts made, risks thought about, some plunged into head first; others, skeptically awaiting further consideration, fears realized, dreams discussed...hopes dashed and then then zoomed back-into-view...
and so, as i do every year, i'll strive to be a better friend, a better lover if i get the chance; a better sister, a better daughter. i'll hope to travel, to see you and yours; to share immeasurable amounts of laughter...to cry a little less than in 2006!! to seek & find, to risk, to let it all out & sayitsayitsayit, but also know when to keep the lip zipped, breathe deeply, and wander elsewhere. i'll try to mail out those cards and thoughts i have, randomly, for you, when the mood strikes me, instead of months down the road, or more often than not, never, left in a pile of keepsakes for what might have been a connection re-established...
as i am wont to do, i'll wish for all of you, light, grace, hope, and all the love you'll let yourself inhale....deeply, and all the way to your toes.
be well my sweets!!
forever yours,
justadreamer jennryan
white picket fence
i think i busted my cerebellum.
somewhere between yesterday and blablabla.
is there an antidote to the discriminatory way you blink me away into oblivion?
how your cringe, inhalation-deep, makes impressions on the richter scale of
his tor y?
roseanne, you told me to scream out loud, at the top of my lungs all ladylike and polite from the top of the highest building and right down there in the subway too.
and i did.
and i did.
and i did.
some more...
but they STILL don't hear me.
claim i'm a 'low-talker'...
dismissing the sounds for mere drivel.
sometimes, i sing a high falsetto, lachrymose prayer into the great grey-blue-beyond of eternity and forever and the place outside the limits of what i can scientifically prove, justify and disclaim. there are usually tears.
they are sharp and hot at first, and then turn into a deluge.
a waterfall of blathering idiocy.
it makes no sense.
i cannot say for sure.
there are not words for this place in my center.
...filled with every last scrap of what it means to live & breathe & gratefully transcend a life not filled w/ the placebo bullshit of antidepressants.
there are caverns of melancholy i dare not revisit.
the plunge, so deep, black, and hollow; i fear a return to the surface.
as well as billowy cloud-burst heights.
piercing the center of this moment with the sharp pointy edge of a dart into no where
i bleed the epitaph of memory
i remember
i feel it
it permeates every pore
and tomorrow
a bruise will certainly stain the space where light & dark met life & heart
and so i busted my cerebellum somehow, along the way. it's just a broken record reality, so i hope you'll stay & play.
any
way.
somewhere between yesterday and blablabla.
is there an antidote to the discriminatory way you blink me away into oblivion?
how your cringe, inhalation-deep, makes impressions on the richter scale of
his tor y?
roseanne, you told me to scream out loud, at the top of my lungs all ladylike and polite from the top of the highest building and right down there in the subway too.
and i did.
and i did.
and i did.
some more...
but they STILL don't hear me.
claim i'm a 'low-talker'...
dismissing the sounds for mere drivel.
sometimes, i sing a high falsetto, lachrymose prayer into the great grey-blue-beyond of eternity and forever and the place outside the limits of what i can scientifically prove, justify and disclaim. there are usually tears.
they are sharp and hot at first, and then turn into a deluge.
a waterfall of blathering idiocy.
it makes no sense.
i cannot say for sure.
there are not words for this place in my center.
...filled with every last scrap of what it means to live & breathe & gratefully transcend a life not filled w/ the placebo bullshit of antidepressants.
there are caverns of melancholy i dare not revisit.
the plunge, so deep, black, and hollow; i fear a return to the surface.
as well as billowy cloud-burst heights.
piercing the center of this moment with the sharp pointy edge of a dart into no where
i bleed the epitaph of memory
i remember
i feel it
it permeates every pore
and tomorrow
a bruise will certainly stain the space where light & dark met life & heart
and so i busted my cerebellum somehow, along the way. it's just a broken record reality, so i hope you'll stay & play.
any
way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
lovely africa
