Home.

I keep coming back to this idea and now is a fitting point in my life for yet another return trip. I am moving, have been moving, will be moving...am feeling quite certainly homeless. I am living between my old apartment and my new room in the new house of my future occupancy...and not quite belonging to either.

They are only 1.8 miles apart driving. It really should be the easiest thing in the world...which it is. No hang ups, blow outs, let downs to speak of. I even have two more weeks befo

re my old lease ends. It really does not get easier. Except for the silence. There is a certain ineffable vacuousness. It is not a normal silence.

But I do not think it is dangerous either. I have never been afraid of silence and I have never yet been able to find boredom for much time at all. This next while will not change that.

Even now, I am discovering things. Turning ideas round in my hands. Getting a better look at where I stand and what surrounds me.

I have said so many goodbyes in the last few days; and they have been good, healthy goodbyes. Yet, they were not without my requisite not-saying-what-I'm-thinking because when I say it, I feel it and the depth of feeling I find often frightens me. Anyway, to the point and away from bad diary-ism...

In a lot of ways, home has left. I am finding that I have given up attaching home strictly to places. And I think a good many more of us on this planet do this than I previously thought. Any place that was a home can have all of that fondness and safety revoked in a moment. And while the sights and sounds and textures may well remind us of home, it does not take very much for them to betray us and feel empty.

I see and feel and hear now that I have built my 'home' into the people around me; and that is a very hard thing for me to accept. It feels so fragile, ephemeral, and so very likely elusive.

Most of all, it means I have no control once again where the pieces of my heart land or if they are taken care of much less if I shall ever recover them again. I believe I should be used to that by now. This is the feeling of loving and being loved. And that is the lifeblood of living itself. Or at least, I would contend so. It is beautiful in its own dangerous way.

I think life is supposed like that and I am sure I will regret this belief in the future; but I do, believe it that is. I think it should be dangerous in more ways than one. It should be

bigger than one person can handle. You do not need to be the world's most extroverted individual, but it may be easier then. And, contrary to a lot of opinions that I have received lately, it's not the point of marriage. It should come before that, after that, during it, and in spite of it. I do not like that some days. I do not like complicated things, messy things, high maintenance things. But I have to admit, a life that I can handle alone...is altogether too shallow. (And I will not here admit to the hypocrisy involved in such a standard).

This is why I think the feeling of falling never really goes away. I am not the five year old who believes the adults have the world under control anymore. They do not. They never really will. The only thing holding us together and making us safe in anyway is that very love that is so dangerous. And we live in a world under a curse. Love can be falsified, forgotten, and one sided. Despite that, it endures and it is still out there. That is altogether amazing and terrifying.

"I love all these fragile things." ~ Ladonna Witmer

new things

A few days ago, I sent this shirt in the mail to my dearest Lauren. Lauren needs it because she wanted fabric for a quilt to remember some of her good friends by...and our song is the 80's hit "Heart Breaker" performed by Pat Benatar. I have been meaning to use this for some kind of art, because... I don't need it anymore.

Originally, this shirt made me laugh. It was a gift from a friend because she knew that I wanted it. And, while I still think the shirt is funny and have days where I want to wear it around... my life philosophy does not have room for it anymore.

There are two parts to any kind of love that lasts whether it is romantic, friends, or family. It would seem that as a habit, men and women like to excel at only one of them; but it does not work that way. It is easier to always give or always take. It is safer too, but it is not real love and it is not humanity as it should be.

I think it can be more difficult in a lot of ways to let yourself be loved than to give love away, though both options are equally empty without their counterpart. It opens you up to scrutiny and keeps you open for disappointment. It means you have the ability to hurt someone else with whatever they find inside of you; and you have to trust that they are not going to just leave after that, especially if they have the right. It is complicated and messy and ... uncomfortable.

But I am learning. And that has been my journey for awhile now. Learning first that emotions are not inefficient. I will feel everything. Learning how to let myself fail. I will do it again. Learning to forgive people who will not stop hurting me. It will be worth it. They are worth it. And my own freedom is worth it. Learning to trust God. He really does know what He is doing. Learning to trust myself. Learning to accept that people love me. But more than that, that I need people to love me. And when I do not deserve it, I need it that much more.

I get that God loves me. That is who He is. And I cannot do anything about that.

It bewilders me to pieces and makes me feel small and unworthy, but so full gratitude and joy too.

I do not yet understand the mystery of God giving us varying forms of community to love us. All these imperfect, selfish people trying... and He is going to make something beautiful of it? It seems like the hardest way to do this. It feels like total, unrestrained chaos erupting past centuries, through millennia, straight into eternity.

...that is, it feels that way to me. But what have I made? Nothing, nothing at all. And if God can hold that chaos in hand, He is so much bigger than I have yet to discover, again. Or will discover next time. I am not surprised. I am getting used to this feeling. I even have learned to feel safe in it. It is just that, I am gaping at mysteries so much larger than myself, and I cannot help but stare.

onward! to life and living! ...

The last two weeks have been simultaneously so full of deeply good and beautiful things with people that I don't know how to tell that they bless me...that they really are the brothers and sisters that I tell them they are, each for a different reason....

And yet these two weeks have been so full of questions and hard things. Things that I do not *want* to rouse myself to do or think about. I know that I can, but that hardly seems to matter. These, among other unbeautiful things.

I have been having a sort of mid-college crisis just wondering if what I am doing is actually going to get me to where I hope to be. And every time God gives me just enough to go on. At this point, I am just trusting that I was in a better place holistically when I made the decisions that I did...and that God did not mislead me.

When I was talking to him on the beach, He just kept asking me what I really want. Honestly, all that I want is to fly, have a little sunshine, and never leave His sight...disregarding the impossibility of successfully leaving His sight because that is not the point. The point is that as long as He can see me, I will be ok. Because He is good. And I can build on that. I can trust that. Everything else works out after that.

I keep telling myself that. And I know it. And I believe it. But it doesn't take away the aches and metaphysical soreness that I want so badly to be rid of. I find myself chaffing against time and longing for eternity. So I made cookies. Goodbye cookies, specifically. Because home really is where the heart is and my heart is on a train that is leaving me mercilessly mile by mile and minute by minute. And I do not know when it will return. Maybe in August, if the stars align. Maybe for Christmas. Maybe. Or maybe it will be longer, but I do not want to think on that.

Restlessness pricks

then scratches

then gnaws at my feet

until I am walking.

walking. walking.

I set out

to pace the whole world

over and back

over and back

and back again.

I cannot be trusted

to come home

when I do not know

where home has gone to.

Moreover,

I am missing all my anchors

that may have fought

against these restless winds.

My sails are full of discontentment

My vessel has a ready crew

That has long been listening

To the songs the wind sings

To children and kites and birds.

But, ironically,

my heart is just not in it

my dear.

And that, is only

because you hold it.

my heart

I think... it may be done. It's full of hardware and could use a little fine tuning (the clocks kind of need it...), but I like it and finally feel released. Which is good. I like being released. In the moments following I feel most myself and least crazy.

So here it is. My heart. Against a back drop of hardware, clocks, receipts and questions.

All things taken into account, it really is a pretty good biographical piece for where I am, have been at for a while. The two questions beside the largest heart read, "Is this proof of humanity?" and "What is this for?"

The clocks and the receipts are ... stressors I guess.

Or distractions.

The hardware continues the theme of trying to feel whatever it is a human should feel and how much a human should feel. Dispelling with the machinery. Coming alive.

Alongside of the largest heart are written accusations:

Inefficient.

Impractical.

Messy.

Lustful.

Impatient.

Insecure.

Greedy.

Deceitful.

Indecisive.

Insatiable.

Unfaithful.

Broken..

The spirals that can be found coming off the largest heart are indeed veins and arteries. I'm playing with the dichotomy of connectedness and disconnection.

There are three hearts on display here...partially because I like odd numbers and partially because it is hard to describe the heart. There's a photocopy of textbook. There's the bloody mess that takes up the majority of one's attention. And then there's the the colorful little one in the corner. I think that's what I'm aiming for. Maybe. A full color reality. Small. Simple. But still beating and feeling. Working and loving the way humanity was meant to.

And if anyone has any suggestions for my sad clocks, I am more than eager to hear them!

my cardboard heart

Here it is. The missing piece. Two weeks longer than I would have liked ... still unattached and very much not part of the whole, but here.

It is amazing how busy being unemployed can keep you, running around in the vague hope of selling yourself to a prospective employer. And it definitely drains you artistically. There are more responsible things to do... homework. job apps. people. bookstores. class. sleep. march on. It's been good, remarkably good actually. And yet, I feel as though I have forgotten to breathe. The complexities of being human overwhelm me sometimes, and that is ironic considering the art pieces that currently occupy my time. Isn't that the way of it though?

Here we are, my cardboard heart and I...flipping through job ads, just trying to figure out what it means to be a woman at a most basic level without all of the commentary of society and custom. It is one of those in between days on the way to something that will only be recognizable once I am past it. And that is more than fine by me. Today, I had dinner with two of my favorite people. It was simple and tasty and I am full. Rent is paid to the end of the month.

It is funny how much life has been reduced ... I have no guarantees about anything but the goodness of God. It is terrifying and a bit like the longest free fall you can imagine. And after a few months of grimacing and trying to guess at the end, I am learning to rest in it...my cardboard heart and I.