in defense of self.

learning is a funny thing.

information builds on itself.

snowballs.

this year

(all two months that have hurtled by in one gigantic whoosh)

has been a time of exponential growth.

understanding what i want.

priorities and their placement.

what i believe and what i can live with.

and

the importance of praising one's self.

of saying to hell with arrogance,

this much i know...

it is important to be able to look at ourselves,

to turn the camera and look through the lens

and to focus on the good as well as the bad.

i'll be the first to say i'm not the kind of girl who...

wears matching socks

knows how to cook

has her life figured out

(the list goes on and on)

and that i like these things about myself.

and so i praise myself through what i am not.

but what about through what i actually am?

i wake up each and every morning and face my demons.

i look them in the eyes,

say their names aloud,

welcome them at my breakfast table.

i give thanks for the many blessings they have bestowed on me:

self-awareness,

empathy,

humility.

i take the time to examine where i am and what i want

and adjust to the teetering plate that is my life.

i am awake.

it was not easy to choose to step away from acting.

i thought of all the people i was disappointing,

of the four years of school dedicated to that one thing,

and all the money that went into it.

but i recognized that my health and happiness had to be

the first priority.

that if i were to every truly pursue acting,

the time away would be the most important and influential decision--a gift to myself

and my future.

and that it was a gift only i could give.

i recognize that it is not for me to judge anything harshly.

it is not for me to judge at all.

the path is long.

it wends and winds

and we cannot know where it will lead.

a friend recently asked what it is i want,

what is my goal?

i want to wake up every morning and feel like i've chosen my life.

i am not at a place where i know what the future holds,

but i am okay. with that.

i will live my way into it.

with eyes open.

the point is:

i am divinity.

"i am the miracle, i am the hand reaching out of the wreck."

we all are.

so let us praise that. defend that. live that.

quote from Day 4305

found in Jeffrey McDaniel's

latest publication

The Endarkenment.

inspiration

i've been feeling a little lackluster, myself and after A Cup of Jo's Joanna posed the question, what inspires you, I got to thinking.

well, lots of things. but sometimes, all i need is a really great quote

or to pull a play off the shelf and read aloud the scenes i've ear-marked

so today i pulled down the books of poetry by jeffrey mcdaniel, the splinter factory and the forgiveness parade

now, i'm not often a big poetry person. but his words constantly have me high-lighting and scribbling and starring in the seconds after they've taken my breath away. his stuff certainly isn't for everyone: it's not traditional or flowery, but it's potent in a really satisfying way. 

i was tempted to type out every poem right here. but i don't have the time. nor, i'm sure, do you. so here are fragments and favorites brought to my attention by my trusty magic-marker arrows, marked from years ago.

...but I'm just a broken promise in a pawn shop,

and this is just a secret that happens to involve you...

...I don't wish I was in your arms.

I just wish I was pedaling a bicycle 

toward your arms...

...I'll start telling you lies, and my lies will sparkle,

become the bad stars you chart your life by...

...I was prepared to chase

after you and whisper you have beautiful

footsteps when the truth is you make

my toes tingle like the capital of Venezuela.

I know loving me isn't easy--the all-night

helicopter parties, the glow-in-the-dark

haircuts, but when I look at you

it's like praying with my eyes....

...I guess there's two kinds of women.

Those you write poems about, and those you don't...

...I'm sorry all the kisses I scribbled 

on your neck were written in disappearing ink, sorry

this poem took thirteen years to reach you. Sometimes

I thought of you so hard one of your legs would pop out

of my ear, and when I slept, you'd press your face 

against the porthole of my submarine. I wish that just once,

instead of joyriding over flesh, we'd put our hands away

like chocolate to be saved for later, and deciphered

the calligraphy of each other's eyelashes, translated

a paragraph from the volumes of what couldn't be said...

...Some days I miss you so much

I'd jump off the roof of your office building

just to catch a glimpse of you on the way down...

...I hate when people ask if she even knew I was there. 

The point is I knew, holding the one-sided 

conversation of her hand. Once I believed the heart

was like a bar of soap--the more you use it, 

the smaller it gets; care too much and it'll snap off

in your grasp. But when Grandma's last breath

waltzed from that room, my heart opened

wide like a parachute, and I realized she didn't die.

She simply found a silence she could call her own...

Sometimes I love poetry...

Most especially by Jeffrey McDaniel...

"The Secret"

When you were sleeping on the sofa,

I put my ear to your ear and listened

to the echo of your dreams.

That's the ocean I want to dive in, merge

with the bright fish, plankton, and pirate ships.

I walk up to people on the street

that kind of look like you and ask them

the questions I would ask you.

Can we sit on a rooftop and watch stars

dissolve into smoke rising from a chimney?

Can I swing like Tarzan

in the jungle of your breathing?

I don't wish I was in your arms.

I just wish I was pedaling a bicycle

toward your arms.

"The Archipelago of Kisses"

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't grow

       on trees like in the old days. So where

does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy--like being

       unleashed with a credit card

in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss.

       The sloppy kiss. The peck.

The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we shouldn't

       be doing this kiss. The but our lips

taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.

      The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss.

The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad

      sometimes kiss. The I know

your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get older,

      kisses become scarce. You'll be driving

home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,

     with its purple thumb out. Now if you

were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's ruby door

      just to see how it fit. Oh where

does one find love? If you rub two glances together, you get

     a smile; rub two smiles, you get

a spark; rub two sparks together and you have a kiss. Now 

     what? Don't invite the kiss 

to your house and answer the door in your underwear. It'll get

     suspicious and stare at your toes.

Don't water the kiss with whiskey. It'll turn bright pink and explode

     into a thousand luscious splinters,

but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out of your body

     without saying good-bye,

and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left 

     on the inside of your mouth. You must

nurture the kiss. Dim the lights, notice how it illuminates 

     the room. Clutch it to your chest,

wonder if the sand inside every hourglass comes from a special

      beach. Place it on the tongue's pillow,

then look up the first recorded French kiss in history: beneath

       a Babylonian olive tree in 1300 B. C.

But one kiss levitates above all the others. The intersection

       of function and desire. The I do kiss.

The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss. Even when

       I'm dead, I'll swim through the earth

like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.