...they say it's your birthday...

From this morning's journal entry...
"26! and none the wiser... my head is full of rambling shoulds & wills & going to dos... and that's all right. i think i may even indulge them for a bit. but perhaps this time not with the notion that each good deed & well habit learned is somehow going to fix together the disparaging pieces of my universe. no magic answers or limericks - keys to life, as it were.
perhaps you do the things you do because they bring you joy - & somehow make this crazy, fucked-up life a little more worth living - no pat answers - no easy anythings - really.
maybe the blessing here is that i may finally feel i am @ a spot where i can dig in my heels & do some work - roll up my sleeves, if you will, & just start hoeing - not because there's any magical rainbows @ the other end of it but just because... just because...
just because "There is work needing to be done." so much of my life has been spent waiting for perfecting radiant glistening moments - for Life to open itself up to me - for the path to clear - & the way made bright - but this doesn't happen.
i've wanted to wrap this life upinto one gorgeous, confectionary, hyper-distillate intangible - that somehow fits snugly in the palm of my hand - but it doesn't. it's raw and it's messy - and sometimes it's all you can do to drag yourself to the table for one more helping of this heavy, heavy dish.
but you do.
and you come to realize - sometimes it's just the mere act of spoonful upon spoonful - that we ever come to be fed. sometimes it's just the act of putting one foot ploddingly in front of the other - not knowing if or when the path leads to anywhere - but just to know that for today - the simple & profound act of trying - is ... ENOUGH."

..hurrah!!...

how often does one truly find a home? i mean.. a place.. a moment.. a thing.. which resonates so deeply and soundly in your very bones.. that you have no choice in the matter but to sink you feet deep down into the spot where you're standing.. build a nest.. a boat. an island... a poem.. and just let yourself sink into the glistening, pulsating spot on which you stand.
today i had somesuch moment. a series of bells ringing and clanging in my head! little lightbulbs popping rhythmically in my head.. a series of humming "aha!"s.. it was the "amy goes to school day".. to see if i could find a niche, a place - a home to grow and from which to produce true and solid work from.. and i think i have found such a place..
fingers crossed, toes dipping in... a few more hurdles (who am i kidding? many more hurdles..) to cross and then... lift-off.....
ahh, it feels good to find... a home....

...for my mama...

maybe it's something that comes with age. maybe it's just one of those days. but whatever it is, this morning i woke up to a call from my mother. and for the first time.. maybe - ever - my heart sat up and did a little twirl and said hello. and she was truly the one person i desired to talk to just then.
i know plenty of girls my age who enjoy sister-like closeness with the women who begot them. i have never been one of those girls. and i might never be. and that's okay. but today.. i woke up and heard the singing-smiling voice of the woman who stitched my name into a shirt months before i was even conceived. "hey, you were almost born on this day, kiddo." and i felt for that moment like i had reached down and touched my source, my pulse. and it's new. and it's amazing. and it's the something i didn't even know i needed. so.. today. thanks. for that.
happy valentine's day, mom. i love you.

...from here springs...everything...

whew! so much time away. so much time spent in oft-times fruitless pursuits... i find myself at one of those rare moments, at least for the twenty-something childless being, where myself - my Self - is temporarily removed from the center of my universe. it's amazing how one can fill the time - finding new - sometimes beautiful, other times ridiculous ways - to craft a life. what do i feel like today? what does my abundant lounging soul care to partake of in this moment? so much time and energy devoted to the ever-persistent task of finding self-fulfillment, meaning, what have you.
and then you come to that ever-nagging fork in the road.. where you see, ever so clearly yet again... yup. this - this whole messy gorgeous, crazy shca-bang - well, as mama told you growing up at times "It ain't all about you, kid."
i'll spare my gentle reader all the messy details. suffice to say - grad school - that new thing this whole readership was now supposed to revolve around - now a happy, yet irrepresably less important detail to be dealt with.
tonight i find myself troubled by demons that are not so much my own.. but the inherited sort. the kind of pain that can span many a generation and linger on for only who knows how long.. and i know.. as i tell myself this again and again - this all happens for a reason...
but for this evening, my burdens are not my own.. but they bear down on me so much more the heavily than anything i could have wrought upon myself....
perhaps one more "gift" of this ever-coming adulthood.. as the journey unfolds, so too, the skeletons.. from not one, but many a closet come forth to dance and revel and wail... and i am taken aback.. but i think...
all right. give me the strength to dance... All the More.