becca

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Wed, 22 Oct 2003 02:55:48 GMT

i came home from cincinnati because my brother is coming home tomorrow with his friend/(girlfriend?) Hannah. and we are gonna go hiking and play!
***
i did not want to leave him in cincinnati but time apart is always useful and the ride was free. so. we went to church on my birthday and danced around and sung at the top of our lungs. what church is this you may ask. it is called The House of Joy. and it is just that. there are stories tthat go along with this that are too funny to write. so if you want to know them. call me. i almost did not come home when i got to asheville because i did not want to come to this house and it be only my mom and me and everything clean. but it turns out that my dad is here because someone else right now is staying where he usually stays. and they are tlaking to each other and right now they are watching tv together and they are talking...they are being nice. this is exactly what i needed right now. just for them both to be here. and to be nice to each other. for the energy to be back in my house. and it is right now and it feels incredible. i feels so good.
the wind has been blowing all day the sun was so bright it was the perfect day for a long car ride and i slept most of the time in the back seat.
***
i am happy and there are things i want to write about. but i have not had words lately. my journal is practically empty. i am changing so much. i am and i know you guys might not be able to tell. and that our every day lives are separate.
i cut all of his hair off. he wanted me to and i didn't want to at first because i love love his hair. i love(d) it. but i did, i braided it one more time and looked at it like thick raven feathers on his down his back. his back that looks like desert ground, like windy sand, like dirt. and then i cut it off. and it felt good and he said that it felt good. and i cut the rest of it off. short. and he looks like a little boy, he looks like a baby seal. i'm laughing right now. htinking of his face pressed up against mine and i saw those baby seals on tv and then i looked at his face and he looked just like those baby seals with their little faces and slanted dark eyes. oh my gosh.
gillian welch is my hero. my mom gave me prayer flags for my birthday and tea tree/lavender deoderant, a random winnie the pooh pencil with piglet hanging on to the top,and an already made quilt top that she got at a yard sale. and my dad gave me a grateful dead shirt he found on ebay that is just like the one that used to be his that i wore for years and that he took away from me, a jerry garcia mixed cd, and a video documentary on following the dead. yes, you can tell where my dad's interests lie. i'm twenty. yikes
i'm doing awful in school. i hate hate hate my classes. except spanish. i have not hated school this much since high school. it's frustrating.
i want to write everything that i feel. and i can't, i don'tknow how rightnow. words words aren't coming. oh well. geez. okay. bye

you guys check out what i did all by myself

Tue, 30 Sep 2003 17:10:12 GMT

M:\public_html\site\image.html

Sun, 10 Aug 2003 01:50:30 GMT

I love crying. I love the way it is hot and new and salty. I love finally letting go. I love looking people in the eye and crying. And i love how it hurts. That love hurts. That life, when it is beautiful, hurts. And when it is hard, when it is real, when it is happening. Life and love hurt. Changing hurts. For me. Hurts and crying comes softly, comes easily as if it has been waiting, open windows crickets night time, a look on my moms face that i cannot remove. It has taken years. For her to do this. Is that true? I miss my dad. But when i see him, i don’t want to. Because he is sad, stressed out. Because he is not a way i have ever seen him before. because he wants to make me laugh but i don’t want to. I don’t want to laugh right now. I want him to hold me, to call me his little girl - and i want to be that little girl. For just a while longer. I want to be small and wrapped up in the warmth i remember. I want him to tell me that all hard times come to an end. That things work themselves out. That they always have and they always will. But my dad is not one for promises or for awkward moments. He just wants me to be alright. And he thinks I’m strong enough to do it on my own. I should be. I have taken myself through many things. And it works out in the end, it always has. I know all of this.
I don’t want to be angry at mom. I don’t know if i am or not. I am more easily angry at her. I don’t want you to think that i started this whole thing, she says. I say i don’t think that. When partially i do. Only i know its not true. She did leave. Yes. That’s true. But she didn’t fall out of love because she wanted to. She didn’t make it hard because she wanted to. It just happened. It’s not anyones fault. This is probably what they tell you in therapy or something. Don’t blame, don’t judge. But i hate it. I hate the way they talk to each other - as if nothing was ever important. As if they didn’t just spend the last twenty years of their life together. Raising a family, sharing time. Life. As if none of it ever happened. I do not ever want to fall out of love. I don’t ever want to give up.
I wish that instead of writing all of this down, i wasn’t afraid to just say it. Not just to them, but to anyone. But to me it sounds mean, some of it. And i don’t want to be mean. And maybe i am wrong for feeling some of these things, i don’t want to be wrong, i want to be good. I want to do the right thing for myself and for others. And i don’t know what that is. Honestly.
I am kinda looking forward to going back to school and getting away from it. To be on the outside instead of on the inside. Right now i think it will be easier, but maybe it will be harder. Maybe it will be easier for them. But i don’t know that any amount of separating or going our own ways is going to make this any easier. I’m not sure that it will ever get easier - maybe we’ll just get used to it being this way. Getting used to it, and then it will be easy - when its usual. I hate that. I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m too young to understand. Maybe I’m too much of a lover to understand.
I want it to be a few nights ago, when daniel and i were sleeping outside and the stars were so bright and my toes were wiggling because i was so happy about all the sky above us and we’re holding each other. Because we’re friends and because we’re in love in a way that is one of the most comfortable things i know. Just love. Not complicated or questioned. Just knowing it. But...i have run away from so many things with him because of this comfort. Because it’s easy to go to him when really i should be going to myself. This is only partially true. Because he helps. He is so much like me.
Sometimes, i feel as though love with juan is hopeless. That it will never be somewhere that is ok with me. That i am comfortable enough within that I’ll give my heart a rest. And his. Sometimes i feel as though it’ll never wear off. I do not want to give up. Ido not want to fall out of love.
I am feeling better. After writing all of this. Still, no one knows it. No one will.
...
okay. so i just wrote all that in word perfect. and i decided that why i write is because i can't talk. and so i want all of you (mostly rachel claire jenna and elise to know all of this stuff) because your my best friends...but i can't tell you. so i pasted it in here. never mind because. i just did. ok.

Thu, 26 Jun 2003 03:27:08 GMT

I’ve got summer in my blood. A thick stream of sunsets and river water in my veins. I have waited too long to take back anything. It’s too much to come back to with an empty stomach, something heavy in my throat I just can’t swallow, something in my sweat and in my tears. There is nothing I can do to forget the remembering.
A storm came one night. Knocked tree limbs against the open windows, slammed the door on its crooked hinges, lit up the sky from far away – so that what was bright stood off in the distance, something you couldn’t quite get to but were forced to notice every time you looked up. That ridge line, escaping like a ghost down the back of the sky. Like a spine never straight because of all the wind that blows, all the time that passes high up and the rain that falls. All that weather to carve you out. A ridge line, escaping like a ghost – and I wish for the top.
I’m thinking of your face. of the way everything could have been, and of the way that it is.
I’m thinking that all the falling I’ve done, has been for something closer. That I’m not running, and I’m not afraid – but simply that the rain must be going somewhere special, the river and all that ocean that floats around inside itself. Everything must go down deeper than it wants. falling. Sinking. A tide that pulls itself along. That’s what I am. Pulling myself through all that dark water, the falling, the sinking – and I see your face through it all. I see you and the surface is no where near, the top and the sky are gone somewhere above. I’m thinking that all the falling I’ve done, has been for something closer. For your face, for you there in all that rain and river –all that water just floating around inside itself. For you.
I’ve got summer in my blood. A thick stream of ripe peaches and roses in my veins. I am waiting for the beginning to begin. For all the trumpets to call out. For the show to start: the curtains to draw open, all the lights to shine on my face, the crowd to applaud…I am waiting for someone to introduce the characters and the band, to smile bravely into the spotlight.
Summer is hot. Humid. I’ve got ice cubes on my forehead, on my chest. Summer through the windows. The fireflies are out. But running around isn’t the same as it used to be. I don’t want to catch anything anymore, I just want to go…and there seems to be no stopping. No ‘time for bed, brush my teeth, tuck me in’…there seems to be no stopping. No ‘time to come inside now, it’s getting late. Why? Because I said so’. No ‘time to go home now, it’s a school night’. There seems to be no time. What have I always been waiting for?
Summer is in my blood like a thick stream running through my veins.

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 01:57:16 GMT

there is a permanent knot in my stomach. a twist of years that keep on pushing for space inside...that won't quit or quiet their beckoning. remember. remember when we used to all eat dinner together at the table, summer out the windows, woodsmoke in the air, fall at the tips of everything, spring pushing from underneath. remember when we used to go hiking on the parkway. race to the top. light the oil lamps when the power went out and all sit in the living room telling jokes and blaming farts on everyone else. remember when there were no questions about the way things should be. there is a knot in my throat. and i can't talk. can't look my grandma in the eye. what happened she asks me. as if i should know how people fall apart and feel as though they can't help each other back together. rachel asks me in the sun, do you know how to forgive people. forgive the one who runs like a ghost through my body, remember when you were a child, a small small girl...forgive the one who made promises to love and love and never kept them...forgive the one who holds tighter and tighter until breaking beneath the weight of it all seems more likely than coming out alive. forgive the two who gave me life, who promised me life...tucked me in, kissed my forehead, bought me bicycles and rollerskates and walked with me through the small breathing of the ocean shore - just weeks ago my mother and I - and now it feels like i haven't seen her in years. her eyes just staring at me, and me staring back, because what am i supposed to say. certainly not, it's going to be alright. nothing is alright. this is not ok with me. this happens a lot they say. whatever. i don't care what happens a lot. i don't care.
i do not remember my life before my brother was born. it is like my life is his life. i am living for him, he is living for me. there is no question about giving up, there is no question of what is separate. nothing is separate. i do not remember my life before he was born.

mostly just a feeling i was going with because it's not all true

Tue, 06 May 2003 02:22:56 GMT

I know there is a better way, to end up in so much love. But this is the only way I know, the way that takes everything I have, everything I have…until what’s left for me? How strong, really, can I make myself? And are there things that you still do not know, there are things that still…I do not understand about the ups and downs the back up and back down again and over and over. there are still things I do not know about myself. And about you. An ocean of living and tides to do the pushing, a lonely moon staring her face, staring her face – she is watching us. she is watching me from the window, like she wants in. like she wants more than I can give her, more than I know how, like she is hungry and confused and I am too. I know there is a better way, to end up in so much love. But this is the only way I know, climbing the pine trees and watching the sky for your face, I’d never tell you I sometimes see you there up up up where only clouds and storms reside, and your face bending slowly in the white and rain. I’d never tell you…that there are canyons in my chest, like the kind I’ve seen in utah – set on fire at sunset, an echo of everything that moves. I’d never tell you of these canyons where I hear you inside myself. But this is the only way I know how…to listen to the inside, the way deep down that gets deeper with all its voices against the rocks. I’d never tell you it makes me cry and cry to even think of these things…I’d won’t tell you I’ll never forget who you were, no matter how much we change. I’ll never forget who we knew each other as.
My throat feels like its bleeding.
Today there has been a war in my head…do the things you need to do, don’t think of anything else, but the everything else stays…makes me fall asleep in the sunshine, laying on the ground still a bit damp from all of yesterdays rain…holding my blankie, and in the hammock adam kissed me on the cheek. Everything else stays…makes me question my sanity and good judgement. I hate being sick.
Funny how things end up always back in their own dream, as if the trying and waiting take too long to find out. Who is right? Neither of us are right, or wrong, just changing…you are better at it than I am. I am stumbling, falling, learning to walk all over again inside…and you are ahead, in the distance growing smaller and slower and more like the middle of the night when I used to I wake up and hear the train in swannanoa, the wind chimes, and you move in your sleep – barely yet still holding on. I trace your shadow, your shoulders because I’ve always wanted to be an artist, so much power in a pencil edge, in an eye that moves slowly over line. I’d never tell you this. That love is like those fireflies that were so much fun to catch when I was little – but all I ended up doing with them was letting them go. Back into the night they came from, the darkness and that moon…that moon still there, at my window and wanting in.
I am reminding myself that all of this is real, doesn’t just happen on a night when nothing else seems to be. That it exists everyday without fail and without excuse. I do not know you when you don’t look at me. Look at me in the eye. You never do. Like you’re just as afraid as I am of the way I feel. Why are you afraid? It’s no deeper in you than the 2 years it’s existed almost entirely in my imagination. There is nothing you could know that would save me from my falling now. I’ve already let go of the one edge holding me on. The writing of all this may be stupid, might be coming from somewhere so far out of range, a station in static that gets turned up too loud - late and on the way home from somewhere rowdy. I am falling out the windows of 60 mpr, a rushing highway, I have not forgotten the lines, the hills, the curves that bend and bend, sway and never stop their passing. I am in the rear view mirror, left behind on the shoulder – crying into the empty spaces between those running somewhere yellow lines – carry me home…I am gone. I am in the backseat sitting patiently, waiting for all the voices to quiet in my head, staring and the highway is smooth, like water and glass to run your hands over the surface of. Breaking the tension of so much deeper than you know of or could touch the bottom of. The Georgia red clay staining my feet as I run over the bank, running running and I am never farther than I remember being. 7 was not so long ago. I am reminding myself that this is real. That it happened on a night when nothing else seemed to be, that it exists everyday and I don’t know you when you don’t look at me. I don’t know you like that.

hearts in and out

Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:55:12 GMT

it amazes me, first of all that the world is round. that things should make circles - and for the most part do. but changing, changing...the seasons are one thing. love is another. love is another. it amazes me how quickly things fall, how quickly and suddenly things are different and not the way i ever thought they could become. things should make circles. on days when i want to run away, i never do. i go to Dogwood, stay there so long i follow the sun in its arch, making its circle. and the horizon looks like it should end, just beyond joans mountain, or the swing at the top of the hill, the horizon curving down, making its circle.

this is funny, he says.
i think it is anything but funny. it is not funny at all.

i am a different person than i was when i met you. i am a different person than i was yesterday, must repeat to myself - you are stronger than the things that make you weak - to keep myself from crying to sleep. to keep myself hoping that those circles everything is supposed to make, those cycles that always end up back where they started - complete themselves, soon.

i do not think this is funny. you don't either, i'm sure - just didn't know what else to say. because it is so blatenly obvious.

i'm tired of looking out of tired eyes, hanging my arm out the window of your car, riceville road, we drive farther than we're supposed to, the music is good, the weather is good- we're fighting about stupid things, so stupid that at first it's not even a fight, but a joke. riceville road we drive farther and farther into the country, farther until everything starts to look like backroads in sylva, in cullowhee - a place you hardly know and i know too well. so well, that i won't go back there this summer - i can't. i want to, but i can't anymore. and that's changing too. that part of myself clinging, is not clinging anymore. wants out.
and so maybe i want out of you too. not because i love you less, or differently...but because sometimes the heavy things become too heavy. the circles take too long in their turning, the road goes too far back into old trailor parks and houses with sinking in on one side porches...and the music is good, the weather is good, my arm out the window - catching a breeze and maybe i want out

i wrote this all at once, and it's not done yet or edited -

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 15:09:05 GMT

and i don't remember how to spell tuckagseegee, because the river and the place above cullowhee are spelled different, but i think it's like this

The Tuckaseegee is not a mighty river. she bends and curves like appalachian ridgetops, like hips. her stones are smooth and slippery on my feet in the summertime. from somewhere high up in little canada tuckaseegee flows down the mountain into the valley. in high school we used to go sit under that swinging bridge right out of town back behind the part of the railroad tracks no trains go on anymore . and we used to talk about leaving someday. what it would be like somewhere else, if the people still chewed tobacco on main street and had chickens in the front yard, if everyone's newpaper headlines read "Homecoming queen shoots her first black bear", of course not. we were one of a kind, deep heritage mixed in there with pick up trucks and fried okra. we used to think that as long as we were going nothing could stop us, that we were a rocks throw from the moon and as long as the river flowed to somewhere "out there" we could get there too. so we watched Tuckaseegee sway through the valley, drop off the mountain into cherokee county and knew that one day we would drop off that mountain too and nothing would stop us if we were going.
The tuckaseegee is not a mighty river. it's no more than five feet deep down the road from my house. when the rains come, it's high but never any faster. justin thomas pushed me in once, sitting on the bank sticking clovers between my toes and he shoved me right into water cold as January even though it was april. i climbed out, my new easter dress all soggy with mud and fish spit - said i'd never be his friend again - but really i didn't care so much ebcauuse i hated dresses anyway.
The tuckaseegee is not a mighty river, she is like clothes hanging on the line in summer; bends to the wind, folds against itself and is held down only by its own weight. i grew up restless as water headed downstream in a flood wondering and wandering, walking along banks and ridgetops, waiting for the current to pick up more than loose rocks and garbage from upstream.
i grew up slow and curvy - appalachia, hips, tuckaseegee

cloudy day

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 19:10:37 GMT

last night, i woke up scared. like when i was little and used to run through the closet into mom and dads room. like when i used to lay in my bed and scream when the brought me back to my room because 'you are getting older now, you have to stay in here'. last night i woke up scared and felt like i was seven again. i don't know why i was so scared, i didn't have a bad dream. i woke up and put my arm over his chest, felt him breathing...and i tried to calm down. i tried. i feel like something crazy is about to happen and we can't do anything to stop it. we can't protest it out of existence or revolt or scream in the streets loud enough. i believe in hope and i believe in love, but somehow rightnow that doens't feel like enough. that is sadly pessimistic.
there was a sudanese refugee visiting campus. he came to our TRASH meeting (theologically restless and spiritually hopeful), he talked about how he doesn't know who is mother is, how is brother is still somewhere in the refugee camp he left (in Kenya), how he has lived his whole life threatened and beaten. and still, his eyes are bright, his face glows. i could not believe it. he says, god bless you and that he believes in love and hope and freedom. His LIFE has been the nightmare i have always had...and he sat in front of me with a hope stronger than anything i could ever know and with a kindness that seemed easy.

at work...nothing to do.
hey rachel, i love you. claire, it sounds like you are having such a good time in england. that makes me so very very happy. it does. and elise, hi, i just called you...if you still don't have a job by my spring break (two weeks) would you like to come south with annika and I? to florida or louisana, whichever is warmer and has the nicer beach for camping? i would like for you to come with us if you want

i drank a cup of coffee this morning. i feel so weird.
today my goddess traditions class was so funny, we were talking about breasts and nipples and one girl said that her breasts are the only part on her body that she's never been self concious about. that's amazing to me. it made me happy to hear her say that. i have to decide a major. i think it is human studies. that sounds so silly. with a minor in intercultural communications. that handbook says something about how this can help me get an international job, i don't know what in the world i want to do. it's so weird to think about. i just want to take the classes i am intested in, that's what i'm doing. it sounds like i'm wasting my time, i'm not. i'm learning so much.
last night, at the women's shelter, we were making clay pots with the kids, and this one girl (who has a speach impediment) held up a glob of brown clay and said, "babslallaaa bababalallaaa(insert speach impediment) laabalablabla POOP fjfpoballalaaa" it was SOOOOO funny. i wasn't going to laugh until everyone else started laughing. it wasn't rude though, she thought it was funny too, probably though she didn't understand why we were laughing at her. the story doesn't sound funny when i type it out. i guess you had to be there...
i'm going to go swimming tonight, i go swimming so much now. i love it.
one more class today: Israel/Palestine...and then i'm done. i love my teachers. i'm just rambling now.......................blah..........................................
bye

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 14:24:08 GMT

i am at work.
i have class in 3 minutes. byut i was reading yo u guys journals

rachel. i love you. jesus freakin christ i love you so much!
i'll call you later

claire, are you coming home for thanksgiving. if so, plan on coming to the lake for a day maybe w/ peter if you want. that's whwere i'll be and montgomery and dave will play for you!

jenna. i'm so sorry i didn't call you back that one time send me your number again, because i lost it
or call me soon.
i love you so much

okay. off to class-----------

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 07:35:44 GMT

i am updating my journal.
because i was looking on the internet at claire's website and it said, best friend and i clicked on it...and it lead me to me
so i read. and i haven't written in here in forever.
right now i'm in arizona.
with ALLISON
she's on duty, she's an RA RAAAAAA!!!!
and she's doing her homework. she's on duty until 3 am.
we went to a funny funny poetry slam last night, it was so bad it was funny.
yeah. just funny.
i walk around while allison's in class, ride her bike. i like watching people. i sit in the tree by the bridge that everyone walks across. to and from classes. to and from dorms, lives...i just watch from high up. feeling removed.
i like that. how in cities, i can become invisable. i can't do that at school. everyone notices because it's such a small environment. it's a community and i have to be a part of it. but it's nice to dissapear for a while
we went to tuscon to see juan. and i had forgotten. since
may. the feeling had gone so far into my body that i didn't know i wasin the middle of it. right in the middle.
he was playing at this small resturant/diner place. and everyone was talking while he was playing and i wanted them all to shut up. to just be quiet and listen. because that's what i'm used to i guess. i wanted them to pay full attention. his hair got longer and thicker and for some reason it reminds me of ravens feathers...although feathers are light. and i had forgotten sleeping with him, how it is the warmest and softest thing i know. it sounds so stupid. it sounds not at all like the way it feels. and so i don't want to say it...or write it. type it . but i feel it. i feel it so much and so i want to be able to express it in words because that's what i do. i write. all the time. constantly, in my head. about everything. all the time. it's never hard. it always just comes. and when it doesn't it's confusing.
so there's so much i want to say about this. because it sounds a lot different than it really is. but i don't know how to explain it. i don't know how... so i'm just going to leave it. this is getting me no where.

the world seems to ahve gone crazy. i feel abosolutly NO connection to what is going on internationally. no connection. good or bad? don't know. it's just the way it is.

i feel like there is a lot of stuff stuck in me.. i don't know how to get it out. how?

NYC.
israel
danielphoenix
cities
concrete
poetry
cousin
him
him
him
airplanes
lunch
junk food
exercise
mom
music
school work
extracurricular
work
writing
distance
iraq
undone
desert
appalachia
friends
time?
fundamentalism
violence
peace
SILENCE
pray

this is like the word game. that game that we play at school where oyu go around in a circle and one person says a work, the next person has to say the word that word makes them think of.
fun game

jenna rachel elise claire.
i love you girls so much i just love you
you come from me, i come from you. we started out together learning all about what life is about. you girls taught me that more than any other time in my life. all of you. and you still are, from way across the country way across the state, way across ASHEVILLE. i think about you all so very very very much, even though phone calls have started to become fewer over the years. that doesn't mean anything. phone calls don't mean anything, sometimes neither do voices. just us.
what was and what is.

Fri, 12 Jul 2002 00:31:27 GMT

if i had faith in anything, it was that.
it was them.
the waterfall was the only thing that heard their promises that day. the rest of the world hushed out, because it was love...it was. i know it was. they know it was.
he knows it is.
i think that she hasn't forgotten, i think that she knows too, and i forgive her for loving like this...even though it is nothing of mine to be blessed, or forgiven. i am not angry at her. i love her. i loved her like i loved him...i learned to. and it won't change. i thought we would deliver each others babies one day. i thought we would weave and cook and sew and harvest under the full moon.....
i will miss her. my words for this are still shaky and confused, it's so hard t o talk about something that gives you a stomach ache.
she's dividing their stuff up. mostly cooking pans and clothes. it's not even the important stuff but he watches her...let's her have whatever she wants.
i'm not blaming anyone. not even that other guy.. not her and not daniel. not anypne. just the way. just the way it is.

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 13:02:20 GMT

I never went to the hospital to see her. Nancy. It will be three years on the 24th. It will be three years and a lifetime. I never went to the hospital to see her. Nancy. I was afraid. I was afraid of the way your face would be the color of the white tile, shining my reflection back at me with disinfectant. Your eyes would be red with the sickness that they couldn't get out of you and plastic wires and tubes stretched everywhere around the room like they were the veins. Only on the outside. Only on the outside, Nancy, for everyone to see. For people who are passing by the big heavy door, leaning on their walkers, curious eyes peeking from behind the wrinkles everywhere on their faces like life running deep through skin. Little plastic wires and tubes keeping you alive. Life kept wrapped up, circular and flowing and dripping. Constantly. So that you would too. For a little while longer, Nancy.
Did you have hope until the end? Did you think about what it would feel like? Did you already know?
I never went to the hospital to see her. Nancy. It will be three years on the 24th.

something i wish i had better words for

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:02:41 GMT

I feel like I have an ocean inside my eyes. An ocean of him. Waves washing against me, hard and fast and big. I love you, he said...too quickly. And I felt the soft covers in him, in his voice, I felt the echo of the stairwell, the hollow belly of a guitar, hungry and full and bleeding. There were so many things that I didn't say. There were so many things that I wanted to tell him, but it was a telephone, it was words that I didn't have. Moments that only come from eyes. Looking at him was looking somewhere else besides inside or outside a person. It was looking so close. So close that it made you stop breathing. So close that, now, it seems far away. So far that it has become an ocean behind my eyes. An ocean that leaks salt through the corners and sliding into my mouth. Taste the ocean, taste the salt, taste the deep. The so far away, the so far down. Taste it.

Sat, 27 Apr 2002 21:15:30 GMT

*smile*
*sigh*
HOME
home and hardwood floors and open windows with no screens and good food and david laughing, family home home home front porch green everywhere there is green, flowers along the roadside, flowers in my backyard flowers flowers wild
purple dress moons and stars and grateful dead in the garage.
my feet on the pavement--twirl
home.

Wed, 27 Feb 2002 14:59:59 GMT

ok i'm going to update my journal. i 'm going to try to. but i can't promise you that by the end of typing all of this i might just erase it all.
my class was canceled.
i didn't know him. i don't even think i ever met him...and i'm glad that i never met him, i'm glad i never knew him. because then this would hurt even more. and i already had to deal with death earlier in the year...and that was enough.
elise came into my room...she actually came into my room and all i could do was touch her and hold her and look at her sweet sweet face. that i love . my god. i love that girl more than anything and i want to cry every single tear i have for her because that person that was carried out of Schaefer B was not her. it was not her on that stretcher. it was not her parents that the school will call. it was not her. and that's all i care about.
the snow is pouring down. pouring.
candice is gone to class and juan is still scrunched up under the covers. the computer is humming.
it seems as though all i can do is cry and cry and nothing seems to matter except that. i fell asleep with my pillow all wet and it has been so long since that has happened.

Sat, 05 Jan 2002 04:50:09 GMT

i just don't understand.
i'm disapointed. i'm sad, frustrated, angry...angry angry at language. at what people THINK they know about islam, at al queda, at bin laden, at new york city, at the fucking american flag,
i'm just angry. people are trying to tell us baout our country about our culture and how we are oblivious to all that is around us, we just can't fucking listen. the only thing we can do is put american flag stickers on our minivans...and what does that say? what does that say about where our hearts are? my generation is nowhere. we are sitting in front of computer screens typing away, we are walking along trails in the forest, happily singing under our breath and carefree and we DON"T DESERVE IT. afghanistan is fake to me. i don't feel it. i've never been there. i've never met anyone from there. but i have no resentment towards it or its people. the newspapers won't change my mind, a city full of rubble will not change my mind. 5000 dead americans will not change my mind. this is not about religion. it's not about afghanistan, it's not about airplanes. it's about people, it's about communication and how we can't. it's about compassion and the lack thereof. it's about listening to what is going on around you and how we have FAILED at doing that.
i just don't understand, WHY people can't understand. WHY WHY WHY do they have to fight like that?? why. where does it become so complicated for them? human interaction. how did they make it so horrible? i don't understand: because i'm innocent, because i'm american, because i'm white middle class, because i'm the same as all the other junkfood eating teenagers. i'm the same...and maybe that 's why i don't understand. my quilt is falling apart at the edges. it makes me feel like our world. all wrapped up around me, i use it to protect myself, but it's only cotton it's only Earth. and its corners are coming unstitched and i feel like i can't do anything about it.

Fri, 04 Jan 2002 04:02:43 GMT

drove back to asheivll e with sara and their is snow everywhere.
pretty white blanket. it's not very much , but it's enough so that there is pretty
white mounbtains and that's all i care about.

watched football with asher and gene.
conclusions: football REALLY is the stupidest game ever
asher is being nice
sleepy.

pictures!

Thu, 03 Jan 2002 05:23:22 GMT

lots of different thoughts.

Tue, 01 Jan 2002 01:18:48 GMT

e mails from debbie make me very happy.
i guess we're going to daniels like every year. i'm just waitin' on jenna.....lallall la la la
new years doesn't excite me. it's just like any other night really. same bonfire at daniels, same songs, same laughter, same smiles. and it's comforting. i love it because i love them.
but time is relative only to itself. strange.
it's funny how this journal is SO much different from my real journal.
this journal says nothing baout me. at least i don't feel that it does.
but somehow that pile of books on my bookshelf filled with scribble from the 6th grade...does. somehow.
and i only write in this one when i'm home.
the computer makes me feel grounded. my book comes with me everywhere. this is always in the same room, in the same spot. same picture same screen, keys, colors. it never changes. i cna't make it mine. my book is mine. the colors are mine. the lines are mine to make myself. these are equally spaced, black print, even on one end.
the creativity seems stunted somehow, therefore so is my writing.
...
van morrison.
...
the sunlight in the pictures i keep looking at is just the way i remember it. golden and warm. GOLDEN in everyones face and hair and smile
just golden.
and i miss school. so much
.
i wish my hands were bigger. if my hands were bigger it would take me half the time to do the firewood. i could carry twice as much. it takes me so long to get it all up to the house. and stacked. oh well...it doesn't matter, i was just hinking about it because that's what i did today. and hauled mulch for the winter food. we've never had a winter garden before. at least not that i remember and this year we have brocolli and squash, winter squash and it's orange. and some weird kind of pepper/

....
ani difranco.
..
i saw daniel mccord for the first time in two years. i wanted to cry. i wanted to run to the bathroom and hide and never come out until i was sure he was gone. same plaid shirt, same blonde hair, same glasses (that he never liked wearing).
we never made eye contact. but he saw me and i saw him.
our parents said hello.
but he didn't move his eyes from the restuaunt floor.
the hardest thing is trying to convince myself that i can't undo what's been done.
because there is no pain like that. none. it's different from stomache aches, although sometimes it seems just the same. it's different than headaches, even though it gives you some. it's like stubbing your toe, only in your chest.
...
he wrote a song about bedtime. i've got it stuck in my head.
...don't talk to me about politics or religion, just read me a book that was made for children..
i dont' think anything is the same
...
drum solo, digable planets
...

Sat, 29 Dec 2001 17:15:50 GMT

i want to marry the parkway.
i fell down yesterday in a fit of giggles because it was so beautiful. it was just so beautiful. everyone in the world should be required to watch the sunset everyday. and when the sun started to disappear we drove farther and farther up until we drove to water rock knob and couldn't go any higher. so we climbed and i have never ever ever ever EVER been so cold in my LIFE. gene gave me the good gloves that feel like wearing ducks and we climbed anyway . i don't understand why everyone doesn't want to live here. nothing makes me feel so human and bare an d beautiful and golden...nothing.

Fri, 28 Dec 2001 01:01:20 GMT

i WISH i could get pictures onto this thing. i don't even know why i would like for them to be on here. anyone who reads this, will see them in real life anyhow...so i guess it really doesn't matter.
spent the day at claires, knitting, watched a SCARY movie, ate good good dinner. i love claire's house.
now i am home, nobody is here. nobody is here. nobody. there is a strange truck in the driveway though, but no one here. sometimes i wish no one was around, but now i wish that my brother was here. or my dad or my mom.... dad's at the movies. lord of the rings. mom's at work. where's dave?

i bashed in the drivers side door of our car and my dad doesn't hate me. he said that it was o.k. as long as i was ok
why is he so nice to me like that? i messed it up because i wasn't paying attention and he's not mad at me....i'm mad at me.

Wed, 21 Nov 2001 05:32:17 GMT

i want to say it loudly

with anger
...but then i think...
what is anger?
i am angry because i am frustrated
i am angry because i am sad and confused
but angry doesn't come by itself.
i'm angry because of something....never just angry

listening to the news is like listening to an air shaft
it's like listening to rocks crumble
in overly strong hands
and i can't do it anymore
i can't live in this world anymore if
stuff like this is going to happen
bombs
and lies
and lame excuses

america has an ego problem
america says, oh we are helping by dropping
food down to starving afthgan children
but we are only dropping enough food to feed
4%of the starving people, and don't get me wrong
at least that is SOMETHING instead of nothing
but we are dropping it in bags that are the same color
as our bombs
and we are dropping them in the middle of fields
and when people try to run out to get the food
they are blown up by land mines
so.....
i want to fall asleep
and wake up and it all be o.k
and i really have NO idea
i have NO clue what is REALLY happening
because abc and npr separate my reality from
their reality
there aren't any bombs blowing up my town and
my family
there never have been.

but it is constantly enclosing me now
and i don't know how everyone else is
making it go away so easily
ignoring it so easily

i wish showers cleaned more than skin
i wish showers cleaned my mind off

and i'm at home now, in my house
woodstove
and incense
and bread rising for tomorrow's trip
and i want to be at school reading juan
The house on mango street
and falling asleep

but my bed is empty and david's clothes
are all over it because in an effort to clean
his room he put all his crap in my room
my room has turned into storage.
i guess it's alright though
--i'm just so so so happy
that tomorrow we drive to boone
and we drive to
ray,shellie, julie, dylan, fred and anne, montgomery, lindsay, bill and jan
all the people who i love so so so much
and all of us together for thanksgiving
and i really like thanksgiving
because i like that there is a holiday just for giving thanks
because i have A LOT of thanks to give back

so. i want to go to sleep so i can wake up early and go to the HA with rachel before we leave.
but my room is empty. i don't like sleeping by myself....
i've spent the last hour looking at pictures that my teacher took in india
people's eyes
that's all his pictures are about.
eyes and color....
and i love them so much. he's taken over 20,000 pictures of india and sri lanka.
and someday we'll go there together.
someday....oh please make it soon!!!!!!!!!!! because i see india's reflection in him when he talks about it to me. i see in him all the things i want to find, in the color and the shape and smell and texture of india. he knows it all....and i want to know it too. because there is SO much there. so much.

The other day we watched this movie in anthropology class about tourism in this little tiny village in New Guinea. and the photographers would come in, with no regard to the wishes of the people, and just start photogrpahing everything. but the people in the village needed money so they said it was o.k. and started charging $2.00 for photographers to take pictures inside their "spirit house", which of course everybody wanted pictures of it because it was so interesting. and so when they had finished taking so many pictures they would sell it to the business in town to make postcards out of. and one of hte men who lived in the village told a story about how his son, moved away to live in the town and sent him a postcard of the spirit house in the own village. and that just discusts me, becuase it made the man sad about what tourism had down in his village and it made me sad about the man's son. and i was wathcing all these photographers snap all these beautiful picutes of these really beautiful people, the pictures that i love looking at in national geographic, and i was just angry at how exploitive they were being. it just made me sick. it made me not want to look at the pictures at all. and then after that class i have my south asia class and my teacher started talking about tourism in india and what it has done. about how he has to be careful taking picutres there, especially along the ganges. because that's a very holy place and he doesn't want to be disrespectful to anyone. and i just never thought baout that. about how all those beautiful pictures of the poeple in national geographic that i LOVE looking at, might not have wanted their picture taken and might have felt disrespected in some way. so i was angry with pictures. and that has never happened before, because my favorite thing in the wide wide world is to take pictures. and i went and i started looking at my photo album. and i looked at luke's old house. and baout how i would have remembered that the carpet downstairs was blue, unless i had that picutre of it, and i looked throught hte windows in some of the pictures into the green greeen summer and i was overwhelmed with what summer evenings were like there and it all just came back to me so quickely and it just overthrew me. and there was a picture that had the date 11-18-97 on it. and that was the same day, only 4 years earlier. me and luke and gene, outisde city lights. and i started to cry. great big gulps of tears and memories. because that was so long ago. but i have it...i have a piece of it. and if i didn't have all of those picutes of luke's house, my mind would only see it as it was burnt and charred and sinking into the ground, because that's the last way i saw it. it would be harder to get the smells and hte colors back. and i remembered then, why photographs were good. and now hile i was looking at all of bill's pictures from india, all of those children were smiling at him. all those beautiful women, they were smiling and the men--turbans and deep wrinkles...they were smiling too.
the Hopi indians won't take photographs. but it has to do with holding on to something. and not being able to let it go and about how that is bad. it even extends into their language though. because there isn't a past tense, it's only present and future.
maybe remembering is not letting go. and maybe....it is bad. but maybe it's not

ok
sleep

Wed, 22 Aug 2001 05:06:55 GMT

oh my god. i could just plop down on the ground kiss everything that i see, hugg the entire world and jump up and down with little girl jewish excitement because
I FUCKING LOVE WHERE I AM
because i went to a campfire tonight and listened to a million people sing grateful dead songs....all TOGETHER and i watched beautiful boys and i smiled at them and learned their names
and i sang. and i stomped my feet and kissed elise on the forehead a bunch
and oh my god. i have cried out of sheer and complete happiness very few times.
and to make everything better....to make EVERYTHING the greatest thing that could ever happen to me ever in mylife....on my voice mail there was a message from Alina
from ALINA
from my ALINA my sweet and wonderful alina. my other.
and she is coming, on thursday. she is coming to visit me....she is coming to me
and i love her i love her i love her
and there was a nice message from claire. and OH i miss you clairey.
you all do not understand how happy i am. there is nothing that i can say. i have never lived in a place where i am SURROUNDED CONSTANTLY at all times of the day by beautiful wonderful people...by smiling people and dreaded people and blue-eyed brown eyed green eyed faery girls and i will explode with it all. i wille explode with the happiness that i have........
that is all that i can say.

Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:52:24 GMT

oh. i got pictures back. so many so many so many beautiful ones.
so many
ones taken in candlelight of allisons hands and red shadows
me twirling in my driveway in indian saris and barefeet
luke playing guitar and uncut wire strings hanging off the end and making skinny shapes
and daniel and phoenix-beautiful
and his toes all curled up
and her beautiful shining
oh.
i love pictures so much
so fucking much