heart strings.

It seems that my strings are tangled. 

All of them.

Bewildered.

Distracted.

Mindlessly knotted around each other. 

Wrenching tighter and tighter,

Competing for the space to extend themselves.

A tin of worms.

So convoluted that there is no possible way of telling where one ends and another begins. 

Exhausted by the tangle, 

it appears impossible straighten them all out.

Who would know how many strings there are?

Or,

maybe it is just one very very long string?

With it's two ends hidden in the centre.

There are emotion strings.

And strings of ideas.

Runaway trains of thought.

Creative threads.

Aspiration strings.

Logical, rational strings. 

Strings of expectation.

Strings of dreaming.

Strings of love.

Heart strings.

All pulsing about one another. 

When external happenings are stable, 

the knot relaxes. 

And when not, 

the knot is tense.

Fragile.

Manipulated by the goblins,

who hide in the shadow of every mind. 

The experts of lightplay and shadow puppetry.

The mountains seem bigger, 

and the snarling louder.

All tasks unconquerable.

Even the dishes in the sink are an everest.

This knot,

Is tightest around the heart string.

It may be protection.

It may be sabotage.

But the strings of the heart, 

 are like silk.

Stronger than steel and beyond luminous.

With the integrity of the heart strings, I will find myself.

I shall bridge the abyss.

Between the place I am now,

and the place I wish so desperately to be.

Through all weather, they are the straightest strings of them all. 

Guiding through the vicissitudes,

of emotional weather.

Of creative persuits. 

Of balancing life.

Staying true though the tempest.

They are strength and certainty during times that are not.

Radiating true.

Catching beams of light, and bouncing them around the place.

Like a cat playing with a moth.

The heart strings are gleefully unaware of their brilliance,

bouncing into the eyes of the goblins. 

Incandescence making fools of them.

the you-tree.

A letter to a friend:

Tonight the sky was every shade of watermelon.

Or peach.

Or flamingo.

It was a sunny cloudless day today.

 And windy too. 

Blowing the smell of eucalyptus about.

I wished there was some bottle brush or wattle to pick.

To take home. 

To bring some nature into my immediate surroundings.

I was reminded of that day.

When we walked the same path. 

Splitting the atom, and talking nonsense. 

Marvelling at how beautiful the trees are. 

And how amazing large. 

Inquiring about their age. 

And how wise they must be.

We took scissors with us to snip the bottle brush. 

Vibrant puffs of pink and red from the trees. 

You are to me a little puff of pink and red. 

Or pure calm white. 

At peace. 

A white page waiting.

Or deep in thought blue. 

 Joyous like yellow.

Like wattles, coming at the end of winter. 

Or close to the earth, as are leaves of grass. 

If you were a tree. 

I would sit and rub my back on you!

You, the tree of a thousand colours.

I would tell you my thoughts.

My ideas.

And ideals.

I would tell you that to be busy is ok.

And you would remind me that also, so is not busy. 

So I became a breath. 

Became sustenance. 

That which I have been ignoring the shouts of my body, mind and soul for.

To exist we must have air, have great friends and trees to sit under. 

Love. 

Water to be immersed in. 

Even if only to feel the push and pull in the current. 

Moving with the tide. 

Rolling in and out and around and through.

Immersion. 

Saturation. 

Love in all it's glory. 

Both tangible and effervescent.

Like life itself. 

Divided into the rainbow and falling like confetti.

Little droplets of light flowers. 

Tickling my hearts strings.

Untangling the spirit from it's deepest lucid dreaming.

Illuminating my space in time. 

Breathing clear and free.

The gift from the you tree. 

 * * *

It seems that the day is never done. 

But it's up to me to say that it's done.

How your wisdom resonates with truth - I shall take it with me where ever I go.

Write. 

Play.

Swim in the ocean. 

Love.

Thankyou for your presence.

Whether there be seas, trees or mountains between us.

a week a day.

can you remind me?

sorry what was your name again?

How is your sister? 

Oh my apologies, I must be confusing you with someone else. 

What are you doing this weekend? 

Sorry what do you do again? 

Oh sorry that's right, 

We were talking about this the other day... 

***

A conversation like this, 

is happening with a frequency that it should not.   

trying to pack so much in that it's impossible to focus on the details, 

process them, 

and commit them to memory. 

***

I know it's a first world problem,  

but today I received a package:

A pair of shoes that was going to change my life. 

Really. 

No, really. 

My hopes and dreams were supposed to arrive in the mail embodied in this pair of shoes. 

The packaging was pulled apart, 

and the box opened gingerly. 

peeping inside to discover... 

...the wrong colour.

:( 

My heart became the shoe box.

And did the tears flow! 

But it was not the shoes was it? 

I peeped into the box to find myself, and I found beige. 

I am not beige. 

At least I don't think I am beige. 

Could I be beige? 

Really? 

Oh ok, maybe I am beige then?

But I thought I was something else. 

Which 'what' am i?

An existential crisis that began with a pair of shoes! 

Of course, 

it had NOTHING to do with the shoes! 

It was a 'Who sank the boat?' moment. 

Entirely relative my current state of over saturation, 

and the health of ones soul that has been swept away with the overflow. 

A minute a second. 

An hour a minute.

A week a day. 

A month a week. 

Busy, busy busy-bee - 'ness'.

With trying to make dreams happen, 

With aspiration.

and goals. 

24 hour, non-stop.

Pondering. 

Wishing. 

Thinking. 

Planning. 

Daydreaming.

I'm trying to listen.

Really I am, 

trying to sponge rather than sieve.  

And,

I really tried to see the stairs but instead, 

I fell down and smashed my dinner all over the floor. 

It had nothing to do with the inconvenience of having smashed my dinner. 

It was trying to see in the dark,

and being disappointed that I still missed. 

despite my trying not to.

That I tried and missed.

Perhaps.

And now there are skid marks from my shoes on the stairs, 

a bruise on my knee, 

a ladder in my new stockings, 

and one less bowl in the house, 

to remind me that 

no,

Despite all of the expectation that I have piled onto my tiny human body,

I'm not superhuman afterall, 

that time is linear, 

that there is only so much you can do in a day, 

and that all work and no play,

makes for very poor dinner conversation.  

*** 

And she shall whisper soft words of encouragement to herself,

sweep the broken dinner into the bin,

dust herself off,

and leave the house with a ladder in her stockings.

the box.

Sometimes,

It's like a pair of shoes that looks fabulous,

(SWOON!)

...but feels like hell.

They call it a killer heel for a reason.

When 'fabulous' is completely cancelled out by the torture of wearing them.

An analogy.

For the system of being.

I want to feel the grass between my toes!

To create beauty!

To make tangible all that exists inside my mind!

I have tried a few times.

To do this thing.

But,

always with a safety net.

And now that I think longer,

 It was fear,

(of what entirely is not so certain)

 blockading the part of me that says...

YOU CAN DO IT!

(and we all know that you can't swim with your feet on the shore.)

I should have left a trail of breadcrumbs instead.

As a way of outsmarting myself into haing an adenture.

I ask:

Why could I never be so brave?

Because it was not my whole heart.

It was not the whole faith.

Who says that I can't be the participant,

and the coach?

And the proud parents,

standing on the sidelines,

sceaming words of encouragement

AND

winning the race at the same time?

Although,

there are no others in this race.

Just a thousand different versions of who I could be,

...want to be.

want/dream/desire

Competing with one another for a spot on the podium.

These me's have their place.

But,

I do have my favourites.

The creative one. 

The craftsperson.

The one who sings all the time.

Who laughs at everything.

Who follows what her heart says, without hurting others.

The one who is brave enough

to abandon the rules and:

smash out of the bag!

****

Sometimes,

 is too often.

A maybe is a no.

Nothing is nothing.

Everything is all.

life.

Last week,

It was my birthday.

My 26th.

I was lucky to experience one of those moments that you know you will remember forever.

It was joyful!

Full of life!

Overflowing with love!

So exuberant that when I think back now my heart wants to warm it's tired hands around it.

Truly a most magical birthday gift from the universe.

It's nice to be reminded from time to time that despite what they say, there is only one reason that we are here.

For life, love and joy.

And,

That when it all boils down,

Why do we need all the mess,

the fuss,

the stuff that they tell us we need to be happy.

When you can have moments like that for free?

It did not cost a cent.

(but for the drycleaning bill for two pieces of cake and a glass of wine smushed into the carpet.)

I could go on in great length about the moment itself.

Where I was.

What I was doing.

Who was there.

The time of day.

And I want to tell you. 

But through repetition - I fear that it might lose it's magical quality that so has me entranced.

As if lookimg directly at it will make it disappear.

In any case,

The details are effervescent,

what stays is the why.

Why was this simple, uncomplicated moment so special?

Just because.

Because it was a reminder of the beauty that is inherent in all that is fleeting.

Accepting transience.

As the way of it all.

The push.

And the pull.

The rhythm of life that is threaded right through the centre of my core.

And besides,

It was my moment.

You would have had to be sitting entirely inside my body,

on those handle bars,

a top a cushion,

in late February with the balmy evening washing over you,  

your head resting back on the chest of the man that you love,

to have felt what I felt.

The duality of resounding inner peace

and his friend Joy that wants to laugh, cry and scream to share this wonderful feeling! 

The absolute happiness that in it's resonance forgets about the past and has no time for worrying about the future.

So much so that there is no contemplation that anything exists outside of that little blip in time.

You are there.

That's it.

And you know you are alive.

 

wise words.

'Advice to people at the beginning of their careers:

Do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was ignorant. Grab every opportunity  to take responsibility and do things for which you are unqualified.'

-Freeman Dyson 

(quantum physicist)

xxx love you. 

Was the message I found.

Sent to me by one of my dearest friends who I met years ago when we were allocated a shoebox to share in student housing. 

From all accounts, a situation that ends up in extreme feelings of either love or hate. 

Love, thankfully.

Is what we ended up with.

These particular words have come from a position of someone going through a time of emotional upheaval and so mean all the more because of it.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about, and missing those closest to me. Of my closest girlfriends only two of them are in the same city, and whilst that does not seem so bad - when life is happening it somehow becomes a very long way! 

I see things that remind me of one, think ridiculous natter that can only be reciprocated by another and am presently making a gift for another, where each and every stitch reminds me of her. 

It is so wonderful to be surrounded by friends (albeit in a technological way) and family that understand exactly the trials that you are going through. Even so much to the point that I don't think my shoe box friend and I have discussed this exact problem that often blocks people from unleashing their true desires,  stopping them from trying something new. 

But somehow she knows it anyway.

The thinking that you have to know it all before you begin. 

Is it that we are afraid that we won't be as sophisticated, as knowledgeable as those that we aspire to be like?  

It was a plague in my house for a long time.

But I have embraced my choices and delved the depths of the process that has lead me through the darkness and into this point in time. 

They say it is darkest before the dawn... but they never say anything about it feeling like forever. 

But the mysterious and almighty 'they' that know everything about the universe will not tell you things that you need to learn for yourself.

It's a process through which I have learnt to have patience with my natural human insecurities and finally I feel like I can see the light. 

Maybe I can't see the light itself,

But I can make out it's warmth radiating from over the horizon, beyond the back of yonder.

At this point I know the sunrise is still a long way away,

But I am at peace with this. 

Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say it aloud, for us to see the shimmering hope of dawn.      

the rolling stone.

the overflow.

today,

i have been thinking about this idea.

and actually, 

i would like my dreams to be bursting their seams.

to be overflowing with energy! 

exuberance! 

a place of great excitement!  

it would appear that i have found a new mission!

what glee! 

to reach the ideal and discover what comes next.

perhaps the overflow is what happens beyond the point of what is imaginable.

from the current perspective that is.

what would it be like?

to experience all that is entirely outside the realm of anything we could possibly conjure up on our own, right now, from where we stand? 

bouncing off the dream to get there.

by indulging the etceteras, 

to use them as building blocks.

setting the foundation.

in anticipation of the new. 

and so on.

and so it begins,

and only with a dream,

that one day, some day. 

it all will be material.

and:

the eyes will open,

and find that there's no comparison left.

that there is no reason to measure.

and that soul may be full.

that the shore of certainty is finally underfoot.

ah.

and to exhale.

oh.

but.

there is but always a but.

and the universe smiles.

because it understands.

that for a life to have value it has to be worth keeping.

keeping.

to keep.

to care for.

to tend to.

the soul may be full.

but not exempt from evaporation.

it is not to ask why.

but to map the place between what is full and what is next.

but what comes after full?

if it is empty first. then in between, and then full.

then surely it must be succeeded.

overflowing?

and what happens in the maniscus?

between a dream being full and overflowing?

when:

that overwhelming splendour of having a thousand thoughts all at the same time!

perhaps one heartfelt dream is enough.

a headline act on our private stage.

one bright star, for one bright soul.

a singular enraptured heart afterall is surely better than a full house of apathathy.

if not for this, imagine us!

we would split ourselves in a million different directions!

but the universe is compassionate.

it provides the star to make ease of the navigation.

the sea will not be calmed, nor the path cleared.

it is there only to guide.

a promise that one feverishly follows...

or forges, rather.

such a long way yet to travel.

and here is one, dreaming the dream of when the edge of the dream is reached! 

so easy to dream and so often trying to be in three dimensions! 

it is a reminder.

of an essence.

and that is:

the truth that is found in finding what we will find, when we get there. 

and not before we do.

or maybe what is there is,

what is after

and so on...

and what have you.

and so forth...

a continuum of etceteras!  

that give and receive.

in equal measure...