Misic haikus on the road

Pink floyd you take me
Out from my facade and back
Under my dark cloud.

Favorite tweets

Some tweets i chose not to retweet but might omment on later....i will be updating this post every few minutes or so.... :-)

Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public. PAULO COELHO #writing

tweets i love (ongoing...)

This may be an ongoing list... here's the first:

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ― Lao Tzu

Gotta go for now. just wanted to get that down. maybe I'll chat about these later, or maybe not. maybe add pictures? who knows. we'll see. g'night.

 

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Small talk

Parking lot haiku

Alone feels good here
Shade, music, balmy breeze
This tree and me, friends.

friends in comfortable places

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one." - C.S. Lewis

 

God answered a big prayer of mine this week. I've been feeling so alone in all this junk that I've been going through. Nobody knows, nobody would understand. So hard to find people who've either been through a very similar experience or who have a unique ability to really listen and care. Having a blog and believing there are people out there who read and care is one thing, but I've really been praying for a real friend, someone I can talk face to face with about these deepest hurts. And God is so good! This friendship is a new thing, she and I have lots of catching up to do, but it's an in-person and online kind of thing, and God is using it to bless my heart in big ways.

One interesting thing is, she also blogs about her experience. Vaguely, of course, like me, but OMG we have such common ground on some big things! One of these is music. I thought I was the only one who loved the Lord and loved Christian music but still had this secret addiction to lots of secular music, too. So many songs feed this very emotional part of me that can easily get disconnected in the attempt to keep up appearances of being a good Christian and having it all together. Actually music has been huge to me all my life, and became a battleground in my mind when I first came to know the Lord and felt I needed to purge my thought-life of all the sinful, evil messages I was drinking in through my secular music. So in my season of spiritual revival and major turnaround in college, I feverishly discarded all my old secular music that sounded even remotely devil-inspired and began listening to only Christian rock, which I was very thrilled to have just discovered. But as the months went on and my spiritual fervor dwindled, bits of this "Satanic" music starting creeping back into my listening repertoire, adding much guilt to an already confused born-again heart that still didn't realize I had deeper issues that these other "perfect" Christians just wouldn't understand. So I decided it was all-or-nothing, and turned my back on my newly converted lifestyle, and returned to the "vomit" of my old ways of partying and rocking out to raucous rock music and indulgent lyrics. Of course that season was more than just about music, but music was definitely the "pied piper" that led my goody-two shoes facade out of the Christian community I'd joined on campus and back into the drinking and carousing lifestyle of sororities (and fraternities!) and nightclubs.

Now back onto the topic of music. There is just something very real about some lyrics, that resonates with a soul that's been hurt. Take Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. yes!!!! My new friend totally "gets" what I love about this song!

Hello,

Is there anybody in there

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone at home.....

There is no pain, you are receding

A distant ship smoke on the horizon

You are only coming through in waves

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.......

I can't explain, you would not understand

This is not how I am

I have become comfortably numb.....

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

And I have become

Comfortably numb. (Pink Floyd)

No, folks, these lyrics were not taken from that thick blue hymnal in the pew pocket in front of you!

No offense to Christian music, I love it, I need it, I was born to worship, but sometimes even the coolest Christian rock is all about believing in God's love (which is true! it's great!!!) but never leaves any room for the natural doubts and struggles I have as a very flesh-dwelling, tarnished and sinful individual. It's a balancing act that follows the path of Christian maturity. There's never a place of having arrived at that place, just as we must walk through the paths of everyday temptations, live among unbelievers and still love them as Jesus did. For some of us, it's a trickier issue to live IN the world (and its music!!) but to not be OF the world.

ok, enough preaching. Am the only one who feels this way? Raise your hand if you love the Lord but have still banged your head (I know, I'm so stuck in the 80's) to some good Pink Floyd or other shockingly wicked rock music!!!!!! (audible gasps from the pew-folk....)

That wasn't exactly where I meant to go with this blog post tonight...er, this morning, but so be it. I am just so thankful that I have a real friend who understands all this _______ I'm going through... (sorry, but the word "crap" just isn't strong enough for these emotions I'm having...go ahead, judge me!!) :)

I hope you have a wonderful day. And if not, come with me, to a place where you can be...

Comfortably Numb.

(Thank you, Friend, for I know you're reading this!!!!) :-)

 

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excess baggage

packing. all i need.

praying for sun, no wet suits

let's go. awkward beach.

 

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donut therapy

Appointments, appointments. Wasn't I just at this place last night? What, is this my new home now?

Everyone wants to look at my head. Turn it this way, now this way, ok, freeze, and...

Shrink it, sink it, turn it all pink-ish.

Slice it, dice it, spin it around twice-ish.

Blast it, fast it, examine its past-ish.

Hurry it, curry it, make it work and scurry it.

Melt it, felt it, think i just smelt it! (ish!)

Smack it. Whack it. Put it in a straight jacket.

Medicate. Set a date. Get me out that gate.

Tag it, Bag it, Gag it-till-it- uh, is there a word for vomit that rhymes with gag?

never mind.

So tell me, do you ever hear voices in your head?

"oh yes, in fact, just yesterday Scooby-Doo was having a conversation with Fred Flinstone and then Donald Trump jumped in with an infomercial about belly button re-tie-nation for outties..." (don't ask, childhood joke, big brothers like to tease younger sisters about stupid junk)

And do you ever see things that other people cannot see?

"well, no, but my cat used to do that, he drove me crazy. Does that count?"

Do you ever intentionally inflict bodily injury upon yourself?

"hmmm, does that include eating waaaaaaayyyy too many strawberries in May and inflicting on myself many painful hours of sitting in the bathroom?" "TMI???" oh. sorry.

It's so much easier to joke about these expensive visits to the shrink than to really share how I feel about them.

that's all i can say for now.

Have a nice day. A happy mental health day. Tell them I sent you.

 

The bill is HOW MUCH????

Seriously, that would've bought a LOT of donuts.

Probably would've been much better for me, too.

Donut therapy.

love it.

 

 

 

 

 

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Final Exam

whoa. where to begin. mind is swimming, as usual. would prefer to hash it out in my spiral journal first, but don't feel like dashing outside in my jammies to retrieve said journal from the car where I left it. I bring that thing along with me a lot, see, in case the mood hits me, and sometimes it gets left behind. the journal, that is. and sometimes the mood, too.

anyhow. I am so random! so like prince sings in his epic 1999, "I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray..." that's me, random, astray, distracted. And sort of already in a dreamlike state, so tired. so here goes.

Last class tonight. In lieu of a final exam, we finished our time with a small artsy assignment, to finish the phrase, "hello my name is..." by using words or images to describe where we have come as a result of the journey of this course we've taken together. So here's my little piece, which will NOT be stuck to the fridge with magnets, thank you very much...

drumroll, please....

Ta-da!! First of all, NOooooo, that is not a woman in a blue shower cap with her head jammed inside of a watermelon. I drew this in 5 minutes and was NOT creating my portfolio for the Atlanta School of Design, so let's get past that, or is that just my shame talking? hmm. ok. start again. i can do this.

This picture symbolizes where I am right now. I am still inside a dark tunnel, a darkness that surrounds me on both sides. It's been a series of difficult steps to get to where I am, to this current darkness, where I'm in too far to even see the fading fluorescent fake lights behind me, and not far along enough to see the brilliant natural light at the other end of this thing. My mouth is still covered. I am still unable to speak, unable to tell my story yet. But my eyes are up, I am hopeful, my hands are reaching, too. I know in my heart, I have faith, that there is green grass, a blue sky, and a beautiful bright sun out there. Just can't see them with my eyes yet. Don't know how long this tunnel is, but each step is making me stronger. and I'm not dead yet, so I guess it's true, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I've got more to say, more to muddle through. But some must wait till tomorrow. just too tired.

goodnight, aufweiderzehn, buenes noches, beans and nachos? guten nacht, tschuss!

zzzzzzzz. tempted to throw up another sleeping selfie here but....nah.

 

 

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Critical Awareness

So tonight's my last class. A bit sad about that, I've learned so much and really started to connect with the other "students". Still, we haven't finished the book, so I'll have some good beach reading for next week. Not your typical lazy beach reading, of course, but something meaty, life-changing. Like this topic we're covering now and will explore more in-depth tonight....that of critical awareness.

Defined,

Critical awareness is the belief that we can increase our personal power by understanding the link between our personal experiences and larger social systems. Awareness is knowing something exists, critical awareness is knowing why it exists, how it works, how our society is impacted by it and who benefits from it.

huh?? ok, here's an example. There are social-community expectations of appearance, in such things as hair, skin, weight, clothing, fitness, etc. These expectations exist to keep us spending our valuable resources-money,time and energy- on trying to meet some ideal that is not achievable. Did you know that Americans spend more each year on beauty than we do on education? It's a huge industry! So you have all these expectations, realistic or not. You cannot be all these things all of the time. What would happen if someone perceives you as not living up to these expectations? Can you control how others perceive you? How do you try? By answering these questions and linking that information to what you are experiencing, you move toward resilience by learning to see the big picture. Learning that you are NOT the only one feeling that way, and you can demystify the whole game by sharing what you know with others. Beat the system, so to speak.

ok, enough lecture. Personal experience here. Sort of related, I think... I am learning to recognize when I am feeling bad about some area of my life, but before getting down on myself, I quickly think about what is triggering it, and why I am especially vulnerable to this type of "attack" or trigger. Then, I will often go racing off to my journal to jot it down, helps me figure out my thinking to put it down on paper. Recent example: Having someone use Scripture in a way that nags at an area of perceived guilt (shame) for me. Realizing what was happening, I quickly ran and googled the Bible verse, read some commentaries and learned that this was an often-misquoted verse, used to try to command God what to do, or to condone one's actions by saying that God would bless what they are doing. Put that into a particular relational context, and that trigger can really feel like that knife that stabs and then twists, twists, and tears open those old shame-induced wounds. I'm not going to let that happen. Sure, I love God's Word. But I will go to it in an attitude of prayer, look at the surrounding verses, and let it speak to me on that level, not let one verse out of nowhere catch me off guard and make me feel miserable.

sigh. Enough rant. I may have more to say after tonight. Hopefully less rant, more encouraging insights.

have a good one,

ping!

 

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