you are enough.

I have a problem of giving all my care and support to one person, even if it isn't always needed. This scares me and also saddens me. I have become better at avoiding this in the past few months, but I am not completely happy with this part of me yet. I feel young, foolish and like I am too much. Or not enough. Or too eager. Or too useless.

I keep trying to remember what Chelsea wrote on a post it note for me last year – "you are enough, you do enough, you try enough."

Hopefully I will get there in the end.

agas adore

Agas adore is Irish for listen to the music and adore. Well, the adore part isn't Irish. It's a phrase that I love, and I wish I remembered how to say it properly. At the same time, I'm not certain that it's wrong.

This past week or so I've been drifting, alternatively horribly and wonderfully.

This year...it's been alright, it's not going to haunt my dreams like the other ones have, but it's not been uplifting either. I'm on track with money, career, and health goals. My planner is full, my time is in blocks, and I am struggling with the two extremes of human connection. The first is the one that has blown back in my face somewhat, and quite rightly so, so I've been told by strangers, friends and myself alike. And the second is the one that's keeping me going.

I'm glad I'm leaving Missoula. I've quit other places, but it's different with Chris. Everything's different with Chris.

I have always valued my independence. But the feeling that there is someone gunning for you, someone on your side, that's something amazing. Something I've never felt before.

But enough of that. I risk becoming Austen-esque, and God knows that ain't right.

Like I mentioned earlier, things are going well. I am 3/4 to my monetary goal, 1/3 to my weight goal, and I'm liking life, too. Things seem to be all right now, and that's a very strange feeling, because it happened so suddenly and without any action on my part. And I'm happy, I am, but I still have an uneasy feeling that it will blow back in my face.

I'm suffering from writer's block, after a fairly prolific year. I don't even want to write - well, I do, but I can't bring myself to sit and do it. Which would all be fine except I have this rewrite that's gonna need me to not be blocked.

"I'm beginning to warm myself at other people's virtue"

Dear Montana,
things are worse than expected.
The winter isn't what it used to be and a violent shadow seems forever
cast down upon us by the looming black mountains.

I wanted to doccument Montana in this blog. I wanted it to serve as sort of a farewell that I could one day look back on. So far, I have done a terrible job. I love this state...in the summer: festivals, cliff jumping, hiking, camping, river floating, first friday, outdoor shows, the barista confession booth, my eleven dollar bike with the little license plate, bubble parties, wine tastings, dollar sushi, glacier, yellowstone, flathead, ghost towns, bike rides, wildflowers, the market, and all of the fabulous people I've met here (everywhere here). Montana. Instead, my blog is made up of other peoples' quotations.

Ah well this is an excerpt from 'This Side of Paradise'

Protaganist Amory Blaine is having a conversation with himself (in the form of Questioner and Answerer)

Q. - Be definite.

A. - I don't know what I'll do-- nor have I much curiosity. To-morrow I'm going to leave New York for good. It's a bad town unless you're ontop of it.

Q.- Do you want a lot of money?

A. - No. I am merely afraid of being poor.

Q. - Very afraid?

A. - Just passively afraid.

Q. - Where are you drifting?

A. - Don't ask ME!

Q. - Don't you care?

A. - Rather. I don't want to commit moral suicide.

Q. - Have you no interests left?

A. - None. I've no more virtue left to lose. Just as a cooling potgives off heat, so all through youth and adolescence we give offcalories of virtue. That's what's called ingenuousness.

Q. - An interesting idea.

A. - That's why a "good man going wrong" attracts people. They stand around and literally Warm Themselves at the calories of virtue hegives off. Sarah makes an unsophisticated remark and the faces simplerin delight-- "How innocent the poor child is!" They're warming themselves at her virtue. But Sarah sees the simper and never makesthat remark again. Only she feels a little colder after that.

Q. - All your calories gone?

A. - All of them. I'm beginning to warm myself at other people's virtue.

Q. - Are you corrupt?

A. - I think so. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about good and evil at all any more.

Q. - Is that a bad sign in itself?

A. - Not necessarily.

Q. - What would be the test of corruption?

A. - Becoming really insincere-- calling myself "not such a badfellow," thinking I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood-- she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

Q. - Where are you drifting?

While I don't relate to the character, I relate to the subject of ( fall from innocence).

So on a shallow note, I bought the Jan issue of Vogue. I love magazines in January: so fresh and full of promise for the coming year. I feel silly buying magazines like this, as I have not put much effort in my own appearance for the past few years (flowy skirt+plaid shirt+last nights makeup + winter cap to cover my unbrushed hair). In fact, I generally try to avoid fashion magazines, because I feel that they might trigger me back into my E.D. mindset. Even so, I don't know why, I have phases of getting into fashion. It's usually when I am feeling buoyant. Relevant is a line in "The Age of Innocence" when Newland Archer says to Count Olenska, "Fashion is a serious consideration for people who have nothing more serious to consider." Than again, I sort of disagree with that. Presentation is important, whether we like it or not.

maybe I will look back on this someday..

I had a bad day. I have to keep telling myself that "it's not that serious."

To channel my negativity, these are some of normal (and terrible) side effects of 'growing up' that I wish to avoid.

Maybe I will look back on this someday.

"The Art of Being Normal"

1. Anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce, and earn money.

2. Setting out rules for waging war (the Geneva Convention).

3. Spending years studying at university only to find out at the end of it all that you're unemployable.

4. Working from nine till five every day at something that gives you no pleasure just so that, after thirty years, you can retire.

5. Retiring and discovering that you no longer have enough energy to enjoy life and dying a few years out of sheer boredom.

6. Using Botox.

7. Believing that power is much more important than money and that money is much more important than happiness.

8. Making fun of anyone who seeks happiness rather than money and accusing them of "lacking ambition."

9. Comparing objects like cars, houses, clothes, and defining life according to those comparisons, instead of trying to discover the real reason for being alive.

10. Never talking to strangers. Gossiping about the neighbors.

11. Believing that your parents are always right.

12. Getting married, having children, and staying together long after all love has died, saying that it's for the good of the children (who are, apparently, deaf to the constant screaming matches).

13. Criticizing anyone who tries to be different.

14. Waking up each morning to a hysterical alarm clock on the bedside table.

15. Believing absolutely everything that appears in print.

16. Wearing a scrap of colored cloth around your neck, even though it serves no useful purpose, but which answers to the name of "tie."

17. Never asking a direct question, even though the other person can guess what it is you want to know.

18. Keeping a smile on your lips even when you're on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.

19. Believing that art is either worth a fortune or worth nothing at all.

20. Despising anything that was easy to achieve because if no sacrifice was involved, it obviously isn't worth having.

21. Following fashion trends, however ridiculous or uncomfortable.

22. Believing that all famous people have tons of money saved up.

23. Investing a lot of time and money in external beauty and caring little about internal beauty.

24. Using every means possible to show that, although you're just an ordinary human being, you're far above other mortals.

25. Never looking anyone in the eye when you're traveling on public transport, in case it's interpreted as a sign that you're trying to get off with them.

26. Standing facing the door in an elevator and pretending you're the only person there, no matter how crowded it is.

27. Never laughing too loudly in a restaurant no matter how good the joke.

28. In the northern hemisphere, always dressing according to the season: bare arms in spring (however cold it is) and woolen jacket in winter (however hot it is).

29. In the southern hemisphere, covering the Christmas tree with fake snow even though winter has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.

30. Assuming, as you grow older, that you're the guardian of the world's wisdom, even if you haven't necessarily lived enough to know what's right and wrong.

31. Going to a charity dinner and thinking that you've done your bit toward putting an end to social inequity in the world.

32. Eating three times a day even if you're not hungry.

33. Believing that other people are always better than you--better-looking, more capable, richer, more intelligent--and that it's very dangerous to step outside your own limits, so it's best to do nothing.

34. Using your car as a weapon and impenetrable armor.

35. Swearing when in heavy traffic.

36. Believing everything your child does wrong is entirely down to the company he or she keeps.

37. Marrying the first person who offers you a decent position in society. Love can wait.

38. Always saying, "I tried" when you didn't really try at all.

39. Postponing doing the really interesting things in life for later, when you don't have the energy.

40. Avoiding depression with large daily doses of television.

41. Believing that you can be sure of everything you've achieved.

42. Assuming that women don't like football and that men aren't intersted in home decorating and cooking.

43. Blaming the government for all the bad things that happen.

44. Thinking that being a good, decent, respectable person will mean that others will see you as weak, vulnerable, and easy to manipulate.

45. Being equally convinced that aggression and rudeness are synonymous with having a "powerful personality."

46. Being afraid of having an endoscopy (if you're a man) and giving birth (if you're a woman).

winter's descending.

soon the trees will look like this ^^^
bold, brittle skeletons...
either pale with light or black sillouhettes.
people are like this, at times. especially in winter.
two sides of a brittle, bold skeleton. now pale, now black.
always sturdy, always breakable.

I haven't ended my thanksgiving. Not quite. I have a wealth of thankfulness - too large for a single day...

I am thankful for a select few people in my life I count as "close." I count closely, that count.
not only because they open up a love in me and love me in return, not only because they make me laugh when I'd rather act destructively, not only because they teach me wisdom and patience and virtue.

...but because they are allowing me, each day, to become who I am.

I'm an epic ways away from stagnation, and I don't have myself to thank for that.
I feel blessed to be surrounded by people who see me in terms of my potential.

morning always comes, and this morning came early and cold.

Goodbye Fall.
Goodbye.
Goodbye to windstorm dry-spell rainy day after rainy day.
Goodbye to waiting out a long-overdue change.
Goodbye to season's turn and daylight dwindling.
Goodbye to leaf-crunch, smoke-stack, fire-night.
Goodbye, more personally, to re-gaining control recently lost, to losing sight, to hiding what was once so absent that it didn't demand the hiding. Goodbye to idleness and confusion, goodbye to silences and aversions. This is a hopeful farewell, but I say it nonetheless. Good-riddance, secretiveness and silence, and a lousy, lousy language.

Hello Winter.
Hello frost.
Hello breath-on-hands.
Hello beginnings of whiteness and quiet and nature's death.
Hello palette o' white-grey-none. Hello lasts of the leaves, lasts of the colors.
On this more personal note: Hello fire. Hello doing. Hello now. Hello change. Hello to the end of hibernation, to twinkling lights, to addressing what has so far been covert and untouchable. Hello.

Happy erasure, happy blank, happy hope, happy beginnings.
I am head-nauseous but hopeful.
I have so many things to order and place today, so many pieces of my puzzle to pick up.

~~~~~

Cleaning.
Laundry, sweeping, dishes, trash.
Write.
Read, a little.
Curl up with a book, perhaps.

Make it through the week without destruction or deviousness. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Deviousness. It is the second week of November, though, and I just want to walk through the rest of it upright, not skidding or slanting or at a 47 degree angle to the truth. I just want to walk. Upright. For three weeks. Am I aiming too high?

-Love Letter, Sylvia Plath, Dates Unknown

I wasn’t going to write here, but I cannot have an empty blog. That’s just silly.

We’ll see how I do on my updates, though.


I do want to post something, but this time it will not be my own.

This is the poem that made me want to write with the purpose of connecting with people, rather than just to clean out my head. Sylvia Plath was the first author that that I felt I could relate with.


Love Letter

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.