Antonyms

There would be too much to write, too much to say and words seem flawed. Devoid.

living as it comes

I am wonderful.
I will say that. I am living in a farm house full of character on the westside of Olympia. I've been here for about a month. I feel at home here. I have been doing more domestic tasks lately, building fires, making soups, raking leaves, making things from what may seem to be nothing. There is something about these tasks that are comforting and relaxing for me. My pace is a little slower. A little simpler but working hard feels good and work is good. I now thoroughly know my way around the library. School is very satisfying. I am being challenged, i am learning a lot and i really feel like i am building toward whatever my future studies will be. Next quarter should only get better. I am planning to continue with my Public Thinking Public Health course and hopefully take a Global Health and Ethics class. Annnd maybe i am saying this prematurly but i am going to take a ballet class for 2 credits...i laugh as i type this. I think it would be a good foundation for any dance and since i hope to become a better dancer and do it for the rest of my life, i should probably start here. But we'll see, I am nervous at the idea of it, but this is a fear i need to get over....speaking of which,
I have been thinking lately what it would mean to live freely. that doesn't have to mean anything in specific or it could. But this is for myself. What fears do i let go of and why do they exist? what does lively freely even look like. what forms could it take physically and mentally. I have been challenging myself to rethink the way i think and understand why these ideas or rules or limits even exist. and what sort of rules do i hold onto because they are a comfort, or just are. Anyway i could talk more over this but as a reader i might just loose you or already have.
I am going to learn an instrument. At some point. And i am hoping this process will begin soon. I am playing with ideas of which. Piano will happen one day, but i would like something else as well. I let you know when i know.

These photos are of some of the fun i had on halloween. My costume is incomplete, I was going to be a dia de los muertos skeleton, but i didn't get to finish the make-up. I thought i ended up looking more like Frida so i went with that.. either way, this is one form of what i thoroughly enjoy :) i hope you do to.

The Snow Leopard - Shearwater

the language of my world

i had to share this because it fills deeply.
this is rachel, she writes and performs spoken word. we've had the opportunity to travel together and because of this have become close friends over the past 5 years or so. what gets me excited about this is being reminded of the many forms art takes. we've put a box around what an artist is and can be and often forget the value of the words we speak; the art of words. anyway here it is, and don't be surprised if you see more stuff by her in the future.

Nowadays

I am made of boxes confining and cramming myself into prom dresses and stereotypes
I am stuffed away in attics full of “act like a lady” phrases, waiting for the days when I don’t have to be careful not to smash the corners in that keep me on the straight and narrow
Because nowadays I am made of boxes, reusable and practical, stuffed away in attics full of photo albums wanting so badly to develop into something you desire.
you used to skip across blank surfaces of my mind like rocks I used to skip on beds of water and pillows, but I was blinded by the light I thought came from within you.
I couldn’t see the ripples you’d leave in me later on.
Ripples full of skinned knees and me begin please Don’t.
Ripples full of nightmares I used to dream when you were hypnotizing me to sleep with your words spinning like merry go rounds you and I used to kiss on. Spinning my head into thinking I was different.
circles enclosing me cutting me off from the freedom I used to breathe.
Like rings around my neck, like chalk marks on my deck, like ripples.
have you ever looked closely in every woman’s pupils?
there are constant rings of water from skipped rocks. I was skipped over once. it left me bruises of black and blue reminding me of you because nowadays you’re gone. and every time I hear that song I think of us swinging on chains that now hold us in because nowadays
we are women. becoming legs to mans table, spread open even when we are unable
becoming possessions compiled in boxes made of innocence, unlocked at the taste of freedom.
I became that welcome home mat you wiped you’re dirty shoes onto. That welcome home mat you took out to beat clean when it was used too often
because nowadays broken women are forgotten.
taught to think that what they are is not good enough, we are diamonds in the rough
broken down and carved on the fingers we are wrapped around
fingers attached to hands that play us like marionettes. Invisible strings attached to every limb tying our hands behind our crippled backs
by every stepped on crack.
because nowadays women play back bones for crooked men and before you can count to ten they’ve lost themselves. told by the age of twelve to flush their lives down the toilet along with their lunch and watch the spiral of water so as to hypnotize them into telling their daughters to complete the circle.
rings of injustice cutting off the circulation of our fingers until we bleed surrender.
Don’t tell me i’m going to die on my knees.
give me something other than the taste of cheap wine and the morning after you’ve realized you don’t know who you are.
you threw me away last night, like the rocks we skipped across water that was so pure and unshaken. Created ripples in me that extend far beyond what your drunken eyes can see.
I lost my purity and you lost your boyhood but you cant make me bleed surrender.
Because the ripples will be calmed like all things worth salvaging.
Because when you drop womens souls into the oceans of the abandoned they create ripples in your morning after thoughts that enclose your dreams between your pillow and regrets, make you never forget that you cant make them bleed surrender.
Because her pupils reflect oceans, pure and unshaken, because last night she was pieced back together while you tried to remember yourself.
Because when you have dreams of me begging please and falling to my knees know that last night when you lost your boyhood I found myself and this morning when your hangover brings heartache, just know that this morning forgiveness washed over me in the form of a thousand ripples and
I never bled surrender.

I've been listening to kexp a lot lately. Been hearing lots of good music and wanted to share two bands. This is a video by Bomba Estereo they are a Colombian electro tropical band. This is very similar to a lot of the music I heard in Venezuela, the video is pretty cool too.

This is Macklemore. Another amazing artist from Seattle. There is something about his voice i find inspiring and the content of his songs, constructive. I'd like to meet him.

Finally....Mirah. Who i have actually known of for sometime, but after doing some research found that she is an evergreen graduate. cool! i thought to myself.

life is

Hello! to each and every one of you. There probably only is one of you. So this is one big hello to you! I’ve been wanting to write. Really needing to write. And each time i come to i am so overwhelmed by this everchanging thing called life! Its all been so quick lately its been hard to digest and even think about how I am feeling. But here goes, I’ll write.I've been living in Olympia for about a month a month now. It's crazy. I got a job. It was a gift, really. I am working in the Library at Evergreen. Specifically for Inter Library Loans. Where I push a cart around through tall isles of books collecting as i go. I have learned all about the Dewey Decimal system and all about how libraries work. Maybe this sounds silly but i was always intimidated by Libraries and never really took advantage of the knowledge they hold. Books are really so fascinating. What people write about. What they choose its worth an entire book. I have come across some the craziest pieces of literature and even more i wish i could just sit and study. Any way there are also plenty of other things i deal with like Micro Film (so cool!) old records, government documents, maps, CD's, old newspapers and magazines. I am in charge of gathering all the books students or faculty have requested from other schools and sending them out. So i scan and package. Its really more complicated than that but i don't want to bore you. Anyway i came here to live. Speaking of which. Here i am sitting in olympia, south capitol district, living in the attic of a house sharing one bathroom, one kitchen and probably one of everything else with five other people; Shonri, Yael, Sam, Alex, Joel. My room is cold all the time. There is no insulation. my door knob continuously falls off thus locking me out of my room. its been great. I actually really like my roommates. I just don't like the mess 6 people make in one day. I could go on about the layers of thick dirt that have sat for months, layers of stick, layers of leftovers on almost every surface, a cup full of almost 15 toothbrushes (all touching) from people that once lived here.....ahhh but i won't. I will just say, because i have come to find it amusing that i have acquired a different pair of socks for different occasions, depending on what room i have to enter. That way i don't track hair on the bathroom floor up into my haven.
There are so many things i have been wanting to write about. Topics that have been ticking inside me but every time i have come to sit and write i think of all the catching up i should write here instead and it keeps me from writing at all. So i decided that the real catching up part will just come out with time and the current topics are here now so i'll embrace those.


Here is one.. This is a song, by Debussy. Called Clair de lune. I am learning this on piano. I have decided to learn piano. this song weakens me with only the first two chords. and the rest well it does wonders.



Class has started. I don't know where to begin. I've fallen in love. Health is such a magnetizing topic for me. I was concerned that this class wouldn't be what i was looking for or wanted to study in this field. There are so many different aspects of health and health care and ways that people see appropriate to studying these things that it can be hard to find the place you want to take. Some how i did. The first real day of class i was a little late and came to find my class broken into groups. I found one to join and came alive when i realized what our task was. Each group had been given a story and a shoe box. They complimented each other demonstrating aspecting the other could not (visually). It was our job based on the person's story to evaluate whether or not the person was healthy, and to design a health promotion plan to initiate for a group similar to their age and circumstance..ahhh :) My group got Kayla. She was a sixteen teen year old foster kid. She once had two parents, a brother, dog, home. Then it started to disinigrate. Her parents became thin and sickly, strangers were in and out, the dog disappeared and eventualy her parents were arrested and she was put with a foster family. Her brother and her ended up being seperated and since she has been on her own, family to family. One of her foster dads attempted to molest her. Everyone kept telling her she needed to act like a normal teenager, and that she had her whole life ahead of her. Her response was, "what is normal?", and "I've already lived a whole life".
You could hear the strength in her voice of the paper. You could hear her brokenness and her thirst to be loved and feel loved and embraced. And you could hear her guarded heart hesitant to trust. We came up with an initiative as a group that used art and theatre as means to express what maybe most would want to keep private. A book for words and drawings to get them out, process the fear but put in a way that could be shared if it they wanted. Theatre would be used as a way to take on a role/character that could express these things you wanted. But it would be a safe voice to speak because it wouldn't be yours. We talked about how important self expression is not only verbally but also through the way we dress. Especially at the age of 16. Most foster kids get the old leftover clothes others don't want, and they can only have so much becuase they have to be ready to pack up and leave any day. We talked about having the community get involved with giving gift cards for foster kids to shop at the places they would shop if they could and buy the things they want to wear. So in them selves they could feel that sense of belonging.
Man! all these things. All these things, there is so much. I think i was given a huge heart for kids because after this conversation i was so firm with the fact that i would have foster kids one day.
Anyway, i am on fire for health. Later we watched a film called Blue Vinyl. (That would be a link). Its a pretty awesome and informative film. Really there is so much bs in this world, so much human greed and it makes me sick. And it kills others. Which makes me have to do something about it. The thing i've been realizing about health is that its life. Literally, if you don't have health then you don't have life, but it also is literally everything in life. You can't just talk about people's body's, addressing only their wounds. You have to address all the social factors of who they are and why they are in the situation they are. How old are they, what gender, what race, how do these factors play into their history, their future, how can you change it? There is so much psycology involved. Your dealing with segregation, discrimination, poverty, social structures, social norms and not norms(?), education, religion and spirituality, personality. People looking for hope, answers, encouragement, open arms, they want change, and they don't its uncomfortable. But you can see personal growth, challenges, improvement. This is rewarding. Anyway, that was supposed to be a little blurb and now its the post. so i think i'll sign off with a little Norah and this guy with a nasally voice...cool video. ¡Paz!

bird of paradise

there had been some hesitance to pursuing Andrew Bird. I knew i would love him. Parts of him would fascinate me, the words to his whine, and the will to his music. I enjoy this.

Logic Amen

Heard this on KBSC Speak on it radio session...

http://bellevuecollege.edu/kbcs/downloads/Logic/LOGIC_20090911.MP3

Here's another about health care

http://bellevuecollege.edu/kbcs/downloads/Logic/LOGIC_20090828.MP3

Can i just say.. Amen!

This is where you can find other archives..... CLICK ME!

taking us out is a little Lightning Dust...then good old Sarah Blasko ;)









Chao for now!