insides

("Shadow Dance" by Martin Lewis).

("Mother and Child" by Gustav Klimt).

For every route, could haves/should haves/might haves in infinity.

It's a dangerous game: the either/or, the re-writing of choices.

There so many pulls inside me.

So many entryways, leading to new entryways.

strangers to change/window-panes

something about doors and windows and openings and closings.
yeah something about that.
--
I got two and a half hours of sleep last night. (I'm tired) (but everyone's tired/but nobody's tired enough). And I had a strange dream, with dream-water again.
My thesis is 45 pages in, and for the first time in a long time, I can see forward and inward and in front of me.

also, Iron & Wine's Daytrotter sessions are really beautiful. I almost like them better than the album versions:

"I recall, the sun in our faces
Stuck and leaning on graces
And being strangers to change

The radio and the bones we found frozen
All the thorns and the roses
Beneath your window pane"

fixed my "give a damn"

and just in time.

30-loves list. (for Dale). (and also for myself).

1. Love of family.
2. Love of friendship, that becomes a kind-of family.
3. Love of the way we can be many different things to each other.
4. Love of farm stillness.
5. And farm movement.
6. And love of knowing that I might plant the garlic, but I do not make the garlic grow.
7. Love of service.
8. Love of the humility that allows oneself to be served by another.
   
9. Love of the capacity for reinventions.
   
10. Love of second chances, with things right in front of you.
11. Love of saying sorry.
    
12. Love of music, and the way it shares things between people (the way it shares things between the multiple people in one person).
    
13. Love of moments when I recognize I'm human.
14. Love of my cat Comet.
15. And my old cat Chewy (rest in peace).
16. Love of the people who have passed--physically, or emotionally--from my life, for they are and always will be a present part of who I am.
17. That is, Love of the way Love lingers, even when bodies and hearts do not.
    
18. Love of functioning in a Communion of Saints.
    
19. And of the Joy and value in little pleasures and safeties.
20. Love of my body (on a good day).
21. And my spirit (on a good day).
    
22. Love in strength and flexibility (but not malleability).
23. Love of the way I am big and small in a world that is big and small.
24. Love of warm things.
25. Love of the intimacy allowing one to speak a coded language, that only one more understands.
26. Love of spending a lifetime, almost knowing one another.
    
27. And the way that people return to each other after miscommunications to try to communicate again; their persistence shows a caring language cannot capture.
    
28. Love of deep peace.
29. Love of not taking oneself too seriously.
    
30. Serious Love.

floating? falling?

1. Fear of trapped.
2. Fear of future.
3. Fear of loneliness.
4. Fear of failure.
5. Fear of unconsummated talent.
6. Fear of too much.
7. Fear of not enough.
8. Fear of boxes.
9. Fear of being ripped from boxes.
10. Fear of language.
11. Fear of finality.
12. Fear of change.
13. Fear of rejection.
14. Fear of never-ending tiredness.
15. Fear of peaking.
16. And slipping.
17. And disappointing.
18. And disappearing.
19. Fear of forgetfulness.
20. Fear of losing perspective.
    
21. (Fear of unaware irony).
22. Fear of money.
23. Fear of apocalypse.
24. Fear of mindlessness.
25. Fear of rabbit holes.
    
26. Fear of being too afraid to jump them.
27. Fear of losing agency.
28. Fear of history repeating.
29. Fear of arbitrariness.
30. Fear of being too small.

"There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, a eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest."
-Anais Nin.

(Wholly honest; I am terrified).

cosmia/nausia

-"Whirlwind of Lovers," by William Blake.

"when you ate I saw your eyelashes

saw them shake like wind on rushes

in the corn field when she called me

moths surround me - thought they'd drown me

and I miss your precious heart..."

-"Cosmia," by Joanna Newsom.

---

I cannot tell if the universe is getting bigger or smaller as I grow.

Sometimes I am blanketed in quiet excitement. Sometimes my hands disappear. Sometimes I see nothing but the chaotic matrix. Sometimes I am alone.

a new day.

Beirut - Elephant Gun from Alma Har'el on Vimeo.

(I think I'm waking up again).

10 Laws

lyrics by East Forest
photo mine.

1. Always see the dangers first
2. Always protect your feet
3. Always be ready for cold
4. Always be ready for heat
5. Always know where a good water resource is
6. Always master the skills necessary
7. Always get the job done
8. Always know your place
9. Always disallow foolishness
10. Always rest whenever you can

faithful, 100%

Is there a vegetarian alternative to eating ones elephant one bite at a time?
Because this obligatory beast's been with me, through and through.

photo credit: here.

not sleeping.

I'm still waking at odd hours. Sleep's been intermittent at best, but I'm really not that tired, and my dreams have been strangely vivid. By midday I forget them--like flashes. Last I checked I was running through the streets of Athens (as a visitor to a place I'd never been before) with my sister and my father. The weather quickly became tempestuous, and our running quickly became manic. The streets became garden rows. We had to pick all the cucumbers before the wind blew them away. I gathered four before I woke.



not sleeping. by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.