2009

I just returned to my new home in LA after a visit to my old home in Kentucky. I am feeling a little jet lagged. The airline lost my luggage. Our flight was delayed 2 hours. We almost missed it. And still the color pillars outside LAX felt welcoming. Safe. Strangely. 

A year ago they meant something different. Me, completely out of my comfort zone. Alone. Stepping into a rental car. I started driving straight toward the Hollywood sign, screaming for joy. Crying even a little. I had never felt the extremes of so many different emotions all at once. I was doing something I had envisioned so many times. For me it wasn't about Hollywood. Not what it represents for a lot of people at least. It was about me, doing something I had planned. Following through. Making sure I got my piece of this world. 

I knew I'd struggle. Who doesn't? Bring it on. But... I was not prepared for what 2008 had for me. Or maybe in some ways I was. I am alive, and loving being so. I have become something different in this year. I feel so empowered. I feel as though I could live anywhere and handle anything that comes my way. Like these nights I have been so confused and restless have molded me into something I was prepared to become all along.

Adult Boot Camp. My name for 2008. And I feel like I may graduate soon. 

When I returned to those color pillars a few days ago...they gave me a feeling that was quite different from what they had before. I did however feel those same extreme emotions. As though this city runs on a different wave length. One that keeps my heart pumping maybe just one beat faster. I know now that I like it that way. But only when I can go back to my Kentucky home to occasionally rest my weary heart.

I am peaceful in my city now. With the things that I love and the things that I hate. 2008 was the end of a very important segment of my life. One that I am also happy to say goodbye to. But could never have done without.

I've never made a new years resolution. And I am still not going to. I just want to continue to pursue my life resolutions. I hope that never stops. 

I am refreshed. I am happy. I'm gona rock the shit out of 2009.

They came to me for no particular reason

I held them cause I thought it was the season

You can't push the greats

the greats they simply pull their weight

I thought it might be my time to be that way

Im here and that is not even here nor there

I followed cause some where I lose that silly fear

You can make you way 

But that... ways not safe from change

Life will follow you but you soon wont run away

I left it lying some where in the grass of blue

All the stillness and wishing I someday knew

You can say and say

But doing never comes that way

Life is flying by so grab it by the precious main 

Popping Bubbles.

I am gaining a new understanding of life. And it is a shocking realization.

I am not safe.

We are told that "it could happen to us".

But I think that is wrong.

It WILL happen to us. Something. Tragedy. Heartache. Death.

This is not some stanza of glooming poetry.

It is a guarantee. 

I have watched these past two years punch me harder with each blow.

I fight back like a refrained child throwing a tantrum. Powerless.

I scream. I am ignored. 

Even the ones who are meant to protect me have exited stage right.

I stand lone, venerable to the audiences persecution.

No standing ovation tonight. 

No flowers in the dressing room.

This is not my demise. This is not my surrender.

I am now numbly stating facts according to my vision.

If the bubble I believed in ever existed...

It is now safe to say it popped.

Empathy

To spot a stranger from far away.

Not knowing their name or their story.

Never having even heard their voice.

You run to them. 

Simply by the look in their eye.

Feeling the loneliness they seep.

So much so that your own eyes tear

At just a sight of their far away stare.

You embrace.

For a moment, to each other you were strangers.

Now to each other you are 

Everything.

Dear Bits and Peaces,

How unexpected. Finding you here. Seeing you here. So completely in my reach. 

I kinda didn't need you, and thats what made it nice. 

Bungalow, blow and blow.

Find us under here. 

Where we talk too much about things we shouldn't know.

Blow Bungalow Blow.

In the Park

I wade quietly through the sun and the green.

In a wounded nest of mountains. 

Browned from fires, holding only the strong and loneliest trees.

Standing embarrassed of the space around them.

I want to hold their leafy hands.

Tucked away from my noisy concrete world.

I secretly indulge myself.

In time. 

Drinking it up selfishly as though no one else will miss it.  

I inhale now. 

So deep it hurts and with the exhale...

My weapons disarm. 

I am the soft underneath.

Belly up and vulnerable.

Exoskeleton cracked and torn away by eager fingers.

Be tender with me now.

As I am guilty from ever having complained.

Life is beautiful in my nest. 

I find comfort somewhere

Unexpectedly and too sleepy for searching.

My Box of Sunsets

 I watch the sun drip away behind the Hollywood Hills as I lie on the floor, alone again in my studio apartment. We are exposed. My apartment and I. The huge window bathes the tiny room, every inch in sunlight. The lights of houses twinkle through the foothills and as I contemplate the people who occupy those homes, I can't help but feel isolated. Starting over is bittersweet. The sky fades from blue to orange, my room darkens and my dog begins to snore. Safe inside my little box I watch the city play its rush hour dance through the glass of my window. Once again watching Hollywood through a box. But somehow the magic of television could never capture what I feel tonight. 

Like a tiny bird, I sit in an open cage. There was a time not so long ago when I believed the hardest part would be the breach of my little brass door, but now that it has flung wide with illustrious vigor, and my dreams lie so close that I see them in great detail, it is my awe that cripples me. And as the last bit of paint drains from my skyline, I wonder what colors I will bring to this place and if there is room for what I can offer. If somewhere in this city of rich and poor, young and old, business suits and dreaded locks, the artist and the homeless, one little bird can leave a stoke of color no one has ever seen before. 

Jumping is hard when you know you will fall and that no other option is probable. But it is not quite enough to avoid impending doom and be content with knowing I have the option to obtain the life I want. But in reality I am not at all sure about the life that I want. Not the details, not even the big picture. The unexpected moments that make me smile when I think of them years later. That's what I want. Great moments. Ones that manage to drastically change everything that I thought I knew about life. I don't want that to ever stop happening. 

Now the night washes over my view, live music and weekend voices come to me uninvited. The moon is full tonight and perhaps explains my mood. I think things that have been thought a million times by many people. I write words that have already been written, but tonight they are all my own. I am finding a big difference in knowing something and feeling it for the first time. I look forward to more firsts. And also more nights watching the sunset in this wonderful little box I call home