God's pulling me back in
So everything happens for a reason. I've been trying to comprehend this past week's happenings but i couldn't. two years and a month ago my grandmother died. let me tell you how this happened. I lost my wallet. in it was everything valuable to me, and everything that makes me a functioning citizen in this world where money and identification rule. so i felt useless. I called my dad who wouldn't tell me he was at my grandmother's death bed, but helped me figure out what to do with the lost information, how to cancel credit cards, etc etc. so on that day i probably called or talked to him like 4 or 5 times in a row - when i normally would call him once a week or every other day or something of the sort.
The last time of the succession of calls, i asked how grandma was doing, he grew silent. I didn't press him but got off of the phone and carried on my way.
he called me back a little later to tell me he didn't want to tell me there, but while i was on the phone with him, she passed away.
further observation of the situation led me to rethink the events and see how God plans things to get you back in line with him, with family, with life. sometimes we get so caught up in the everyday things (here i am/was fretting about three exams and a quiz next week) that we forget the eternal things and the things not of this life, but the next. we think too much on the present and not on the everlasting future.
this epiphany led me to a spiritual awakening among other things, but i remember the series of events sheltered around the loss of a wallet and everything that makes me "something" or "someone" in this material world.
so when i got my wallet stolen this past monday i was like "ok God, what's happening, who's dying?" and it wasn't that someone around me was dying, it was my spiritual self that is/was dying. we are all dying everyday. I'm learning about how the 16th century poets wrote about time's diminishing qualities, and it's true. each day we walk further west (like in my sonnet), and further away from the day we were born, closer to our graves. and i'm learning that each day without God is a lonely existence. Of course, whoever stole my wallet got about 25 bucks in cash from me but thankfully realized that all of the credit cards would be cancelled (within an hour after i perceived it stolen)and debit cards rendered useless.
today i got a package in the mail. I was confused - it was from a Lutheran Church downtown. Someone stole my wallet, gutted it of its monetary value and threw it infront of a Church. The church sent it back to me. I got my wallet back at the "cost" of 25$ but with a value that is ineffable. God's got great ways of speaking to me in terms that he knows i'll listen. And he's learning to speak to me in patterns.
i'm listening. I hear You.
A sonnet and things
first, here's something i wrote the other day. I've been so busy, that writing isn't easy for me as it once was, how sad. but i refuse to let my spark die. (of course, it's sad, would you expect anything else?)
sonnet 11798
What solemn steps, his tread through the streets, weaves
through valleys, shadows, death. He fears only
the morning journeys, the idle chatter
on stranger-lined pathways to hospital,
where he will wait judgment. Soon, his functions
will fade from flashes meant to cure, too soon.
I watch his steps with back towards the sun
rising. He stumbles. I wince, pray his legs
steady; call out to him in instinct. He
hears me not. In car I pass this man on
sidewalk, walking West. In him, I picture
Grandpa: his same processions in face mask.
I think to this man to change directions.
I know the consequences of this walk.
okay. so that was my sonnet in blank verse.
what else? I've been exercising a lot more lately. getting up at 6:30 each morning to run 1, 1.5 or 2 miles. i love coming back and taking a cold-ish shower. i love the feeling of accomplishment when i see my car and my house on the return. I also have grown a love affair with yoga. more for its stretching purposes than it's meditative purposes...i've found that the repetive slow motions work up a nice sweat, and then as you're warming up your muscles, you're stretching them at the same time and it's pretty nice.
i still dont like it here, in case you're wondering. i still want to go back to chapel hill where things seemed a little more simple.
okay. off to do some yoga, then reading then sleep. got 2 miles to conquer in the morning.
closing time
that's the title (at least, i think) of this song that is sort of the theme for the way things look to me. like things are wrapping up, ready to transition to other places, other times. and i dont just mean with me. I mean with this world.
i cannot begin to comprehend what has happened to the peoples of the gulf coast. but i can remember a dream I had once, i woke up in a deep sweat, gasping for air, as if i had drowned. in my dream, i did. it was a really big, elaborate dream constructed by my REM and i guess a depiction of what my mind thought at that moment "the end" would be like. I've had more than one of these dreams, I should add. it's kind of weird, really.
anyways. back to the dream. so the dream has me starting on a beach with some friends. we're playing something. i go to change my bathing suit. come back out, dark clouds, thunder. and BAM! lightning flash and it's like a scene change. i'm standin in line with my friend (who is faceless, at least, i can't remember who i had in my dream with me) and we're holding hands, ankle-deep in water. then, another flash. scene change. we're all apologizing to each other. i realize i hadn't apologized to my friend (i can't even begin to imagine what i had done to warrant that) and so i walk up and before i open my mouth, she just simply says "it's okay, i forgive you, He forgives." then we're back in line walking deeper into the water, as if driven by some force beyond our control, only, i could have gotten away, but i was pre-occupied with the fact that my best friend couldn't swim and was walking out to sea. so another flash and we're wiped out by a big wave. a huge, wave. my friend doesn't survive the wave. it's just me and God and Satan. (i add satan in as i look back. i was fighting something in that water) i start praying, saying the Lord's prayer and each line it feels as if my body is getting heavier and heavier, but i'm determined to finish before i go under. i think this is how God is going to end the world. say Amen and sucuumb to the waters rushing into my lungs...then i wake up coughing and gasping for air.
and i mean, i look at the destruction all of the millions of gallons of water dumped into the gulf coast region, and i can't help to think that to them down there, someone's had this experience. I can only pray that they called out to God before they left. but it's kind of scary, having these dreams, seeing pieces of them come to fruition. seeing this one dream that i think has some bits and pieces of prophecy being fulfilled....that's a bit scary on my part, but i shall not reveal it just yet. i dont know. it seems as if maybe i have something greater than me within me, and i'm afraid of it. perhaps i am. maybe i'm just imagining everything, and nothing really exists but time, and we're just images that will fade away -
i hope to at least leave a good impression.
so yeh, this was a bit random, i just had to get my thoughts out on it all.
thoughts of the night
i miss chapel hill
i am sad
i cried a little on sunday. i would say for no reason, but i know it all too well
i am overwhelmed with work already. too much work.
all work and no play makes lana also sad
i wish i could see you again.
i am sometimes deathly scared of death.
i pray for all of those who have suffered from natural (or Godly) disasters, like Katrina. the devastation is beyond my mind's comprehension - i dont want to know a loss like that. not yet.
i love you. yes, you.
Lemondays
i've come to love mondays.
well, no, let me not say that. i hate mondays. the start of a new week - the fact that the weekend seems sooo far away in the distant.
anywho. i do love mondays because of the monday night blues open mic and poetry and music series here in charleston. (i'll share a little secret with you...i may be hosting the show very very soon! but don't tell. it's not confirmed just yet)
so. i go to it tonight. and there's this wonderful family of musicians. they are very hippie-ish, which is cool with me, very peaceful. reminded me of an older version of one of my friends from chapel hill....gosh, i do miss that place...anyways. and this lady, of course i dont remember her name because i could not hear her, did her poetry and then this kid on guitar blue me away and i just had to meet him, and hopefully i'll have a little more direction on my own guitar pursuits.
so there's this black couple that comes in - you could tell intimidated by the older/white crowd tonight (i admit, i was a bit at first) but came in to get coffee, and sat near me. the woman asked me what this was about, asked me if i would be performing poetry, i confirmed, she talked her husband into staying. the set ran a little long, and i didn't get up there until 10:15. i did "the water's fine" which has become a favorite of the monday night blues crowd...and a new piece i wrote that night for my best friend preston (i'll post) and then a relationship piece called "My Adam" which parallels a relationship to that of adam & eve (duh) and yeh....then i asked for requests. some of my "topics" are love, societal, anecdotal, and then like nature/obeservation-esque pieces. they requested love. i flipped it. i decided to do sacrificial love. love of family. did a piece i wrote with my grandmother in mind. i miss her. i was thinking of her earlier, and my aunt and my high school best friend who are all buried here in charleston. in a poem, i wrote/had an epiphany that it's funny how God pulled me back here, how i find myself unknowingly flocking here where Gloria and aunt Olive and grandma Griffin are buried. the poem, Letters of consolation for the grieving is 4 parts. in the second part, it says "...i've come to charleston/where i forget you laid to rest/homing pidgeon/ i flock to where i feel most loved."
and i do feel loved here. in some strange way, i feel energies from everyone i miss (dead, alive, far away) in the people i meet here. one of the musicians just came up to me and asked if she could just hug me because she felt so attracted to my vibes/positive energy. I guess i'm learning to give off what is given.
sorry this post is so random. so are my thoughts right now.
school starts in a week and i'm petrified of new beginnings (again).
here's the poem:
We are compliments
We were born for each other -
destined for our life-lines to mee,
hash marks on God’s canvas.
(such divine are we are)
We mesh well.
Our limbs inter-lock easy
like they were made to embrace
the way we do, perpetually,
as friends
lovers distant to keep embers
burning past hours of
late-night conversations.
Our words fit together
as puzzle pieces, I step away
to view the bigger picture:
minds in unison, I find
lost thoughts ready upon
your lips –
Surely
our garden expands
beyond places we’ve traveled together.
The paths we walk are unbridled
labyrinths; endless probabilities.
Please
meet me at the zenith
as it is planned.
slow down, literally
i'm going to try and write everything at once tonight. a lot has been going on. i just got finished doing a yoga video that i bought today...on impulse. i decided it was something i've wanted to try, so i'm going to and that's that. kind of like life, i'm learning to go with impulses, because nothing is guaranteed.
i could have died last night. it's so surreal. so real. the fact that i would have died on an inconspicuous road down in georgia and none of my family would have known where i was, and i wouldn't have been able to tell anyone good-bye...and yeh. here's the scoop: i went down to georgia to visit my chapel hill friend and my best friend from high school for a couple of days. on my way back, it was raining, and i needed to stop to get gas. i changed lanes to the right lane as someone was changing lanes to the left lane immediately infront of me. I'm guessing the water they kicked up was not compatible to the direction my wheels were going (or that it was just a bad spot in the road) and my car began to hydroplane. you never really learn about how to handle a car in conditions like what i was in. anyways, so because i was slowing down for the exit, the car infront of me was gone, and by the grace of God, no one was behind me to be in the path of my car performing two pirouettes on the interstate before landing in the ditch on the right side of the road. i remember tryingt o get control of my car and counter it to keep me from going into the middle median, and perhaps onto oncoming traffic (there was no middle guard). i remember as the car was going towards the ditch, time slowed down...or maybe it feels like it slowed down now that i think about how that could have been the last sequence of my life. all i could do was press the breaks and hold the wheel and prayed out loudly to God not to let my car flip over. I envisioned it flipping two or three times. I even braced myself for the impact. but God had other plans - the ditch cradled me and my car safely. i couldn't move my car, but i was not bruised or hurt or anything. i thought to call 9-1-1. i couldn't even talk. luckily, in other acts of God's mercy and grace, at the same time of my dance down highway 20, a highway patrolman was coming in the opposite direction and another person both stopped to help me. i'm sure i probably looked like a deer caught in headlights. i was just hyperventillating - about to die in amazement that i didn't die. i just hung up with the 9-1-1 dispatcher (now that i think about it, it's kind of messed up they didn't call me back to see if i was all right) and the patrol guy assured me that i was going to be all right, that my car didn't look too badly bruised and he had a state patroller and a wrecker on the way to dig me out.
so. i had to call my dad. who, an hour and a half before totalled his car - man. Satan was really out to get my family yesterday. i was scared he'd be mad about my vacation (although i'm grown, i usually do tell him when i leave to go somewhere)...and more scared about my accident. he was just glad i was all right. then i called preston. who i probably scared just from the phone call. while i was waiting and thinking about how my life almost ended one of my best friends from chapel hill called me - Jamie - who spent the summer in South Africa...my sister in Christ. perfect timing.
so. i think i see my near death experience as God's way of speaking to me. You know how they say he speaks in terms so that we'll listen? well, i think he speaks to me in terms of death. i had to almost die to get back on track and back in line with my purpose...and caring more about him and myself than a lot of other things i've been focusing on lately, and shouldn't. just the fact that i felt my car on two wheels and it could have easily flipped over...or any of the conditions could have been different - it could have been a cliff instead of a shallow ditch. the trees could have been right there. there coudl have been a barrier up and i could have wrapped my car around the metal pole like a tortilla shell...i could have been ejected from the car and landed on my back and that could have been the end of that.
all i can say is - thank God for second (and third and fourth and, well, numerous undeserved) chances. Thank God for having something greater and more for me to accomplish here that you decided not to take me away last night...and thank you for your messages - even the ones that may hurt us or scare us...and for the ability to listen and heed.
the lesson: slow down (literally), and take it all in. life's not long enough to make too many mistakes...but sometimes, if you need more time to complete your purpose and tasks, i think God will throw in a little grace.
finally feels like home
so i moved into this place july 31...out on james island, which i've come to like i must say (outside of the commute to both places i work, which sort of sucks). it took me until friday to get the mattress to my futon/bed, which was crazy...but now it finally feels like i live somewhere, like i have some place i can call home.
now...if i could get my act/life together from here, i'd be good to go.
for the record: i'm still really scared to start school in the fall.
