I needed this weekend more than I could have possibly known when I set out - but I think I realized it the moment I saw Travis' face. Good friends, good food... s'mores and stars...
How can I even begin to explain what it means to be back "home"?
How can I even expect anyone to comprehend the last two years (except maybe for the one who lived through it with me)... I can't. I really can't. I wouldn't ever ask you to try.
It doesn't mean that I don't miss people, things that I left behind in LA.
All I can tell you is that some days I feel like I have aged ten years in two.
it's a sad and a strange thing
but it's time and i am changing
into something good or bad, well that's your guess
I'm my own sovereign nation
dedicated to a transformation
marching on with this target on my chest
Dar Williams - It's Alright
I should probably warn you that this post will probably be more Dar lyrics than anything else. I finally got the new album a few days ago and after taking a few days to digest it, I can sincerely say that I haven't liked an album of hers this much since The Green World. I wasn't overly fond of The Beauty of the Rain and I actively disliked My Better Self.
Maybe it's just another piece, connecting with a Dar album, finding voice in these songs again... the journey I've been on - given the freedom to really stop and ask myself what it is I want? Want to do, want to go, want to be... without restraint, without boundaries, how does one go about answering this question in its multitude of layers?
It's a cold, cold time
And it makes me wonder
if I'll ever forget how cold I, how cold I
and the world can be
And the longest draw
And we draw the line
and we say it's only the business of things
How can it be, how can it be
When it's you and me
I can't live in the past
Hardshelled and moving fast
Change is the racecar of time
Everyone nods along
I have done nothing wrong
And it feels like a crime
And it's a bright new day
It's a bright new day
And the crazy thing is
That I wish my old friend
Would say that it's fine
Say I'll be fine in a cold, cold time
more Dar - The Business of Things
I think my heart broke a little gazing at a tree that night - to think, how much I've missed trees - an abundance of trees, that is - the right kind of trees - and there are no words to describe the clouds. LA is not big on clouds... gray haze, yes, but not clouds... trees and clouds and stars and air to breathe
And so, stepping back, yes, I'm still teaching - but I don't know if that's forever, I doubt it - very little is forever, I've come to realize. My career isn't everything of who I am, after all. But since I'm happy with it, my focus has definitely shifted.
So many trips I took to save somebody else
Gaining some ground but maybe losing more
So many pages scrawled to justify myself
I don’t know who I did that for
(You are everyone - Dar)
I'm trying to be better about doing things for myself. I've been writing a lot, in my GW fanfic, but it's been an outlet for a lot of conflicted emotions as I move forward... 140,000+, 6 months of my life and I'm so very far from finished.
*
Letting go of Hilde’s hand for a moment, Duo wiped his sweaty palm on the leg of his flight suit before standing up and walking around the bed to peer out of the single tiny window. From the angle the ship was at, he couldn’t see anything but stars. “Do you know what I realized today, Hilde? When I was out there trying to keep us from getting killed? I realized that I’ve changed. I know, that probably doesn’t mean much to you, because we haven’t known each other that long, known each other that well… you wouldn’t even know, looking at me, that I’ve changed. So I guess what I mean is… I suddenly… I suddenly realized that I’m not the same kid I was when this whole mess started, but I don’t know when I changed. I’m a different me than yesterday, a different me than I’ll be tomorrow, if I live that long. Maybe I’ve been changing every single day, so gradually that I didn’t even notice it until I stopped to look back.” Duo paused again, reaching with one hand to splay his fingers on the glass of the window, icy cold underneath his equally cold fingertips.
“I hate looking back. I’ve always been an eyes to the future kind of guy… maybe that’s why you and I got on so well, working at the scrap yard. I could tell that you didn’t want to look back either – but if we never look back, never appreciate all the things that shaped us… oh hell, what do I know? Sometimes I don’t think I know anything at all.”
*
I don't write much in LJ anymore - mostly because I'm really busy and realized awhile back that I was writing for other people and not myself - and not enjoying it at all anymore. But sometimes I like to ramble to myself and this is a decent place to do that...
I've joined up with facebook - mostly from the nagging of my dear friends - but through it, I've reconnected with names, faces and memories long forgotten. I find myself grateful for a lot of things and people that I think I once took more for granted (though never entirely so)
But I never took heavy words for granted
and I never took undeserved advantage
No, I never took the easy way
So why don't you take it a little easy on me now?
Cause we don't wanna be the ones who like to cheat and slander
So we hold each other up to the higher standard
But I tell you what, I'll never try to make it hard
Cause when you're hard just to be hard, the only thing that's hard is you
(The Easy Way - Dar)
And you know what?
I don't want to be hard. I don't want to be unforgiving.
I feel that to be these things is to hold up a mirror and show the world that's how you want to be treated in return - and it isn't.
Life is too short.
If there's anything, anything at all I learned from the car accident and the following years in LA, it's that it's all too easy to let time slip through your fingers.
The ways the days and hours pass, you'll never understand
Falling like rain through your hands
Troubled Times (Dar)
H asked me recently... asked me to step outside what I think I'm "supposed" to do or care about, to ask myself why I do things a certain way - is it only because I was taught to do them in that way? Or is it because I want to, need to or think it's most efficient?
I've started to ask myself what else I want out of this life... it's an enormous question and I don't think there's one right answer.
A bumper sticker the other day said:
The meaning of life is to live it.
I am living it, one day at a time - and thinking about it maybe more than I ever have - and I know I don't write 6 times a day (God, how did I EVER manage that?) but I'm always reading.
I miss all of you when we don't have time to talk.
I'm always here. I've been here. I'm thinking about you. I'm hoping for the best for you.
I still love you.
I suppose, in the end, it's up to you whether or not to believe it - but for me, it's the truth.
And my truth is the only one I have to live by.
No Matter what the ending is, the story of my life is the book of love
This is the first autumn in years.
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giddy
ecstatic
sad
artistic
sleepy
blank
cheerful