Monday, March 30, 2009

My Good News Is

My good news is that I am alive. I am here, experiencing the smells, tastes, and sights of a wonderful and complex world. My good news is that I can laugh. I can cry. I can smile. I can dance. My good news us a joy that cannot be taken away. My good news is laughter on my lips, a smile in my heart, a song in my ear. My good news is sunshine and flowers, the ocean, puppies playing, a gentle breeze. My good news is family. friends. SLU. Learning.

My good news is being in love. Dancing carefree. Laying in the sunshine. My good news is nature. Walking along a babbling brook, hiking to the top of a mountain. My good news is the smell of spring, the touch of the sun on my skin, the water swirling its hello beside me. My good news is closing my eyes and liking who I am and where I am going. My good news is coming home, and also coming back to SLU. My good news is the ability to choose to love every moment. My good news letting go and letting God. Loving people. My good news is the desire to never stop learning. My good news is curiosity for life. My good news is that I am alive. I am alive! I am oh-so-alive.

Things SLU

SLU (Saint Louis University) is an old sweatshirt. SLU is my comfortable pair of sandals, the ones that have formed perfectly to every groove of my feet. SLU is the smell of my house after I've been gone for 3 months. SLU is a hug from an old friend, a tingle in the pit of your stomach when you share a smile with a stranger. SLU is your favorite pair of jeans that fit jst right, soft and slightly worn from hundreds of washes. SLU is family. SLU is friends. SLU is experience. SLU is comfort, like a homecooked meal. SLU is 74 and sunny, even when it's 10 degrees outside. SLU welcomes me with the fountains, flowers, smiling faces. SLU is home away from home. 

Friday, March 27, 2009

Insignificant People

Topic from class: Who are the insignificant people in/around you?

As much as I hate it, the are a lot of people around me who I deem insignificant. And how dare I? Who am I, a small speck in the great sands of the universe, a short thread in the tapestry of life, to deem others insignificant? How dare I? Theirs is a life filled with hopes, dreams, heartache, troubles, joys, sorrows, just as mine.

And I wonder who I am insignificant for.

How many people see me without really looking, does anyone hear me and take the time to listen?

Often, or rather sometimes, I experience moments when I think about how insignificant I am in the Great Scheme of things. I'm just me. And sure, I help people, I love with wild abandon and seek to expand my horizon and give back some of this joy that overflows in my heart, but really, I'm just one. There are times when I think about how many people there are in the world, and I am just one. One who is privledged and one who is blessed, yet still one. And then I think, "But he loves me still. If the world were empty and I were the only one left, He still would have died for me." And my heart soars with the knowledge that I am significant. I am important! I am loved. 

And it's just me, here, living a life where I reach out to all the other significant people around me, and try to show them their own significance. 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A poem...

I hear
Many songs
rushing flowing ebbing
intricate layers
untold loss heartache woe
inexplicable joy
the sun greets me
and the wind asks to dance
the tulips are still sleeping but growing closer to waking
the ocean, hundreds of miles away,
roars in my ears, and I can almost taste it
eyes
bright cheerful alive
red itchy tired broken
crying sleeping
a bloody nose
winking down from a velvet blue sky
the moon reminds me of Big Band music
I waltz alone
for the poor are too tired
the broken too busy
picking up the pieces of their lives
and i am an actor
open
letting the emotions flow freely within
and i am a dancer
tiptoeing
a dance upon eggshells
and i am a singer
crying
my blues into a deaf audience
and i am a painter
fresh
depicting what I know, what I wish
and i am a child
bold
awed by the freshness and ingenuity of life
and i am an old woman
wise
missing the past, scared of change, loss
and i am a poet
alive
capturing images and feeding them to my heart
and i am you
and we are an audience
demanding others to act
but we are the actors
stuck
the dancers, hiding
the singer, mute
the painter, forgotten
the young, afraid
the old, silent
the poet, lost
waiting for opportunity to come find us
yet missing him when he arrives in an unexpected hat
and the tulips sleep
and the songs soar
and my heart beats
and i am alive
i am an actor
and i waltz alone
come, dance with me, with the wind

Hello, old friend

Wow, I haven't blogged in awhile. Not like I was so "committed" to this blog before. But that's all about to change. First, mainly because of James Canfield, my left half. He's wonderful, talented, funny, charming...the list goes on. Basically, we complete each other in the friendship realm. Anyway, he has started a blog (here's the link:) and it's fantastic and now I am inspired anew to come back to my own blog.

Another reason I am coming back to my old friend, this blog, is because I am taking the best class of my life, social justice, with Dr. Chmiel at SLU. It's my ultimate favorite class, hands down. I love it because we get to be real. The students all know each other's names (and many of us have never met before). We share life lessons, stories, reactions to things we read, and we write. We write in these lovely little composition books, and we can say whatever we want, because the comp books are for us. We look at important issues, like the war in Iraq, but we also share funny moments, times when we feel/see love. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in social justice. Anyway, being in this class and writing in my notebook has re-awakened my love of writing. I'll probably post some things I write in that notebook. And I am okay if no one likes what I write, or cares about what I write, or thinks the things I write are trash. That's okay! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. And I'm not writing for you (to be quite blunt). I'm writing for me. For the way it makes me feel to create.