calm as the owl glides / 11:22 pm

New inspiration... I've been listening to this song all day. I usually see imagery when I listen to music and this one puts me in a forest covered in snow. A beautiful woman with a beautiful voice and wonderful lyrics.

my heart begins to roar / 2:48 pm

Artwork: "Lifting the Curtain" by Betsy Walton; http://www.morningcraft.com/index.php

My newest song:

I haven't always felt quite comfortable in this skin

it's always seemed so fragile,

considering what's within

I haven't always been so confident and sure,

but now you're standing next to me

my heart begins to roar

Chorus:

'Cause I see you watching me,

a fire begins to burn inside

Kindled so deep, how could you know

the secret songs, the parts of places

I buried long ago

Yesterday I washed my hands of every little myth

I took a vow to say what I mean

when I'm feeling it

But tell me, truest friend, what should I become?

All my life I've worked toward something

I haven't been certain of

(repeat chorus)

This little heart of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

This little heart of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

This little heart of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

mocking bird, high in a tree, looks like you got the best of me / 1:05 am

This always happens right before I go back to school. I become an insomniac, looking at photographs and art and music and writing on the Internet and on my bookshelves. I begin to think of a million things I would rather do, both realistic and impossible. There's no time or means to explore the places I want to explore.

I can't run away into the woods.

I can't become a cowboy.

I can't go back in time.

I can't turn into an animal (yes, yes, I know humans are animals too).

I want to escape, but I don't even know what I'm running away from or running to.

I want to see new places; I want to ride horses again (this urge has come out of nowhere lately); I want to be better at writing music, at writing in general; I want to make a difference; I want to go on really long walks; I want to stop being awkward/shy; I want to stop criticizing my body; I want to be completely comfortable with myself; I want to balance my daydreaming with practicality; I want to understand my dreams. I've had dreams every night of break and I can actually remember many of them, but without any recognition or realization. Sometimes they're more vivid than real life experiences. I want to be interesting and I always feel dull.

But would I really be me if I changed? Maybe it's all part of my nature. I'm trying to understand myself better. Sometimes I'm a best friend to myself and sometimes I feel like a total stranger.

collage barrage / 12:16 pm

The following are a series of photos showing recently made collages. #1 was for Adam and is called "Exploring Internal Sounds," taken from a chapter in a 1971 music teaching textbook. The collage is about journeys, exploration, discovery, and growth. #2 is for Robin and is called "Purpose." It is about wonder, celebration, and friendship. #3 is for my parents and is entitled "The Lullabies, the Arms, the Sky" (taken from some of my lyrics). It is about memory, teaching, and caring. The hands show touching, opening doors, creating, and, ultimately, loving. Really, all of the collages are about love. Also, Robin's and my parents' collages include specially made mix CDs held in lunchbag pockets on the back of the cardboard pieces. The photos are not great quality, unfortunately.

#1.

#2.

#3.

baby bird / 10:15 am

I wrote a song for my Robin a little over a month ago. I gave her a recording of it for Christmas this morning and succeeded in making her cry. In this case, her crying means I wrote a good song because we are on different wavelengths when it comes to music... style, understanding, and how it affects us emotionally. Anyway, I took her tears as a compliment. I've only made her cry with music once before.

The song is meant to express both a sadness and a happiness... the regret I have for lost time, the frustration I sometimes feel when I can't relate to Robin, but also the present and future I look forward to spending with her, the friendship and love I feel will only grow. Even though we have our differences and occasionally still argue, she is one of the best friends I will ever have. Merry Christmas, Robin! I love you.

Oh, little bird, will you please tell me what you see?

You built your nest on a branch that I can't reach

And though we share the same tree

I am down here with the moss, while you live in the leaves

What can I do, what can I do?

I want to know you

I want to know you

Sweet little bird, you've carried time upon your wings

I've searched far and wide for the minutes and seconds and in-betweens

That we haven't got to share

It's never really fair

Where does it go, where does it go?

Let's take it slow

Let's take it slow now

Dear baby bird, many years from now

We'll both have gray hair and our limbs won't work so well

But if we still have tongues for talking

Our stories will carry us far

We'll be fine, we'll be fine

You'll still be mine

You'll still be mine

Say you'll still be mine

flashes of sudden remembrance / 11:23 pm

I really have no reason to share the covers of my new planner, but since I filled them with a few hours of work and semi-creativity (collage, paint, & two favorite quotes/poems), I thought I'd share... and I'd like to have photos of them in case I lose the planner, which is bound to happen at some point or another. I'm right up there with goldfish when it comes to forgetfulness.

The front cover is composed of puppies and legs (not my own). I chose the puppies because they remind me of playfulness and freedom--something I don't get enough of during my busy school year--and the legs for confidence. They are pale and fairly short like my own and I thought they'd remind me to love my body more, especially since I'm not comfortable with my legs. I painted rays coming from the feet to symbolize roads, going places, the strength of continuing on. The words are a W.S. Merwin poem entitled "Just Now." I posted this poem in one of my earliest blog entries. Here is a link to the poem: http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Just_Now.html. I often read it at school to give me different perspective and to remind myself that it will all be okay.

The back cover includes a bearded man's head to which I added paint and a snail-shaped maze (or maze-filled snail) approaching the word "love." The man appears to be watching the snail... I like to watch bugs so I can relate, I guess. The man also signifies a sort of presence, not a god necessarily, but a spirit of life, energy, thoughtfulness, observance. The snail symbolizes the complexity but also the simplicity of life, being made of an intricate maze, but also including a heart I painted in the middle to show what's at the center. The snail is approaching "love" because that is what I feel life is about when it comes down to it. I wrote out a quote from The Dharma Bums because it is one of my favorite Kerouac books and I relate to the nostalgia and constant juxtaposition of past/present/future I have felt for the last three or four years. The importance of remembering the past, but also the importance of remembering to remember the future. Here it is: "...like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstasy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass."

This would be so much better to talk about in person. It's difficult to write what it all means to me on a blog or anywhere really, but it's also good because I didn't even realize that my planner art was so personal to me until now... it all started because I was bored and wanted a "cool" planner... but it ended up being pretty meaningful.

wearin' out your walkin' shoes / 9:38 am

After months (actually almost a year) of my nagging, my Mom went on a walk with me today! (Below is evidence.) Penny went with us on our twenty minute walk. It is a cold but beautiful day and, even though she has doubts that a person can actually develop a walking addiction, Mom didn't complain and is still in a good mood... I'd even dare to say slightly better than before we left the house. Now Penny will have a walking buddy when I go back to school!

make love stay / 5:49 pm

I came here to find
a little place to hide
a little hole to call my own
with a different language nobody knows
but you came scratchin' at my door
and showed me what a heart is for

(chorus)
and I do believe
that love will set us free
the chains that bind our feet to the ground
will someday be our wings

and now the shadows settle
but the light we keep inside
moving through our bodies
nestled closely in the night
and where do you send your dreams, my darling?
I want to follow close behind

(repeat chorus)

I don't know the way
no, I don't know the way
but I'll try to make love stay
you and I will make love stay

musicophilia / 3:34 pm

About two months ago, I bought Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia. I've been wanting to read it, but haven't started until three minutes ago, due to a shortage of pleasurable and truly educational reading time. Already, I am underlining whole paragraphs and feeling excitement bubble up from Sacks' excellent research and writing on the effects of music on the body and the brain--on life. As a future music therapist, I feel it is extremely important for more people to understand how music affects us, even though there are still many unknowns. Music is something most people use every day, whether or not they are "musical," yet never stop to think about. Here is a long excerpt I just read:

"We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one. This takes many different forms. All of us (with very few exceptions) can perceive music, perceive tones, timbre, pitch intervals, melodic contours, harmony, and (perhaps most elementally) rhythm. We integrate all of these and 'construct' music in our minds using many different parts of the brain. And to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music. 'The inexpressible depth of music,' Schopenhauer wrote, 'so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.... Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.'

Listening to music is not just auditory and emotional, it is motoric as well: 'We listen to music with our muscles,' as Nietzsche wrote. We keep time to music, involuntarily, even if we are not consciously attending to it, and our faces and postures mirror the 'narrative' of the melody, and the thoughts and feelings it provokes.

Much that occurs during the perception of music can also occur when music is 'played in the mind.' The imagining of music, even in relatively nonmusical people, tends to be remarkably faithful not only to the tune and feeling of the original but to its pitch and temp. Underlying this is the extraordinary tenacity of musical memory, so that much of what is heard during one's early years may be 'engraved' on the brain for the rest of one's life. Our auditory systems, our nervous systems, are indeed exquisitely tuned for music. How much of this is due to the intrinsic characteristics of music itself--its complex sonic patterns woven in time, its logic, its momentum, its unbreakable sequences, its insistent rhythms and repetitions, the mysterious way in which it embodies emotion and 'will'--and how much to special resonances, synchronizations, oscillations ,mutual excitations, or feedbacks in the immensely complex, multilevel neural circuitry that underlies musical perception and replay, we do not yet know."

your love / 4:41 pm

Adam made me this video last night and called me at 2:20 am, so I could watch it. He is the sweetest part of my life and makes me the happiest person in the world even when I am down in the dumps. The song is by the Dovers.

something echoes, something burns / 11:02 pm

"I fell a long time, far below the Ring: it arced above me in Saturn's shadow, a thin hook of hunger over emptiness. The voice, reawakened, consoled me, in whispers urging: Conserve; shut down. With a weakness I name despair I obeyed; I allowed the voice to make its dull decisions everywhere about my frame. My vision dimmed; my radar muted. The bright bowl of Saturn, cupping its darkness, the darkness riven by lightning, the pale austral crown: these vanished; I was blind. The gyro dropped low and still lower, only a soft moan deep in the numbness that once was me. Only I and the whispering voice, and cold seeping into my frame...

...I remember endlessly, but every memory ends, and I return to the Ring, and with each return something turns within me: each moment, before I am aware of it, something vital has escaped, and with it my knowledge of what it might be. It turns within me, unmistakable as pain, but what it is I cannot say. I call it pain, but it is not pain. I call it turning, but it does not turn. I call it burning, I call it ice, I call it emptiness, falling, silence, dark, and it is all of these, but in the naming it turns again, it sheds whatever I have given it of brilliance or of cold, of nothingness or night. I call it sidelong, I call it limit; I call it error, wither, change. I conjure it with names, with images, fragments of memory, of desire: wind, and a flying fire. I call it smoke. None of these answers.

I solicit it with likenesses: it is a reflection on a stream, a mote within my eye, the moon upon a hill, the sun that still I cannot bring myself to see. It is nothing at all like these. I call it maimed.

I call, and call, and nothing answers...

...In the darkness, something struck me. For an instant, I rang like a bell: into the very core of me I rang, and all throughout that ringing I was not ringing, I was not falling, I was nothing but the sound of ice that rang. I was the falling, and so I could not fall."

- excerpt from "Aurora," In the Valley of the the Kings by Terrence Holt (currently reading)

oh to be young and feline! / 11:59 am

wild geese / 10:38 am

Something to keep in mind...

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

animal morning / 11:38 am

Yesterday, I felt as though I were fighting a couple of dragons but, by the time I went to sleep, I realized that it had actually been a very good day. I finished my Social Psychology paper and reading assignments, and was able to spend a lot of time with Adam, albeit while studying... we also took a break to go to Casa and he bought me my favorite: vegetarian chili with cheese and a warm tortilla. I felt bad because I was acting pretty negatively due to stress and other things, but he always helps me through my troubles, all my little mountains. I also got my computer back. Originally, I thought I was going to have to pay $840 for an "accidental damage" repair and I didn't even know how the damage happened! Instead, Apple fixed it for free and sent it back to me in five days! It was an extremely nice surprise.

Today, I woke up and drank tea at Adam's, and then went on a 30-40 minute run. I almost went through the neighborhood I always run through, but decided to go on a little adventure instead. I ran up a huge hill on Madison and tried to lose myself. Eventually, I came to Forest Street (I'd never been there before) and saw a really interesting house built against a large rock. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of it because I can't really describe it. Then a cat came up to me and I started petting him (?). He was very friendly and enjoyed licking and biting my arms, probably because of the salty sweat. I looked at his nametag and found out his name is Spit Hadley. Spit and I became fast friends and, when I had to leave, he jumped on my feet and attacked them, then trotted along beside me. Eventually, he stopped and I looked back feeling a little sad and wondering if he was disappointed. Straight ahead of me, I saw another cat that ran away and, two seconds later, a large female deer jumped out from behind a house! I wish every morning could be an animal morning.

to lay me down in silence easy, to be born again, to be born again / 12:37 am

Best friends forever.

Taken by Leslie on a happy Saturday afternoon before eating lunch with her and another wonderful friend, Evan.

umbilical cord / 10:34 am

This morning I really meditated for the first time (alone) and it's made all the difference. I don't care that it's not sunny outside or that I have a list of things to do. I am overwhelmed with love and I know what's important to me.

moats and boats and waterfalls / 9:33 am

All I want is music and family and the people who are truly caring and real and kind to me. Instead, there are office hours, two classes, studying, group meetings, and a Telephone-a-Taco fundraiser (!) waiting for me... all day. Couldn't I just take a day for myself? To read, to make something, to use my hands for something other than typing and writing about conflict theories and diffusion of sound. One could argue that I am wasting typing this little entry, but I don't have time to do anything bigger or more time-consuming... this is it. All of this mindlessness better be worth it. If nothing else, I can always make tacos.

I just want to feel fulfilled, but how?

run on, run on, & you'll rule your day / 1:56 pm

Today has been absolutely breath-taking so far... literally! I ran my first 5k today, which was one of my goals this year. It wasn't until a couple hours before the race that I decided to go through with it. I consistently ran about three miles two or three days a week during the summer, but school and lack of sleep have made it hard to continue that pattern recently. Adam encouraged me to do what felt right and I imagined how my day could go: (1) I run and maybe lose a couple of hours of studying, but feel happy and motivated or (2) I don't run and I still lose a couple of hours wasting time and feel discouraged. So, obviously, I made the right decision.

The race was for the Empower Campaign, which is a "holistic, school based initiative designed to help all children, including orphans and vulnerable children, receive a quality education in Africa." Many of the children they help have no parents due to AIDS. Here is the website: http://www.empowercampaign.org/Home.html. Clare, Shaena, Dee Dee, and Jaime were there too. Adam's really fast so he ran ahead, as did Jaime and Dee... Clare, Shaena, and I ran the first two miles together and then I took a thirty-second walking break due to moon cramps, and finished the last mile alone. My time was 30 minutes, 12 seconds, which isn't extremely fast but is pretty good for me. I feel satisfied and proud.

Now I'm in my room, eating lunch before my shower and looking at this website: http://beforeidieiwantto.org/about.html. It's a collection of polaroid photographs of people with their thoughts about what they want to do before they die written beneath (I love stuff like that--seeing different faces and hearing dreams). It makes me realize that, in a very small way, I accomplished something I wanted to do this year... and therefore something I wanted to accomplish before I die. Maybe a 10k will be next year's goal... we'll see!

Off to the shower. Then a nice day of studying with Adam and a continuous cup of tea.

Also, I saw the movie "Cold Souls" with Adam and Clare last night and I really really enjoyed it. I like Paul Giamatti so I expected I'd like it, but I didn't think it would be so thought-provoking. In short, it was about one's soul and what it would be like to not have one or to switch souls. It made me realize, or remember, that I should be very thankful for my soul--my self without body--and should acknowledge the beauty of other people's souls. It reminded me of "Eternal Sunshine" with the concept of removing something intangible (memory, soul).

don't need a sword to cut through flowers / 1:32 am

Today would be John Lennon's 69th birthday. I want to write a meaningful and poignant essay in his honor, rant about how much he's inspired me since the 5th grade. I want to do something to further the message of peace and love and equality he and Yoko so beautifully spread to the world (something Yoko has continued to do for many years - imaginepeace.com!). I'm at a loss though... it seems futile to try to put into words the joy and change his music, his words, and his ideals bring me.

Sometimes I also feel dumb because I am a 21-year old girl in 2009 (once an 11-year old girl) and I never lived through that time. I never knew the Sixties, I've never come close to participating in a peace rally or movement, and this makes me feel like everything I want to express is illegitimate. I'm another one of millions of people, old and young, all over the world remembering John Lennon, remembering his message, etc. And then I think: isn't that the point? We often forget about our similarities, choosing to focus on negative differences and discriminating against cultures other than our own. Often, we are prejudiced against the very unique qualities that make our differences so wonderful. Can you imagine what life would be like without these differences?

When it comes down to it, a birthday is just a birthday and John Lennon was just another man fighting for peace. Everyone is born and dies in their own time and anyone can stand up for what is right... but, for some reason, John's words and music and actions have always stood out to me and have always inspired me to look at things in a new way, to live the right way, to realize that it's never too late for change. Bagism, the acorns, "War Is Over," cutting of hair, bed-ins, penetrating lyrics... art so distinct yet simple that it continues to reach people (who take the time to think about it) even today.

Sometimes I think people forget how easy it is to live peace, to live love. John and Yoko (and many others before them) always stressed that all you have to do is to "think peace, act peace, spread peace." Think the word "love" and direct it to someone in the form of an action. Give a hug or smile, write a letter (emails are okay too), pick up the phone, help people in any way you can. Never take life for granted and never take other peoples' lives for granted.

And so that is why I love John Lennon and Yoko Ono. That is why I want to remember him today.

Also, his sense of humor: "TWO VIRGINS: Wonsaponatime there were two Balloons called Jock and Yono. They were strictly in love-bound to happen in a million years. They were together man. Unfortunatimetable they seemed to have previous experience, which kept calling them one way oranother (you know howitis). But they battled on against overwhelming oddities, includo some of there beast friends. Being in love they cloong together even the more man but some of the poisonessmonster of outrated buslodedshithrowers did stick slightly and they occasionally had to resort to the dry cleaners. Luckily this did not kill them and they weren't banned from the olympic games. They lived hopefully ever after, and who could blame them."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You know, give peace a chance, not shoot people for peace. All we need is love. I believe it. It's damn hard, but I absolutely believe it. We're not the first to say, 'Imagine no countries' or 'Give Peace A Chance', but we're carrying that torch, like the Olympic torch, passing it from hand to hand, to each other, to each country, to each generation. That's our job." - John Lennon

"You know, this life is speeded up so much, and the whole world is getting tenser and tenser because things are just going so fast, you know, so it's so nice to slow down the rhythm of the whole world, just to make it peaceful." - Yoko Ono

This is a great little thing to look at also: http://www.imaginepeace.com/imaginepeace.html.

the howling necessity: love dogs / 9:20 am

What I need to keep in mind this week (and throughout life too):

"On Howling" by Coleman Barks

My sufi teacher, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, when he saw me, and knowing my name was Barks, would go into a wolf howl for a joke and a teaching. He mirrored some need to howl that he saw there walking in. He himself would often break into spontaneous praise songs while sitting on his bed. Crying out loud for help is Rumi's point. With that vulnerable breaking open in the psyche, the milk of grace starts to flow.

"Love Dogs" by Rumi

One night a man was crying,

   Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

"So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?"

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick green foliage.

   "Why did you stop praising?"

"Because I've never heard anything back."

    "This longing

you express is the return message."

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness

that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs

no one knows the names of.

Give your life

to be one of them.

when Monday comes, I want nothing / 5:21 pm

Sometimes when I'm listening to music--a particular song in a particular place--I go somewhere altogether different from where I actually am, different from reality, I guess. Some of these places I'm able to go back to just by listening to the song, but sometimes the place is lost forever. I was listening to Yo La Tengo's "Everyday" just now and, even though I don't like the song anymore than I do some of their other songs, it took me somewhere other than the Donkey, other than this floppy couch, other than Athens, other than Ohio (?). I'm not sure what I'm getting at. As soon as the song ended, I wondered why I began writing this. It goes that quickly. Anyway, here are the lyrics (maybe they're relevant):

I want summer's sad songs behind me.
I want a laugh a minute, without fail
Want to be Paul Le Mat in 1980
Looking to forget tomorrow, looking everyday.

I want to see you put your hands together.
I want to cross my heart
I want to hope to die
I hear Kate Moss talk, she talks to me
She's looking for a new beginning everyday.

When Monday comes I want nothing
Come Tuesday morning I want the same
The days and nights fly by
Looking to embrace the nothing, of the everyday

into my arms / 5:35 pm

"... and I believe in Love

And I know that you do too

And I believe in some kind of path

That we can walk down, me and you

So keep your candlew burning

And make her journey bright and pure

That she will keep returning

Always and evermore

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms, O Lord

Into my arms."

- Nick Cave

I've had a wonderful weekend.

Thursday night: Rob, Adam, and I met at Casa for dinner, where I had my usual bowl of chili (and this time a salad with paw-paw dressing!). Then we went to the Donkey for coffee and Adam surprised me with Yo La Tengo tickets! The three of us went to see their outstanding performance at Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville. It was a magical night and Yo La Tengo was even better than I expected.

Friday night: (see above picture taken by the lovely Leslie) Last night was wonderful! Leslie, Adam, and I ate dinner together and it was one of the most delicious meals I've had in a very long time. Adam made a vegan Romanian recipe of beans and rice pilaf with mushrooms, carrots, parsley, dill, onions, tomato sauce, and vegan sausage. It was truly unbelievable and I couldn't stop eating! We also shared some of our favorite stories and poems and traded music. I've been so busy already this quarter, but just taking a night or two to spend eating a good meal with good friends makes it better. 

Saturday (today): I also got to see Ned today when he came to pick up some of Adam's stuff to take back to West Chester. We all ate lunch at Casa, where I ordered an Autumn Quesadilla (cheese, tortilla, apples, and spices)... mmm. I just finished writing some abstracts, which is why I'm allowing myself the time to write a brief summary of my weekend. But, I must be off to a Cardboard City (Habitat for Humanity) event in an hour. 

beyond the door / 10:21 pm

So it goes... I am feeling positive again already. The moon has released me and I'm ready for a fresh start. Today began with an 8 to 9:30 early morning class, but I'm a morning person and it was very enjoyable. I grabbed my coffee and sat down to the lovely Ms. Steele, my favorite professor at OU and my music therapy role model. I love her excitement and energy, and she always gives me hope. If I can be as good of a music therapist and teacher as her someday, I will be proud. The class is about the psychology of music and how music affects the brain and body. The course explains the very roots of why music is therapeutic and brain-changing, and therefore life-changing for so many people. After eating lunch with Adam, I did my first homework assignments at the Donkey where I saw Sam, Matt, Clare, Jeff, Alice, Dan, and a few people I'm probably forgetting. Then Adam came in and I snuck up behind him and squeezed him. We ate dinner together after that and I finished a run a couple of hours ago. It felt good. Everything feels pretty good right now.

"This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm." 

These are some of the final words from Written On the Body by Jeanette Winterson, a book I read last year. The reader never learns the name or gender of the narrator and, by the end of the story, it is apparent that when it comes to love and emotional-physical-spiritual-sensual longing, name or gender don't matter. It is described as "love stripped of clichés and categories, as a phenomenon as visceral as blood and organs, bone and tissue." It's not my favorite book in the entire world, but it is worth reading and even buying. I put the quote above on a watercolor/collage piece I made Adam last year because it makes me think of hope, grabbing life by its head and fiercely holding on. Sometimes I don't know whether to grab and hold on or let go and let it carry me (riding the wave). I think a balance would be good.