"In a world which contains the present moment," said Neville, "why discriminate? Nothing should be named lest by so doing we change it. Let it exist, this bank, this beauty, and I, for one instant, steeped in pleasure. The sun is hot. I see the river. I see trees specked and burnt in the autumn sunlight. Boats float past, through the red, thrrough the green. Far away a bell tolls, but not for death. There are bells that ring for life. A leaf falls, from joy. Oh, I am in love with life!"

[The Waves, Virginia Woolf]

For me, rebirth and new life comes with the Fall.

[She was my muse, you could say. Now she's my memory.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxm50mP07_8

"Don't you love missing people? Having people to miss?"

Rivers and roads, rivers till I reach you

Moving on isn't so much about closing the doors in your heart. It's about opening them, and letting the air circulate freely together - the old and the new, the past and the present, the painful and the hopeful, the sad and the happy.
I don't want my heart to be  closets and corners. I want it to be open halls and rooms.

He makes me new, He is making me new.

I know that Christianity isn't about "becoming who you want/need to be," it's only about Jesus. But part of the freedom we have with Him is being able to have a person to be. As long as it doesn't conflict with His perfect laws, we can be however we want to be.

Live every day like you have a purpose. Because you do.

It's better to go to sleep on an empty stomache with the knowledge that there'll be breakfast in the morning than to go to sleep full not knowing when the next meal will be.

I want to start running again

I could see for miles, miles, miles

I drove until I found some fields. Until I could see the sky and hear the cicadas. All I needed was some beauty, something real. I just listened to music, sang, drove. Stopped to pick some sunflowers from the side of the road. Maybe that's illegal? I don't know. I didn't get in trouble.

I thought a lot about home. How I miss those roads. Some part of me longs to back, and some part of me doesn't want to. Some part of me wants to say goodbye to everything, forever. I miss...something. Something that hasn't happened yet.

I'm moving, in a week and a half, to a brand new town. I only know a few people there, and, honestly, I probably won't see them much. Brand new people. I know there'll be uncanny connections that make me feel like I can't go far enough away. And yet, everything's behind me. I'm moving, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It's the best feeling I've ever felt, I think.

My need for change, for spontenaity, kind of scares me a little. I just finished my last adventure, just a few weeks ago, and I'm ready for a new one. Maybe, since the last year of my life has been so - changy - I can convince myself that settling down for a while is an adventure in itself? Sure. I can live with that.

On the wings of winter

To say that the last few months of my life have been devoid of inspiration would be an understatement.

I put down my camera around February and have barely touched it up until recently. I've been using my mom's old Minolta 35mm, though, and I have been pretty pleased with it. But the bond with my camera, and, more importantly, photography, has been pretty much severed.

I'm not typically one who talks about "inspiration" or losing and gaining it. I kind of thought of hobbies, talent, and passion as three separate things. Any photographic skills I posses have nothing to do with passion or "expressing" myself. Or, that's what I used to think.

I've been trying to re-build my relationship with my passions and hobbies. I did a photoshoot for a family on Sunday, and it went really well. I've been lugging my camera around everywhere with me again. I've been seeing moments as photographs again.

I've even been playing music again. I never really stopped playing my cello, though, admittedly it was mostly out of guilt knowing my parents are paying a monthly bill for me to keep it.

I found the sheet music to one of my soul songs a few days ago, and I've been working on it with the piano. It's difficult; it will take me a long time to master. The point is, I'm motivated to play it. I long for those notes to come out of my fingers, not just into my ears.

I've been wanting to paint very badly, as well. I haven't really had time to, but the important thing is that I want to. I want to create, even if to other people (and usually to myself as well), it's just blobs of pain on a canvas.

It's like I'm crawling back to an ex or something. I feel like I'm asking forgiveness from music, art, and books. Forgiveness for leaving; forgiveness for closing myself off emotionally from even them. I know I sound crazy. But I have a relationship with these things.

It's such a sweet release. Putting my finger to the trigger of my camera, having the knowledge that I know all it's nooks and crannies - I know it better than I know myself, it seems. It's an old part of my soul that, for some reason, I let go of several months back.

I feel as though having these things in my life restores some sort of normalcy. As I'm coming to re-know myself (another thing I don't usually believe in - the idea of 'knowing' or 'finding' oneself), I'm allowing these things to be in my life again.

I haven't come so far as to write music anymore. I don't know if I ever will again. But it's slowly seeping back into my soul, on the wings of winter, it seems. The blood of strangers that's been flowing in my veins for awhile now is being replaced with my own blood - the familiar warmth of myself.