Life Beautiful

Out of all the forms of social media, I think tumblr is my favorite. In high school, I wanted to work for a magazine. Initially I thought I wanted to be editor-in-chief; not because I knew what the editor-in-chief did but because I knew I wanted to probably be "in charge" because that's just me.  Then once I got to college I decided I wanted to be the art editor. Again, not based on anything related to the job description aligned with this occupation, but because I wanted to "be in charge of making things beautiful." That was the thought that consumed me, and to some extent it still does.

Not a single day passes without me photographing something. Thinking a poem or singing a song. I am a total creative. I enjoy the process of making, of fretting and getting too involved only to eventually step out of the way and letting the art create itself. I love going into a piece with an idea and abandoning it completely in favor of the emergent. I recognize that not everyone does this, but then anyone can create art but not all are artists. 

When I think of the future I'd like to have I approach it much like I do a piece. I have a rough sketch but when the moment(s) come, I (try) to surrender to the moment. It is the reason for my moods.  Anyone who knows me knows I am a very emotional and "moody" person and while the latter has a negative connotation I am not sure how else to describe it.  I feel everything at 200% and make no apologizes for it.  As much as it probably annoys some, others find it courageous, I don't really think about it or how others will react to it, I just am.

I wrote the following to a friend today, People really think I am crazy or an idealistic dreamer when I live [as if it were impossible to fail].  But I LIVE my dreams. And no matter how many times you tell people about the law of attraction and unwavering faith...they want to believe it's a magic trick inaccessible to mere mortals. Because it's easier to believe that than to come face to face with the FACT that we have the power to create new realities. I was saying, in a round about way, that not everyone is an artist.

Now, I do not believe that it is some talent only tangible to a select few, I think that we all find art/creation in our own ways.  But through those mediums it is a covenant with us and something much bigger, much more powerful, it is us and pure grace in those moments. When we craft, and we do so with intention and reckless abandon be it through cooking a meal, working through a garden, composing a song or humming a lullaby, sanding wood, or through the brushstrokes of a painting it is a walk with God.

The things that I am drawn to, I love lines, I love dance and movement, I love the human body the shape and the form, I love color and I love black and white, I love food that looks like it tastes, I love smells that leap into my veins, I love stories and songs and songs that tell stories. I create a life full of it.  Who is to say I cannot be a professor who teaching through creation?  No one can stand in the places that I stand and give what I give because I was created for this moment.  As were you in your places, spaces, and time.  I believe that.

So when I think of my future home. I can smell it, spices and oatmeal. Brown leather couches that swallow you swathed with warm blankets open to the kitchen and never far from natural light. Photos of loved ones on the walls, frames that are mix matched and yet coordinate together perfectly.  A kitchen table built by hand, our initials carved into the knot in the middle.  I have full access to that life and yet, as much as I love it I am willing to throw a bucket of water on it all until the paint drips down to the ground leaving only wet, bare possibility.

Terri told me recently that I have a very lively way of writing. I do not think she meant it was necessarily upbeat. I think she meant my writing is living. It has a pulse and a name, and you can call it what you want.