awake awake, there's no use for pretend, these birds are departing on autumns end

I am sitting in the library – I feel as if I am a little fish in a large fishbowl – surrounded by clear glass, curious eyeballs, and fake surroundings that exist only for appearance sake. The air is filled with stifled coughs, noisy page turners, the zipping of new backpacks, and exhausted sighs.

I am putting off the schoolwork that I know is potentially taking over my moderately free schedule. There is so much more to study and witness now at this time than there is to learn from any stale book.

I don’t know if my outlook is anywhere remotely optimistic when it comes to the perception my new ‘educational environment’. I do not appreciate the people that I have no other alternative but to observe in my every day meanderings. Orange skin, blinding teeth, painted eyes, clicking nails, sagging pants, cigarette smoke and a ‘better than thou’ attitude fill my senses. I don’t feel welcome here. I miss the places that I have yet to have a chance to see. India, Russia, Africa, South America.

I want to fit in – to find a home somewhere. Not a house, not an apartment, not an address, not a dwelling, not a living space; but a home. I have searched for such a place in and out of tired dreams, in lands far away from this. Hoping to someday feel within my soul a change – a binding – to a physical situation; I yearn for that. I thought at one point I had found it within the corners of a world. It was beautiful there, filled with light and promise. For one time in a very long and empty time I was able to feel the love that people actually had the desire to have me feel.

But I had to leave what could have been my home, and when I look back on it now, the feeling in my soul was close to what I ached for, but not right. Not yet.

I’ll have to keep searching. Perhaps one day I will discover what I seek. Until then, I will remain in an uncomfortable and lonely silence; filled with hope, faith, and promise.

~C

war is not the answer; the answer is within you.

I did it.

I have traveled.

I went to the moon – fanatical ideas considered to be mad, made reality – and came back with alien eyes. I stumbled upon a land of dreamers and forgotten tales, with ambiguity written in painted smiles. I pushed myself through the looking glass, only to find just how small I was in comparison to God’s furniture.

Museums: bursting with the screams of the dead, filling your mind with their cries – their sacrifices. I saw the art of those of such skill, such intellect and power as to have their work preserved in reverence as their only lasting memory in time. Haunting the shadowed hallways of my mind.

I was in a hurricane – and learned how to swim whilst on solid ground. I was in an earthquake – where I learned just how human the faceless people around me are. I was in a lightning storm – where it was chased; and defeated by closed eyelids.

What a wonderful week.

School starts tomorrow. I continue my quest for employment with no luck thus far.

But ah, what a life. To wake with sun melting like butter on my face, and a day filled with opportunity and promise. The air swirls around me, wrapping me in its playful embrace. The new day is not a start of yet another rising sun, but a continuance of this story that you are writing in your mind. It will never end.

Let it not end without adventure, true love, bravery, honor, and the occasional sword fight.

~C

i don't need a home, just a compass and a map.

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.

Oh, what a life I have lived thus far! How much more of this joy will my heart be capable of bearing before I burst?

Not much.

My soul has expanded beyond my previous comprehension, and is continuing to grow.

I live somewhere else entirely now. I so wish that I could tell you that I am off in my own wonderland and solitude – lost in a maze of dancing trees entwined, engulfed in a swirling mist and surrounded by gatherings of frost bitten roses; delightful petrichor permeating the air – but the reality is nearly as pleasing.

I have moved since last I was here.

Twice.

The first move was out of a fairy tale. I lived in an enchanted land of time; filled with secrets in the trees, wisdom in the water, and music on the lips. I fell in love with the earth there, and it touched me in ways I could never fully describe, or even begin explaining to understanding.

What a wonderful year it was. I came with nothing but the clothes on my back, and left with nothing but memories.

Now I am moved elsewhere.

Another time, another city, another life.

It is so different here now. The air is filled with a sense of newness. The lack of mystery saturates my senses, and I am overwhelmed with a great sense of loss for what I have given up and left behind. But my soul must always be in a state of movement. Ever growing, ever learning. When that growing slows, I must change. I must find an escape.

I have been strengthened and molded by a love of God and dusty books in hidden shops. I need to continuously remind myself that it isn’t where I am that matters, because I will always have what I need with me. My body, my spirit, and my Lord. Everything else is inconsequential. Allow me to ponder and make a list of what I do enjoy about my new home.

C.S. Lewis on a grand scale. Commentary of many children. Local music artists. Raspberries are delicious. Reflections in a lake. Sunny skies and rainy days. I have a balcony. Empty space and the imagination to fill it. Adventures playing on my closed eyelids. Perhaps I will get a bike. And a typewriter.

Too much goodness here. And it is just waiting for me to discover it all.

Take a breath and hold it, do not let it go,

Keep in all your sorrows; lock up all your woes.

Time will slow to stop; the world is standing still,

And you and I away escape are lost amid the thrill.

~C