Pull me out from inside, I am ready

Sometimes these moods sneak up on me, and I can't shake them.

Like today. Today has been an odd day. Slippery in a way. It began well enough, but slowly, oh so slowly, it turned sour and distasteful. I feel needy. Or, to put it better, I feel in need of something... I know not what. Love. Care. Security? I keep trying to get a grip on what exactly it is that's bothering me, but I'm truly at a loss. It could be the ache in my legs from running yesterday, or the ache in my deformed foot. It could be the lock on my bike that is now broken, thanks to Mike "Cushman" (ugh), whom I let borrow it for far too long and who probably broke it in some drunken stupor he is known for indulging. I cannot now get my bike off of the rail at work. It is stuck there, tied to the metal with a thickly wrapped combination cable. Thank god for my neighbor Jenn who came in as I was leaving with her date and saved me from having to walk home. Needless to say, it would have been a long, long walk.

I will try instead to focus on positive things tonight. I had a wonderful talk with Jess on the phone this afternoon. It is a saving grace that our lives always seem to parallel one another. If there is anyone I can count on understanding me and my (our) life, it is this woman. It's been this way since we were little girls... once remarking with wonder on the silly fact that we both ate a brown sugar pop tart for breakfast with iced tea, and were both January girls. *Twins*.

(photo taken last fall)

And I had a homegrown, bib lettuce salad for lunch today! It was fantastic. A little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It needed nothing more. The salad was perfect.

Maybe what I am beginning to realize, is that I can make the kind of life I always idealized for myself, by myself. I don't need a man who will "bring" it to me, who will "inspire" it in me. It's all here, every last bit of it -- is all inside of me. God. The earth. These dreams. Maybe I still struggle with loneliness; that is to be expected. It's a human condition. Memories weasle their way in and crack more places in the broken heart, but you know, most of the time, it's really all okay. I find the beauty in the world. I can; I do. Let me not forget that. Let me not forget that there are always moments when I can dream, and live, when I wake in the morning and take a deep, healthy breath of fresh air and smile with all the gladness of my soul. Life is what you make of it. Sometimes I sculpt the clay poorly... but the wheel is still spinning. So sculpt some more, I say. Sculpt some more.

I was thinking tonight, also, about something my poetry professor (the poet laureate of GA) said to me two semesters ago.... music, is much like poetry. "Take Bob Dylan, for instance. Much of his music is real poetry. The difference between him and us, is that he gets the good fortune of singing the beauty, whereas we still have to work it out on paper and trust that, that paper, will convey the depths of our spirits."

Tonight's music: Girl in the War, by Josh Ritter; and the Counting Crows ((both are so, so goddamn good))