creative bit: wait

Corner of 6th and Congress.  She waits for the bus like she waits for love.  She knows it's coming but she's early; her faith rides on it, but it's just taking her to another destination.  She just wants somebody to walk next to, somebody to share a seat with.  So she settles; she gives it away hoping in time her love will be returned.  But she knows it never will.  She's battered and scarred; they left holes in her fragile heart.  Some days she feels like she's all fragments held together by children's glue, an amalgamation of cheap love and insecurity, hopes and dreams and wishes on stars.  She's waiting for the day she'll be healed, waiting for the next boy to come fix her. 

The bus comes, but no number of quarters will take her to her happily ever after.  So she drops in her change and slides into her usual seat, looks out the same window and watches the familiar buildings rush by. The city never changes.

But she's different this time.  At least she feels different.  Is she really different?

The all-too-common tornado of thoughts inside her head rages, but she silences it.  Looks down at the cheap, tarnished heart bracelet her last last boyfriend-savior gave her and pulls it away from her wrist until it breaks.  Until she breaks.  Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, she touches the inside of her wrist, feels her heartbeat pulsing, pumping blood to and from her hands, fingers.  Slowly she opens her eyes again and sees the same world; she sits in her usual seat, looks out the same window and watches the familiar buildings rush by.  The city never changes.

But she's free.

creative bit: clarity

She used to know where she was going.

She used to know who she was.

She used to know what she was going to do with her life.

Now she sat in a coffee shop, a fragmentary, fragile girl.  So many paths lay before her, each taking her to a totally different place, a new adventure she'd never expected.  So many paths lay behind her, some simply ended, some blocked for one reason or another.  She felt at once both unnecessary and as if too much was demanded of her.  At any moment, she felt, she might burst into a million different colored pieces that would shoot across the globe and she would finally feel satisfied.  But instead she sat, her body in one piece, her mind in a million.

Catharsis has a funny way of coming right at the exact moment we need it most.  She took a sip of her coffee, looked out the window at the busy street wet with the recent rain, and knew.

why so serious/art/generalities

I.

I think I take myself too seriously.  Which is an odd thing for me to say, as I often wonder if I even know how to be serious about anything.  But I've realized as of late that I am far too serious when it comes to my art.  And by my art, I mean my writing.  I have ridiculous rules, ridiculous standards, and ridiculous expectations.  I'll lay them out for you, as a sort of humble confession in attempts to abandon them.  

For one thing, I absolutely will not even open this blog/a document/blank page if I am not feeling inspired and creative.  As a writer, let me just say that inspiration is incredibly hard to come by.  There are days (many, far too many days) when no amount of hot coffee in my favorite mug, no song that inspires me and makes me feel like I'm a vital and yet insignificant piece of humanity, no ounce of artistic frustration aimed at the state the world is in can make me feel inspired and creative enough to spin out some chunk of my heart and soul into some well-chosen (yet often inadequate) words.  Waiting for inspiration is like sitting in your room by yourself and waiting for life to start for you - it doesn't just happen...usually.  You have to get up and make inspiration for yourself, by demanding it from a world that is so lacking in it. 

Much more despicable is my criticism of writing that is not my own.  I tend to criticize my own writing as if the entire world were waiting on the edge of their seats, waiting for me to pop out another work of genius (HAH).  So I feel justified (it's disgusting, really) in criticizing other work equally.  I've yet to decide whether this next part is a vice or a virtue, but I don't criticize work by other writers in terms of their concepts, ideals, the big picture.  Rather, I judge them on far sillier things - like misspelling, not-quite-stellar grammar, and style that's lacking in, well, style.  This may not sound as grave as it really is to you, because you're not inside my head.  But I'm quite the legalist when it comes to technical writing things.  And I'm not even really a technical person.  Where I decided I have the right to judge based on silly technical mistakes I'll never know.  I'm trying to be better though... Also, as a side note, I love writing sentence fragments and using semi-colons in inappropriate places.  I am my own enemy.

On to my expectations for my own writing, which correspond to my inspiration problem.  It seems that whenever I sit down to write, I expect that whatever I write will be some groundbreaking, stereotype-shattering, staggeringly beautiful, deep, soul-touching piece.  That someone's life will be changed, or something like that.  And when I say I "expect" this, I mean that I require it.  If it isn't either soulish or mind-blowing, I will not write it.  Which is just dumb,  because I've never in my life written anything mind-blowing and while my stuff might be soulish to me because it is a piece of my soul, there is no guarantee that anyone else will find it soulish (Except my bestfriendsistertwin. She is an avid reader/understander.)

What I have to remind myself over and over again is the fact that everyone else creates for the same reason that I create - because we all have this crazy view of the world.  We see things that others don't see, or, we see the same things but from a different point of view.  And subsequently, we feel the need to express that view to the rest of the universe, using whatever we can get our selfish, grubby hands on.  For me, it's words.  For others it's film, paint, garbage from dumpsters, a guitar, the human body...I could go on forever, because anything can be art.  It just has to get into the right hands.

II.

If I had to pick a few words to describe my life right about now it would go something like this:

Certainty. Curiosity. Self-discovery. Christmas. Warmth. Wariness. Waiting. And, um...silly.  Silly is always on the list.  It is one of the few constants in my life.  Certainty: I am moving to a new city in roughly 6 months.  That used to sound terrifying, but now I just feel like it's what I'm supposed to do.  I mean, I'm still nervous about it and I still can't see the specifics, but I already feel like I'm there.  Curiosity: I have no idea what I'm doing with my future life.  Some days I feel like I'm way behind everyone else because of that.  But tonight I just feel curious as to what God wants me to do.  It's amusing to me (right now, at least) how much He makes me wait, because He knows I'm basically the most impatient person on this planet.  Self-discovery: I'm learning a lot of things about myself right now.  I'm almost 20; that's what I'm supposed to be doing, right?  Christmas: Self-explanatory, but I'll expound at least.  This is absolutely, hands-down, my favorite season of the year.  I don't even know where to begin.  It would take an entire post to explain it all, which I'll probably write after finals are over.  But in a nutshell, it is warm and expectant and full of good things that restore my faith in humanity.  And because my reindeer headband and the amount of times I've seen Elf in my life are not frowned upon.  Warmth: See Christmas...  Wariness: I am bone-tired.  I've felt tired before, but this is a different kind of tired.  I think I'm just past the peak of it though; it's beginning to dissipate into expectancy and contentment.  Waiting: The future is always so imminent and yet so distant.  I love it and I hate it.  I love it because I can see it, but I still have time to enjoy where I'm at right now.  I hate it because I can see it but I can't have it yet, I have to sit still until I'm ready for it (or it's ready for me?).  I am the world's worst at sitting still.  

Tonight is one of those nights that I have a sort of sing-songy, lalala, whimsical outlook which I am always wishing I could transpose into words.  But I guess that's part of the beauty of it: it's so my own that I can't even come up with the words to make someone else understand it.  Although I'm sure you've got your own version of the singsongy/lalala/whimsical outlook that's all your very own too.