Perfect Imperfections

Before I was born, God scattered all the pieces of my heart to the wind, to the four corners of the earth. I was born already broken...

I must travel because that's where my heart is - out there, in the world with the people, floating with the wind across mountains and plains and deserts... a part of me is missing when I am here. And so, if I am to serve, if I am to give fully of myself, then I must travel. For it is only when I have found and gathered all the pieces to my heart that I can truly be whole, and that I can truly give of myself.

*** Somewhere, someday, I shall find my soul. And when I do, all the world shall be at peace.***

Musings Regarding Clouds and the Properties of Thoughts

This is an excerpt from something I wrote a few weeks ago, 35,000 feet in the air on an airplane.   

There is a strange conundrum involved with openmindedness - if your mind is too open, every thing, every value, every philosophical concept, every image and memory, all your reasons and your emotions and your logic will simply lift up and drift away (for thoughts are light, you see - lighter than air - they're what keep you from sinking to the depths of the earth). Suddenly, with your mind open, you'll have nothing left, your head will be an empty pool, left to dry in the desert sun. You'll be a hollow, echoing shell. 

So what, you ask, is the solution? Keep some things locked away in the closet of your soul. Figure out what it is that you must believe in, what your rules are, your non-negotiables, establish yourself to yourself, and then lock them away where no one can touch them or disturb them. Take them out - it's important to not let them collect dust - use them, exercise them, walk them or drive them or throw balls to them and watch them play fetch, but always always hold on to them, and always put them back. 

And when someone challenges you, when somebody, somehow, damages or disables one of those prized possessions, or when you suddenly discover that the sky is actually green rather than blue, when you find (or when someone abruptly points it out to you) that you were wrong, that there's an error or a fallacy, exchange the thought. Take the old one out, throw it away let it float in your brain with a question mark, re-gift it to someone else, or drop it off on the street corner. But never ever let that closet find itself empty. Never put everything out with question marks all at once. For if you don't have anything locked away, if you don't have anything you don't unquestionably believe in (even if you might be wrong), you can't think. And if you can't think, you can't exist. And once you lose your existence, how do you regain it?

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Clouds are such unique and invigorating forces of nature - they appear soft, cushion-y, wispy things of fantasy, of dreams, of heaven and imagination. They appear as distant rescuers, promises of greener, more fruitful tomorrows. They appear as funny shapes, as shade on warm days, as gloom, as anger, as relief. They can be ominous, looming things, promises of danger and fear and destruction. They begin as invisible droplets, building and moving and building and moving offering everything and nothing to those below. Growing exactly where God intended into grand and enormous, marvelous beings with a depth and a width and a purpose and a personality. And then, exactly at God's design, they drop when and where and exactly how much they're supposed to. The clouds cry their lamentations to the heavens and the earth and Hades, and mourn the passing of time, the loss of a loved one, the turbulence movement brings. And then they disappear, lingering no longer than necessary, no longer than they are supposed to, and move on. The shadows linger a moment longer, and then those too, are gone. The only memory of the cloud is that the grass smiles and stands a bit straighter, dressed in it's best, most colorful outfit. 

Perhaps we should be more like clouds

New Beginnings, New Endings

Oops.  

It recently occurred to me that I had not posted on my blog in quite some time.  Not that I've stopped writing, but you see I've simply not had time to share my thoughts with anyone other than the select few people I show my journal to (which at this point, consists of what I think is a grand total of 3 people).  It wasn't a conscious thing, this stopping of sharing my writing.  It wasn't even really a decision at all, but just that I got so distracted, and so busy with the last few months of school before graduation that I simply forgot  Every time I remembered it was late at night, in the middle of a class, or in the shower - by the time I'd found myself a computer I'd forgotten what it was that I wanted to do on the computer.   And, slowly, it just drifted from my memory, and I'd forgotten even that it was something that I needed to remember. 

I've spent the last few hours of today "re-vamping" the blog, to focus it less on politics and society, and expanding the topics to include anything - religion, the young girl I met at Starbucks today, traveling, Why the price of gold is so high... anything of the sort.   My goal is to write at least once a day - short, long, whatever the mood of the day compels me to do.  

Hopefully, in the next week or so (possibly longer, depending on how distracted I get again)  I will continue to post excerpts from all my journaling over the past few months (for there has indeed been a lot of it), and then, continue on with writing new things.

As I begin this new chapter in my life, it's nice to have a "new" place to post my writings and thoughts.  Just like when I begin a new journal - all the pages fresh and crisp and clean and untarnished, it's a place that carries no baggage.   Or so I think.  But all the old posts are there, the me that's here today isn't really much different from the me that was here yesterday.  Just like people wait until the New Year to make resolutions about being healthier or a better person or more involved in their family life, or whatever it is that bothers them about themselves - people wait for a convenient place and "new" time to begin something new.  To begin something without any of the inconveniences of the past, to begin at a time that is seemingly of a clear beginning or end.  

But really, life isn't about black and white beginnings and endings, it's about dropping unwanted baggage piece by piece, slowly, keeping the things you want, and picking up new baggage.  Just as it's impossible to travel without any baggage at all, so it is impossible to walk the trail from birth to death without any baggage.  There's a quote I found that I think describes this in a much more eloquent way:

***Your journey has molded you for the greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be.  Don't think that you've lost time.  It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now.  And now is right on time. ***

It takes all that baggage to make you the wonderful person you are now; every step you've taken, be it forward, backwards, sideways, a good step or a bad step, it's taken all of that to mold you into the person you are, and it's taking the person you are now to mold you into the person you are going to become.  Time is a constantly changing continuum, constantly moving, and there is no ending or beginning, but rather the constant undulating rhythm of life that carries us.

And so I hope to begin writing again, to follow this current of life and to have a grey continuation of the creation of myself.