Snapshots

Some things in life never change.

Fortunately, I did.

I am not who I used to be. Recent excavations on my layers of clutter have led me to reflect on myself, to turn my eye inward and see what I find there.

As a child I was as carefree as a leaf drifting on a warm Autumn breeze. I was wild like vines left in an untended pumpkin patch, impossible to suppress. My days were filled with running, jumping, and climbing trees, smiling or moving in every picture. It's quite obvious I had to be coaxed and chided into standing still and posing for a photograph. For every textbook picture, there's another behind it, discarded for my funny faces, or moving out of the frame as a blur. I was vivacious and animated. I sparkled.

Years of education did not muzzle my exuberance. I gleefully took on the public school system by storm, and if it were a battle, I believe I would have won in those first few years. I fairly flew through Girl Scouts, dance recitals, Science Olympiad competitions, and summer camps. I thrived on simply creating a splendid chaos at every opportunity. My hair was long and tangled, teeth knocked out prematurely by a rouge softball.

As I matured, or at least as I grew, my soul still clung to those particles of excitement. The world was still an open book to me, and I was devouring the pages. While other students my age were settling down to finally tune and focus on the finer points of geography and history, mastering the fine skill of typing properly on a keyboard or sharpening their drafting pencils, heads bent solemnly over their books, I did not give in. I sang songs from the radio in study hall, and my book bag was as full of candy as it was with books and pencils. While I dutifully eschewed my assignments, took tests, and discovered the opposite sex, I still found myself jumping fences and playing in the dirt.

Somewhere down the line, pinpointed roughly at the transition from child to adolescent, junior high to high school, the burning brilliance that I radiated was dulled. There's no one event or moment to blame. As J.M. Barrie reminds us, all children grow up. I studied, focused hard on music and mastering the skills coerced upon me. I became fluent in the languages of algebra and chemistry, and I undertook the task of unraveling the works of Poe, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky. Somewhere in this time period I started caring what others thought of me. I wore makeup to hide my flaws instead of for the fun of colors. My jeans boasted flared bottoms and embroidery at the pocket instead of patches dyed by dirt and sun, and frayed hems torn and shedding thread in a froth at my feet. The soles of my shoes no longer felt the rough kiss of a sturdy branch. I posed jauntily for pictures with friends, the exact same expression on my face in every single shot. I wasn't brilliant, and I wasn't moving. I had calmed my body to fit the mold of an adult-to-be. That was the biggest mistake of my life.

College is a land of opportunity. You can fix the mistakes you made to yourself in the past, re-invent yourself, be reborn as somebody you always wondered about. Most college campuses boast thousands of students, most of which you don't know, and about the same number who don't care about getting to know you. You can buckle down and engulf all the knowledge of the world, or you can wake up on a different stranger's couch every weekend, head throbbing, eyes bleary, and covered in permanent marker. I found a comfortable balance at college. I was a good student, above average on attendance and test scores, yet I remember the days I'd look out the window to see pools of rainwater threatening to flood the walkways once more, and I'd decide to stay in for the day watching cartoons in my pajamas. "It's raining," became synonymous with "I'm not going to class today. Wake me up at noon and we'll order Chinese food." Some college-goers find a freedom in alcohol, and the mass consumption of it. I took no large delight in this. I went out, I had fun. I woke up on unfamiliar couches and floors of rooms I don't remember entering, but it wasn't a way of life for me. College was more the freedom to go backward. I didn't re-invent myself; I wasn't the "new me." More than that, college, and the new people I befriended, if only for a short while, allowed me to go back and reclaim a little glow, a little glitter from the sparkle from "the old me." I walked railroad tracks for miles, just to see where they turned. I convinced friends played in rivers with me, even when there were shards and clumps of ice beneath the swift-moving surface. I trespassed on farmland and forest, once again climbing a tree, the dirt-scented air filling my lungs once more. I started cartwheel competitions on the lawn in front of the student center. I met the most amazing strangers. Pictures of me started showing signs of actual emotions instead of the same affixed smile. The contours of my body blurred behind the camera lens. I was moving.

There's a quote I used to have on a post-it note hung on my bedroom wall that read, "Go into the world and do well, but more importantly, go into the world and do good." I have no idea who said that, but I owe them some thanks. In following that advice, I did good to the world, and the world responded by returning some life into my subdued self. I started volunteering at the local animal shelter, I helped organize can drives, and I learned cooking skills volunteering at a soup kitchen. I helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity. Now I not only own power tools, I know their proper names and how to use them effectively.

As I continued through college, I found myself being taken along with friends on various errands and weekends. Random road trips to nowhere at 2AM, celebrating birthdays of my room mate's-cousin's-friend's-dog Freckles, raking leaves and digging septic tanks at a Boy Scout camp. That camp became a home I have treasured far more than any other gift that life has bestowed upon me. Offered a summer position, I began my summer by learning to pretend to like anything slimy, scaly, hairy, or winged. Within weeks I didn't have to pretend anymore. I was in love. It was as if life ran in a circle, and I had caught up with my childhood once more. I got to fuse my adult-like knowledge and skills with my youthful loves. I identified trees, climbed them, cut them down, and burned them at roaring bonfires. I went fishing and caught a turtle. I got too close, and a turtle caught me. I partied at night and played capture the flag during the day. I got teased and chased in endless games, and I rode shotgun in a truck with a cab meant for 3 but piled with 8. Looking at these photographs, my pants are torn, dirt smears tattoo my arms and face, and my hair flies wildly out of my trademark ponytail. My body language and facial expressions are animated and alive. Sparks nearly jump to my hands, and I have to smile.

Sadly, nothing gold can stay. The theme of a Robert Frost poem, found in countless books and resources, one of them being here. Like any relationship, both Life and the Earth take as well as give. They gave me myself back, then they took the places and people that nurtured that self away from me, or rather, took me away from them. Due to circumstances beyond my control (and my liking) I moved home, college unfinished, prospects for another summer away dimmed to a mere flame in a cavern. I find myself stuck working a job I hate, not making enough money to pay the bills, and missing my friends and former life so much I find tears soaking my pillow in the morning. This is where the choice comes in. Life has presented me with a gift, and it's up to me to decide how to use it. I can let this challenge defeat me, curl in bed, only escaping the dark confines of my shaded room to shower, go to work, grab dinner, and return, or I can attempt to tackle this the way I would have as a child- I can create a delightful chaos, move, jump, play, and create. I can labor in the dull lethargy of my own self-pity, or I can try to make myself sparkle.

I think I've been forgetting my lessons. Not math and geography, but tree-climbing and seeing fun instead of fear. Some things in life, like some people, do not change. I've seen the changes in myself through pictures and artifacts. Notebooks filled with doodles and messages to friends, then filled with pages of careful notes and figures, back to doodles and tic-tac-toe boards slid across college lecture halls. The leaf collections and friendship bracelets from elementary school, the make-up collection in it's disheveled box from junior high, back to bracelets and leaves collected into collages for me at camp last summer. I can see the choices before me, and while I cannot even begin to guess how Life will manipulate my choices, the consequences and unforeseen difficulties that are sure to result from any action I take, the fact that I'm going to take action is a good sign. I want my pictures blurred, my expression different in every snapshot of my life.

Suburban Nature: The Myth

There is no nature in Suburbia.

For the past few weeks suburban life has been irking me. My soul requires sunshine, rain, good dirt, and general outdoorsiness to survive. (My soul is very plant-like.) Sunshine and rain have been present; however, nature is nowhere to be found. Being outside in my town makes me want to retch. The only trees are landscaped and trimmed for size and color. The grass is mowed, edged, raked, watered, and in the case of my neighbors- DRIED to perfection. The only flowers are found in planters or beds; the rest labeled "weeds," and ripped out of the ground.

Even the wooded areas here are planned. Notice I didn't say "woods." That implies something related to nature. Our wooded parks are planted, and so obviously planted that if you face the trees straight on you can see them growing in rows. Seriously? There's no ground cover, no brush. No brambles or bushes or vines. I suspect tax dollars pay to weed and fertilize the area.

Trees are cut down before they can fall, which is a safety issue and is understood; but even the trees that fall far from the paved, level, roller-blade and wheelchair accessible trail are sectioned and hauled away. Nature's Playground? What's that? In elementary school one of my favorite things to play on during recess was a fallen tree. The branches and roots had been cut off, and it had been dragged from the surrounding woods onto the playground by parents and teachers years before. We climbed it, walked on it, jumped off it, gossiped on it, ran around it, and carved in it. We watched the bugs make homes in it, saw new life grow because of it. The tree was dragged back into the woods shortly before I moved on to another school.

Those woods were amazing. We would take walks there during science classes, identifying trees, plants, cloud formations, rock types, and bugs. The trees were far enough apart to allow us room to run, but their canopies were interlaced, forming a latticework of leaves that filtered the sunlight down to us as if the golden rays had been hand-picked. There was a drainage ditch we all called "the creek," which was a prime source of after school entertainment. It served as the boundary where younger kids wouldn't cross, and older kids flaunted their authority. It was prime real estate for teetering tree houses, crooked bike jumps, paintball wars, endless games of capture the flag, and even an old moldy couch whose origin nobody quite knew. The creek was cold and always seemed so deep. To cross it we snuck boards from our garages and rooted through garbage cans and made a rickety, ramshackle bridge. Nobody ever swam in the water, or even stepped in it. To the right was 100 feet of trees, then the road. To the left, was woods and more woods until "the catwalk" where the water emptied to a flood field and houses began. The water itself was home to old pop cans, beer bottles (most likely left behind when the high school kids hit curfew and had to return home,) a volleyball, and one lonesome busted up lawn chair that was there for as long as I can remember. It was magical.

Where those woods once stood now lay perfect rows of condominiums, complete with landscaped yards, lawns rolled out like carpets, and sprinklers that are set on a timer so that they go off even when it's raining. The creek was filled, the trees cut. Where trees used to tower higher than the school are now balconies with white plastic railings. The clearing where dirt bikes roared until dark, then a less-then legal bonfire would crackle while we watched the stars... is now a parking lot, complete with the blue glow of halogen high beam lights. All our memories, our carvings, our childhood... disappeared within a week. The school fenced in their property, no longer venturing out to identify what's left in suburban nature: the Jaguar, the Sequoia, and the Jeep Liberty.

Moving away from my digression, suburban life holds little of natural life. The stars still blaze, but are dimmed to near darkness by neon signs and front porch lights. The only constellation that can be seen regularly is the Big Dipper, and even those stars are becoming hard to identify against the glare of suburban sprawl. The moon has been brilliant lately, so bright and white that you can see the clouds across the sky. The effect is less than breathtaking when the shooting star you see turns out to be a commercial airliner.

Light pollution is possibly one of the most understated environmental factors in my lifetime. Cities are encased in a 24-hour glow of light that can be seen from miles away. A dome of light surrounding a city sounds almost beautiful, unless you are trying to look at the sky or find grass. These lights signify the devastation of natural land, the ravaging of Mother Earth. None of the grasses growing in cities are natural- they were commercially seeded or planted. The trees were selected to match their leaf and flower color to the bricks of the nearby buildings and are planted x-feet apart. Trees are cut down so that complexes can be built and then named for the trees cut to make them: The Oaks, Maple Grove, Aspen Estates, Cedar Manor, Pine Village. Surprisingly enough, the trees that were planted in these compounds are not even in the same realm as the trees that were cut.

As I was taking a walk today I stopped to look at how little nature actually exists in my corner of the world. It's sad. My own front yard has been seeded so many times there are random patches of grass that don't match the grass beside it. I can't look at the stars from my porch swing because of the porch lights, and the over-glow shining across the block from the mini-mall. I'm ready to vacation in a cow-town so I fulfill my yearning for nature and rekindle my appreciation for the internet, 24-hour groceries, and paved roads.

Nature does not exist in Suburbia.

The Message

If you're looking out a window, and you're not looking at the sky, it would be easy to assume today is just a late summer's day, springlike, perhaps, like so many other days. The lawns are lush and green and overgrown from constant sun and rain, flowers still bloom in flurries of color and raise buds for tomorrow. Birds are calling from the trees, a constant symphony of innumerable instruments. Step away from the window and walk through the door.

It's all a trick. Autumn is slowly wrapping herself around trees and skimming across the sky, calling the geese to follow her south. Pale leaves are beginning to litter sidewalks and streets, crackling gaily beneath automobile tires and passers-by. Squirrels are in a panic, scurrying to and fro, squabbling over food and storage space for winter, disturbing many with their constant chatter. While still bright, the flowerbeds are thinner. More and more patches of bare Earth can be seen between the brilliant array of petals.

New colors are showing up. The sparkling blues of sky and swimming pool, the reds of strawberries and tomatoes, the astonishing hues leaping from flower petals, all are giving way to a more brilliant display. Oranges and yellows of pumpkin and squash are unveiling themselves. Russet apples burst from orchard branches. The trees are beginning to store away for the winter, causing their leaves to flame in all shades of colors- red, yellow, deep purple, orange, and many colors in between. Eventually they drop and shrivel, and are pushed around by playing winds, or shattered with crunching defeat.

Today is one of those remarkable, unexplainable, wonderful days outside. The sky is overcast, threatening rain, perhaps a weak attempt at snow, neither of which will occur. A matte grey blanket of clouds. "The Grey Dome," a Professor of mine called it once. It's not cold outside; the neighbor's thermometer is checking in near 65°F. The breeze, however, is one of those sudden bursts of air that comes without warning, whipping your hair every which way and whistling in your ears. The breeze, my friends, is cold. The winds coming through the windows are cause for putting another blanket on the bed, and talk of drawing the window closed for the night and turning on the heat. The combination of warm air and cool breeze combined with the sky above is just enough to make somebody push his shorts aside and start thinking about bringing sweaters and jackets from their hibernation in boxes.

Some say this weather is depressing. That it's "gloomy." I could agree, if this weather had been constant and unrelenting. But, fortunately, today is the beginning. After weeks of sun and sweat, of burnt shoulders and cursing forgotten sunglasses, today is welcome. The air feels crisp and smells sweet. The leaves bumpily blowing across the pavement sound a skritchy Morse Code. The message: Autumn is coming.

It's wonderful to be somebody else for a song.

"They say music can alter moods and talk to you..."

Music's Eminem (Marshall Mathers) has a lyric along those lines. Whether he believes that or not is none of my concern. I believe it. It was proven to me today, in the most unexpected of events. I read a series of "young-adult" books where each chapter is begun with a quote. Some are the words of historically famous people such as Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Henry David Thoreau; others are from more commonly known sources such as Charlie Brown, Dr. Seuess, and Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons. Other quotes are snips from Greek mythology, Western Union's internal memos, and various quotes and lyrics from people and artists I've never heard of but am sure are quite good at their craft. When I find a quote that strikes me- makes me laugh, makes me think, or makes me remember something from my own life, I have a bad habit of folding the corner of the page down to mark that little piece of literature for quick future reference. One of my first posts on this blog explains why this is not a good idea in regards to how finicky I get with my books, but that is neither here nor there. I was skimming through one of these books today, not really reading, just flipping pages and catching a few sentences here and there. There were several quotes, not on marked pages, that jumped out at me. They related to my life in a way I was hoping to find in a friend. These one-liners made me feel like I could feel better, and it was OK. All these quotes were from the same person. Somebody I had never heard of.

Being the curious geek that I am, I jumped on my trusty search engine and sought the guy out. I figured he was a poet, maybe an artist with a few good lines during an interview. I was wrong, surprise surprise. He was an English musician in the late 1960's- early 1970's. I'm sure his career would have been longer if he hadn't died. He overdosed on anti-depressants; it was ruled as suicide, but many people, including family members, stand by the belief it was accidental. Again, I digress. He was a musician, complete with acoustic guitar. I *ahem* acquired some of his music, and I'm sad he wasn't so popular 30 years ago. Maybe he would have been around longer with a little encouragement, if you get my drift. He messed around with wicked tuning and finger-picking and had a voice that wasn't exactly deep- it was sweet but not innocent. Perhaps it's innocent but not sweet, I can't tell.

So I'm listening to his songs, pulling out symbolism and listening to him make heart-wrenching ideas spill sweetly from his lips. They hardly seem sad coming from him. Out of nowhere, this beat comes from my speakers. This rolling, intense beat made my heart join in the rhythm and add to the percussion. Then, another surprise, a cello glides in, not sad- it sounds like it's calling across a mountain to a distant friend. Then, he sings. I can't help it- I smile. My arms and shoulders move as if pulled by invisible strings. They stretch, they bend, they wake from a sleep gone on too long. I'm sitting on a metal folding chair in my bedroom waving my arms around like I'm pretending to be a tree, or trying to catch flies in a pool of molasses, yet I feel wonderful, no shame or embarrassment. On the contrary, I felt wonderful! I felt like my soul dove into a cold, clear pool, all the way to the pebbly bottom where warm sunlight danced through the water, winking through the waves like diamonds.

I know you must think I had way to much caffeine or something, but I do not jest. This song calmed my head, woke up my body, and cleansed my soul. I played it over and over, drinking in the feeling. It feels like new blood is moving through my veins, no, I feel too alive for simply blood. It feels like there is a bold river foaming and crashing inside me, in the most wonderful way. The way my body reacted to this music was as if it were not my own. It was free, it was moving, it stretched and swayed. It's wonderful to be somebody else for a song.

Music does alter moods; it can speak to you. My guess is that we cannot go in search of such a song, rather it finds us, in the one moment where it finds us unsuspecting. I've been in a deep pit lately, not even motivated to draw open the curtains or raise the shade of the window. And in a moment I was caught unaware. Out of the lyrics and the melancholy chords and symbolism came a phoenix. Rising from the ash, it pulled me from the pit I've been in and dropped me into a song. I cried, the first happy tears I can remember in years. Call me crazy if you wish. I'll simply smile, for I'll know you haven't found your song yet.

Nick Drake- Cello Song.

You have 30 days. 30 days to tell somebody you love them, to try and make up for every mean, hatueful, hurtful, or spiteful thing youv'e ever said to them or thought about them. 30 days to get the courage to play your violin for them without crying. To go into that room every day for however long it takes, not knowing who or what you may find- person, shell, or half of each.

The doctors said it could be as quick as 30 days. Actually, we were all told between now and Christmas. But I was there when they didn't think I could hear them, and they said it could be as quick as 30 days.

30 days. Longer than some lives. Not the life I'm worried about. His life has had years, many years, but not enough. He's just starting to get better, talking more, moving more. How can that exist in the same universe as so much pain?