I've Decided

I've decided to start singing. For real, getting more serious about it. Maybe taking voice lessons when the money is there.

I've decided to get real about my photography.

And art. Painting, drawing, capturing, redefining.

I've decided to really get back into guitar playing. Getting better at rhythm. Learn some more chords. Learn the bass.

I really need to read more. I've been reading The Poisonwood Bible now for a month. I'm putting it down and beginning Inferno by Dan Brown.

I need to stop working so much. Only three weeks of this and it's good but exhausting. And I'm missing out on so much life going on around me. Maybe just another 6 weeks and I'll call it good. Three more paychecks.

I need to get past that wall in my head. The one that looks big and vast and impossible. I need to get on the other side. This has been a common conversation in the apartment for the past four days.... coming against that wall and pushing through it or climbing over it or knocking it down. Reveling in the open space of possibilities it leads to.

If that's powering through another month or two of 70+ hour work weeks, then so be it. If it's dedicating hours each day to my own pursuits, then it is what it is. If it's letting go of hindrances and distractions, I will do what it takes.

I'm not sure yet what is on the other side but my heart knows it's good. That instinctive part of my mind knows it is something to push for. That it's worth the present sacrifice.

The fullness of it all

Friends
around the firebowl
sitting with the neighbors upstairs
drinking their homemade wine
and 12-year scotch.

Working
every day, twice a day, twelve hours
come home with cash
in my pocket,
late summer wind in my hair.

Driving
it's 4am and I am riding
shotgun, feet up, laughing
car packed with my party dress
and dress blues.

Life
is busy, hectic, one job to the next
to home,
bed at midnight and up
again at 6.
Running
drawing
planning
scheming

The world is wide open
and oh so full.

I am Adventurous and you can Be so Too!

If you're my facebook friend, you know this already... seen the photos and video and saw it coming all along (although you may not have thought I'd go through with it). For those of you not my facebook friend, let me just tell you that I was in a hot air balloon for the first time this morning. And then I got strapped to a bungee cord and then I climbed over the basket, looked down, and jumped.

My head is still on that balloon, looking over the lush, green countryside. I feel the basket under my feet, grasping the bars, leaning back, being pushed off, closing my eyes and feeling the wind rush past me. Free Fall. Weightless. It was like being in water. Then the cord catches me and I feel the tension weighing me down, slowing my descent, and then weightless again, being flown back into the air, rising, rising, rising, falling. Being caught again and tossed back up. Falling, flailing. Then motionless, hanging, the balloon making it descent, bringing me to the ground rushing up to greet me, Hello!

The morning dew clinging to the grass and soaking in my shoes. The morning mist, clearing, burning away. My friends with their cameras out, picture taking, video taping. Then we trudged back to the car, 9:15am and on our way home because I have to work at 11 but first a quick stop at Panera in Topeka, we are so hungry.

I sit here on my couch, it is 9:30 at night. But I close my eyes and I am back again, sitting on the ledge of that basket, looking down. James and Cari and the world beneath me. The sky before me. My heart thumping in my chest ohmyGodicannotbelieveI'm... and I jump.

Home

It's the slight disarray. It's the camping gear dragged out into the dinning room and the bike with the flat tires next to the filing cabinet that's now mine next to two full bags of military gear that still smell like sweat and the Washington wilderness. It's sitting at the desktop watching you tube videos and it's 12:30 at night but oh there's still two more videos to watch we need to save the best for last.

It's Home.

It's falling asleep stretched out, blankets half way covering legs wedged between body and couchback watching Heros. It's making coffee in the french press and reading Barbara Kingsolver with the windows up with the candles lit.

It's a text while I'm at work that says Get home we're waiting for you we need our djembe player.

It's that feeling that's been missing, that longing, that desire absent these past long months and (who am I kidding) years... that feeling of I can't wait to get
Home.

I cannot even fathom a day where I don't get to come back here. I don't know how I lasted so long away, each precious moment of my life spent in this hallowed, safe place. Each time I had left, something sacred of me stayed behind. And now I am reunited with that holy part of myself.

I am Home.