money tree seeds

in this photo, we are all wishing for private jets and unlimited travel funds.

lately I have been faced with the fact that money does indeed make the world go round, or rather, it gets you around the world. plane tickets are not cheap, but the majority of my loved ones are far far away.

what to do? what to do?...

make lots of wishes for money tree seeds and surprise checks in the mail and gold records and anonymous donations. oh look, a million dollar bill just sitting here on the sidewalk! lucky day!

a lack of funds shouldn't keep me from the x's and o's I'm needing. the money is hidden somewhere, I just need to find it. I'm checking all my pockets. I'm cramming my hands between so many couch cushions. I'm determined that I will find the cash to exchange for the currency of love, wrapped in the arms I am missing.

***an update: two days after posting this, I received an unexpected check for $2,700. true story. keep asking for things, they're coming.

if anyone was wondering...

this is what joy looks like.

get a little closer

hugs rule. I don't think we get/give nearly enough of them. why not up the ante?

an update

I am in love.

what am I missing? nothing.

I am ahead in life and behind in writing.

I've been out and about/one with the world/full of so many words, but with no pen and pad in hand. it's ok. it's all right here in my lovely little head. my lovely little head/my lovely large heart.

I have been on the road, stuck in the mud, dancing and sweating, laughing and loving the shit out of everything I can get my hungry hands on. hungry hungry hands. I have had my ears wide open, only slightly less so than my eyes, my eyes wide open, only slightly less so than my heart. my hungry hungry heart. I have been feeding myself a diet of hugs and high fives. I have been ever so busy deepening my smile lines, increasing the wattage of my bright shining eyes. I feel blessed. I have found love and I am bathing myself daily in music. what in the world more could I be needing? perhaps a donut or two, I give myself those. maybe some long walks, I give myself those too.

I try to give myself the things I am really asking, ignoring all the other requests that I suspect come from somewhere else, a place outside, a safe place. I don't need to play it safe. I need to play. if I am everything I need, what am I missing? nothing.

open or close?

our skin and bones are not intended for what we often think - they are here to keep us from bursting.
life fills me and it is my flesh my muscle matter my rib cage my pelvis my skull - they keep me together, they maintain this constant explosion of joy of madness of overwhelm of frustration of pleasure of all the endlessness.
it is my body that anchors the heavens I hold inside.
it is my home - I choose if I see it as a cage or a stage. I can act out my life or I can hide and blame the walls. I can sing or I can whimper. I can beat my chest or bang my head.
I am the choices I make.
I grip the chord that pulls the curtain.
open or close? open or close? open or close?
I am the master behind the miraculousness that fills me. I can let it crowd out the air I need to breath or I can breath it.
in and out. in and out. in and out.
I choose between the cage or the stage. the singing or the whimpering.
I choose. I choose. I choose.
life.

who needs sleep?

lately I have been waking up before the sun. perhaps it is the fact that the man on my mind is in a different time zone. I am trying to align myself with his distant shore.

perhaps it is because I have work to do...

the other morning I woke up at 4:37AM and grabbed my voice recorder. a couple weeks before that, same thing at 5:35AM. what was it that woke me? a song. this song. I decided to lay it down while I was unable to lay down myself. I recorded this while the neighbors slept. who needs sleep when you have a dream?

while the conveyor belt keeps conveying

I have a rash on my face. not cool.

whenever I get a physical ailment I do not rush to rite aid in search of an ointment. I take a peek inside. a check-in checkup, if you will. "what's up?" I lovingly ask myself. I also call my mom knowing she will open up her hippy dippy mystical medical book (which I love) and look up "rash" and tell me that rashes are an indication of an emotional irritation over delay. and then a lightbulb will blink on in my brain and I will nod yes. yes, I am very irritated with delay right now. I can't help it. I know patience is a virtue, but I am not always a virtuous woman. I am trying. I am reminding myself that the goods are on their way. the goods are always on their way. there is a big beautiful conveyer belt conveying the blessings I seek. I know this. I believe this.

but sometimes I get tired and forget to remember that this is not a waiting period, this is my life.

right at this very moment the conveyor belt is dropping blessings on my head. yes, maybe there are bigger and better things down the line, but these things now, in this moment, they are preparing me for all that is to come. I am allowed to forget this fact. what matters is my vigilance in getting back on track. there is something I want that I don't have, but there will always be something. that won't change. how I choose to see everything leading up to the something is what matters. I've been around enough blocks to know, for each goal achieved, there will be infinitely more desires created. I will always want that which is out of reach. I just need to make sure to give that which is right in front of my face lots and lots of love while the conveyor belt keeps conveying.

too busy

I've been too busy to write. too busy having fun. too busy being happy. too busy deciding on a whim to jump in my car and drive a couple thousand miles to see someone special. too busy laughing really hard. too busy talking till the wee hours of the morning and then falling asleep on floors. too busy dancing. too busy believing in magic. too busy learning that I can be anything I decide that day I feel like being. too busy being the adventure I seek. too busy being in love with the moment to think about writing it down. good thing I have a camera.

los angeles, my love

los angeles, my love

your beauty puts a song in my heart

(and your burritos put a smile in my belly!)

sharpening my ax

just as my feet were passing across the clashing carpet through the cacophony of the hollywood guitar center, looking longingly at the glossy curves of a surf green fender stratocaster, I get a text message from my bandmate ry: "hey, you want a guitar and an amp for free?" why yes I do. thank you.

the signs are there, if you are looking for them.

and so I get my new gift and decide to make it my own. for $53 I order a new body and a new pick guard. fortunately for me, my other band mate, jeremy, is a magician. so together, jeremy, ry and I gather to solder and drill and lose screws and eventually marvel at the end result. it is an ax fit for a queen, whatever that means. either way, I'm ready to shred.

me want

this would be said in the voice ralphie uses in a christmas story when he's talking about his bb gun. I want a fender hot rod series blues junior 15W 1X12 tube guitar combo amp in surf green. my pocket is gladly accepting donations. just sayin'.

get out and grow

this is me mid montana. ah the open road and how it flows through my veins. I recently jumped in my little race car of a honda and headed north to surprise my little sis for her 22nd birthday. 2,981 miles later I am back home and feeling about 5 feet taller. the weight of a head full of thoughts, lifted. opened up, emptied out. nothing cleanses my insides like a trip through the middle of nowhere.

no cell reception. no fizzy water. nothing but faith--if I keep moving, I will get somewhere.

and I did. and it was positively lovely. my sister cried with delight when I magically appeared (after 20 hours of driving). I got to spend time with family and friends and good food and good wine and one impossibly adorable baby. I got to see someone walk through a screen door and I got to eat 4 bowls of homemade ice cream. the trip was an utter success, as much for the time spent at the destination as for the time spent getting there and back.

as always, I did not return the same person that had left only a few days earlier. everyday we have a chance to do the things that will change us. to put ourselves in a bigger pot so we can sink deeper, stretch out, get stronger. all we really need to do is soak up the sunlight. turn things to sugar. get out and grow.

5 minute magic

I am currently in the midst of recording all my musical musings from the comfort of my lovely little abode. I like the process of recording about as much as I like eating wet garbage. something always goes wrong. mystical black magic bullshit that has no apparent solution. oh, and not to mention the fact that the nasty little habit of perfectionism that I thought I had managed to quell, opens up like a festering wound the moment I sit down to record. I battle on despite a constant overwhelming desire to just watch zac efron's abs on my laptop as he turns 17 again. I have to keep trying to get past my head into the territory where my chest plays the only melody I need to hear. the other night, I was literally frustrated to the point of tears. I had been trying for hours to record a song but for some reason the mic didn't want to work, and my fingers wouldn't play the guitar in a way that made my ears happy. I decided to stop and breath for a moment. then I decided to hit record and see what happened if I let go. I just sang into the built-in mic on my computer and made up the song, lyrics and all, as garage band was recording. this was the result in less than 5 minutes. I am proud of this. it, like me, is not perfect, but is beautiful because it's honest.

you've come a long way jamie

It takes courage to be willing to meet myself over and over again, seeing in my own face more beauty and grace and ability to love than I had hoped for, more judgment and impatience and need than I had feared. I forget that it does not matter how far or how fast I move, but only how much of myself I take along for the journey.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

my friend jamie moved to new york yesterday. this is nothing new. she has moved there and countless other places many times in her young and adventurous life. and yet, this time it is something new. this is the first time she will be taking all of herself along. we spoke on the phone this morning, her forgetting the time difference, waking me early, me being glad for the mistake. with jamie I can always hear it in the timbre of her voice, how she's doing. my gut registers the frequencies of what is joy or sadness, terror or calm -- a strange and motherly gift that I have with those I love dearly. I could hear it in her voice, she was peaceful and she felt good about being there. just yesterday we had discussed the flavorful layer cake of fear she was trying to digest as she was boarding the plane... and then it was morning, and she was drinking tea in her new home and she was present in her new life and she knew that little else mattered. this is no small feat, it took her 29 years to arrive at that knowledge and will surely require endless vigilance in her maintaining such a realization.

we talked about how far we had both journeyed away from ourselves in the process of finding ourselves. like dating someone you don't really want to be with so that you can (hopefully) figure out who you do want to be with. it can be that way with yourself. I've been going steady with myself for nearly 3 decades. that's a long time and yet I'm still getting to know me. and if I'm really living, that's not a process that will ever end. I have both loved and hated myself, known myself deeply and wondered who the fuck was looking back at me as I brushed my teeth. I have vigilantly told others the truth only to realize I was lying to myself. I have been proud to know myself and ashamed to the point of hiding. I'm still figuring myself out, but I am not trying to confront only portions of my truth, I am trying to the best of my ability to live them ALL, ALL the time. it's enough to make me want to take a nap just thinking about the implications. I will surely disappoint a lot of people. not compromising my truth will surely offend, let down, frustrate and hurt others, but after years of feeling like that would be the worst thing I could do, I realize that the worst thing is hiding myself in order to protect others. that's not protection, that's a lie. we all deserve truth. we all need to be strong enough to accept that other's honesty might not be the easiest thing to hear, but that it's the only thing we should want to hear. we are strong enough.

jamie is in new york because she stopped protecting herself from what she really wanted. no matter what happens in new york, she has already succeeded on the only level that really matters, she is there. all of her. and all of me is so proud of her and all the other people in my life who take all of themselves along wherever they may be and wherever they are going. we are strong enough.

she came bearing gifts

I have sung her praises before, and now I'm going to sing them once more. sara kaye larson is a masterful adventure companion. she is currently in LA taking a break from the hot wet heat of memphis. I am thankful for the unbearable tennessee summers. sara is here. with sara, comes new experience. trips to northerly lakes at dawn, prison museums, ghost towns, historic walks, beautiful buildings, desert thrifting, and hollywood hotel pools. sara reminds me that I shouldn't wait for her visits to discover my own downtown. all I have to do is open up and get out.