[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain
All Me * Chat * Glamour Shots
Beliefs*Rad Tunes
How lovely it would be to live by the moonlight. Eternal serenity. Ethereal harmony. That time of night where you can turn down the lights, turn down the bed, surround yourself with only silhouettes of your proverbial space. The moon and the stars are just fast enough to dance and mingle with one another and you look on for what seems like an eternity because it doesn’t ever tire your eyes. And maybe the wind is blowing and the trees are shaking, or the rain is falling and humming a lullaby. I always thought a hard downpour meant a deep sleep and faltering drizzle meant a light nap.
Sometimes those things can make you really quite somber, but it’s only the beauty. The universe and your own intimate world kind of playing off each other. I think beauty makes a lot of people feel at least a little somber, though. I wonder why that is. Maybe it’s because there are certain kinds of beauty that exist only in our minds. The frustration that comes from the disconnect between thoughts and words and feelings. You can write about it or take a picture of it, but you can’t capture how it made you feel in that moment. How you were suddenly at peace; accepting your mind as a part of what’s out there instead of what you comfortably know and control right here. Or how you were lulled into a dream; slowly, gently, easily. Eagerly. Finally, some peace and quiet. For this moment. In your head. In your conscious. In your subconscious. Down your spine and back again.
If I look out and I watch them too long, I get a little lost. I find my place out there, but am forced out of the fantastical role just as quickly. Earthly possessions pale in comparison to the tranquility the moon offers. An offer, a suggestion, a plea. Of course I accept. Only for as long as I’m allowed. I can’t stay too long or I won’t have anything to look forward to.
But how lovely it would be to live by the moonlight.
♥ 2
→ 28 May 12 at 2 pm
→ 28 May 12 at 2 pm
Lil nuggie for this fine Monday morning or afternoon if you wanna get technical
Does anyone ever feel like most of their friends don’t actually like them and just want to fuck them
Kinda shitty
“She needs wide open spaces/Room to make her big mistakes/She needs new faces/She knows the high stakes.”—Dixie Chicks
Sometimes age is not just a number. Sometimes age is a harbinger of change, a jumping off point after which the heart and mind are too open to turn back. In my mind I imagine an invisible tether, pulling my daughter along a path still uncertain in its direction, except that the path leads away from home.
I recently sold Olivia’s childhood bedroom set for $750. Two weeks later I had her pink and purple flower wall (complete with white picket fence) painted over with a color named “Baltic Gray”. The plain, solid gray accent wall, the full size mattress she insisted on putting on the floor to fulfill a desire for a style she calls “chill”, and her ill-advised (and unsupported) desire to get a tattoo have become the latest in a barrage of hits against a proverbial wall of my own denial. But then, I’ve always resisted my children’s maddening insistence on growing up.
When your baby turns 18, it heralds a distinct call to a next phase of life, not just for her but for me. With a light heart and an eager willingness to find where her life will lead her, Olivia is ready and I have to let her go. She said to me the other day, “I feel like I’m going to do lots of things before I find that one thing to do. I can see myself taking all kinds of classes because I’m interested in so many things.” It’s funny to think my sleepy girl, the one who has been late to school more times than I’m inclined to admit, is this enthused about learning!
Besides college, she’s been contemplating joining Americorps, a kind of domestic Peace Corps, if you will. The idea of taking a gap year before college appeals to her sense of adventure, her belief that she can learn critical life lessons outside the traditional classroom. It’s not the conventional way all her friends are going, so I admire her even more for bucking tradition and taking a chance with an unknown entity.
She is ready to go, though as much as it all appeals to her, she does not deny she’s going to miss us, miss home and its predictable comforts. We will miss her too, more than we may realize right now. Her beautiful spirit, so evident whenever she walks into the room, is going to be absent for more days and weeks than it will be present. Seeing her face every day, especially when she shows up after her curfew, gives me the kind of peace only a parent knows. It will be difficult to learn to give that up if she leaves for parts unknown to help build a house, tutor inner city kids, clean up a bog in Louisiana. I have to trust others to take care of her and trust that she will take care of herself. Did I do a good enough job teaching her what she needs to know?
A few days after her birthday, I invited three of Olivia’s best friends to our house and surprised her with a small, intimate birthday dinner. It was mostly a grown-up affair, with flowers and fancy dishes. Oh, and a birthday crown with an “18” on it that lights up. I tried to make it elegant, and it was, until I brought out the silly masks. Each girl held a half mask on her face, so that they looked like half themselves, half a mustachioed man or a buck-toothed clown or a furry bear. After dessert, each girl took home a goody bag. Did I mention Olivia is my baby?
Before she leaves for college or Americorps, whichever is her destiny, before I have to look at her empty bedroom, before her chair at the kitchen table goes un-sat in night after night, I want her to know, without reservation, that she is loved. I also want her to know all that I have learned in my 54 years, but she probably won’t listen. She’s got to figure it out, like I did. It really is the best way. Not that that will stop me from trying, of course.
I hope she has a blast. I hope the adventure is even better than she had dreamed. I hope 18 will be a year of finding love, of finding meaning in the memorable moments big and small. I hope she finds reassurance in times of doubt, peace amidst chaos, sisterhood among her peers.
Most of all I hope she remembers the invisible tether goes both ways.
-Celia Taylor
Cheated on me: 11111 (5)
Left me for someone else: 111111 (6)
Me doing something wrong: (0)
Me breaking up with someone: (0)
Normal reasons: (0)
Rackin ‘em up ya’ll
