A New Year Dawns

Tis the season to be in spirit. However, my spirit has been on somewhat of a vacation for quite some time. But it is returning. Returning new and refreshed. Unlike it has ever been before. I have come to the realization that "I know nothing" and this is a beautiful thing. I know I am never alone. I know there is a spirit within me that is ever changing, ever growing, ever beautiful. More beautiful than it ever was before. Innocence has always been in my natural makeup. And to accept this has always been a struggle for me. I have wanted to go against it and make choices that are along the lines of the rest of the world around me...but for me that has never been natural. Acting outside of myself has hurt more than it has been nurturing.

2006 was a year of change. A year that upon reflection may have been viewed as being next to disaster had I not learned so much. It was a definite journey through the 'dark night of my soul'. But even darkness holds beauty. I will forever remember it as a year of the beginning of the rest of my life. My mind was opened up to so many new things. It was a foundational year.

As 2007 comes into view I look upon it with a hopeful heart. I can feel the beginning of changes. Changes for the better inside and outside of myself. I have a seed of courage that has been dormant within me and it is on the brink of bloom. I have no idea what 2007 is going to be made up of. But what I do know is my state of mind is important. I have to be positive, extend love, know that each day will hold a new lesson, take everything with a grain of salt, laugh, embrace each moment in the moment, the list goes on.

I have been blessed by friends this year that are uplifting. I have learned lessons from these friends and I hold them dearly in my heart. Opening my mind and heart to them, to anyone, isn't the easiest for me but I now know that life isn't about hiding from the world but about being drenched in every facet of life...the good, the bad, they are polar opposites for a reason and the inbetween is where love resides.

I welcome 2007 with open arms.

"Follow your bliss." -Joseph Campbell

Evolution

Interesting how time lapses and I don't write for a while or even read this site and then somehow my mind navigates back to it and I view myself as I was five months ago. A lot has happened since then. Many more downs than ups but somehow strength prevails when I feel like I am going to lose it. Not my own of course but God steps in and holds me up. Amazing how he knocks the hell out of me when I don't know how to believe anymore.

Breathe Me In...

It's been a while since I decided to open my mind and allow it to spill on the paper..er...screen. Life lately has been fringed with an array of emotion. I don't like dealing with emotion...at least not in the public arena. Those closest I will open up to but others haven't a place in that area of ME. But it builds and the skin of my surface becomes an almost transparent thin layer. Perhaps it is just this day that has been the pin prick in the side of my recent fragility. I don't know. I fear suddenly, mid shift at work or something, I will look down and will find myself crumbled on the floor; a pile of colorful mosaic pieces. I have been here many times before. Each time an old part of me dies and new strength is born. Bitch. Moan. Groan. Get the fuck over it.
There is a sense of loneliness lately. Something is missing. Someone? Something? Someone? Something? It's not as if I have lost myself again things just feel different. I am different. Ironically something feels good about it. Creativity peaks when I am like this.
Since my last entry...
~I quit SunTrust- the job that spawned from lucifer
~Ended a relationship...short lived relationship but he was way more involved in it than I was...
~started waiting tables again
~rekindled a lot of fizzled out friendships
~finally got my car fixed
~i'm moving in with my sister
a lot more has happened but I am never completely open on this damn thing. there's only so much I let through the filter of my mind.

There have been some interesting people come into my life recently. One in particular. I'd like to dissect his brain and wrap myself in his mind. He is so intriguing...I get bits and pieces of him but I want more. I don't know the weight of his world. I wonder if he'll find me...see me...me....I'm standing on the edge and it makes me nervous; vulnerable. It may hurt but it would be worth it. I can't stay this bottled up forever.

So there's me. Open again...a little.

Coming back...

I think it's time to start blogging again...

Choices : Shmoices

My new favorite show is How I Met Your Mother
on CBS. It is hilarious and it defines life as I know it. Watch it on Wednesday nights at 7:30. Tune in and crack up along with the true to life scenes.

Oh good lord life keeps me in stitches...especially lately. What exactly defines being "grown up"? If it's dull and monotonous then I'll stay youthful. My parents have and they've done all right!

Internet Dating

I didn't think many people actually did it, but internet dating seems to be a trend on the rise. Or it has risen and I totally missed the submarine.

A few nights ago I had dinner with a friend and she mentioned internet dating. She told me that she has dated several guys from dating sites and that she met her current pin-up the same way. And then yesterday a couple of women from my office were talking about internet dating over lunch and asked me if I had tried it yet. YET!?! I just really don't know what my opinion is. It felt as if "yet" meant I am required to give this technologically engineered match maker a chance.

I suppose I am just old fashion and expect that I'm just going to be knocked upside the head by l-o-v-e. I imagine that one cold winter evening, while hibernating at Barnes and Noble and minding my business, I and some tall, dark haired, intellectual type, will just bump into one another. We will say our pardons but lock eyes for a few blissful seconds (that feel like eternity) like we've just seen something familiar. Then after a totally heart pounding moment realize that we happen to be holding the same book. And from that springs a lifelong friendship/romance with the whole package: a future filled with ups and downs, grandkids and all. But does it ever really happen as you imagine it? I'll let you know if it does.

For now I'm going to investigate these internet dating sites and let you know what I find. But don't go looking for my face posted up on your screen...I'll be at Barnes and Noble, in non-fiction.

Life As I THINK I Know It...

Life is so fragile and I am realizing that more and more every second of my days. It is so easy to get all wrapped up in the pointless and stressful details of life. So many people in my life have delt with illness, critical accidents, and death this past year... it is just mind numbing.

For me 2005 has been a year of change, of growth, of a new perspective. There is a plan. I have choices that will get me to that plan. Every choice I made this year has gotten me to who I am today. I got something from every single choice I made and I don't regret a thing. I've never been one to regret a thing anyway... I wonder why that is? Perhaps it's because I think things through before I do anything. I'm rambling.

I am just speechless... well, because I really don't know what my future holds. I have never been so excited yet simotaneously so full of fear. Not the worrysome kind of fear, just the unknown... well, I really can't explain it other than to say it's partly a fear of falling back into old habits and ways of living... that's not to say that everything is perfect...I am far from it. And I don't expect to ever reach a point of perfection. The day I think that I might as well be dead. The complexity of it all is in my head but putting the thoughts on the screen is not as easy as one would think. It's a different world in this head of mine. Plus God is tying my tongue for a reason, I am sure.

Why did I feel the need to put this on my blog? On a public domain? Well it's not like many people read this thing so it really doesn't matter. If only the world could read what I don't publish! I wrote a rather lengthly article about Africa, the art, the lost traditions, and the westernization of the country the other day. I miss school.



Side note: I really wish Christmas wasn't so commercialized.

My Grandparents, Conrad and Patsy Scott with My sister, Ashley.

My grandfather, who was diagnosed with Colon Cancer in late June of this year, went in to the hospital this morning to have some tests to check the status of the cancer in his body. The results would help them to see what direction they need to take as far as the chemo goes (the chemo makes him very sick). Well, our prayers have been answered: there is not a sign of cancer in his body and he no longer has to take the chemo! Praise God! My aunt said he got up and hugged a very shocked doctor and he and my grandmother were just absolutely jumping for joy. I mean they really were up on their feet with praise! The doctors will continue to monitor his health but he doesn't have to go back for another test until the end of January 2006. I wish I had a picture of them to put on here!!!! I'll have to get one. Thank you so much for all the prayers. Please continue to pray for his health and sing praise when you speak to God of my grandparents, Conrad and Patsy Scott.

This just shows me how incredibly great God is. He takes care of us, and is willing to take all of our energy draining worries, but he won't without us handing it all to him. God is a gentleman, he won't take anything without our permission.

If you need of something to brighten your Holiday Season, feed your Spirit or just need to take a step away from the hectic routine of life mark you calendars for December 11th at 7:00pm to attend the CONCERT OF HOPE at Brentwood Baptist Church. Click on the link for details.

19

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it's sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully

and love yourself so more than truly

there's never been quite such a fool who could fail

pulling all the sky over him with one smile

______________________________________________________

i have no words lately to share or sing or preach or whisper or lay down from pen to paper. so i let ee cummings speak.

i have a book about as thick as your head filled with the writing of this remarkable and sensuous man. you know, the man was truly amazing. his mind so unique. he didn't feel the need to conform to the system of punctuation and grammar; i am sure there were english professors gasping at his absurd behavior. he was like the elvis of literature...way before his time yet utterly beautiful. against the grain. i felt a connection to his awkwardness immediately when i discovered him for the first time in college. his expression of life. it is only awkward, i say, because it is different than the mainstream, boring, mind-numbing jugglers of a ho-hum humanity. generation shocks the one before. not that i am comparing myself to him on any level. i, in my own sense am somewhat average. well, perhaps i am, i have always found it difficult to relate the restraints and gestures of our stiff culture, but i do it. that sounds complicated. i am not fake. if you know me well you know this. back to edward estlin: his words paint not only a verbal but visual ingenuity. the various tones of his different periods of writing are absolutely pensive. take some time out of your routine and experience his creativity. there are nineteen dozen more of his writings i wish to post. here is to those who walk backward through life yet somehow end up forward. and here is to confidence, faith and humility.

looks like i spoke more than i intended. give me art as word or canvas and i can speak for days. the splendor of it takes my breath away.

a monochromatic piece by cummings

LAUGHTER HEALS THE SOUL

What the hell!
Hand me a damn box of Kleenex...I sound like a big baby in my last few posts!
Get the hell over yourself you bi-polar sounding nut! hahaa!

K. Back to life...back to reality...

I am thankful.

Thankful for my grandparents who crack me up and love me to itsy bitsy bits.

My grandmother and I can sit and talk for hours about things that might possibly be serious topics but we always end up laughing about something or the other. Half the time it’s because she says something funny. Words come out that she's twisted around in her hilarious yet charming East Tennessee twang and we just crack up. For instance, here’s an example of my Grandma, Patsy Jean: Last Thanksgiving my Grandma was running through the store trying to get through her list and was down to the last item and could not find it. She was looking for the isle where they kept nuts, pecans to be exact. Looking for a “clerk” she finall found one and asked the guy, who was knelt down stocking cans, "Sir, do you know where your nuts are?" and he looked at up her wide eyed and said, "Yes, ma'am. Right this way." As she followed him she was laughing one of those hard silent laughs. He guided her to the nut isle and she said thank you with her head down and tears streaming down her face. This was told over and over at Thanksgiving Dinner. I am sure it will be brought up again this year along with whatever other flubs come springing from her creative mind. I am surprised that no one in the family aspirated on their food. My God, I love my Grandma!

The woman is not afraid to speak her mind. Today, at "The Publix", as she calls it, she couldn't find the hardwood cleaner she’s used for years. So she picked up the phone, called the Pledge Company and asked them if they stopped making it. Nope, they've changed the packaging...for the THRID time! That got under her skin and she let them know it. Why do they feel the need to change the bottle so many times!?!? Kroger stopped carrying Bran Flakes about two months ago and within a week she had them back on the shelves in her area.

She has called several of our state's elected officials, making it through to them personally, when she’s disagreed with something. She picked up the phone not long ago and called the White House when the issue of Gay Marriage was ricocheting through her beliefs. They listened and wrote her a letter. If she wanted to talk to W herself I bet money she could get him on the phone. She said to me tonight, "Honey, if you need the number to the White House, I've got it!" She's not afraid to stand for anything she believes in and she, my friends, is woman of strength, character, and to be quite frank she's got balls of steel.

Grandad, he is just as funny, but in his own way. I love when he laughs so hard his tan Indian skin turns twenty shades of red and it is this long silent laughter that rolls into this loud laugh from that comes right from the gut. This is really a trademark laugh in my family and it feels so good. I pity those who will never experience it. And all the while she is cracking us all up I know in his heart he is saying “My God I love this woman!” They are each other’s heart beat. It’s beautiful. I can only hope to be so lucky in my life. My family is synonymous with humor. Whatever guy ends up with me forever will be so lucky. Not because of me but because of my hilarious family.

It was a good night. I really needed them and they needed me. It’s been so difficult for the both of them with my Grandad going through chemotherapy and my Grandma dealing with her best friend and husband’s ails along with her own. After a long hard week I woke up this morning and knew I needed to spend the evening with my grandparents. When my day was done, I anxiously called and they were so excited that I wanted to come over. We ate (ok, overate!) dinner, looked at old pictures, talked about old times, I told her about what happened this week on CSI, she told me about the Lifetime movie she watched last week, they gave me an old 4 cup coffee pot because my Grandad, who loves (absolutely loves) coffee, cannot for another moment let his granddaughter live without one! I wish I could have stayed longer. I know my Grandma and I would still be up talking. But the night was growing into early Saturday and I had to be getting back to Nashville. We will talk tomorrow. About Banana Pudding vs. Heath Bar Pie and Indian Saturday’s to be exact.

You know, so many people have walked in and out of my life over the years, even recently, but with a family like this one there is not a reason to ever feel alone.

We Wish You a Merry Friday!

I am late almost everywhere I go.

I am in need of a tiny screwdriver to change my watch battery - I've tried every little thing to get the screws undone...but no, I need a tiny screwdriver - I really wanted to win that battle.

Laundry is a pain in the ass when you don't have a washer and dryer in your own home.

I am wasting perfectly good energy bitching about life when in actuality I have a good one.

I bought a FORTUNE magazine last night at Kroger wanting to read about a Real Estate Investor, Tom Barrack, and when I got in the car I looked at it and realized I was just five dollars closer to zero.

I miss my grandparents. I think I'll hang out with them tonight.

I also want to see ShopGirl. I read that book about 2 years ago. Steve Martin is a wonderfully imaginative writer.

I hope the Holidays are cheery and loving this year. I need some of that.

A funny fact of my life. At any point in the year if I'm ever sad or mad, or a mixture of the two, I always watch either "Family Man", "Christmas Vacation", "A Christmas Story", or "It's a Wonderful Life" and magically I feel a little better.

I just might go ahead an put up my christmas tree this weekend. It's like 3 feet tall. I'd like to have a real one or at least a taller one. To donate a Christmas Tree to Nicole, CLICK HERE!

You clicked didn't you!?! Thanks :)

Welcome to the holidays...

I tried...I mean REALLY tried...

I tried to have a blog with some color, but I couldn't take it. I am simply a black and white kind of person I guess. The color was too much for me. Even in my art it's all black and white. Perhaps someone could help me venture into the world of color in my art? I don't know what the fear or dislike is...I do love the undying and graceful dance between light and shadow...so perhaps there is no need for color.

There is a world of color yet to be explored. I love color around my house. Earthtones mainly. Mossy green, burnt orange- ambers, deep scarlett reds, rich browns, scuffed up golds. Just recently I began wearing clothes that are not mostly black. I just thought I'd venture out.

We had our sixth night of the bible study tonight. More on that later.

I've been drooling over this man's art for the past few hours www.nicklong-fineart.com
Look at the aesthetics in his work. Breathtaking.

I miss being covered head to toe in charcoal and working diligently on my next project. I miss the smell of graphite when you rub it really hard on the canvas. I feel like a chunk of my soul has fallen to the ground on a busy sidewalk and I am trying desperately to grab hold of it but it is being stepped on and kicked around...I need some art in my life...I can't breathe.

HOPE: Blessed with His Word

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perserverance; perserverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:1-5

My eyes fell upon this today of all places- the Runner's World Website. What a perfect verse to be given in a time such as this that I have found myself in.

Thank you, God.

HOPE

I think too much. My close friends will surely attest to this. But as I was sitting on my porch tonight I turned to look at the spider web I have observed for weeks now I saw that the web had disintegrated to practically nothing and the spider was gone. Do spiders move? Or did it meet its fateful end to the appetite of a bird? I do not know. I had seen this spider build and rebuild its web time and time again as the forces of nature had impacted its home. My mind then turned to the trees. Ablaze in their fiery glory; all the leaves taking in their last few gulps of life. I started thinking about death. I know, it is a dreary thing to think about. But there has been so much death lately I cannot help it. Not only in the ecological sense but also in the lives of so many people I know. A good friend lost her father a few days ago. It was not after a long battle with a disease, but after a long life he was suddenly taken by a heart attack. Surely there were ends left untied. Words left unsaid. Dreams left unfulfilled. During this space we have between birth and death what are we doing to fill the time? And why is it said that people battle diseases when day in and day out people are battling with life?

I know I am not living to the aptitude, or the spiritual altitude, capable from within me. There are gifts God has given me that I leave buried beneath the soil strangled by the shadows of fear and selfishness. I live in a winding cycle of sins, also known as habits, which are both destructive and painful to my days, let alone to my future. So I am left with a simple question and not a single answer. What am I doing to fill this time given to me, this time, called life? All I know to pray is for hope. So for hope I shall pray.