...to my blue world...

I turn to stone / when you comin' home / I can't go on

Still two steps away. I felt particularly close to self-enlightenment this weekend. It's exhilarating and frightening...and that admission may help carry me closer to uncovering how to mount those two final steps. I am afraid of what might happen when/if I conquer those steps. I don't know what the ramifications will be, nor what I will acquire or lose. Fear is a great deterrent to change, I know, but I can't help how I feel.

But this weekend, that fear somewhat abated. Don't know what it was, but it let go a little. I've spent the last two days flat on my back on the couch, trying to give my back a break (I've had a lot of pain the last few days), so I've had some time to ponder parts of this conundrum. I realized that I literally carry a lot of baggage around with me, and if I let go of some of it--i.e., threw some of that crap away--the physical act of ridding myself of things I don't need might motivate my self into moving past the spiritual/emotional baggage I'm lugging around.

I'm still afraid, but there's a taste of freedom in the whole situation that's intriguing enough to hold my attention to possibility and not let me forget how things used to be. I know I can't go back, but I can recreate the conditions necessary to find my way back to something resembling peace.

Like a child at play...

Still two steps away from realization, from enlightenment of some sort.

This morning, I am filled with a pervasive feeling of freedom, of understanding, of knowing what used to make me happy. I used to know myself so well...until my time in Missouri, which broke that all to pieces. I'd settle now for just understanding myself better, rather than as well as I used to.

I have a friend who is convinced that I would be much better off if I simply knew what I wanted from the world, from people, and from myself. Using that knowledge would give me direction, which would help me feel less lost. I know he's right; I'm just...afraid. I'm not sure of what, but I'm afraid. It's silly, yah.

But these days I feel closer to knowing. I feel closer to that former understanding, and that has to count for something. Maybe this weekend I'll sit down and figure out what I want...

...and from there, figure out where to go and what to do.

Whenever I'm alone with...

...myself, and music...

It used to be that not a day went by that I didn't think of St. Petersburg, of Russia. It wasn't burned into my memory; it was frozen there, a great glacier of memory, immovable. No matter the madness that would fire my mind, my spirit, it remained untouched...

In the last few years, that habit has waned. Blinded by my southern sun, I lost track of the mountain. It no longer rose to meet me; time and grief are mists that do not burn off, no matter how warm the sun.

But this morning...this morning that glacier shone through the mist, heightened by my southern sun and my double-edged habit of associating events with music. My flesh felt the wind; felt the ghost of Russia rise. I would swear that I held the whole country in the bounds of my bones, my blood, and felt melancholy, the good kind, keening throughout. It has stayed, this melancholy. It is older than the usual one that visits me--older, and better. Wiser. Less cynical. Not burned out. Not tired.

blue days, black nights

I want to hold this feeling, from when I felt the world in a different way. Can I keep it close, a path back to the memory?