Best. Song. Ever.

Standing firm on this stoney ground
The wind blows hard
Pulls these clothes around
I harbour all the same worries as most
The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost
I wrestle with an outlook on life
That shifts between darkness and shadowy light
I struggle with words for fear that they'll hear
But Orpheus sleeps on his back still dead to the world

Sunlight falls, my wings open wide
There's a beauty here I cannot deny
And bottles that tumble and crash on the stairs
Are just so many people I knew never cared
Down below on the wreck on the ship
Are a stronghold of pleasures I couldn't regret
But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide
As Orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side

Tell me, I've still a lot to learn
Understand, these fires never stop
Believe me, when this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear the promise of my Orpheus sing

Sleepers sleep as we row the boat
Just you the weather and I gave up hope
But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps
Were fuel for the fire and straw for our backs
Still the voices have stories to tell
Of the power struggles in heaven and hell
But we feel secure against such mighty dreams
As Orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring

Tell me, I've still a lot to learn
Understand, these fires never stop
Please believe me, when this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear the promise of my Orpheus sing

---
"Orpheus"
David Sylvian

Getting my spine back

Will not and cannot accept the fibro. This is -my- life; I will not have it controlled by a syndrome. I am stronger than that. I am -high octane-, I am a shark--gotta keep moving or die. And I don't want to die. I have been delivered from the demon of suicide too many times to want to fool with that feeling.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm taking a chance. But then I look at my mom and how she lives--full-throttle, open all the way, in spite of the damage done by chemo, and I think, I can do that. If she can, I can. I'm willing to deal with the consequences.

And the more I think and pray about my decision to -not- go to UNO and New Orleans, the better I feel. And strangely enough: I feel as though I have overcome my life-long fixation on NOLA. I still love it, no doubt, but it's no longer an overwhelming motivation.

And to think: just days ago, I thought I was going to lose my mind and pitch headlong into madness again. I was moments away from another breakdown. And now I feel truly that I am the master of my fate, commander of my will. Guided by God, beneath the stars, on the earth He created for his beloveds--there is much to live for, and time to live.

the wind is pushing me around

It's what I know

X-rays came back normal, which pretty much indicates that I have fibromyalgia. Wanted to be depressed about it, wanted to cry--but then I got over it. I'm tougher than that. I'm smarter than that. It's all about managing it, maintenance, planning, finding the limits. I can do that. I have a great family and great friends; I'm not alone. I'm not helpless. I am loved, and that makes all the difference in the world.

So I'll have to slow down a little. Is that really awful? No, it's not. Fibro is not degenerative; it's incurable, but it's not debilitating. It doesn't have to be debilitating. I'm young, I'm intelligent, and I have pharmaceuticals to help me manage. I have friends and family to help me. I have God.

Okay, so I'm in pain. It's bearable right now. I can keep it there, if I'm smart, and I'm smart. It's all about planning. Maintenance. Making careful choices. I can do that.

The fibro can become a non-issue, if I became adept at its management. I think I can do that.

After all, I'm not alone.

D.H. Lawrene would have liked it

A full-blown rainbow, a complete arch, bent its beauty over Monroe yesterday, in the late afternoon. It was vivid against a sky of dark gray clouds, as the sun seemed to collapse into the earth. It was perfectly formed. And I couldn't help but think of the first rainbow I read about as a child--the rainbow God showed to Noah after the Flood, the Covenant, God's promise to not destroy the world in water again.

As if the beauty of the rainbow weren't enough, you would not believe the light show the clouds were hosting. I haven't seen lightning like that since I moved out of Mississippi. It was prettier'n the heat lightning storms I remember watching in high school, when it was so hot, but so dry, and the lightning would spark from cloud to cloud, pink and pristine, precise and dangerous.

To see those electric veins leap from cloud to cloud behind the rainbow? Well, mankind cannot produce such things without effort. Nature does it without thinking.

I wish, sometimes, that I could exist without thinking. "The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates, and I couldn't agree more. I live the examined life, the self-examining life, so the brain never seems to turn off. I wish I could turn it off, for a little while at least, so I could hear more clearly what my heart was saying, what my soul was saying.

There are so many things dervishing around in my skull. Pros and cons, possibilities and losses, gains and guesses. It's not easy to sort and process all the data, all the knowledge, all the wisdom, when it flies around like debris in a hurricane, which is what it's doing right now.

This afternoon is my phone interview with Chaffe McCall, the law firm in New Orleans looking for a librarian. It's the oldest firm in New Orleans and boasts clients such as AmSouth, Pfizer, Louisiana State Employees Group Benefit Plan, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sherwin-Williams, and several other large and well-known corporations. Am I afraid? Maybe. Of what? Many things. That I'll be offered the job. That I won't be. Of working there. Of staying here. So many things. I'm overwhelmed, overshadowed, and bursting.

I guess there's no point in worrying about anything, though. There's nothing I can do at this point but my part: be there when the phone rings and answer their inquiries to the best of my abilities. The rest is in their hands...and in God's, and there's where my comfort rests.

...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?