stars and rivers

Hello, hello.

Along with all my other lovely presents, this year for Christmas I got a big dose of winter blues.

It's regrettable, but otherwise I had a nice Christmas. I wish I could've come back with a happy post, but I just can't as I am more blue than I've been in a while.

Speaking of blue, in my quest to buy all those albums I've always been meaning to buy, a few weeks ago I bought Blue by Joni Mitchell, which insured that my favourite Christmas song this year was her song 'River'. Not strictly a Christmas song, but it mentions that season several times so it's close enough for me. These lyrics have been the refrain circling my head (helped perhaps by the fact I've learnt the song on the piano) :

I wish I had a river / I could skate away on...

I have not been blogging lately, because I have been busy with work. Ha! I've never been able to say that before. Since the end of November, I've been working long hours. More than I've ever worked before. The work as a cleaner I mentioned last post has morphed into work as an angel of mercy. (Not in the serial killer sense. :P) This is due to the fact my dear employer has fallen and hurt her neck very badly, which I am told she does sporadically.

So along with the regular cleaning and laundry &c., I grocery shop and make food and drive Mrs. D wherever she needs to go, which usually ends in me sitting in the waiting room of some medical building.

I've had the past week off and I'm not exactly sure when I'm going back or how many hours a week I'll be working. It's great to make money, yes, but I am miserable. I enjoy it, but I also find myself hating it and wanting to just go home. I've been forced to have a lot of first-time experiences, such as grocery shopping. Did you know I was afraid of grocery shopping and had never done it by myself? Now I've done it many times. Still don't like it, but it doesn't terrify me. All this has been a good experience, but I'm tired of personal growth for now, thank you.

(The FitzOsbornes At War by Michelle Cooper)

Because I've been working, I haven't felt like writing. My days off from work I just want to laze. I am trying to be better about this. Today I sat in the midst of my family who were playing a game and I wrote. I had on my brother's noise-blocking headphones and I listened to the beautiful album Stars by Janis Ian (pictured at top) and wrote more in a certain story than I have in a while. Which was still a scarily small amount, but it's progress... right?

I'm trying to feel that I will find something in life that I am content doing, but the feeling that I don't want to be living anymore has been haunting me again.

Don't worry about me. I'll be sticking around. If only to listen to the Phineas and Ferb album my mother got my father for Christmas. (Seriously. So far I've listened to it more times than all the rest of my new music.)

I do so hope you, my dear friends, all had happy Christmases! Ta for now.

...but once a year.

I had a lovely Christmas and am sad it's over. The world looks a bleaker place without bright lights continually promising cheery respite from real life.

But...

Something happened a few days before Christmas that, while is most likely for the eventual (and even present) best, has caused much sorrow between myself and my mother.
Ever since it happened I've had trouble getting my brain to focus and get things done. I am really not sure why. Perhaps because the air is full of disrupted dust from memories that I had let settle in a dark corner a while ago.

Not to be histrionic, but I don't really want to talk about it. I don't really want to talk about anything, really.

I'm not uninspired, just terribly unsettled. So I'm writing snippets of stories, eating entirely too many sweet things, falling in love with Nina Nastasia's album, Dogs [a Christmas present from Younger Brother #1], and waiting to see what will happen next.

(The aforementioned Nina Nastasia album with a penguin puppet Younger Brother #2 gave to me since I have quite a thing for penguins. He joked that he regretted getting it for me since I was having waaay to much fun with it Christmas morning. I haven't decided what to name her yet... I know it must be a her since the rest of the penguins in my collection are boys.)


This is not much of a post, but I haven't posted for almost 3 weeks which is uncharacteristic of me. I wanted to let you know I am still here, as alive as I ever was.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. ♥



{'Dear Rose' by Nina Nastasia - the opening track of Dogs. Hmm, I'm noticing a trend of me putting music at the ends of my posts these days. What can I say? Music is good.}

Nyro November

As Christmas lights twinkle at me from neighbouring windows, I must accept that November's candle has nearly burned to the end.

This is not neccesarily a bad thing, though. I journaled a lot during the month of November and looking back, I realize how bemusing it was...

--We took a day trip down to see our paternal grandparents. It was my first time seeing my grandfather since he's been diagnosed with cancer. [This next bit is copied from my journal] He's undergone half of his treatments and I was shocked... because he looks no different! I would never even suspect he had cancer. I almost feel guilty, because I have been relatively untouched by tragedy & now that it has come... it's a nonentity. So far, that is. I should be giving thanks to God but I'm just sitting here wondering what the catch is. Sad, n'est-ce pas?

--Less importantly, I found out I have "misophonia" which is a form of decreased sound tolerance. From wikipedia: "People who have misophonia are most commonly annoyed, or even enraged, by the sound of other people eating, breathing, coughing, or other ordinary sounds." My whole life makes sense now! Or at least the past couple years do. :P


--On November 21 my "baby" brother had his 13th birthday! I could have sworn he was still 6, I really could've. As often as he drives me crazy, I love that boy so much. This one's for you, love muffin! ;)


--And most shockingly, my older sister has a boyfriend. Her first. Our whole family’s first, really. Let me put this in context: she's never had a boyfriend because her convictions do not include dating for dating's sake or transient relationships. This relationship is a serious one: one with the goal of possible marriage someday.

*excuse me while I scream inside*

I feel... a tumult of emotions. This all came on so fast - I almost feel threatened. My sister and I are close and she's already away so much; I wasn't prepared to lose her to a guy so soon! We all finally met him today. He seems nice and a little bit shy. Still... this is shaking my world. I'll get used to it, though... eventually.
As I've watched this whole thing unfold, (the talking, the texting, the praying, the texting, the texting) all I can think is Aww...! [I don't want this for myself. I don't want this; I don't want this.] Perhaps it's my young age, but the knowledge that I am not expected to stay single my whole life makes me sick. But this is a bewildering topic I could wax on for hours. Let us drop it for now.


November has been strange for me, emotionally speaking. One day I'll feel driven and inspired; I write/bake cookies/paint with my brother; and then the next day all I want to do is crawl into a hole where there are no people and I can cry in peace.
These past couple weeks, I've developed an ennui: the grey, sticky kind that's so hard to wash from the folds of the sky. I thought it was circumstantial, temporary; I thought I could keep it at arm's length until "that time" ended. Apparently not. It's still here.

November has sounded like a Laura Nyro song.


Practically all I listened to the month of November was her album New York Tendaberry, and (starting this past week) Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. On good days and bad, her music remained the only thing I didn't weary of. But those aren't the only reasons why I say November has sounded like one of her songs. Her changing tempos, the soaring flight; then landing; then soaring again of her songs has mirrored the carousel rhythm of my emotions. Except, I lack the passion she sings with; I don't seem to feel anything deeply anymore.

Today in church, though... I felt inspired. I can pull my act together this week, I thought. I can pull my whole life together!
Sitting in church seems to be the place where I make my best (and oft most random) resolves. Sermon-listening doesn't always happen, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

My ennui has not made a peep all day, and I am hoping this week will be better. That is one thing we must always cling to: surely tomorrow will be better. If we didn’t believe that, I’m not sure many of us would choose to wake up ever again.

So, though November has been an altogether bone-rattling month, I face the beginning of my favourite season with careworn hopes dug out from under the bed and grasped in my hands again. I’m not sure they will help, but I need to hold them and try to seek the truth again. I'm tired of being lost.





('The Man Who Sends Me Home' by Laura Nyro. I realize her music is not to everyone's liking, but I think she's pretty darn amazing, so I dinna care.)



{1st picture is text from the book I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley and the 2nd picture is of Laura Nyro.}

December

{The Charlie Brown Christmas tree in our foyer. ♥ }

December
At first it was doubt. Feeling that there was something horribly wrong with me. Nearly having a breakdown, crying sobs that threatened to consume me. {I haven't had a cry this ravaging in so long...}
Baking my melancholy, my disappointments into batches of Christmas cookies and half-heartedly harmonizing in church to the familiar carols.
I was afraid my favourite season would finish before I could get out of my blue funk...

Then, one morning: an unforeseen coating of snow and the scent of cinnamon rolls.

{I love our back yard when it snows. The snow-covered branches turn it into a veritable winter wonderland.}

After that... somehow... December was beautiful.

~A party I was loath to attend turning out lovely in one of the most unexpected ways possible.

~Watching White Christmas for the first time with some of my very favourite people. {The weather forecast has informed us that we may experience a "white Christmas" of our own...!}

~Being swept away by the beauty of song in the annual concert of the girl's ensemble I sing in.
This was possibly one of the most wonderful things of all. Why?
Well, I love singing in the ensemble but lately I've been frustrated and unable to enjoy it because of the relatively small dissonances around me. We are undoubtedly amateurs and I could feel the discrepancies dragging me down. I couldn't appreciate the other parts around me nor the important story {of Jesus' birth} that our words were telling.
But at the concert it all seemed to come together. {It helps that we have the most amazing, loving director ever.}
So what if the girl on my left was off-key at times and singing the soprano part instead of the second soprano?
So what if the girl on my right doesn't know the meaning of the word "pianissimo"?
I was able to sing with absolute joy in my voice! With happiness tinging every note. There is something so thrilling about harmony and being a part of a choir. I'm glad I could be reminded.

Now I bake my content and my joy into Christmas cookies. I made the cookies pictured above last week. They were supposed to be gingersnaps but I did something wrong and they ended up being more like gingerbread. {We suspect I put in too much flour.} But they tasted incredible. That is one mistake I would not mind repeating.

So, yes. I am enjoying this season. Even though I am "grown-up" I still get twinges of the all-consuming, childish anticipation. This quote sum it up pretty well:

"Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite bring back the magic feeling of this night, the melody would stay in your heart always - a song for all the years."
-Excerpt from Song of Years by Bess Streeter Aldrich


And with that, I just want to wish everyone the merriest of Christmases! I hope you all are having a lovely December and Christmas season?


{P.S. - I'm sorry I'm so longwinded all of the time! I try to restrain my train of thought but it goes chugging on, regardless.}