i am listening

5 stage E ticket ride

well kids, it looks like i really will be going back to chico next semester.  i had so much faith in the possibility of moving away for good that i threw away everything i didnt need/could buy again/wasnt that cool anyway and made every item i own fit into the back of my pickup (it still ended up dribbling into the cab, but what's a girl to do?)

i have officially attempted every possible escape from the Vanilla city and find myself still standing at the same amount of brick wall that i first began clawing at.  the pile of dust soiling my shoes may not seem like worthy fruit for such efforts, ah, but in it the resignation lies.  when one has done all that can be done, there is merely left the arranging of one's hair and the settling down of nerves to await what cannot be held back from arriving.  maybe it would even be called "rest."

in Him it surely is.  

thats why we have our coffee every morning, our wine at night: to herald in regal glory the coy faithfulness of a world spinning out of our control, carrying us on it's back, rising and falling heedless to our wishes.  rising and falling careful towards His.   

please pass the sugar,

my how nice the scenery is.

He must be taking us somewhere fine.

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance:

check.

now that the 5 stages are done, lets move on, shalst we.

. . .

"what will sustain us through the winter?

where did last year's lessons go?

walk me out into the rain and snow

i dream a highway back to you."

T-minus

this here is a horrible picture of my color theory final.  (it looks better in real life, i promise...click on it to make it bigger).  She was originally an opera singer...but i made her face a hymnal page :).  i dont know what that makes her now...

chico is going to last about 36 hours and then i'm free.  kinda free.  "kinda free" is better than NOT free, right?  

ooooo, lawd.

the twenty something most random things i want for christamas

*a black light booklight...right?  with strobe option.  clubbin'

*a lifetime supply of canned fish and lima beans

*the opposite of serious

*a concertina

*a bird in the hand

*a friend who plays the cello

*people skills

*the live near a HUGE asian market

*to find that pair of von dutch aviators that i lost awhile ago.  dang, those things were sic.

*a horsey

*a kitty

*to love my neighbor

*a fixed exhaust manifold

*kale

*an ocean breeze.  here.  in chico.

*health insurance

*to keep it real

*a time machine and/or a flight to britain

*to become a famous artist after i die

*for everything to taste like coffee and/or chocoloate and/ or curry and/or plum skin

*abject fearlessness

really real

i have been thinking about sincerity lately.

trying to hold them next to each other and see how similar now and ago really are.

what if i would have been honest with myself

sooner.

what if my love could be sincere, with that honesty a child gains by being born 

and forgets about 

each day following day 

that teaches him fear and greed and practicality.

like when i was small 

asleep in my parents bed

because of the spider or the dream in my room.

let love be without hypocrisy

like a Man weeping

calling Himself a hen

longing to gather His chicks

calling Himself a Dad

because of the spider or the dream in my room.

forlorn foundling rescued by compassion

thats what that little part says above the picture that i taped to the front of my bible this morning :)  its a picture of a lamb in a burlap bag attached to a saddled horse.

i've decided i will tape more things into my bible from now on.

i also taped a picture of the sea of galilee that i found in a 1950's national geographic to the back inside flap of this my Holy Book.  according to the caption, "Galilean fishermen still set their nets in circles around lights to enclose fish drawn to the glow,"  and it shows these boats with large bulb lights hanging off the bow of the boats over the sea.  

i found that "lights" part extremely profound.  

they fish at night.  

they fish with lights.

the fish seem to know the difference

and come easily to the glow.

.......

spent thanksgiving with my sweet tehachapi friends (if you dont know where tehachapi is, ask your neighbor).  i still dont want to live in chico...but what else is new.  after this i'm swearing off northern california forever and if you are my friend you will hold me to it.  if any of you want to move somewhere and take me along with you, i think you'll be surprised at how little i object.

maybe i'll get over it in time to graduate (graduate...ah, the word does knell its sweetness to my soul.)

......

there is a persimmon tree by the mansion down the street.  the persimmon is a fruit that hangs naked on the tree with no leaves around it so that everyone can see.  

it is no time for greenery, but it is still time for fruit.  

fruit is the business of a tree, leaves are its passing pleasures that flutter and fall with a mind all their own.

but the fruit is more faithful.

of more worth.

dear persimmon tree,

you are better off in your beauty 

of rest

despite the cold.