A Year Under Watercolors

There's a particular heart that stands out. Its appearance is more like watercolors rather than a blood pumping organ. You can see over lapping colors, fading into each other, but leaving behind messy and noticeable strokes. Getting darker and darker, as if to keep escaping, keep layering, keep complicating. No matter how many times the brush is picked up or how desperately the holder wishes to disappear and allow consumption to corrupt, a heart can never be painted dark enough with anything to disappear, and more often than not, the heart will find a lighter release. Spilt water isn't always planned, but sometimes it's needed in order to loosen rooted pigments to reveal new shades.

Dear Peter

Maybe it was something you only found in childhood.

Scraping your knees in seeking new heights as all children should.

You boldly claimed triumph and courage behind plastic daggers,

But hidden to well in make-believe quests was confidence beginning to stagger.

Dear Peter, where did you lose imagination's bravery?

Was it locked in the shackles of a broken family's slavery?

Dear Peter, won't you please, please return my call?

Look beyond yourself, it's not just your feet that are prone to fall.

Your gold crowns among green irises are chocked by hazel weeds.

Scoffing at your childish heroics you invite a victim to take the lead.

Intoxicated with blame of your mother's short-comings, anger rose, an accidental king

Seizing power in your father's absent authority you bait with charm on a string.

Dear Peter, where did you lose imagination's bravery?

Was it locked in the shackles of a broken family's slavery?

Dear Peter, wont' you please, please return my call?

Look beyond yourself, it's not just your feet that are prone to fall.

Bound by pride, you lose your vision to your own reflection.

Be wary, for I'm taking up arms to demand your attention.

Dear Peter, your name means "rock" but where do you stand?

I fear I cannot see your feet, they're so far buried in the sand.

Dear Peter, my voice grows hoarse from calling your name.

Whether I'm heard or not, my fight for you cannot be tamed.

Summer Snippet

Carolina summers leave temporary tattoos on my skin,

Scattered clumps of toffee-colored freckles stained where porcelain had been.

My cheeks hues of red as burning coals replace bone;

Sparking not from a match, but the flattery you've sown.

You caught me in the creases your smile carves around your eyes.

You kept me tangled in your oversized hands to signify unspoken ties.

Darling, if you choose to love me, no looking back.

Pearled Summer

Creating items to keep my skin warm, can be easily accomplished with my pair of small, and ever-so-slightly chubby, hands. Finding those little traces of attention that spark a different kind of warmth in my heart, well those can't be handmade. I will always sit in an eternal hearth, but I can't help but wonder when those over-rated earthly affections will find a home with me. Womanhood: harder than just making a good meal or scarf.

Summer Goals Requiring a bit more Summer Soul

This summer has been a bit torn in productivity. I had quite the list of goals that began in May:

Reread Harry Potter series before last movie

Horseback Riding

Many adventures

Survive Summer Session

Write more

Read more

Tap into art more

Get fit

Save money

Figure out what to do with my life post-graduation

July is about to end and this is all I've accomplished:

Survived Summer Session

Read more

Halfway done with Harry Potter series (regrettably most of the reading of this was done after the movie had already come out)

Not even half of the list has been achieved. Slightly disappointing.

I've now, however, revised how I should make these goals: learning how to prioritize. I'm trying get myself to a place where I can make a habit to put aside time for each of these things I love to do, but often don't bother much with because I'll waste away the day lazily "hanging out" or sleeping.

What needs to be priority:

quiet time

writing

reading

art

music

school

earning/saving

eating better/exercising regularly

Why do I need priorities? Because it'll really drive a feeling a purpose and further enforce that I do, in fact, have one. It's easy to overlook how purposeful you're really supposed to be living when you have a season of summer in front of you with little to no commitments and obligations attached to every coming day.

Blogging... sleep alternative?

I'm going to use a brief (and a little cliche) metaphor referencing the seasons to sort of introduce where my train of thought at 5 in the morning as stumbled upon:

My favorite seasons are typically the cold ones. Fall, easily, because of all the colors, but winter has always had a trance of attraction over me. It's a time of year when everything freezes over, (quite literally if you live in the mountains). Suddenly the world is paused in a blur of white peaceful ice, and everyone in it is bundled in layer after layer. There's a small comfort in layers, you're not only warm, but you have the ability to hide. Hide the unwanted pinch of fat on your waist, unshaved legs, even a bad hair day can be fixed with a toboggan.

Spring eventually comes, which has a beauty entirely of it's own with promise of new life, but summer. Summer is my least favorite. It's hot, humid, and doesn't leave any room for layers. Even though you don't want to, and even though your body isn't as in shape as your New Years resolution promised it would be, you still have to find a way to expose as much skin as possible to even be remotely close to comfortable. But when you're that bare, you can only be self-conscious. Idling in front of mirrors or any surface that carries your reflection just to try to see if you're seeing what everyone else is. Avoiding large bodies of water because that means the public eye might see you in a swimsuit - the most revealing summer garment. Or the water will be too cold, mess up your hair, sloppily wash away your make up.

The thing is, we - I - have to jump into the water. I have to try to disrobe all these layers that gave me that false sense of security. Allow my pale appearance to find it's warmth and color in God instead of in my sweater that encourages the desire to be needed. Or the scarf that suffocates me with the fear of vulnerability. Or worst of all, the coat - or should I say straight-jacket - that binds me with the idea that I have to be independent from everyone and everything, including my first love.

And I - the girl that thought she was entirely self-reliant with the pretense that she was attached to nothing - became dependent on my layers. The comfort of finding more and more excuses not to feel or let anyone close enough to even see past the surface of my heart. I kept repeating the empty words "Oh, I want to learn to be vulnerable - I know it's a problem." Admitting to a problem with faux claims of "change" on the horizon is almost even worse that not knowing about the problem in the first place.

Now now, before I get too carried away (which can easily happen with problems and weaknesses that have way too many flames to juggle in one sitting) I just want to end it with the conclusion (that is, ironically, also the introduction). Summer may be a more uncomfortable season because it won't allow any layers. But it isn't about finding an alternative comfort zone. It's the opposite. Waking up out of our cushioned compliance to live without actually having to risk anything. It's about asking God what he expects from us, allowing him to take over my stubborn dictatorship that reigns in my heart, and instead of ensuring my own comfort or happiness, ensuring His.

So cheers, Summer. Here's to a season of uncomfortable, and much needed, exposure.

Ah, And Just a Snippet From "A New Kind of Step"

Sophomore year of high school was the most challenging teen year, but not necessarily because of school. My physical appearance was a bit all over the place. On top of my head was a very unflattering shoulder-length cut, awkward layers poking out of the obstinately straight mess of dirty blonde.

My fashion was unfortunately much too bold. At least it was in hindsight. I hadn’t entirely adopted the “emo” culture, though I did let it have much too much influence over a few Hot Topic t-shirt mistakes. One of my favorite Hot Topic shirts was black with a huge fish-eye zoom on Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka character. The big circular white sunglasses he sported disproportionally stretched across my middle half. I wore it with such pride, and remember it with much wiser distaste.

The hormonal attack on the body that is the hour-glass-shape hadn’t quite struck yet, leaving my curves a bit slimmer, though average for a fifteen-year-old girl. My green eyes were normally clouded with a thick layer of black eyeliner and mascara. My grandmother sweetly told me she thought it looked like I was wearing spiders on my eyes.

And, of course, the cherry on top: braces. No fashionably insecure fifteen-year-old is complete until they come with their own set of braces. I definitely fit that billing.

During this time, I lived with my mother in a standard suburban neighborhood, Silver Creek. It’s technically a part of Wesley Chapel, North Carolina, but Wesley Chapel isn’t big enough to have it’s own post office, so we were found under Waxhaw’s township.

It was the newest house we had ever lived in. My mother was just starting to come into her writing career. She finally managed to turn out a successful series called Saving Dinner, teaching the importance of eating well and eating in a community. She also had an online menu business that sent out a weekly schedule of menus and shopping lists for anyone that subscribed. She filled the need for women who couldn’t find time to organize dinner each weeknight while juggling family responsibilities and offered an affordable plan.

Everyday I would come into her office, a yearlong shelter of hibernation, and sit in the yellow and red plaid rocking chair in the left hand corner. She would sit on the edge of her black pleather swivel chair, trapped in a U-shaped white desk. Her face would hover about a foot away from the monitor’s screen. Reflections of Microsoft word, a gmail inbox, yahoo messenger, and facebook (a new feat), bounced off the lens of her dollar store reading glasses that slowly slid to rest atop her nostrils. Her over-processed blonde hair would be loosely tucked into a bun on the back of her head. Wisps of stubborn strands would often fall over her line of vision, each piece shone with burnt crispness to bleach exposure. The final touch would be a fleece blanket tucked around her middle and under her legs.

Pulling my legs up into the circle of my arms, I would watch. Swaying back and forth on the curved pine limbs of the chair until it would eventually hit against white baseboard. I’d squirm it forward, and repeat. For a reason unknown to me, I was drawn to being around her. Her office wasn’t really where we had in depth discussions or memorable life lessons. Actually it was rarely a source of conversation. My mother could multi-manage well in front of a computer screen, but she could hardly multi-task – especially during a deadline. It was a silent green room. Four green walls, even a green ceiling, where her green eyes would run across typed sentences and the green eyes she gave me would simply watch her.

But that was only one room of the house we now shared. It was beautiful. The whole downstairs was yellow except my mother’s office, bedroom, and the dining room. Those claimed green. Two large windows on the back of the house looked over an untouched field along the edge of our property’s line. Reinforcing our warm color choices with even more gold light. One of those windows was in our living room that leaked sunshine hues from every wall and had two apple red couches with a large white coffee table in the middle of the room. It was easy to find oneself in a voluntary slumber, submerged in a bath of vitamin D on those couches.

This house belonged solely to my mom and me. I helped her decorate and pick out all that yellow paint. We created a solidly affectionate environment only to be split between the two of us. However, such sweet things never last.