1. First eye examine in three or four years
2. My eyes having gotten better in that time, not worse!
3. Zenni Optical, and three pairs of glasses--one prescription sunglasses--for less than $60
4. Daria
5. Getting to drive around a bit by myself today

Small, authentic moments of happiness. The breath of joy in life, finding the moments that make your soul resonate and your heart sing.

Shared laughter stemming from true enjoyment, not malicious gossip.

Fresh, hot bread and butter to spread.

Soft, heavy sleepiness slowly closing around me.

A new character gently whispering in my ear, waiting to tell his story.

Flannel comforter covers.

The soft whoosh of tires over wet pavement.

Cracking my knuckles, all at once.

Running off a cliff in WoW, just to feel the stomach tingling sense of vertigo as I watch my character fall.

Sleeping in.

Hot tea.

Sleep.

His name was Nick.

He was a year younger than me, absolutely adorable, and I liked him a lot.

We slow danced at my Senior Prom, and he asked me had I ever wanted someone, dreamed about them, hoped it could happen, and been broken hearted when it didn't?

Fresh from a further rejection from the boy I'd decided I loved--though I'm not sure why, he'd made clear he wanted nothing to do with me--I said yes, sorrowfully, and finished the dance.

Months and years later, I found out he'd been talking about me. And why not? Looking back at the pictures of me in high school, I was hot. No reason a guy shouldn't have wanted to be with me. But I couldn't see it then.

I want to be able to see things, now. I want to recognize the moments in my life, to take advantage of them. To not have that sinking feeling months later as I realize I flubbed something that could've been magic.

Had I but world enough and time...but I don't, and life must be lived, not regretted. Today, I ask only for the ability to recognize my moments, and make the choices required of them consciously. I don't expect every choice to turn up roses, but I want to be aware as I make them. I want to be awake.

And I want to drink deep of the river of happiness.

Strong hands catch the newborn lamb as it finally slides free, gentling its entrance into the world. Soft laughter sounds as the mother bleats, turning, licking her baby clean, steadying it as it rises to its feet, and butts against her for its first meal.

Tired limbs sit back on a haybale to watch, now that the work is done. A thick braid falls over one shoulder, sore shoulders ease under the release of tension, a head rolls from side to side. And then there is just contemplation, in the dark barn.

Snow falls outside, the wind brushes against strong wood, but the animals keep this dim haven warm, as a new life is contemplated, welcomed into the world.

Strong, competent, gentle, nurturing.

A warden of animals, a healer of the land.

A voice raised in laughter, a body bathed in sweat of hard, glorious work, a thirst quenched at the end of the day as true accomplishment is admired.

Words upon a page, flowing from a pen, set down in quiet moments between the work and joy. Worlds before unknown, now clothed in glorious light, set forth and admired.

A storyteller, a mother, a shepherd.

A shaman, a teacher.

A woman.

Me.

I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

A song I've heard at least a dozen times, probably much much more, since first seeing the episode of Scrubs that featured it. And a sentiment with which I'm tired of identifying. I don't want to be waiting, I want to be living.

As a child, I hated the first month and the last month of school. Nothing was settled.

In the first month, you didn't know the routine, you weren't sure what was the best route to take between classes, choir and band hadn't started up after school, the library visits weren't arranged, the clubs and activities weren't finalized, and you didn't know who would be your friends for the year.

In the last, everything was winding down. Clubs had their last meetings, performances were finished, everything and everyone was just biding time, getting through the last little bit until there'd be freedom and fun on which to concentrate all summer long.

And I hated it. I hated that unsettled feeling, not knowing what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to act, where I was supposed to be. I realized, when I was in high school, that I was coming up on an entire portion of my life that would be the first month of school. No settled family, no settled life, of any kind. And I've been holding my breath for nearly ten years, waiting for it to be arranged for me ever since.

But no more. I'm no longer going to wait for someone else to make my real life begin. I'm starting it myself, here, now.

The curtain is up, the stage is set. And so I enter, stage left, determined.

Gratitude. Simplicity. Order. Harmony. Beauty. Joy.

Gratitude. Each day this year, I intend--in addition to ready the day's meditation from the Simple Abundance book, and writing some sort of response to it here--to find at least five things for which to be grateful. I am combining it with Project 365, in which you take at least one picture a day for a year. So far, three days in, I have succeeded in keeping those goals. And in finding things for which to be truly grateful in my life.

Simplicity. This month, I shall pack up everything I own, and store much of it away for an extended and unknown period of time. In packing, I intend to sort the wheat from the chaff, and relieve myself of many of the things that've weighed down my soul for as long as I can remember. To remove the burden of stuff and with it the ridicule I've endured from peers uncounted.

Order. I long for a place for everything, and everything in its place. This may come as a shock to those who've known me all my life, as organization has never been my strong suit. But again...I have too many things, things which do not serve me, and it is only in releasing them that I can find a place for everything. If I have too much too know what I have, then what's the purpose of having it?

Harmony. To live without the inner strife of hating my surroundings, wishing to escape them, yet at the same time being too mired in their layers to move. To let go of needing the trappings and accessories and knick knacks to prove to myself who I am, but to let the knowledge flow from inside, negating the need for the rest.

Beauty. How I long to surround myself in that which is beautiful, each piece appreciated for what it is, displayed and loved and part of a glorious whole, not stuffed cheek by jowl in a space too small to hold it, and too cluttered to appreciate it. I need to cleanse my soul and home of the excess I no longer love.

Joy. To have a space and home of which I'm proud, one I want to stay in because of its energy, and want to show off to friends because of its beauty, and which fills me with happiness. That is my goal for my new home. Cluttered with love, and not with excess. Cluttered with friends, and not with empty purchases. Cluttered with hope, and not with the leavings of a life I do not recognize.

Gratitude. Simplicity. Order. Harmony. Beauty. Joy.

Questions.

Curiosity.

A rock, granite, old, weathered, nestled in a hollow of sunbleached grass beside a country highway. Two lanes, in theory, with no lines painted to mar the glistening gray asphalt, bleached in the same sun that leeches color from the grass, that paints mirages along its surface. The rock is passed by few cars, each day, hardly seeing more than one at a time.

And on its surface, some interminable time ago, some soul with a thirst for mayhem had taken their spray paint, and added their decoration.

Why?

The words are white, pitted as the rock, the edges fuzzed with age.

I saw that rock every day, riding on the overheated bus, with kids pushing and shouting and whining around me. I saw that rock every time my sister and I road past in my father's old Ford Ranger, our skin tortured by the itchy wool blanket that covered the sticky plastic bench seat, my sister's sleeping head heavy against my shoulder, her lip beaded with summer sweat as we sweltered in our sun suits.

I saw that rock every time my mom's small, sensible hatchback passed, her voice lifted in the song of her voice lesson tapes, chasing a dream she'd never quite fulfill while I listened to my sister sing and breathe along, wishing I had the talent to join in without embarrassment.

I saw that rock nearly every day, from as far back as I can remember, until the summer I was sixteen, when we packed up all we owned and moved into town, no more to drive those lonely eighteen miles out into the country.

And every time, I read that single word, and wondered.

Why?

Why was the sky blue? Why did the kids at school have to be so mean? Why didn't it snow here, like in my books? Why was Daddy so mad? Why did I feel better, when I climbed the hill, way up by myself, and couldn't see any evidence of other people? Why couldn't I have a horse?

Why did we have to move?

And now it's been years, at least three, maybe more, since I've seen that rock, and the questions I ask are different. But in my mind it still sits, worn and aged and roughened, urging some other child to puzzle out the letters, read its message, and wonder to herself...

Why?

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
-- Zora Neale Hurston

And so begins another odd year. My old friend. Even years are stranger for me, and the odd years I welcome anew. If this quote is true, even years ask my questions, odd years answer them.

And last year? 2008 was a year of huge questions, of yawning open chasms of contemplation. 2008 broke open my complacency, challenged my lassitude, and finally forcefully ended my lethargy.

Now my feet are on the path. I have this month to sort through the leavings of my life, the bits and bobs and pieces and treasures and trinkets I have gathered in twenty-eight years on earth. This month to decide what is necessary to my life, and what drags it down. This month to pack it all carefully away, load it onto a large truck, and leave.

I have this month to renew, to embrace the second (or third, or fourth, or fifth--our Gods are endlessly patient in doling them out) chance to start again. To cast off that which has adhered itself to me, and to welcome in new influences, new worlds, and new experiences.

I have my resolutions, I have my friendships, and I have my faith that help will be given when my feet stray, if only I remember to ask for it.

Great Merciful Mother, Holy Father, all powers of light and good in this world...on this first day, this moment of renewal and rebirth, I put myself in your hands. I give myself to your guidance. Show me what I must do to achieve the life I am meant to lead, and steady my feet as I walk the path to get there. So mote it be.

Giving it up. Suffering from the illusion you had it in the first place.

I decided in May, before I left for the retreat that changed my life, that I was giving myself into the hands of the Goddess, giving my life into her keeping, that I would follow her urgings and give up control to the universe, to be led as she saw fit.

I have spent most of the time since then trying to bargain my way out of the deal, to obey the directions I received only on my own terms, to wrest back control of my life.

"Yes, I'll leave my job and move, but maybe not yet. It pays well, and it's a bad time of year to start something like that."

"Yeah, I'll get a pet, but I can't have them where I am and it's more convenient here."

"Okay, I'll start a new life for myself, but I'm busy this week."

"Yes, I'll work on this story idea, but I'm more excited about this one over here...maybe tomorrow."

I am given advice, and I have answer after answer of why it won't work for me, because I may be afraid, but at least I am afraid because of my own actions. Control.

Control.

For someone who longs to give it up as much as I do, I have held onto it with the tightened grasp of the shipwrecked sailor clinging to his peace of flotsam.

Great Merciful Mother, Holy Father, all powers of light and good in this world...I give my life into your hands, I put my faith, my trust, in you. Send me your guidance, send me your signs, send me your help, and lead my feet to the path of your choosing.

I yield to you.

Dreaming.

I wrote a book, in junior high, finished in under a year. Huge parts of it came from one single dream, in which I was rescued from drowning, and could still feel the imprint of another's lips on mine when I woke, the ache in my chest, the raw pain in my throat, stripped by the water I'd swallowed.

Another part of the dream found me sitting on a staircase, in an old house, leaning against the wall on one side, the contents of the room visible through the banister. There is someone with me, a few steps down, reaching up to push my hair behind my ear, to slowly stroke my cheek, look into my eyes. Though I know I am the one being caressed, I see myself from the point of view of the one touching me. I only know that it is my lover, but as to the sex or identity of that person...I have nothing.

I dreamed that perhaps fifteen years ago, now, but it still sticks with me. But the dreams of last night? Gone already, lost with the morning's waking, and the tears shed throughout the day. I am exhausted, searching soon for sleep, and there I'll wander again.

Perhaps I'll be led to another world, another story, another book. Or just another tender, sweet moment, to hold me over, to make me feel cared for, loved.

Taken care of.

Soon, soon, I will dream.

My head has always lived in the clouds.

I have made up stories in my mind for as long as I can remember, told them to myself to pass the hours, whiled away long bus trips by joining the adventures of the characters I loved from the books that were my friends.

I started writing when I realized I could put the stories that danced inside my head down onto paper instead.

Somewhere along the line I lost the connection, lost the speed and ease and belief in finishing my stories, in letting my daydreams become more. I have searched for it again, searched to pick up that thread, that ease.

Now I believe that, perhaps, it is coming again. Maybe, maybe the stories that have been blocked for so long will once again take flight. Maybe the long freeze is over, and the river of my words will thaw and run.

Maybe...maybe.

Maybe the time has come to return to the first call, and recover from the distraction of the past thirteen years.

Maybe.

Maybe it is time to dream.

At night, sleep is elusive, hard to find. She dances with me, tempts me, pulls me close then flits away once more. I am left with only the sight of her beguiling smile, and another hour's worry in the darkness. And so I read, I watch movies, I lay awake and stare at the ceiling and count the hours until dawn and rest and peace.

During the day, she dogs my steps, teases me with her temptations, until I lay my head down, curl under a blanket, nap.

And then her nightmares arrive, rip into my mind, leaving me sweatsoaked and shaken and unrested, unwilling to lie down again.

No, I have never liked napping, much, not when it so often brings little peace.

But when it does, when sleep opens her arms and invites sweet surrender...then am I comforted, am I refreshed. Then am I content.

Let her be kind to me tonight.