i almost bought a coffee maker today. figured it would be perfect for sweat pants, cardigans over tee shirts, and hands hugging old mugs you find at goodwill, while blogging on 3 day weekends that are normally smack dab in the middle of the week because you have a work schedule to blame.
i picked up old habits because i missed them. like blogging at 2 in the morning. its a different kind of quietness at this hour. it's the welcoming, comfortable kind that you find yourself wanting to talk to, as if it has a say too, and its conversation tops all others. we are genuinely crazy. writers are. we have many facets and one face. we like our work and are taught by product. and words? they are like projects. we make them rich or poor. hang them in art museums or keep them in our attics. and sometimes, only sometimes, we speak too soon and end up feasting on an outcome we didn't ask for, spoiled or sweet, our words decided either way. and oh, how we feel. we feel with passion when we say whatever we say, making sure we have an audience to say things to, in pictures and in imagery. which, no doubt, comes from the roots of our own quietness.
i'm restless and envious of freedom. i've stopped biting my fingernails. i eat well. i count my blessings when i'm tired of a glass half empty. but here it is: life isn't a starbucks dark roast cup of coffee, one shot expresso, and three cream, throughout the week anymore. nor is it songwriting and performing in small spaces for those appreciative of vintage coffee shops, acoutsics, barefeet and tangled mic chords. it's not training three times a day either, waking up before the sun and illuminating longer than it. i had a different kind of spirit. i was clothed in my soul. and let me tell you something. wild horses could never keep me from anything i loved. but today? yes. so i'm on this quest. it's self-seeking. some kind of acceptable insanity that will take me back to the places i loved. perhaps, it's the pursuit of happiness. or maybe it's something like a war with the wild horses. regardless, let's be simple: "do what you did, alyssa".
luckily i'm short, my pride doesn't stand me too tall. taking falls is still humbling though. and the way the wind blows, and the severity of its chill in north dakota, hop scotch or four square, you stay in your squares and scratch at the itches of your dry skin. in the northern teir, that is. it's incredible though, the amount we learn in our small squared spaces, those most uncomfortable places we were once at before and could have sworn we'd never come back to again. you are where you are. do what you did? in the worst places you learned your loves and binded them to your heart. don't shadowbox them so soon; love your loves. your loves help you love, and love helps you live. so we tame the wild horses, but don't escape their fires. you do what you did. you do it again. only this time, a different state, west of home.
it's this thing called "courage". i never knew it was required for a person to be who they believe they are. it's a delicate subject for some and a dead battery for others. or, a cigarette and a drive to chicago where train stations sit and keep people hanging around its ledges, dangling their feet off bridges close enough to the tracks. for me, its pensiveness at 3 in the morning, a cup of coffee and a good blog; or a bodybuilding show i want to compete in but tell nobody; unreadable entries in my journal; independence in my heart. the ideas i have of myself, who i am to myself, there isn't a need to explain myself. i just am and you just are. we are allowed to "be". however we want to be, we are allowed to "be". know this though: it's entirely unavoidable. courage is. you need courage, because you can't "be", otherwise. too many people have opinions. and because you are an apple that fell from a tree, you are expected to be the tree you fell from. be an apple tree, but don't plant your seeds where you fell.
i love, tonight. i love, in this morning. it's 4am, and i should have bought the coffee pot.
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