In Case You've Been Wondering...

...where I am... I've been writing curriculum and teaching elementary economics (and that is definitely as easy as it sounds.)

Check it out at my mom's new home school blog: www.jillyfunschool.blogspot.com.

Merry Christmas (and whether or not it's too early for Christmas, I'm going to stick with that one)

Catey

College students, I would love you more.

They walk with heads up, eyes open.

I look at them (hoping to ignore how brown my salad is) and I can't help but believe that though they're looking around, their noses are still buried in books, or gleefully smelling the intoxicating perfume that is fantasy. Although time is passing (I still very much hear the endlessly pounding fountain) many are still brushing sleep off their eyes and into their slippers.

Is it just me, or do they all look the same? Same half-glazed eyes, lashes falling heavily against their cheeks, same yellowed smile. They're even looking in the same direction.

This place feels heavy with enchantment, as if the blue windows might cave in under the pressure of the jungle within. I can picture green ferns springing up around my rigid chair and my salad browning into moss. Here and there, a pair of flickering half-lidded yellow eyes

I recognize them, of course, because my eyes once looked the same way. And, everyone looks the same.

It's heartbreaking how sad these jungle animals are - and embarrassing, because I don't think I care about jungles enough.

See, it's sad that I'm more distressed over how disappointing my salad is than I am about how distraught they are. It's sad that I can notice they're looking at me but not want to see them.

And these zombies and sleepwalkers who populate my college campus, my town and my reality... they are more beautiful than the mountains in my backyard.

The jungle, a sprawling, self-conscious mass, is not a shelter because it is not solid. It keeps changing based on these stupid whims and I keep changing too.

I want to say that I'm full of music, but I fear I am an empty noise. And yet I show off my beauty, when I have just aroused from sleep, too. Ha. Sleeping Beauty I am not.

Or perhaps I am. Perhaps these yellow-eyed jungle creatures just zombies and sleepwalkers.

Violently, I'd shake one from his stupor. Perhaps he'd remark on the weather or offer me a stick of gum. But how can I guarantee he's even awake? Everything looks the same in here. And is it even right for me to pity the sleeping, when I lay upon my bed so often myself?
I must bid the doubt farewell. It must be enough to love and simply be. I watch the jungle break the sky.

The Lilies Bloom Beyond the Glad [for KK]

My cousin KK asked me to post this poem I wrote for her (it had to be about flowers... hmm!)

The Lilies Bloom Beyond the Glade

So, traitor, you will not be stayed

My bean seeds on the Marvel stove

The lilies bloom beyond the glade

Curled around yourself, we wade

Through spider-blind paths we wove

So, traitor, you will not be stayed

You move, to where the azaelia laid

Dead - dead - you killed this grove -

The lilies bloom beyond the glade

Not a lily, I too was swayed

(I wish I could find my seedling trove)

So, traitor, you will not be stayed

I miss my petals, I was waylaid

You betrayed me and I drowned you in the cove;

[The lilies bloom beyond the glade]

I'm sorry that my kindness grayed

You and I, to my earth I dove

So, traitor, you will not be stayed:

The lilies bloom beyond the glade.

(I'm not sure that I have a point to this poem, but here it is, for you, KK!)

Empty Seashells [thoughts of the Awakening Program]

What's this?

Why are your tears on my cheeks?

Did I steal your sorrow

When we waded into the silver sea

Remember the day that

I combed the seashell's hair

And you laughed in harmony

With the sea urchins

I was still sandy when I

Went up to the heavenly concert

You told me you hated me

But your cries turned to

Paper cranes as they flew up

To the concert to tell me of

Your imaginary friend

Why do you hate me, beloved?

I'm just sandy rose petals

Not worth your trouble

Please, beloved, speak to me

Please, beloved, don't hide

I found our old sandcrabs, seashells

Tears-stained urchins and memory

My seashells are empty

Oh no

Of course I've loved you

But I was just a sandy rose

How could I know I as just an

Imaginary friend

Oh, beloved, don't hide from me

Oh, beloved, don't say I don't

I don't love you

[He whispers in your ear.

Have your forgotten the sound

Of oceans?]

Have you forgotten the cold embrace?

Oh, don't cry, here in

Here we find clean flowers

To dance at. I never miss

- I found forever and it sang -

Steal back the empty seashells

Fear not, little sea urchin

For now I know you.

Have you forgotten how to laugh

[do you remember anything but your sighs?]

Come beloved, and I will love

I will always love

I have always loved

[You]

Internet

Internet is such a goooood thing. On my mom's computer. Writing to tell you I'm not dead since I haven't had internet in forevvvvver.

Wow. I'm talking kind of funny on this blog.

Maybe it's the smog.

I should write a real post sometime. But not this morning. Today, I'm going to Mariposa with my family.

Talk to y'all later!

Sasquatch!

Catey

Good-Natured Monsters

While listening to some soundtracks a few afternoons ago...

Sam: JI-JI! It's Pretty and the Beast!

That made me smile. I love "Pretty" and the Beast. I spent some time reading the original translation the other day (for a speech. Shh!) and it's simply fantastic. I always thought it was about how Beast learns to overcome his selfishness... I've been looking at Beauty's perspective a little more now.

Have you ever loved a monster? I have. All I wanted was to return to my family, my trunkfuls of dresses from my days of splendor, my comfort zone, even to those who found me to be loathed. It's easier to find a familiar monster than try to determine the princes from the beasts.

But, by some author's idea of excitement, we too are captured by fate and we have to be around the Beasts of our life.

For me, I know that it's easy to slip into this idea of hiding up in the prison, mocking the bars and cursing my 'captor'. It's easy to suffer in this martyred stance of Why me? I didn't do anything wrong... and never even see the Beast.

"Tell me, Beauty, do you not find me very ugly?"

"I can not tell a lie... but I believe you are very good-natured."

I thought about this for a long time. I do believe that this compliment, stilted though it may be, was the first that the Beast had received in all the years since his transformation. And, like the human heart, the thing he most desired was to be lovely, or more appropriately, lovable.

Too often, I've passed over the ugliness, the pain, the imprisonment, without even stopping to mutter a brief, "But I believe you are very good-natured."

The fact is, we are surrounded by good-natured monsters who are waiting to hear that they are loved.

The fact is, we are not so beautiful ourselves.

The fact is, souls are lovely.

"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ." 2 Corinthians 2:14-17

Maps

I drew a map today of seven countries that live only in my mind. It has a beautiful coastline, and it's just as I pictured it to be.

It reminds me of The Little Prince, which is a book I can not recommend highly enough.

Hmm... am I crazy to draw maps? My sister thinks I am. After the whole Mapping the World by Heart adventure of school three years ago, Joss is pretty turned off maps.

"Oceans are endearing.

Roads divide. They cut and separate." someone said to me once.

Let us swim for a while, dear one, and we'll drink the sky until the sun remembers us. Then the morning will gild the butterflies in their royal splendor, and heaven will smile. You and I will smile and the world will be all of snow.

Sigh.

God is good.