It Takes A Gifted Person to Write About What They Don't Know

One thing that I will never understand in this life is how people can write songs and poetry, speeches replete with eloquence and passion, and lectures filled with what to do and what not to do about a certain topic, action, or problem without facing or experiencing the topic, action, or problem themselves.

I am so little...

The rain-wrecked breeze crawled along my skin and ripped through my hair
while whispering the monumental secrets of life in my ear
before moving on to greater things.

Wiping tears from my cheek, she does not read my thoughts.
She cannot,
Though she gives me empty cliché answers to my overarching wonderings.

Why does she move around my questions instead of penetrating them and shaking them to destruction?
Why does she move forward, not hesitating at my remembrances or waiting for instruction?
The cruel cycle of the world; she merely wishes me well on my journey.

Though now I hate her, how sometimes I wish I were she.

In Which I Think About What I've Lost

I used to imagine that I had a lot to be proud of. I had a lot of friends, a lot of talent, and a lot of smiles. But it seems to me that with each year of the trickling sands of time, my heart either gets dropped from a height or something gets dropped on it from a height.
Today (it still being before I sleep for the night, let us imagine it is April 23) was a six year anniversary of when I lost a close friend to a speedball OD. In a few days, it'll be the 5 year of a best friend lost to a heart attack. In March there was another and in May another and in October another.
I've lost a lot. I've lost a lot of friends who are still living. I've lost a lot of friends who have died. I've lost a lot of confidence in who I am and why I'm here. I've lost a good mind.
But through losing those things I have gained much, I'm sure, but that's for another post.
I don't deal with loss well. I wish I could have him back. I wish I could have her back. "What I wouldn't give to see her smile" and "If only he could utter that ridiculous phrase again..." are common thoughts in my head around this time.

There is a moment when you have to realize that there's more. And a moment to realize when to end a post. I think I've realized both.

It's All Relative

46 degrees in the middle of February
vs.
46 degrees in the middle of April


Linguine Ala Anne after 5 nights of pasta
vs.
Linguine Ala Anne after not eating for two days


Finding a dress on the first try
vs.
Finding a dress after weeks of fruitless searching


Staying in bed all day because you're lazy
vs.
Staying in bed all day because you're sick


Fever induced dreams
vs.
Sleep deprivation induced dreams
vs.
Any other kind of induced dreams

Although it's the same thing, the fact that it's in a different situation
makes the reaction to it vary tremendously.

Emotion

Emotion can be a tricky thing. For instance, I get annoyed, angry, and terrified at the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things, but there's always something more to it than presumably nothing. Words, actions, gestures, smells, and tone are all things that incite a raid flow of pictures in my mind's eye. Situations flash before me as if I had lived them yesterday. People appear, people I have not seen for years. Words are remembered, exactly as they were said.

It is a difficult thing to claim full responsibility for your actions and it's even harder when you seem to not be in control. I believe that speaks for itself: get a grip on reality before reality gets a grip on you. I've always been a dreamer, making up the most absurd schemes and magnificent quests and seeing life as a game to be played... life doesn't work like that. But then, those uptight realists are far off the mark too. I don't think we're ever going to get it right...

~insert lame conclusion that tries to tie those two pseudo paragraphs together and fails~

Nostalgia That Isn't Really Mine

My Great Uncle John died this past week and his daughter was given the task of cleaning out his basement. She found stacks and stacks of letters that he wrote to his mom, dad, sister and brother while he was in the war. plus a ton of other love letters and accounts of events (from 1937, 1945, etc) from him, my 2nd cousin Alex, my grandma and grandpa after they were married, and more. Some are typed on a typewriter, some are handwritten...
Adrienne and I have been reading through them. One of them says "Have you been to the movies lately? I went the other day with Fred. Have you seen State Fair? If not, you should. It's pretty good." It makes me feel so small and insignificant. These were normal letters, at the time my Great Grandma probably thought nothing special of them except that they were from her children while they were in the service. The only thing that makes them special is that they're from over 50 years ago, written by people who lived life over 50 years ago...
Makes me think about what is normal to us now that, in 50 years, will be special and sentimental. What are people going to handle with care? What are they going to read as though there was some magical spell contained in the words? Xanga archives? Blogspot accounts that have been long forgotten? I hope not. There are no magical spells hidden in there (here). This isn't anything special.
But then again, isn't that what they thought when they wrote those letters in 1940?

Hmmm...

"I saw these shells and saw beauty in what they went through. Every chip missing shows that it went though hardship and came out on the other end. Every scratch means it had lived; it had adventure and came out alive with a story to tell. Every broken piece... but that's just it, isn't it? Every broken piece is a piece that is missing, not there, incomplete. Every wrack it has experienced has taken a bit of its victim with it. It will never be whole again. It will remain broken, incomplete.
These shells, these broken shells are my life; boring, dull to look at, and broken. I am broken. I have traveled a long time on the ocean's waves, traveling places and seeing things, going through hard times, rough times, going through beatings. Though I wasn't keen on it then, maybe some good will come of it now. You see, someday, like these shells, somebody will see me; a broken, incomplete thing, and rejoice in my existence.
Completely bare and unhidden are these shells. There is no secret to them, no mystery. I know how it works and how it doesn't. And in that, it is complete. Complete because I know.
Therefore, incomplete I will remain until someone sees me and understands; until someone sees me and knows."

Oh to Grace How Great Debtor...

While growing up, "grace" was simply a term used in hymns and sermons at church but meant very little more than that. I could define it without a bat of an eyelash, a textbook definition, if you ask me or anyone who knew me then. Until 5th grade I knew nothing personally of any significance attached to any spiritual term. While in 5th grade, my family stopped going to the Church of Christ and begin attending the Wesleyan Church in town. One of the first sermons I heard there was taught by Dennis Jackson and included in the message was this quote: "While mercy is the holding back of something that is deserved, grace is the giving of something that is not deserved." I scrawled it in my notebook I carried around with me, tore it out when I got home, and put it in my top dresser drawer. Every morning I would look at that slip of paper, intrigued by the quote, but not yet understanding it.
As the time wore on, I found myself praying regularly for grace. My life had quickly bloomed into something I had never imagined and something that needed desperate grace and mercy. While mercy sounded lovely and was certainly well appreciated, I needed something to fill the empty spot that was supposed to be filled by what was being held back by mercy. I prayed for grace because it gave me something.
Though selfish, I learned a lot through those nights. I began to feel comforted and loved by my Savior. He forgave me every time I asked and he gave me exactly what I needed: Grace; what I didn't deserve. For ever situation that called for it, he gave me precisely what was needed.
I quickly found that grace was not something that was only meant to be received, it was also meant to be given. I used to think that I had received grace from God to be able to give to others and for the most part that was true. But I was giving grace through God, not necessarily because of him. Where would we be without grace, without the giving of that which we don't deserve? We would be hallow shells, attempting to live this life to the fullest but failing disastrously if we had been given no grace.
God gives us life and breath. He gives us passion and compassion. He gives us love and the ability to carry out the love that he has given to us. Are any of these truly deserved by humanity? Yet they are given anyway. Grace, given to us though not deserved...

I guess grace in the "graceful" dancer sense of the word is also something that is given to clumsy and klutzy people... as someone I know says, "Dancers are graceful until they stop thinking about where they're putting their feet."

Sometimes I forget.

Dedicated to all Christians who fight some sort of battle that they want desperately to win and desperately to lose:

"Why is it that this vice I have is something that causes me such pleasure and such grief? Why must this addiction be mine? Why would God bare to my my shoulders something that imprisons judgment? Give me something I can conquer! Such a thing I have now poisons my mind and my soul. Pleasure it gives me, yes! But how it does torture my conscious more than I can bear. Oh God!
My heart pounds with shame, yet in its shame it revels! Will this never cease? Will I never be free? What must I do? What must I say? What semblance of penance can I offer to even begin washing away my wrongs?
This seems to me the end. There is nothing to be done. Oh, how weary of living I have become. It only trudges on by way of my beating heart.
Then Heart, to thy rest! And leave me to sleep, for sleep after such a journey as this is so sweet.
Heart; cease. Eyes; close. Ears; discontinue your hearkening to the voices of the sinful pleasure that I love all too dearly. Ah, sweet voices, you have kept me company for too long. What other way shall I silence your insufferably subliminal whispering shriek? You are too stubborn to leave by you own accord... I have no choice. Of own accord then; Vice, I banish you hence! Can you not see how weary your company has made me? Pleading is too low for my pride and you will not allow me to silence my heart. Is it too much to ask for one hour of peace, one hour of rest? Yet without you, I know not ... I know not what to do.
I... I am at a loss. In the same way that I receive both pleasure and torture in this case, I also desire your company and your absence.
My heart will beat on and my vice will stay. It will not leave and I am not able to banish it. And so its company I will keep until my eyelids are fastened closed with the tears of those lingering nights or, by its own treaty, surrender. There is nothing more I can do than what I have already done."

I Heart Huckabees

Some people heart Huckabees... I don't. Huckabees' makes me ponder life and, where some people can think about this that and the other thing, I can't. It makes me re-evaluate my entire existence and all of my relationships. Are we all just a part of the blanket? Is the saving grace of the mind dismantling all that you know to be true? Is it all just pain or darkness? Is nothing all that matters?

When I watch movies like these I find that my brain, unaccustomed to the process which it finds itself in, seems to completely shut down. Not shut down in the sense of "not working" but shut down in the sense of "this isn't normal, what is happening" panic.

This is not a good time for my mind to panic. I've been on the edge of something more massive than the Mississippi for a little over a week and I think I'm rather tired. My mind is not used to such exercise and strain. I'd like to not have to worry about my brain shorting, but I can't make any promises.

I think there's something more... but I'm getting there... give me some time...

Thoughts On a Blood Moon Night

Also known as "Thoughts on the Academy Awards"

* Harrison Ford really is an old man.
* Diablo Cody - Man, I wanna change my name to something cool so everything I do will seem cooler than it actually is. (By NO means does this mean I don't think Diablo didn't deserve her award... I thought Juno was beautifully written)
* Can I be as elegant as Helen Mirren when I'm 62? Pleeeeeease? Maybe I just have to be British...
too bad that accent isn't real.

I enjoy it when good things are recognized and appreciated.

There are just some times...

So many days I wonder if I'm just a figment of someone's imagination.

Will expound on this later.

Now, to sleep... to sleep, perchance to dream...
~sigh~ "I'll get all the sleep I'll need when I'm dead"

Happy visions, invade my dreams tonight.

Maverick

American Heritage Dictionary

mav·er·ick (māv'ər-ĭk, māv'rĭk)

n.

1. An unbranded range animal, especially a calf that has become separated from its mother, traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it.
2. One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter.

adj. Being independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence: maverick politicians; a maverick decision.

Quiet and Soft-Spoken

A friend once told me that when he read things that I wrote (Facebook, Xanga, journals, etc) I seemed soft-spoken and quiet. This didn't necessarily shock him. It was only an observation, but I find that people often worry when they see more than one side of me. This doesn't make any sense.

Everyone has their sides, their many facets. More than one person has said that there was more to me than met the eye. There's more to everyone than "what meets the eye".They couldn't have been more right; about me, about anybody.

Of course there's the Dramatic Actress and the Insecure Histrionic... everyone sees those in me. Then there's the Pondering Philosopher and the Inspired Poet. There's the Tortured Soul of the Genius and somewhere in there lies the Elegant Royal, who holds her head high. Don't forget about the Cool-Headed Delinquent who doesn't shiver or cringe when a crime is committed or when blood is shed. She stands right next to the Unabashed Child who cares little for what the world thinks of her imaginary worlds. The Peace-Craving Hippie, Nonjudgmental Idealist, Lady-Like Female, Wandering Bum, Evil Sorceress, Quiet Bookworm, Graceful Dancer, Compassionate Mentor, Attention-Seeking Prep, and Smoldering Seductress all stand side by side, waiting for their turn to break free and show the world what they can be.
I'm loud and quiet, annoying and invisible and obnoxious, energetic and depressed and lethargic and happy. I'm CJ. I'm me.

I've long struggled with 'who I really am', dangling somewhere among "Trying-to-be-Perfect", "Tough-as-Nails", and "Tender-Hearted" and never really knowing where I should rest my identity. I admit that was a mistake. I shouldn't have thought that. They're all very much a part of who I am, as well as all the others I mentioned. "But which one is me? Who is the real Clarissa Joy?" They all are, every single one of them.

Forgive me if I'm brash or cautious, feeling or thinking... this is what we do; we take what facet best fits the current audience and gives them what they want. We're all spinning driedles and whatever side lands up is the part we get to play, the story we get to tell.

It seems early in the morning to me I am tired and weary. I apologize for my incoherent ramblings. I also apologize for (if I can quote a good friend of mine) "my thoughts, I suppose, which are a bit like the cereal at the bottom of the box, mostly crushed to dust. Although sometimes the nifty prize sinks to the bottom, so perhaps in the clarity that sometimes comes with exhaustion I can produce the epistolary equivalent of a Captain Power Decoder Ring...or something...".

Sadly, I'm sure there is no Captain Power Decoder Ring in this spastic discharge of thoughts, mainly because that's all that it is.
But I'm OK with that... because that is a part of me too.

Dropping off the radar,
Maverick, Dodger, Clarissa, Claire, Ceage, Shorty, Princess, CJ