Litterae: IV

I had the chance to talk to a good friend.

This person is dear to me, but I will be saying goodbye to her in a few short months for almost 3 years. It is likely in that time that I will see her once, twice, maybe three times. And we both know it.

We talked for a while about moving. About change. Few words were really exchanged I'm sure, but the words we spoke will stay in my heart for a lifetime.

"I've had to leave so many people behind."

If you know me, you know I'm a jumper. Every three to five years, I am accustomed to at least three to five hours of distance from my last 'home.'

Home is where the heart is. You know where your heart should be.

I sometimes sit and think what it would be like if I had, like so many, lived in one place my whole life. I would possibly have more stories to sit and laugh about. Maybe I'd cry when I leave to go back across the country to school.

Moving has made me who I am. I would be less _________ if i had been more stationary.

But, I have noticed that my life goes by faster. My heart aches now, knowing that only yesterday I was falling in love with the ocean, and last night, catching fireflies till I fell softly asleep--dad tucking me in tightly like he always does--me waking up in a tangled mess of sheets like i still do. I had a beautiful childhood. More warm, colorful, and carefree than most I'm sure. My heart aches now for each and every one of those memories. I pain for remembrance. My eyes spill over as my vision blurs with the days of my past.

The days when there were no formalities. We were all friends and not one of us was too cool to play with. And I ran through screen doors--I rode fast down the street just to feel free in the warm virginia air--I loved unconditionally--I didn't know any bad words--I had my head passed back and forth as I fell asleep on my brother*sister*brother*sister*broth*sister...*...sister for hours on long car rides to places i cannot recall.

Wild and free. free to learn. learning to choose. choosing to lay. laying for hours outside because it's warm and it's summer and we don't care.

"I can't wait to have kids with long blond hair"

All the moving makes me ache--but i can't live without it.

So if I've moved on from you, or you, or you, or you-I'm nowhere but here. Talk to me and I will listen. We're all moving. Just as I have come and gone, so will you.

More people have heard my voice, as more must hear yours. I have talked to you, you have made me smile, we have said goodbye. Now that we've given ourselves to each other, it's time to give more to someone else. And when we're giving more, we're taking pieces of each other and sharing those pieces with that someone else.

So when you're talking to him, you're talking to me, and when she's talking to me, I'm talking to you. We're always left with each other.

And when we meet again, I hope you've given all my pieces away.

And then we can break off new pieces, and start all again.

Litterae: III

And on the seventh day, we rested.

And on the seventh day, we cried for our son.

And on the seventh day, our sun beat his chest.

And on the seventh day--out--stripes through song; bleed on.

Tell me what those four lines mean and I will work for you as a slave for the rest of my life.

That's one thing that's beautiful about the written word--you can pack so much meaning into four lines that no one but you could ever decode. Then, you could put those words to a soft, warm tune.

Now you know what I do each night before i sleep. I break and re-break meaning into lyric then mold it into song.

And then I close my eyes. I sing and listen. As I listen a picture is painted across my mind, filling every expanse of thought-space, reaching out past every corner of my mind's all seeing eye. Isn't it beautiful? A picture so full and rich that you can't even see the entire picture inside your own head? It's so encompassing that no matter which way you turn inside your mind you'll never explore the entire picture.

That's what i see. I wish i could make you understand how beautiful it is. I cry, thinking i can't take you there with me-but I've found it's my place to go. It's my job to tend the gardens there...my job to look after the racing brook....my job to sing the world to sleep.

And still you don't know what I'm seeing. You can't quite see my picture.

But i can do something for you-

I can sing you straight to yours.

I can make your mind blank space.

Then I can fill it full of warm--if you let me.

I'll play softly. I'll sing in whisper. We'll go there.

Separate worlds. But one song--

And the pictures will fill our minds, full past all horizons of reason.

And almost nothing would stop you from crying, because it's that beautiful.

And almost nothing would make me happier than helping you get there.

Litterae: II

I spent hours (12-9) working outside on our landscaping today. I don't mind it. I get to lift heavy crap and rip trees out of the ground. Makes me feel like I'm hardcore.

People say don't bottle up your feelings HEY i say that's b.s.

b.s.

bull

bull-owny

bologna

maloney

Joe

push-ups

snorting pepper.

That was what we call association.

Back to where i was-.noitaicossallacewtahwsawtaht.reppepgnitronsspu-hsupeoJyenolamangolobynow-llubllub.s.b

People say don't bottle up your feelings HEY i say that's b.s.

If you want to get what you want you need to bottle up your feelings. Bottle them so tightly that it hurts-cause there's no metaphysical preservatives when it comes to emotions. (no, you're right that one didn't really make sense).

I say bottle it up. Why? Because the taste will be sweeter, longer, when you let it age. When you let it out early, there is no fizz, no spark. Let it roll, let it shake. Pressure means a big release. Do that for yourself. My bottle was left open. It went sour. She broke my heart.

Smile through the sour :) When no one's watching-dance. When they are watching-invest. in drapes.

Heartbreak is just a part of life. If you're young-get over it. If you're ripe-get out of it. If you're stale-don't let them walk away.

But then who am I to be writing about love.

If one day you read this, I love you. We are ripe to staling now, but you are beautiful as the day i will meet you. You are a queen. You are my heart.

To my children- I am overjoyed to see you are still my children-happier still to know you're a child of God.

Litterae: I

I have learned some things in my life.

I think (here i considered backspacing, erasing think, and putting know, then decided to type this parenthetical statement instead to make it clear that i KNOW what I am about to say, and I think it has been affective in doing so) that the best way to learn about life is to live it and then to observe what it yields.

So, here then, i guess, are some observations of life lived, which I ( ) to be true:

• People you really love, are worth spending time with.
• Friends are expendable if they come in plenty--but when plenty is reached, an awareness of loss is removed.
• Personal hygiene is 99% of what makes or brakes other people liking other people--the reality of it is though, that decision is made in the first seconds of any interaction. So, to the world, and all it's inhabitants, your smile, your personality, your laugh, the time you spend doing things that really matter--they only account for 1%. Granted, that 1% is exponentiated once our first decision (hygienic evaluation) is made. Imagine the seconds you could save if you were blind, and had no sense of smell. And those seconds would add to minutes. And those minutes to hours. And those hours to days. And those days to weeks. And those weeks to months. And those months to years. Try, next time you meet someone, to close your eyes and plug your nose before they're clearly in range. You'll be saving more time than you know.
• Since that last bullet point was significantly longer than the rest I'm going to give you a little breathing room.

• It is often easier to lie than to tell the truth.
• Black goes with everything. And black is timeless. Why? Because it shows no shadow, and bares no light. It is the way an object reflects light that gives our eyes their perception of the world around us. That's why blackness is deceiving--you never see it's true form. I guess then that means that even with endless happiness, there will be deception. Maybe that's just the appearance it gives though. Darkness has depth, but it cannot be seen.
• Love is worth fighting for.
• Love and attraction are completely separate entities. Love can exist without attraction. Attraction can exist without love. Often they are coupled together. But true love cannot be built by attraction. You see, true love, lasting, eternal love, is blind. And though truest love is blind, attraction is blinding. Now you see why these can be easily confused. That being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with attraction. It's when love is compromised for attraction that problems arise. And if you compromise love, you've compromised lasting happiness.
• Finding lasting happiness through true love in its purest form is not easy--which is why I will avoid hasty marriage. (p.s. relationships are trials; they're all but one going to end poorly, but that's what they were meant for--learning).
• It is easy to be prideful and conceited rather than accepting defects and taking the time to correct them. Because that is the case, the people who most deserve to be prideful and conceited really never are. Someone who is humble, should be considered as someone of greatest consequence, and held in your highest regards.
• Gratitude is never real until expressed through action to the one from whom the gratitude was inspired.

I'm glad you could listen. I really do love to think...to sit and think and then pool those thoughts so I can pull that pool out of the water and leave it to dry on the page.

Don't ever stop thinking. Don't ever stop analyzing.

Dead is the mind that has given up its right to reason, and shamed is the creator that gave the mind the right to reason at all.

Think about it.

to mama, too

This is the only recorded record that will ever explain why I wrote this album. That's right, there's finally another album of music.

I feel good. I put my heart and soul and sole into these songs.

They're about a kid, who was raised by wolves. They're about what happens when his father dies, when he finds out he dies, when he can't succeed his father as head of the pack, when he leaves, when he looks back, when he moves forward.

It's hard to express the amazing sort of feeling you get when you write an out of body sort of song like these ones.

Every song consisted of me sitting down and putting myself into this story that I fabricated in my mind, and throwing all the emotion from that story into a song. Of course, since I am not Jeremiah, I can't put his every feeling into the song as effectively as he would (if he were real), but I think I've done all I can.

This album is just......i don't know how to describe it except that it's real and natural and i just flows.

Originally I wrote all the songs to fit together like a puzzle so they could be played as one big continuous song, but then I realized that life isn't like that.

There's stages. There's phases.

There are some elements of my life in the songs, but who knows where one runs into the other.

Most of the songs are almost conversational between Jeremiah and his wolf mother. This creates an often obscure tone and language that really is often hard to interpret.

I hope, when you get the chance, you can join me and enjoy Jeremiah's Songs.