i did my best to keep my head

gold mine gutted ~ bright eyes

"it was grass stain jeans and incompletes and a girl from class to touch
but you think about yourself too much and you ruin who you love
well all these claims at consciousness my stray dog freedom

let's have a nice clean cut
like a bag we buy and divy up."

ex-lovers can never truly be friends. there will invariably be the conversations that repeat and replay, each time leaving a fresh mark, a new scar. we all have the past one we let down, who we never were good enough for, who we never felt ourselves with. but honestly, i'm tired of being reminded how badly i failed.

just consider me a stupid girl who tries to still care about people she once loved, and maybe just from now on leave me alone.

i can be my own best friend

lua ~ conor oberst & the mystic valley band

lua ~ bright eyes

"and i know you have a heavy heart, i can feel it when we kiss
so many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
but me i'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split
the love i sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist

you're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back
well, it takes one to know one, kid, i think you've got it bad
but what's so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag"

the first time i heard lua it was around valentine's day. a good friend of mine sent out these mix cd's for the holiday and it was filled with songs and bands that at the time i had never heard, and would end up completely falling in love with. the libertines were on that cd, and anyone who knows me knows what that band means to me. ted leo and the delays were on that cd. arcade fire, too. i'm telling you it was an amazing cd.

this song - lua - was among the tracks, too.

lua took me apart on the first listen. it seriously dismantled me in ways that certain songs, pieces of art, moments in film, and pages of books sometimes do. i remember having to pull the car over to the side of the road and remind myself to breathe. years before i was so much like this song, so much that tears were streaming down my face while conor's fragile voice trilled out over the strum of his acoustic guitar.

there was so much beauty in the song, and so much desperation. a certain kind of loneliness that you know when you spend nights out far too late in smoke-filled clubs, pressing up against strangers in stairwells and dance floors, making excuses to disappear into the bathroom with chemicals tucked in your purse.

it was years that had past since i was that girl, but i still recognized her. still recognize it tonight. finding the live version, with conor and his new band, was a highlight - and it is well worth the time to download it. i did not think i could love this song anymore then i did, but i do.

"it was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated
it was so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight
so simple in the moonlight..."

and it bruised me with light

well whiskey ~ bright eyes

i get my whiskey from a well
except on holidays when it's the top shelf
but tonight i don't mind if i spend a little more
'cause you're a tolerant woman and the world is at war

i know you witnessed my decline
you used to push back the darkness like a flood light
but tonight that's a secret like the soul of a whore
but if you want to have fun you'll just have to ignore

now i let my troubles solve themselves
i used to get involved but i'm just no help
but tonight let's pretend that we're just like we were
let me stay 'til the morning i will sleep on the floor

and we can talk in circles no dollar figures
just what is owed or paid
and we can make predictions i know you see the future
and i agree
and we agree
tonight's not happening

when i got dry as a desert i got mean
i was as lonely and empty as a canteen
with no anesthetic you're bound to be sore
but tonight i am drinkin' all peaceful and warm

and just when i got fed up with that grey sky
the sun came out of no where like a bar fight
and it knocked out the wind and it bruised me with light
and i felt grateful for living just like i feel tonight

but i know you feel safer in a group
where you could be anyone or they could be you
but tonight we'll take risks that you can afford
you still have bars on your windows and a hole in your door

we can talk in circles around a dirty mirror
night trickles down our throats
and we can make the timeline to last our whole lives
we don't know
but no one knows
what's further up the road

just wait and see
just wait and see
all in time
all in time

when i hear beautiful music its always from another time

lime tree ~ bright eyes

"everything gets smaller now the further that i go,
towards the mouth,
and the reunion of the known and the unknown.
consider yourself lucky if you think of it as home,
you can move mountains with your misery if you don't,
if you don't."

there are memories too vulnerable to write. as if they are brittle and yellowing photographs, the ones shoved in the back of a box, or folded carefully in the pages of a near forgotten book. it was once your favorite, the pages worn and finger-printed. flower petals are stuck in the early chapters, the ones where you were just getting to know all of it - the plot, the characters, the hopes. the end comes eventually, and that bittersweet feeling that follows. never minded if it was a happily ever, or a tearful goodbye, just knew i'd miss all that i'd just loved.

you close the book, put it up on the shelf, and long for someone to talk with about it. but, you find no one. for the best, in reality, as no one takes a story, or a song, into them in the same way. just like memories - our varied perceptions shade and color in the blurs and the greys. we all remember everything differently, even love, and especially loss. and sometimes it is a song that rips the ticker-tape off the skin, stirs the heart, makes it all hurt again. and sometimes it is just the pages spilling open, without provocation, or permission. the daisy petals dissolve in my hand, and i take a sad gasp of breath.

sometimes sadness is all you have left to remember these things by. but, it is feeling, isn't it?

as we pass over on the arc of time

arc of time (time code) ~ bright eyes

"so you nurse your love,
like a wounded dove,
in the covered cage of night.
every star is crossed,
by frenetic thoughts,
that separate and then collide.
and they twist like sheets,
till you fall asleep,
and they finally unwind.
it's a black balloon,
it's a dream you'll soon deny."

trying for some hope tonight, in things, in life, in my own beliefs and desires. it is hard not to feel an overwhelming sense of one step forward and sixteen steps back lately, especially when you are struggling with a lingering depression that nothing seems to shake. so, part of me disappears, and part of me recoils. i try not to build up the predictable walls i've always been so good at constructing. instead, i seek solace in music, and in silence (unusual for me), and in giving myself the time i need to sort my soul out.

i was remembering this afternoon a friend i once was close with, and this technique she used when dealing with dark times and her own struggles. she would try to list at least five things she was thankful for, or things that made her happy. i borrowed it, well more than "borrowed", i shaped it into something i've used on occasion - and into something i've suggested to others to try. to list the things that you are thankful for, things that make you happy, or help you breathe, and also to make a bit of a wish list of things you want to do. looking too far forward can bring on the overwhelm, but sometimes having a few twinkling plans is a good thing.

strange that this song brings out this in me, though conor has always connected to me, lyrically speaking. sometimes hope comes in oddly shaped packages, or in the twist and turn of an unexpected song. so, i sit here and write a small list, and struggle over some of it, while other bits and bobs come pouring out.

five thankfuls:
* my children
* music that makes me feel
* lasting friendship
* bathtubs
* coffee

five wishes:
* vacation (someday)
* healing (for others and my own)
* that i can find the balloon pump for veronica's birthday for balloon animals (hey, wishes do not have to be enormous)
* that my writer's block will end
* the ocean (soon)

somewhere no one is expecting

cleanse song ~ bright eyes

"don't forget what you've learned all you give is returned,
and if life seems absurd what you need is some laughter.
and a season to sleep,
and a place to get clean,
maybe los angeles, somewhere no one is expecting.

on a detox loft through a glendale park,
over sidewalk chalk,
someone wrote in red,
"start over".

so i muffled my scream on an oxnard beach,
full of fever dreams that scare you sober,
into saltless dinners."

i think i may be dealing with a bout of depression that i am having a very rough time shaking. there are good things happening in my life and yet i feel very weighed down by sadness. i have yet to make it through a day without crying multiple times. i think i need a "start over". i think i need somewhere unexpected (though not los angeles). i think i need to sort out what is wrong with me.

and since then i've been so good at vanishing

take it easy (love nothing)

"first with your hands, then with your mouth

a downpour of sweat, damp cotton clouds

i was a fool, you were my friend

we made it happen

you took off your clothes, left on the light

you stood there so brave, you used to be shy

each feature improved, each movement refined

and eyes like a showroom

now they're spreading out the blankets on the beach

oh that weatherman's a liar, he said it'd be raining

but it's clear and blue as far as i can see

left by the lamp, right next to the bed

on a cartoon cat pad she scratched with a pen

"everything is as it's always been,

this never happened"

"don't take it too bad, it's nothing you did

it's just once something dies, you can't make it live

you're a beautiful boy, you're a sweet little kid

but i am a woman"

so i laid back down, wrapped myself up in the sheet

and i must have looked like a ghost 'cause something frightened me

and since then i've been so good at vanishing

now i do as i please,

and i lie through my teeth

someone might get hurt, but it won't be me

i should probably feel cheap, but i just feel free

and a little bit empty

no it isn't so hard to get close to me

there will be no arguments, we'll always agree

and i'll try and be kind when i ask you to leave

we'll both take it easy

but if you stay too long inside my memory

i will trap you in a song tied to a melody

and I'll keep you there so you can't bother me"

thing is, i suppose, i do not want to vanish. because no matter how far you run, or how fast, your heart is still there waiting for you.

so love me now

keep art alive; art by josh hart

no one would riot for less ~ bright eyes

& the video

"well wake, baby, wake.

but leave that blanket around you,

there's nowhere else safe.

i'm leaving this place,

but there's nothing i'm planning to take;

just you, just you, just you, just you..."

i've said for a long time that music is my oxygen, my sanity, the way i focus and often exist. lately i have noticed that it is my muse, though i'm sure i always knew this, never writing a word in a notebook, composition book, blank blog space, or even the backside of a postcard without a song playing in the background.

so now, as i push myself through to finish a story that keeps building, determined to not be the girl who never finishes anything anymore, i find myself with my ears open, taking in every turn of a lyric, and progression of sound. i've found myself pulling over to the side of the road, tears streaming down my face, as i see something so vivid in my mind.

characters seem to take over, nudge at me, tug at me until i stop and look, or listen - this is the path, over here, and don't forget...

i always heard writers talk about that at some point the story takes over. that you become, as the writer, a conduit - or perhaps it is just that you become so entrenched with the characters that you become pieces of them. as if you are playing a role on a stage, layering traits over your own, and mixing them until they are one.

all i know for sure is that i am carrying them around with me - everywhere - and they seem to have song preferences. by the end of this story i think i my end up with a soundtrack that is volumes long. time life will have to come around and make an informercial for it, or something.

there is only now

devil in the details ~ bright eyes

"and i know the cause,
and i want to stop,
but i can’t do it,
i just can’t do it.

there was love i meant,
there were accidents,
so tell me which is which.

‘cos i just can’t work it out.
but for memory and clarity,
we had better write it down.

i have no way,
of knowing the truth,
with time dissolves.

i put the past into the ground,
i saw the future as a cloud,
if theres still time to turn around,
i'm going to."

there are characters that come to play, they write themselves, sneak into your consciousness and flow out of the tip of your pen. the ink stains your fingers, like blood, like memory, like a name that whispers in the stillness of night. the reader may render the shape familiar, but they are just composites of the whole, of everyone we know.

it was a wonderful splash

"we must hang up in the belfry where the bats in moonlight laugh

we must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past

and in the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love

we must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge."

two hours back to work and the anxiety attacks are back, and i am finding that it is hitting me harder and faster than i expected. i walked away from a ridiculous battle of ego that was going on, that i was being skillfully pulled into, and just shook my head. i stood outside and tried to breathe, not cry, and not just get back into my car and go home. i knew it would be rough going back, that my time home with family and real living would be hard to leave, but i think i did not realize just how much daily stress my life had become. there has to be more to life than this, more than the soul-crushing weight of work that really has not meaning, or most days, any need at all.

this song, and the feeling of just letting go and plunging into what comes, is saying what i cannot express this morning. i need to find my tolerance level, my boundaries, my belfry to hang from. because honestly i know i cannot leave here right now, that i need to hold fast and get through it, and that at the end of this all lie the bigger things i want in this life. but today, right now, i would rather just crash into the ocean.

at the bottom of everything ~ bright eyes

you're a boomerang

keep art alive; art by kelly vivanco

you say that i treat you like a book on a shelf

i don't take you out that often 'cause i know that i've completed you

and that's why you are here

that's the reason you stay here

oh how awful that must feel

you said you could be my dream

i could have you every night

and if by morning, I'd forgotten you,

well no big deal, that'd be alright

'cause you're the reoccurring kind

yes, you are the reoccurring kind

you never really leave my mind

are you the love of my lifetime?

cause there have been times i've had my doubts

we were just kids when i first kissed you

in the attic of my parents house,

and i wish we were there now

it took so long to figure out

what this book has been about

now i write when i'm away,

letters that you'll never read

you said go explore those other women,

the geography of their bodies,

but there's just one map you'll need

you're a boomerang you'll see

you will return to me

you will, you will, you will, you will, you will, you will, you will

you will, you will

you will

'cause if you don't, then this book is all lies

if you don't, then my plans would all be ruined

if you don't, i'll start drinking like the way i drank before

oh, and i, i just won't have a future anymore.

you will. you? will. you? will. you? will (bright eyes cover) ~ snow patrol