look like its happened again

i see you, you see me (video) ~ the magic numbers

"i never wanted to love you, but that's ok
i always knew that you'd leave me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me

i asked the boys if they'd let me go out and play
they always said that you'd hurt me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me

its alright i never thought i'd fall in love again
its alright i look to you as my only friend
its alright i never thought that i could feel this something
rising, rising in my veins."

fires are burning outside, and the santa ana's are making my throat dry. part of me wants to just crawl back under the duvet and sleep the day away; perhaps dream of you.

the other part of me can smell the coffee brewing, and the music is seeping through my headphones as i stretch and wipe my eyes. suppose morning is here, and this is the last day before my vacation. there are things to do, and lists to cross-off, and traffic to sit in (while hopefully singing along loudly to a turned up stereo, albeit the blown out speaker on the left).

and we can always daydream, can't we?

part of me wants to escape into this video though. grab a camera and capture a different day. anyone care to come along?

it's just me, and i'm playing this rock and roll thing

august & everything after (live) ~ counting crows
august & everything after (live, video) ~ counting crows

"you look into her eyes and it's more than your heart will allow
in august and everything after, you get a little less than you expected, somehow..."

and when autumn comes i feel warmer somehow, more alive, and i feel things so deep that my eyes are perpetually tearing. but i cry at everything, every emotion that hits me. some tears are not sad, some tears are the realization that you are falling, like the leaves, just hoping that you'll be caught, and held

and in august and everything after, sometimes when i think hard, close my damp eyes, i believe in wishes, and in you.

there will be distance

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

i am tired of not knowing, of second-guessing, of playing this game between us that we have both created. there are a dozen things i tell myself everyday to dissuade the way i feel, to talk myself out of feeling this way, or to just give in and face the facts of what i know is true for me. some days i have a handle on it, i swirl around in my daily routines and i am content in knowing that you are out there somewhere. i know we think on each other often, and that when we touch down and connect all the doubts fly out the window. but, in these in-between moments, on my less than stellar days, the distance feels overwhelming and sad.

"i may not hold you

for as long as forever exists

i may not know you

for as long as the heavens permit

there will be distance

and we'll both have to come to expect

the wild ending of our dark and feathered friends

and we wield the mighty sword

that cuts through bone and lays the liars down

and we wield an angry sword

that softens stone and turns the tides around

so you called me over

and i'll wait by your building tonight

but you may not bother

but it's better than feeding the lie

i am receiving

the message that i need to go

but i'm not leaving

'til one of us surrenders its soul'

'til one of us renders it so"

mighty sword ~ the frames

but you'll never see the end of the road while your traveling with me

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

it is strange how it happens, how confusion turns to clarity, as if the stars in the sky suddenly turn into beacons of something close to truth.

i wished for your return for years, it was always that secret longing that i tried to tuck away and scoff at as nonesense, and deny; but in actuality it was you i wished for on stars, and on the toss of coins into various bodies of water. and then one day i did tuck it away, or more honestly i let it go. i had to. you had let me go so long before, and i wanted to live; and, you cannot live an authentic life if your heart is floating out there in the ether, trying to re-attach itself to someone who is now far and away.

and live i have, maybe not happily all the time, but not unhappily all the time, either. i have amazing children and the keenest of friends, i have a career even though i loathe to admit it sometimes, and i have my writing and music. and, i have gone on and let myself really love again.

so, thank you for knocking on my door, and thank you for acknowledging what we meant to you, what i meant to you. and i honestly wish you the best of everything, and i am over here so proud of you for taking these rough steps at self-awareness and healing. but, i cannot be yours anymore.

even though there is a part of me that would love to try, i know that part of me is still wavering in that often alluring sense of nostalgia, and the rest of me - well she is quite happy to be living in the now. and, although it often feels impossible, and although i more than often feel that i falter and fail at it, i am in love.

and, i've given up on love before, it was my protection, and a control issue, and a defense that i learned from the pain of loving you. and no, i don't blame you for it, not at all; i am actually quite grateful for all that you did teach me about love. but, i am not willing to give up on love anymore, either.

love is not disposable, and it is not replaceable either - not even by someone who was once very incredible to me. so, i'm willing to take the tough roads, to not give up even when there are obstacles and doubts, because i still very much believe in love's possibility. i hope you find that for yourself, in this life, too.

thank you, my dear friend, for everything; but i think it is time to say goodbye to who we used to be, and hello to the friends we are meant to be now.

"now i'm walking again to the beat of a drum

and i'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof

get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
hey now, hey now

don't dream it's over."

don't dream it's over (live) ~ neil finn

can you tell me who you were singin' to?

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

and, i'm quite sure that if i had my way you would be here with me right now. but. i am also quite sure that there are some things in life that just do not come that way, no matter how much we want them.

and, i'll say it again and again, that love should never be impossible. but, that said, we feel so impossible lately.

so, for now i will just turn the music up. i will pretend that i understand what this is, and what this isn't.

but, if you can help explain this to me, please do. because lately i feel so lost and far away, and i do not want you to become just something i write heartbreaking prose about for years to come.

song to bobby ~ cat power

(song from the upcoming cat power album jukebox)

i'm willing to be wrong

keep art alive; art by sanithna phansavanh

"now your giving up the ghost

to the one who meant the most

and one day when she least expects she’ll know

and the words you never spoke

and the tune you never wrote

won’t write itself or wait for evermore

i’m moving off,
i’m packing up
i’m willing to be wrong…"

i suppose that it is due to once that i am discovering the frames, although i think it goes far beyond the film in the way that i am falling for this band. i love when you discover something new and you hear a song for the first time; a song that just blows you out of the water, and steals your breath right from you. it is like those first months of falling in love with someone, and all that heightened passion and heart-patter urgency.

love and music, they are what make it all worth it. i love my breath stolen, my heart pounding, and being full-on intoxicated with song.

locusts ~ the frames

as though nothing could fall

"though nothing will keep us together

we could steal time

just for one day."

david bowie, heroes

only to rise and fall again

today i wish it would rain, so that i could walk underneath all of it, and let these tears that keep falling get lost in all the water. that it would all traverse down the streets, and tumble down into the gutters, to finally escape into the waves of the ocean. i wish that my head would stop picturing what we could be, and that i could sort out a way to let this all go. but, more than anything, i just wish you were here.

but just like the rain

i'll be always falling

if you were here ~ cary brothers