A Lot Of Heart

Earth's the right place for love. I don't know where it's likely to go better.
                            Robert Frost

Haven't written here in a little while. My thoughts have been switching stations like a kid with a car radio dial. I have trouble concentrating in general, but these last couple of weeks I've had a spastic brain -- just focus on a thought, and it switches to another. I want to write about something -- then I want to write about something else. SHINY!!

One common theme has been a song that I. Cant. Get. Out. Of. My. HEAD. But I like it so it's okay. Ha ha. Lady Antebellum's "Just A Kiss". I know, I know....it's sappy and I'm not even a big Lady A fan, but there's something about the harmony, the melody, the lyric....it's crazy but I could have it on repeat for half a day.
(Not that I've tried that. No, believe me, I have NOT. I might though. Just as an experiment, for Science, like.)

So the song gets me thinking about emotions, about feelings, about the way we turn away from sappy-ness and gag.
I've always felt things too deeply, too much. I always hated that about myself. As a kid, I wore my heart on my sleeve, and it got roughed up. When I had a friend, I loved them to the moon and back. When I was hurt, I cried for a day.  (seriously I cried for a day when I was seven. yikes.) I felt everyone else's heartache and joy too. It wears a person out.
There's something rotten in human nature that rejects too much feeling in others, I think. I was open, I was honest, I was myself. I laughed too loud.
I was too much.

I learned, like we all do, to hide the truth of how I felt, finding a neutral expression that would stand by me through painful rejections, awkward moments, electric joy... that would cover my features through the sound of a heart breaking in half, mine or another's.

Another song I love is The Killers "Be Still".

Be still, wild and young

          Long may your innocence reign

          Like shells on the shore
         And may your limits be unknown
         And may your efforts be your own
         If you ever feel you can't take it anymore --

         Don't break character
         You've got a lot of heart

         Be still, one day you'll leave fearlessness on your sleeve...steady and straight
         And if they drag you through the mud,
         It doesn't change what's in your blood
         When they knock you down

         Don't break character
         You've got a lot of heart...
         Be still, be still

         Over rock and chain, over sunset plain, over trap and snare, when you're in too deep,
         In your wildest dream, in your made-up scheme, when they knock you down....

         Don't break character, you've got so much heart....

I don't mind expressing myself more these days. I can take the strange looks I get from people and just laugh at them. I've learned that there are those who are like cold fish on a marble slab, cold through and through, and there is no waking them. You could pour on passion, fire, wind and water. Just dead eyes staring. I don't waste a lot of time, these days, in reviving cold fish.

Others feel a great deal and hide it well. They've got a lot of heart, but they've had to lock it in a safe, that's locked in another safe, that's locked in a vault. That's in a bunker at the bottom of the ocean.
To you I say, don't break character -- be you, your wonderful self. Let yourself feel again, though it sears -- earth might be the best place for love, but it will never be safe.

I can be unbelievably cynical. I surprise myself with my lack of faith in the human race, sometimes. But I'm not willing to bury myself with the cold stones that break and bend; I want to be the river that runs over them, that ripples and sparkles and rushes down falls, that roars and trickles and bubbles and rests in deep dark pools.

I know what is sappy and ridiculous -- I revel in it. I laugh at it, I relish it.
I'm alive and arms outstretched on the open shore.

I have a lot of heart. I'm betting you do too.

The Rewards of Risk

Is risk rewarding? Well, consider moments and events you are proud of in your life. Or those times that shaped your character. Risk, I'm betting, was heavily involved. Today is January 1, 2013. What do you want to change this year? What do you need to risk to do it? I'm guessing there is something. Perhaps you'd like to spend your time more wisely. Or start something important, even though you're afraid you might not finish it.

One thing I've learned from observing others, past and present, is you become who you want to be by DOING it. Film-makers make films, even if it is running around your neighborhood making a documentary of the sad state of lawn maintenance in the 21st century. Eventually you might be Peter Jackson filming The Hobbit. The great musicians, dancers, poets, chefs, and architects sang, danced, wrote, cooked, and designed until they were tired, frustrated, worn-out. I'd like to be a writer, but I'm often afraid to write. I may read it back and it will sound trite, or ridiculous, even grammatically riddled with errors. Bah! I can't be a writer. Foolish thought. Besides, my bookshelf is jammed with wonderful writers! Who needs another one on God's green earth!
..............This, my friends, is what I tell myself. So can you relate? Well, even if I'm not meant to be a writer, if I don't risk it then I won't know. I won't be able to move on from there. See what I mean? Like stepping-stones across a stream. There's a bit of a free-fall over the water while leaping to the next rock, but it's the only way to get there. A moment, climbing the mountain, when you are suspended over the face of the cliff and eternity, but it's bloody uncomfortable just hanging on to where you are all the time.

Risk is not ONLY for the young, though it is for the young, too. When I was younger I had fire in my veins. I did everything, anything, didn't worry about it. If only one could combine the confidence of youth with the experience of years! Instead it seems the experience of years holds back the horses at the gate and even locks them in the barn now and then, tossing and charging until the spirit is broken. It's a sad day, when you unlock the door of your dreams and find they have no life left in them.

So. As a challenge to myself for this fresh new year, if I want to do something, I'll DO it, not just think about it. If I hope to be something, I'll BE it. Perhaps badly, maybe not as well as I'd hoped, but better than hanging on for dear life to the top of the fence. Whatever happens, let's keep fighting. So often I've wanted to give up and let the world go on without me. Not dying but dying inside, a passive face that smiles and hides and feels nothing. This year I've been too close to that abyss, and I want to struggle away from it, and carry on with a dream or two in hand.

Keep going friends, risk is worth it in the end.