Ansuz.

I was eight in Kentucky, visiting family that still lived in the double-wide trailer I was babysat at.  It was blue with a water bed, where my cousins and I would watch Twister with our aunt, Tammy.  I was at the mall and I didn't hold my mother's hand.  For two hours I was lost, wandering around and navigating the shops that lined the main concourse.  We probably circled each other's paces like satellites.  And when she saw me, she hugged me tight and promised not to let go.  

Of course, it's silly to promise things conditional on the human emotion, on circumstance and change.  I left my mother when I was seventeen and she was never able to hold my hand again.

But we place reminders on ourselves to not forget to stay connected, grounded to the bluegrass roots that shaped us in one way or another.  She used to leave me post-it notes on my dashboard to read before school and I still try to revive that tradition with an occasional text.  It goes unanswered, lost to the lull of technological synapses between our generations.  I have a reminder on my calendar for her birthday with a little heart next to the 14 and the days leading up to it are marked in my planner with "Don't forget to buy the card", "Don't forget to mail the card", "Don't forget to call her."  

They're all unnecessary insurance, anyway.  I don't plan on forgetting anytime soon.

But that's how I am with many things, with all things, in some way.  I like the insurance of planning, of making a to-do list and never marking anything off because it's all finished before I even looked to it for guidance.  That's how I am with myself, with my body.  I like to be organized, to have constant totems nearby to retrieve the inherent "me" that's sometimes fogged by the daily coil of corporate life.  I didn't want this to happen with writing, something I've always valued within myself.  I wanted to remember it as it was, and not lose it for two hours and come back scared.  I wanted my talent to shine in a way that was nurtured and remembered like when your mother remembers your favorite dish for dinner after you haven't been home for a year.  I wanted to build a relationship with my writing, and I just needed a reminder to appreciate it while it's still around.

My new tattoo is the Elder Futhrak rune Ansuz, which symbolizes the creative mind, the poetic soul, and the "god's breath".  I wanted to hold it on my forearm and invoke that metaphysical energy during my day-to-day life and remind myself of the innocence of the energy that, when reduced by half like a marsala wine, just boils down to love.

still healing.  don't you love this quilt?

PS, I updated my "Connect" page and you can find me on pinterest, instagram, and VSCOgrid. Feel free to say hi :)

What's on my desk is on my mind.

I hardly ever make eye contact and when I do, it's electrifying in it's own way.  It's because I hardly ever like to do it, unless I'm trying to intimidate someone.  I choose to see the world in a different way, to save sight as a last-ditch effort to understand my surroundings. I never made eye contact with the waiters in Naples, but understood their language through the food.  Stilettos walking on marble and the slightly monotone sermons I heard the Sunday I moved to Italy at 18 echo deep in the recesses of my dreaming conscious.  It was invigorating to experience things, dreamful things, in a way that wasn't hearsay. 

I've always wanted to combat the feeling of distrust that comes from second-hand lives.  Spoken words mean nothing to me.  It's the written form that creates a contract, that solidifies the veracity of life not yet experienced.  And so, I choose to read.  

I'm picking up books at the library like four-leaf clovers.  I've been this way since June of last year.  They sit in stacks, in piles and on shelves by my nightstand and I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many words.  Currently, I have anthologies of Didion, Neruda, and Eliot, a French grammar book, two Hemingways (one featured below), and Wuthering Heights.  My fine at the library is $6.50.  I have had the Didion book since September.  I'll never finish all of them, and I don't expect to.  I am just lucky enough to have them as guests in my home.

And so, I choose to read them.  I remind myself of their ephemerality.  I remind myself to learn from them and to experience the world that's contracted in the pages and to believe them to be true, because my elders told me so.

And maybe, one day, I'll be thought of like this, too.

I read outside last week, drank and espresso and ate a scone.  I realized how many worlds I've lived in, and that I need to write them all down.

Talismans.

The only reason I bought them was because they were on sale.  These small gemstones I keep in a blue velvet pouch in my pocket or around my neck, on a silver chain that once held a crucifix. 

I'm not very religious.  In fact, it's the beginning of Lent and I'm not trying too hard to abstain.  I didn't grow up Catholic, but I always went to Catholic school.  There were crosses in our classrooms, not clocks or windows.  I'm pretty laissez-faire when it comes to belief, but I'm opportunistic when it comes to my faith.  I can't abstain from the things that make me happy, like swearing when I stub my toe or thinking impure thoughts when the mood hits me.  Instead, I bargain with God to try my best.  In that way, I'm probably not the religious expert one would expect me to be, having studied religious art at the Vatican almost four years ago now.

I believe in energy and restrictions.  A balance of chore and allowance.  I believe that we can leave marks on others and those marks can be cancerous.  I believe in damnation.  I believe in gluttony, too.  I don't believe in any sort of salvation vis a vis starvation.  I believe in the power of symbols, the power of intent imprinted onto letters, crosses, stones.  I think we get confused sometimes (I get confused more often than most).

There's been a shift in me lately.  A tug between my normal, negative self and a liberating desire to be positive.  A need, really.  In the past, I have had small bouts of depression, tempered with a sense of inadequacy.  Over the last year, I've realized how silly I have been.  How small those emotions are and how big the picture is.  I'm projecting these emotions on small stones, earth-made and anxiety-worn.  

I wish I could remember their names.  I know I'm wearing a ring of hematite, that I pray for more love with the rose quartz.  There's one for creativity and one for success.  I bathed in sage to cleanse them and myself.  I've worn them to bed every night.  

I know this kind of ritual won't last.  I understand that there is a fad to this kind of thinking.  But anything is better than sitting at night and wondering how many Valium there are left in a pill bottle that doesn't have my name on it.  I like the comfort of putting the intention on myself and that maybe, just maybe, I won't be damned forever.