In Tune with the Melody

Quiet.

Just stop.

Breathe.

Where are you thoughts?

Where are you?

Can you hear the music of your soul? The rhythm of your heart?

What song is your life?

No I'm not talking about the Facebook notes where you make up the soundtrack of your life. Not even words can totally encompass each part of your life.

Each moment is like being caught in a trance of an unheard song. Emotions rise and fall as the crescendos in the piece. Seconds slow down into a legato whole note, gently roaring over the tension of stress. Your body is meant to react, no, to dance in tempo to this piece heard only by you.

If life can be like a radio, and pick up on waves of sounds, it would be easier to explain. For now I must leave the description to merely be the distinction of living in the moment, getting caught in the past, or racing too far into the future. Yet I also know what it means to be living in a different place than where I currently am. What would normally be called a rainy day, I call it my English home. Or the moment I get caught in a deja vu, it is that one afternoon at home, in the kitchen, listening to NPR while working on my math homework.

Even if these count as being in the moment, I brand these moments as reoccurring themes. They are the melodic patterns that weave my life into a complex and developing piece.

Writing songs sometimes proves difficult. Sometimes the words come first. Sometimes the melody. If I get lucky, I manage to have my guitar in hand with a notebook lies nearby. At least then I can jot down the chords and words as soon as I can grasp them out of the air. As long as I leave a chord progression, I can figure out the melody that I had wove.

Surprisingly, I have actually gathered a few number of songs that are willing to become harmonies to my life. They capture moments in my life that I want to preserve. Emotions may be fluid, but on paper they become immobilized.

As I start to review my files, these songs allow me to give more depth and insight to those fleeting moments. Though I have always been shy to edit my own poems, songs give me more time. Unlike the words that I allow to pour out of me, the structured forms give a formal beginning and end. Each piece is separate from each other, though akin. Music acts like a family to me, whilst prose is one and the same.

I would dare to say that the true melody of my life lies within prose as music accompanies it into a more diverse and complete one.

Therefore my talents depend on each other. To live to the fullest, I need to compose to the fullest. Writing is the structure, music the energy, and acting the articulation of life.

Getting Lost in the Closet and How to Get Back Out

Closet.

The word conjures up several different images. Skeletons in the closet, cleaning out the closet, coming out of it...

As Peter, Paul, and Mary would put it, it’s what’s inside that really counts. A room is reflective of the individual who lives in it. But if that is so, what does my closet say of me?

Shelf upon shelf is filled with mementos, clothes, and everything else that I could not fit under my bed or in it’s proper home. Plans for the future are cramped into a space with mismatched evidence of my past. Of course, none of it makes sense. Yet, I know the moment that I clean it out, I will see everything clearly. There will be no mystery of my closet left. There will be no more surprises about myself.

In that regard I am what astrology would call a true Pieces: disorganized to the point that it is predictable, relying on intuition and mystery to fuel dwindling inspiration.

I need my closet to be messy, or my bed, or my room. I dislike being so open and apparent. A messy room is a lived-in room. A pristine room is filled with so much potential. But I digress.
The closet.

My bane, but it could be your best friend.The things that matter most are placed forward, your clothes organized in some order that you prefer. Is it organized by every detail, or by generalizations. Such as shirts are shirts, with  your favorites closest to the door.

My issue is not the ability to clean my room, I fear what cleaning makes me become. The moment I allow myself to clear this gaping closet, is the moment I release the true perfectionist out. Shirts will be organized by color, length, and type; socks perfectly aligned and separated in a similar fashion; shoes, sandals, and slippers aligned in height and popularity.

And once I conquer the closet, I would have to clean the rest of my room to a similar perfection. My dresser, bookshelf, and CDs will have to suffer a similar fate. Let us not even mention the filing cabinet.

My lack of action is not because of the lack of energy, rather than the containment of personal idiosyncrasies. I know exactly what my closet would reveal. That woman is far more obsessed and exacting than I make myself seem to be. All these past years I have been trying to relax and ridicule myself into a state of Zen-like balance. Learning to take myself less seriously can only go so far, and looking into what I call my core personality may throw me back into my old habits.

No, I do not want to clean out my closet. No, I do not want to revert back into what I was before. I hook myself onto details in order to avoid what I was molding into being; not crafting my own path.
In the meantime, my method of attack is to approach the closet, my mess, my life, with an exact distance of interest. Interest of purging, but an emotional distance to the project. Perhaps there is a name that others use to this method, but I would argue that I hold too much meaning to too many things. Thus I always wait for the right days to clean, or to drop things from my life. Otherwise, I spend hours sitting on the ground reading old notes from middle school, rather than emptying the box in front of me.

No, I have not come across Narnia or dead bodies in my closet. Avoiding the gravitational pull into that black hole is difficult, but the anchor of my real life will always be right by me. There are crumbs leading me back to the moment that I have to leave. Otherwise I will get stuck back in high school, or elementary school. My mess is my creation, and thus of my own madness.

What do you think your closet says of you?

Trust The Open Window

Time has been closing in on me, and I keep aloof, in denial of my conclusion. I know that I’m craving a type of self-destruction that can come only so often. I’m beginning to realize though, that this is the beginning of something else. I know I keep acting like my world is at an end. But in a way, it is. This is partially because I am about to graduate, but it is also that I have moved on from last year. So I cannot help but look towards the future. Each transcending song that I come across reminds me that I can climb even higher than I ever thought that I could climb.

What seems to be wrong is that I procrastinate. So I will admit it. I am procrastinating. I am afraid of failure, success, and the completion of my thesis. I know when I finish it, I will, basically, be done with 95% of my college career. It’s frightening. What other shows can I do? What is next for me?

Usually when faced with the invetitable changes that life throws at me, I take a moment to take it in, and then I move. Yes, I also hestitate, but I know what it means. I know what is coming towards me. I don’t want do my thesis because I feel it is the epitemy of my time here. I am afraid. My best work came in acting classes. Things didn’t work out, and didn’t get to act as much as I wanted to. However, what I did manage to do, was to increase my knowledge in various parts of the theater. I opened my eyes, and I realize that there are more techniques and styles of acting that I can handle. I went outside of high school and proved, showed that I can be a great, and powerful actress. I kept acting, even when I didn’t feel like it. When I felt as though I should give up, I shook it off and kept doing what I was doing. When I gave up on Pygmaillion, it came to me. Not me climbing desprately to it. I showed my strength that I don’t always see. When I ended a relationship and saw it burn to ashes, I still acted.

Now that I am faced with a terminal ending, I falter. When it came to Fame, I did let go, but I gave the excuse that I was caught up with college stuff. But then I look at violin. I gave that up when my teacher stopped teaching. What a mistake. I wish that I kept playing. It gave me another meaning, another label that I still have clung closely to. I cannot, I must not let that happen again. I love acting, I love singing, and I still love violin. I will not let go of these loves again. It’s a piece of me that seems to die. They give me more meaning than the internet has ever done. They were my excuse to go out, perform, and live more. I owe it to myself to take advantage of them again, and love wholly, and love musically. Love artistically.

Modern Women Warfare is quite different than Fame, but it still has those traits of my character. Strong, empowered, and real. I don’t know if I could say that the male characters I played were real, but I did feel a special connection to the Minstrel from Once Upon A Mattress. I loved the ambiguity. He defined himself by his work, and that’s how I defined myself.

‘Nyways. Here’s my shpeel. I’ve been bad. Reflexively, my mind craves justice. So I inflict it on myself. It’s a habit. I feel as though if no one does it, then I have to. I have to take responsibility for myself.

But here’s where it gets tricky. I’m done with feeling guilty. Not anymore. I’m done with that. Where does that leave me? Well I’m asking myself that right now.

Where does that leave you Sarah?

That leaves me at the point to forgive myself and then the last step would be to move on. It’s simple really. I just have a hard time forgiving myself. I push myself, to feel retribution. 

However, I do think I’ve been getting better. I’ve been writing a bit more than I was last semester. And that has helped me. I’ve been more talkative, and that helps. After months of just cruising, my mind is finally set in it’s tracks and I find myself entering deep thoughts without withering.

One of my best ideas so far? Valentine’s Day. Making it about me! I can take care of those cards for my friends, make the decided effort to clean up for my thesis, and make me feel special.

I feel as though I owe it to myself to make the life that I want to live. I owe it to myself to do what it is I want to do, not just float along life not thinking. Living takes energy. And it can be scary as hell. I know exactly what I want. I’m just afraid to say it because I think the moment that I say what it is, that I will not ever get it. I tend to think that once you create a possibility, it’s never going to happen.

But that may be for the best. Because if you dream, you can find something even better. I’m afraid to know what can be better. I just want what I want. Heh, I realize that’s rather immature of me. But I know that to be true, if you close your mind to possibilities you can be satisfied with whatever comes to you. However, if you let yourself dream, if you put in the effort and take the energy to live out your life, then you’re going to get it. And even more.

I keep looking towards the future. And it’s ridiculously scary. I know, stay focused on the now. But I tend to flash towards the future. Figure it out, if you know what I mean.

I need to go. But before before I do so. There’s just one thing.

I forgive myself for being destructive. I know it’s been a hard time, and I tend to handle problems either by creating or by destroying. It’s in my nature. I understand myself now. And I forgive myself for everything I have done. I relieve myself of all the guilt that I've pent up. There is no more need to curse, nor threaten myself.

This is the time that I should be celebrating my work. I know that it’s been painful at times, but when it was good, it was great. When you learn to let go of your guilt and forgive yourself, you loosen up a lot of that frustration and become less stressed. Life becomes easier because you learn to let go. Let go of your guilt like you have let go of your friends from elementary school, like you have let go of your old relationships. Keep the lessons and the good memories. But everything else can go. I deserve the happiness, success, and talent that surrounds me. We all deserve that goodness. Let them in, and purge yourself from those things that eat inside of you.

Balance the world within you, then you can begin to balance with the world around you.

How to Survive the Mechanical Bull: or How to Approach Life

Let's get to the bottom of the matter here, life is naturally uncomfortable. We are meant to be pulled up mountains, and dragged through bushes. Life is volatile, vivid, and sensual. It is not stagnant or solid. It's fluid and without shape. We just don't like to think of life that way because it is scary.


Of course its scary. I'm not saying its anything else. But you can grab hold of it and control the way you react to life. Let me give you a real-life example.


Living life is like riding a mechanical bull. If you're too rigid, no matter how well you do, you will be sore afterwards. If you don't move in time with the bull, you're going to fall,slide, or fly off. But if you can balance on the bull, gripping in all the right places, you can hang in for quite some time. If you manage to fall off, reset your approach and try again.


I've ridden a mechanical bull only twice in my life. The first time I lasted 40 seconds. Second time, right after the first, I lasted 41 seconds. Usually my friends didn't last as long during the second ride.


So when you fall on your butt during life, get up, reevaluate, and start living again (proceeding in this order). Sometimes... that is all you can do: just try again. So stop sitting around. Get up and make the best out of life, and all it takes is you getting on.