Beautiful Dreamer

So The Buried Life, MTV's newest reality show, has captivated me. in case you are unaware of this new slice of reality life, allow me to fill you in: four cute and wonderfully charming boys have set off across the country in a large purple bus (appropriatly named Penelope) and are set to cross off items on their "bucket list", that is, the list of things they would like to do before they die. The desires most people have buried deep inside. For every item they cross off their list, they help a stranger cross off something on theirs. Every show ends with the question, "What would you like to do before you die." and so this has made me do some thinking. now, i have had my own "bucket list" in the works for quite some time. At this point, it is close to 40 items long and i am continually adding to that number. It spans everything from learning how to surf, to traveling to various countries, to writing a song. However, as i was driving in the car today, i thought, 'if i could only pick one thing, what would it be? what would i like to leave behind? how would i like to effect the world i live in?" and i was struck with and idea.

what is this o-so-wonderful idea, you ask? Before i die, i would like to open up a coffee house dedicated to fostering Christian artists. the decor would be inspired by the various cultures i have visited, insisting that all are welcome, no matter their background. It would be a place where writers, actors, musicians, photographers, artists and the like could come together as a support group and cultivate art. We would have open mic nights, poetry readings, art showings, staged readings, scheduled music performances. there would also be small groups/ bible studies available in the evenings. Maybe even a worship night or two. It would be a safe place for a Christian artist to try out their Christian work, knowing that there is a group of supportive brothers and sisters sitting in the audience before them, praying them on. It would act as a refuge after a tiring battle in the artists' world. A place filled with vintage tables and comfy chairs, where you could get a cup of coffee and some biscotti, enjoy some music that lifts you up as opposed to challenging everything you hold dear.

now, dont get me wrong. As artists, it is important that we immerse ourselves in challenges. it is important that we enter the world we disagree with and fight for our beliefs, no matter our politcal or spiritual leanings. but sometimes it is nice to have a place to come home to. a place to recharge our batteries and rekindle the fire. As an artist, i would love some good old fashioned christian fellowship with other artists, and that is what this coffee shop would be all about.

Of course, everyone would be welcome, no matter your beliefs. we would welcome you with warm hearts, just glad that you came in for a cup-o-joe this beautiful afternoon. In fact, please do come in. we would love to answer any questions you may have about our mission, and accept any challenges you may offer. im just glad to have met you.

the name of my cafe? Selah. the most beautiful name in the world. While there are many discrepancies to its exact meaning, most agree that it is a Hebrew term used in music. it is frequently found in the psalms and indicates an interlude where the people were to look back and reflect on what had just been sung. Scholars also believe that it may mean forever, or eternal, just like our God, and His love for us. That is exactly what my cafe is for. Let us gather together, one body in Christ, and create art. something new, original and captivating. something that reflects on the almighty glory of our God above. My savior, my father, my friend. Let us shout together as our joy spills our of our hearts and onto the pages, the walls, the tables and chairs of my little cafe. our little cafe. artists united in Christ.

Everyday we have is a gift from God. how will you use it? what is your buried life?

if music be the food of love...

i have decided to teach myself to play the guitar. and, hopefully, by the end of the year, i will write a song. at least, thats the goal. you see, when i hear music, i can feel it in my gut. it completely opens me up. listening to music, creating music. that is when im happiest. and so, i would like to add one more facet to my music creating skills. i think thats a good idea, yes? i have recently found myself listening to songs that require me to jump around my bedroom like an eight-year-old girl, singing into my hairbrush and dancing on my bed. my current obsessions have been "make it mine" and "on love, in sadness" by jason mraz, brilliant musician and future husband. i also listen to the occasional gaga, "one girl revolution" by superchick, "just can't get enough" by sam walker, and "party in the u.s.a" by miley. yes. i know. its a good song and makes my ab workout much more enjoyable. so there.

how is it that music is able to access that remote and often closed place in our souls? even the coldest heart can be moved to tears by a simple melody. Don't believe me? watch titanic without the underscoring. see if you cry then. in fact, you'll probably laugh. music fuels everything. it swoops and soars, an invisible ghost hell-bent on making us feel.. something. anything. it inspires. i am never as driven as i am when listening to "make it mine" or "car crash" by matt nathanson. music is the one language that can transcend any barrier. yes, if music be the food of love...play on.

a new dawn

I can see the sun rising in the distance. a far away cry reaches out to the masses and pleads for understanding, a foreign and rare light in the mist of the eternal dawn. can we see it? can we hold on to our humanity and allow the strife to be swept away as we comfort our brothers and search for this light? i see in your eyes a passion that i long to obtain. perhaps i can hold it in a jar and stare at its beauty. but then it would be no good. love, in theory, serves no purpose. but love, in practice, ah, now that is a different thing all together. it is the fuel that allows us to reach through the mist and find that voice. that one, solitary voice. is it a child? a mother? a warrior? a friend? the constant buzz, that annoying white noise, is a product of my daily life. it can so easily block out the perfect speech of a friend i have yet to meet: different in race, nationality, customs and language. yet we share a voice. i long to meet you. to rise above the talk of others and walk towards you, arms out stretched in love and embrace the foreign voice of my brother. and as i stare into your eyes, i will see your heart and you will see mine, and we'll know that we are not so different after all. and as the sun finally breaks above the horizon, the mist will disappear and a new light, full of clarity and warmth, will fill our world.

Attitude

The longer you live, the more you will come to realize the impact of attitude on your life. Attitude, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, skills, or being gifted. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the innevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. And so it is with all of us...We are in charge of our attitudes.

~Charles Swindoll


this quote was given to me by a professor. and so i sit hear today and ask myself: what will my attitude be? i beg you to ask yourself the same question. our attitude can have a significant impact on our lives. It can determine whether we rise to a challenge or allow that challenge to beat us into a mass of irreconcilable self-loathing and disappointment. Accept that obstacle with determination in your heart and a smile on your face. i promise it will make life better.

I Would Like

I Would Like
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I would like
to be born
in every country,
have a passport
for them all
to throw
all foreign offices
into panic
be every fish
in every ocean
and every dog
in the streets of the world.
i dont want to bow down
before any idols
or play at being
a Russian Orthodox church hippie,
but i would like to plunge
deep into Lake Baikal
and surface snorting
somewhere,
why not the mississippi?
In my damned beloved universe
i would like
to be a lonely weed,
but not a delicate Narcissus
kissing his own mug
in the mirror.
i would like to be
any of God's creatures
right down to the last mangy hyena--
but never a tyrant
or even the cat of a tyrant.
I would like to be
reincarnated as a man
in any image:
a victim of prison tortures,
a homeless child in the slums of Hong Kong,
a living skeleton in Bangledesh,
a holy beggar in Tibet,
a black in Cape Town,
but never
in the image of Rambo.
The only people whom I hate
are the hypocrites--
pickled hyenas
in heavy syrup.
i would like to lie
under the knives of all the surgeons in the world,
be hunchbacked, blind,
suffer all kinds of diseases
wounds and scars,
be a victim of war,
or a sweeper of cigarette butts,
just so a filthy microbe of superiority
doesn't creep inside.
i would not like to be in the elite,
nor, of course,
in the cowardly herd,
nor be a guard dog of the herd,
nor a shepherd,
sheltered by that herd.
And i would like happiness,
but not at the expense of the unhappy,
and i would like freedom,
but not at the expense of the unfree.
I would like to love
all the women in the world,
and i would like to be a woman, too--
just once...
Men have been diminished
by Mother Nature.
Why couldn't we give motherhood
to men?
If an innocent child
stirred
below his heart,
man would probably
not be so cruel.
I would like to be man's daily bread--
say,
a cup of rice
for a vietnamese woman in mourning,
cheap wine
in a Neapolitan workers' trattoria.
or a tiny tube of cheese
in orbit round the moon.
Let them eat me,
let them drink me,
only let my death
be of some use.
I would like to belong to all times,
shock all history so much
that it would be amazed
what a smart aleck i was.
I would like to bring Nefertiti
to Pushkin in a troika.
I would like to increase
the space of a moment
a hundredfold,
so that in the same moment
I could drink vodka with fishermen in Siberia
and sit together with Homer,
Dante,
Shakespeare,
and Tolstoy,
drinking anything,
except, of course,
Coca-Cola,
--dance to the tom-toms in the Congo
--strike at Renault,
--chase a ball with Brazillian boys
at Copacabana Beach.
I would like to know every language,
like the secret waters under the earth,
and do all kinds of work at once.
I would make sure
that one Yevtushekno was merely a poet,
the second--an underground fighter
somewhere,
I couldn't say where
for security reasons,
the third--a student at Berkeley,
the fourth--a jolly Georgian drinker,
and the fifth--
maybe a teacher of Eskimo children in Alaska,
the sixth--
a young president,
somewhere, say, modestly speaking, in Sierra Leone,
the seventh--
would still be shaking a rattle in his stroller,
and the tenth...
the hundredth...
the millionth...
For me it's not enough to be myself,
let me be everyone!
Every creature
usually has a double,
but God was stingy
with the carbon paper,
and in his Paradise Publishing Corporation
made a unique copy of me.
But I shall muddle up
all God's cards--
I shall confound God!
I shall be in a thousand copies to the end of my days,
so that the earth buzzes with me,
and computers go beserk
in the world census of me.
I would like to fight on all your barricades
humanity,
dying each night
like an exhausted moon,
and resurrecting each morning
like a newborn sun,
with an immortal soft spot--fontanel--
on my head.
And when I die,
a smart-aleck Siberian Francois Villon,
do not lay me in the earth
of France
or Italy,
but in our Russian, Siberian earth,
on a still green hill,
where I first felt
that I was
everyone.

ready...set...GO!

i start a new semester tomorrow and what used to be excitment has turned to fear. i'm questioning my readiness. can i do this? tomorrow begins 12 weeks of being outside of my comfort zone. so man different people have put their confidence in me, and im not sure im up to the task. why do i let that happen. sometimes it gets to the point where i let my fear and self dobt completely paralyze me, fulfilling the thing i was so afraid of. if i were to just take a big breath and jump, id probably be fine. why do i let that happen? im so scared, and i feel so alone in it. everyone else seems so comfortable with their lot. oh god, be with me. its going to be a rough semester. i only pray that this fear causes me to work hard, not crawl into a hole and live in denial. who am i kidding? its time to grow up and live up to my potential. and the only way to do that is to take a risk and DARE TO FAIL. ugh, dare to fail....

the simple life

i have created a new project for myself. it is time to purge myself of the crap that has accumulated over the years in search of a simpler, truer lifestyle. first stop: my closet. how many clothes do i have that i no longer wear? too many. books? check. i have so many books sitting on my shelf that i won't be reading anytime soon. and, if in some distant future, i happen to have a desire to reads these books, i can always use my new library card. (everyone should get a library card. it saves money and trees! think about it :-) ) i need to remove the clutter and give it to someone who can appreciate it. donate these clothes. donate these books. give back. get rid of old papers and junk that sit on your desk and clutter not just your space, but your mind. i ultimately desire to create a newer, truer me. i want to create a space open to creative thought. when i put on my clothes in the morning, i want to feel comfortable in what i am wearing. don't you? now then, lets get started.

stop. think. love.

what is the purpose of art? no matter the art form, it goes back to that age old question that was asked by the greeks pertaining to theatre: is the purpose of theatre to present the world as it is, or as it should be? i look around me and ask, "why am i an artist? what do i have to contribute? what do i want to say with my art?" acceptance? love? the realities of human nature and the heartbreak that often comes with it? i think if i could get others to see god for just a moment, to pause in their busy day and actually see something, i will have succeeded in some fashion.

we are the products of corporate america. between our blackberrys or iphones, twitter and facebook, tv, movies, music, we rarely pause to look at each other and admire the world we live in. we our so invested in our own lives that we never stop to look at someone in the eyes and recognize them as a kindred spirit. companionship can be found in the eyes of a stranger. so i encourage you to take a day for yourself. leave your ipod and mobile at home, go to a park and sit. watch. listen. find your accompaniment in the rustling of leaves and the laughter of children. this is our planet, and in it there is hope.

a fresh start

With the coming of the year 2010, we are offered a second chance, a glimpse of hope in a future not yet realized. the 2000's was a decade of growth and change, a decade of lost identity. there was heartache and confusion, pain and anger, laughter and new-found friends. but along with entering this decade, i have entered adulthood. and so it is time to leave childhood strife behind me and embark on a period of love, confidence and dedication. i struggle with the woman i long to be. i can see her in my mind, but she is so far from the person i am at present. it is almost discouraging - an unobtainable goal teasing me with what i could never have. and so i thought that if i were to write these characteristics down, perhaps it would stand as a promise to myself and to the world i live in that i can, and will be, more. i want to work to live, not live to work. i want to be healthy - working out daily and eating in a way that honors the body god has given me, not destroy it with the chemicals and fat that eat away at me not just physically, but mentally. i want to be comfortable in my own skin. i want to be beautiful both inside, and out - no make-up or hairspray required. i want to be hardworking, dedicated, and leave the years of sloth and an apathetic attitude behind me. i want to be well-read (and with that i have sworn off of tv. except maybe glee. i love glee.) i want to be caring and loving, pouring out my heart to a world in need. i want to be the kind of girl who bakes cookies for her friends on a not-so-special occasion, but just 'cause. i want to be brave. i want to be happy. i want to cry. i want to see the world and maybe touch a life in the process. i want to be a musician, a writer, a photographer, an artist, an actor, a poet, a friend. this is the person i want to become in the coming decade. is it too ambitious? perhaps. but i'm not going to cut myself short by not even trying. i hereby vow to take pride in myself, and my work. i will become this girl one day at a time.