Secrets

There is a small coffee shop on 12th avenue. I don't even know the name of it, but it usually gets passed up and the Frothy Monkey tends to steal its traffic.
I was in this little hole in the wall coffee shop a few nights ago.
It's occupants were few, a mere three customers.
To give you a visual; the walls are stark white and made of cinder blocks. The floor is tiled and dirty. The place lacks color. There is a small table with band advertisements and random flyers announcing various types of media in the area. There is only one worker, who looks tired but kind. She is mumbling about how they used to close at 7 but they pushed it back to 9. Her words seem bitter but her tone begs to differ. She isn't complaining, simply stating. I love this coffee shop.
Apart from the man buying a muffin, and the girl doing research on an old laptop in the corner, one man sits all alone.
He has the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Sad eyes, eyes that tell a thousand stories in one glance. The kind of eyes that make you want to look away because you can almost feel the pain they have seen...but you can't look away, you're trapped. This man has the darkest skin I have seen in a while. As if he just dropped in from a foreign country. And maybe he did, but that is besides the point. He is old.. quite old, tattered and torn in appearance. His clothes, his hair... his eyes. Have you ever looked into torn eyes? Because the experience is something that stays with you. It's one of those things that you don't ever really forget about. He has telling eyes. I would say that I hope my eyes tell a thousand stories.. but I don't think I have a thousand stories to tell. The eyes of the old have a mystery in them, an uneasy tiredness, a strange peace, it's almost as if they know that death is near.. but are somehow comforted by it. I bet it is much like the eyes of a newborn. Eyes full of secrets. You begin you're life not knowing how to speak... so you won't tell you're secrets to the world. You must learn to talk, and in the process you forget the secrets only to get them back when death is at you're door; when you are sitting in a coffee shop on a Saturday night in December at 7:00 PM alone, tired, worn out, and looking into the eyes of each person that passes... silently telling them your secrets.

There is something about Christmas that makes me such a sap...

I really kind of love this poem.

“6:59 AM”
Shane Koyczan

I’ve been told
that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

Toco el aire a usted no lo toco

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/12/02/

Hello Caroline,
This is the end of an era.
"Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
You have an unlimited amount of directions you can choose to go from here; a room full of doors. And each one is different, each one is valuable. Close your mouth and listen. You will hear me say, "This is the way, walk in it."

For now, live each present day as it comes. Do not worry about yesterday or tomorrow.
__________________________________

It is an interesting thing to learn how to not live in the past, but to learn from it. People say, "Live for today!!!" or even "What you do today, effects tomorrow!"
Our culture is very present/future directed. But the past... It is a controlling thing. We are told to forget it... but forgetting it would leave room to repeat it. The human race seemingly has a problem with repeating the past. We drudge up old wounds, have world wars one after the other, pass on prejudices, and continue to believe that if we just have that ONE THING!(whatever it may be for you at this point and time in your life), our lives would be complete... we would finally be happy. The past has a way of lying to us.
I think it helps to document the past, so that we don't forget how it felt. So we don't forget what it cost us in the end. Emotions are fleeting... easily forgotten in time. But what does it look like, to live each day, using the past as a reference of what works and what doesn't? What does it look like to live in such a way that pushes us in the direction of our future but doesn't idolize it? I'm not sure that I know.

and so it seems that I am in fact, not blind.

humiliation: the act of realizing that, in a moment of divine truth, tainted by false pride, you prophesied your own downfall....


Stitch in your knitted brow
and you don't know how
you're gonna get it out
crushed under heavy chest
trying to catch your breath
but it always beats you by a step,

making the best of it
playing the hand you get
you're not alone in this

Shadowfeet

I have a lot of growing up to do.
I have made many many mistakes...
and learned from most of them. SO maybe they weren't necessarily mistakes.. just, taking the long way around.
I think it is the most frustrating thing in the world to come to a place you have been before and know that you didn't handle it any differently than you did the first time.
I think it takes me a few times to get things right.
I feel foolish, I feel unwise... but mostly I just feel very young.
Having free will is both a blessing and a curse.
The decisions I make today affect others, not just myself.
Even down to the shirt I wear...every tiny thing that seems meaningless has some sort of effect on someone else.
It is so much easier for me to trust the Lord when emotions aren't blinding me.
I recognize more everyday how fallen the human race is.. how fallen and broken and prone to messing up I am.
I can not WAIT to be complete.
Sometimes I feel like I am the most fickle person that has ever existed.
I think I am just really good at deceiving myself. I can seriously convince myself that I feel things. I don't understand it, and I really don't like it.
Why am I scared of how I really feel... well.. mostly because it usually causes problems. I am so passive when it comes to relationships.. so scared of hurting people that I end up hurting them more by lying to myself and dragging things out.
God help me to learn to confront my own feelings immediately when I have them. Help me to learn that burrying them only makes things worse. God I feel like I constantly come to you and ask you to clean up my messes and I trust that you can fix anything. You can repair anything that I damage. But God please, PLEASE, teach me how to walk in a way that addresses things as I go, so that damage repair won't be necessary.

A piece of advice from each year of my life
1. Write down everything because memories begin to fail at an early age.
2. Youth isn't an age, its a mindset. Never grow up.
3. Read anything and everything you can get your hands on. Books contain a never ending amount of foolishness and wisdom.
4. There will always be times that challenge you to your core. In hindsight, they have changed me in far better ways than the easy times have.
5. Music is inspiration. Learn to hear it in everything.
6. "Grown up things are over rated, don't be afraid walk around bare-foot, blow bubbles in your milk, have a food fights, wear tutu's over your clothes, and laugh at inappropriate times whenever you get the chance.
7. Realize that life is far too short to hold grudges over petty things.. actually, over anything.
8. You will always have less than someone else and more than others. Learn to love people more than things.
9. Develop an appreciation of who God made you to be, flaws and all. And most importantly, learn to evaluate yourself on a separate scale than everyone else. You were never intended to be compared.
10. Figure out how to rest amidst the chaos. Learn how to shape the world around you rather than let it shape you.
11. Never sit inside all day.
12. Make a list of things you want to do in your lifetime and do every single one. AND add something every time you accomplish one.
13. Recycle and pick up trash when you see it.
14. Take the time to make people things that they will keep forever.
15. Learn a foreign language.
16. Take naps outside.
17. Realize that faith filled prayer is the most powerful resource you have.
18. Learn to live by your own time, don't be a slave to the clock.
19. Go days without watching tv or using your cell phone.
20. Set aside your prejudices.
21. Stop focusing on rules and performance and learn to live in freedom.

Good gosh this woman is brilliant

Let Me Be A Child

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"
Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.