You know those people whom you find fascinating, and with whom you wish you could spend loads more time, so you could really get to know them?
Now, imagine one of those people, after having spent a short while hanging out with you and chatting with you about this and thats, saying to you that you are fascinating and that that person appreciates having gotten to spend some time with and learn a little more about you.
Feels good, doesn’t it? đ
That was my tonight.
Post-a-day 2018
Did you know that indigo powder is green?
I had always imagined that it would be, you know, blue-ish… like indigo, the color.
But then, here I have some indigo powder, and, sure enough, it is pale green, much like a mix of moss and grass.
And then, just as surely, of course, it dyed things blue-ish…, indigo.
Magic in nature, I suppose…
There isn’t much that occurs naturally as blue in nature, but I wonder how much more there might be that are just as deceiving as indigo… talk about not judging a book by its cover…
Post-a-day 2018
A morning prayer can really save the day. â¤
Post-a-day 2018
This morning, I woke up around five in an extreme panic. My bed was shaking, and my subconscience was sure that the building soon would be tumbling down – this was a massive earthquake, and it was lasting… already almost a minute before I could get my bearings and turn on a light.
And then, as I discovered where exactly I was, – in the USA, and specifically Texas – it took me another moment to discover what was happening. I knew that it was not an earthquake. It was not the gymnasium over my head, either, as it was in a place where I briefly worked immediately after arriving to the US. So, what was it? âWhat is going on?!â my insides demanded to know.
And then I heard it: a wind-filled noise, accompanied by a soft chugging sound of deep iron. It was a train. While the sounds of trains have never much bothered me, even when I lived beside tracks in the past, Iâm not sure that I ever noticed a shaking tied to the passing of one. Nonetheless, I experienced it in full force this morning.
After I realized that it was simply a passing train, – though, I was still surprised at how much it shook the house and its contents – and not an earthquake, I mentally noted that I didnât even have to start panicking. A few seconds after this noting, my body finally began to respond to the threat of the earthquake. It had been as though I were in a fight or flight mode, and so hadnât had the various responses tied to the fear in the perceived situation. Once I was safe, they all kicked into action, and I began shaking all by my self. I was physically panicking now. My breathing tighted to a near non-existence, and my heart raced. My skin prickled all over, and I had to force myself to swallow and then take slow, deep breaths.
I wonder if it will happen again this morning…
Post-a-day 2017
I love my family. And I miss getting to spend time with them. I had somewhat forgotten the existence of one of my cousins, because I hadnât actually seen him in so long. I knew he existed, of course, but it was as though I had accepted that it wasnât ever an option to see him. And so, it was a wonderful surprise – though I knew in my head that he would be here ahead of time – actually seeing him and spending time with him tonight.
One of the things I love about spending time with him is his musical gift. He can be given any instrument, and, whether he has ever played it before or not, can be playing lovely music on it within a maximum of a few minutes. We always end up humming and whistling and singing beautiful music together, whether we have an instrument or not (though we often have at least a guitar).
Tonight was no different. He pulled out one of my favorite songs, and early on in the visit. Oddly enough, I hadnât listened to or sung/played the song in years, and so it was a fun surprise. I had to look up the words, because it had been so long, but it was too good of a song not to get all the words right (âWhite Manâ by Michael Gungor Band).
As he fiddled around on the guitar, my mom and I sat with him on the porch, listening to him play, and working on our puzzle/mystery boxes we were creating for his brotherâs wedding reception this weekend. The kind of music he was playing reminded me of why I ever wanted to learn to play guitar in the first place. I want to play John Denver and Jim Croce music, and other things similar in style. It has always been my long-term, distant future goal, since it really isnât the easiest music, but there are plenty of things I can learn as stepping stones (and I have learned a good bit of them). I just donât play when I donât have the company of someone elseâs music.
When I am with my cousin, we almost always take the time to sit down and teach me something new and, of course, beautiful to play. Now that we are back living in the same country, we might actually be able to set up semi-regular music meet-ups for the two of us. Weâll see.
Gosh, I love my cousin.
Post-a-day 2017
Sometimes, things fall apart, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
Sometimes, things come together, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
And sometimes, the difference between the former and the latter is that action was desperate and limited in the former, but honest and free in the latter.
Life sure is beautiful, ain’t it? đ
Post-a-day 2017
Sometimes I wonder about whether there really will be a place for me in our modern, developing world. There so many things that are becoming commonplace that go against so much of who I am. From the simplest tiny things to morals to lifestyle to core beliefs and thinking patterns, I notice a difference between so much of how the society functions around me and what is in me, myself. I realize that, somehow, I will have a place in the world, but I wonder if it is in the part of the world I already know, or if I will find myself in an entirely different society, somewhere else in the world⌠not in what I consider my home.
I just wonder…
Post-a-day 2017
I found myself wondering the other day about friends, and whether the ease of conversation has a role to play in whether a friendship will develop. I was with someone whom I had previously considered a friend, when I began thinking about it all. We had trouble spending time together easily. That sounds odd, but I mean it. We were fine spending time with one another – there was no specific issue, per se, that arose. It just wasn’t an easy hangout.
You know the friends with whom you never seem to lack a topic for discussion? You can go on and on together, covering who knows what topics, whether you last saw one another years ago or a matter of mere minutes ago. It’s just easy. That’s the easy that I mean. We were okay spending time together, but we weren’t having an easy time-spending together – we were just together.
I even found myself noticing that I was looking forward to being done spending time with the friend. (I suppose that this was the point at which I began truly wondering if we were actual friends, or just acquaintances.) I considered what I had next on the agenda, and noticed how excited I got about spending time with the next person on my schedule. I knew instantly that she and I would never run out of discussion. Sure, we could potentially come up to some quiet times, but they wouldn’t be uncomfortable, and they would be followed soon enough by more excited conversation. This friend is a particularly happy one, so the conversations are usually quite excited, however, the point was not about the exciting conversation, but rather the fact that we never had to search for topics of conversation – it always just flowed. As I considered this, I had the thought that that was what is present in friendships. That ease of conversation is necessarily part of a friendship.
I also noticed, again, that the current friend and I did not have this. It felt as though we didn’t have enough in our lives that was even somewhat on the same path, and so we didn’t have much to discuss. It isn’t even about commonalities so much – a baseball lover and baseball hater could always talk about and argue over baseball – as it is about being aligned somehow. And we really just aren’t aligned. I had already noticed that by how little I related to things this friend would say, and how I often felt almost offended by certain ideas and ways of thinking that this friend expressed and presented. And so I saw that we really are more of acquaintances than friends… and, what’s more, I rather feel as though I don’t much want to become friends. I guess we’ll see how that goes in a few years…
(See, I got all distracted in that, I forgot the second half of this all!)
In contrast to that, I spent time with someone tonight who had been a childhood friend. Though we had bits here and there regarding catching up on things, most of our conversation was not that. It was about all sorts of things. Naturally, I found myself in the middle of it all, specifically remembering my thoughts from the other day about ease and flow of conversation for friends. It took almost no effort to talk. We always had something to discuss. The conversation space felt open and safe. It was just easy.
It was so easy, in fact, I got blisters from walking so much in my sandals. I planned for a 30-minute walk, with a maximum of 45 minutes. Four hours later, and after a call from my mother (I’m living with her currently) to tell me to come home and go to bed, since I have to be up early tomorrow morning, I finally found myself heading home. We walked and talked and sat and talked, and then walked and talked some more before sitting and talking even more. Like I mentioned, it was just easy. And that is how I feel talking with a friend goes. This is not to say that acquaintances can’t have that – we are currently acquaintances, I believe. It is simply that friends do have it.
The people whom I truly love, they and I have that ease every time we are together (be it physically or digitally together).
Post-a-day 2017
I’m staying at my mom’s house tonight, and so am using my old bathroom and bedroom. In the shower, she still has two of the bottles (for there were many) of shampoo and conditioner that I had used in high school. They are from two different sets of shampoo and conditioner, and so they have different scents, but they both take me back.
As I use the shampoo, I remember those 5:20am showers, being barely able to move or see, yet chugging along anyway, so I could get to band on time…, never fully waking up until band practice had been going for at least a little while. I remember my boyfriend from my senior year… the time we went to see the bats on Waugh Street bridge, and he guessed correctly the brand of my shampoo and conditioner (Herbal Essences)… how he was terrified that I might fall, and grabbed me when I leaned over the edge of the bridge to see the cars below (as if)… how we always did things together with my mom (that occasion included)…
And then I move to the conditioner, which seems to have lost most of its conditioning power in these many years of sitting there. The same sorts of memories stay in my mind, but then one striking memory produces, and adds itself to the mental exercise. I recall the morning of my hair surprise. As I was rubbing the shampoo into my hair, I discovered what felt to be part of a pine needle, or else one of those brown cocoon-looking things that fall from trees and remind me of cattails crossed with pine cones and a thick worm. “Really?!” I thought.
I had been lying down in and rolling around in the yard the night before, and apparently hadn’t even noticed that I had gottten some of these guys in my hair. I slept with that in my hair. How bad is that?
So, I grabbed the twig thing to toss it out the window (which was closed at the time). As I was starting to pull it from my hair, being careful not to have it fall apart into my hair, I noticed a sort of burning sensation in the joint of my first finger. As I brought my hand down from my head, twig thing in-hand, I began to panic. I flung it to the ground in the shower, and began shaking my poor hand that had been holding it. I might even have shouted, or even begun to cry loudly. I vaguely remember my mom coming in to check what was wrong as I was crying in the shower…
“What is it??”
“I just…[sob] got stung…[sob] by a wasp.”
“What???”
“It was in my hair… and I grabbed it… and it stung me.” The sobbing continued, I believe.
It wasn’t that I was in extreme pain, so much as that I was extremely surprised. First, I had been surprised at my having left tree stuff in my hair from the night before, rolling in the grass. And then, I found out that a wasp had somehow gotten in through the closed window, landed on me as I rubbed in my shampoo, and then stung me as I removed what I thought was a stick or pine needle or pod thing.
Perhaps that’s why I left this conditioner here so many years ago.
Post-a-day 2017
Tonight, I put on my TUESDAY underwear after my shower. Â While I actually did believe today to be Tuesday at one point earlier on in the day, that was not my reason for doing this. Â I considered them for a few moments as I stood over my suitcase, and then reached down and grabbed them with intention. Â I’m not certain how to put it, really. Â It was, in part, a representation of my distaste for today’s events (and therefore today) and my rejection of today (in a sense), and, in part, my rejection of the standards of days-of-the-week underwear as a means of rebelling against something that feels to be beyond my control with my current experience of time and the specific days of this week. Â Also, things were much more hopeful on Tuesday. Â Tuesday was a good day this week and last.
Today was the bad one. Â Although, to be fair, a lot of good has come out of the ending section of today – lots of love, especially. Â When Snapchat (which I don’t even use) and the concern of looking good (someone else’s concern) knock you in the face, it’s really nice to have love show up and remind you that you are great, and that those ideas have no bearing on the situation.
Post-a-day 2017
hannah ananas 