December endurance.

Good morning!!  December 1st.  Unreal!  December is such a beautiful month in so many ways, but also brings up a lot of emotion in people with expectations, Christmas, excess, hectic travel, family, mourning over losses, holiday parties and gifts.

"Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience.  It is not about feeling good.  It is about endurance.  Like patience, passion comes from the same latin root: pati.  It does not mean to flow with exuberance.  It means to suffer."

- Mark Z. Danielewski 

I often wonder if life would be a little easier if passion didn't run so deep, sensitivity so real, and memories so vivid, but I also imagine it is better to feel things deeply than have everything just be that numb, flat road without a single turn, incline, or even decline.  Would we be human if we stopped feeling so much?  I say we embrace it all.  Just let it happen and then let it go.

"You're alive.  Act like it."

-Kennedy Brock

I'm on a Bon Iver kick today as his soothing music and angelic voice is perfect for this time of year. Enjoy and have a lovely day. :)

Night owl.

I'm up late listening to the quiet tranquility of the dark, 
content in knowing I'm surrounded by moonlight,
 serenity and empty streets just beyond my walls.
 Night time is for thinking and floating and dreaming. 
 At night everything becomes more intense, and more true,
 with the echo of the previous day's events bringing clarity.
 I wake sometimes somewhere between midnight and dawn,
with a longing to write, to talk to those important to me
 and to find balance, order and form
 in the best way I know how.

One of my favorites.  Bon Iver and St. Vincent's Roslyn.
Close your eyes and float.

Photo source: here

The words we couldn't say.

"Meet me for coffee... you know the place."

We had everything to say, yet no way to say it.
Now was our chance, but the words wouldn't come.

 So we skimmed surface topics, and didn't stay long.
Time had passed but the ache still remained.
Flashbacks.

  Familiar scents and patterns.

Your eyes burning into mine.

Your lopsided grin.

I wanted to hold you.  To love you again.

But these were things I could also not say.

So we stood up, shook hands,
and went through the motions.
Empty coffee cups.

Weak smiles.

"Take cares."
You looked and you lingered, and I felt words.....
that still didn't come.

So I left, breaking the magnet pulling me back.

Your burning eyes.

The ache.

'The chance.

 Walking further from you. Further from us.   

Away from everything and nothing....
 we could ever say.

"Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind? "

Keep looking up.

Happy Saturday!  I hope you're having an awesome Labor Day weekend.  :) Mine has been pretty wonderful, thus far but.... Labor Day?  Really??  It's nearly startling. I'm also not quite ready to say goodbye to summer yet but hey, c'est la vie, huh? :)

  All we can really do sometimes is wake up and just trust.  Trust that things will work out, trust ourselves, trust time, trust our decisions,  trust the universe, and trust that everything is falling into place exactly the way it should; the way you want and need it to be. You know what else to do?  Keep making wishes, always. :)

"There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing—for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmonid knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens......

The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up."
-Jerry Waxman

 "So the story goes...."

Photo source: here

And I said I know it well.

Good morning!!  This song, to me is like a glittering white Christmas in late July. It's relatable and brutally honest.  It aches.  It's filled with hope.  It also sparkles, shines, and lights up my world, as I know it. When I heard this live, it was probably literally one of the most gorgeous things my ears had ever come across in my long history of seeing live music. Have I mentioned that I'd like to  marry Bon Iver for writing and singing the way he does? I think I may have.  ;) Enjoy.

"Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags

Wondering if any of the colors

Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said, "See, look, that's yours!

Stacked on top with your brother's

See how the resemble one another

Even in their plastic little covers"

And I said I know it well

That secret that you know 

But don't know how to tell

It fucks with your honor

And it teases your head

But you know that it's good girl

Because it's running you with red

Then the snow started falling

We were stuck out in your car

You were rubbing both of my hands

Chewing on a candy bar

You said, "Ain't this just like the present

To be showing up like this"

As a moon waned to crescent 

We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know

That we don't know how to tell

I'm in love with your honor

I'm in love with your cheeks

What's that noise up the stairs, babe?

Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I said I know it well."

Photo source: here

Hazeltons.

Is it possible to feel nostalgic for a place you've never been?  For someone you've never known?  Is it possible to miss things you've never seen, memories you've never taken part in, or the way things never were?

"So try to be somebody, So try to feel somebody
So try to leave somebody, So hard to be somebody."

"Because, sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you’ve been and;

 remember the person you were meant to be.

 The person you wanted to be. 

The person you are."

What might have been lost.

I'd like to write tonight.  I really would.  I'm fighting a cold however, (it's been slowly taking over since the trip last week), and I'm drained. I'm going to drink hot tea, take my bath, and get some sleep. Thankfully I will have a few days to rest this weekend in the sweet San Francisco sun.... (I truly heart this city).....

 and then will be writing more on here.  

As for now, it's all about the quotes and........ 

Does that surprise you coming from Victoria? ;)

More Bon Iver.  And this video is magical. 

"And the story's all over you
In the morning i'll call you
Can't you find a clue when your eyes are all painted Sinatra blue
What might have been lost."

Sweet dreams. :)

My pretend husband.

Okay, let's be honest.  Anyone in my life around the time of September-December of last year most likely knew of my absolute infatuation with Bon Iver (Justin Vernon).  I'm not sure how I even discovered him- more than likely while pouring over music blogs, hungrily  searching for new blissful tunes to fill my head and heart as life swiftly continues on.

I took a break from his music for awhile, but this evening as I was walking about; cleaning supplies in hand, fulfilled and relaxed from a summery (it's finally here!!!),  rejuvenating weekend, something pulled me back to that album.  His voice and raw passion have always made my hair stand on end, and his live performances are unreal. There is also obviously something riveting about someone locking themselves away during a Wisconsin winter to pour torment, heartache and isolation into songs. Are you kidding me?! It's really something out of a girlish fairy tale. ;) All adoration aside, when Justin Vernon emerged from the cabin, the finished product in his hand (For Emma, Forever ago), is without a doubt, one of the most intensely heart wrenching and lovely albums I've ever, ever come across. I'd call it brilliant, actually.

This gorgeous gem is my favorite song from the album.  Also one of my favorite songs of all time, basically. Sigh.

"This my excavation and today is Kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed

I keep throwing it down two hundred at a time
It's hard to find it when you knew it
When your money's gone
And you're drunk as hell

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load
In the back with your racks and you're unstacking your load

I've twisting to the sun I needed to replace
The fountain in the front yard is rusted out
All my love was down 
In a frozen ground

There's a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed
And he's dangling my keys he even fakes a toss
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss?

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks and you're unstacking your load

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me" 

Illustration source: here

Words can never make up for what you do.

So I'm a music lover.  I can easily devote hours to Itunes, music blogs and YouTube searching for music, making playlists, and generally just devouring new songs and artists that I somehow feel connected to.

Vincent Moon, an independent film maker from Paris, started La Blogotheque, using a form of filmmaking called guerrilla filmmaking with many indie artists, and the day I stumbled across him on YouTube, I was thrilled.  The sessions are usually two or three tracks filmed improvised in an unusual environment (such as a random city street or park), and as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished music video. They come out raw and mostly acoustic, just the way I love them. :) The wonderful thing about La Blogotheque is that it shows you the true talent of the artist, generating a deeper appreciation among both fans, and those who may be new to the music.

In this particular video, two favorites of mine, Bon Iver and Lykke Li team up in a Los Angeles park. I also have a thing for park benches, which makes it that much better. :) The song is adorable, the artists are adorable, and it's generally just fun... and brilliant. :)


Enjoy.



"Having troubles telling how I feel
But I can dance, dance, dance
Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean
But I can dance, dance, dance
So when I trip on my feet
Look at the beat
The words are, written in the sand
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are written in the air

Oh dance,
I was your dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do

Easy conversations, there's no such thing
No I'm shy, shy, shy
My hips they lie 'cause in reality I'm shy, shy, shy
But when I trip on my feet
Look at the ground
The words are written in the dust..."

And it's been said many times and many different ways but....