So beautiful, so achingly lovely, the sky above me. This blue expanse, so wide, so bright and clear over my head. I can see it when I run outside in the morning, down the street so I can stare over the hills and the small canyon that named my middle school. God it's so beautiful.
As I said the other night, God is in the smallest things, in the juxtapostion of the lovely and the horrible. God is the fluid motion of hunting lions and the cries of that child carried through the ravaged Alabama town in the arms of a stranger. The incredible mathematical symmetry of the stars and the shapes of leaves. The air I breathe, the lungs in my body, the body I have, the mind, the heart, the hands....
This week has been something for me, something I don't quite know how to describe. I've been thinking a lot on my own. Not the kind of thinking that leaves me shaking in fear in the middle of the night. But this kind of thinking where I can feel something growing inside me.
Last night I dreamed a long chaotic dream. So many soldiers and police officers there. But there were fresh strawberries in the store! I felt them, so ripe and abundant. I ate one, the sweetness of fruit in my dream. Ahh I need to find some strawberries now.
"...I don't need much to keep me warm..."
He's gone, and I am alone here now.
It's almost Christmas.
I helped sort gifts from the giving tree this year, and it overwhelmed me. The need in out community, the poverty, the desperation, the sadness. All present in a city described as one of the best places to live in the whole damn country. Oh my god.
But what was even more shocking was how much people gave. Each child could ask for two things- one article of clothing and one gift (a watch, a toy, etc.). I sorted the gifts, looking at the tags. A girl asked for a shirt, a 14 year old girl. The person bought her an entire outfit. A boy asked for a toy car, a 7 year old boy. The person must have bought him fifty cars, another toy, and the batteries for it. On and on it went, these gifts that just kept arriving and piling up in the hallway. So many things for the homeless teens here, sweaters and blankets and shoes and socks, bags of little soaps and things. I sat on the floor in the midst of all this and cried under my breath.
Just keep reminding yourself, it is the beauty and the pain. That is the mystery. It has to be everything. One day you will understand everything. For now you have to keep trying, you have to keep trying....
Did I ever think I would grow up? No. Never. I never ever believed I would be this old. I tried to die once, and I very nearly did. The ambulance skidded on the ice and they jammed a tube into my throat to keep me breathing. My heart stopped. I was in a coma, out of control. Days and days of this.
I woke up. I am alive. I am still here.
www.livejournal.com/users/tsarina
December 21, 2000
Tsarina Amanda
