rebirth

Sooooo...... it has been a while since I posted. A long while. Too long in fact. But I'm going to go ahead and start again. I don't really have anything profound to say at the moment, so instead, I'm just going to give a bit of an update on what is going on right now.

I have now graduated high school, and I worked over the summer with three jobs. I was teaching piano lessons, I worked at a day care, and I was one of those people who goes around hanging those flyers on your doors. While all of this was going on I got to pack up my entire room and prepare to leave for college, and I helped get ready for my sister's wedding, and went and married her off. Congratulations sister! I love you!

Now I'm no longer working, but I am attending college, and keeping very busy. I joined the marching band here, and learned to march the glorious tuba. Marching band is over now so I am cruising along, taking 20 credits, and singing in the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and singing with a church choir.

Now that doesn't sound like too much to have going on, but is has been kind of an incredible experience so far. I never did so well at high school. I didn't like to do my homework, and my favorite pastime was to sleep in class. Now I really regret that, and wish I had gotten my butt in gear just a little bit more. Then my GPA would have been that little sliver higher to have gotten me scholarships, so I wouldn't have to be worried about money. It's a little harder to focus on some things when you are worried about money all the time. You don't really realize that until you are paying a lot out of pocket. Thank your parents now for everything they do/did for you at home! You'll miss it, I promise!

That's a little beside the point though...what I was getting at, is that even though I just did not enjoy the whole high school process too much, I am now thinking that maybe I just want to be a professional student! I've always known I loved learning, and the freedom knowledge brings, but I never quite experienced it quite like this before. Being at college has opened all sorts of doors for me, in that regard. I could do this forever, and very well may!

Speaking of which, maybe I do have a special little something to share. Here is a little poem that I wrote last semester following one of the moments when I had stopped to enjoy the little beauties of the world. I had gone down to the little river right next to campus, and spent an hour or two, just sitting under the trees, watching the water flow past, thinking about the way time, and life flows on just like the river; noticing how the little water molecules have a general goal they are 'swimming' to (downstream) but they don't go straight there. They pause in the little eddies, they swirl up and down, back and forth, in a little dance, all together, so vastly complex and beautiful. I watched the light playing off of the water, and the reflections there.

This is what I came up with.
It's called

"Can You Hear It?"

there is Music in the world all around us
be still
listen
it's there

it's in the ripple of the water
the babbling of the brook
the waving of the grass
the words in a book
the twinkling of the stars
in clarity of thought

it's united, it's one

it's Life.

Now I am definitely no poet, but I've come to discover that so many things that we think of as art, are simply different facets of the same thing, a higher understanding: a form of enlightenment, if you will. One that is often overlooked, however, or thought of as separate, is that of thought and understanding. But no, I believe it is one and the same.

The pictures in the video are mine, that I took specifically with/for this poem. Enjoy :)

Remember to stop and smell the flowers.
It's the little simple things we skip over that can be the most important if we pause to notice them