top 12

it’s the last day of july and i wanted to share something that i take a secret pleasure in. and because it’s my favorite number, i’ve chosen a list of 12.

sometimes this web is very Oz-like, do you know what i mean? site meters, tracking, search engines… this is the peek behind the curtain … it’s discovering how some people end up here in my space. this space. your space. our space.

of course, most searches are for me, my name, my photography, my shadow, my past catching up with me. most searches know the keywords but not the url. but every now and then, there’s a nugget that stands out to me.

after going through the month’s searches on this blog, i always pull up some great treasures. i figured i’d share them here, and maybe try to remember to do this every now and then.

*note to self: try to remember to do this every now and then*

so now, for my own amusement and bewilderment as to the ways of the universe; these are the phrases, questions, wonderings that people typed into search engines to find me here.

it reveals a bit about me and a bit about you. and therefore we are connected in that human way that i love so dearly.

enjoy!

1. get the fuck out of my dreams

2. meeting you in real life

3. shrooms east coast

4. share your passion

5. embrace the chaos

6. leave your pain in the river

7. dream spirit gagging

8. what are double pisces like?

9. spirit of light

10. i’m talking to you hey mom

11. purple spirit floating above me

12. can a river reflect beauty?

i love your tacos

it’s true, i have an appreciation of the dark and humorous, especially when it comes to love. i can’t help myself, there’s just too much reality in all of it … how human we all are, how we sweat and breathe on one another. how even flowers appear naked… how we’ve all been there with our pants around our ankles feeling vulnerable swallowing up whatever bits of love we can find. (not literally, well, except for maybe that one time.)

i laughed when i read this poem, and knew i wanted to remember how silly life can be sometimes, how raw and truthful in the best laughable way. and how we are all very much the same when it comes right down to it.

love is fickle. no one is immune. and i love that.

“Forms of Love”
by Kim Addonizio

I love you but I’m married.
I love you but I wish you had more hair.
I love you more.
I love you more like a friend.
I love your friends more than you.
I love how when we go into a mall and classical muzak is playing,
you can always name the composer.

I love you, but one or both of us is/are fictional.
I love you but “I” am an unstable signifier.
I love you saying, “I understand the semiotics of that” when I said, “I
had a little personal business to take care of.”

I love you as long as you love me back.
I love you in spite of the restraining order.
I love you from the coma you put me in.
I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone,
except for this one guy.

I love you when you’re not getting drunk and stupid.
I love how you get me.
I love your pain, it’s so competitive.
I love how emotionally unavailable you are.
I love you like I’m a strange backyard and you’re running from the
cops, looking for a place to stash your gun.

I love your hair.
I love you but I’m just not that into you.
I love you secretly.
I love how you make me feel like I’m a monastery in the desert.
I love how you defined grace as the little turn the blood in the
syringe takes when you’re shooting heroin, after you pull back
the plunger slightly to make sure you hit the vein.

I love your mother, she’s the opposite of mine.
I love you and feel a powerful spiritual connection to you,
even though we’ve never met.

I love your tacos!
I love your stick deodorant!
I love it when you tie me up with ropes using the knots you
learned in Boy Scouts, and when you do the stoned Dennis
Hopper rap from Apocalypse Now!

I love your extravagant double takes!
I love your mother, even though I’m nearly her age!
I love everything about you except your hair.
If it weren’t for that I know I could really, really love you.

oh boy

he’s clutching a fist full of craft sticks.  it’s dinnertime and he finds me in the kitchen with music in my ears and songs on my lips.

“i’m gonna have to use all of these popsicle sticks… i’m so sorry momma, i’m gonna have to use them all.”

i laugh at his seriousness. his matter of factness he has about him when it comes to imagination and things only he can see with his mind.

“that’s ok. that’s what they’re for sweetie.”

later, while food bubbles on the stovetop, i watch him from the edge of the doorway. he’s on his belly in the shag carpet, piecing and stacking so carefully these craft sticks.  everything has meaning and purpose.

i lean against the doorframe watching him for a long time.  feeling like this future version of myself, peeking in on a teenager with a reminder to turn off the light and go to bed. this moment lingers with such a sweetness i can roll it around in my mouth. him nodding his head to himself, making his own music in his head, creating in his own way.  i revel in his beauty, his way with imagination, his mind.

in five days i will hug this boy so tight. he will wear a necklace he made with his own two hands to keep us all close to his heart. i will whisper i love you and fight back the tears as i say goodbye to him until the end of august. a lifetime away.

oh boy.

where i’ve been

dear blog,
we need to talk.
i feel distant.

and i’m not sure what to do about it. but i’ve found that talking usually helps especially if others are open to listening. so, please allow me the space to sort it out. i love you, you know i do. and i want to take care of you because you have provided for me in many ways i can’t even begin to express with words. i just don’t have enough hands right now.

the truth is when i think of where i’ve come from, and that i’ve been writing to you, this blog, for four and a half years, i begin to feel a little claustrophobic. i know that feeling emotionally distant is different from being too busy to write.

part of that is due to being without internet for over a week while i moved. part of it is the accumulation of many other things. summer is upon us. time is slipping through my hands as river and i are about to say a big goodbye for the month of august. i’m processing my mother’s illness in strange and unusual ways. i’m preparing for an upcoming trip to the east coast that will be both bitter and sweet and very much needed.

and so what happens is i withdraw. hibernate. quiet down the voices in my mind so i can scramble for some peace and direction. i know you understand. and the thing i love most about you, dear blog, is that you are always here when i’m ready to come back to center. and you don’t judge me for time away, or having changed, or being too sad or too happy or too selfish. you accept me for who i am even when that is someone that is always changing.

xo
meredith

through all of this, i am very thankful that i am knee-deep into my 365 project (today marks day 200 of 365, does that make me thigh-high in it?) focusing on images when i simply have to let the words go, is what has been keeping me afloat through all of this chaos around me.

every single day i take a photo. one photo. it holds me accountable. it gives me the feeling that i am doing something. accomplishing something. when most often i feel that i’m doing nothing more than treading water.

more importantly, it helps me see everything i want to remember. all the good, the bad, the ugly. all the real life of our day to day. all of it.

what i want most is to be out in the world. to feel it alive on my skin. to do more than just get by, but to accept all that is around me. today was a start back on the path of motivation. today i took a photowalk with a friend, and i was eager to go through the photos and put together a slideshow to share here in this space. this poor neglected blog of mine.  

my blog is more forgiving of me than i am of myself.

as a peace offering, click below to see the slideshow: a walk through east austin. it’s where i’ve been. it’s not where i’m at, but where my feet carried me and what i saw when i got there. photos edited in honor of the beggar’s banquet album which seemed to seep into the crevasses of post-processing.

take a walk with me!

alive at night

day 189 :: 365

sometimes you are lucky enough to witness a transfer of energy, from the creator to the receiver. sometimes you are lucky enough to be part of the exchange.

to watch this live, to see it in the color flashes of green and purple lights on stage, to feel it created with a chant and drum beat, to watch it take shape, to feel it with all your limbs while surrounded by a hundred other people… this is something i completely enjoy. it’s something i don’t get enough of.

but when i do.
i am in my element.

energy shifted this night.  in a sea of onlookers. an orange light sweeps across our faces. the words float above us, just touching our skin.  hand to hand. chest to chest. human contact tied together with strings of music.

the energy shifted this night. in a wave it rippled three times like fabric shaken loose.  there is something very good in this.  this place i have come to be. feeling alive at night once again.