Minimalism at its finest. Whenever I see, hear, experience minimalism I feel like I’m falling in love.  I thought of this note I wrote this past summer called “Palindromes, Minimalism, and This Middle Life” just now and thought I wanted to write on it some more.  Really, I am a minimalist.  Such, that when I do not live like one, I immediately feel this haunting feeling inside of me that screams whatever is gaping at my heart will go unfulfilled.  It’s interesting, isn’t it?  It seems backwards… that when I’m surrounded by excess, by money or the evidence of it, I feel this haunting ache inside me that the possibilities are no longer endless, they have suddenly become limited.  

It’s so contrary to what I live among, and so exactly the opposite of my heart and desires.  I don’t need much.  I never did.  And a side note that I think of often is, what if I did get a job that paid for more than enough?  Would I fulfill plans that I have for that money, or would I just get busy?  Get lost?  Go wherever those around me with money go because I’m hungry for people, only to find many empty conversations?  Maybe, maybe not.  You don’t need money to be with people.  Hearing the deep thoughts of my friends are far superior to any movie or night on the town you could stick in my face.  Don’t get me wrong; I like movies.  Especially ones you can ooo and aaah and cry and say “hell yeah” to.

The other night I went to Ashley’s graduation party after helping out with my friend Jesse’s non-profit documentary showing: Caribbean Gold.  It was a really beautiful night that I can’t stop smiling over.  But not just because the team of Bedouins’ (Jess’s non-profit) dreams were coming true or Ashley was finally free from 6 years of college to move on to the next thing.  Here’s why it was amazing:

Before the time came for people, viewers, supporters to show up at the Phoenix Loft for Caribbean Gold, at 2:00, cupcakes needed to be made for that night.  I sat around with Jess, having made muffins once before in my entire life (to my recollection) and we talked some, stood side by side saying nothing at times, just listening.  Roger went around singing at the top of his lungs to the record Stephen was playing, sounding drunk, occasionally leaning over our shoulders joking that we had better make those muffins right.  His rat terrier—that I had a fight with him over because I still think it’s a Chihuahua—was getting stepped on accidentally, and loved on, a lot by me.  His name is Lenny.  (A side note, I do not like little dogs very much, but Leonard passes big time.)  Jess and I talked some and in between breaks I would twirl the kick-ass skirt I was wearing (all skirts that successfully twirl get the “kick-ass” right of passage), with enough room to dance in their empty space since we hadn’t set the chairs up yet. 

After cupcakes, Jess put my calligraphy to work on some signs for the evening, her presence the way I think anyone’s presence should be as they calmly accept their dreams appearing before their eyes.  Roger would come and lean over my shoulder, still singing like he was drunk, and again joking that I had better make whatever else I was working on right.  Then Stephen would lean over and look at what I was doing too.  Sincerity always screams from his eyes and I usually just kind of stop whatever I’m doing if I look up at him.  He’s just the kind of person: you know when he wants to talk without him saying anything.  And if he senses you’ve stopped too, he’ll just spill whatever is there, nothing to hide, usually deep and important stuff that’s happening with him.  He comes and goes continuing what he was saying, in between the work that’s to be done.  Paul,... Paul’s happy… well, he’s delirious really, excited that his last minute editing has turned out so well, glad to be done with it, probably high on sleepless nights, his dreams producing before him too.  He’s like the music in the musical, regardless of the record that’s playing.  I look at him and for some reason I see every reason to be happy and think that it’s sunny even though it’s overcast.  

And all the while, I’m absorbing the presence of these friends.  This is a huge moment for their organization, but they've completely acknowledged that it’s all for Anne and for the forgotten in Haiti, whom the documentary, the night, everything is for.  She has brought important artists and influential people with her, and the documentary is already in some demand, even before anyone, besides Bedouins and volunteers, have seen it.  Yet Jess, Stephen, Roger and Paul are just continuing to be who they are.  Their organization is basically to lift others up, not them, and that’s exactly how they are acting... or being, really.  I am soaking in their calm and focused presence, the kind that takes time to just talk and be with each other in the midst of getting ready for their biggest night… or their biggest night on display anyway, to show what they can do.  No hurry, just present. 

After all the people came and the place had gone through the process of being full then emptying gradually, I stood around in case someone wanted to ask me about Stephen’s photographs.  (Though I’d have to say, I wasn’t a very good salesperson, more engrossed in learning about them myself.)  I just looked like another onlooker.  I took a break and walked by the kitchen area, noticing the stove’s clock that basically said there was still plenty of time to get to Ashley’s graduation party.  I said goodbye, feeling a tug not to leave, as is usual.

When I got there the Adams’, Erin and Casey were all sitting in the living room by their huge Christmas tree and a fire, complete with Kirby napping in front of it.  They all got up and hugged me, individually… except Casey, who moves to his own raw singer/songwriter rhythm.  Bruce, Ashley’s dad, got up last and hugged me, then, pointing to what was quite possibly the most precious 90-year-old ever, introduced his mother.  Except, when he introduced her, he did so like it was an announcement and extension of his telling me stories about her.  From the stories I heard, I watched her as I met her, delighted at the experiencer of such a fantastic and rocky life, who apparently had some more fire in her person, and I smiled in awe almost, glowing.  She freaking loved me.  She laughed super-loud at everything I said, especially my pathetic attention-grabbing lines and jokes about sex.  She came up to me afterwards, walking towards me as though she was ready to sass a salsa dancer and said, “You know what the secret to getting old is, don’t you?”  I leaned towards her and she obliged too.  “Laugh.  Always.”  I heard her so loud.  I loved her.  I loved feeling loved and enjoyed so freely by someone who was her age.

When I came in Robin knew I wanted food.  I really am like a stray dog that comes to visit their house every now and then for a meal.  (And the fact that I spend so much of the time there trying to establish rapport with Kirby only confirms it.)  I went to the kitchen and heated up some food, sitting at their breakfast bar.  Then I noticed that everyone in the house came into the kitchen and started watching me eat, ready to hear anything I had to say.  And suddenly, as Don Miller highlights so well, I am being watched like a group of people waiting for a movie to start… and I know I am loved.  So I talk, I say anything, I’m free here.  And, for some reason that still bewilders me, everything I say is funny, especially to Ash’s grandmother, which I was eating up.  And I talked out of my butt, or my head, wherever I could pull and my god I felt so enjoyed by them.  Eventually Ashley’s hot cousin took over the attention and Robin started saying something about how he could be famous if he wanted to and I see, again, why I feel like I fit when I am with this family, because, they really do love you like you are the best movie or book they've seen.  Like another spice in the cabinet; unique, but spice nonetheless. 

We all make our way to the living room for a game of Charades and someone pokes the fire.  Mark, Ash’s brother—who still thinks I’m hot—and I are sitting in front of the fire and everyone else is circled on seats and a sofa around the coffee table.  Charades at the Adams’ is the best because you guess any word and not feel ashamed for it.  At one point I screamed out “Horny!!” when Mark was trying to explain something by going low then pointing to his heart, then digestive tract.  Everyone laughed and I think, honestly, I said it because I just liked knowing that there were people who were older in the room that still thought sex and its language was fun and I was fun for embracing it too.  …Well, that and Moby Dick had already been played so I was feeling out of options.  

We all screamed and joked.  We laughed at each other, especially Mark when his dad yelled, “When all else fails, go low!”  I was in the presence of humans.  My god, we are such amazing creatures.  The television was on and no one noticed, all we needed was each other and a bunch of popsicle sticks with movie titles and really annoying words of wisdom; each other and the hard laughter and rolls on the floor that come from saying exactly what you’re thinking in front of others.  And I’m sitting there, aware, that I fit right into a family that loves life right into each other.  And I am filled with every hope to learn what that looks like, and to someday mimic it and offer it to children, to a husband, to a community.  In moments like these and in every moment with God, I am the richest person I know.  Sometimes I believe this to a fault even.

When I was young one of my favorite movies was called The Happiest Millionaire.  The title kind of makes me think.  I am The Happiest Minimalist.     

I feel like I'm going crazy. I want NY again. I want her. I can hear my heart shake from tears. I am convinced after six years, I'm dedicated to her. To her people. When I am walking through her streets, I am the happiest I've ever been. My heart grows and stretches, wakes up and painfully yawns, my eyes lower in dreams of just standing in her streets. Here are my dreams. They are no secret anymore. I've told the world around me. I'd tell anyone who asked. NYC. A commune of love. People who fit in nowhere and everywhere. A continuing pain that keeps me hearing God's whispers. Flying above clouds of fear. A man with more soul than his feet can cover in territory. At least one Ray LaMontagne concert… at least. That there will always be a big place to go every day of my life to dance. To always be carried there by music. To always have a heart that wants to cry. And have people around me who have eyes full of love. To always step on fear's face. A heart too fleshy for the suburbs. To never be ashamed for feeling any of this.

Dancing: a series of movements, involving two partners, where speed and rhythm match harmoniously with music.

This past weekend I saw Wall-E.  The above definition is one the computer gives to the captain of the ship that is inhabiting the human race, when he starts asking all kinds of questions about what earth is, what it means to be on earth, how we lived on earth.  I love this definiton because it so eloquently states where I've been, where my spirit has been. 

I don't know if anyone's heard of  "Some Trees" by John Ashbery, but it is one of my favorite poems.  For some reason, when I heard this definition of dancing, I thought of the poem again.  Both are a beautiful recollection of things Jesus has shared with me about my life, about where it's going.  About what I would say now to the person on the other side of all of this.  Here is the poem.

"Some Trees"

by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

26 April 2008:

Today was indeed an historic day if I indeed find that I am entertaining angels after all.  This is the only way to spell it.  I awoke to a sky shut behind yellow curtains.  Again.  But I wanted to live today differently, as I suppose I do everyday.  But today it was fulfilled, the differently, that is. 

I got up.  My dad fixed me eggs.  He didn't have to do that.  I couldn't eat them so he finished them for me. 

I took a shower late and somehow ended up at work early.  Again.  And today we had more business than they've had since opening in November.  I'll just point out that working in the food industry will give you a dose of your own medicine that you dish out.  I think this is why I love fast pace and more stressful circumstances.  Yes, I actually like total exhaustion because it causes you to see yourself as you are.  Same with childcare, my previous job.  I love pouring myself completely so that I'm left bare to say what I mean to say and be done with it.  And I dream of the day I don't have to wear myself thin to accomplish complete and continual sincerity. 

But as customers poured in continually for four hours, like a herd of ants looking for leaves to take back to their hills, I got more and more driven and someone sternly told me to freaking chill out.  I haven't really felt that yellow since middle school.  And I couldn't stop thinking about the way she said that to me all day.  I'll come back to this.

Yesterday, Rachael showed up at the end of my shift and asked me how I was.  I proceeded to beat the boxes I was folding as I told her about my day, which probably had not really gone how I said, except in my head, given that my emotions were raging the calendar.  She showed me so much grace and asked me to go for a drive after work to pay her power bill.  When we got back to the shop we sat and talked as I ate expired chili and she brought up the concept of guarding my heart.  I decided to be as open as I could since she was being so graceful towards me, and just said that I didn't really know what the hell she was talking about.  I wasn't angry, just worn out at trying to figure out what it meant.  Then I told her what I thought it meant and she agreed and we left it there because she seemed to better understand my explanation on the subject than I did.  I'll come back to this… maybe. 

This afternoon, after work, Erin and I went for a walk, weaving in and out stores, most I could care less about except that they had a bathroom and journals… until we hit Urban Outfitters, of course, which I've noticed has random quotes from "I Sing the Body Electric" by Walt Whitman all over it.  I wanted to tell her things that were on my heart and I knew I'd be unsuccessful in feeling heard unless God helped me, so I asked God for the ability and bravery to be vulnerable and real.  He guided me, as he tends to do, and a bunch of word vomit came out.  (Which kind of sucked given that I always hate word vomit coming up around Erin because to me she is the epitome of a sweet, happy Southern young lady and somehow I feel like I've stained lace or something.)  She was the graceful cheerleader that she is, but something different surfaced.  I told her about fears and I just said as honestly as I could how much they are weighing on me.  I shared with her how dumb I feel when I get yelled at, how scared I am from pain, I suppose just how human I am that I never wanted to be, that many don't want to be, I guess. 

She grabbed my hand and we strolled around Urban Outfitters and I kind of only half heard her encouragement because I kept wondering if people still think that girls who hold hands are lesbians and how people that think like that are still stuck in middle school.  And I went on wondering this until she said something that answered a question she didn't even know I had asked.  She said, "Sarah-Grace! (she speaks in exclamation points) Guarding your heart never means not getting hurt!  It means that you realize that you're still who you are regardless of the person that hurt you.  That's all."  And, damnit, I cried.  In the freaking clearance section.  And, no, my sweet little cheerleader friend didn't stop there, God love her.  She started saying things that only God and Ashley and I knew.  And he was using her to tell me that yes I really hear him and he really is who he says he is, etc.  And the tears were sweet and a pretty song played on the overhead that sounded epic and Erin's hands on my shoulders made me feel the relax that God has longed to give me, then more and more tears.  It was beauty.  Then some lady started reaching over our heads as I cried to look at a shirt that was behind us so I grabbed Erin's hand and we walked out.  This time not really thinking about middle school lesbian conspiracies. 

Today should have entertained the angels and it probably did.  It was a different day but not because I cried in the clearance section or I heard God speak through a dear friend, but because I haven't thought about just how precious is the tiniest detail in humans, in me.  And when I don't think about that, when I convince myself once again, that my owned life is up to me, there is nothing less unique in a day.  But at the end of today I didn't.  And it ended with a good beer.

Another new artist.  Listening.  I'm watching the leaves think about changing colors… maybe not quite yet, they say to themselves.  My windows are closed and I can't hear them.  It takes a good month to get into a mental habit.  And my windows have been closed for three months because of the heat wave.  And I keep forgetting that I can open them now and breathe simultaneously.  That heat wave.  Good grief.  Mixed with dark clouds.  How I missed the outside… inhaling in different smells like an addiction.  This wave was like a good depression that you live through for a month thinking it would leave soon and it decided to be a rude guest and invite itself for a prolonged stay.  I love that sun.  I would die living in Alaska. 

"Your shape it was on me, like a blanket," says the new artist on myspace, with nothing but folk hints and one guitar.  It's beautiful.  Simplicity. 

Abby just messaged me.  Well, I initiated.  She's sitting in Rhode's Park, reading No Man Is an Island, saying what I'm thinking, that it's a perfect day.  This is typical these days.  I'm writing or dancing or just staring in my new cottage, and she joins.  Sometimes in the midst of my meditations and sometimes when anything near a natural trance is too far because there is a line out the door at my little Euro coffee shop.  And I read her writings that she was dispelling too, or hear her thoughts come out loud because they've been too quiet in her own head.  And, well, here's to another day.  I suppose you do make all things new.

I want to feel my fingers move. I'm listening to Thrice right now. I always hope there is new music to find. But even if there isn't, I can't believe all the diversity, all the beauty, all the sugar in the raw I've heard and tasted. I mean, really, who could've known that I could have so many emotions? So many reactions, until this beautiful collage of tapestry is forming this beauty I feel wherever I go. And when I don't hear it, things just are. I just am. I wonder, is this my personal translation of when Paul said to think on whatever's lovely or worthy and God's peace would be with me? How basic. How beautiful. What an amazing human being he must have been. What an amazing person I get to be. God is the most deeply feeling, expressive artist to have made such creatures.

I think of me in one of my bandanas around my hair not washed yet, a cup of microwaved coffee, sitting in a downtown art studio...perhaps a mere extension in a studio apartment... I've decided to create something as messy as me. This art will hold its own life. It could try to draw itself. Some of the acrylics will run from and drip off the canvas onto the floor. But I knew it would do that. And all the running, thick and colored water had no idea that I loved realism but I was more abstract than its dying my hardwood floors.

Do you ever think of that? Does it hit you? You are artwork. Someone thought of you and every way he wanted you to look and he sculpted and painted you. Imagine. When he was done, there you are a lifeless beautiful woman, a lifeless strong man... with only your body to claim you as a creation. This artist looks at you, observes you, knows you, admires you, probably looks you over again, over and over, excited. He knows that he could leave you as that innocent; not knowing, beautiful, strong. He knows that you will drip on his floor and proceeds regardless to put his mouth to yours and give you his breath. Suddenly your mother and father are told by the doctor they are pregnant.

Such thoughts keep me up this late.

The other day I went into Ping's for Chinese takeout. No one was there and I wanted to take some food to Erin's since she had already eaten. I go in and their bar was open. I've gone there almost every Sunday and walked by that bar to use the bathroom, having never noticed it was there. A Phillipino businessman sat there alone and a German man approached me at the counter, leaning over, in my face. "You smile. Vy do you smile?" I didn't know I was smiling until he said something. I wanted to answer him but I couldn't verbalize a sincere answer so I just smiled more.

He said "Life is good, uh?" I laughed some and said, "Actually, life is tough."

"But something good happened to you today uh?"

I thought for a minute and listened to myself say in all truth that "Actually,... something good happens to me every day."

"Ya, life is good," he said.

I am amazed at how God called to my attention how flooded I am with beauty in my life. I keep thinking of the movie American Beauty and how the boy that truly sees Thora Birch says, looking at his video of a dancing plastic grocery bag, that sometimes he thinks there's so much beauty... he can hardly stand it.

I've been thinking more and more about how I haven't been out of North America.  I want more.  I've wanted more.  I've been thinking about New York too.  I love her still.  God has made me to long for her and her people and to love them and every time I walk through downtown Birmingham I want some obnoxious Jewish man who claims to be faithful to his religion enough to marry a young Christian girl to approach me—as kept happening in NY, just for something unique and wonderful to laugh at.  But I'm still young.  And God still bigger than I've seen.  I want more.  I love the stories from my friends, I love Liudmila's stories, I love my ballet teachers' stories, I love my dad's stories, I love all the exchange students I befriended in school and their stories.  But, God love them, I'm tired of listening, tired of glowing when they go into detail.  I want to see it.  I want to make someone glow.

I want to see Ukraine and walk through her sunflower fields.  I want to study ballet in Serbia.  I want to lay in Ireland's fields and wonder if I'm ethereal.  I want my feet to touch the edge of the Cliffs of Dover.  I want to know what the residue of the hellish history in small shops in Poland are left.  I want to hear a boy's choir echo in my ears in an abbey in London.  I want to smell giraffe poop in Africa and see the children who are full on God instead of food.  I want to gasp and cry at the site of Rome's Coliseum.  I want to walk through the newlyweds' aura in Paris.  I want to look stupid, my body still in the middle of a moving crowd, breathing deep the sight of humanity before this young country thought it was the only country.  I want it.  Damnit.    

She can out-goose-bump you

Because she knows her own heart.

You’ll know she loves you

If she gives you the time a day.

…humoring is not her forte. 

She frightened some New Yorkers

And claimed she could own the city.

And I who was born knowing her

Believed her.

…if you can’t be real, she can’t talk.

Sincere at any cost

Used to lose her friends.

But we grew up

Disheartened by our naïve beliefs.

…and now we see her.

She is apple candy and pasta

And she cries on behalf of Hans Zimmer.

She’ll regret without knowing it

And only accept it if you will tell her.

…she’s too busy thinking about you.

"She has such a good heart,"

Ashley tells me.

And I can’t believe I couldn’t say

What I wanted to all along.

…you must take her as she is.

Because you can’t describe her

She will always read your face.

But she won’t find herself there

Because she’s already alive.

…she will tell Ron Howard what he did wrong

…but Hitchcock what he did right.

She will accept anything

If she has enough cigarettes.

She’s the woman the authors missed

When they chose the heroines of their stories.

…she is a whole movie improved.

She entertains angels

And has no idea.

She amuses us humans too

And we must catch up.

…she doesn’t know that God’s got awards waiting

…just because she’s her.

I want to cry

And we all do.

Though we try

To talk ourselves out of it.

…but a thought of her is just that potent.

She knew it the instant she came here

Frustrating the viewers who thought only of themselves.

So get over yourself for a moment if you know her.

Because she’ll make sure she’s part of your rib to survive.

…she’s as original as Eve.