This Week.

This week, I want to be something different. I want to improve.
I want to inspire. I want to be inspired.
I don't want the desires of others to taint or persuade me in continuing to pursue the things I want.
The things I need.
All is not lost.
In the grand scheme of things, much has yet to be found.
For me.
For us.
For us all.

The things you need to make it 50 years.

David and Shirley

The One Who Got Us There

                   By: Alyssa Hanson

              Saturday, May 5^th, 2012

The purpose of this exchange tonight is to remember and respect the rarity of a lifetime that these two, David and Shirley Patrick, have spent together.  A purpose intended not only to acknowledge it while they renew their vows to forever love, cherish, and value one another, but also to teach those of us who haven't celebrated this season in our lives…

 About what it really takes to keep a marriage alive. 

The following remarks are therefore, recollections and compilations, from not only David and Shirley, but from their children's marriages, written amidst their grandchildren’s thoughts, about where that strength comes from. 

About how the fire remains burning. 

One of the first ingredients to a successful marriage that everyone mentioned was the initial chemistry involved followed by the intimacy that both experience following the lifting of the veil. 

Shirley recalled the first few years of marriage as multifaceted, saying:

"We had plans to finish school first, but then Lisa came along. We bought our first house for 516 dollars, and all we had in it was a mattress on the floor, a card table, and some newspaper. "

It was one of the happiest times in their lives.”

Having nothing but each other to rely on, their first expression of intimacy together cooing in the corner, paint splattered all over one of David’s old t-shirts. 

It was youth. I

t was purity. 

It was true love. 

And they not only managed to sustain it, but grow together amongst the equivalent of years spent apart while David drove the truck and Shirley went to nursing school. 

  The energy that they felt for one another, the same energy experienced at the beginning, has never wavered.

 Never changed. 

Turn on a light in their bedroom, and the red ambiance that casts romance upon their bedside will tell you that not only do they have a spark, but 50 years later, they are still as attracted to each other as the day they met.  

Lisa, their oldest daughter, remarked about knowing the value of being spontaneous. She recalled one morning when David woke up and wanted to visit family: they all jumped in the truck and headed out to California. Shirley learned how to drive that very truck. 

Laughter is often in such abundance in the beginning of a relationship. 

When life takes over, however, it is also usually the first thing to dissipate. Julie and Damon remarked that remembering to laugh at yourselves and at life makes the journey so much more colorful and fulfilling. 

An ambiguous and seemingly ominous task is always knowing how to communicate with one another.

Shirley notes in her memories of their dating years that David "wasn't like the rest of them," that he spoke with "an intelligence and depth that made her feel secure in the levels of communication that they would be able to achieve."

 Through it all, talking it out has kept them both from keeling over when a disagreement lit up an argument. 

Learning how to compromise often came up as an integral component from all couples There may be times when larger issues, such as where to raise children, can create dissension. Other times, it may be the simplicity of daily lives that require such compromise. After all, both you and your spouse will not always want to watch the same television show, eat the same dinner, or turn on the red lamp in the bedroom at the same time.  

Yes, compromise is huge. 

         Being adaptive to change is a life lesson that both Dave and Shirley had to learn with each other, as well as being able to sustain hardship in its various forms- financial issues, health problems, and the expansion of the family meant growing together, and leaning on each other through it all. 

Commitment- Mark and Lisa defined this as working on it when you think you cannot work on it anymore, and with a level of patience which can only be learned. 

Perhaps one of the elements that separate the ones we date from the one we marry is the shift of focus, from what we expect to receive in the relationship to what will make the other happy.

Along with this focus comes needing to understand and take an interest in each other's worlds- this is a different way of expressing love. This means learning each other's love language and catering to it. 

Developing a Best Friendship- this is a fundamental element that must never be forgotten. How can one spouse begin to know the other if the details are always left out?

Sharing the little things matter. 

Those details may be lost and forgotten in the long run, but, it is in those details that you will to fall over and over in love with each other, all while helping to keep within sight the dream David and Deanna shared, the one that they both had from the beginning…

To share your lives together.  

         In a marriage, it is essential to allow your spouse to be who they really are.  It wasn’t until Shirley married David that she truly began to understand that he was not a rooted individual- he was meant to fly. And she allowed him to do so, even though it meant many nights spent without him.  

And while David had a large wingspan, Shirley needed music, routine, and a compass through which she viewed the world. It was this same compass that has always filled her with desire to give and minister in the church. The roots of her spirit and the height of his have led to a balance that has helped them thrive together for all of these years.

It is something every marriage needs to thrive.

Yes, all of this is what helps to make a marriage last, but all couples agreed that the true component of a strong union is the one that they share with our Savior.

Both independently and together, David and Shirley's fire for the Lord has been the foundation of all that came before, and all that will come after,  the story of their grand love.

 It is with this thought that we celebrate their union once again, after 5 decades of commitment, loyalty, adoration and a divine  energy summarized by this one last piece of advice:

"And though you strive for many things,

All that your lives allow,

The weight of it alone will crush it all.

And you will drown.

If you don't keep it close to-

He who died and He who dared.

Then In your love you’ll be rewarded,

Remembering who got you there. "

Magic.

I think it's safe to say
We've herded our hearts, now.
Into the sort of place where
We're all in or out.
For all you've asked is why
My mouth won't make the
Words
Goodbye....
Why dont you try...

to tell me you're missing me?
And I will try listening.
With lips barely glistening
Running out of pretend.
Yeah, we've reached a dead end.
Might as well just admit ,
It just might be time to quit,
We've been rusted.
Gone are days when we were
Pixie Dusted.

Didn't always feel like an impass .
In fact your light had carved the path
The pavement which we walked with aim
But too much fire without rain --

Made you stop trying to miss me.
you'd cry, but I'd stopped listening.
Still memories of our glittered hours
Never enough, i did devour
Each lasting touch of perfect skin.
that day we were a perfect sin.
Now gone are the days
When the cameramen
chased our love
Down.


there's no Epcot
To recall.
Twas only magic
After all.
magic's
Lust
Was our downfall.

The reality of a dream.

Laying here, amongst my dimly lit,lightly snoring family, I have before me--
A task.
One that was brought on by a necessary tragedy.
One that will help me pick myself up faster than if I try to carry myself out of this on my own.
Do I want to be missing out on this weekend to be in Florida? No.
Do I feel well prepared for this trip?
Of course not.
Did I leave many pieces of myself in my Midwestern hometown...
Strewn about the state in a hansel and Gretel shaded pattern?
I wish I could say no about that one.
But the fact of the matter is that life
Rarely prepares us for any of the things that we are thrown into.
That is what helps us understand life.
Hardship gives us the dream.
Pain is the inspiration.
fire is what keeps us pressing onward, and only out of the ashes of what its beautiful destruction leaves behind can we find where the desire ; the dream ends ...
And where making it a reality can begin.
after all,
A fire is only beautiful to watch until it burns your fingers.
One must never be afraid of
What happens
When you
Put
It
Out.

Holding all the Coats.

Tonight i was the background harlett. 

Scarlet  holding all the coats. 

Tonight i watched the lives before me

Design, and  laugh, 

and boast

 every instance that they'd walked 

and every time they fell. 

And I met some who'd fallen. 

Fallen hard, 

but picked up well. 

And then I watched in disbelief

at in my life what i'd achieved

and where I've come to with my time . 

At 23, I Pity my--

self diluted sickness

that I've done all I can do. 

You wanna know that moment?

My nightmares did come true. 

I finally have reached the place 

Where I stand in all black-

Still holding onto all the coats, 

and they're not looking back. 

For while I'm simmering 

Like the burn of some forgotten stew-

The singers sang a melody that breathed life into view. 

And if I don't do something, 

stop fearing for the cost. 

My  fear will overtake me. 

My Song. 

It will be lost. 

Believing in the Journey.

In order to fulfill a dream, you have to be willing to go through a journey.
Every journey is a process, I think.
Of active persistence and subconscious passion.
There is nothing in the world if we as a race lose our passion.
But what if we broke it down?
Dissect it until we start with the beginning --
the individual and his/her dream.
What was mine?
What still is?
Is it to sing?
I have tried not to breathe music when I allow air into my lungs.
I have run away from it, and
scorned it,
and devoured it's seemingly stand-alone
desire to be heard.
My voice.
I have cowered behind it.
Tried to diminish it.
Even with things that sustain life,
I have tried to burn it away.
And yet, here I sit, yet again, in this huge, dusty space,
with it sitting right in front of me.
And yet I cannot face it.
I can't face it?
I don't know why I haven't tried harder
to revel in the things that I know would make me whole.
So what is stopping me today?
Does anything have to?

Too far into the future. 

 encaged in my small past. 

But i think the wall i've hit now ,

the wall that's growing fast

Is one the I can conquer 

if I will let it be 

swallow my pride 

and draw new lines 

Believe in my journey. 

Sorting things out

I spent the day trying to sort things out.
Trying to sift through where I have gone and where I am now and
where I want to be in the future.
I am fully aware that I haven't a lot of time to do the exploration of my interests and heart left.
But that level of pressure is, in and of itself..
Incredibly stifling.

I want to do so much.
I think that we so often forget that our goals needn't lay underneath floorboards,
collecting dust.
For if we don't have them,
what is the point of anything?

I cannot allow myself to continue down this path of the remedial.
I must seek another new experience.
I must write, and sing, and travel, and play.

Today I wrote a song.
I have 2 jobs, and I'm registered for classes,
 and I'm about to acquire an internship.

But none of it matters.
I configured pieces of a puzzle, put it all together, and still the
picture is indecipherable.

Do I really have to start all over?

Did I really start all over?

The Orchid.

I woke up this morning with vigor in my veins,
bound and determined to have a really productive day.
Stretching, picking up clothes, and getting ready to go
downstairs ensued.
I don't know why it caught my eye this morning.
The mildewed moss inside the squared
glass box.
I tried to make the coffee first,
but it's corpse-like stance drew me back to it ...
Like some memory long forgotten.
Like a haunted, crispy room.
Approaching, I realized what it was.
It had been vibrant, purple once .
Endearing in the strangest of ways.
Embracing me on the tiny nightstand
when I slept once.
Alone.
It saw me through a trying time.
And when I thought I'd lost myself
It shielded me from things that hurt
and reminded me to stay.
Colorful.
The orchid is dead now.
It's time to let go.
The season of it has passed.
But I will not forget
All it's dream-catcher ways.
As it served its purpose
at last.

"To every thing there is a purpose under heaven.:"

Maybe someday I will be that for someone.
And have a purpose.
and be my true colors .
Fulfilled.
So that when it comes time for me to revert into my own glass box,
I will welcome the peace with open arms....
Resting in the knowledge that I never
conformed to anyone's shades
of grey.

Just because.

To be freed from something is not always what it seems.
Being back in Ohio hasn't really felt normal since I have been back.
In hindsight, I cannot regret my decision, even if I feel that I should.
In hindsight, I need to remember that I am much more than I allowed myself to become in the days and weeks that have slowly passed me by.
And now that I've lived like an insect.
Like a fly.
Buzzing around on someone else's wall.
With out my own sweet, painted walls...
I've come to find that when alone
 I have to face my fears,
 I know.

I've nothing  now but endless time .
and  here I am-
 without a dime.
Without a rhyme.
Without a face.
I'm not established in this place .

But try my hardest now, I will.
and try to see that I am still-
the rose that i once knew I
was.
When I was redder
just because.

When texts become...well. this.

I cannot streamline anything. 

Alone. 

Down here again. 

I don't know how to quit the things 

I've tried so hard to 

stop. 

It's not like our new bubble, 

it won't deflate or pop. 

Instead it's like a message that I've tattooed to my 

mind. 

Afraid to be alone 

with only just one pair of eyes. 

It's not okay to feel this way. 

I know it has to change. 

The other eyes are slighted, decomposed and rearranged .

And though I feel the poison in his overdosed, 

cramped hover. 

He's like a button contract. 

"Give your eyes now, to another."

But if in fact, I do it,

cut them out without a plan. 

I''ll wind up like the pixied lost

in "other mother" land

It's crystal clear when 

we deft the 

nag of obligation

until i finally catch the cold of crystal 

separation. 

The clarity of see-through glass without 

your heart to lead it...

It lends itself to fogging up 

and though I do still feel it

The parallels and hues inside the 

safety of your form

Get lost as I get mixed up past the calm eye of 

your storm. 

I don't want to desert you. 

I only wish to give you more. 

For hidden underneath you is the

love i've waited for. 

We painted it all backwards. 

And it hurts. 

But do the math....

We've found the destination, 

But we haven't any path. 

I promise to 

discover, dig and 

carve up every land...

If you can walk us through 

the broken tracks. 

and hold my hand. 

And perhaps during moments when the 

pressure sparks it hotter. 

The burn will 

melt my 

guilded wings. 

So I can be your water. 

Small.

Unleashed in thought-
We have not gone
The ones we walk and stand 
Among. 
Diminished lovers of the colors of the world.
We cannot be ourselves,
Can we?
We were bought by
Society.

How Magic Goes

The first day since I have been here that I felt seemingly incapable of stopping.
It's almost 2 am and I can't feel anything.


I wouldn't feel the sun if it was warm upon my face.
I wouldn't see the moon
if it eclipsed for me  in lace.
I wouldn't hear the voice of singing angels in
a chorus.
I wouldn't know our fortune
if a psychic read palms for us.
I cannot feel the winter, or the autumn or the spring.
I cannot see the thunder.
I cannot feel most anything.
I don't know if it's better if I go or stay this way.
But this moment I'm the fallen
To  addiction
I was prey.
Come sun I'll try to fix it.
Come sun I'll try to rise.
With newfound rested thoughts
and painted lips,
and dewy eyes.
But tonight I lurk in shadow.
Hidden under mickey's nose
We are the slaves under the magic.
But that is just how magic goes.

Wandering

"All learning has an emotional base."
                                 -Plato
I feel very restless today.
Like a wind up clock without hands.
Like a time frame with no event.

I'm a lost planner of sorts, having fully engaged in
embracing negativity for certain notions that I once held to be valid and true.

I feel strange and yet,
oddly aware.

I don't know how to be the "to-do"
list anymore .

But I miss even that.

At least then I had a definition.


-Lys

Transience

Among other things, this past week has been run over by a number of strange circumstances. I didn't want my word of the day to be what is in the forefront of my mind right now, but it feels like something that I  must unwillingly admit to, if only because I have chosen this adjective as the singular and most ironic constant in my  life. 

Transient. 

I don't know why the font of it was green. 

The word just  was. 

Transient= an inability to remain steady. 

An inability to remain still. 

I have desired transience in many aspects of my life.

Namely within my personal relationships. 

I never thought it was out of fear ,but rather, out of an understanding that tying myself to a  tree stump over and over again would eventually lend itself to a 

dull pair of scissors. 

And something that I've tied myself to voluntarily would become my

 ineffectual existence. 

As a part of something living, yes. 

But not as a part of something moving. 

It's almost a desire to remain in movement with water. 

I cannot be like Earth. 

In this way, I can ebb and flow in whatever direction life takes me. .....

And then I read the physical definition of transient..

:: Decaying with time.

Can transience actually be displayed as a function of something 

rotting?

The very thing that has lifted me to the height of disconnected flight is the 

same thing that has the ability to decay away any 

welcome mats

I may have placed in random places 

when I've cut the string too many times

from what I thought were

dying tree stumps. 

Maybe, without knowing it, 

it is I who never followed a path  long enough 

to decode the encrypted enigma within it.

Maybe, in actuality, we are chained by our drive for perfection.

Perhaps the decaying tree doesn't have grounded roots. 

Perhaps it is grounded in my transient nature;

spindly tentacles wrapped around my pulsing, 

warm-winded heart. 

What starts as life, as green comes to an end in this, 

that my flight, my pressure filled storm, 

has been fighting against an enemy 

that I've long considered my friend. 

Can you give something enough water to bring it back to life, 

when the summer has has already begun 

Internal Autumn?

Oh, how  beautiful , how colorful

the leaves change in the fall. 

Before the cold of winter frosts 

dark death 

over us all .

-Lys

Broken Stringed Words

I sat with my lukewarm
  Cinnamon Sugar
Enhanced coffee
 in
           its
              Sunflower
 Cup
                     This morning.
 The cookies were only mixed together.
 We are alive but one second of the
 Earth's time.
 Bound by impermance, but also freed by it.
 In this actualization there is internal vigor :
created by tragic inevitablility of our
 shadowed journey.
 Where we all will go.
at the end of all of this.

Everything that's anything. (clipped to polyvore.com)

Lizards

We Lizards run across the street

As we do walk in morning heat

before the humid sun has fallen 

we become its prey.

In lace and magic do I walk 

among the others, in their smocks

of patterns like the countries 

Of diminished , cultured pride. 

Walk alongside 

the beauty of vacation city

 travel in our painted, pretty

 Characters and laughs, the witty

 Of  Walt’s hidden sand. 

I know that it's here somewhere.

But we all are stuck on land. 

Like lizards all across the street. 

We scatter when we hear the feet

of those who up above could give 

 A 

Step and 

Crunch !

Our fire dims

And turned

Off is our light

To  shadow- dreams. 

Bereft, it seems, with that 

I give. 

I struggle to decide to live

in dischord with my passion

As passioned magic breeds disdain. 

My vocal chords 

They said enough. 

And now they are but silent, 

Tough, and glued together 

in the rough, the muttled lost of all of us 

The Silent Voices of 

the labor of

Your Dream Come True. 

We live in you. 

We give to you

 A lasting, hopeful piece of us 

With  smiles and 

With  pixie dust

and when the dusk 

finds solace in 

Our Tourist- Trap

Demand, 

 Oh, Scramble do the lot of us 

as lizards do 

To crowded, hot

And empty, gated

 placid homes

We try to press "renew."

It isn't through,

It isn’t just .

We’re now

Defective in our lust

 for Stars

Cuz we once had enough.

Belief and faith in wishing.

We give to you 

what once was ours

That magic. 

Oh, cut one more scar

and maybe, if you wish real hard

We’ll bleed for you some magic car.

We only need 

A little bit.

 Of what we gave.

 delighted bliss.

A wish perhaps

If blown a kiss

Our wounds would heal 

If with that wish 

Return the dreams 

We started with. 

Like lizards,

Stuck inside a ditch.

We hardly dare to move an inch.

Don’t challenge it.

Keep whole the lie.

We aren't seen. 

Until we die.