Mixed emotions

Spent the evening last night over at the urban monastery community house. First night of joining the group in some 'official' level. When I got there, I was in a sugar overload, a raging headache & I was feeling somewhere between wanting to pass out or hurl, so I was kind of quiet for a lot of the early evening. Mostly got to sit there & eat & observe & listen....

...and honestly, there were a number of moments where I just about burst into tears. I felt overwhelmed again (see a few posts below), my soul awash with the wonder of being around these people - simple, normal, magnificent people. Part of it was just the sweetness of observing rich lives, seeing individuals who I admire, respect, trust, people who I have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the wonder of who they are deep down.... Part of the sense of being overwhelmed came from entering the cathedral of friendship, the sanctuary of community.... the temple of family.... I realized in hanging out with these people that it's been a long time.... I've shared the richness of great one-on-one times with those few that I've held close to me in that 'inner circle', but it's been a long time since I've felt like part of a group, part of something 'bigger'... and so the night felt like water pouring over the parched earth of my soul.... (& it surprised me just how parched I felt).....

the whole thing felt kind of healing. At the end of the evening, I took the buckets of ice cream & strawberries down to their freezer in their furnace room. It was dark & I couldn't find a light switch so I fumbled around in the darkness. Usually these are the places where the fears start whispering all kinds of crazy stuff into my head & I get myself worked into a panicked frenzy assuming somethings going to reach out & grab me.... but yeah, even that wasn't so bad. The voices of the fears weren't so loud, didn't seem so real....and there was the promise of friends just a call away if the fears were real....

Driving home, it felt like I became another of those 'statistics of hope' like I mentioned in the "Overwhelmed by Hope" post. It felt like this was a moment of where somethings changed in my life, it felt like a 'dawning'.....

... today the emotions haven't been as happy.... I awoke with no song playing on my internal soundtrack... I woke up after too many snooze alarms, running late, awaking from some odd dream of wandering through this outdoor shopping area somewhere (maybe Ft.Wayne?) & had two buns & one of my sharp knives from home & I was looking for a Christian book store where they gave out free chocolate chip cookies & I was going to use the knife to cut the buns & shove the cookies in & make a cookie sandwich (?!). Then I see, far off, a close friend who I'm suppossed to be meeting with. They're talking on a cell phone & I debate about getting the cookies or just going over to see my friend. So I decide getting to the friend is more important to me, but I am hungry & sort of debate that maybe I should grab the cookies while they're on the phone. But I go to the friend & we walk off bags in hand to continue shopping. They keep talking on the cell phone & are having this wonderful chat with another friend that I don't know & my friend is laughing & having a great time & I walk with them, trying to pretend to have a good time (am sort of having a good time being around them, but I feel awkward hearing the 1 sided conversation & feel gyped & jealous that my time with the friend is being eaten up by their call with someone else, while feeling guilty that I'm being a poop-head about it & all the while thinking that I should've stopped for the cookies)... and I sort of start trying to twirl the knife that's in the hand that my friend can't see (they're on my right, knife is in my left hand) - and the knife thing is sort of an outward sign of the building frustration at the situation, but I'm trying to hide it from my friend, so I don't look like a homicidal freak....

Anyhow, work was busy & chaotic, chasing information on projects I don't understand, trying to look after someone else's work while they're away & not sure if there is mistakes in what they told me or if I'm just not understanding things.....

During the day tryed to make up for the lack of internal soundtrack by listening to the external. City & Colour's "Sometimes" started the day & continued to fuel the melancholy. Loreena McKennitt's "An Ancient Muse" took me through the lunch hour with minimal impact to my mood one way or the other. It 'fit', but didn't influence. Then it was Radiohead's "OK, Computer", which, I just didn't get. A friend once loaned me a Radiohead CD that I loved, but it's been the only one & I thought it was this CD, but maybe it's "Kid A" or "the Bends" (the one where the dude on the cover looks like he's in pain)... I feel like a wannabe when I listen to radiohead. All the truly artistic, musical people seem to 'get' Radiohead & I seem to just not understand it.... this makes me feel out of the club of artsy people & I'd like to be an artist (or at least part of the club).... maybe I'll try again listening to the album while I clean my room tonight.....

I ended my day, feeling frustrated, useless, negligent & clueless, listening to the Wailin' Jennys "Firecracker" (http://www.thewailinjennys.com). Their album & harmonies are so beautiful, but it always sort of wrecks me, leaves me more melancholy than when I started.....

This was the last song playing before i left & I've wept to it several times tonight as it plays across the soundtrack of my heart.....

Apocalypse Lullaby (Annabelle Chvostek)

Hurricanes will come
Earthquakes break the walls
Oceans rise
Empires fall

Enter world, light unshown
Follow heart, follow home
Here we are, light unshown
One round heart, one round home

Spin the speed of light
Tetrahedron blue
One last paradise
You can make for you

Enter world, light unshown
Follow heart, follow home
Here we are, light unshown
One round heart, one round home

Faster than a ship
Further than bomb
See the glowing grid
Send love throughout the throng

Enter world, light unshown
Follow heart, follow home
Here we are, light unshone
One round heart, one round home

I spent the day feeling lonely, though I start to wonder if words like 'loneliness' or 'depression' have any meaning to me anymore. These are the words that I use to describe the moments when my heart feels bare, open, full of longing.... I wonder in these moments of whether or not it is truly loneliness & depression, if I'm the emotional wreck I think I am (or, as a friend pointed out, it could be PMS). Or maybe it's something else entirely....

Maybe it's just that I'm one who 'groans'... someone who feels the travail, the birth pangs of this world.... the coming destruction of all that has robbed us of love & the birthing, dawning of a new day where beauty & love will mark our every moment, where the hills will sing, the trees will clap their hands & rocks & nations cry out in praise. Maybe it's all just catching glimpses of that 'light unshone' - the blinding beauty that hides just under the surface of each person, is seen in autumn leaves, paintings, small children & every blade of grass & shimmer of sky.... the light of love... the new dawn of hope.... the glimmer of a world not yet seen, but hinted at in all of our days & the longings of our hearts.....