trucking

still trucking...thankful for friends...appreciative of family...listening to music...writing in my journal...walking on my treadmill...cleaning my house.

that about sums it up.

peace

yes, more lyrics

treadmill time is a very happy time for me. yes, i like to sweat a little. yes, i like to feel like i'm getting a little stronger, moving around, working my muscles and bones and whathaveyou. but it's also because i put on music...and i sing...oh, i sing...it's a concert in my head and i love it. it makes me feel like i can make it through anything.

yesterday was kind of a crap day. i don't know what puts a shadow on some days and not others. sometimes maybe you catch someone in a bad mood, and that bad mood just stays with you the rest of the day...you wrestle it...defend yourself from it...but essentially keep it close for some reason god only knows...but god probably wonders why the hell i hold on to it, too, to be honest. anyway...i think if i just make an effort to immerse myself in things that make me happy when i feel that shadow holding on, maybe it'll take some of the edge off. maybe not...but maybe. i realize some shit you just have to sit in until it's time to get up...if you try to get up too soon, well, you're just not done yet. but some shit...and i can tell when it's this kind of shit (because after three and a half decades, i'm becoming somewhat of an expert on shit, donchaknow)...you just don't need to carry around...and that's the kind a little light therapy can help with.

so on the treadmill today...this is the song that caught my ear and my spirit. it's another terri hendrix and i didn't even bother with you tube because it was the words that got me...

No Love in Texas
By Terri Hendrix

I can’t get no love in Texas
It’s just hot air and cactus
All work and Taxes
Red lights and traffic
You know
I can’t get no love

Wanted to be your sexy and still be naïve
Wanted to be everything and more each time you looked at me
I gotta tell you
I can’t get no love

Wanted to be your only just a little bit of company
Now it’s a white knuckled flight
Thinkin’ ‘bout fantasies
With a copy of fear of flying
Tucked between my knees

Got these vampires at my window
Scratchin’ on the screen
They wanna take me on a head trip
Leave behind a crime scene
That’s a freaky kind of love

Sometimes my soul gets junky and I feel real funky
Like a bird in a cage or a dog on a chain
And like there’s a barrel of monkey’s swingin’ through my brain

the last two stanzas are the ones that really caught me...but the last three lines are my favorite, i think. i do like the whole song, though.

ok, now i have some things to get to...upward and onward.
peace out

ohm...

i remember when my sophomore theology teacher taught the class how to spell that word...told us it had two syllables in it, too. (yep, in catholic school i learned this...he was one radical teacher, though...love to you, mr. foreman.)

i'm trying to get my zen on. i think that sentence may be part of my problem. i realize inner peace and awareness aren't really articles separate from me that i can put on...i do. but the fact that those words have gone through my head a couple of times, perhaps, points in which direction i might travel to start solving some of the problem. i know, i mean i really know, that much of life is not worth fretting over...working in my brain like some worry stone rubbed smooth. only half the stuff i worry about is more like little shards of glass that, instead of throwing OUT where they belong, i throw back down on the ground to pick up later and therefore pollute myself with this cutting stuff. i can usually project into a situation some of that "it ain't no thang" attitude...but then, on my own, in private, in that black little alley way of my head, i start chasing the tails and whipping the dead horses. oy vey...

so here are the lyrics of the song i've been singing in my head over and over today...when i take a break from the tail chasing and dead horse beating...

Bottom of a Hill
By Terri Hendrix

I live at the bottom of a hill
Where its been known to flood
I close my eyes every time it rains
I pray I never have to move my stuff
I let the grass get a little to high
So the dandelions can grow
What some call weeds I call flowers
It’s my yard to mow

Property taxes have hit the sky
It takes two paychecks
And credit cards to get by
To keep my electric bill low
I turn off the AC and open up the windows
They build the houses to close
You can hear the neighbors that’s the proof
You don’t have to be no Indiana Jones
To jump from roof to roof

I roll up that hill to get my pay
I roll back down at the end of the day
But I’m doing alright
I’m here with you tonight
I know where I am and where I stand
In this big world
I’m doing alright
Without a view of the city lights
I believe I found my soul
At the bottom of a hill

It’s the yin and yang of the business thang
Everyone sings when the register rings
Everyone cries when the money dries up
While you and I tough it out
We’ve got more wind chimes
Than we have trees
More prayers than time
To spend on our knees
I’m here for you you’re here for me
Let there be no doubt

there's not a you tube video for this song, damn them!!! ::raising my fist at you tube:: ah, i suspect if you go to terri's website, you can find a link for at least some of the song...if you're interested.

ok, off to get my kiddo from robotics and head to mass for some more good music.
peace out

yes we can, can (for jen)

jen was posting about this song today...and if her church does another concert, and ESPECIALLY if they do this song, i will definitely be there. she and i watched a movie called young at heart, and they sang this song on there...you just have to watch the movie to know what i saw...it was beautiful, though. but i wanted to post this video, because this is how i learned this song. my mother was a huge pointer sisters fan while i was growing up, and watching this made me smile. (and no, my mother was not a huge soul train fan while i was growing up, but i loved this video...)



peace

something i found

i've been listening to terri hendrix lately. so i went to find one of her songs on you tube called "life's a song." it is one of my favorites. it's on spiritual kind, which is another one of my favorites and i've posted that one here before. anyway, i found this video about life's a song that's also about a workshop terri puts on with lloyd maines called life's a song. i really liked the video and thought i'd post that here instead of just a video of her singing the song...but if you're interested, you tube has that, too.



peace

quickie

i went camping this weekend. it was so, so, soooooo much fun. like "aaahh, i needed that" kind of fun. sun, sweat, laughing, swimming, rowing, fire, communal sleep time, waking up and heading out immediately, consuming my morning caffeine in the sun, sitting still for a little while...these are things that heal, nurture, make me a better person and keep me from feeling like an alien in my life. my sister and her partner being there made it even better. it was awesome shmawesome.

so much i want to write about, but i feel so antsy in my head and in my body...maybe i should've stayed at inks lake a few days longer? i'll get to it...eventually.

peace

you have to laugh at yourself

because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't...

(quote by emily saliers)

hmmm....so that's about all i have today, i think. i'm just going to repeat these two lines in my head over and over...

peace

vulnerable

i've been thinking about this word a lot lately...the feeling of being vulnerable. maybe it's just awareness...maybe our vulnerability doesn't change that often...we just feel it more so at different times...i don't know.

as i was walking yesterday, this song kind of made me crack open a little in my resistance to this whole vulnerability thing...

i don't want to sound completely narcissistic, but i think maybe the ghost i think of in this song is a ghost of me...not necessarily someone i used to be, but someone i used to think i was.

and then this song made me smile...

the whole "what makes me think i can start clean slated? the hardest to learn was the least complicated"...it always makes me smile. i've always had a hard time integrating the person i can't stand i am sometimes with the person i really want to be...and figuring out who i am in the middle. and somewhere in there, there are moments of incredible vulnerability...but again...i know that whatever or whoever i am, i am stronger than i believe. and however vulnerable i feel...i am incredibly resilient...and can forgive almost anyone anything...including, i've learned, even me.

peace out

ps--the weirdest spell check experience...it corrected every spelling of vulnerability, replacing it with the exact same spelling i had. i think the computers are just starting to screw with our heads...sensing weakness in the humans, they're making their psychological move...beware, folks. just sayin'. (and for further proof, it just did the same thing with psychological...weird...seriously weird...)

pss--oh, let me add this song that a friend posted the lyrics to earlier today and really made me smile...this is one of my most favorite songs...makes me smile in a place deep, deep down. it's originally a prince song, but i like matt nathanson's cover a little better...and this version is even better.

peace out for real...