Thoughts while Traveling

There are people's names that are mentioned and my heart stops beating momentarily.

This means something. Sometimes it stops for a second and then resumes normal speed.
Other times, depending on the shock of it and/ or the circumstances, the effect on me is longer lasting.

After receiving an email this morning, I feel as though my brain can only function at around 50% capacity because my heart is taking all of the blood flow.

I am affected. My heart can only handle so much.

My soul has found a tiny little crack where it can leak out.

From the standpoint of someone who's soul has always leaked from a crack that has flowed into a sort of "people approval" vein, a new hole opening up is a welcomed happening. I almost want to jump on the bed in gleeful abandon.

Funny how it has all happened. I started singing again. Because I wanted to. For the first time in my life. I even practice my Bellini aria on my own, not because my teacher is expecting improvement in that measure of hell that needed smoothing over, but because I actually believe in MYSELF, and believe that I actually enjoy it mYSELf enough to work it out and make it happen.

I used to sing for validation. To prove to the world, and more so, myself, that I am worthy. Worthy of what? Beats me. To fulfill a role? To inhabit a place?

So, the pressure got to be too much. The pressure I placed on myself. There was a point when I decided to sing nothing but worship songs. To lead others, to let go and focus my instrument on the worship of God in a certain thread of hymns, psalms, and Spiritual songs. I came to hate myself in the midst, because I was a walking contradiction. Not that I wasn't used or that I wasn't really worshipping the One has given life...but I could not, for the life of me, step away from the fear of being "approved" by others. I bought into the lie that told me it mattered more.
In the midst of trying NOT to forsake HIM, I found yet another way to take the focus off of HIM. Yikes, I am so bloody human.

So I quit. I literally avoided music that made me feel. I lived a music-less life.
And since this was the only way I "thought" that I could let my soul leak out and not get so bottled up that it would explode into 5,000,000 pieces, more of me shriveled up. I walked down the street invisible. A shell of a person. The exact opposite of what I was created to be.

{thank you, Debbie Downer...Let's get to the redemptive part}

So, as I mentioned, I have begun to sing again. For ME, and for the only audience I really could give a rip about is the one who created...me. Quite the cycle, but I feel as though I may be back on track.

This "new" crack is not only welcomed, but so liberating and free. While singing has become a more healthy and freely focused passion, I cannot negate the fact that it is still a "performance art." There will and will always be critics. And no matter what I want to think, my fragile little ego needs to grow much stronger still if I am to accomplish what I am meant to in this field. Dying to self, I suppose? Duh.

Chapter 2

A public thank you to the student at Harrison Arts Center in the year 1994 that sold me their painting. It was a silent auction, and I won! The painting spoke to me, and
although I seem to have lost it somewhere between these 12 years and dozens of moves, I have gone a whole 7 days this week thinking about your painting. It spoke to me... and I remember, I HAD to have it. I remember bidding $15 (all that I had from saving my allowance) and hoping and praying that no one would go higher than me, taking away all of my happiness forever

{melodramatic pause}

That little piece of art hung on many, many of my walls in it's little lifetime. But you, my faceless, nameless friend...That was an expression of you. Thanks for sharing. That painting has been haunting me this last week, in a good way.

Colors. Colors have always spoken to me so much clearer and concisely than words, actions, or even promises. Colors make me dance inside. There is nothing more bleak than a white wall. It says nothing, it proclaims nothing, it bleeds nothing.
I have been playing with color, and with no audience and/or critic, I can be free and create with color what I cannot seem to articulate with a string of words. I do not wish to don the walls of art galleries. I just want to leak out. My soul needs to be released. My insides cannot stand the drought any longer.

I have found in the past few weeks that this release is vital to my being. I know I don't HAVE to paint, but I am truly enjoying it thoroughly. To create and express my heart through color is a truly lovely thing that I don't have to show anybody if I don't want to. I like that. It's my own. I can leak.

Drip.

"Lead me in a plain path." Psalms 27:11

Some days I'd just like life to be simple.

"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters" Psalms 29:3

So waves crashing on the shore aren't just waves crashing on the shore.