But I have to write for school, and APA style is not beautiful. It's constricting. And don't even think the words grading rubric. They tell you exactly what to write about, point by point, and in the end, content is only worth 15% of your grade. All they want is for me to tell them what they want to see. They don't want to hear my words - they just want to see them line up grammatically correct on a page with one inch margins all around and that blasted times new roman 12 font. And don't forget to introduce quotations. Duh.
I want to be free.
I'm tired of sweaters and jeans and wool socks. I want a little summer dress and I want to sit in the middle of the road at midnight and look at the stars, feel the radiant heat of blacktop pavement soak gently into my legs, feel the cool evening breeze on my sun kissed arms.
Forever I'll write on here about what I want - all of it is just shades of eternity. Shadows of eternity.
Meanwhile, back on planet earth, Mattea is doing school and washing dishing and asking google to tell her what to do next.
You'd think she'd never been to Italy.
Italy doesn't last. Italy is unsustainable. We can't live sheltered with our friends our whole lives. Communal living is the best, but only because it comes to a defined end. If the end is not defined everyone will drift away eventually, anyway...or start fighting...I've heard stories from friends who've tried.
We are people on the move. We are wanderers. Lots of us put down roots eventually, get jobs and try to be content with normal life - normal life is good. It really is. But don't lie to me and say you never once stand in the middle of the road and look at the horizon and wonder...
Ironically I'm honestly not looking for travel. I'm done traveling alone because I noticed when I travel alone I do not smile. And I hardly speak. I do feel peaceful. And I do feel independent. And those are two nice things... But there is something to be said for smiling.
Three weeks ago I drove down to Parris Island with Mik and James to see Nate graduate as a Marine. It was a nice trip, despite driving down at night and driving back at night and not even really sleeping the one night in the hotel. I went for a run in sunshine and saw palm trees. But part of my run took me through a gated retirement community, with perfect houses and two car garages and I'd never felt more claustrophobic under a blue sky.
What is it about this life that makes it hard to breathe sometimes? Maybe it's my eternal soul, growing from all the beauty and paradoxes and pain it's seen, and it's pushing against my lungs, trying to escape.
It won't. Sorry soul, you won't. You've got to stay trapped in my body a little longer because we have things to do. Evidently. I look around and see people doing things, and learning by example, I think I should do things to. And I need you with me, okay soul? So let me breathe, let me live. Stop pushing on my lungs. Tell me what is right, though. I'm counting on you. Your eternal perspective will guide me.
Death comes to all and I want to live right. Those Marines...we went on base twice to see Nate, and there were Marines everywhere, obviously. It just made me sad. Babies. Babies, all of them. I mean, ok, they are pretty fierce. Boot camp isn't for pansies. But you know, all those boys were so young - my age, a few older, a lot younger - and working so hard and for some reason their life stories had brought them to Parris Island. And who knows if they'll die for their choice.
What am I doing with my life?
Don't screw it up, Mattea. This is the real world that you are in, the real world where you press a button and someone dies.
The real world, where, also, there are fireflies and such a thing as singing a cappella...
I told myself I was done writing these kinds of posts, that January on it was only going to be anecdotes and humor and embellished facts. I'm no Brian Williams - embellished facts won't get me in trouble. But then life gets busy, and though stuff happens and I imagine writing about it, at the end of the week when I'm all cramped inside the box of school and culture and winter, I'm ready to just dream and spill a bit of nonsense, let my brain free... I'm a psych major. I know by now writing this was good for me, worth wasting forty minutes on.
But now it is back to that paper.
And I am free. So long as I can think, so long as I can write occasionally, I am free...
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