To Toni

I do want you to know,
You are a beautiful young girl. You may get trapped in what this world wants of you, or what you -think- it wants of you, but I want to break that right now. I look at your profile picture and I see this marvelous beauty, eyes perfectly shaped and complexion flawless. Hair straight as a pin and curved just so around your face.
Then I look into my memory of the frizzy haired girl with the big grin and the glasses. That grin that reached the eyes and broke the 'perfect shape' and made it into something even more fabulous. The hardy laugh that came from the gut and left you nearly breathless, the quick wit and humor that came from a sarcastically curled grin and showed through the eyes behind the glasses, shining with something more devious than mischief. The genuine feelings that bore through those eyes. -That- is what beauty is.
Your picture and my memory bring together the picture of your beauty, but only one will bring to view your nature and strength and courage -everything- that I love about you. Please believe me and never forget that.
I love you my dear little Toni. I wish you the best on your next year in your journey and will be here when you need me love.

Always there, Never noticed

I happen to be reading “Someplace To Be Flying” currently under the recommendation of Black. I also happen to be on a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” kick as of a few days ago. I have happened to find a stark difference between the two.

When I was young, as most children did or so I believe, I was want to have daydreams about finding an awesome power coded in my DNA, brought into the light at the height of when I was needed and of course rescue those close to me and such. There was always a monologue about the powers and how it’s different and so on.

Now, as I’ve noticed with Someplace To Be Flying, there are never monologues. Whoever is involved with the Old Folk and has the spirit of an animal never really tell people. The off hand person might snoop around and such, but they never get a straight answer. There is no glory in it, there is no incredibility of the gift they have; there is simply what they are. When someone finds out about them, their scope of the world might be completely frazzled and now off-kelter, but there’s nothing to do about it. It simply is, nothing more.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the kind of story I used to relish (and still do if the movie is made just right, as is so). Simple: kid has powers, world revolves around him, he saves the day, only a few people know. Awesome. He gets the monologue with the girl, very short and to the point (not my style, but he did it well) and he continues on with his powers, learning more about the world that has been introduced to and they all live happily, excitedly, ever interestingly after.

There are no monologues. There are no powers that can be seen with the naked eye and easily explained through a monologue. There is a chance happening-by-er who might or might not understand. Once they are gone the legacy is stopped. Few people who know pop up around the board, believers coming in and out of existence, but more likely than not they take it to their grave silently. The few and far between.

With The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the sorcerers have always been around, only a few and very far between. They go out of their way to hide their magic and not be noticed. Their monologues are mandatory. For Someplace To Be Flying, there is no way to even bring it out into the open. Any who would try to give their monologue run the high risk of an insane asylum. So they continue, unnoticed and but always there. Living just as they would if their society of the gifted were on their own, and to anyone who might become curious, well let’s just hope they enjoy riddles. 

So who are they?

Wake up Little One

In the car we hurry to the gas stop, praying the fill up will be smooth and quick, retaining any heat the car might have accumulated before it’s turned off. She breaths and falls into herself, nearly collapsing in her seat. She feels the strings of a puppeteer. "

“Wake up little one.”

The strings bounce her limbs an inch or two off the ground repeatedly, but no higher. She continues to clear her mind to fend off any possibility of it forcing a conclusion to the strings layed out before her.

“Wake up little one.”

Time seems to want to move onto the next thing, she certainly does. She waits as she’s bounced over and over.

“Wake up little one.”

The voice speeds it’s consistent chant. It never varies, never slows, just continues.

“Wake up little one”

She searches for another meaning.

“Wake up little one.”

She thinks the worst of what this might be.

“Wake up little one.”

This seems a set up for manipulation

“Wake up little one.”

What else could puppet strings mean?

“Wake up little one.”

She stops.

The strings slow.

“In the name of God the Father, in the name of the Lord of Creation. In the name of Jesus Christ. In the blood of Christ I bind anything and everything off of me that is trying to manipulate me. Anything and everything of ill intent be gone.”

She waits.

The strings grow gently taught.

“Wake up little one. Wake up.”

Miles Up

Miles Up

Above one layer of cloud cover I close my eyes against the plane window, shelter them from the light with my hand, and open them to the night sky. No stars to appear as of yet, but below, just below against the grey and mist are hints of lights. As if someone had walked the clouds carrying a leaky pail of foslouresent pain in hand 20 years ago and now the dull memories of the slips remain. So many cities. So many clouds of life. Each new from the next, yet each the same pale shade of glow.

Our world is fallen. For the past five years I’ve lived with my mother who would constantly quiz me on how bad of a person my father was, yell at me for reasons beyond my knowledge, and constantly paint me as a terribly irreputable child who understood nothing and needed to learn respect. My days consisted of laying in bed, eating all meals alone in my room, trying to hold onto a semblance of a social life online, and my children’s theatre practice. While my physical restraints were slowly rising, I was trying to accomplish something that would assure me that I had some sort of intelligence and wasn’t a brain-dead beat knick who was worth anything. But in this world we encounter a God who is many things.

God is merciful. I remember many nights when I would scream to God, “Why is this happening to me?! Why not someone else?? Why me!!” I could feel him patiently listening and when he knew I had cried enough, I remember him lulling me to sleep for the night, which was a rare treat in itself, seeing as I was an insomniac.

God is love. There were five years of my life where the only social interaction I had was at a children’s theatre. It was there I learned that love is what makes life livable, no matter the circumstance. They all loved me as a family and accepted me, however I was. I loved each and every one of those kids, and it would show. A couple of times when I said, “I love you!” They would retort, “Brynn, who don’t you love?” and I wouldn’t have an answer for them. It was within this last year that I learned all love comes from God and the only reason I was able to love unconditionally was because it was a gift from God, and I used it well.

God is all knowing. I will never forget how the first meeting with my father in three years went. I had held an anger towards him since the divorce and wanted him to know that I was hurt, but no matter how angry I was towards my dad, he could always make me laugh within the first two words out of his mouth. I believe God knew how much I would need my dad despite the long and horrible separation from him, and he planned our personalities the way he did so that we could pick up right where we left off.

God is hope. I went to a residential hospital for my diabetes and dysautonomia a year and a half ago; within the year I moved in with my dad, I had gotten a GED, taken the ACT and scored a 27, started college classes, held a 4.0 all year, gotten and held a job for 7 months, earned a driver’s license, plugged in with a college age church group, found a family within the church, and kept a steady worship and meditation with God, all while keeping my blood sugars controlled. If that isn’t the merciful healing touch of God, then I don’t know what is.

I hear a heartbeat that isn't mine
It thrums through my head few beats at a time
It comes to knock through the hallows of my mind
Then leaves with warnings of others of its kind

Leaves until I've barely forgotten
its erractic pace
Then pounces on my memory
And awakens a dull pain
Thrumming, popping, demanding attention
To stop
And listen to it
Although it has nothing to say
That I havn't heard before

Here goes the heart drum
There comes the silence
Only until I've forgotten
And I need reminding
once again

I hobble inside from the cold with Piper dragging me by her leash. "Ruby won't listen to me." I say as I kick off my sandals. "She's in the back."
"Get out there and get her!" my mom growls from the couch.
"But she won't listen to me." I try to try to explain slowly, hoping it may sink in.
She readjusts herself in her blankets. "Lie to her. Tell her 'cookie'."
By this time I had learned not to be exactally sympathetic towards Ruby when it came to listening to me. I gather my sandals and trudge outside again.
By the time I come back inside my mother had already gotten up and fixed the food for both dogs. "What are you doing? You should be resting! Get back in bed!"
"Don't you tell me what to do. I'm the adult here."
I sigh and give up, flopping on the chair across the room. "You know you should be drinking gatorade. I'll go get you a glass..." I didn't bother getting up, already knowing her reaction.
"No. Don't you tell me what to do." she walked back over to the couch after separating the dogs and putting their food down. She layed down with an 'ooph.'
"You need to eat. I'll get you some soup?"
"What I need," here we go. "is for you to take care of yourself!!" she started rearranging her blankets around her.
"I am...and that's the thing..."
"Oh no." she sighed. "What is it?"
"Well, the thing is, I really am taking care of myself...really well actually."



This was started in December of '08. It is now September of '10 and life has changed dramatically. I believe this was a time I had tried to ask my mom to let me start taking classes in highschool. She told dme that if I felt better at that moment, if I was getting better at all, then it meant that I had been lying to her the entire time and that I had always felt well enough to go to school. She told me that if I wanted to go to school to live with my dad (the ultimate in tretchory and woe) and I could be happy as a clam being in classes full time, which is not what I had proposed. Two years later and I've obtained my GED and passed an ACT with flying colors. No highschool period. Gift of grace much? Well, at any rate. I wish I had finished this, but don't want to try. Maybe another time. Probably not.

"I may be 15 minutes late." said my mother as she past the baseball feild in our hunkered down jeep.
"Again?! You're kidding me!"
She frowned and her voice grew louder, "I have to do something, alright? This is all for you you know!"
There she went again. "Alright, alright!!"
But that didn't help. She was in a pretty bad mood.
"Ugg." I slouched in my seat and tried to think of what I was going to talk about with Carli.
When we got there it was already dark and my ass was in the process of being frozen off. "Be downstairs when I pick you up." I looked away from her and rolled my eyes.
"Alright mom, see ya then."
When I finally got to the top of the stairs of my dance company, I slouched down against mine and Carli's weekly spot. I knew I was half an hour early, but I really didn't care. At least I wasn't late.
My thighs hurt from playing soul calaber with a ddr mat on Friday, so I knew that dance was gunna be hell. I probebly should have stretched before doing anything, but ignored the fact and simply started reading my book. It was the hardest book to actually keep up with, besides Monster by Frank Peretti, so after around 2 minutes, I put it down and went in to see the younger girls dance.
I walked up to the teachers and one of the teachers, not mine, raised an eye brow. "Do you have a leotard on?"
"No- but only because I was really cold, and especially because of my dysautonomia...."
"No leotard, no dance." she shrugged and continued to put on her sneakers.
"W-what? You mean I can't dance at all today?!"
"That's the rules." I stared at her, slack jawed and everything. "But I'm not your teacher. If you were in my class I wouldn't let you dance at all. But I'm the strict, mean teacher."
She's a bitch and she knows it. That's just wonderful.
I looked at my teacher and she sighed. She said that since most of my classmates don't even wear leotards and since I usually wear mine anyhow, that I'd be fine.
I walked into the hallway just in time to find Carli running up the stairs and I swear she had been crying. She dragged me into the stairwell and started ranting, like I had done to her so many times before. I comforted her, made her laugh a few times, until we had to go into the dance room and start class.
Nothing much happend after that. One of our family friends picked me up instead of my mom and we ate out at Ruby Tuesdays so that she could talk to my mom while I talked to her daughter.
I went back to their house with the daughter after we ate so that my mom and her mom could talk more.
My mom and I got home and I headed for the basement, as usual. As I ran into my room, I stopped in my tracks at the sight of my homecoming dress. It's borrowed from my friend, and extreamly really pretty....
No one was online and there was nothing else to do, so I slipped into it and took a look into the mirror. Of course my stomich was sucked in, but it wasnt that bad on me. It had a purple aligator pattern running all over it and the skirt came to about my knees. I went up stairs and walked up to my mom, "Whatcha think?" I said with a smile on my face.
She looked at me, "You're sucking in your stomich. Don't, then let me see it." I frowned as I let it go. "Not that bad...."
"But it looks good while I am sucking it in...."
"You won't be able to all night."
I smiled, "I can try!"
"No. You can't do it all night. It's impossible."
My smile was lost and I turned around to dissapear into my room once agian while thinking, 'Thanks for letting me try mom.'