wisdom

I wrote this on June 7, 2010. Some things need to be dusted off every once in a while.

coming attractions

I am SO excited for the final concert this year. We're even recording "It Ain't Over", an original song by Devlin. (also, I'm a soloist this year!) It's gonna be good.

from whom all blessings flow

This previous Sunday my grandfather Arlo Robbins passed away at the age of 96. We have known for a long time, clearly, that he was on his way out. And so it took a few days to hit me.

But it did hit me, this afternoon at about 4 o'clock. I was watching a Thanksgiving episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. And I thought about Thanksgiving with my family, the women cooking all day, and the men watching football with Arlo until dinner. And grandpa would make us all circle up and hold hands in that tiny room, and we (his wife of over 60 years, his 5 children, and 8 grandchildren) would sing the doxology.

I bet he's singing it right now.

words that don't cover up other words

Sitting here, I realize, that I have been severely let down. And everyone lets you down, but some people do it in unexpected ways. Sometimes a friend is late picking you up from the train station or they accidentally break your favorite coffee cup. Sometimes your parents forget to tell you important things and then spring the news on you during Christmas break. Sometimes your clcosest confidant says hurtful things out of ignorance, and doesn't know how to apologize later.
And sometimes, your faithful leader, trusted friend, a person who has guided you through your own stupidity and some really tough years, a person who has *saved your life* won't talk to you anymore.
I don't know what to do with this. I wish I was strong enough to point it out in person and not on a blog.
You let me down.
So that makes today... well, let's just say I haven't found anything that great lately. And if I'm not finding... what am I doing?

Preserve

I secretly went here
alone
without a coat.
And maybe nothing
protected me from the wind
and my calls could not lure
the squalling birds.
But the one who made the air
that finds uncovered skin
also made the sunset
and made the signpost by the exit
which secretly led me here
to be in a presence not my own.

Tree 1236

This tree begins strongly
where others fondly
remain in their dead endings.
Her every bud reaches,
as spring beseeches
to bloom on branches bending.

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out of the box

Look at this picture, and tell me what you see. A whole world can be seen in such a box. It has lived in the bottom right corner of my closet for several years now, hiding its treasure and biding its time, until a fateful day last week when I released it from the prison-closet and let out all the dust.

I said in my last blog I was going through everything I owned. All of my worldly possessions, examined on the bedroom floor. So here's a start.

Within this box I hold several pieces of my childhood. Some of them cherished, some unwanted, some simply strange. I will make more posts like this later, with other of the 144 pictures I took during my spring break full of cleaning and scavenging.


Here is a doll, well-used and dirty. She has a hat to match her frock, and I found it later. This doll fascinated me as a little girl. I never named her. I don't actually remember playing with her, I only remember starting at her strangely perfect features.


A beloved book, which later led to a beloved movie and a beloved musician. They made a movie out of this, a cartoon called "Really Rosie." All the music was done by Carole King. During the time that we lived in West Seattle I would get the movie from the library every other week, which is probably as often as they would allow it, and I would watch it and sing along. To say I drove my family up the wall would be an understatement, as there was a long period where they forbade me to watch it at all.


Back when the Seattle Mariners still played in the Kingdome, my family would spend many weekends sitting on cold, cement benches watching the game from afar. My two brothers and I each got this shirt, and wore them faithfully. However, being 6 years old (or 7, I can't quite remember) the shirt went down past my knees. I faithfully wore it to bed for many years. Anyone know how much this thing would go for on eBay? (if it would go for anything at all...?)

This box was also home to a stuffed toy dog, an ancient comic puzzle, a flannel nightgown made by my aunt, some ludicrous paper dolls and many beloved childhood books. It would take a lifetime to explain them all.

But I will promise this: I will talk about books. I will show you books and talk about them and by golly if I had them with me I would record myself reading them aloud. And I will show you pictures and read you poems, and you will see me finding myself a million times over.

The Process (part 1)

So much of this blog is based on loss, a greater sense of emptiness than forgetfulness. But I've never really touched on the concept of losing something on purpose. You might not think it's possible.

But it is. I'm doing it right now. I've spent the last two days at home going through all my... stuff. All my crap. All my life. Some people's lives can be identified and remembered in diaries and photographs and shared songs. You listen to an old mixed CD and hear laughter within the music, you see a road trip. You relive memories in pictures and scribbled gossip.

My life is recognized in all of these, as expected, yet there is so much more that I find to be part of my life as well. As an artist, I have probably drawn and painted and sketched thousands of pictures. And yes, I have also made things out of clay and fabric and noodles. But I am most defined by what is on paper. Today I went through a portfolio box of drawings, some made by my brothers before I was even born. I drew a farm being attacked by a giant chicken, and an Iroquois Indian Chief standing with his daughter. I painted a mountain landscape in three different color schemes. I sketched a teapot. And then I filed through several notebooks, filled with old poems and prayers and "note to self"s.

I took pictures of a lot of things. And when that was over, I went through everything a second time, and more than half of it it now resides in the recycling bin in the garage.

I am choosing what I want to remember. I am disregarding the parts of myself that are too blatantly selfish or bitter or ignorant, the pieces of Katie that didn't listen to God and the thoughts I held onto which had no merit.

You might wonder why exactly I'm doing this. Why the sudden need to purge myself of drawings I made in 1997? Why am I ripping apart a notebook from 9th grade?

Because in 113 days I'm going to be married and I do not have the physical room for all these objects, nor do I have the mental space to hold all the memories attached to them.

And that was just today. I went through Barbies yesterday. (all but one of which will be sold at a garage sale this summer.) Tomorrow... books.

come on come on come on

I find airports are entirely too transitional. Something should be normal, like a trip home, and yet I feel like I'm standing at the precipice of some large and tiresome adventure. (maybe that's because of the invasive secruity check-in and the fact that I've already been here for 3.5 hours.)
It's just home. And only for 10 days. But perhaps I will surprise myself, and be intrepid. Or perhaps something intrepid is about to find me.