You asked me how I know God exists and my response was that I don't believe He does. We are all asked to trust a piece of work not dissimilar to what I am writing here. An artistic expression can cover vast depths and literature is only one. The Bible stands at the pivotal center, and yes I say pivotal because it's ability to change depending on one's religion or implicit use is striking. Nevertheless there it sits and we read it as a nonfiction piece of work. There is no true proof for or against it, so what makes it any different from what we write here?

"There existed a man who sought to create something great. He layed down his hands and on the first day created land and a place where life could roam freely. He saw that it was good. And in such goodness, he thought there too should exist a space blue and pure. He layed down his hands and beneath them came the sky. He saw that it was good and in that goodness existed a need for something else. He felt a need for division of creatures. In one place he would put animals that could only roam solid ground. In the other, he would put all things that could swim. He hoped to fill it with depths so deep and so shallow that it could shadow differently depending on the day. And so he layed down his hands and created water. He saw that it was good and in the wake of his goodness he created light. He donned the earth with a sun to shine during the day and a moon to grace the darkness. He saw that it was good and in his goodness felt that he should rest."

That right there took me all of 5 minutes to construct; 5 minutes to "create." The imagination is a surreal thing and the possibilities endless.


You asked me how God exists and my answer is we make him exist. We craft stories, dreams, beliefs, fears, envies - around something. We worship because it makes us feel safe - makes us feel loved when there is no one, nothing else out there to love us. We've made yet another division between the people of this world in hopes that it will bring salvation and enlightenment. Instead it's created hostility and wars. It's created a gap between humanity that will be and never can be filled. There is information, stories, and miracles...but nothing concrete enough to prove one way or another. So the fighting will continue, leaving hatred in the hearts of many.


But that does not mean I don't believe in something. In a spirit or guiding force in life. It's something that coexists with evolution and the art of a creator. Whatever "It" is, it makes the miracles of this world pure and incomprehensible. It is something beautiful that can be shared but completely individual to oneself. So "God" exists in whatever form you need him to. For me, he never walked the earth. For me he is not a father, son, and holy ghost. Rather he is a guiding light, a guiding force that makes the world go round. He is part of the world, but he is not it and he is not the sole creator. He is just as much a part of this world's evolution as anything else.

For Grandma Gummy

Behind each face of composure and solidarity, someone is asking for help. Beneath each breath of half hearted okays, there is a cry for attention. But what happens when that face of composure and solidarity is your mother. And those okay's are her apathetic attempt to make the fact that her own mother is dying seem less agonizing than it truly is. To watch one's mother suffer, makes you bleed. It's apparent that it's a cyclical affect. I bleed raw because my mom is in pain. Her heart is battered and therefore mine is too. And because my grandmother's dying, my mother is too. Perhaps it's because at one point we were one. I breathed, sensed, fumbled, touched everything she did when i was not yet born.

So as i sit her and she lays miles away at her mother's bedside, I clutch my heart. Yet I hope in some way I can breathe life into the lungs of her sadness. Fill her with the strength to make it through the the coming days as her mother slips through her fingers. And when she's ready I will hold her in my arms and let her weep. We will weep together. For she is my best friend. And when in my life when I will have to let her go - when I will no longer be able to hear or feel her laughter - my heart will no longer be full. I know in that moment I will understand what she must feel. In that moment. a daughter will have lost her mother - her companion.

******there are better words for this. there are better sentences that i can and will string together. but right now it's not all there yet. right now i'm still at a loss for words, for understanding

Eyes like chocolate and a smile rich with energy, sit heavy on my chest. A weight of joy followed by a shadow of doubt. For when I think about giving you me, I fall apart. Secrets will crawl from the cracks of doors and whispers will slip from window panes. They may come screaming from the bottom of my soul or come quietly to wrap slowly around your ankles. And before you, those were only mine to keep, to suffocate. So here I stand trying to hold myself together while you pick me apart within your embrace that provides shelter, from lips that give me breath and words that warm my soul. All while I try to run, picking up my baggage to leave, because it's all too scary to handle.

we walk with our ipods as appendages
to our ears; cell phones hanging
like jewelry upon our heads.
eyes cast down in hopes
of avoiding unfamiliar contact or
hanging to sputter an ungrateful hello.
Instead we study cracks, as if our lives
don't already have enough of them; some thick
like veins that pulse life
to each heart; others
thin and frayed- stripped
wire upon the grown. Nevertheless,
eventually they all find their way to a stop.
Crashing somewhere down the lin

When someone asks you to forget what it is to love, to bury it deep beneath your ribcage and your soul; they are asking you to teach yourself to forget the feeling to feel. To let heartache run through you like water and allow pain to piggyback on a young adults muscles. They ask you to shadow the natural urge to lay heavy next to a body warm from emotion. Tell you to erase the sentimental value of a tender touch or a strong embrace. Hide your heart underneath your mattress and only pull it out in the confidence of yourself.

Bleed pain. Bleed heartache. Alone.

Forget what it is to love they say.

i dance because it makes me feel alive. it creates a purpose in a world where we do mindless things on a minuteless basis to pass the time or pass our lives. it brings passion to a space of inadament objects by breathing life into air that gasps for movement and a floor that hopes to be caressed by a warm body. I create in a space that fosters growth from the deepest of my core to the vastness of our stars.

dance is not a profession or a chore. it is an art form. a way of life.

We run together similar to a stream

where we bathe

in our miniscule moments of anxiety.

Escape the same for us all.

A place where pain evaporates -

up from pooled insanity.

Our run off becomes a gift,

a passion. A place where we

hide so well amidst others

who share our fears,

the same world -

we become one drop; one body.

Some dash paint on a white world.

Others breathe life into a helix of glass.

Still, some soften pain

by conceiving of more first.

But you and I meet on exposed floors to dissolve,

simultaneously stripping ourselves bare

of self mutilation – self deprivation.

We allow ourselves to create, making music

with our bodies; art with our souls.

We depart from reality, in hopes

to restore ourselves; arms of grace

sweeping stories across our own

undressed bodies.

Merry Christmas to me.....

A piece from December of 2007....

As it's been
I give, bleed raw from my veins
but it seeps blue
to the eyes of incompetent individuals.
Breath warmed between my lungs
exhales cold, cutting to all.
What does it take?
Should I spit cliche words
but under it all regret
all I've just vomited out of hopes
for some shamed acceptance?
I thought it was supposed to end.
I'd rather silence cover this world,
cover the country-club goers that breed
this ludicrous environment
than surrender muted, subject to witless
comments and laughable fairytales
about who fucked who or which brainless
girl is snorting coke today.
It's a circular conversation
that i could dance around,
it's just not worth my time.

I want this kind of love......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKscYJAksPs

So when the nights turn cold and I lay along in bed, I wonder if there's something more out there. A place, a time that will rest warm on my heart. For beneath these covers, I am sheltered from pain and disappointment. I am protected by the softness so hard that it sinks to mold my skin. But in that protection and in that comfort I question the emptiness, I wonder if I'll know when to let the right things in.

If I'm so busy guarding my space, shadowed by the blanket around me, I will end up alone protecting nothing, no one - but myself.

What do you do when a tall, dark and extremely handsome young man keeps coming into your life like a sweet nightmare. One that makes your heart race like his touch, but has your skin crawling under his evanescent body language. There's a disconnect between either a want and a need or a longing and a fear.

Speak the same tongue I ask, because right now your eyes are whispering breaths of promise, breaths of hope- while your feet dance a distant step away from this place. Your eyes are soft and calm amidst a face of definite angularity. A humor so contagious it masks the hardened shadow of pain. And an embrace terribly gentle that the nature of your passion is washed away by its warmth.

I often fall asleep with the hope that this nightmare will go away. That the beast it feeds on will be nullified. But without my nightmare, without my tears, there would be no longing. There would be no fight. His eyes are a rich with compassion and his heart is full of selflessness. And although he may not see me for what I would like, he's still my sweet nightmare.

The dew basked in the morning sun and its gentle rays. The grass burned a lushes emerald of shelter. The morning was bright extravagantly modest, but lovely. Wrapped in a blanket made of fleece I stepped out onto the porch, my coffee rich in hand. I gazed out onto the lake as a single wave rushed to the walls shore; and as the movement subsided I took a deep breath. I am here. There is nothing I can change. Nothing I can fix.

The morning stands open and the sky lets out a gasp of. My day begins now. So as my mug sits still in my interlaced hands, I sigh heavily, reach around to the blanket that hits the floor behind me and walk back into my life.

One fine day we will all grow old. For some, that old, comes sooner rather than later - stolen in an instant like the sweetness from an empty cookie car. For others, their skin will have wrinkled with the age of wisdom and anger. Fallen from its tight placement years ago, to a drooping painting of skin and lackless muscle. One fine day we will all grow old. In that day, I hope I will have caused laughter in the lives of many, tears in the eyes of few and a shadow that lasts years past my day. I want my parents to be proud of who they've raised; to take the lessons they've given me and instill them in my own life, my own children. I want to have made a name for myself somewhere where it means something. A place like the house I build from wood, with shutters of security and a design of balance. It will be a present to my children - a scrapbook to their souls. Their stories will be written in the cracks of the floor panes. Secrets will have swept sweetly out the cracks in the windows. Family dinners will be the place of fights, but also the place of forgiveness.

One fine day we will all grow old. But one fine day I'll be ready.

Because when I wake up in your arms, the sun warming my face like a spring afternoon, I know there is no place I’d rather be. As my lips trace the sure lines of yours as if they are etched directly into my memory, there is no doubt this is home. I don't ask for much. Shelter for my deepest thoughts and trust built on the reality that you hold my secrets in your hands. When it rains at night and the air smells a sort of wonderful sweetness, I want to fall asleep in the arms of someone I love. When it's cold outside and snow's covered the hardened ground, I want to sit in front of a fireplace blanketed by the warmth of a friend and good drink. When I've had a bad day, when I don't feel like talking, I want silence in the form of companionship. When the autumn air is crisp, the leaves are falling and shadows hang heavy in the afternoon sun, I want to walk holding hands discussing life or discussing nothing at all.

I want to love in the wake of the morning and in the darkness of my sleep. I don't ask for much, really, I only ask for a love I believe in.

So I've started what I hope to be my first novel. Ambitious. I know. But if not for ambitions people would not create and invent and fix wonderful things. Will it ever be a published novel? i don't know. But it will be my novel. And that's all that matters to me. Therefore, below you will find the beginnings of my ambitions.

THE ONE

Introduction

For all one knows it was the way the lights gently glistened through their snow covered bodies or how her hand felt nestled in his tweed coat pocket. Whatever it was though, Lily had come to wonder if she would ever find "The One." You know, the heart stopping, butterfly giving, man; with shiny blue eyes, rich brown hair, and a ravishing face. And I suppose defined jaw line and all, because if we're going for the gold, he better have it all. But maybe that was Lily's problem. She had fabricated this image, this story, when she was just a little girl, that at 28 it was so deeply ingrained she couldn't seem to shake it.

Benjamin was none of those. Not that he wasn't handsome. Lily likes to say he has "character." And it isn't that she isn't attracted to him (according to her, the sex was too good for that). Besides, he made a decent amount of money. Not in the way of extravagence, but enough to live above the simple comforts. Ben was sweet too. Honestly. He was everything you could ask for: a family man, ready to settle down, annoyingly attentive, had impeccible taste....you get where I'm going with this. Nevertheless - Lily was convinced he was not "The One."

Chapter 1

Ever since I was young I told myself I wouldn't settle. Not in my education, not in love, and definently not in life. It wasn't that I thought I was singularly special or that I deserved more than anyone else. I was just particular. Particular about the life I wanted, what I wanted to do with it and where I wanted to be at certain moments within it. Not to mention I befittinely blame the long list of fairytale movies and novels that increasingly stacked up the walls in my room since the age of three for my pathetic notion of love. In those books every "I" was dotted with a heart and every "T" crossed with an arrow. Those authors were asking for trouble - and a generation of women waiting for their Knight in Shining Armor, restlessly.

He was to be handsome, charming, and attentive. His eyes would sparkle when he gazed at you. He would crave you every moment of the day, leaving it virtually unbearable to be away. And most importantly, he would be able to give you everything you wanted - ever. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Well after years of dating multiple men, with many different approaches to a relationship, not one has fit the bill. He was either strikingly beautiful, but missing a personality. Like talking to your dog (although I must admit I do that and sometimes Dmitri was a better conversationalist). Or he wasn't all a girl could ask for in the way of looks, but he made me laugh and I was hardly ever bored. The worst though were the ones that had it all. I mean the ones whose skin glowed in the night light, his bodyirresitable, charm to knock you off yoru chair, a heart and personality so full you'd think he'd explode, and an undying need to please you whenever, with whatever. What he didn't know, was that although he thought he was doing all the pleasing, in bed he was the farthest from it. The sex was unbearable. It was awkard and lust-lacking (I fake it pretty well). Not to mention you'd think a guy of his size could toss ya around a little bit; but no, never even tried. And for awhile I let it slide, because come on, he had it ALL. I thought I could teach him. Direct him. I was wrong. And so, I continued on my journey to find my fariy tale.

Chapter 2

It was early evening on a biting November day. I had just finished my proposal and sat, people watching, at my favorite coffee shop in town. SaDi's was my place. Every since I moved to Boston it's been my go to: rich mahogany built in book shelves, low mellow lighting and an aroma that could calm a hurricane to a still ocean. It acts as the place where I feel at home, while remembering that nothing is home like the Midwest. Anyway, as I sat there watching men and women saunter in and out of my space, imagining what their lives were like, a young man traipsed through the door. His cheeks were red - bitten by the cold we were experiencing - and his hair wind blown into a surprisingly attractive arrangement. He scanned the room as if looking for someone before finding his way to the counter where he stared unknowingly at the drink menu. Lost in thought or lost in general, he was still a pleasure to look at.

Our stores are splattered with self-help products, magazines and diet supplements. Noise crowds our days about being someone other than who we are. Remove the birthmark that glides across the crescent of your cheek bone, because it defines who you are and we don't like it. Lose ten pounds from your belly alone with this amazing tasteless diet, in which we claim you can eat whatever you want as long as it doesn't have sugar, carbs or flavor. Mask your insecurities with Dr. Tit's amazingly real, fake breasts; 100% guarantee that never again will a man forget what he's looking at, but you will always remember why you wasted money on the shadowing of one insecurity by another.

The nation we live in asks us to define ourselves by the strengths we have, all while projecting a corrupt definition of what "freedom of will" really is. We breathe air tainted with money and success and exhale ourselves in return. Our roads are paved with gold, but that gold's been stolen by your neighbor.

dress me up or dress me down, but our nation will say neither is correct

I know far too little about politics and the go-arounds of the political beast, so although this post may dive into questions many often ask about our government and the shadow they cast on our society, it is in fact a reflection on my experiences in a Special Education program. Nevertheless, writing is to be taken in and out of context, so do with it what you please

Although our nation's proclamations follow a line of tolerance and diversity, we live in a world of conformity built on narrow-mindedness. Our faces remain painted in the wake of each sunrise and our shadows sleep silently beside us in our beds. Thoughts and ideas that find their way outside the constraints of our government and social media sink beneath the soil. Voices remain unheard - silenced by our drive to Americanize a nation of a hardened melting pot. Languages of all types slice through our open air, only to leave the acceptance of one. Where then we do reap the benefits of the freedom we sow? When do we really get to sing the praises of our free nation?

And so she says her souls been taken; by a ghost of nights long passed. He held her by the shoulders she said and took it from her back. And as she watched it slip away, she asked the ghost his name. He told her that he didn't know, but now they were the same. For with each breath he stole from her, the more alive it turned. Then finally he faced her, and said with no concern:

I've taken all that you posses and it shall never be returned.

Welcome to a place where mistakes are made, fears are expressed, dreams are dreamt and stories are told. I created Ancora Imparo as a place where I can come at the end of the day to write about the world we question, craft the worlds we hope for and empty my thoughts through the expression of language. I welcome you to share my world, but I don't ask it of you. This place is for me - perhaps it will be a place for you too...