Cloud Theory

I have this idea that souls are fragmented, made out of a lot of other souls. They exist in a cloud. When someone is born, a bunch of soul fragments rush together into their body to create the soul that will become that person, and when they die the soul is released back into the cloud in many parts and bits, each section having learned something from their experience within that body, each section bringing part of that experience into the new body that they will then inhabit. So in a sense, while we are all unique, we each carry experience from hundreds of lives before us. We are a conglomeration of struggle, passion, love, loss. And in some sense, when we die, we continue on as a glimmer of presence of hundreds of other individuals that have yet to be born.
In this sense, if one soul was meant for another, it was meant for a myriad, and while it can love one wholly and truly, it has the ability to love many. One soul is meant for another in a moment, in a location, in a lifetime.

Souls can sense one another. In that second that you meet someone, your soul reads theirs--and perhaps they share fragments, or their bits are complimentary, or perhaps they aren't--but both can distinguish that. Sometimes one is better at observing/reading/noticing than another, but when both souls see each other for what they are, recognize their familiarity and bond in a past life, or a possibility for a future together in this life or the next, (and the bodies that house them allow those souls touch), that is love.

We don't choose who we love. Hundreds of soul bits and fragments that have experienced life and love many times choose that for us.  Trust your soul.

The American Dream

Isn't it weird when you just know that someone is talking to you?
Even when you are asleep, just a voice guided in your direction (not even your name) is enough to pull you from your slumber.
I was napping in my front yard, sun glaring down on my already burnt body, when I heard a call: "excuse me. Excuse me. EXCUSE ME." even as the first words had barely left her mouth I knew that she was talking to me, the second the sound hit my ears my brain (and I say brain here and not mind with utter confidence) began to rouse me.
"My brother threw the ball over the fence, can you get it for us?"
I rolled over, and stood up, my hair between wet and dry, my bangs sticking up in all directions. As I walked towards the side yard, I pulled the hair together with my hands and twisted it on top of my head.
I opened the side gate, making sure that I propped a rock in front of it to keep it open. I looked back at the gaggle of black children just beyond my white picket fence, "the big pink one?"
"Yeah".
I carefully placed my un-shoed feet on the grass that I knew to be teeming with glass and other fun bits, and rolled the ball into my hands, big enough that I needed both to keep it in place. I picked my way back to the front of the house and tossed the ball into the arms of the girl who had woken me.
"Thanks!"
"Of course." I fell back onto the blanket that I had deserted as the children began to walk away, in the direction of the park.
"You tryin' to get a tan?" the leader asked.
"Tryin'." I said.

Thoughts on Graduate School

It has come to my attention (once again)

That I haven't been writing enough my friends

Creativity used to flow

"I've GOT to blog this!" and to the computer I'd go

But recently, within the past few years

I've lost my passions and replaced them with fears

School this, school that, and start your dissertation this summer!

I'll I want to do is lay in the sun, and slumber

I want to think, share my ideas, and dream

I want to love and laugh, cook with cream

But all is lost in the therapy room

I take on others' emotions, and mine turn to doom

What if I quit, just stopped one day

What would I do to replace my time, my bills, who would pay?

There's got to be a way to marry the two

To feel like I am doing something for me, not you

I love people! That's why I got here at all

I didn't know I'd feel lost, questioning the long haul

I should be doing something else, more of an entertainer

But it's true, I am confused. God, I'm such a complainer

Untitled

Tango music has been playing in my mind all day

Its haunting rhythms burning poise and allure into my step

I can't shake the sounds and no one else can feel it. 

Laundry Service

I was at a friend's house recently, and he was dreading doing laundry. He confided to me that he just hates folding laundry, and I was entreated for my help. I was promised a back rub, at least I think that's how it went (in actuality my eyes were darting around the room looking for anything I could do to get a good rub) and the deal was sealed.  I stood up from my reclining position on the floor where I had lain, watching him unpack his bags from a ski trip that weekend, and stretched a good long stretch, then traipsed over to the pile of clothes on the bed. I reached for the first twisted shirt, pulled it towards me deftly turning it right side out and quickly folding it into a perfect square.  I commented, "I never fold laundry, I hang most of my things. I actually haven't folded laundry in a really long time..."

We weren't allowed any TV-watching during the week, but there was one little exception--if you were helping to fold laundry.  There were so many kids in the Harrison household that the laundry itself was quite a sight to behold.  We had an extremely organized system (hashtag: military family) that included blue and green square plastic buckets, their corners white where the plastic had slowly stretched over time.  The buckets would be filled with clothing in the master bedroom, then delivered to each child's room in turn.  We were expected to put the clothes away within a day or so, and then deposit the buckets back into the master bedroom, alongside the tall dresser by the door.  They stacked perfectly.
My mother would sort the clothes into darks, lights, and whites, and the warm articles of cloth would cascade onto the foot-end of the water bed in the master bedroom directly from the dryer, the weight causing ripples to erupt across the bed as well as the buckets on the head-end of the bed to knock into one another with a dull, plastic-y sound.  The buckets were lined up in an orderly fashion, sides touching sides, creating a big square of squares.  Mother and child would stand next to one another, the mother: folding, whistling, watching; the child: clutching a piece of clothing in their limp arms, staring at the TV, slack-jawed.  The whistling was constantly interrupted with a, "keep folding!" and the child's hands would search out a new piece of clothing to fold ever so slowly, all the while eyes glued to the precious shapes of light emitted from the television.

I prattled on for some time, and then my mind was deposited into a scene from many years ago:

My mother is in the master bedroom standing along side the bed, facing a TV that sits on a tall wooden dresser, flowers carved on its cupboards and drawers, across from her.  It's nighttime, but the windows are open, and the cool desert air softly floats into the room, the sound of crickets on its waves. My mother is whistling and watching Law & Order, she smiles as I enter, "want to help fold?"

Philosophy and Psychology

When everything means nothing and nothing means a lot

We find ourselves discussing, contemplating, analyzing "ought"

When seasons don't change and each days starts off bright

Happiness is expected, but we keep wishing for night

The water goes in and the salt is flushed out

Craving becomes habit and indulgence becomes route

Everything affects you, it's all bad, it's all wrong

Your brain is always changing, your lifetime is not long