Tonight reaffirmed what I had already expected, that I have made myself a home, or that a new home has made me, that I have created a family that is not mine blood relations, but has the same spirit as the Welch's. I want to call Grandma and tell her, I am not sure why precisely but I just know that her reaction will be right. Sometimes, most of the time, I get caught up in our latest family politics and dramas and forget, but I know that my Grandma is the person who taught me to love fearlessly and fiercely and thus understands this fierce love the best, and helps me harness it, by letting me gush about the strange strength of my connections with people. I will miss it here like I miss everything else, but it is all about learning to love where you are more than where you are not, and I suspect my Madison love nest will be just as fulfilling and then Kenya and how much space is there inside my mind/heart to hold all of this and what is the connection between my mind/heart/stomach?

it feels like everyday is a good day here, even the bad ones. thanks pals, i'll miss you with an achey heart when the summer is through.

the waking lyfe

A series of strange dreams, strung together through out nights, all of them related, all of them sending me mixed messages. I suppose my wires are crossed and firing inconsistently. Today I woke up feeling a little hopeless, a feeling I have not had in a long time, I don't like what these dreams are playing at. I don't like surprises. There is some amount of anticipation, my expectations always get too high, I am always a little disappointed, even though I have no reason to be. That and even when I don't realize it, I plan things out in my head, even Savannah 2.0, who is less concerned with how things will turn out, plans things in her head, just little things, details, which are really the important things anyways. It is a bad habit, it is something that needs to be shaken out of me, so bring on the surprises (and bring on the stomach aches).
My heart is permanently in my stomach, I can not get the two separated for the life of me, so these dreams keep having me wake up earlier than I should, with a big hollow sort of stomach churn. Having just woken up from such dreams, I am not sure I am making sense, and convinced I am being more dramatic about the dreams than necessary, but there is a certain amount of drama or distance required when writing, and I can't seem to play the distance card today. I am always trying to make my dreams mean something. Last week Lauren and I were talking about dreams, and she told me she heard that dreams are just us playing out possibilities. Not necessarily desires, just the various options. We both liked this, mostly because it comforted us.
My hair is in a not, my eyes are pale, my breath has a faint taste of tobacco, and my body is just recovering from the routine morning weakness. I am nothing but I bundle of nerves, and that is all to apparent to me most days. When I was sick last time (not fatal, just something that happens when a young gal like myself decides to not take her medicine), I went to Mary (a message therapist, of sorts). My leg has a "shaking point" as I call it, but she said it was all the toxins releasing themselves from my body, and that the gurgling of my stomach proved it. She held my leg at it's shaking point for 20 minutes maybe more, waiting for the toxins to be released, waiting for the leg to stop shaking. At the time I just thought she was not very bright. Now I am starting to consider the possibility that my constant nervousness actually produces this many toxins. Regaurdless, I left the appointment feeling so nauseous I thought I was going to have to puke in the bushes. I made it to the car and slouched, low, as low as I could get without falling onto the car floor. I missed eating custard, my stomach was too angry with me. There is never a moral to my stories.
On the other note, I have been thinking a lot about my lovely nest of friends, my true niche (at least for this time and place). I know some good people who know some good people who know some good people, so basically, I know lots of good people. These kidz could not be nicer (well, they could be, but I wouldn't want them to be). I am learning to be comfortable around people, which is new and so much nicer than being constantly uncomfortable around people. Regardless, I, for once, feel like I really belong somewhere, and am not just always lurking on the edges of various social scenes. 19 was a success. I suspect 20 will be even better.

HERE

People (person) is putting ideas in my poor little head(rt). This weekend was wonderful, I am finally, slowly, losing my inhibitions, making friends. It's taken me a long time to find my comfort, but lately I've been nothing but comfortable. I am so much becoming myself, (or becoming my mother). I have never felt so good about things really. I could go for a few more days of "vacation", a few more days here, a few more days of mussing things up. I am not sad, I am just hungry. I am mixing up my lust and love wires, though I suspect that for someone like myself they are pretty similar. I am confused, but not worried, these things, all things have a way of working themselves out. I am not worried, but I am getting impatient.
I love Madison, but I love it here too. This group of people amazes me, they are friends in a way I have rarely found, and I am working to "earn my spot". Really though, the nicest bunch of kidz you could ask for.

It is nice, all of this. I hope it continues just this way really.

EL CAFE

I only mention this because I had a nightmare, probably up there on one of the worst nightmares I've ever had, and it was about losing El Cafe. No one fought for it except me. No one. I woke up crying, and fell asleep again, still crying. I know it can't stay the same forever, but I will fight as hard as I can to try. I am not sure how much of my own life I am willing to give up for it, but probably a lot of it, because it is the most important place. I know that these things will fall apart if the Carpe is not around. I know that we will all be a whole lot lonelier. It isn't just MY home. I don't want to just see these people once a year when we have an annual reunion party. This place has more love than I have ever seen, anywhere. I hope that it's love can keep it alive.

The Carpe is something I talk a lot about, I know. But it is MY place. It is my home, in the strongest sense of the word. People always says that it is not so much the place, but rather the people that make a home. I am not sure I can stand behind that fully. And with the Carpe, it is different. Even if it is the people that make the place, if we lost the place, we would lose a lot of the people. Most of the people. Places have spirits. I don't know why I believe that, but at the Carpe, when I am downstairs listening to folk music, watching the lights dance off the guitar I look around the room and I know that it is alive. Perhaps it is the love that is made when a group of people hears something perfect. The room just holds this love, keeps it. I don't want this to be taken away. I don't want someone to come in to my house, OUR house, unless they know it, unless they LOVE it the same way I love it. I have never found a place that so many people have felt so instantly at home.

I know that I have a strong sense of family largely because of the Welches. But the Carpe has passed on this sense of family too. It is in the way the Dennis sounds happy to hear my voice when I call from school, and Scott gives me a hug every time I come home. It is the way I feel as comfortable around these people as I do around my family, because they were there when I was growing up, not just intermittently but everyday. It is why I never know what to call them when talking about them away from home, employees? no. Friends? no. Aunt's and Uncles? It's the closest I can ever really get to, though it is not quite right either. It is the way I want everyone I love to come home to meet them, want to tell them, but never do "this is my family."

I wish that I could tell you everything. I know I can't, but I will try.
The warmth of the back room when everyone is listening to an amazing show. The people that come here really know how to love music, and you can feel it.
The regulars we are always acquiring. Because El Cafe is filled with so many lovely people, it often ends up taking in strays and making them a part of the family. I had always known this, but noticed it more when I went to school and would come home only to find there was some new person that everyone was talking about as if they'd been around forever.

I can't do it. I can't tell you right now, not without ruining it. This is something that takes time. But maybe there will be a book someday.


THIS IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

YOU ARE HOME

Her hands are small, shrunken really, by 90 years of living, the arthritis has bent her fingers this way and that, rendering them less useful than they were when she was younger, another reason she resents growing old. They are covered in those little brown spots that your skin seems to develop with age, they say they are sun spots, but maybe really they are age spots and if you were to count all of them you would know how many years a person has. She is holding a ball-point pen with these flimsy fingers, doing the Saturday Stumper. [It is hot with the fire of love and hate, a constant clash that someone started a long time ago but no one has been able to end. It big and confusing and perfect, but most importantly it is full of hope, real, true hope, a way of living really.] "you are home." (both of you) "hmm?" she asks, slightly frustrated that her ears have failed you once again. "Nothing Grandma." And I scoot to the end of the couch and try to help her with the puzzle.

I wrote this during class yesterday, and I'd like to do more with it, and I keep forgetting to put aside time to write and then I get all sleepy and unmotivated.

I've been feeling so zen lately, minus a few less-than-zen incidents here and there, and I keep saying over-generalizing hippiesque statements about life and the world, it is strange, but i think i like it.

I will write more soon, maybe tomorrow be on the look outs for SADNESS DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE because it is the truth, and I want to do it justice.