I'm at college again

And all the little freshmen are roaming around in packs, looking for a good time and whatever else they've been told happens at college. This apparently includes such things as wearing very little clothing for the girls, and being loud and obnoxious. But hey, I was a freshman last year, and the first day pretty much sucked because I didn't know anyone. But this year, I went to Party at the Rock at New Life and I got to see a whole bunch of people who I really, really love and care about and who care about me. So that was great.

Also, there was inexplicably a section of sidewalk I walked past that a whole lot of glitter had been dumped on.

Something (relatively) Old, Something (relatively) New

You get two poems today! Yay! So one of them I wrote a long, long time ago, and one of them I wrote last week. Some of you will probably recognize the old one. And yes, the new one is incredibly mushy (I'm sorry. Actually, no, I'm not sorry at all (I may be a little shy, though)).

9/25/07

Paper flowers

The silver wishes are tarnished

The hopes are now flown away

The sincerity is gone forever

The roses fade to grey

All seem as paper flowers-left too long in rain

Of insubstantial worth and always full of pain

8/24/11

Scared/Elated (in Love)

My heart is pounding out of my chest

my dreams last night were full of death

but that is merely the symptom

of a much larger problem

(I think I'm in love)

I gave you the letter

and now I don't know if it was the better

thing to do, now there is a hole in my stomach

and I'm not hungry for anything except Nectarines

(I told you I'm in love)

I'm so scared of what your reaction will be

I'm so elated about the signals you're sending

I'm so scared that I've been imagining you and me

I'm so elated about the possibility that you and I

may be in love; might be in love (I hope we're in love)

We communicate in song lyrics

that my brother wrote and sang

and it's so sweet to be your friend

to share these memories and thoughts with you

(I love you)

The look in my eyes is full of such tenderness

when I think of you

and when I talk about you

I positively shine and glow

They say being in love makes you beautiful

well, they say correctly

If I'm beautiful now

it's because I love you

An Introduction

So basically, I decided that I wanted a more private blog to put the poetry I write on. Not that my other blog isn't private, but it's private with a condition; Anyone who facebook stalks me can find the link, so anyone who cares enough can find my blog. But I wanted to be a little more selective about the people who read this, so this blog is hidden on my profile, and I'm only going to give the address to a small group of people. One, because most of my poetry is bad. And two, because my writing is kind of a private thing for me, even though I want to share it with some people. And three, because a lot of the poetry that is going to appear here (especially in the near future) will be about stuff that I am currently feeling very happy about, but also a little shy. So this blog is going to function as an online mode of communication between me and my closest friends. I also might put things on here that aren't poetry, that I wouldn't be quite as explicit about on my other blog.

As for the name, this blog is going to contain a lot more of my poetry than Dancing Trees does, so Singing Trees was a good choice. And they make a good pair. Dancing and Singing.

For the first several weeks, I'm just going to be putting up poetry that I've written over the past four years or so, the stuff I like the most. But after that, it's all going to be live and pretty much rough draft stuff. To start with, it's going to be old school writing group stuff. Also, I've put up some of it already on Dancing Trees, but I'm going to repost it anyway.

Lastly, if you're reading this, congratulations on being part of Hannah's group of good friends! You warranted being given one of the limited links I'm sending out.

Hey Guys!

Did you know that God is pretty amazing?

Cause he is.

So... Life is pretty great right now.

Blogging and life

I'm reading my brother's old blog again. It always makes me feel like going and doing things, making stuff even if that stuff happens to be bad poetry. Yeah. Also, taking walks. I always forget how much solitary walks are nice. I mean, also, non-solitary walks, but solitary walks are fantastic for thinking about life and stuff. I think about life both too much and not enough. I spend to much time thinking about life when I'm sitting in a room by myself and vaguely unhappy, and not enough time thinking about life when I'm outside and the sun is shining and I don't have a plan except to enjoy the day and exercise them brain muscles. So that needs to change in the near future. And I'm packing all my stuff into boxes and bags and wondering "when did I get so much junk?" Maybe I'm just in one of those moods tonight.

I miss my big brother.

When did I let my life disappear into the ether of the internet?

I always forget that the way everyone around me sees the world is not the way I have to see the world.

Sometimes, I make things unnecessarily complicated.

I have too much on my mind, and not enough extra emotion or will power to deal with all of it. So I'm ignoring some of it. For example, I've been packing my stuff for two days, but I'm pretty much ignoring the fact that I'll be in Ann Arbor on Wednesday. So yeah, that's that. Packing has been going well, I guess. So far, a lot of the work has been doing laundry and folding clothes. And still, my mom keeps coming in with more clothes that she has just washed. I own a lot of clothing. It's actually kind of excessive, when I think about it. I'm also taking most of my crafting items to Ann Arbor, so that's exciting. I'll be able to work on projects at school. Yay! My fabric collection set off my allergies last night, cause it was all dusty, and I'm allergic to dust.

Oh, I do love talking to kids. They say the most interesting and entertaining things.

On another note, my stomach has been sensitive all week and the only thing that I want to eat is nectarines. My stomach is quite pleased with nectarines, and doesn't complain when I eat them. Funny thing. I really like nectarines that are not quite ripe. I love it when they are crisp, kind of like an apple. They're my favorite.

Lalalalala

I got plenty of sleep last night, which I needed to do. Also, I went to sleep at about 10, which is early for me. I just found out that two of my friends are dating, and it makes me so, so, so happy! I might (hint: I will) meet up with several friends today to hang out and listen to music at the car show. Things are looking pretty good right now

Memories of a cat (1999-2011)

The day we got the kittens, I was so excited. We were going to get two, one for Jesse and one for me. James wanted a dog, so he wasn't getting a cat. We piled into the Duke-mobile and drove out of town on a perfect summer day, the red paint and flames shining in the sun. We drove out into the country, to someone my dad knew from somewhere. I think it was one of his students, or something like that. We got there, and picked out our kittens, one called Mittens, a tortoiseshell colored girl, and a black boy kitten, who's original name I can't remember. We were so excited. The first day, we walked around with the kittens in pouches in our shirts, and all of the neighborhood kids came running to see the new pets. They climbed up onto our shoulders and fell off, delightful little bundles of fur.

Within a year, their personalities had developed. While they were siblings, the black one was far more adventurous and daring, while the tortoiseshell was cautious and timid. After waffling between several names for each of them, we began calling them the names my father called them, Fraidycat and Stuporman. They had some adventures the first year or so we owned them. Outdoor cats, they would get into tussles with other cats, and once they both went missing. Turned out they had been brought home by one of the neighborhood boys who was worried when he saw them playing by themselves in our yard, none of us in sight. Another time Stuporman went missing for several days, and we eventually found him eight blocks from the house. While they were very different, they loved each other and always ate together.

So when Fraidycat was killed by a speeding car, Stuporman mourned her for several days, always looking around for her when he started eating. But then he adjusted to being our only cat, and life went on. Over the next eight years, he had a variety of adventures and mannerisms. When he was a kitten and then when he was a mature cat, he hated being cuddled, but Fraidycat didn't mind it. So when Fraidycat died, I had no cuddly cat. Stuporman liked eating blueberry pie; I was shocked when I gave him a little bit and he lapped it up, asked for more. He liked to lie in the middle of the street, staring at nothing. This habit gave him his name, in fact; acting like he was in a stupor. This habit also ensured that he would get hit several times, but he always survived it, once even piercing his tongue with his own tooth.

As he got older and began to be an old cat, he got thinner and more ragged, but also happier to be around people. He would play with a bit of string, or a piece of a plant, and he was continually trying to sneak inside, in the hope of a nice nap in a comfy spot (once we even found him inside James's big bass drum) or a treat from the fridge - a bit of meat or cheese or a bowl of milk. He had the loudest purr when he was happily drinking milk, or when he was sleeping up in the garage attic and you came searching for a book and stayed to pet him. You were in his home then, the place where he could relax and be cuddly.

He liked to sleep all the time, like most cats. He had different spots around the yard that were his. Several places under the bushes, in the garage attic, in dad's Model A, next to the side door, and his newest spot by the stairs under all of the day lilies. He had the loudest meow, a croak that brought up thoughts of crows. He always made sure you knew that he was hungry.

He never wore a collar, always managing to maneuver out of it until we gave up putting it on him. He got stuck up in the trees a couple of times, chased up there by dogs, and would sit there, glowering down at the dog and everyone else with his baleful stare.

And as I became allergic to cats, he, in the way that cats have, decided he really like being near me, and would rub himself up against my leg. When I went off to school, he would sometimes lie in front of my door until someone noticed him and put him outside. And yet, when I came home for the weekend, he always acted like "You're home? So what? Feed me."

Occasionally when he was younger he would get stuck in the garage. When this happened, he would jump out the window into the dog's area and then get out that way. But sometimes the dog would get him. One time, my mom, responding to a ruckus in the night, found Buddy cornering the cat in the doghouse. They were sworn enemies, and Buddy would always go after the cat, continually forgetting that he always got hurt. Another time, mom found the cat in Buddy's mouth. Stuporman was hissing and scratching and Buddy had this confused look on his face. He didn't know what to do next. But as they both got older, began to get some white hairs they both mellowed. Stuporman began to go inside Buddy's gate when we went in to feed the dog before feeding him. He would watch my dad put water in the goldfish ponds, twenty feet from any exit. The dog and cat would occasionally be only two feet from each other and ignore each other. Other times when Buddy was feeling feisty, he would lunge toward the cat, who would leap up, howling and meowing. But they were friends.

:(

So my cat is sick. Like really sick. And it really sucks. Basically, he was accidentally poisoned, and now we're just waiting to see if he pulls through the next few days because there is no antidote. We're keeping him hydrated, and if he lasts the next two days he'll be all right. I keep swinging from thinking that he's going to pull through fine because he's a tough, ornery old cat, to thinking he's going to die because he's a tough, ornery old cat. This cat is insane enough to start purring even while lying there, barely able to move. So hopefully he'll be fine. He's survived worse.

The summer is ending

And by summer, I mean Leadership Training. LT closing ceremonies were this past weekend. And they were fantastic. God has done so much during the 7 weeks I've been here, and he did an incredible amount this weekend as well. This summer was not a stand alone thing. God hasn't finished really anything he's started with me this summer, and I'm super excited to see what he does with all of the things he has been doing in my life. I don't have the time or willpower to tell all of the things that have happened in my life this summer, but I wanted to share a little excerpt from my journal about what happened Friday night during worship.

I almost physically felt cool, refreshing water pouring over me, cleaning the muck and cloud of the past week. Then a pure white, long fluttering dress slid over my body. I was walking in a meadow, a perfect beautiful meadow in the summer, my long skirt whispering and playing over my bare feet as I walked through the soft grass and flowers. Next, I was leaning back into my Lover's embrace, his arms holding me close. And such peace, and love was there. Such pride and companionship, such joy and delight.

Then the scene changed. Same meadow, now I'm a little girl in a twirly white sundress, running with abandonment towards my Father. I jump into his arms and he lifts me high above his head, both of us laughing in delight. I have perfect trust in his strength; the possibility of him dropping me has never crossed my mind.