if places were people no. 5

i never thought i'd see you as a person,

except now that i found you it makes sense:

you became the place we hated.

you formed as i slept,

so i woke to your enormous cancerous thought processes

and your hopeless breath

that blows as mercilessly as the wind.

i woke to you being a mountain,

and i dangled off one of your cliffs.

you rise steeply

from the endless plain floor.

not sunshine falling from heaven,

but rock wishing to rule above grass,

tough as meat and

those shard-like word ledges threaten from miles away

sharp collarbones and jawline and thin thighs

my intention was to never climb your type,

but i'm the only one close enough to try.

now, when you aren't slicing with your obsidian edges,

you're mixing in dirt, breeding infection, reveling in the primal.

hungry green eyes.

you're wild, snarling,

edging away at every flower,

the ones that do bloom are tiny and dull and only last a week or two,

and then your thin breath suffocates them.

seeds only last so long underneath your snow.

your endless winter,

and the longer i spend in you the more i realize

why no one lives

here anymore

your hands used to hold mine and now they

hold me in the sunshine, mocking, until my skin burns.

your skin is dirty and rough and darkening with every day spent so close to the sun

your eyes used to make my own light up,

and now i shiver away at your glance,

afraid of what it might mean.

every car going in the opposite direction seems to call my name,

and i want to go with, but

from where i sit i can see the gravestone that holds childhood memories

and if you will not guard in then

i will

although i think even the memories have crawled out and left

i don't think you even know where the graveyard is,

though it continually fills with your victims,

and you know it not.

you only know when i'm in the area,

your arrows made of steel and the knowledge of my weaknesses

seek out not my heart, but the

arteries pumping towards it.

you aim for my limbs, not

my organs.

you look for targets to maim,

not to kill.

you would hate to be a killer.

you would hate to be anything horrid,

anything blatantly wrong.

but you don't mind the label of desert.

or rock of a mountain.

you don't mind the fact that people climb you to die, not to live.

or that they only come visit you when you smile,

not when you snow your black snow, dark thoughts.

you don't mind that everyone calls you no-mans-land,

no-woman's-land

the forbidden and hated and avoided land.

you say you don't mind, anyway.

but it must be lonely.

it must be quiet.

and i know how you loved the music in the city squares.

how you loved it when people smiled at you

and i know it because you loved it before you changed,

and you say it's an act but i will be honest

i do not believe those words of yours.

i try to bring it to you, the music,

but it isn't the same without the crowds of dancers

and anyway,

your shale mountainsides cut my feet when i dance for you.

it must be trying,

having everyone hate the way flowers grow rarely

so i try to plant a garden,

but your winter comes to soon

for sprouts to push out of the ground.

it must be

so

terribly

hard

to be a mountain in a country

where everything dies.

and yet here i am,

sitting with you,

because so far i have always been a mountain person

and i am starting to think that i have changed,

and that maybe the ocean is more of my style

except i don't want to leave you.

not like this,

not when you've run out of victims so you're turning into one yourself.

not when i can see the structure of the mountain,

and the covering is starting to fall.

the skin is starting to sag and stretch and

you're getting thinner.

i don't want to leave that grave of childhood

the snows came early this year,

i think you crave the ice water more and more.

there was one day this winter when i couldn't make it to the grave.

when i went the next day,

your forced laugh of a wind had felled a tree

breaking the headstone.

i think i will catch one of those cars now,

because who knows when the snows will melt.

i think i will go to the ocean

to see if less thin air will bring clarity of mind.

i think space

between us will make your

visible ribs seem less knife-like.

maybe space will make me miss you.

maybe i will like the thin air when i come back.

maybe the flowers will grow more, if i'm not watching them.

maybe you will have a bouquet for me when i come back.

maybe you will not be so hated when i come back.

maybe it will be better

when i come back.

if i come back.

you stabbed me from behind, when

i turned to walk away today.

an ice shard through my thigh

so that when i do walk, it will be painful.

i can still walk.

but i don't know

when i will come back.

if

i will come back.

too many scars from your arrowheads will

make it harder to climb your

unscalable peak

if i come back.

YO ALL!!! i'm still alive. (seriously i keep saying that. why. maybe because i have multiple not-so-near-death  experiences so i SHOULD be dead.) (i was busy.) (and there was a lack of coffee.) (don't ask.)

SO YEAH. there's another super-downer for you. in my defense i TRIED to find something uplifting. what can i say. i listen to too much chopin to be an expressively happy person. OH WELL. 

xoxo

who's who

Hi guys. This one's kind of...well...ugly. Its one of those things where you feel something deeply, and in this case its a struggle between being good, and light, and helpful, and sweet, or giving into my flesh and being the nasty, selfish, hard, broken person that would be so much easier to be. Both people can feel like shells, like masks, but other days they can feel like the most natural thing in the world, second skins, each one separate...or maybe not. Sometimes they meld and its a mess. How do i choose between the two? How do i make them separate? How do i stay in one character so that my mind doesn't go crazy from the back and forth?

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

you're so sweet.
what an angel.
thanks for your help.

your mother taught you well.
what a wonderful friend.
what a wonderful person.
you always have a smile on your face.

thanks for listening.
thanks for being you.


why can't you be more like her.
why can't you try harder.
why did you do that?
why are you so mean?

oh, i'm sorry.
you don't seem to be doing well.
you should really see someone for this.


that's so nice of you!
hmm, (with a smile,) thanks so much!
(i only do it so i can sleep at night.)

you're a good freind too (although you don't really know me. you don't know anything about me.)
i'm only this way because of Him.
its been a good day.
(but get me out of here. i need food and sleep and quiet.)

you needed someone to listen...could i do anything else? (like i said...so i can sleep at night.)
i'm the only one who could be me. and i'm not good at being anyone else.


because i'm not perfect.
because i can't. i'm stuck.
i don't know.
i don't know. i wasn't thinking.

don't be. its life.
i'm fine. there's nothing to do.
i'm fine. i'm fine.
i know. i am.
i don't need to. i don't want to.
i'm fine.

somehow, we're both fine. but we're not. 

somehow, we're both acting, and we suck at it. 

somehow, someday. some way.

things will change. 

but i don't see it. 

it's over three or four horizons, around 

five or six bends, over

a mountain range or two.

i'd say that reality is a long ways away.

except that we're in it. 

in it, and drowning. 

two bodies that should really be one 

and i'm thinking that i'll always be cut in half

and no one will see it except me.

because i'm the one that has to leave half of me behind every day.

audience

:my back is turned: i know they stare: my back, head, bum, the way i walk:

the
high-
heeled
shoes         that
aren't             there


no shoes at all. just
the way my toes
point together a little
bit because i'm nervous.
                                                  i know they're waiting
                                                  but i'm not sure                                                            
                                                  they're excited i
                                                  think they're waiting
                                                                                                  to rip me to shreds.
                                                                                                  i know i have to,
                                                                                                  i have prep-ed
                                                                                                  rehearsed over
and over: over until i
know it better than i
know what i ate for
breakfast this morning
                                                   better than i know myself
                                                   my best friend, and my
                                                   bedroom ceiling.
                                                   climb the stage,


                                                                     
                                    i
                                K   l
                             &        i
                           t             m  
                         s                  a
                      e                       n
                   r                             j
               e                                  a
            v                                       r
  it is E                                           o   and the steps to


St. Paul's Cathedral, 259
The Eiffel Tower, 1710
the Norweigan Stairway
to Heaven, 4444. the steps
to the stage. and i am
                                                        terrified. of what they might
                                                        think and what they might say
                                                        and what they will do
                                                        once i am finished.
                                                                                                                 but i climb and wait one
                                                                                                                 eternity-long-moment
                                                                                                                 and think what WILL
                                                                                                                 they say one last time

:i turn: shoe-less: prepared: i: am: terrified: i smile: say my name: think: screw them: one last time:

                                                                                                                                                              and then i succeed. i win.

                                                                                                                                                                     i conquer. the enemy, 

                                                                                                                                                                         opponent, opposite.

                                                                                                                                                                                  is me. not them.

                                                                                                         when i do turn around
                                                                                                                   there's only one
                                                                                                        person in the audience
                                                                                                    that will actually critique.
                                                   and that person
                                        has just left the stage.
                                   
---
#iwrotethisforeveragoanditreallyneededtobeposted
#stillnotdead
#homeworkiskillinmetho
#loveyall
#thinkingofdoingaseriousseries?
#vlogstyle
#whichmeanstherehastobesomesarcasm
#yay

figure it out /// also i'm not dead yet

I'm sitting here trying figure out how it all works.
How i can remember details from my first day here,
like when the iron crackled, it sounded like tires on a dirt road
and then from my fourth week here when we had to drive 20 minutes to find a dirt road
How 'normal' constitutes 97%, but we learn about the non-normal 3% 50% of the time
How i can be so addicted to coffee, and yet i still don't drink it as much as i used to
How twins can share nutrients and still not get equal amounts
How un-matching furniture reminds me of home
How greasy hair and no makeup don't matter anymore because homework dictates all
And 2 am is familiar
And 11 pm is early
And i wear a watch now because i have to be able to take a pulse
And when i eat food that looks like everyone else's they get confused because they think i'm eating what they're eating and half the time i am its just that its my gluten free version, not normal stuff, and that makes them confused they don't get that i'm not gonna change
And how can i be more able to relate to these people even when i
have nothing in common with them
And how the last 4 years of my life were labeled 'waiting'
But 'waiting' is an understatement
That was boot camp
That was training
That was testing and working and patience and art and writing and figuring out pathways and equations that i could lay over situations so i could relate
And how other people didn't get that
And how people don't know that other people think I'm intimidating because i tried really hard on those first few days to be 'out there' and 'open' and 'relatable' because
I knew that if i didn't that would be awk-
ward

But what would have happened if i hadn't figured out step 1
That preparation
Im sitting here trying to figure it out
How to be autonomous
How to be me
And yet how to hollow myself out for more information and more homework and more time
How far can i stretch
And yet how full can i get of God
Because he's here
He's with me
And he is quite possibly the most tangible when I open one of my textbooks and see a photo
Of a condition
That a baby or mother can get
And lets face it
I wonder when the nightmares will hit of those photographs
And i wonder whether this was planned
Or whether this was result of falling
And I wonder if God cries when he sees this

And i think of all the good this will do
All this current preparation
The info being stocked away in my brain,
To pin together as more comes in.
I think of those far-off places with
Bad outcomes of birth and life and death and
How there is such hatred, and such sorrow
And what good it will do

And others say
'That place scares me'
And i'm right there with them
But i see that complication,
And those definitely-not-anatomical figures crossing the surface of the world,
And i see the mountains that make mine seem like pebbles next to a boulder
And the oceans that make the lake seem like a raindrop next to a fountain
And i see God and how he gave us the chance to be pain free

but how that
didn't
happen

I see those places and let me tell you
They scare me too

But i want to help
The pain
Because it doesn't stop at my world
It doesn't stop at the edge of my sight
And my world is a fraction of a fraction of a sliver
Of the whole world

And i know that.

And though i may not be able to take the pain away
I can give them hope of eventually being pain free
And the immediate choice of joy
And when i see that option
It seems gigantically more helpful than
Not doing anything at all

So scared or not
Figured out or not
Friends or not
Or financially supported or not
Or not
Or yes
Then yes.
I've figured that out.

WHOOOOOOO OKEEAY. I'm not dead.
And that is a terrible rough draft. BUT I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING.
Mostly this is just me spouting bc i have no time and homework is already glaring at me but
NEWS: i got twitter. Although in my defense i am a student midwife so sometimes i use body words that may be considered offensive to some people but they're just part of my profession so basically just be warned. Also in my defense i'm pretty hilarious so #bonus. (First post, my roommates and I created a fictional roommate that we are gonna try to sell to pay for our schooling....is that even legal?) Follow me @roommateforsale (yes that is my twitter name thingy. It was late and i was unimaginative.)

ALSO NEWS:
remember that time that i told you that i didn't have anything past December figured out.
That's still a thing.
And December (or January...whatever) is rapidly approaching. SO PRAYER WOULD BE EPICALLY APPRECIATED. BC I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. SO YEAH.

AND NEWS #3: im gonna do a world dump soon. (Me + moving + school + new place + independence = new experiences that i desperately need to write about and a lot of terribly grainy iphone photos.)
I've been at midwifery school for 4 weeks and i have learned so much....and theres 8 weeks left.....and there is so much cool stuff here but the lack of both mountains and ocean makes it kinda lame. I mean cool, but no.

YA'LL ARE AMAZING. Is anyone even still reading this? I'm so confused........at what point to blogs just automatically get erased from the internet bc their authors are negligent students who don't have time to blog anymore. (#CRY)

Love ya'll....hang in there.
Life may not always be good, but that doesn't mean there isn't beautiful bits along the way.

Xoxo
Sami

P.s. I am terribly sorry for the quality of this post. The grammar is awful and i'm probably going to go back over this in about three weeks and want to kill myself for even considering posting it. 

if places were people no. 4

   

your eyes are blue. 

as blue as the rest of you, 

ranting and raging and throwing your wave arms up in the air with every 

gust of teasing wind. 

you told me once

green was your favorite color.

i doubt it.

it's not just one blue. 

but layers. 

almost black-blue, like sleeping heavens 

and then the cerulean lighter Caribbean pools,

streaked with the almost white of ripped denim and 

the deceptive brownish of sea foam. 

your waves are uneven, 

and they ripple across the surface of the sand like your skin

ripples across you 

the dips and curves making tide pools 

for crabs and sea anemones to take refuge. 

most people don't like you 

"too chilly. can't swim there. 

and there's too much wind and rain."

i like you. that's my kind 

of weather - messy and dirty and sad and yet simple

with only sand and water to get in the way of itself - the way you let the mist 

lounge about, 

sauntering from tree to tree, street to street,

storefront to storefront,

enveloping, muffling the distant song of water's heartbeat,

and it makes my jacket and jeans damp with its heaviness.  

when i walk down to your shore you throw wind at me

thinking i'll walk back  to the house for warmer shoes and some hot chocolate. 

but that's the thing

you don't know me. 

i'm a mountain girl. 

mountain girls climb mountains just to find wind that carries new scent.

i face that wind, 

and i let the water make my feet go numb,

it's iciness is threatening but

i'm not afraid of you. 

beach length waves shove against each other, 

racing to reach my ankles

a bet against time

a wager for the pretty lady. 

i think of what the jovial nature hides - 

harshness and honesty. 

chasms. 

doldrums. 

hurricanes. 

shelter to the water beasts

raging against the coasts. 

the way you never stop - 

you're a constant of wave, water, depth, shallows, 

somehow you cover every aspect and the sheer 

immensity makes me feel small. 

i think of

the way man has wanted to tame you

and yet you have remained just as dangerous as before 

they tied some sticks together and tried

to cross you. 

"we'll win the pretty lady,

pretty lady come home in our tub"

but you pulled them down in maelstrom and reef 

sent an extra breath of wind to make the waves psychotic

carved graves out of the feasting table

that sharks so often watch.

and yet how like man you are, 

those long waves equalling strong shoulders, 

bringing the wind and blocking it at the same time, 

gritty hands pulling at my feet, digging sand around,

kissing locks of my hair, mingling my blonde strands with your sandy ones,

light and bleached from salt and sun

and then kissing my lips with

your salty ones. scratching

my check with the bit of stubble, grit at the top of 

your cheekbone, sharp.

i can't tell if it's a scar that's yet to heal from 

the tiff with that shark last week

or if it's because you never shave when 

you're supposed to. 

you leave gifts on the shoreline:

seaweed, driftwood, pretty stones and shells 

and even the occasional sea star or jelly fish. 

some days you bring me sea foam in your hands, but 

it spills over, all over the bland sand and makes me laugh 

when it flies in your face. 

the perpetual lullaby, 

murmuring sweet things in a language i do not understand,

shhshh shhshh,

others say be careful. 

that you're dangerous. 

that i shouldn't swim too deep. 

you'll pull me away from them. 

i think of our differences. 

me climbing heights and you diving depths. 

both breathing oxygen but yours is in water and mine is in air

and i imagine your sandy hands pulling at my feet again, 

deeper, love, deeper, let me show you something beautiful. 

and how you love to tease the seagulls. 

i think of how you send me sunsets and 

i think of the way i found the mountain looking at the stream instead of at me

and i think of how i'm tired of air, 

and i'm tired of the brown and green of mountains and the mocking 

humhumhum

of the wind in the ponderosas 

you send a salty kiss my way 

and pull me deeper beneath your waves and i can see the 

sand dollar cities and 

a wall of sea stars and 

families of fish 

and a shark says hello

and how the water feels different in my lungs and 

how it feels different in my hair,

and I see the danger 

and I see your anger

but I also see the way you smile 

at me and i think i like your little gifts and the shades

of blue in your eyes. 

i think i like your lullaby 

and your allure

and the way you send me winds filled with new smells 

i like the way your hands are not big enough to hold the sea foam and how

you're wild, but you're mine. 

if places were people no.3

I thought you were a shortcut.

You took us the long way 'round.
With stops at every station.
Pauses after every sentence.

We never went
faster than
50 miles an hour.

26 hours is a long time to sit and stare
memorize each other's faces, skin lit up by
dimness of walkway lights, reflecting off the scratched, plastic-y windows.

Maniacal laughing clatter of steel wheel against steel track
annoying complaint of rubber window lining against foggy glass to the outside
Almost distant stubborn stomach grumble of the machine taking us to somewhere

You are that in-between place
That interpretation
That 'please wait while document loads' symbol.

You will always come back
But sometimes you will sleep
And Destination will take your place

Sometimes you will go on holiday
And Preparation will visit
To get us ready for you again.

Sometimes your face will change.
You'll grow a beard, or something else ridiculous will happen,
Like the time your eyes changed colors.
And sometimes I will need to memorize that face
Over again.
Take the journey twice.

Sometimes you don't make sense.
And yet you are almost constant and consistent
But you are nothing twice
You are never the same
You are In-between

We had better get used to it because
Consistent is different than static
And change is different from chaos

And sometimes you will drive the train backwards
And north will be west
And east will be south.

And I don't mind.
I love you very much, more than I thought I would,
Because I thought you were a shortcut, someone
I could pass by without a second glance
And you very much weren't.

Which is to say
I like your scenic routes better.

In-between is nice.
Even though it is the definition of patience
and You never had a dictionary.

Which is to say
I thought you were a shortcut
And you showed me the world
And stole my calendar
And my time
And my heart
And now,
I live for the limbo
The in-between
The changing
The unexpected hairpin curve that says
Pay attention.
You don't have time for second glances.
You may not come this way again.

(WHAAAAATTTT. Yeah. Hi. I'm not dead or anything I just haven't posted in FOREVER. Sorry 'bout that. But anyway, if you're interested, the idea for this one was from the train trip we took last October. Fun stuff. LOVE Y'ALL. I'm going to post again soon so stay tuned.)

(ANOTHER NOTE BECAUSE I FORGET THINGS: remember last year when i did that blogtober series? I NEVER DID DAY 18 (the horror) but it was supposed to be "This week I..." and really, that week before the 18th i had gone on a train trip, which is what this post was based on. basically: i finally finished blogtober and its july. isn't that great?)

writing (because i need it) 4.21.16

some days you feel like you have to scream.
and since you're at
________________ *insert public place where you
are expected to behave like an adult*  you can't.

so you scream in other ways.
you wear the crazy dress and the flats.
who cares?

you text your grand total of TWO friends,
and you tell them all your wierdest jokes again
and you laugh hysterically in your head, mostly at yourself
but also...well yes, just at yourself, and you feel a little mad
the losing-your-mind kind of mad
when you do it.

and you use
BIG
EXPRESSIVE
GESTURES
AND ENTIRELY TOO MUCH capslock.

you be wierd.

you mentally scream and you write it out
you sing and dance along to songs in your head
intermittent stops to go "wow that is such a good song"
and you daydream  to get away
and you wonder how far you could get on what's left
of the gas in the tank of your car

you write out the crazy
fill white space with typed black

eat lunch somberly
greet clients quietly
with perfect smile
practiced phrases

still mentally yelling incoherently; still screaming like a banshee
and you wonder how people would react if they had mind readers
and they could watch yours

you wonder what they would say

would they be like:
wow she never stops.

no seriously. make the screaming stop.

or more like
why on earth does she think about this? i thought she was above that.

or maybe
yep, it really is time to put her in a mental institution. 

the good thing is they don't have a reading-your-mind machine yet
and so i'm safe
from everything except my own weirdness
and my mental noise
and there's nothing to stop me
so i keep on going.

i write out the crazy.
it just keeps coming and coming
and i know i sound incredibly calm about the whole
ordeal but
i'm not
its too noisy to be anything but
indifferent.
an adult in a room of three-year-olds on caffeine.
that's what its like.

it will die down, die out,
like cotton from the cottonwoods only come around once a year
the puff balls, snow of the summer, they blow away
eventually.
just not right now.
and probably not tomorrow.

not until i write it out.

i'll go on a binge of taking in:
art and music
poetry
nature
soaking in rays of sunshine
and warm summer breezes and
digging my feet into garden dirt
and then washing them in the muddy water of the pond
and i will end up with brown skin criss-crossed with tan lines and a clear mind

after i write out the crazy.

but not until i have drowned the scream in the sound of everything else
flushing it, taking in, and writing out all of it, good and bad
waiting until it quiets like a babe who needs rock music in the car to silence the wails.
blurring like sharp pictures of summertime
because you can only take the blur
not the sharp because the sharp is too specific.

and you feel like those photos because you know
what the picture looks like behind the blur.
specific. colorful. purposeful.
the prints are there, confident and mocking.
you're the picture, all those. the purpose radiating from you,
like you could lead it into battle and win, every time.
but you can't take it. and neither can anyone else,
so you blur.
you blur the pictures.
you blur yourself.
dulling it like alcohol on the senses,
like the stuff they use to numb your teeth at the dentist
like the 'snow' that used to show up on tv screens when you hit the wrong channel.

write out the crazy, the noise
the screaming.
don't blur it, dull it.
use the pointy end of your pencil, the
click of your fingernails on the keyboard.
use the sharp to dig out the stubborn rocks.
push out the crazy so it don't build up.

(ON A SIDE NOTE: SPEAKING OF INTERNAL DEMONS...CHECK OUT KATE'S POST. IT'S AWESOME. )

writing (because I need it) 2.16.16

they say to write until you can't NOT write
they say to write until it hurts when you don't
until you write better than you talk, think, and see
how?

describe what a jellyfish looks like to a blind person

what does music sound like, to the deaf?

how does heat feel to one who has lost the nerve endings in their fingers?

give a voice to someone who has never said a word

make ice cream for someone who has only ever eaten cake

give it the soul and sixth sense that everyone has

take life and offer it to the dying
lend vision and sound
share some taste buds

that's what writing is

how do i breathe? 
how do i see, taste
how do i feel and touch
what is the meaning of emotion?

my voice is my own language
some sentences come out like i've pasted them into google translate
the basic meaning comes through
but some words just aren't the same.

some languages have words that English doesn't
some languages don't translate into mine and vice versa

komorebi - sunlight filtered through leaves
meraki - to leave a piece of yourself in your work
hanyuaku - to walk on tiptoes across hot sand
bimyou - "meh", "not bad"

and i feel that when i write
talk and create people see part of it
but they also see the underneath description that says
Sami-ese, number of  speakers: 1
all they understand is the
butchered explanation of what i'm really trying to say
one that doesn't even come close

UNTRANSLATABLE
LITERAL
"ALMOST"

but not quite

write it anyway
write it because it hurts.
write it because if you don't it might write itself
on the walls of your brain in big black
bold letters that will never ever ever come off.

write so that it does not become permanent
toska: unexplained spiritual anguish

write to get it out

write to keep clean.

if places were people. no. 2

Just allow me this moment to say that I LOVE THESE PICTURES THAT I TOOK and also a warning to prep yourself for another rather sad people/places analogy/rant. #sorrynotsorry 

our lane. as in, yours and mine.

open and honest, the towering brown rabbit of a house nested against a row of ponderosas,

three of them a three-headed dog.

if you follow where the driveway points, an arm into the wilderness

you end up in the stream-bottom, hidden heart of the wood, 

wandering water trickling down from a lake 30 miles away, 30 years up the canyon.

you end up in an aspen grove with a random pond 

in the middle where we don’t ice skate in the winter

because we don’t know if it freezes and none of us are brave enough to find out.

none of us want to be eaten by water.

you have to walk down a hill to get there. 

it’s the same hill we go sledding on in winter, dangerous, 

like an angry boyfriend, but alluring in the same way. 

you have to take a 6-foot sidestep to avoid the sister of a bush with inch-long thorns.

around all this are the fatherly fields, that take away the view of the highway and when you lean

down it looks like the grass stems have been dipped in gold-making water, 

except the water is the sky and it's blue as eyes, blue as ice.

and even beyond that are the step-mother mountains, protective, leaning in to eavesdrop your secrets,

passing them on to the wild animals that snicker in the night. 

the mountains where snow shows up in september 

and doesn’t leave until june 

the very heart of them is ice and 

you know that if you started walking through them, 

if you tried to leave, you’d never reach the other side.

and if you look at where the mountains start and 

follow the pointed ears and the pointed hair 

up up up up and over 

until you reach the pointed ears and pointed hair 
on the other side with a playpen for the sun and moon and stars in between, 

where geese dip their wings in the spring and fall
clouds parade and wander and fight 

you swear that if you look hard enough the blue of the sky turns into the blue of the sea

the whispers of the wind gossips that live in the trees turn into 

lullabies of sea goddesses and gold grass turns to gold sand 

but either way you know that if you started walking through the mountains or you started flying

through the sky or the sea 

either way you know that you won’t make it out the other side.

and you know that if you did, if you did start walking or flying, and you changed your mind 

half-way, and you started walking back, 

the damage would be done. 

your stepmother would be broken and old, and your father wouldn’t be gold grass covered anymore,

he would be simply dirt and the few remnants of brown field, 

and the sister thorn bush would be gone and the boyfriend would be married to the stream 

and let’s face it:          if you leave now it will never be the same.

tuesday morning

and some days you can't really do much except make a thing on canva and hope for the best. 

happy tuesday! :) (it feels like a monday though....)

xoxo

Sami 

music dances

(credit for this glorious peice of art goes to Kelaiah Horat...check out her stuff here.)

i am convinced that music is

wispy fragrant noise

slipping in through the minds door-lock

to dance with the soul

sometimes huddled in a grieving sway

sometimes wrapped in white and crowned with flowers pirouetting around our hearts

sometimes tempting us into a jig

and if we truly love the music

then nothing we do

can stop the dance

that is music

its irresistible tide.

----------

here's to dancing through 2016. enjoy it, people.

All the Light We Cannot See (book review #6)

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

GOOD: STOP EVERYTHING AND GO READ THIS BOOK. seriously guys, it was amazing. it is now the best stand-alone book i have ever read. like, gaaaaahhhh.... *flails* *falls over* *cries silently* *lays still* *takes a deep breath* GAAAAAHHH. Here's why: 
a) this book is written from two different view points. you may have heard me rant about the difficulty of this. Doerr NAILS this. i've never read better. Werner is quiet and thoughtful, a constant battleground for good and evil. Marie-Laure is a forest clearing filled with forget-me-nots and daisies, always seeing the good even though her eyes don't let in the light.
b) description: one character is blind, the other is not. seriously, the chapters switch like that. Marie goes by smell, taste, touch, and hearing. She goes by memory, she goes by instinct. she is a sponge for knowledge and her chapters in the book are steeped in it. she is also obsessed with 3-D maps (you'll get that later) and the ocean. Werner, on the other hand, sees everything. His eyes are the sponges, flitting about, pulling in information and analyzing not only the facts but the feelings, the emotions, wondering why at every opportunity. and his chapters. oh golly. his chapters make me cry. and he loves radios. seriously, this kid makes. my. world. although he kinda breaks my heart at the same time.

BAD: there's some language. there's also some really heavy real life stuff. which is difficult to swallow sometimes. one girl gets raped. one character is willing to blow up half of Europe (oh wait, that was Hitler. okay, blowing up the continent would be an exaggeration but you get my point) in order to heal himself. characters are blown up, shot down, impaled, frozen by water in the middle of the night, and some are taken to prison camps. you know what? i fully expected all of that. this is a book written in the middle of the Second World War. There were bad things happening then. a book that doesn't detail these would be lacking historical accuracy and depth. 

DIFFICULTY: the undaunted book queen in me says not hard at all. i mean yeah the book was more than an inch thick BUT HEY who's counting? however, the tiny little girl in me disagrees. for it was indeed a difficult book to read considering the fact that there would be one sentence describing how the field was full of daisies and you could hear a cow's bell in the distance and you could smell the sea and life was normal, and the next sentence would be talking about how the character hadn't eaten in three days and they were on the brink of wishing for death. this wasn't an easy book to read as far as content goes. definitely not for the weak of heart. 

1-10 SCORE: 10. All the way. This book won 6 awards. and it won 6 awards for a reason. it will break your heart and then heal it again. for me, it is forever on my favorites shelf. 
let me put it this way: i normally don't buy books. normally i just borrow them from the library. 
i bought this book. 

OVERVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See is intense, a web of stories and people and facts and myth and time that weave together into one grand climax and leaves you wondering what the purpose of life is. It makes you wonder how you are living today. It makes you think about what you notice, what you give into the world. It changed the way i think. i don't see bad things anymore. i see empty voids capable of good or bad, equally equipped and with equal opportunity to take over that space. at one point in the story Werner is trapped in a basement, listening to a radio. there's absolutely no light, and yet he doesn't feel scared, because the voice that is transmitting over the radio carries light with it. it lights Werner's soul. this scene left me wondering if physical light is not the most important. maybe it is the light that's felt, and heard, the kind that changes our hearts, i think that's what matters. and oh how much there is of it, all the light we cannot see. 

that's what i got out of it.