[Caelum's Scrapbook] Use Your Words.

[Caelum]

This was plastered on my screen this morning by someone who was attempting to write with fifty people in their face asking them about it. I felt her pain and imagine some of you might as well. I'll just leave this here for you.

[Caelum]

May the fourth be with you.

[Trident]

And also with you.

[Tabarnac]

Let us give thanks to the Tabarnac. (response) It is right to give thanks and praise.

[Caelum]

Revenge of the fifth!

[Paragon]

Hahahaha, I love you Katie!

[Faroul]

Hey Katie!

I saw this on a blog this morning and went "whoa, Toli."



Pre-Hai, methinks?

[Caelum]

Oh, wow. Cool! Thanks, Faroul. That's definitely a pre-Hai Toli. There's a ton of images for the model I use for him, but I always have a hard time finding ones that aren't, like, clearly modern. Or ones that just don't fit the image of him in my mind exactly as, yeah, no model is ever dead on to what I see in my mind. Of course, if my shopping skills weren't abysmal, this probably wouldn't be so big a deal.

[Caelum]

A note on lions. I am writing these poems From inside a lion, And it's rather dark in here. So please excuse the handwriting Which may not be too clear. But this afternoon by the lion's cage I'm afraid I got too near. And I'm writing these lines From inside a lion, And it's rather dark in here. - S. Silverstein. Last night an old and amazing friend was over at my house. While we were talking, she picked up one of my Shel Silverstein books from a shelf and started flipping through it. We spent the next hour or so picking out our old favorites and finding our new favorites from my collection. We read a few out loud to each other and laughed at giraffe poem and boggled over the homework machine illustration. Earlier in the evening we had walked through the two spare rooms in my house, looking at the odd collection of furniture and discussing what to do with these rooms and how to do it. I am one of those people who has no talent for interior design. I can look at a finished room and tell you exactly what I like and don’t like about it and maybe even give suggestions; but (and my husband finds it truly ironic) despite my over action imagination, I am incapable of visualizing the best end products for rooms as well as how to get them there. Fortunately, this friend not only possesses a talent at interior design, but she also adores doing it and is incredibly pleased to have a few rooms in my house to take charge of. One of these rooms I want to keep as a dedicated guest room and the other I want to be “an office that happens to have a bed in it for when we have multiple overnight guests”. Notably, we have overnight guests with fair regularity. My friend and I discussed options and budget, et cetera and then retired to the beautiful distraction of Shel Silverstein. After I read Silverstein’s “It’s Dark in Here” as quoted above, I sat silent for a while. My friend, picking up on my mood, asked me if everything was okay. I pointed to the poem on the page and said with sudden, troubled breath, “This is how I feel. This, right here, is how I’ve been feeling and I don’t know how to fix me.” Then I started crying. I am not really a crier. My friend hugged me because she is awesome and that is what awesome friends do when you start crying. She was already aware of the situations I have been dealing with these past months so knew, on surface, why I was stressed and upset. The piece here that illuminates how special she is happened when, before anything further was spoken, she pulled back, picked her design notebook off the table and began revising her notes. “So, Kate,” she said. “I’m thinking that maybe instead of what we were talking about with the curtains and that headboard, we should do something…” Scribble, scratch, scribble. “A little.. Hrm. A little like this instead.” She flipped the notebook around and on it was my writing desk by the window overlooking the magnolia tree and a push pin board for all of my postcards and torn scraps of notes and a dry erase board that we’re going to frame and decorate and a scribble that she explained to me represented the colored paint pens we are going to use to write my favorites lines in hidden little places on the walls and the bed was turned into a lounge with plenty of plush pillows to throw and she cleared the space in front of the closet so I’d have room to pace and she thought maybe I could talk my father into letting me blow up some of his awesome photographs to put on the walls and.. And it was like I was looking at the key to the lock on the lion’s cage. I have been writing, but like in the poem I feel as if my handwriting has not been too clear. I have been living, but my steps have not been terribly straight. It’s getting more clear and they’re growing more straight. I am okay. Part of them problem, I realize now, is that I was telling myself and everyone else I was okay long before I got here as if pretending might make it more real or wearing pinstripes like the Yankees would get me to the World Series. Will recreating my writing space solve all of the problems in my life? Of course not. But, as my friend recognized, writing is a large part of me and any improvements to it will make the whole of me begin to feel better. - k.

[Gossamer]

. Just A Note... I firmly believe it's one little step at a time. One day you think your fine and the next day you fall utterly and shockingly apart. It's going to be like that for a long time. I got through something similar because feeling like that really linked me to the natural world but it took two years before the darkness stopped sneaking up behind me and swallowing me whole. I know you aren't a real 'nature girl' like some of us are... your gifts are strong in other places. But with me those dark periods were like these mighty thunderstorms rolling down the Bitterroot Range when I was in Montana, dumping rain on Missoula, and moving on. I remember that I used to go run/walk in the rain which was a safe space to cry openly in. And it was like the world cried with me and I was surrounded by love and understanding. Those thunderstorms had a purpose. They gave life to the dryness all around and they gave life back to me. The world was reflected all around and inside me. Maybe you can find a link like I did and feel apart of something bigger like the words you love to surround yourself with. Surrounding yourself with little tucked away sayings and phrases sounds like a great idea. But go gently with yourself; very gently. You deserve nothing less. .