A Mix of Lists

A List of Lovely Tunes:
1. You & I- Ingrid Michaelson
2. At the Bottom of Everything- Bright Eyes
3. New Theory- Life of Leisure
4. All Those Nights- Chase Coy

A List of Wishes:
1. To forget about him (or at least to care less).
2. To see all of my GSP friends sometime soon.
3. To make something very special of my birthday.
4. To feel better.

A List of Delightful Smells:
1. Strawberries. Anything and everything strawberries.
2. My skin, when it has a hint of chlorine. It is unique, because I never swim. I always question why.
3. Colognes that do not smell of old people.
4. The candles my Momma puts in our kitchen.

A List of Some Material Desires:
1. Sock monkey mittens
2. Concert tickets (I'm waiting for Bon Iver or Holiday Parade to come around again)
3. Fancy pantyhose (because I've randomly grown more feminine as-of-late)
4. Origami paper

A List of Favorite Traits in Others:
1. Eyes that captivate.
2. Wanting to have adventures.
3. Genuinity that shines from their smile.
4. Having a strong passion for something.

A List of Things I Want to Be/Do in the Future:
1. Go on adventures
2. Build houses (including my dream house)
3. Write often
4. Fall in love

*Never settle for less than your favorites.*

Honey, I'm Home!

Well, I'm back for now. I've traveled to far away places, across the globe and across county lines, all in just this year. I've exceeded every boundary I had set for myself, & I am pretty proud of myself for it.

My last five weeks at my program have been phenomenal, although now that it is over, I feel like I moved away from all my closest friends (although the only place I moved to is "home"). I miss them all so very very very much. I met the most lovely people there, and they all take up a big part of my heart now. They all opened me up to trying new things, and I adore them for it.

Speaking of new things, I've updated my "Summer is Not a Bummer" list- check it out up top if you get a chance. :) But I still haven't seen Harry Potter, and I don't really mind. Seeing that movie marks the end of our (or my, at least) childhood, you know?

P.S. Saturday is my 17th birthday!

Much love,
Mack. :)

 *a lil' poem I wrote while I was here. Inspired by a woman that rowed across the ocean.

Adventures Everywhere

Selling cookies to buy books for school
I traveled over to a small town and met
A woman
Gardening gloves, graying hair
who told me in her parlor
the tales my father had
That the Frontier was not yet dead.

She told me she had traveled the world
on the spare change in her pockets
Tickets and passports lined her walls
Her bookshelves bare, her stories fully-fleshed

 She talked of Mexico and Timbuktu
Paris, Kentucky to Paris, France
Sunsets of Asian mountain peaks
And the Amazon's many plants

But she caught me by surprise when
Her most amazing find
was thirty miles from her little town
A man who didn't believe in reality
or today, really.

The man, sun-baked skin, free-flowing hair,
Never left the confines of his familiar city limits
Yet he traveled the world on
Strong currents of written word

He trusted those words to tell him the truth
Take him to places he couldn't go
On a minimum-wage pay
Worthless money was traded for cherished
Fabulous adventures bound in books
They occupied his car, his tractor, his bed.

He said the world was always a-changing itself
Why skip the show from the front porch?

She met him and he met her
At first they fell into fights
But then she gave up her adventures
For a new adventures spent with him
Opening her irises to something unfamiliar.

They married and watched over
Twenty chubby toes.
The man took much care to restrain their heads
like balloons, from floating into space.
But the mother worked in the dark
To encourage them to dream.

 The man died-
suicide-
and the kids were far off
when I walked up to the door.
She was planning a big trip, she said,
Yet she wouldn't say to where
And bought all the cookies I had
Her frail hand trembling with the money
but her smile confident and proud.

Then, she told me to be an adventure
Imaginary or not
As she took off her dusty shoes
Carrying the earth on their soles.

Do you ever just lay there at night in the dark? You can't fall asleep, because there is so much going on in the world around you. New sounds, new breaths, new words of wisdom. The night sky and the stars hold so much, and all you have to do to learn from them is to look at them and regard them for their uniqueness. That place is the ravine between this world and the next, dreams and reality.

My program's going really well, by the way. I have a couple of new creative writing pieces (and some awful origami creations) to show for it. I know so many more games, and have so much more experience, and have made so many more friends, all in less than two weeks. I'll write more about it all later, but I'll be back to writing regularly in August.

xoxo,
mack. :)

honestly.

I leave in three days. I hoped someone special would remember, but they haven't mentioned it yet. Maybe tomorrow- I'll cross my fingers.

Today was strawberry lemonade.
It was Milky Ways and running away
Not a drop of gray or any foul play
Today was a painting by Monet.

I'm one of those people who whole-heartedly believe that every day, there will always be good and bad things about the day. Getting my ACT score early was the good thing. Getting my haircut was the bad thing.

Remember my story, about getting my hair cut? Apparently those were too high of expectations, and I now look quite androgynous. Or Justin Bieber-esque. I'm not sure which description I prefer. It'll get better, though.

I've found myself reminiscing alot as-of-late. I've taken several very important people in the different parts of my life and traced back every good memory I could think I've shared with them, and pondered every fact about them I could remember. For some reason, it is always boys- it feels weird to think about girls, and boys just always seem so permanent. All of my girl friendships never lasted. Boys don't get angry at you and not talk to you for several months. I'm not sure how people can even like girls- they are all kind of selfish sometimes, but I guess boys probably are sometimes, too. It is so wonderful, though, just to think back on all of the good times- the happiness seems to seep forward, regardless of time. I suggest that you try it some time. I might make a list of some happy thoughts, but later.

*mack. :)

all ideas become one, eventually.

I love the way the ferris wheel shoots streams of neon colors in the background near the end, and that you can hear the song and the waves whilst watching the sun dip into the ocean. There is very little I wouldn't give to be there- even if it were a hallucination, it would be a dream in itself.

But today I stumbled upon the danger of dreaming, once again. People daydream of perfection, of twisting their surroundings into what they want life to be. But once they take off those rose-tinted glasses, they have to return to the real world, a world with some comfort but no perfection. Somebody in a book (Paper Towns, actually) once said that the fun wasn't in doing something, but in planning it, and this is the truest thing I've ever known but not realized. You can imagine perfection- I think that is why I daydream constantly and consistently of happiness- but you cannot live it.

I daydreamed for hours about my future home/cottage today. I've always looked to interior design as an inspiration and a hobby. I know that people say to "Follow your dreams" and "Do what you want to do with your life," but honestly I cannot.  Alas, writing and interior design don't earn enough money- that doesn't utilize your talents, my parents tell me, so they push accounting and engineering pamphlets down my throat. But in my dreams, that is all alright. There are no struggles with money while I am dreaming, so that is where I reside- in my dreams.

Today specifically, I've looked at so many pictures of houses that I can close my eyes and simply imagine walking through "my" house. I have always wanted a greenhouse connected to the house, and every living space to have its own unique style. I don't even care for the outside of the house- as long as it can hold all of my dreams and lovely things, it will do. I think that summarizes how I feel about people, too, but I don't feel like explaining my vague metaphor.

mack. :)

This post is like a week old, but I just haven't come up with anything new. You can't always have a creative, new idea ready to develop.

getting a haircut.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She desired for a change to alter her sad self. So she decided to get a haircut- that's what her momma had always done, and she had always come back with colors in her hair and a wider smile. She handed the stylist a picture of what she wanted her hair to look like, and when the stylist spun the girl around to face the mirror, she looked into her own blue-green eyes and saw a twinkle. Then her eyes quickly twisted upwards to her unruly eyebrows. She sighed and let her eyes wander through her hair. There were so many things that laid in her medium-length hair, many that could not be fixed with styling or highlights. In her hair, she could see all of the things she held onto. She remembered, remembered when a boy told her that she held onto too many things. How could he know that, when she didn't even notice that she was holding onto things? Right there, sitting in that chair, she thought about everything she had held onto.

She held onto her kindergarten crush that dumped her, the one she cried over on the playground afterward. She held onto all of the kids that made fun of her for her speech impediment, the same speech impediment that took her almost four years to get over. It kept her from speaking up, from talking to people. She held onto the boy in fifth grade that she was surely in love with, but her parents forbade her from seeing. She held onto the bully's remarks, a bully that tortured her from eighth grade to sophomore year. It took the girl years to get over her evilness, but once the bully fell from her high horse, the girl felt empowered- as though all of the remarks crumbled, too. She held onto all of the empty crushes that she had terribly hoped would work out, but never did. She even held onto that boy, that boy that seemed so perfect for her, but was interested in someone else.

She felt the scissors snip away, and watched every lock as it floated onto the floor. She had held onto these ugly ideas for years, but that day, she noticed that the ugly ideas she was holding onto were not her "memorable" childhood, but her way of blaming her problems on exterior factors. She was the one making them matter, she was the one making herself feel ugly. She finally let go, closing her eyes and feeling her head as it became lighter.

The girl waltzed out of the salon, her smile shining brighter than ever before. She had always hidden behind bangs, but now she would not be able to. Her hair was very short, and it perfectly framed her beautiful face. But it wasn't about this haircut that was her metamorphosis- it was the happiness from inside of her that now exuded from her face.

her hair looked a little like this.

iwish,
mack. :)