Reaching

She's been asking him to say the words

With hands reaching for her and his eyes reaching hers.

She's been begging him to say the words

With an unexpected arrival.

By mere suggestion she hopes to paint her insides the color of iron and her face with a fixed and nonchalant expression,

Amplifying the measure of distance between them that originated in particles and fractions of fractions of seconds and became light years spanning universal abysses.

By mere suggestion she hopes to dispense with the iron. It does not belong in her ever-changing and malleable insides of blood and thin, rhythmic membranes.

By mere suggestion she hopes to let herself act the vulnerability that pulsates through her and marks itself in brilliant red on her naked body.

Ah! What distance is there when she can understand the cosmos that reside within her?

Their distance is reduced to molecules even though his mind lies a world apart. She could never decipher the constellations that could navigate her through his troubled distress, because of her unwillingness to decipher her own.

But now she has been disemboweled by her own Scylla, and she has been enveloped in the emptiness and suffocation of her personal Charybdis and has come out barely alive. She is slowly and clumsily charting her troubled waters.

Still, she keeps asking him to say the words,

With hands reaching and eyes arriving.

Still, she keeps beckoning him to say the words,

With an unexpected arrival.

I was just looking at some wedding pics of a good friend from high school that caused me to take a little trip down Memory Lane. I remembered how after graduation and moving to Chicago, I wrote her a letter bluntly admonishing her to love herself more. She was so depressed all of the time, and she seemed to loathe herself. I was honestly afraid that she was going to kill herself. So, I decided to show her some tough love and I told her that I had a hard time being her friend because she was always so hard on herself and I couldn't watch her do that anymore. I always felt bad about that letter, but I wanted her to know that she was amazing and that she needed to start seeing herself that way.

Well, I think she finally did. Her wedding photos seem to prove it. She and her husband went to Italy and had a small yet breathtakingly beautiful wedding. Michelle looked absolutely stunning and deliriously happy. She was more beautiful than I ever remember her being. But more importantly, the photos of her husband revealed an unabashed adoration for Michelle that made me cry. I realized that Michelle had learned what I had so desperately wanted her to learn: how to love herself. You see, I have learned that there is no way a man could love and adore a woman that loathes herself.

So, when I saw how happy Mr. Michelle was to have her in his life and how he seemed to cherish her, I cried partly because I was so happy for her, and partly for selfish reasons. I realized that I haven't gotten a taste of my own medicine. I haven't learned how to love myself yet. The proof is in the pudding: all of the men I have been in relationships with have never looked at me the way Michelle's husband looked at her. I have been taken for granted over and over again. I have never been cherished, and I don't know if I ever will be.

But perhaps there is something remarkably positive in this revelation that I can focus on. First of all, I see that there is room for improvement in terms of me being kinder to myself, despite all of the strides I think I have made in that area. So, I will strive to find even greater peace about me being me. Second of all, any time I feel like I have been cheated of experiencing true love, I will take it to God. Since I have always had a hard time believing that God loves me, perhaps He can reinforce His love for me by granting me peace every time I turn to Him about my dismal love life, as He has in the past. Then, once again, God is offering me a chance to learn how to fully rely on Him.

I guess I need to stop belly-aching and get on my knees!

This morning I woke up with some major health issues. My lungs hurt to breathe, and I started dragging my leg while my left side got really weak. I had a hard time thinking clearly, and I couldn't get words out very easily. I felt like everything I went through the first time I had that stroke last year was happening again, and it scared the shit out of me.

I emailed my professor and let her know I wouldn't be coming to class, made Jonas breakfast, got him dressed, and took him to daycare. I came home and started to cry, because I didn't know what to do. Who do I call? Who do I tell? If I called my mom, she would tell me to go to the emergency room, which meant I would rack up more medical bills. My brothers have their own lives and are busy. My friends wouldn't know what to say and would just feel awkward. I'm a single mom, and I am old enough to know that I am not anyone's problem any more. This was perhaps the moment where I felt the most alone since my divorce. I skirted the internet, trying to have some sort of interaction with someone, however superficial it might be. I looked through my contacts on my phone, desperate to find a listening ear that wouldn't be burdened with my state of panic. I just wanted to be held, I wanted to know that everything would be OK. I wanted to be reassured that God wouldn't take me before my time because He knows I need to raise my son.

I have had several blessings admonishing me to keep my body very healthy, otherwise there might be dire consequences in relation to whatever my condition is that has caused me so many problems. When I was younger and had my symptoms, albeit with more mild manifestations, I wasn't afraid to die. I was OK with God taking me. However, now I have a son that needs me, and I want nothing more than to be healthy and strong so that I can raise him.

So, I guess I have two ways of looking at this situation. First, I can feel sorry for myself and spend all of my time asking God why I had to have the health problems I have when I'm expected to be a good single mother, a good employee, a good student, a good friend, and a good family member. Or, I can look at this as an answer to my long-standing admonition to God to help me learn how to fully rely on Him. I think I'll choose the latter.

I suppose instead of skirting the internet or checking my contacts on my phone, I could have gotten down on my knees instead, which I eventually did. Feeling peace, I let my exhausted body sleep and I woke up feeling like I had nearly circumvented another debilitating stroke. Now, I will wash my dishes and pick up Jonas from daycare carefully, since I feel like I'm still not out of the danger zone. And tonight, I will pray for comfort before I go to bed, and God can give me another spiritual hug, even though a real one would sure be nice... I'm sure even God understands that.

Beauty From Ashes

This is a poem I wrote for my dad while I was on my mission. I decided to post it because I want to write about God's ability to create beauty from ashes, and this poem helped me to see the good that could come from losing someone I loved deeply.

Again, I take comfort in knowing that no one really reads this blog, so I don't have to give a disclaimer for how lame the poem could be. It came from my heart and helped me work through some heavy stuff.

Of all the hours I made my music in that empty upstairs room,

My greatest of achievements was my audience was you.

You thought silently leaning in the doorway of my sculpted tonal shades

Would leave you undiscovered, but your spirit was too great.

You always walked through life like that, tip-toeing into souls,

You used those neglected verbs of truth, in a language now unknown.

How we had grieved when the world lost your loved and noble image,

Then light came on a breeze of truth: those you loved now speak your language.

I remember how one day I sat, inside our empty home.

I couldn't stand to see your pen and lap-top, laid there by your phone.

From a desperate act of confusion, I stood in front and stared,

At a Barnes and Noble, thinking I would find you there.

They didn't have your Tao book, or "The Hiding Place",

All they had to give me was a memory of your face,

And how your wisdom seemed so tangible, lighting up your soul.

Truth comes through the window: I hadn't lost you after all.

Sometimes I am a captive, and shroud myself in black,

I am blind to my full treasury, seeing only what I lack.

But if I reach and dip my hand into fearless, lighted beams,

Truth, once again, tears down walls much weaker than they seemed.

Ashes trailed your chapter, by the burning pain of change,

With mournful, heavy lingering, in the absence of your page.

But now a wind of truth liberates me, and in awe I searched and found,

From ashes, divine beauty grows up from fertile ground.

I just recently broke up with someone, and this break-up was really devastating. At a moment when I was just about to start crying again, I went to the piano and a song started flowing out of me. I can't tell you what a relief it was to me to articulate my feelings in song. Singing the way I feel has a power, a sort of magic that makes me feel renewed and energized even in the worst situations. Once again, I see God's hand in my life when I'm feeling the most dejected.

Check out a really bad recording of a probably really lame song. As I have said before, I really don't care if anyone likes it. It helped me, and that makes it a really great song in my book.

http://www.myspace.com/libbyannwest

Is it crazy for me to love having a blog that no one reads? I feel like I'm writing directly to God somehow. My blog presents physical proof every day how everyone is no one. No one reads my blog, and everyone doesn't know about my blog. Somehow, I feel connected to the whole human race by writing to no one, a large void of possible readers that will probably never be. The possibility of being connected to everyone while simultaneously being connected to no one...

So, to everyone and no one at the same time, let me say that my heart is broken and I'm tired, and I just don't know if I can manage anymore. I feel like my whole life has been punctuated with grief and loss, and I just don't want to take any more. I have definitely hit the wall, like I did so many years ago when I was training for my first marathon. I knew I couldn't take another step, and I still had 17 miles to go, so I prayed to God and let Him know that I just can't do any more. And I felt like someone was almost carrying me. I could hardly feel my feet touch the ground, and I made it. One step at a time.

Please God, help me. I can't do any more. I just don't have anything left in me. I'm so tired.

Libby Lennox's first album, "Ghost Runners" will soon be underway...

It looks like I will finally commence recording an album with Chris Moore's label, Arterial Records. I am so busy this semester, but I am going to make time for this. First of all, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I will always regret passing up because of school. School will always be there, but this might not be. I mean, how many musicians have a friend that believes in their abilities so much that they are rounding together studio musicians and recording an album for you free of charge? I can't tell you how many times Chris has said, "I just want you to do whatever you feel like doing. You have complete freedom to do whatever you want. I trust you." I would be stupid to not take advantage of this.

I also know that I need to work through a lot of things with this album. One thing I've learned from years of writing songs is that they are a great personal teaching tool. I arrive at truths I never would have been able to comprehend without working through lyrics and seeing how they interact with melodies. I know I'm in a good place to make this album right now because I don't really care about how people will react to it. This is purely a labor of love for me, and I just want to make music. If I'm the only person in the world that enjoys it, I'm fine with that.

So, I will begin recording a song I wrote two years ago that has ended up being extremely comforting for me in recent months entitled "Hard Life". I sing and play it on days when I feel overwhelmed with grief or my feelings of inadequacy. Then, I think I'll move on to a song I am in the process of writing about a woman who systematically becomes a ghost. (I am obsessed with the idea of ghosts right now because I feel like I have spent most of my life trying to become one.) Then, I think I'll move on to a song I wrote a few months ago after a break-up. Its catch phrase is "I don't need someone to love me to love myself," which has become a mantra for me as I face the possibility of being alone for the rest of my life. Then, I have a few more songs on the backburner that I could move on to. I am so excited, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm, which is probably obvious in this post.

Anyway, my next post might be a demo of "Hard Life". I will link it to my new myspace website under my pseudonym Libby Lennox. So, stay tuned...

Hello. I'm Libby, a 2006 Honda Civic. Nice to meet you.

So, my dating life has actually been pretty eventful since my divorce. This is what I've found out about how men view me from my experiences. Let's say women were cars, and I'm sitting on a car lot, patiently waiting for an owner to come along and take me. So far, the men come and give me a test drive. As the car salesman sits in the passenger's seat and asks what they think of me, they most often say nonchalantly, "she'll do" while they move the conversation on to more flashy, exciting cars that they had driven in the past. You see, I'm like a used Honda Civic. I get the job done. A pile of garbage habitually gathers in my back seat, and I'm lucky if I get waxed once a year. Men really want the red sports car being proudly displayed on the other side of the car lot. You know, the car that receives a thoughtful and enthusiastic vacuum and wax every Saturday not because it needs it, but because the owner loves to pay attention to it. The whole situation makes me want to not be bought at all, because even if I were to be bought by someone, I would always be a reminder of what they couldn't have.

Men want women that amaze them so much that they hear theme music as they walk in slow motion into their lives. So, where does that leave me, the boring, sensible choice? Well, it leaves me single forever. It leaves me in a precarious situation every time I'm in a relationship with someone, knowing that at any moment they will realize that I'm not enough. It makes me feel like I'm lucky to be dating anyone at all, while simultaneously wanting to give the whole dating scene the proverbial middle finger and leave it forever.

So today I finally took Jonas to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden. He had an absolute blast, and so did I. I really enjoyed watching him run from one exciting adventure to another, and I will definitely be taking him there more.

We took the Frontrunner down and back, and that was a lot of fun, too. On the trip home, we sat behind a little boy right around Jonas' age, and they shared toys and played the whole time. I love watching Jonas interact with other kids. He smiles and laughs in a way that he doesn't really do with me and other adults.

For me, the trip home was entertaining, too. I had forgotten that it was Friday evening, and that some people use public transportation when they go on dates. The first couple that I saw on a date were already sitting down in their seats holding hands when Jonas and I arrived to start our journey back to Salt Lake. From the bits of conversation that floated towards me, I could tell that this was probably one of the first times, (if not THE first time) they were meeting face to face. There was this strange mix of awkwardness and familiarity between the two that led me to believe that they had probably met on the internet. They were both probably in their late forties or early fifties, and they both seemed pretty ready to be physically intimate (don't ask me why I thought that, I just did). At first glance, I wanted to be happy for them, but then the man checked me out rather obviously, and I got major creepy vibes from him, and I realized that this could be the manifestation of a typical relationship between a man and a woman. As they sat there holding hands, resting their heads on each other, and talking occasionally, she was probably thinking about how he could be her soul mate; and he was probably thinking about how good she would be in the sack. How depressing.

Then, on the trax up to the university, a girl came on the train with a boy doggedly following behind her. As she sat down, she let him know in no uncertain terms that she thought he was a total loser and that he could not take her home. I looked behind me and made eye contact with the boy, who looked back with a face that both betrayed his pain at being rejected so decidedly and his anger that I pitied him for it. I turned around and tried not to look back at him again, knowing that my unspoken consolation would only be throwing salt on his wound. I realized as I sat there in my banishment from looking behind me that I just witnessed one of those moments in a teenager's life that could possibly influence everything he did from that point on. What if the girl's caustic words haunted him for the rest of his life and hindered his ability to be happy with himself and his life? How depressing. Another potentially sad love story afforded me via public transportation. Are the fates sending me some sort of cosmic message here?

Shortly after the incident with the boy and the girl, a couple in their twenties sat in the seat directly behind Jonas and I. By this time, I think I was a little jaded. As I listened to them exchange flirtatious remarks in a we-are-intellectuals-so-we-won't-be-silly-even-though-we-are-being-silly sort of way, I found myself scrutinizing every word and every gesture that I could decipher from my position. Within ten minutes, I was convinced that the man was too arrogant to really care about anyone, and that the woman was acting less intelligent than she was to keep him around. "Dump him," I would say to her silently as I shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation. "He just needs someone to laugh at his remarks and reassure him that he is as awesome as he thinks he is as you hang on his arm. You are better than that! Find someone who wants to KNOW YOU!"

After reflecting on my rather violent reaction to a harmless second-hand encounter with possibly innocent love, I think I've realized how distrustful I am of the concept of romantic love. I used to venerate it, until my dad told me that arranged marriages have a lower divorce rate than those that "marry for love." (Consequently, I tried for the next two years to muster up the courage to ask my parents to arrange a marriage for me.) I wonder if it is because both partners involved in an arranged marriage are aware upfront that entering into a relationship such as marriage is a sacrifice. When people are "in love" they are both selfish, because being with the other person makes them feel so good. Where is the real love in wanting to be with someone because they make YOU feel good? I feel the most love for someone when I am acting on their behalf and not on my own. Can't romantic love be both? Can't people enjoy each other's company but also be genuinely concerned for their welfare as well?

If I wasn't completely wrong about the couples I saw on the train, that means that I saw people being hurt or potentially being hurt because one of the partners was only concerned with fulfilling his or her needs. We are selfish by nature, so does that mean that relationships will always be painful as long as we cannot master our inherent nature to think only of ourselves? How depressing.

On the upside, on the train ride over, a man was talking on his cell phone about an acquaintance who had passed away that looked like, "a smurf or an elf or something." It's good for me to know that smurfs might walk the earth. They don't seem selfish by nature. I wonder if their divorce rates could rival that of arranged marriages. Or, maybe it's still common for smurfs to enter into arranged marriages. That might be the secret to their seemingly harmonious existence with each other.