Soft Soft Soft

Soft soft soft guitar strings strummed by such familiar fingers. In that mirror she looking at her eyes full of respect and admiration. She and she and she criss cross applesauce on the fraying college perfect carpet completely comfortable. Not one of them is touching the other but I can feel the constant connectivity between each. I cherish the moment so full of humility gratitude love. Decadent decadent decadent. 

Thank you thank you silently I whisper in my head for reminding me of the power of human interaction. All day I touch touch touch but never really feel like I feel the intangible strings of relationships. You may not know it but you and you and you help to hold me together.

I fold up these little moments you create and put them in my pocket to pull out and feel the creases on a rainy day. And maybe maybe maybe one day side by side I will lay them. Maybe tape I will find that will hold them - or string to weave them - all together into a portrait of life created by portraitures of individuals. 

Then I will fold fold fold it all back up into words and tie those words into a story and create a book full of my faith in people. 

The Cornelia Quest for the Bow Tie Ensemble

Now for a departure from the theme of my last few posts. I would like to share with you all a fun little project I am starting.

I found this bow tie in a quaint consignment shop called The Storm Cellar. Looking at it I wished for a brief moment that I were a man who could put together a snappy outfit to match the bow tie. Once that brief moment of foolishness passed (for I quite enjoy my femininity) I realized I did not need to be a man. Why not reconstruct a traditionally masculine style into a uniquely female fashion?

So I bought it. And now it is my little project. One I believe Cornelia would be proud of (if you do not know who Cornelia is, please refer to the novel Love Walked In). Therefore I dub it:

The Cornelia Quest for the Bow Tie Ensemble. Cornelia Quest for short.

Little by little I will create the perfect swing dancing outfit based upon this bow tie, and I will record all of the findings here. The goal is that this will not only be a chronicle of how the ensemble is pieced together, but of how my dance experience is expanding. Dancing has found a place in the center of my life, and I fully expect it to stay there. Once the outfit is completed perhaps its premiere appearance will be in my first lindy competition. Or perhaps it will be another night at my favorite venue. Either way it will find its way to the dance floor.

So here begins the Cornelia Quest with a photograph of the swing-fashion inspiring bow tie:

Photo courtesy of Julia Vigen

Bigger Than My Body (Is That Too Much?)

I sit there. Staring at a screen. And have to pull my fingers away. Because I am sitting still but inside I am swaying. Swaying outside of the lines of my etched profile. Bigger than my body.

In these moments I would like to go lie in a meadow, let my body press into the grass. Allow my swaying to continue until I swirl outside of my body and spread out, a giant map of the constellations of life as I know it. Become part of something that is bigger than my body.

I say things like this and feel that maybe I am too much. Like the world may look at my words and say

"Look at her, trying too hard to be profound. Making life into a mixture of metaphors when it is really all straight lines and angles."

Meet me and you would find I am capable of speaking literally. You would find that I worry about passing tests that I fret over my hair that I gossip about boys that I live like other college women. I cannot deny my material existence. It is a large part of who I am.

But I also feel so acutely. And I know that I write about this quite often but it is a phenomenon I have to try and make understandable with words. I cannot deny that I spend a large amount of time in a space that is suspended between the tangible earth and the world of intangible experiences. It is a large part of who I am.

I do not want to assume I am the only person who feels so much that at times it is difficult to keep my feet firmly planted on real soil. In fact I think that is why I sometimes share these thoughts with people, to find who else out there is living in metaphors.

Some have a little chuckle for these moments, it is a loving chuckle, one that says,

"Oh Alyssa, there she goes again, how sweet."

And I love them for this. Appreciate them. But recognize that they don't really believe that the sensations I describe are so achingly real.

Some just look confused. Or rather annoyed. I would assume this is because they think I am trying to sound impressive, philosophical, wise, but perhaps there are other reasons. I bare no resentment towards these people, I only wish that we could make ourselves more transparent to each other.

One day I expect that someone will see me in a state of over-sensation, a moment when I am so tangibly bigger than my body, and this person will not see my still profile, but instead the part of me that is swaying. This person will take my hand and lead me to a field far away from city lights and right next to star lights. Then this person will lie down there with me, because this person will need the grass too.

And I think this person will be a man. And I think this will be what love feels like for us. And I think I will marry him.

(And I am afraid this is too much to expect.)