To help my time fly

[serene]

Comment here with something you love about your life and I will write you
a poem. No guarantee on when you'll get it or how much you'll like it, but
I'll do it. No limit on how many I'll write, but you have to comment here
and tell me at least one thing you love about your life (more is great!)
to get your poem.

Comments

[gramina.livejournal.com]

The both-and-ness; lots of disparate things coming together in ways that many people think are impossible, but still working, somehow, for me. From the classic bi-poly-switch stuff to Wicca and Episcopalianism to brain-centered work that still feels creative to me to the amazing, incredible, variety of wonderful friends from all over the map (literally and metaphorically) all of whom seem honestly to enjoy my company. I am, finally, having to learn that there are actually places where I have to choose, or at least choose-for-now, that I can't necessarily have it all all at the same time, but I have so much of so many different things and for me they all still somehow work -- !

(How's that for Monday-morning stream-of-consciousness?)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You can't have everything

They tell you, because they think they should,
that you can't have it all
That even if it were in your grasp,
you couldn't hold it, couldn't mold yourself
into someone worthy and capable enough
into a person it all made sense for

What they didn't know,
what they still don't know,
is that you can't have it all because you are too grand
you are too much beauty to fit into one person
you are the Universe's white light and the deep brown of the earth
and all the good things that move into you
quickly reach the top of your head
and spill out
flowing onto the ground
seeping across continents
making rivers of abundance
that cannot be

contained

[marci-ny.livejournal.com]

The joy I get from my nieces is indescribable and the unconditional love from my pets! <3

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

What was your relationship like with your nieces' parent(s) growing up?

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

I've spent a lot of my adult life reacting to life -- feeling like I was barely keeping my head above the tide. Since I've gone back to school, I feel like that one wonderful choice has opened me up to see that I have other choices, that I can step back and look at how my life is chugging along and assess what is working better and what is not working so well. I feel more hopeful and more masterful -- and I love it.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

You can't blame the track
for not going
where the train wants to go

You can't blame the river
for not flowing
up and out to that town you loved, inland

The map may not be the territory,
but the territory isn't all there is, either
there are edges to things
places beyond,
where the train jumps its track
and the river jumps its bed
and I jump through my own memory,
through my own me,
and become the power that moves me,
become that unworn mountain trail,
that craggy, parched land that hasn't seen a river,
that destination that doesn't appear on any map,
and doesn't tell you where it is
and doesn't tell you where you are
that makes its own way

A train track
A deep riverbed
A map
A metaphor

None of these things will save me
None of these things will tell me where to go

I get to do that
for myself

[redbird]

The New York City subway system, and other metros that get me places and connect me to people and the world.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

train song

did you know it would be like this?
all thrum and rock
a heartbeat of clacking
a tolerable pitch of longing?
did you know when you sent for me
that I would feel the rolling of the miles
in my pelvis,
in the hollow between my ribs?

I am surprised by the eroticism of it
by the urge I have to lie on my belly on the floor
so I can feel the rhythm enter me
so the waves of motion can have contact with all of me
with every bit of my skin

we are rolling across the plains
and I am rolling nearer to you
we are moving through the mountains
and I am moving nearer to you

in my childhood, there were trains,
but not for us,
children of a mother who left town only
when the navy moved the family
we moved to europe and never set foot
outside andalucia
we moved to san diego and never saw hollywood

we are moving across the plains
and I am moving nearer to you
we are rolling through the mountains
and I am rolling nearer to you

now, in my adulthood, the trains are my friends
they move me through this city called home
they taught me tokyo and boston,
they wait to show me london and toronto
patient tourguides
punctual beasts of burden

but I couldn’t know before now
the utility of the heart
how these metal tubes were really blood vessels
that pump life and love into the world
and we rock
and the rails clack
and we rock
and the cars sway
and we rock
and a distant city grows closer
and my heart pounds in my throat
and I want to lie down on the floor and let the rhythm take me

we are rolling across the plains
and I am rolling nearer to you
we are moving through the mountains
and I am moving nearer to you

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

I really like it when people that I care about "get me". When they do the little things that tell me they understand and see me in all my smallness and bigness and love me.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

The font on this one will be weird, because I wanted to preserve the indentations:

Put me in a rocket ship and shoot me into space
Let me feel the zero gee and see my home planet from a distance 

I don't want to escape this world so much as to explore new ones
I am not eager to leave my family and my comfort, but to grab the adventure
that floats among the stars and in the spaces between them
If that costs me family and comfort, so be it

	I remember what it felt like to watch those men place their large, booted feet
	on the surface of the moon,  and I felt their spirit in my gut
	I became their apostle on earth
	and their missions became my religion

	If I worship anything, let it be the vastness and mystery,
	the chaos of swirling gases,
	the incomprehensible reality of space-time

Please, send me there.  Send me out where only telescopes have gone before,
make me an ambassador or an explorer, or let me clean the goddamn toilets,
but send me there

If not alive, then my ashes, the dust of me
Put me in a rocket ship and shoot me into space
Because that is where I long to be

[mackenzie]

Personally, I'm loving how clean I've been keeping the apartment. It feels satisfying to get home and see that things have been put where they belong, and to know that I did that. The naps amid still-warm laundry are delicious.

Interpersonally, I've been loving feeling really accepted by two newer friends, and feeling like I'm part of a little trio. It's fun to go away for a couple of days, and come back to an e-mail reading "We miss you! Let's dance!"

Romantically, I've been loving the opportunity to explore a new person's body. He's so unfamiliar and new. "Where can I kiss to get him to make noises?" is a game for the ages.

Familially, I'm loving Chris' two younger brothers, and their sweet enthusiasm for me whenever I visit. I asked his middle brother to send me his resume so I could look it over and give him feedback, and he sent it to me last night with the note "Miss you already."

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I'm revisiting this thread, and you're next on the list, but lots has changed for you, so I wonder if you'd like to give me a new list of things you love, or if I shall use this list for inspiration.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

The people close to me in my life have stayed close. They have been there through ups and downs, wealth and poverty, illness and good health, fear, defeat and triumph (and all that other stuff). It's the closest I've felt to being unconditionally loved, and I feel the same way about them. There is something so very comforting about being known so well and loved so deeply. (There are a couple of other people in that picture, just out of frame.)

[ptigris.livejournal.com]

I love the fact that I am not afraid to try new things at least once. And that the new things mostly involve traveling to places where people don't speak my language and taking the paths that are less travelled to discover priceless treasures in hidden places. Sometimes these treasures are the people I meet, sometimes these treasures are family recipes for various meals/preserves/alchoholic drinks, and sometimes it's just a vista that no one but the locals know about, secluded and peaceful.

Sometimes to travel to new places means stepping to the left as I walk outside my door instead of to the right. It's all about being open and non-judgemental.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

How can I pick one thing?

I love the fact that I'm back at school learning how to do what I was supposed to be doing all along.

I love my family and how we care for each other.

I love my friends, my tribe, my peeps.

I love the city I live in, small and friendly and easily walkable.

I love the Intertubes, and the larger community they have brought me.

I love music and reading, and the joy they bring me.

I love to laugh.

I love my life.

[bix.livejournal.com]

1) That I am alive.
2) That I feel all passions keenly.
3) That I can and am loved.
4) That I can live the way that makes me happiest, a great enormous gift.

You don't need to write me a poem, though I would love it. I just liked the idea of responding to this post!

[papabearnz.livejournal.com]

I love the way my DW is so supportive of me - not only in the goals I set - but in the times when I am struggling in myself. Even though I've struggled in exactly the same way seemingly uncountable times before.

[jb98.livejournal.com]

The love of my friends, both far and near.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I am awed by your acceptance and delight in your body. I wish I knew how to get there, because I want to feel joy in my body instead of revulsion. There are parts of me I love: my clever and quick-learning hands, how strong I am and how far I can walk when I need to, my clear skin... but the bulges and rolls and droopy bits and thick neck and so on... just look so awful to me.

What a sweet offer... you're taking your new LJ name quite seriously, aren't you?!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

:-) Now your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a comment with only things you love, and no things you don't. *hugs*

[dbubley.livejournal.com]

Carol

[arkuat]

hey, serene, i want in on this fun. what i love about my life right now is how friends turned up in a place where i had more or less abandoned them. it makes me wonder about what sort of friends will turn up for me someday in the place that i had abandoned my old friends for, when i return to the place where my new friends are that i'm abandoning for my old friends now.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Crickets that sing me to sleep on hot summer nights; birds that sing me awake on cool summer mornings. Neighborliness. Self-determination.

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this chance.

My mothers. Who have stood by me no matter what. Who have let me make my own decisions even when they were bad ones. Who made the time and listened to me cry down the phone no matter what they were doing. Who raised me to stand up and face the hard things and reminded me that I was strong enough to do what needs to be done.

Quotidian pleasures: fluffy clouds in a blue sky. The moon peeking over the horizon. soft touchable yarn. Momma-hugs.

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and dolphins. Their cheerful squeaking as they swim around and Do Stuff with their trainers. I was moved so much watching them at the Baltimore Aquarium that I leaked a tear or two.

The Cat who lives with the woman I rent a room from. Every time he and I make eye contact he Mrrownks? in such a perky expectant way, as if to say [Oh hai! It is can be skritchings tiem naow?]

The free museums here in DC and the Metro that gets me there.

Oh, I can't put this off any longer, that's all there is to it.

[gloriajn.livejournal.com]

Even though I'm 50, my relationship with teeebone is the very first healthy primary relationship I've ever had. (These posts (http://gloriajn.livejournal.com/tag/teeebone) will help refresh your memory, if you need it.)

Anyway, I can't wait to see what you write about that. Thanks in advance!

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

I love my animals, my husband, and even when he's a pill, my kid :)

[golden-c-turtle.livejournal.com]

I loooooove discovering new passions and abilities even though I'm getting all old and stuff. This summer I discoverd Emily Dickinson.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

i love that i found love and unconditional support when i had accepted that i would not have it in my life -- that i was destined to be the "cat lady". and with this love from ian (aka the boy) i am slowly learning to love myself (we're at like most of the time.. but beats the former thoughts).

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

i also love that i am uber-blessed with awesome friends. and that i didn't die when i tried so DAMN hard to succeed at that.

i'm not always happy. but.... i know i am blessed in so many ways.

[jenhowell.livejournal.com]

Things I love about my life:

having found a partner I'm sure about in every fibre of my being.
riding my bike on cool summer evenings
the knowledge that I will be moving to a foreign country after I graduate
petting my cats
all the good conversations with friends
my books and the library
being in school and feeling like a schoolgirl at age 30
how sometimes limiting myself leads me to appreciate all the small things around me

[catrinaz.livejournal.com]

i chose to think of things that i love that are a part of every day.

* riding my trike
* lying in my hammock
* helping people heal themselves
* spending time with my love

[catrinaz.livejournal.com]

* spending time with my love loves

oops.

[jb98.livejournal.com]

You're right, much in my life has changed. I'll think on it and see if this is still the one I want. *smooch*