hold the vision.

although you think it will never come. when you wonder how, oh how, it will ever be done. although fear mocks you and keeps you awake...although they are only risks you will take. hold the vision. keep it strong, say to yourself, “it won’t be long”. keep a place for good things, the things that make you smile. rome was not built at once, it took a little while. hold the vision - because what you think is what will be. hold that place for yourself, hold that place for me. others will say you cannot. others will keep you down. most project their own shit, so keep the good people around. stay after what you want. see it in your mind. act as if it’s happening, this trick works all the time. let the unknown be your guide, tell doubt to step aside. your will dictates your way, so know when to go and know when to stay. and hold the vision, hold it strong: i promise, i swear, it won’t be long.

(title of this post divinely inspired. frealz.)

©littlebrownbutterfly

if you see him, say hello.

i’ve been in roughly 800-1000 relationships in my life. ok. that’s an exaggeration. more like 400-500, but whatever. not the point. not the point at all.

every single person i have ever been with has led me to where i am now - emotionally, mentally, spiritually. we are all learning something from each other, all the time. that’s the deal with relationships - education at its finest. oh yeah.

anyhoo, it’s always a weird trick to navigate the endings of relations for me. i've never really been the girl who says her goodbyes at parties. i'd rather slip-out-the-back-jack quietly and see ya ‘round sometime. but i’ve gotten far enough down the road to know that every person we spend our precious time with is important. we leave little bits of ourselves with each encounter and little pieces of us are taken, too. so, in an an effort to walk my walk, i’ve written a goodbye letter to all those i have loved. a thank you letter. a letter to say au revoir the right way. a letter by which to leave a relationship with grace and with dignity. i’ve had a lot of practice (ahem) and i think i've finally gotten it now. too many goodbyes. too many broken hearts. but a lot of learning.

please feel free to use this letter when need be. verbatim. it will help you. it will help the other person. it would help me if i were on the receiving end. and send it via mail if you can: fuck texting, fuck emailing. send a letter; trust me on this one.

hi.

i know our time together has come to an end, but i just wanted to say that although it did not work out between us, you have changed my life in so many ways for the better and i have learned much about myself through our union. thank you.

 i will treasure what we had and think of you fondly, always.

lisa

and there you have it. 
i hope it serves you well sometime.

@littlebrownbutterfly

jackson browne: ‘something fine’. a case study.

when confusion and darkness find me, i turn to music - to save me, to comfort me, to help me move past a particular feeling. there are many songs, many artists that help ease the sometimes treacherous journey of getting to the other side: misunderstood* (wilco) the entire blood on the tracks album (bob dylan), walk in the park (beach house), anything paul westerberg, the replacements, and on and on and on. but that guy from california - jackson browne - always hits a sweet spot within my soul and places me gently back on the road to my own recovery. always. those who know me well know of my affinity for jackson. it was a special and surreal time when i befriended him in the city of angels, but that, of course, is another story entirely... 

have you ever noticed how you lose little bits of yourself here and there? i've been hyper aware of this loss lately and music has been a friendly reminder of who i was before time, circumstance and a broken heart became who i believe myself to be. 'something fine' is a song off jackson’s first album that those in the know call ‘saturate before using’. the guitar is simple. the verse sparse. the feeling intense. it’s a song whose meaning has changed for me over time: at once a lonely theme song and then a powerful mantra of really really really letting go. i suppose ‘something fine’ is such an important song because there is hope within the hopeless lyrics and a feeling that i don’t quite understand, but one that my heart clearly does. a safe, familiar way to process a bit of the dark and the sad things that exist within, i suppose. this song has become part of the fabric and make up of who lisa is; how i view the past, past loves, past experiences. looking back can sometimes be a beautiful response to understanding present issues and this is what jackson sings of, though veiled in rhyme and kept hidden through beautiful melancholia.

there is this line: “you know that i'm looking back carefully, 'cause i know that there's still something there for me...”. oh how i know this feeling. right now, something else is calling to me. i’m being pulled back and forth between staying and going, giving my heart to someone or resisting. exploring and writing parts of myself unknown or defaulting to an old description written by others. "...even though you take such good care of me". what to do? go? look? stay? remain? or change? there is always time on the way to another world, another part of ourselves, to look back and reflect. to see where we misstepped, misspoke, where we shone, where we stood tall. yes, there will be time on the way to glance backward, but there is no time to be wasted on deciding to move forward - it is the only direction. so look at the world and see what you want. pay attention to the beggar tugging at your sleeve. look back, but move on. something fine surely awaits.

with david lindley in london, 1976 - something fine

*(and, yes. i still love rock and roll-)

©littlebrownbutterfly

again.

i told myself lies
so nothing would materialize-
half-truths became the way thought of me
- intentions - 
his, mine.

eventual heartbreak:
it follows
lagging, waiting, knowing, laughing.

nothing to do
but dive in 

and hope
that this time, maybe i got it all wrong.

©littlebrownbutterfly

the high road, the heart.

i guess i’ve always been a wanderer. staying too long in any one place for any length of time is hard for me. a gypsy in some prior incarnation, i’m certain i was. so, true to form, i recently took a little road trip a to visit one of my best gal pals, josephine. i desperately needed to smell a new city, cast my eyes upon things i'd never seen before and most of all, drive. my mission: to wander, to ramble a bit, to be lost and absolutely nowhere for a little while. i took the long way. i listened to music: beach house, interpol, fiona. dark and moody. i thought long and hard about the place i was driving away from and about things my mind had conveniently chosen not to think about because they hurt too much. i reached houston with a heart that had been wounded, but a heart that was healing. 
i was happy.
...

josephine and i set out on a thrifting adventure bright and early the next morning. she was excited to show me all of the good spots in her adopted city and i was glad to have new thrift shops to haunt. almost immediately after arriving at our second store, i came upon a random assortment of vintage maps. i remembered maps like these from the summers of my youth - my grandparents would take me on long trips across the US and in the glove box these maps would live, stuffed haphazardly, never to be folded correctly again.

aren’t our lives a bit like that? like maps that have roads set out before us, clearly marked, ready to be taken? but what if...we don’t? what if we don’t take those specific, clearly marked roads in life? what if we are wanderers? what if left and right and right and left don’t make sense to us? what if we long to travel on paths that have not yet been created? what if do and don’t and no and yes aren’t part of our vernacular? what if our particular road doesn’t fit neatly on the page? what if the maps are all wrong?

my mother has always said to me, ‘lisa, always take the high road”. of course i know what she means. but my high road and your high road might be different. where i choose to roam may not be where you choose. your place of enchantment may vary vastly from mine. but that’s okay. if you see somewhere you need to go, go. i'll understand. if you can’t see the path clearly, even better: wing it. make a new one. and if you feel lost, use your heart to guide you back to where you belong - it’s what we gypsy wanderers use all the time. 

for c. 

©littlebrownbutterfly

do you ever

let go just to hold on tighter/look people you don’t know in the eye because sometimes you want to really know someone/get high so you can get through the day/listen to sad sad sad songs so you can feel happy/forget because sometimes it hurts too much to remember/imagine yourself in a different place with a different life/fuck so you don’t have to feel/laugh at inappropriate times/remember random things/lie to yourself about why you’re alone/pretend you’re happier without him/dream of driving away/smile at strangers/look back/look forward/look around to see there’s really nothing there/wish that you could change the past/hope that you can change the future/listen to your head/listen to your heart/remember it a different way than how it really happened/cry/take life too seriously/wonder how you got right here right now/give away your loose ends/breakdown/tune out/wander around/give up/keep going/resign yourself/understand yourself/freak out/settle down/stop?

©littlebrownbutterfly

5 things to please refrain from doing. reminders for you (and for me, too).

 

1- hanging out with peeps that are negative, emotionally draining or just plain fucking exhausting to be around. why do it? people will try to bring you (drag you-) to the level on which they themselves operate - but only if you let them. so don’t.

2- talking about other people’s personal business when it has nothing to do with you. you’re an asshole if you think nobody regards this as gossiping. keep your side of the street clean and so will i. thanks!

3- worrying about things you can’t control (e.g., other people, eventual outcomes and when your ship will finally come in). let me expound: worrying is a waste of your precious time. stop.

4- sabotaging yourself. look, you have to be your own best friend. be nice to yourself. take a fucking epsom salt bath or something. go to dairy queen and get a dip cone. quit beating yourself up all the time; it’s uncomfortable to watch, ok?

5- projecting. it isn’t pretty. when you project your bullshit on me + i project my lifetime of mistakes and lame choices on you, the circle game starts. step outside of the circle. better yet, don’t start drawing it in the first place. you’ve got better things to do, right?

right?

@littlebrownbutterfly