tonight i whispered goodbye on the wind; it danced across the keys of an untuned piano, and carried through an opening door, and slivered through a black, lace shawl, and whistled through the leaves of the tallest tree, and tumbled across shards of broken glass, and dove into the violent sea, and was swallowed by the dark before it could reach you tonight i whispered goodbye on the wind, a goodbye that never came ~ A. L. Stippich
Alone, now
i’m not supposed to be here and you are not supposed to stay it’s made clear you’ve left long ago but as you can see we are never quite on the same page i bleed alone, now, and carry myself i’ve sheltered me better, to tether my health; with the alter removed and a taste of your truths, I can wash away the stain you’ve become
~ A. L. Stippich
Hello, Fall
“The neighbor asked him how he was and what he’d been doing. My grandfather said, ‘I’ve been cutting the grass and watching it grow. Cutting the grass and watching it grow. Life,’ he said, ‘is ninety percent maintenance.’”
~ Spielberg’s Taken
This summer has been a whirlwind combo of strange weather and a roller coaster of emotional ups and downs. I have been hiding from the social media world in order to recharge, focus on sleeping, work on my personal community, and make a conscious effort to accomplish more this year.
It’s been tough, to say the least. Starting a new job in the middle of a pandemic was probably not the brightest move for me to make in 2020 but was needed just the same. However, some changes feel more like moving from the pan into the fryer. The hysterical loneliness and emptiness that comes with only being a needed pulse in a distant chair can weigh you to such deep lows. The first time working in an environment where I am not part of any team, just ‘the help’, no more, no less. So here I sit and knit, trying to analyze how to heal from something new.
I have been focusing on keeping my hands as occupied as possible with all of the extraordinary BIPOC yarns and tools I’ve collected over this year. My design brain has been reactivated. Playing with fire, color, foliage, and shifting structures has been an encouraging companion when I need the distractions. But now I think it’s time to start writing again, too.
I still question how worth it all of this is; am I speaking to no one, is it really that big of a deal if I don’t post? My ability to veer from negative thoughts and remain motivated is sometimes a losing battle. I guess that is part of venturing on a journey, you never really know when the roads will fork and bend.
I guess I will just keep pressing on.
XoXo
replay
tomorrow is almost, it’s there, (like today) just clearer and cleaner and further away, but tomorrow always comes at the break of each day and tomorrow is here much too soon ’tis today in reverse, stuck in yesterday’s curse, as tomorrow is yesterday’s turn at the bend, (half a tick to the end!) just a few loops around back to yesterday’s town and tomorrow is back here again i am stuck in today watching history replay, fixed on yesterday’s face and today’s quicker pace, as each story untold unfurls and unfolds and new days for others begin so if the cycle should end, and tomorrow begin as if today had never become, would i wake up the same, would i feel the same pain from when yesterday snuffed out my sun? ~ A. L. Stippich
Internal II (wanderer)
there is someone wandering around
on the inside of my
head
she and i are not the same
and she often wishes I were
dead
she whistles haunting tunes, a sickly sweet
into my
ear,
a restless hum of seething rage
to fill my veins with
endless fear
she bids the sorrow that wears me
thin,
the curtains veiling a hollow
skin, (a shell of a girl)
one day closer to the eventual
end,
and i know, she will be the very last friend
i ever see
~ A. L. Stippich
melancholy
the sun is awake!
curtains pulled to a shallow
sea
the waves begin
to stir
with a restless
ache
the sun has
stolen me,
how to make them
understand
that i am fear's
permanent reside
words are not
thoughts
nor thoughts
words;
fragments
and
slivers
the world is in motion,
in tune with the
sea,
but my fists
remain firm
in the
sand
(even a hole can
play house
to a
void)
melancholia
my lover, my infinite
solitude
hold me fast in
your arms;
the iron gates
to my
eternal prison
~ A. L. Stippich
star gazer
I sat on the edge of a star today (head in the sand, feet in the tide), Watching pieces of dead earth tap the edge of the moon from an ever ripening sea in the Sky ~ A. L. Stippich
my old friend, Otis
If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine.
Fiona Apple
*Triggering Content Warning*
Otis was not originally called Otis. Otis needed a new name. Well, that, and a fresh set of nylons, but more importantly, a new identity.
Dammit, I miss him when he is tucked away. Every time I decide to pick him up to start playing again, it feels like embracing an old friend. An extra limb that carried me through half of what was a mangled childhood. In all my years of playing, I have yet to find a classical that sounds quite like him.
I honestly hate talking about music. Some things you experience in life are just too involved or intense to be able to put into words for another to comprehend and in trying to do so, the opinion floodgates open and by then you have lost your motivation from disheartenment. Music and I have always had such a personal connection. I do not play to be heard, I play to feel free.
Otis was passed on to my brother and I by a church family getting rid of extra guitars when I was in my preteens. The only guitars we had been introduced to prior were my father’s classical and a special, eighties built Les Paul; a deep, blood, red wine color with special machine heads that had tiny tuning handles, which folded inside of each knob. The neck was perfectly crafted with a fretboard of stunning mother of pearl inlays. To this day I have still seen nothing like it. I loved that thing and hated it all at the same time. It was the guitar of my dreams and could lull me to sleep when played. Unfortunately, after I convinced the babysitter that we were “totally allowed to play with it” that one time, the days long welts left behind from the top of my back, down to the backs of my legs from the leather belt lashing made me feel differently about its allure. I had accidentally chipped some paint on the damn thing and the damage was very soon discovered by its meticulous owner. After that it just felt like a toxic love affair. The thing was fucking haunted.
So close your eyes,
And close your mouth.
And do this all in time to the music
That screams like a child in the back of your mind
In a clown’s saloon...
Ryan Adams
Receiving Otis as a kid felt like I had been handed a brick of gold. The moment I figured things out and conquered tuning, it just all rushed in. I had grown up on a lot of sixties and seventies classics from my parents’ collection before finding my own music journey. I wanted the slow hand of David Gilmour mixed with the complex finger styling of Steve Howe, playing Mood For a Day with perfect ease. I spent hours on end with calloused fingers and sore wrists, giving myself full blown tendonitis by high school from overplaying. For a spell, I was the kid with the record player and a stack of Pink Floyd, tucked in a quiet, dirty basement, resetting the needle over and over until I had the timing just right. Music and I were already one, but now that I could play it, the game completely changed.
I will sit right down
Waiting for the gift of sound and vision.
David Bowie
Once my father caught on that we liked something that he already had a vested interest in, we finally found a sliver of common ground and by my late teens, the guitar count in our home was in the teens itself, with an amp count not far behind. A person could not walk into our house without noticing that it was full of guitarists.
My baby brother had met the strings not long after I did and blew us all away, learning songs by ear, even learning Hendrix was straight-forward for his fingers. Soon, after being gifted his metallic, mint green Stratocaster (affectionately named Lucy), a guitar strap only left his neck for showers. The magic music man of the family was born, and he has never put a guitar down since, all because of Otis.
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight,
Carry that weight a long time…
The Beatles
There are a lot of reasons I walk away and come back. Sometimes it hurts too much. The fond memories I have, outlined by my entrancement with the strings still sit like fine china on an old, rickety shelf. I am not ready to feel them yet. However, sometimes I just need him again, during rough times of emotional stress or just because seeing an old friend can sometimes bring you back to a happier state of mind. Who knows…
what it be
what it be let it be let what should be free, be freed within thee and what has to be, be by my own decree Just let what be and let others flee when it is time for them to flee (Let me flee, I must Flee) for I am free, to be me for what is freed within you is also freed within me so let be what needs to be and be freed ~ A. L. Stippich
a tear
There's a tear In there, somewhere Where my heart used to care Where there was no Despair Where my face felt the air, and Fear Never used to scare; There's a tear There's a tear in there ~ A. L. Stippich
Life at the Burrow 