shape stirs beneath me

Poison introduced me to Frightened Rabbit in the beginning

we were riding down Beacon in Jazzy and

i thought they sounded like they had just finished 

having tubes removed from their throats, initially,

like so many bands before them

form a line

get to the back

i need to listen; let me hear you.

it takes a while, like any good thing

until you hear a song that reverbs 

off the walls

off the atoms

off the backs of those who came before

sliding out of the skin they rode in on

like snakes, molting.

the wrestle, the sea felt different, today

to me it meant more than the knashing of

teeth and that cold blue bruise inside my cheek

that i keep flicking 

with my tongue to be sure it existed, exists.

and i put it there, in the wrestle.

bare those teeth to me, please.

ex? oh.

kay

i swallow the sea

so i went for a nice, easy run on Sunday.  the kind of run where you don’t care if your ipod is on shuffle or if it will play straight through because you know, inevitably, you’ll hear them all (and some of them twice) so you’re content.  in fact, i was curious to know what songs were still on my playlist.  I had an hour to find out.

it started off as any innocent run would; no head games, just the slicing through of the thick wet blanket of humidity that was slowly thinning, as though some great savior had begun to whisk milk in a bowl full of egg whites.  

on longer runs, i tend to ease into my thoughts slowly.  it’s like they’re in sync with my heart chambers or something.  i’m not breathing hard so i’m not thinking hard.  the pressure is off.  just run and enjoy.  but of course, i get into a rhythm (which is to say that I start to run a bit faster,  and then i see some guy or a group of girls running at a good clip and i feel the overwhelming desire to flash past them whilst breathing only slightly under strain.  this is mostly always an act.  it’s usually hard to maintain, but i flippn love it).  so this starts happening and i engage in some fantastic speed work on the back end by the arlington bridge until i tell myself to CHILL OUT KAYMILLER this is supposed to be light? be easy? remember?  but my thoughts race on and I go to chase them down.  

so i go on and i get more in the zone and my heart chambers are dancing.  i’m letting myself take on a slightly faster clip than i wanted, but it feels good and I know the next 20 minutes towards home will be doable.  but my thoughts turn back on, and i am chasing invisible fears and with known strengths.  i have walls that start to stack themselves around this four-chambered blood beater.  and i am trying, with every inch of ground, to knock them down.

Then, as I flick my eyes out to the distant Memorial Bridge, I see a man running towards me by the BU boathouse.  He’s got a fuel belt on, a bald head and a grimace.  He’s oil slick with humidity and clearly in the midst of facing his own demons....and loving it.

He reaches me in a few steps and in that brief moment we see each other.  we are runners we are running we run.  he drops his hand, palm out, and holds it in front of him.  I slap it and in an instant, we gone, each running into our own unknowns.   

i kept that smile on my face until i hit the showers.  that experience was pure joy.  and it caught me wholly off-guard; my reaction felt so absolute and real.  it’s coming eye-to-eye with a wild animal and you see in the iris of their eye that life is much, much, much bigger than you.  it’s the silence of a deep woods where you feel the most understood and you’ve yet to utter a single word.  it’s more than an arm around your shoulder, a pat on the back.  it’s more and i can’t explain it except that behind the smile was a tight ball of emotion.  because the high-five was a hole-punch to the sky of the rational.  and i saw something shining.  we’re all out there, fighting the good fight, chasing down our demons, running from them, running towards something, grimacing, smiling, holding down, holding back, letting go.  and we think we’re on our own.  and then someone sticks out their hand.  and gives you a high five.

xokay

Us Ones In Between

i heard it and i loved it and the lyrics terrify me in that way that speeds up the bloodrush of a good song to the head and his voice is tremendous.  and every lightening rod has got to watch the storm cloud come, it's true.

enjoy + xo,
kmills

breath holding

do you remember when we were life-sized and skipping in the park?  

when our hair clung to our popsicle-stained cheeks? 

we had joy by the fistful.

we had air under the soles of our feet and laughter 

under our rib bones.  we still have

each other and a whole color wheel of life 

now my pockets are full of goldfish with tight 

bellies and big lips.

all my life in their gills.

xo ©,

kay

are we human or am i you are i... (through a futbol lens)

It wasn’t the strongest shot, the way Clint Dempsey wheeled the ball through defenders at just about the 18 and took a shot on net.  I’m not even sure he was looking, but that’s the thing about strikers at that level of play; they don’t need to look; they are pulled by a magnetic force having spent every waking hour practicing, playing, replaying, reviewing, drinking, breathing, sleeping with the one sport they love to live and live to play.  it breathes in them, becomes them.  the net is merely an extension of the leg; a trajectory of sinew and grace connecting player to play.  and the man who defends the 192 square feet of open space spends equal time training to become the greatest obstacle between the two.  he perfects the art of reading body language in split seconds, anticipation becomes second nature, periphery vision is 20/20, his hands move deftly in front of his body – he paints the air the color of Brick Wall.  the goalie makes it his life to know how to fall and how to fly, to stop the ball from pulling into the only space it’s meant to go. 

and when he misses, the world stops.

or so it seems, or so it’s seen,  as the world saw, when England’s goalie opened his arms to receive Dempsey’s shot, and the ball rolled between his hands and into net.  when his fist came down and met the earth in defeat, I can only imagine the heaviness of heart and hand as it fell to the buzz-cut grass of a South African stadium amidst the blaring vuvuzelas at the World Cup.

now the game was tied, and remained so, until the final whistle rang out.  a great “win” for the U.S., and an embarrassment (perhaps) for England.  oh, we won’t remember Dempsey’s shot for being excellent, but instead, the butterfingered mistake of a world-class goalie.  the chain reaction of foot to ball to goal through hands to net to tie.

chain reactions are a funny thing that way.  you never know what can happen. 

those chains.

those reactions. 

what you put out there, how you handle something, someone, some idea that is impossible or amazing and is hurtling at you as fast as that adidas sphere on the world stage.  what will you do?  and how much of it is left to chance?  so how much should you do?  all of it.  everything you can.  put it all out there.  dive.  I suppose if you miss or you don’t miss, you’re left with a new perspective.  and the world absorbs the impact as you hurtle through it.  and therein lies another chain reaction.

watch this.  love cloud cult.

xokay

 

Wet & Rusting

Hadn't really given these guys a good listen, but now I can't get enough.  Menomena.  Fun and disjointed tunes.  
Though this song is not on their latest album, Mines, I have been listening to it and a few others on repeat these last few days.  Given to me by a few dudes at work, the dancing in my apartment hasn't stopped.  then I landed on this video, shot by Vincent Moon (who does a magnificent job at shooting the Takeaway Shows) and cracked up laughing at the brilliant joy.  Oh, to be a kid again:)


Hope you enjoy on this rainy ocean gray day!
xokay

A Trial of Miles

Today I woke up and did what was supposed to be a really effortless, shake-it-out, relaxed 30 minute run.  But by the time I turned up the ramp onto the Mass Ave bridge, I was picking off “fast-looking” runners on my way to creating about 18 different challenges that would leave me breathless and heaving against the wrought iron fence under the dogwood tree in front of my three-windowed apt.  It’s days like this where I perform recklessly for the sake of one big fat Kay-Litmus test to see if I have what it takes to....to what?  School the early morning joggers?  sure.  Anything to entertain my mind and drop the innocent like flies.   I rue the day i became competitive and the days when i should take it easy and i decide to lay guts on the esplanade.  reminds me of one of my most FAAAAVorite quotes, which secretly I want to memorize and perform to an unsuspecting audience during 

1. an acceptance speech
2. a wedding ceremony

“Or we can blaze!  Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere!  We can scald dogs, put records out of reach!  Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out!  We can become God’s own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls!  We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They’ll speak our names in hushed tones, ‘those guys are animals’ they’ll say!  We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels.  We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet!  We can, by God let our demons loose and just wail on!”  ~Quenton Cassidy, Once a Runner 

(ummm, can you imagine saying it - with theatrical pause - as the opener to a Maid of Honor/Best Man speech?  fantastic.)

I measure me.  I take little measurements of me every day.  Mostly, I think, without knowing it.  And then I stack it against the backdrop of the tapestry I think I am.  It’s like knowing what you look like, and seeing your face in the mirror.  The two are very different, because one accounts for the 3D picture, the other is just your surface shot:)  

For me, running is the simplest way for me to be every angle of who I am; vulnerable, fierce, timid, engaged, happy, distracted, cool, pensive, confident, uneasy, etc.  What I think is funny is the weight I give to the fact that I pass others or others pass me.  It really doesn’t matter.  The guy could’ve eaten a banana with bad almond-butter.  Who knows?  The truth is, a run reflects very little of where you stack up against others, and very much of where you stack up with yourself.  

some days, you just need to wail on.

xo,

kay