I squeeze the sky

Last weekend I was lying on my back looking up at the stars on a dock on a lake in New Hampshire.  

A coworker had invited a few of us to her parent’s camp which was located on an island somewhere in the middle of Lake Winnepausake.  Of course we did all the fun things you do at a lake house:  boating, swimming, eating, exploring, lying around the dock, eating more, imbibing - all checked off on the Fun Things To Do at a Lake House in the Summer Awesome List.  

Sometime late in the night, we found ourselves splayed out like giant starfish on the dock, staring out at the sky, silent.  I’m sure I speak for the others when I say I was completely mesmerized by the flecks of stars that scattered the midnight space - like God had taken a fistful of glitter and tossed it across the universe.

After a while, it was just two of us laying there, bookending the wide planks of dock, presumably lost in our own small thoughts on a giant lake in a vast world.  

“I’ve seen six shooting stars so far tonight.” Chris says.

“You know it’s funny, isn’t it?” I thought out loud, “You really only see them in your periphery - never in focus.  It’s always you staring up at the sky and somewhere on the outer edges you see a dot fall, and just as you shift your eyes to catch it, it’s gone.”

Just then a bright orange flame sliced across the sky.  No joke.  A shooting star bigger than I’d ever seen literally unzipped the heavens.  It was beautiful and so close!  We both started shouting and laughing and were in total amazement.  What perfect timing!

Of course, no one else from the house saw it.  And I wondered if we were the only ones on the lake looking up at that moment, if our excitement carried over the water to a campfire whose flames only drifted towards the heavens, fading out as ash before ever knowing life above the tree-line.

It’s a funny thing about shooting stars, or falling stars, as it were.  How closely they mirror those precious moments in our lives where joy lives.  Where happiness follows.  The beautiful moments that happen mostly when we’re not looking for them.  They happen in our peripheral vision.  So special are they that we keep our eyes trained on the map of stars, a hole punched sky, a network of galaxies and seconds of time where we live, interact, believe, fall, dream, rise, learn, release, fail, fly and grab ahold of anything ALL of every moment we have here on this earth knowing that if we do this, if we set our gaze down somewhere in the middle of it all, we might get a glimpse of something really special.

So many times, I have missed this opportunity.  I’ve known what it’s like to hold onto something so tightly.  I’ve known what it means to focus everything I have on one thing and pray that it changes, or doesn’t change, or does what I want it to do.  I’ve been the stargazer whose eyes flit from star to star hoping that I’ll catch the projected arc of light from it’s beginning all the way to it’s end.  To not miss a thing.  All the while, the universe is raining stars and I cannot see them because I am looking over here...

I guess what I’m saying is the heavens hold a trillion billion zillion miracles.

There is magic in the periphery and in patience.

There is an arc of bright orange brilliance ready to unzip the heavens and you may be the only one ever to see it, and it’s happening all around you, right now.

The irony is that you’ll miss it if you look for it.  So pay attention to the vast expanse of your big big Life and start living it out. 

Keep your eyes on the whole of it all, and you’ll get your shooting stars:)

xokay

and i want and i want and i want it

i am playing with my blog template, as you can see.  this image is of a chandelier in a place called Saxy's in boulder.  cool vibe.  loves it.  anyway, it'll be gone tomorrow (likely).  i'm just in a mood and it makes me experiment, fortunately, on dork things like blogs and my photogs and not with drugs or knives or jalapeno peppers or anything.  i've always had a little nerd in me.

rereading the above sentences made me realize that this post is really, inevitably, not going to amount to much.  that's cool.  it's not a noble post.  it's pretty UsWeekly by way of fluff.  so i've got a few more blips to share before i kick this sucker out to the internets.

a couple of hours ago, i was attending an immersion research study and the mediator says, "Human Beings are a good idea."  i know he was making reference to something specific, but hot dang!  i loved that he said that!  I perked right up.  Yes, yes, we ARE a good idea.  I'm glad we were made.

and i'm glad music was and continues to be made, too.  and that people who aren't anything like me know how to sing and put on a show.  like the other day, when i went to see Arcade Fire at the BOAP and they were SO DEEPLY LEGIT that even the mitochondria in my cells were hi-fiving each other.  i don't even know how that can happen, but I'm pretty sure it can. it was so good and full of energy.

speaking of music, i'm also loving the temper trap.  and seeing as how i've bought my ticket for their late Sept show, i can't be one to not listen to them over and over.  i even threw their set on during my awful set of 1-minuters on the Esplanade yesterday* and still felt ambitious and pumped up enough to pick up the pace on the cool down back to my apt, whereby i followed a very fast-looking runner - who was in serious need of a burrito - back to marly-b.  i think we share my street.

one song that can't get off the playlist is called Fools.  "Sometimes we build things to fall..."  hello, awesome line.  good first album.  but i love the video to "Love Lost" so here goes it.  and now i'm exhausted and not making sense.  hitting the pillow in a big old city.  enjoy your night.

exohs,

kay

*don't ever try to do your sprint session when those canadian geese are pooping, eating and fighting each other directly in / on / around your sprint path.  it won't work.  they will win.

i had a dream that i stood beneath an orange sky

in no particular order my week in words

i housed two bagels, two slices of pizza, 4 glasses of wine, a handful of pretzels and a boloco bowl in one day.  i haven’t eaten like that since i was a sophomore in college.  i figured if I was going to overdo it, i might as well make it a total wash.  Buh.

an old man smoking an “old man pipe” at 8am tucked away between two buildings somewhere in chinatown.  i could only see his pipe and the twisting veil of smoke dancing upwards, smelling of almond extract and coconuts.  he smiled as i passed and all the laugh lines in his face crinkled deep.  i like to think he decided to be happy in life.  

old chinese women chuttering their sandaled feet along the wet streets with bags laden with fresh fruit from the street vendors.  matted black hair, thinned blouses, wide and hardened faces etched out with years, bleating orders to their grandchildren which i imagine may have translated into something like, “Help me with these! Carry something!  Stay off the street!”

young pig carcasses thrown over the shoulders of strapping boys off truck beds and into restaurants; indifferent, carried as easily as though it were a laundry bag,  a hike pack, a kid sister who fell asleep on the couch - anything but the obviousness that they were, in fact, pale pink pigs.

Bleak House marathon on my couch late into the night.  Too late into the night - almost not getting up in the morning.  i  absorbed the storyline; i followed Mr. Jarndyce’s broken heart into his office and Esther Summerson’s into the fields in my dreams.  i found myself using quotes from the 8-episode mini-series like, “Oh, Lord, the wind's in the East....”  I would make fun of my parents for watching these Masterpiece movies when i was in school.  I am now that girl:)

Picnic dinner on the Esplanade dock with a dear, dear friend, watching the sun set over MIT, listening to Berkeley College students practice their music in groups, sticking our legs over the edge and watching the Charles host white tipped sailboats edging along the chipped blue waters.  Talking for hours, and enjoying hearing about each other’s lives.  Good friends are great gifts.

And finally, last night, a much needed haircut.  Two hours in the chair with my old hairdresser whom I’ve not seen since I left this city almost a year ago.  Alex and I had much to catch up on, including the birth of his first son, Benjamin.  My hair went from summer dreads/scarecrow-ness, to awesome again.  This is why I love Alex - despite how long I sit in that chair:)  Since I was the last appointment of the night, the staff had ordered pizza and bought some wine and invited me to stay a while.  So there we were, 10 people on an amazing deck staring up at the chillier summer night skies, laughing and talking about how good life is.  I had a moment where I couldn’t believe I was there, accepted into the fold that night.  It was nice.

Looking back over this last week, at strangers I’ll never see again, at rekindled relationships I’m glad to have back, at pigs thrown over the shoulder, at docks with people on them that play notes and share stories with each other that float on and out to the river and the wind-filled sails of the sunfish at dusk; at early morning pipe smoke and the laugh lines of a man who may be far wiser than I; at the drama, and the steady undercurrent of life and living.  I am happy to be here.  and anything that's hard is given to picking up bright spots that steady us on.  this was one of those weeks and i guess it feels good.  i know it does:)

xokay

you forgot what you meant when you read what you said

i caught my shape in the window as i ran to drink the shoreline

w h a t p o w e r f u l i n v i s i b l e d r u g

keeps me sucking air through a straw

c r a v i n g t h a t a c h e i n m y l u n g m a c h i n e

it’s madness to pursue supreme passing out gut check awesomeness

i s e e h o w f a r i c a n p u s h i t b e f o r e s t u p i d i t y i s o w n a b l e 

but i own these rights; i own the river, the nappy grass, the chipped cement 

h e a r t b e a t h i e r o g l y p h i c s d r a w n a t d a w n + d u s k

unearthed in my wake/sleeping, alive in my passing over under beside them

e v e n s o i t a k e t h e m i n.  i t a k e t h e m o n.  i r u n t h e m d o w n.

what powerful invisible drug makes sinew shift in strain and strength

t h e s a m e w i n d t h a t b r i n g s t h i s r i v e r t o t h e s e a

brings me to my knees and the tight fist in my lungs has its way again.

f o r w h a t ?

that’s what i want to know.

(oh trees racing!)

oatmeal with sugar and a hard boiled egg

i saw these guys last weekend at Green River Music Fest and was blown away.   then i couldn't stop watching them on one of my favorite music sites so of course i had to share with you.  the reverb from the cell phones, the horn, the lamplight, the unlocked railway car - all fantastic.  such a beautiful sound.  probably one of my favorite takeaway shows ever. 

it’s all so beautiful and intimate and amazing and i can’t wait to see them again.

The Low Anthem...

enjoy

xo

kay

Low Anthem - This God Damned House - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Faith is born in the dark

Hello, world:) 

Sorry it’s been a bit of time since I last wrote.  Actually, looking at it now, it’s not been long enough for me to apologize but Friday seems like so long ago to me now.  Lot’s can happen in four days.  But i love writing here.  It beats playing out my opinions in my head on the way to the T, or as I walk the Whole Foods aisles or, - as is the case with my awesome new apartment -  in the mirror.  Yes, I often play situations out to the Me in the mirror.  MJ knew what was up and quite frankly I’m glad he wrote a song about it.  (also, sidebar:  having done this a few times, I’ve noticed that when I decide to make a valid point, it seems I talk with my bottom lip.  Do other people see this?  I wonder.)

Anyway, as I said it’s been a long few days.  My life has been a total challenge recently and I’ve had to make decisions that are incredibly tough to make, which require a lot of Faith in who I am and what I know to be true.  I’ve been through a similar situation in a separate area of my life, almost a year ago, when I left a great job, great city, great people for (what appeared to many as) no apparent reason.  But I knew then as I know now, that you land.  You land.  And you fly again:)  So this is me.  This is Kay Miller’s present life at the present moment.  And please - I’ve had a fantastic few days with incredible humans - it’s just sometimes life hands you an incredibly beautiful kite to fly, but there’s no wind.

Without getting into the meat of it, I’d like to share with you a story.  It’s not really a story, it’s more of an insight.  The other night, I watched “Touching the Void”.  First off, I love documentary movies.  And I LOVE adventures and I’m especially enamored with mountaineering, alpine climbing, etc.  Mostly because it’s something I’ll never ever ever do.  I’ve read John Krakauer’s books, dragged my sister out to the Boulder Theater last October to meet Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker (see awesome picture below), and basically am completely completely completely spellbound by anything Andes, anything Alps and anything Himalayas.  It’s the drama that pulls me in.  One mistake and you’re life could be left on the side of a mountain.  So romantic.

Which is why, on Friday night, I grabbed a glass of wine, some dinner and sat down to my Netflixed movie, “Touching the Void” - a true story about these two alpinists who, in 1985, set out to accomplish what no other human being had ever accomplished:  to climb the west face of Siula Grand - a 21,000 ft mountain in the Peruvian Andes.  They were just kids; Simon and Joe.  Early 20‘s and basically everyone who tried to climb this one side never lived to tell the tale.  Pretty brutal.  But these boys were full of fitness, and vim and vigor and experience.  The reason this climb is so famous, is because it was almost a total disaster and a near fatal climb for both men.  I mean, the survival story is stuff dreams (nightmares) are made of.  Probably the kind that make Conrad’s heart lurch.  I would love to sit with him over coffee and discuss this book, but I digress...

(Okay, PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING IMPORTANT THAT HAPPENS...well, cut to the quote but hide the first two paragraphs with your hand...)  

Anyway, one of them gets seriously injured, the other tries to help but ends up cutting away the rope that ties the two men together in order to save his own life, and his injured partner falls into this crag in the mountainside.  It’s the middle of the night, in sub-zero temps, Joe’s femur has compounded into his kneecap and he’s unable to move his leg.  Here he has survived a 100+ft fall off the face of a cliff on which his buddy had cut his rope.  what.  

Now he faces certain death in the belly of a mountain, in seemingly hopeless conditions.  No one knows where he is; his partner thinks he’s dead, the entrance to this crevice is 80 ft above him and he can’t move in a place that is not meant for the living.  It’s all hopeless.  I mean I threw in the towel for him and also definitely stopped eating.  

And then he says this, “You gotta make decisions, you gotta keep making decisions, even if they’re wrong decisions.  If you don’t make decisions you’re stuffed.  Short of dying on the ledge, my only chance was to lower myself deeper into the crevice.  I didn’t know what I would find down there.  I was just hoping there might be some way out of the labyrinth of ice and snow.  And I really struggled to make that decision, I was so scared of going deeper.  The other option was to just to sit there, blindly hoping that somehow it might get better, and I just knew it wasn’t going to get better.”  

Can you just pause for a hot minute in your running outfit, in your work clothes, on your couch in your home in the sun and THINK about what that meant for this man?  The courage it took to decide to do something, something that could result in freedom, or in a silent fall into complete and utter blackness.  In fact, as he lowered himself down into the darkness, he decided not to tie a knot at the end of the rope, figuring that that would just be the end of it.  What hopelessness and despair!  What terror and desperate desperate aloneness.  I can’t even fathom it. 


But how quickly there is hope.  
Hope that sits so close to despair they’re almost touching.  Perhaps they are.  
But at what risk and at what point do you risk one to gain the other?  
To put faith into something that requires all of you?  


I won’t tell you how it ends up, but I encourage you to read the book or watch the documentary.  It’s amazing how powerful the human spirit is and further; it’s amazing how beautifully chaotic our lives can be at times.  If only we knew our own endings.  But I promise you, they’re there.

I think what resonated the most with me is how much this man was hurting, but how much he overcame.  It’s clear that, at the ripe age of 25, he knew so much; past climbs and training partners had taught him to keep pushing, keep making decisions - one way or the other.  To believe in yourself.  To commit.

I guess I just want you to know that it’s never easy, that life is full of really hard choices, but if we stop making them, we’re stuffed.  And I think it’s way harder to sit passively on a ledge in a crevice in the middle of the mountain, when you could be climbing out and into the sunlight.  To hope.  To believe in something that is not seen, but that could be.  To lower yourself into the canyon, to do something you never thought you could do, to move in a direction you never thought you could go, to know that no matter what, you didn’t just sit down.   Find a way.  That takes courage.  It's faith.  Sometimes you’ve got to just grab your rope, and decide to move.  Because you know what?  You just never know:)

xo

kay

i was standing, you were there.

a great collaboration.  a beautiful violin, a soft soaring melody and great vocals, courtesy of st. vincent's annie clark.


enjoy, friends.


xokay


Record Club: INXS "Never Tear Us Apart" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.