Written 2-20-15
For what shall we be remembered for?
By the promises we kept?
By the anger we tried to dull?
By the magnificent way we lived?
Or, by the most epic of our failures?
When I was a child, I acted like a child - yet there should be a part of the child's awe and wonderment at each moment that we never lose.
Do you see the beauty in the soft falling snow? Or, do you see it as another bar in your prison?
Do you feel the love of the One who made you in a warm Southern breeze - or do you scorn the way it messes up your hair?
Do you long so deeply for the escape you know is coming soon that you forget to enjoy the beauty of each sunrise given to you to keep your heart at peace?
Always seek the beauty in everything. That is where maturity lies - but not just in seeking - but treating it with the preciousness it deserves.
It is the sign of the mature life that they recognize the cost of everything set before them - their own daily life included - and treat it with the level of treasure it deserves.
Do you treasure beyond measure the new dawn of a day given to you to take a hold of and use every minute of it to change the world?
Do you look at the ones who have trusted you to take care of them as a gift to enjoy and try and laugh at the ways they frustrate you?
Do you cherish the love that others feel for you - even on the tough days? Even when distance is required to keep things intact - do you still cherish that which is placed in your hands?
Do you strive to live every moment so that no one can speak reproach of yu? Is that such a desire that it fuels every decision, every choice, every turn of your day?
What shall we be remembered by? Shall those closest to us say much of the same thing those who barely know us say?
Can we breath through the curse of familiarity to treat those nearest to us with the best we can possibly give? Shall those who barely know us speak higher than those who know us best?
Cherish the gifts - the small ones from the sweet smiles and kisses from the babies that love you - to the great ones - the tender hearts filled with love that are trustingly placed in your hands - as if in any moment it can be ripped from your life. No next breath or moment is guaranteed to be the same as the next.
How shall we live? How then, shall we be remembered?
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
Thursday, August 22, 2019
The Luring Call
Written 6-14-2010
The ache in my heart some days is only dispersed by an open road.
Wide open roads beckon me to escape the confines of the everyday and enter that coveted solitude.
My all our urge to retreat and be alone and away is rare, but when it strikes, it rarely lest go without a fight.
To fly above the Earth is grand and a feeling like no other, but to control the environment, the route, the agenda, that is much more grand.
To ride the mountains and their valleys, to smell the fields after the rain, to step foot on places that shaped our past - for that, there is no substitute.
The hypnotizing hum of the tires on the road gently fades into silence, providing a sanctuary where sometimes the greatest revelations are had.
Self-inflicted solitude of the most beautiful venture. A necessity for my sanity.
And, on the flip side, the ability to drown out the pecking thoughts with no one to complain. A chance to be rid of certain demons once and for all.
Ahh, the escape of the open road. The peace of the surrounding beauty. Things only achieved by climbing into the driver's seat and never looking back.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
The ache in my heart some days is only dispersed by an open road.
Wide open roads beckon me to escape the confines of the everyday and enter that coveted solitude.
My all our urge to retreat and be alone and away is rare, but when it strikes, it rarely lest go without a fight.
To fly above the Earth is grand and a feeling like no other, but to control the environment, the route, the agenda, that is much more grand.
To ride the mountains and their valleys, to smell the fields after the rain, to step foot on places that shaped our past - for that, there is no substitute.
The hypnotizing hum of the tires on the road gently fades into silence, providing a sanctuary where sometimes the greatest revelations are had.
Self-inflicted solitude of the most beautiful venture. A necessity for my sanity.
And, on the flip side, the ability to drown out the pecking thoughts with no one to complain. A chance to be rid of certain demons once and for all.
Ahh, the escape of the open road. The peace of the surrounding beauty. Things only achieved by climbing into the driver's seat and never looking back.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
Will you wait?
Written 2-12-2010
That look tells me everything.
I'm frustrated, too, but the coldness of your eyes catches me off-guard.
You're hurt, so am I. This wasn't what I expected either, but this is how it is in this moment.
I swear I've mastered many types of love - but this is different. You don't need those kinds of love as much as you need me to let go and be vulnerable. And to be honest, I suck at that.
To be laid bare; to end the masquerade of strength so the truth about how weak and fragile I really am can finally be visible.
Herein lies the truth - the real strength is in this act. No fear to cry, no fear of failing, no fear of being shattered again.
But too often I am too weak to let go of the one thing holding me back --- and that is precisely the one thing you need so you can love me.
You have had this love from me before. But it did not come without tears and sleepless nights. But, even in those struggles, it was the greatest time of my life. The most exhilarating and joyful of all my days on this Earth.
Yet, with the passing of the days my heart grows colder to the joy and my weakness has brought us to this place - where your spirit also shows a cooling.
To live; to love; to laugh again, I must find the strength once more to be laid bare and feign strength no more.
The question is - will you still be here when this is achieved? Is my love, the truest of my love, worth waiting for?
Are the dreams rekindled enough to restore hope in what we will have?
Only you can make that decision.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
That look tells me everything.
I'm frustrated, too, but the coldness of your eyes catches me off-guard.
You're hurt, so am I. This wasn't what I expected either, but this is how it is in this moment.
I swear I've mastered many types of love - but this is different. You don't need those kinds of love as much as you need me to let go and be vulnerable. And to be honest, I suck at that.
To be laid bare; to end the masquerade of strength so the truth about how weak and fragile I really am can finally be visible.
Herein lies the truth - the real strength is in this act. No fear to cry, no fear of failing, no fear of being shattered again.
But too often I am too weak to let go of the one thing holding me back --- and that is precisely the one thing you need so you can love me.
You have had this love from me before. But it did not come without tears and sleepless nights. But, even in those struggles, it was the greatest time of my life. The most exhilarating and joyful of all my days on this Earth.
Yet, with the passing of the days my heart grows colder to the joy and my weakness has brought us to this place - where your spirit also shows a cooling.
To live; to love; to laugh again, I must find the strength once more to be laid bare and feign strength no more.
The question is - will you still be here when this is achieved? Is my love, the truest of my love, worth waiting for?
Are the dreams rekindled enough to restore hope in what we will have?
Only you can make that decision.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
Will you see me?
Written 1-24-2010
A door can be left unlocked for only so long -
An open hand and invitation offered only so many times to be rejected.
Yet without an exchange of words and ideas you believe you know me.
No idea as to what drives me, where my passion lies, what my spirit has seen, but yet, you assume I am just like everyone else around you.
But, I am not. I walk in a plane I wish everyone did to the very least.
It is a place difficult to believe exists as the things that consume me are rarely grounded here.
But you refuse to lean about me, preferring to file me in the same category as all the others.
And when blessing is about to be bestowed, you find no joy in it, shaking your head as I rejoice.
Even so, the door remains open, the invitation still extended. The question is - will you take hold of it? Will you finally be willing to break loose of your mind and see who I really am?
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
A door can be left unlocked for only so long -
An open hand and invitation offered only so many times to be rejected.
Yet without an exchange of words and ideas you believe you know me.
No idea as to what drives me, where my passion lies, what my spirit has seen, but yet, you assume I am just like everyone else around you.
But, I am not. I walk in a plane I wish everyone did to the very least.
It is a place difficult to believe exists as the things that consume me are rarely grounded here.
But you refuse to lean about me, preferring to file me in the same category as all the others.
And when blessing is about to be bestowed, you find no joy in it, shaking your head as I rejoice.
Even so, the door remains open, the invitation still extended. The question is - will you take hold of it? Will you finally be willing to break loose of your mind and see who I really am?
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Contemplating the Mystery
Sanctuary. Safety. A place to grow.
That is what the arms of love are to look like.
Growth is not immune from pruning and trimming, but it is done in the safety of love.
When one survives on competition and the dominance against all those in their space, peace can never be found.
When one's position is based on how deeply they can dull the naturally brighter lights around them, a sanctuary can never be created.
The remains of the pages where their torn-off edges remain in the notebook serve as the reminder of such heartfelt attempts to awaken the compassion and kindness locked away from the world so long ago.
Ink pens, drained of their liquid to create those words, remain in their jars, their ink levels as low as the hope in the soul that drained them......hoping someday those pleas for goodness to come back would be heard.
Small reminders lay everywhere, they become inescapable.
Constant companions of failures and tiny breakthrough moments that whisper words that are as destructive as they are reassuring - the lessons of why and to what benefit still a mystery.
And when grace and forgiveness are extended continually, the cracks created in souls of stone are quickly patched with lead, with hopes of never feeling the pain of real emotion ever again.
The scariest thing to a heart that has shut itself off from feeling anything are the moments where the heart comes alive again and is overtaken by joy, hope, love - because every time they are followed by deep pain.
And being numb is safer, easier, and will never disrupt the inner world as feeling alive will.
Sometimes one more ounce of pain is all it takes to break a spirit. To feel is to chance that shattering - to remain numb is the safest option.
As poetically beautiful as they are painful, perhaps that is the true lesson - that the mystery of how we grow for the better when the energy of a loved one has turned against us - may have to remain just that - a mystery to be respected and contemplated. It's lesson ever evolving as we move through life.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
That is what the arms of love are to look like.
Growth is not immune from pruning and trimming, but it is done in the safety of love.
When one survives on competition and the dominance against all those in their space, peace can never be found.
When one's position is based on how deeply they can dull the naturally brighter lights around them, a sanctuary can never be created.
The remains of the pages where their torn-off edges remain in the notebook serve as the reminder of such heartfelt attempts to awaken the compassion and kindness locked away from the world so long ago.
Ink pens, drained of their liquid to create those words, remain in their jars, their ink levels as low as the hope in the soul that drained them......hoping someday those pleas for goodness to come back would be heard.
Small reminders lay everywhere, they become inescapable.
Constant companions of failures and tiny breakthrough moments that whisper words that are as destructive as they are reassuring - the lessons of why and to what benefit still a mystery.
And when grace and forgiveness are extended continually, the cracks created in souls of stone are quickly patched with lead, with hopes of never feeling the pain of real emotion ever again.
The scariest thing to a heart that has shut itself off from feeling anything are the moments where the heart comes alive again and is overtaken by joy, hope, love - because every time they are followed by deep pain.
And being numb is safer, easier, and will never disrupt the inner world as feeling alive will.
Sometimes one more ounce of pain is all it takes to break a spirit. To feel is to chance that shattering - to remain numb is the safest option.
As poetically beautiful as they are painful, perhaps that is the true lesson - that the mystery of how we grow for the better when the energy of a loved one has turned against us - may have to remain just that - a mystery to be respected and contemplated. It's lesson ever evolving as we move through life.
©Kristen Garcia 08-2019
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