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
Thursday, August 22, 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
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Glitter and Fire - 2018
If your heart is so cold, so hardened by the ways the world has forced you to survive, then hold your silence while I look at the world with wonderment.
I, too, have had my share of emotional beat downs for when my oddities and kindness were seen as weakness - but, I swore to never let the pain others tried to force feed into me steal the wonderment of the world around me.
If the vulnerability of seeing beauty in a moment is too much for you, then stand aside as I take in the awe of the simplicity of a moment.
Let me ooh and ahh at a fireworks display or the view of the mountains that arise from the horizon after taking a turn into a Colorado Valley.
Permit me the moment to exhale into a fresh salty breeze while dolphins dance 10 yards away - or to let the smell and sounds of autumn in a Shenandoah river bed bring rejuvenation to my being as memories of weekend hikes from my childhood come into my mind like a flood.
You may have lost your ability to remember how incredible it was to see and learn things for the first time, but do not steal the bright, wide-eye exclamation that comes to my face when I see a field of beans out on a back 40 road lit up like a thousand paper lamps in the sky when the lightning bugs begin their symphony in the haze just above the crops.
You have learned to stop listening to the harmony and melodies that fill the quiet pauses, but don't you dare chide me for being unable to stop the tears when the reverberation of a chord on a baby grand hits a part of my soul that I didn't know needed to hear that.
Too busy counting dollars and snatching receipts to look up, you forgot that the stars and whipsy falling embers and smoke of a campfire were the perfect way to end a day and serve as the reminder we all need to be humble and generous and listen to the stories of our loved ones - as those are also as innumerable as the stars in the sky.
I may exude all that shines and sparkles in the way I live and love - but I promise you this - the few shards you might be able to chisel away from me to add to your stack of what your cold soul considers valuable will not be the in the same glittery category as what you horde.
No. Those few tiny shards you pack away as a trophy carry so much purity of passion for the greatness of life that they will incinerate everything they touch that isn't worthy of being with them, leaving you with nothing. Try to crack me if you can, but know the cost of carrying the small shard you were able to chip away will cost you everything you thought you treasured.
©Kristen Garcia 12-2018
I, too, have had my share of emotional beat downs for when my oddities and kindness were seen as weakness - but, I swore to never let the pain others tried to force feed into me steal the wonderment of the world around me.
If the vulnerability of seeing beauty in a moment is too much for you, then stand aside as I take in the awe of the simplicity of a moment.
Let me ooh and ahh at a fireworks display or the view of the mountains that arise from the horizon after taking a turn into a Colorado Valley.
Permit me the moment to exhale into a fresh salty breeze while dolphins dance 10 yards away - or to let the smell and sounds of autumn in a Shenandoah river bed bring rejuvenation to my being as memories of weekend hikes from my childhood come into my mind like a flood.
You may have lost your ability to remember how incredible it was to see and learn things for the first time, but do not steal the bright, wide-eye exclamation that comes to my face when I see a field of beans out on a back 40 road lit up like a thousand paper lamps in the sky when the lightning bugs begin their symphony in the haze just above the crops.
You have learned to stop listening to the harmony and melodies that fill the quiet pauses, but don't you dare chide me for being unable to stop the tears when the reverberation of a chord on a baby grand hits a part of my soul that I didn't know needed to hear that.
Too busy counting dollars and snatching receipts to look up, you forgot that the stars and whipsy falling embers and smoke of a campfire were the perfect way to end a day and serve as the reminder we all need to be humble and generous and listen to the stories of our loved ones - as those are also as innumerable as the stars in the sky.
I may exude all that shines and sparkles in the way I live and love - but I promise you this - the few shards you might be able to chisel away from me to add to your stack of what your cold soul considers valuable will not be the in the same glittery category as what you horde.
No. Those few tiny shards you pack away as a trophy carry so much purity of passion for the greatness of life that they will incinerate everything they touch that isn't worthy of being with them, leaving you with nothing. Try to crack me if you can, but know the cost of carrying the small shard you were able to chip away will cost you everything you thought you treasured.
©Kristen Garcia 12-2018
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Powerful Words
Some of the most powerful words one can hear are not - I Love You.
No, see love is a fickle - but beautiful - thing.
Love is a choice - you can love those that cheat you; break you; take you for granted - You don't have to like those you love - for love is a choice.
It is a choice to love your children, family, spouse on the days they make the world around you miserable. No, I Love You, isn't always all that powerful.
But there are words that breathe life into souls - words that heal better than any surgeon's sutures could.
Those words are different to each of us - the pains we carry are our own, each with their own words that will mend the wound left gaping. Wounds that we may never know existed until they are healed.
But enter in a life kept busy - one foot after the other - never stopping for rest.
For to stop means to breathe - and to breathe to pause - and when the mind is given a moment to itself may not always yield positivity.
God forbid that moment comes in front of a mirror. A pause turns into a glance; and that glance can become a staring evaluation. And the questions can start to swirl.
For me, some of those questions were - Am I my mother? What parts are my father? Is any of what I see purely me?
Will I be beautiful when I'm old? And sometimes, when the light is right, I saw a strong, confident, beautiful woman staring back at me and I wondered - will anyone else ever see what was staring back at me from the mirror?
Time and time again the reflection mocks me. The voices of my own soul's frustrations of being told I'm not enough - the worlds from those around me enter that echo chamber of a paused mind.
They drown out the whispers of hope and any self-confidence; the beatings of hate and insult leave their fiery brand on what I see staring back at me.
As quickly as that moment begins it ends - shaken off by the call of the next assignment to complete - one foot in front of the other - from morning until night, never stopping, never giving a chance for those pauses.
Years add up, a silenced mind never letting the hope and brilliance of the heart be free. A locked door with a buried skeleton key keeping the limbo between self-apathy and true enjoyment intact. Like a 2-year-old playing hide and seek - if I don't see you, I don't have to be addressed or discovered.
Eventually the pauses build up, stacked higher and higher, until something in life forces them to be taken at the same time. What should be a moment - a blink - becomes a sudden traffic jam. No where to go, no foot in front of the other. Full Stop.
However this time - one of a few times in my life these full stops have happened - someone found the skeleton key. Three tiny words in that full stop that forever changed the navigational settings.
For me those words were - I like YOU. I LIKE you. The same three words, each inflection conveying a new strength and turn of the key in the old, rusted, padlock.
And with those words the echo chamber filled with the voices of those from my earliest days is shattered.
That pause before a mirror became a moment where the soft light and warmth of a gentle sun illuminated the best features of my heart - of the way that life had built me up in greatness - and for the first time - all the cuts and lashes of those who were supposed to protect me but didn't were wiped clean.
Because in that moment one who saw me in darkness realized my fire and made me see it, too - letting my soul be free in all it's glory.
Love very well may have been the root of that vision - but it was paired with more.
To like someone. To enjoy who they are and have become - and to give them that reciporcative vision of that - in that there is power.
Power to silence past hate; to silence the self-doubt; to silence the sound of a heart shattering because it is never enough as it is.
Love - that fickle thing - that powerful choice we make is good - but to combine that choice with the beauty of letting another know they are enjoyed, that it is more than a resolved mental decision on how you feel about who they are-
Those can be the most powerful words, the freeing words that empower a spirit to be free to carry on as they were - because at that moment they truly were enough as they were.
©Kristen Garcia 04-2017
No, see love is a fickle - but beautiful - thing.
Love is a choice - you can love those that cheat you; break you; take you for granted - You don't have to like those you love - for love is a choice.
It is a choice to love your children, family, spouse on the days they make the world around you miserable. No, I Love You, isn't always all that powerful.
But there are words that breathe life into souls - words that heal better than any surgeon's sutures could.
Those words are different to each of us - the pains we carry are our own, each with their own words that will mend the wound left gaping. Wounds that we may never know existed until they are healed.
But enter in a life kept busy - one foot after the other - never stopping for rest.
For to stop means to breathe - and to breathe to pause - and when the mind is given a moment to itself may not always yield positivity.
God forbid that moment comes in front of a mirror. A pause turns into a glance; and that glance can become a staring evaluation. And the questions can start to swirl.
For me, some of those questions were - Am I my mother? What parts are my father? Is any of what I see purely me?
Will I be beautiful when I'm old? And sometimes, when the light is right, I saw a strong, confident, beautiful woman staring back at me and I wondered - will anyone else ever see what was staring back at me from the mirror?
Time and time again the reflection mocks me. The voices of my own soul's frustrations of being told I'm not enough - the worlds from those around me enter that echo chamber of a paused mind.
They drown out the whispers of hope and any self-confidence; the beatings of hate and insult leave their fiery brand on what I see staring back at me.
As quickly as that moment begins it ends - shaken off by the call of the next assignment to complete - one foot in front of the other - from morning until night, never stopping, never giving a chance for those pauses.
Years add up, a silenced mind never letting the hope and brilliance of the heart be free. A locked door with a buried skeleton key keeping the limbo between self-apathy and true enjoyment intact. Like a 2-year-old playing hide and seek - if I don't see you, I don't have to be addressed or discovered.
Eventually the pauses build up, stacked higher and higher, until something in life forces them to be taken at the same time. What should be a moment - a blink - becomes a sudden traffic jam. No where to go, no foot in front of the other. Full Stop.
However this time - one of a few times in my life these full stops have happened - someone found the skeleton key. Three tiny words in that full stop that forever changed the navigational settings.
For me those words were - I like YOU. I LIKE you. The same three words, each inflection conveying a new strength and turn of the key in the old, rusted, padlock.
And with those words the echo chamber filled with the voices of those from my earliest days is shattered.
That pause before a mirror became a moment where the soft light and warmth of a gentle sun illuminated the best features of my heart - of the way that life had built me up in greatness - and for the first time - all the cuts and lashes of those who were supposed to protect me but didn't were wiped clean.
Because in that moment one who saw me in darkness realized my fire and made me see it, too - letting my soul be free in all it's glory.
Love very well may have been the root of that vision - but it was paired with more.
To like someone. To enjoy who they are and have become - and to give them that reciporcative vision of that - in that there is power.
Power to silence past hate; to silence the self-doubt; to silence the sound of a heart shattering because it is never enough as it is.
Love - that fickle thing - that powerful choice we make is good - but to combine that choice with the beauty of letting another know they are enjoyed, that it is more than a resolved mental decision on how you feel about who they are-
Those can be the most powerful words, the freeing words that empower a spirit to be free to carry on as they were - because at that moment they truly were enough as they were.
©Kristen Garcia 04-2017
Friday, February 12, 2016
Snow Days
Each one with it's own design, forever unique.
Bevels and turns creating the most delicate of exact, minute details.
They can quickly find the others like them, interlocking into their own little packs, huge, soft, and able to travel gently -
Or stay on their own, small, dry and in a blink they have flow by in such a way that you wonder if it existed.
With a little driving force of wind to push them along life can become beautiful - or overwhelming.
Each one in it's own complexity. Like our hopes. Our dreams. Our desires. The end goal of what we see our lives being at different points. The celebrations of the small victories we have each day.
They all whirl around us like snow. Their intricacies vital to their identity. Their makeups being what allows them to bind together. Their properties that has them cover us like a heavy blanket, or gently grace our eyelashes.
Simple on the surface, yet full of breathtaking detail. Seemingly small until they start coming many in a moment, creating times where we cannot see anything but them. We cannot help but stop and revel in it's beauty. And it stirs up something in our souls.
Let even the sunny days not be absent of the swirling flakes of dreams. Of love. Of hopes. Of celebrating the small as if they were big. In this the accumulation of beauty lies.
©Kristen Garcia 02-2016
Bevels and turns creating the most delicate of exact, minute details.
They can quickly find the others like them, interlocking into their own little packs, huge, soft, and able to travel gently -
Or stay on their own, small, dry and in a blink they have flow by in such a way that you wonder if it existed.
With a little driving force of wind to push them along life can become beautiful - or overwhelming.
Each one in it's own complexity. Like our hopes. Our dreams. Our desires. The end goal of what we see our lives being at different points. The celebrations of the small victories we have each day.
They all whirl around us like snow. Their intricacies vital to their identity. Their makeups being what allows them to bind together. Their properties that has them cover us like a heavy blanket, or gently grace our eyelashes.
Simple on the surface, yet full of breathtaking detail. Seemingly small until they start coming many in a moment, creating times where we cannot see anything but them. We cannot help but stop and revel in it's beauty. And it stirs up something in our souls.
Let even the sunny days not be absent of the swirling flakes of dreams. Of love. Of hopes. Of celebrating the small as if they were big. In this the accumulation of beauty lies.
©Kristen Garcia 02-2016
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