The Art of Discipline

I am learning what it means to be disciplined and diligent with the time that I've been given. I'm such a time waster... hence my lack of blogging. I've got a lot of time to make up for in the next couple of days, so I apologize in advance for the spam blogs :)



I stopped to take a look around, to say my last goodbyes. I had heard of girls like me not being able to say goodbye to the lifestyle that had imprisoned them. I had always resented them, thought they had to be mindless to not take any opportunity they had been given. Standing at the door about to leave everything that I had known, I quickly realized I was no different. Prison walls are predictable and they never change. They protect you from the elements and become acceptable and comfortable compared to facing the cold, heartless world outside. Eventually, I even convinced myself that this place was home. That I had loved my captor. But as I looked around the empty trailer I knew there was no life here. There was no living in captivity. There were the free and living and the trapped and the dead. I was done with death, had experienced too much of it in my life and was all too ready to start living. Grabbing the door handle, I walked into the early morning air, not taking a single look back. As I walked I emphasized every step, leaving one reality behind and embracing the new, whatever that may be. Kairon was leaning against the trunk of a large tree.
“Hey, wait up!” I heard him call. I had walked right past him in my new found determination. Whirling around I grabbed his hand with an unexpected boldness.
“Where to next? I want to get out of here,” I said trying to drag him along. He was so strong! Granted I wasn't much of a weight lifter, but trying to pull him was like moving a mountain.
“You are one puzzling girl. You haven't asked one question about who I am or where I'm taking you. I thought this was going to be a lot more difficult, but you're making my life pretty easy.”
“I don't care who you are, or where we're going. I just want to leave. If you wanted to take advantage of me you would have already done it. Let's go!” I said frantically. I could see him in my mind; Billy peeking out from behind the trailer, boring a hole through me with those beautiful steal eyes, Billy saying those words that dripped with manipulation and control. I could hear him.
“You're worthless. How could you possibly think this man would want you? You're damaged goods. I'm the only one that understands what you've been through. I'm the only one who can take care of you.” My breaths started coming in short gasps. Kairon grabbed my face with gentle hands and looked straight into my eyes and I was overcome by a peace that I didn't understand.
“Let's go.” He said nodding, as if he was privy to every detail of my inner dialogue.

I focused on matching his every step, mostly to take my mind off everything else. We walked out of the parking lot and down a road to end up in a crowded farmer's market. It was then that I spotted a city sign. We were in Oceanside, Oregon a tiny town located on a hill butted up against endless beach. The people in the market mingled among each other like best friends and small crowds of people congregated around different booths of farm grown vegetables and home made crafts. The smells of honey and apples overwhelmed my senses. My stomach growled in protest and could not be silenced. I had forgotten the last time it was that I had had an apple or anything for that matter. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden I was magnetically drawn to the stand that contained my bright red desire. My mouth watered so badly I was sure that drool had to be running down my face.
“Would you like one?” Kairon asked probably noting the crazed, hungry look in my eyes. He was so kind to me, with no pretenses or ulterior motives. Once again I could not shake my feeling of worthlessness.
“No, that's okay.” I lied. He smiled and shook his head as he turned to the vendor.

“Hi there. How are you today?” He asked the plump lady with a head full of hair that matched the fiery red of her apples. Her smile was friendly and welcoming, like the smell of apple pie.
“Well I'm downright peachy sweetheart, how are you?” She asked

Another day. Another Page

He dropped his hands to his side, as if waking up from a dream, and studied my confused expression.
“ I'm sorry. You must think I'm crazy. I'm assuming you were referring to something more general. Like a name maybe?” He said with the grin that was perpetually on his face.
“A name would be nice.” I managed to breath out.
“People call me Kairon,” He said extending his familiar hand that had changed everything. My own hand, like a puppet on a string, mirrored his actions.
“People call me Ava,” I said boldly looking into his eyes, knowing the effect they would have on me. I couldn't describe the moment as romantic, nor could I even say that I loved the man that stood in front of me. The word love wasn't strong enough to describe the gratitude, awe and wonder that overwhelmed me when I stood in his presence.
“Ava,” he said thoughtfully. “Very fitting for you.”
“It means bird.”
“That it does. So, little bird, I believe it's time for you to pack and fly away. Are you ready to say goodbye to this place?” His words slapped me like an angry lover. Why did we have to go? I finally felt safe and loved and he wanted to take that away. I let go of his hand and crossed my arms around me like a pouting child. The deep belly laugh I received in return caught me off guard.
“Would it help if I told you that I was coming along?” He asked crossing his own arms across his chest. It did help. I shrugged my shoulders in surrender. I would go wherever he went. He was my home. I knew that in the deepest parts of my heart. There was no point of resisting it. “Great! Now let's get going, tide is coming in.” He said nodding to our ocean. I said a silent, mournful goodbye and started the trek to the path that led to the parking lot. The white, dingy trailer I had called home for many torturous years looked abandoned in the empty parking lot. It sat in the shade and the darkness that shrouded it was so appropriate. I hadn't realized or felt Kairon's strong arm wrap around my shoulders. He pushed me forward, though all I wanted to do was run in the other direction; to fly away and never return.
“Are you sure he's gone?” I asked, rubbing the sweat of my hands on my torn, loose fitting jeans. Billy had permitted me to buy them after blood from his most recent beating had stained the only pair I had. Kairon chuckled. He was always laughing. I liked that.
“Yes I am very sure of it. No one gets to hurt you anymore.” He said gently stroking my shoulder.
“It's just... I don't really have anything inside of there. I'm wearing the only things I own. Let's just leave.” I said, trying to turn the other way.
“It's important Ava. I'm sure there has to be something you'd like to take with you. We won't ever be able to come back here.”
He was right. There was one thing that I would always regret not bringing with me. Taking a deep, cleansing breath I stepped forward, but Kairon remained planted where he was standing.
“Aren't you coming with me?” I pleaded. He simply shook his head.
“No, dear. This is something you need to do by yourself.”
Knowing that he wouldn't budge on his decision, I realized this was something that I needed to do alone. I had to feel the cold handle of the small door that had ushered in my beaters, accusers, and false friends. I had to walk on the floor that had been my bed even on the coldest nights; the tile that had been soaked with my tears. I had to prune this rotten branch from my life to make room for new growth.
The deep, unnatural darkness that consumed the inside of the trailer held a far too familiar oppression. It reeked of alcohol and urine and stung my eyes. The family of flies that encrusted the red curtains were the only sign of life and that comforted me. I quickly ran to the pillow on the small, makeshift bed and ripped into it with a fury. Feathers floated peacefully around me as I pulled out the gold locket I had hid for the past 14 years. Sometimes in a pillow, sometimes in my pocket, always out of sight. I kissed it and jammed it into my pocket, anxious to be released from the growing panic that was rising inside of me.

175 is the new 30 :)

At this rate it will take me at least 175 days to finish this story! I need to start busting this stuff out! Here it goes again!



I could feel an unfamiliar strength in my bones and a confidence seeping through me.
“Your hands are really warm. It feels nice,” I managed to say. A full blown smile traveled from his lips to his eyes where it danced a little.
“Thank you my dear. I take it your hands have been cold for a long time?” His voice was so drenched in compassion it made my heart beat fast and fresh tears flooded my eyes.
“There hasn't been anyone to hold them.” I choked out.
“I know.” He said quietly. And I believed, somehow, he did know. We sat there in the chill of the night, two strangers that knew each others souls. The fingers of the rising sun began to wave away the fog, revealing a much calmer sea. I leaned my head on the man's strong shoulders, letting his presence sooth me. I matched his steady breathing and gazed up at his constant joyous expression. It did not fade nor did it ebb. I had never seen anything more genuine. It was as if he had created the existence of joy itself.

“ Well now we walk.” He said, slapping his hands on the sand and heaving his large, yet lean frame into a standing position, never breaking his focus from me. The absence of his touch caused a strange feeling of withdrawal.
“Don't be sad my dear.” He extended his hand with a slight bow and I grasped at it like it was my life source. “You don't have to walk alone anymore.” I looked at him in complete awe. Who was this man? Walking leisurely across the cold sand, it hit me that this was one hundred percent insane. I had just spent the night holding hands with a man I had never met and now I was walking hand in hand with him down a beach where anyone could see me. Anyone. He could see me. I halted so abruptly, the strange man didn't have time to stop his own footsteps, which resulted in a slight dragging motion.
“Stop! Please stop. I can't do this. I have to go.” I said on the precipice of hysteria. He stopped and loosened his grip slightly.
“Can I ask why?” He almost begged. This struck me as odd. I had had men beg me for things many times before, but this was different. This was pure. I shook my head, trying to stay in the reality of the moment.
“Because if I don't go right now the people I love will pay for it.” I said, suddenly resolute in my decision.
“Because he will hurt them?” The man asked, his expression transforming from the lighthearted smile to one of knowing and intensity. How could this man possibly know about him?
He couldn't know about the man who had done nothing but use me, abuse me, starve me, beat me and sell me. He couldn't know about the wolf in sheep's clothing that had stolen me from the home that I loved and drowned me in the hell that had become my life. No one knew about that. The man leaned in so that I could feel his breath next to my ear. “I have a secret for you my dear. He has been quite thoroughly taken care of.” He pulled away and nonchalantly said, “You are free.” The word free was so removed from my vocabulary it took me a moment to process what he had said. I did not live in a world where freedom was permitted to be birthed. Every time it would rise up, it was quickly aborted.
“Free,” I muttered to see what the word felt like on my lips. It felt good.
Something started happening to my face. An expression that had long ago been put to death started to form on my lips.
“Now that smile would make my worst days okay.” The man said with an untainted loving tone.
“Who are you?” I asked, wanting to say his name, to write it upon my heart, to never forget this moment. The man released my hand and bent down to pick up a piece of a shattered shell and began to etch something into the soft ground beneath us.
“I am who I am?” I asked puzzled by his odd actions. He tossed the shell aside and raised his hands to the sky as if to embrace the salty air blowing in from the sea. Closing his eyes he said,
“I am who I am.”

I'm a slacker :)

Alright, remember that one time I said that I was going to be posting every day with some of the things that I wrote that day? Well, I lied and apologize for that. BUT I do have something to post today. So, feedback, criticism, whatev :)

I had never had an appetite for being alone. I had never craved loneliness and yet it had always restrained me like a straight jacket. I was never free of it. It followed me into crowds of people, hung on me in relationships, and strangled me at night when I lay in my bed by myself. If I tried to rip free of it, like a Chinese finger trap, it would grip tighter. This disease of loneliness had led me to the small gray sanded beach I stood upon now. Broken shells pricked my bare feet and the hissing wind flipped my hair into a frenzy. The angry sky above me was like a blanket of lead extinguishing the stars above. The rolling sea before me was hypnotic. It held something so tantalizing and foreign to me. It held freedom. It held adventure. Both of which were sparse in my fishbowl world, but courage was what I needed. Why was it that it was so easy to do the things I didn't want to do, but those things I deeply desired were the things that required the most bravery? Fulfilling my desires would require sacrifice, a sacrifice I wasn't sure I could ever make.

The swells before me coincided with the restlessness in my spirit. Sitting down on the wet, sticky, sand I felt furious tears traveling to the crevice of my mouth. Life was not fair. I could say that until I was blue in the face and I would get the same sympathetic smiles, the same ignorant advice and in the end I would remain in the same place I had always been. Alone. There was not a soul that existed who could heal the scars of betrayal on my heart. But they tried. How they tried with their small, insufficient first aid kits and band aids, and their looks of shock and dismay when the wounds would bleed through their flimsy bandages. Rubbing my head I tried to erase the memories that haunted my mind. Anxiety twisted my stomach into agonizing knots and I let the pain consume me. Feeling something, even pain, was better than the numbness that I had become so accustomed to. The thunder above intensified to a point that it began to shake the ground that I sat upon. This was ideal. No one could hear my sobs.

The night had left the beach abandoned and eerie as the fog drifted out of the sea. Through that fog, as if it had been born right from it, emerged a figure of a man. Through my tear blurred eyes I could see him striding toward me. Past experiences and the words of my mother about strange men caused a leeriness toward him. I should have run away. I should have pulled out the pepper spray in my purse. But I didn't.

I observed his easy stride, the way his hands rested in his jean pockets. The way he held his head down in humility, not shame. The way his black hair blew in the wind. There was no fear that held me captive, it was fascination that cemented me. Walking deliberately to me, the man sat beside me and laced his fingers in mine. His hands were unusually warm, probably from being in his pockets. They were smooth and substantially bigger than my own. And as we sat looking at the sea I felt things changing inside of me, rearranging and reorganizing. Neither of us spoke, words would cheapen what was randomly and beautifully happening in my soul. For the first time in my life I could feel my loneliness melting away like candle wax. The breaths that filled my lungs felt as if they were the first ones I had ever taken. The ocean wind blew through me and renewed me. The man tightened his grasp on my hand in an urgency and I could feel his glance turn in the direction of my tear stained face and undone appearance. Turning toward him, suddenly determined and driven to look into his eyes, I found a face that left me in shambles. His eyes seemed to contain every color, here blues, there browns, and faint traces of green. They glimmered and pierced my shattered heart, leaving me with a feeling of utter inadequacy. His free hand rested on my cheek as if to hold my face focused on his gaze and a small smirk danced across his bronze face.

“You have lovely eyes,” were the words that proceeded from his lips. I laughed a nervous laugh. I had never heard the beautiful sound of truth before. It was liberating.

Getting in touch with my roots

I believe I have the first blog jitters. Perhaps it's because I have no idea how to run this thing...but mostly I think it's because of the content of this blog. I've been wanting to do something like this for what seems a lifetime, but I never had the courage/time to actually put pen to paper so to speak. So where to begin? I suppose the beginning would be a good place to start. Everyone sit down now and I will tell you a story.

Once upon a time I was driving my brand new car (Dodge Nitros are amazing and all people should own one) to the coast for my sister's 16th birthday. On this three and a half hour trip I had the pleasure of sharing my passenger seat with my step dad. We began to talk of all manner of things, specifically Lost theories and my great fear of bats. Somewhere between these two subjects we got to talking about writing. I love to write. Every time I think about creating a world of my own with just my imagination and something to write/type with I get giddy with excitement. I think many people can relate to this feeling because, well, creating is what we were created to do. Whether that creative nature comes through music, cooking, painting, sewing, knitting, whatever it is, when we do these things it satisfies a need that sometimes we don't even know is there. Writing fills that need for me.

Through the past couple of years I have gotten married, started a business, bought a house, been a part of ministry at my church, had 4 dogs, and so many other things! While all of this has been amazing and fulfilling somewhere along the way I seemed to have lost a part of who I am. Writing has always been a luxury and never really a necessity. But when you only do the necessary things in life and not the things that you love, life just seems to fall into a monotonous routine of "have-to's". All in favor of living a boring life say "I". Not I good sir. Not I. So without further ado I announce the reason behind this blog. 

My dear dear step dad told me about an online community of sorts for aspiring writers and novelists. Here is the challenge:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I am in touch with reality enough (though barely with working in my home all day every day) to realize that it is not November. But I really feel that I can't wait that long. There is always an excuse to not writing. "Big things are happening with the business" "I have to make dinner" "The laundry needs to be done" on and on and ON. SO even though this month will prove to be the most time consuming month of my life I feel that there is no better time to start this than right about....now. So every day I am committing to post snippets of what I have written for that day and not be overly concerned about criticism. I know that most of it WILL be crap. That's okay. Simply letting my husband read what I've written is a big step for me much less my whole world. But sometimes you have to risk it to get the biscuit :) Plus I would just slack off if there wasn't something to keep my accountable. 

THE END. Stay tuned for a more refined blog and my first day's worth of writing.