Pets: dogscatsturtlesfishiesandmore!

Pets made the list, so I must write. I love these animals. They are scoundrels and killers, but I just love them. This is Gracie Full Leacox and Luke Studguts Leacox. In my lifetime there has also been a Sammy, a Sophie, a Jack, and nameless kittens, and the Regulator cat who still visits every once and again, and Harvey Wallsucker (fish), and tens of other fish that were once named but I have now forgotten. How about Burnt Marshmallow--who was one of around thirty baby turtles we have temporarily owned, rescued baby owls, a crushed baby snapping turtle named Snappy, three baby opossums, around twenty quail, bright blue robin eggs, and at my old house we had chickens and roosters galore. When I was younger, after it had rained on a summer afternoon similar to the one today, I would pick out a worm friend for a play mate that day, I think the typical name for my female worms was Amy and for the male ones it was Max (don't ask me how I decided the sex of the worm, I have NO idea, just a strange imagination).

Yesterday, a mayfly was stuck in a pool of gathered water on the kitchen counter, I named him Tucker, picked up one of his stick legs, and led him to his safety outdoors with the other bugs. My family mocks me for this. I am aware that the average lifespan of a mayfly is not very long, but some part of my heart hurts a little bit when someone crushes the little guy for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know I am ridiculous, but it's just a quirk I guess.

Anyways, I have grown up with many non-human companions in my lifetime and have lost all but two of them now. That is a strange thought. Maybe this is morbid but I say this in complete sincerity, having small doses of grief as a child opens up a thousand different lessons on growing up. Realizing that we do not live forever on this earth is a big one, and that when we do die something far greater is in store for us. And I do not care what theologians theologize about, there are animals in MY heaven, and they'll be worshiping right along next to me to the most high king. Even my little Snappy who I only knew for three seconds, I hope he is there.

My sister was telling me she didn't know if she ever wanted a dog again just because she feels slightly traumatized from all the loss, but I disagree. Not that pet to owner relationships are THAT strong of a real love, but it is still a giving and a receiving of comfort and affection. So LOVE is a dangerous dance. So much extreme joy or extreme hurt can result in this crazy back and forth. And especially if you give out your heart to a thousand different people, mathematically, the opportunity for you to get hurt is at least a thousand times. But let's say you only love a hundred different pets or people, then lucky you, only have the chance of being hurt a hundred ways. YET!!! Let's say the first person is only hurt by half, that means they are LOVED BY 400 more people if the second person is loved by 100% of their pets or people or whatever-beings. That was confusing, but the point is: It's a gamble. Everyone can admit it is a gamble. Whoever said loving is easy, was lying to you (hopefully nobody ever said this, but just in case). It may be easy in a sense that at times it is beautiful, and breathtaking -- yet, when was the last time you were gasping for your life-giving breath, whilst simultaneosuly thinking: "This is a piece of cake!" -- sorry bad joke.

I don't know if any of this had a point, except my mother once told me something I will never forget. She was saying that after she had my oldest sister Lindsey, and then found out she was pregnant with my other sister, Kelsea, she was so nervous because she thought she could never love anyone as much as she loved her beautiful daughter, Lindsey; she was terrified of not having enough love for two children and a husband. But then she said as soon as she had Kelsea, her heart grew double the size and she was overwhelmed with love for her second child. And she never had that same fear again.

One of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors speaks on this matter as well: "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possible be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." -- C.S. Lewis

The point is, Love Expands the heart. It stretches and grows. Love does not shrivel your soul into an 880-year-old dead skeleton, in fact, the lack of love can accomplish that one. Ask God for more of His love to give for yourself and for others and perhaps a pet or two in there, he has unlimited supply, I promise. Ask God for more compassion. Ask God for strength to handle this new love and compassion. Ask God for wisdom. Jesus, our Savior, said ask and you shall receive. Let go of the fear of pain, and give and receive a little from Him and hopefully me and hopefully a spouse and hopefully a puppy or a kitty can fit in your life quite pleasantly as well.

When I asked God to speak to me last night He told me something about this acceptance of our questions. He first told me the verse that says come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest. Well, he said to me: come to me all who are lost, happy, defiant, peaceful, here, loud, quiet, working, sleeping, smiling, stressed, bored, faithful, tired, and ten other adjectives, and kept saying every possible character trait of a person, and then he just completely stopped and said: Come to Me All.

Come to me all, He says. This is the good news.

What to say about this day.

This summer, I am starting a photowritingartproject. It will be HealingHealthyandHappy. It will be called PieceOfAmani. It is a pun (I love puns). Amani means peace in Swahili. So it is a piece of peace.

Even now I am chuckling at myself chuckling at the alternative spelling and definition. Chuckling is not the right verb -- what is a word for a half-turned up mouth exuding sporadic chuckle-puffs?Now I am actually quietly laughing about the new created phrase chuckle-puff. But you have all heard the chuckle-puff. It is the laugh which occurs when something isn't funny, but only slightly entertaining. Chuckle-puff. Say it out loud, use it before the week ends, I don't mind.

I am off course; I must return! A while back I started making a list of things of this earth, or not of this earth which I love. Some are things everyone loves like hand-holding or the ocean, but others are uniquely gifts from God, like my love of dirty feet. The list is about 140+ long and I want to photograph or write about each one before 2011. I originally was only going to photo the project but then I started adding things like "the blood of Jesus" and "the Spirit" and "Doing crossword puzzle with my mother" and I realized some things are better written about. The reason behind all these "wild and whirling words": I want to use my blog as a vessel for some of pieceofamani. This will hopefully keep me accountable to keep practicing photography and writing.

But,

I must say this evening has been all together...(looking-for-the-right-word-pause)...strange. Off. Atypical. I am going to tell a story and emphasize the unconventionality of this night's events. The strangeness all began weeks ago when I told my mother I would be the photographer for my brother's eighth grade formal dance (she told me there would be some sort of small monetary compensation, because after all, they ARE eighth graders). I wore khaki pants and a button up dress shirt, and I kept putting my hands in my pockets like my father does when he is listening to someone drone on for a long time, you know the guy who over-explains the same thing in seven different ways, kind of like what I am doing now. Bless my dad's soul, he always nods his head upwards and keeps it there, all while his fingers feel around for keys or a wallet in his pockets--I kept doing that, but I only had lint to play with. Anyways, after my mother and I had entered the nostalgic arena, complete with my ex-leprechaun-principal not recognizing me--I think I misplaced those hyphens--she is my former principal, but she is still a leprechaun--I realized that it was going to be a very strange night. And it was. I was called bitch by an eighth grade boy who did not know the reason behind muttering something under your breath is so no one else can hear it. Despite my adult-attempting-to-look-professionally-legit-apparel, I was asked by countless teens if I was the photographer. I think they get confused with the contradiction of my young baby face and the fact that NO ONE ELSE AROUND WAS CARRYING A CAMERA, they kept asking me "are you the photographer?"

Alas, I am portraying them in a poor light and that is unfair to the unripened bunch of squaggly hormone-hyped gaggle. There were many well-behaved kids there -- but honestly, who wants to read about them in a story? The naughty ones are 10x more entertaining. Yes.

Something else weird: the stark contrast I felt between myself and the little chitlins. (I am using the term 'little' here referring to young, NOT their actual size because most were heads taller than me.) I didn't necessarily want there to be a line between myself and them, because last week I jumped off the swing while going too fast and high and scraped my elbows and hands. And two weeks ago, I tried to fit my entire body in trunk which could probably only hold a five year old. And just a few days ago, I cried and cried after a truck ran over a baby snapping turtle on the road near my house. My point is, there WAS no distinction between me and them, and yet, the separating line was broad as daylight in the dimly lit cafeteria. Of course, I could blame this on my mother (like most human daughters do) who was close in proximity and kept telling the chalk-full of energydrink jumping boys to "Settle down, please." Okay, now I am actually laughing; I wish everyone in the entire world could one day meet my mother. I know NO ONE like her. No one. Each time I posed a different couple or group to photograph, there were two boys who were entertained by jumping in the picture right before I snapped it. After this behavior was repeated , my mother physically removed them from the picture (pun intended). Neither one of them repeated their action after my mother laced all ten of her fingers around the smaller boy's forearm and drug his back across the tile flooring.

Anyways, the truth is, I think I was much worse than them in 8th grade. I didn't know the Lord and I hated myself a little bit, so I was cruel, and I cheated, and I faked, and I lied, and I, and I, and I, the list is endless. It is strange to return to the place where you were once someone else entirely. It was like I could still see the skinny thirteen-year-old Livi running amuck, being disrespectful and blindly selfish and peer-pressured to kiss amidst all the other junior-highers.

But that Livi is very separate from myself today. And that, my fellow friends and brethren, despite all the absurdities, is a damn good feeling.

fiction.

Broken Sink

The knobs on my mother’s bathroom sink

spray and spurt squirting water when twisted on.

Hot or cold--the pure porcelain, worn silver-trimmed, farmhouse handles--

spew cloudy well water on their nearest user.

In my last encounter, I swung open the door to shout toward the kitchen,

Mom, when are you going to get these fixed?

She did not respond,

but a faint whir of bubbles popped in her boiling water

as I smear my shirt with a blue hand towel.

She then said, there’s a sweet spot, honey, you just have to find it.

Back to the sink, I spun the four-pronged knob with force,

only to be puked upon again.

Frustrated,

I grasped the sink and looked up at the mirror

to see my father’s frustrated

eyes staring back at me.

Their watery blue hue reminding me of the loss and his absence,

and her loss, and why the broken sink handles stayed broken.

I left the bathroom and responded,

you claim there is, but I have yet to find it.

iambic pentameter

This morning I untangled bedsheets wrapped
around my restless body. Only home
pulls back the blankets, the alarm alarms.
While walking back, tall rows of trees surround
my path. Their bending stature leans to glean
attention, branches finger through my hair.
Brunette-hued earth perfumes and paves in waves,
his easing breeze inhaled within my lungs.
The handsome sky above me tells of rain
so sweet seducing buds to bloom--persuades
determined hearts from logic to desire--
decays my will to keep from arms I left.

Healing

I would like to say a word about healing because God has been speaking to me about this. There is nothing easy about letting the God of the universe take all my/your physical, emotional, spiritual pain away from me/you. I like to pretend that if I have pain then I can use it as a sort of covering from others. That, if they know I am emotionally scarred, they won't hurt me as much. But this is not the way of the Lord. The God of the universe tears down the walls of pain. The God of the universe removes my self-protecting-umbrella of pain I carry with me, in order for me to receive the fullness of his love. The fullness of his Blood. Does this make any sense to anyone? Am I the only one in the world that wraps myself in pain for people to know that I do or don't have problems of my own I struggle with daily? I know I am not alone. But it feels like it some days. I am like Adam and Eve who cover themselves in the bushes to hide their sin against God. Yesterday I wrote a poem about a young girl with an abusive parent who tries to cover herself with things that are so close to Jesus, but are not Jesus. I think that is what I do with my old scars. In a way, Jesus and my past scars have a lot in common. But they are IN NO WAY the same. Yet, they both have protected me from bad choices. They both have led to my salvation in some way. But my past sins and hurts are from this world, and the blood of Jesus is not. I'll share the poem because I think it better relates to what I am talking about.

Red ribbons wrapped in her young hair
Tied up anger in his tight fists
Sinking tears on her cherry cheeks
One fatherless father

Hiding behind closed closets
His alcohol stumbling search
Covered by the crimson, hanging dress
Her tiny feet seen by clouded eyes

Her swollen face and hands
Reaching toward the sky
Heaven’s red rain cleanses
Nothing left uncovered

Although, I have never endured the pain of an abusive father, like this young girl I have tried to protect myself with objects that resemble the blood of Jesus, but are NOT THE BLOOD. I believe the enemy puts worldly things in our way to resemble THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. Such a masquerade. God is the only protector. God is the one true father. God is. God is. God is the ultimate provider. God is. God is. When I speak this out it reminds me of the truth in the old testament when God says his name is 'I AM'. He is. He is. He is. He is my healer. He is changing me so I stop hiding my sin from everyone. If you are reading this, and you know me, you know I do this. I am humbly stepping in front of the Lord and receiving the fullness of His Grace and forgiveness through the blood.

Recently, this is what God has been pouring into me. The grace and forgiveness offered. Even though I have long since accepted this, it wasn't until recently that I am knowing the full extent of his forgiveness of my sin. And I feel like this is the first time in my life that I can offer this grace to others. And what a WONDERFUL feeling -- that through God, I can offer a little piece of radical grace and forgiveness and lack of judgement. and WHAT A WONDERFUL PLACE TO BE. What freedom comes with our Father in heaven. Amazing Grace. I remember when I was probably five or six years old, I was on my mom's lap and she asked me what my favorite song in church was; and I told her it was the one about being blind and then seeing again. And she told me she loved that one too. Amazing Grace. Children are beings full of grace -- they do not care about your past, they just want to receive and give love. This is the heart of Jesus.

This may be too vivid of a picture but I am going to use it anyway because I feel like it best portrays how I am right now. When there is an infection on or in the body, in order to remove and cleanse the wound, you have to cut it open and replace the infection with the something that will fight against it. (I am no science person but I know but I know that you can't let wounds just fester because they will spread) This is going to sound so creepy but just bear with me. Well, for the longest time when I worshipped I would get this vision of being cut open. It wasn't gross or gruesome but it was like I was being opened up from toes to head, and then from my arms spread wide from hand to hand. And then I would feel like the cross being put into these cut marks. And I always just thought that this was God showing me what it was like to hang on the cross. But it wasn't until now that I realized that this vision was something completely different. God has been opening me up for me to release my sin so he can replace it with his forgiveness. Me holding in my sin was infecting the rest of my body, so during worship God was cutting open my wounds to put in the fighter of evil in: the Cross.

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine
You are forever mine

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be HEALED. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

It's time for healing.

Okay, I've decided.

It's official; we as humans are strange. Sitting in the furthest corner, on the second floor of Iowa State's library, I just decided this. I am in a cubby; I believe every college student knows where I am. Not me personally of course, but the general space in which I am currently inhabiting.

At first, I searched for a quiet, empty table on the ground level as a matter of geographic convenience to the door. But alas, little knowledge-filled study-ers crowd the public facility's tables--how dare they exercise their free rights.

Next, I thought I would snag one of the chairs in front of the back windows of the library. You can watch as destination-focused young adults walk back home, or to class. Also, being on second floor, each moving student is midget-sized and you feel far superior to them and embrace a king of the hill moment whilst you attempt to study.

But these chairs were filled as well.

Thus, all this resulted in my whereabouts in the furthest corner cubby. Back here people are not watched or judged by others correctly or falsely. In fact, if you sit positioned carefully no one can see you at all. Amidst this disappearance, you feel the necessity to lash out and to be heard, a longing to be comforted with the fact that someone somewhere at sometime will be aware of your existence within your invisibility. Thus, vandalism is a common reaction. Vandalism is described as "an action involving the deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property." Although this is the depiction of the solitary individual in a place like this, I believe the intention of their action is better described as graffiti: writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. The definition of graffiti removes the connotation of planning to destroy public property. When in fact, no one enters the library with the premeditated thoughts to write their thoughts on the desk or walls. It just happens. Instead of studying, you sit and read what others have posted, and then, before you know it, you are reaching for your pen to comment on a post or to start your own discussion. To see what the reaction would be to the thought currently at my eye level: "God hates haters." or to "As far as animal treatment goes, HUMANS ARE NAZIS!" One person responded with "as far as plants go, cows are nazis too." Another strange one: "Death you are my bi*ch lover." The F word is a very common one among this graffiti, probably a product of that same desire to be known.

Yet, I can't help but be drawn to the Kurt Vonnegut quote engraved separately from everyone else's emotional discharging: "Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are 'It might have been.'"

This individual thought of all these words of men inscribed publicly, the worst would be ones of regret and discontent. What an interesting response contrasted with the crude comments. This person thought 'well, I can't judge them for trying to be heard, at least they are not holding it all in and regretting writing their opinion.'

I write this graffiti-entry because I want to be heard within my invisibility. And because I don't want to imagine "It might have been different" without this entry. It might have been different without my blog. It might have been different without writing. It might have been different without perseverance through the fire. I might have been different without the comfort that: "All things work together for good for those who love God."

God draws us into contentment with him. God calls us to live a life without regrets. God puts forth his opinion in our lives so that we may also be active like him and through him.

I just stopped typing and picked up my pen to decorate this corner cubby with small words with a big impact: God is love.

"...Because the saddest are 'It might have been.'"

Juxtapositional Pulling.

While one hand is holding a too-small

mugful of darkly soothing coffee,

the other is waving in circular motions to grasp

the concept of Time’s relevance.

The left foot is chaotically

pacing behind punctuality,

And, ironically, the right foot is upon a rock,

A steady landing of morality and holistic ideals.

His eyes are lurking towards the polar walls.

One wall is graced with engravings of forgiveness,

the opposing eye observes a vandalized

graffiti-version of justice.

Can I deny the dichotomy between

His heart and his mind?

The first, races at any source of light.

And the latter, rests under an umbrella to

Deliberate the necessity of romantic love.