today

         

                 
                  the sky looks like my soul, confused
                  tears fall out of bright cloudy eyes, drops making a pattern on cement
                  what would the droplets show me if they were permitted to stay?
                  would they tell a story on the sidewalk, paint a picture on the pavement?
               
                 but they dry up, leaving me to wonder, why does the sky cry?
                 do you cry at the beauty of the earth you look down upon, where flowers drink your tears                    like sweet champagne and get drunk on laughter and color in a world of grey?
                do you cry in sorrow over the little lost kitten, wandering through tall streets and among                       strange unfeeling faces?
                Or do you cry in remembrance of a beautifully sad day, when a sacrifice was made to save                   a broken but hopeful world, rising out of the darkness clinging to it like a shadow?
               This is one of earth's many unsolvable mysteries.
             

summer

           
.........summer and i used to be such good friends. every morning when i awoke, i would breathe in the scent of a summer morning, a thrill with the possibilities of the day. i experienced freedom and carelessness in the form of long, hot days, taking wild flights of fancy. the hill in my backyard became a magical staircase that i could climb up and down, taking me through different lands and times. i led a group of wide eyed little girls on adventures conjured out of our own minds, filters that caught bits of that fascinatingly obscure thing called the real world and created bits of magic where the holes were. my little neighborhood and the people in it were all i needed to feed the universe inside my head. i was happy to pretend that the neighbor's trampoline was a stage and i was a famous dancer, or that the swimming pool was an ocean and i was a moonlight mermaid being rescued by a handsome sailor. sometimes we made lemonade. sometimes i spent the whole day lost in a book. sometimes i stayed inside and watched movies with my grandma. summer evenings were the best time, and we ran around the neighborhood breathless in the cool twilight for as long as our parent's would let us stay out, and sighed at the unfairness of the world when we had to go in and everyone else got to stay.
  i miss those summers.
but lately, summer feels like a prison. the long days that turn into long weeks are filled with loneliness, and wishing for things that i don't have. i spend my days reading, filling my diary with useless scribbles, and crying over lost things. friendships, joy in the simple things, and the wonderful ability of a child's imagination to make you content anywhere. i miss it. i miss being able to add romance to any situation. if i were to be in one of my old imaginations now, i would imagine myself as a princess, locked in the highest tower imaginable, looking down at the loveliness, joy and simplicity that is the world, longing to taste it for myself. but trapped, gazing out between thick metal bars, so strong that they seem impenetrable. the princess of course, is beautiful, with tragic blue eyes, and long silky hair the color of the midnight sky, but she is lonely and heartbroken inside. she waits for a prince, who is off in a faraway land, having grand adventures and saving the world. her heart aches with missing him, and she dreams of going on adventures herself, fighting dragons. or...saving children and lighting people's hearts on fire.
my prison is self made, and the bars are only as thick as i allow them to be. i am working diligently to break out, little by little, one bit at a time. it's always easy to build these prisons, but if you let them become strong enough, breaking them down is a much harder process. but i can do it and i will, with the help of a loving Heavenly Father. and in the meantime, i'm going to go out and ask summer if she wants to be friends again.

The Journey

The baby pulls herself up to a standing position. Her dimpled legs tremble a little as she balances on her unsteady feet. The bright eyes look to the challenge ahead, sparkling with excitement. She stands for a moment, unsure of herself and the unknown territory before her.  Her little foot lifts from the ground, and takes a step as her balance wavers. It feels shaky, and she grins at the newness of it. She takes another step, and she tumbles to the ground, landing hard on her bottom. So many bruises, so many falls, so many tears. They come over and over again until the baby has learned to walk, taking unsteady steps and laughing triumphantly and beautifully at her success.
Before you find a destination, you have to have a journey. Some people resent the journey, or think it a bother. Some people grow frustrated at detours and unexpected obstacles in their path.
The happiest people in life learn to love the journey, because the journey is what makes life beautiful.
The journey is the spirit of life, growing, stumbling, blooming, reaching, never satisfied with what is handed to us, always reaching for more.
The journey is full of uncertainty. We can never be sure what will happen, what fruit our choices will bring to us. We can never be certain our decision is the right one. The wisest people in life learn to embrace the uncertainty, because without it, we would never grow.
Break out of the safe shell of certainty that surrounds you. The adventure, the mystery, the beauty of life is waiting to be experienced when you immerse yourself in uncertainty, in trial and error, in stumbling and falling.
Laugh along with life, and let your laughter be raw and honest and bubbling from a real place within you. Laugh at your mistakes, and laugh when you fall. Laughter makes the journey beautiful.
Believe in yourself and love the journey. Because the journey is what makes the destination the most rewarding.
This is the outlook which I wish to have on life.

Inspiration

Sometimes you come to a desert in your life. Everything seems dry and desolate, like you've come to the end of all you planned and dreamed for. Sometimes you doubt your abilities to get yourself out of the rut you seem to have fallen into. Times like these can be some of the hardest in your life, because it feels like being trapped in an invisible prison, one that other's can't see, but one as real as if there were actual stone walls and iron bars surrounding your heart. It can seem that there is no way to free yourself. But there is always a way.
I, Olivia Ann Wells, solemnly declare that I will thrust myself out of the rut through sheer determination and hard work. I'm done with being lazy and making excuses. I will succeed and there is no one on this earth that can stop me from achieving greatness as a writer.
Sometimes you just need to drink from the cool waters of inspiration, to quench your thirst in the desert. I've found it before in the pages of an excellent book, or through music or another's passion.
But if you don't have the determination to back it up, those things will get you nowhere. You have to have your own passion, and see your own potential for excellence. Sometimes, it takes an extra special person to lead you to what you had forgotten was there. A person who sees you deeper than you can see yourself, and who loves you all the more because of it. That's what I needed.
So now, I'm freshly determined to reach my dreams. I know that I was not meant to lead a commonplace life. So I'm going to start thinking, breathing, dreaming, working, and loving extraordinary. I am not content to settle for anything less than I know I can be.
I seal this declaration in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Layers

You are a secret, layered like the earth,
hidden beneath fear and the depth of your past.
You have a universe inside of you, your outside layers are silly and strong, tightening around your aura like metal fingers, gripping.
Underneath there is wonder and awe, soaking in the world around you, figuring things out, formulating plans, developing theories, turning wheels, working to produce order out of chaos.
Underneath that, there is a delicious bittersweetness that no one can taste until you decide it is important to begin to clear the layers away.

We all have layers, and we all have something underneath those layers that it takes a special person to discover.

Love,

Leslie

Here's a little something I wrote yesterday. It's about a character in one of my favorite books:

trapped inside a prison of her own making, 

the walls built out of shame and pain and despair,

her fears, thick and cold and real, 

pushing anyone away who might care to come near.

her past, chaining her to her present,

strong metal, heavy and frigid, unshakable

 dragging her away from all brightness and hope,

her eyes, the color of the ocean, 

fierce and free and wild,

her face, cold and beautiful as a stone goddess,

is calm with eyes like windows

 to the pain and turmoil within.

her beautiful heart, locked away from all human touch, 

never to be seen in it's real charm and depth by another creature,

unless they are brave enough to fight past her the iron bars that encircle it. 

Weather Update

I think it's kind of ironic, that now that it's March the weather has all of a sudden decided to be wintery. But I'm glad it has. The rain and snow and gray skies and fog have been filling my soul with fresh gladness. There's something about looking out your window on a gray day with the rain pouring down and making it look like the glass is crying that makes you feel... like you're reading a book that's so beautifully constructed in it's emotional depth that you just want to cry tears of  true appreciation for it's artistic perfection. That's how foggy, rainy days make me feel. Emotionally attached to the outdoors.
 And especially when it snows, with little magical white flakes veiling your perception of everywhere. Like looking through a pair of glasses that makes even the most commonplace things look wonderful. The snow we've gotten hasn't really stuck, but it's been the prettiest coming down. Today our gray gloominess was pierced by bright sunshine for about an hour while the prettiest flurry of snowflakes danced around like drunken fairies. I felt exactly as if I were living in a snow globe.
Thank heaven for gloomy weather, The dramatic part of my soul simply thrills to it.