the scratchy blanket

I woke up early and it was cold.

I remembered my dreams from the night before,

I remembered the two wonderfuls who woke me up at 1am to say goodbye.

I remembered the tears shed, the laughs, the smiles, the stories.

I pulled the scratchy blanket from off of my bed,

and I put it in the cupboard for some other lucky soul, some other lucky year.

My shower was long, my breakfast was small, and my coffee? Instant.

I sit here, wishing for her to come and see me, one last time.

But I believe she’s asleep, and will stay that way for a while.

I believe she’s dreaming, and will stay that way for a while. 

My sparrows, my wolves, are still as the blades of the grass.

My raindrops, my windows, are bruising the trees around me. 

My last hours in France.

Bitter. Sweet. 

Complete. 

The canals and frescoed walls have picked up their skirts and darted away.

Now I must do the same.

It’s time to go home.

High up above, or down below

In truth, I could hardly breathe... the two friendly French girls standing next to me made the tight quarters more bearable as we laughed and joked in both French and English, but the young man  in front of me who was smoking a bong and couldn't keep his shorts up wasn't exactly helping the general atmosphere. As I continued to dodge his second hand smoke, I attempted to sing along with the opening artists who flooded the stage one by one. I say "flooded," but in reality they were more like rain drops. Each voice, however marvelous; each band, no matter how perfectly tuned; and each beat, often perfectly dropped, were all just the raindrops. Precursors to the real flood. Forerunners to the experience of the perfect storm. A memory to compliment  a life change. The opening bands for Coldplay.
      
After all of the opening bands had finally cleared the stage, the crowds had only become more cramped; and after the laborious set-up process for the event of the evening had taken place, the lights fell. This was an outdoor concert and we all knew that the entire process had taken such a long time for only one reason: waiting for darkness. So, we waited as well. 50,000 French speakers, waiting for the English band to appear. Waiting for the first beat to drop. Waiting for Coldplay.  And then, it did ... 


I find myself in a whirl-wind of music, color, and heartbeats! I can't help but jump, spin, and yell along with the thousands around me as song after song floods out from the enormous speakers surrounding us. So many people! So much joy! So much unity! Here! Right HERE!!! I jump higher, I sing louder, "You use your heart as a weapon, and it hurts like heaven..." Again and again and again!! This is magnificent!  Look, world! THIS is magnificent!!!

Then I stop. I pull my right hand out of the sky. The flashing wrist band drops to my waist and I stare at it. Memories flash back to days in my church, with my youth group, worshiping. I start to feel almost unfaithful... The jumping, the joy, the unity, the singing at the top of my lungs... This was always worship for me. So what was I doing now? What was this now? What was I focusing on now? Was this okay? I lifted my eyes from my wrist band and began to look around, at the faces, at the sea of people. My eyes lock on one man -- to my left. Grey hair, old leathery skin, French. Yellow is playing. The man is crying. He's all alone in this audience. Alone and crying. I can only imagine the history behind his eyes, the content behind his thesis, and the reasons behind his tears. As Chris Martin repeats the lines, "You know I love you so..." his tears become more steady. My heart starts to break for him. Then God pops into my head, "Sacha.  I am healing the nations. This reminds you of worship because this is worship. I'm here... I am SO here. I'm in the yellow stars. I'm in the old man's tears. I love you ALL so..."


About a month ago, I had read my friend Becka Hanan's blog post about her Coldplay experience, and I couldn't help but let some of her words play through my head, along with Chris Martin's: "...each one of us became a light in a sea of 20,000 lights."  Maybe there was something bigger than a concert here...


And so, I take my right fist, blinking, glowing, shining, and I thrust it up into the sky. My wrist band is yellow, the stars are blue, and I'm going to be a part of something bigger than myself. I'm going to be a part of a concert. I'm going to be part of an experience. I'm going to be a part of 4 British guys, who are helping to heal the nations. 


The concert ends, and the encore comes. I knew the order ahead of time, so none of this is a surprise to me...  and I know that Fix You is about to start. I prepare myself, expecting to cry, expecting to be reminded of things long forgotten. And then it happens. The song begins and I cry, memories flood my head, and I stop singing. The old man next to me is singing and crying, the girls next to me are singing and crying. I become indignant. I refuse to sing... I want to hear Chris sing. But then I realize, that's what a CD is for. Right now it's about being a part of something bigger than myself. A being in an audience of 50,000 beings. A light among lights. A voice among voices. A healed soul among healed souls. This is about claiming my identity along with the French girls, the old man, and the short-less boy in front of me. It's about being fixed. Together. 


Fix You. He does... He fixes us. He fixes us in concerts, He fixes us in churches, He fixes us in distant lands, He fixes us in every language we can speak, He fixes us in every song we can sing. He fixes us. He fixes you. 


The climax of the song arrives, the guitar chords crash into my ears, fireworks and lasers rip the sky to shreds, and the confetti is creating a ceiling above us all. "Tears streaming down your face, I promise you will learn from my mistakes.... and I will try to fix you." By the light of the fireworks, I look and see tears streaming down the faces around me. I pull both hands down from the sky and I touch my cheeks. Wet. I let my hands drop to my sides and I stare up at the clouds above me... Healed.  So healed...


As I stand and feel the tears trickling down my cheeks, Chris begins to sing again... "Every teardrop is a waterfall..." Yes. It is. And I'm okay with that. I'm a waterfall, I'm a light in a sea of 50,000 lights, I'm healed, and I'm HERE. I'm here and I've learned a few things... I've lived a few things.  I raise my hand and look at my light. It's all yellow. I believe that lights will guide me home... ignite my bones... heal you...


and I'd rather be a comma than a full stop.

coherence?

When I decide to write a blog, there's a careful process I have to go through (meaning that it's something I should do, but I usually don't go through it...) before I can begin to type out my thoughts. This process frustrates me because it's not what I've always wanted it to be. In my mind, the ideal blogging setting would be casually scanning my friends' blogs, listening to some "Gotye" or maybe "James Vincent McMorrow" playing in the background, and methodically typing out my carefully articulated thoughts while I sit on my room floor and sip a bowl of tea (yes, I drink my tea from bowls).  But the truth is, I can't do that. The truth is, when I do that I become completely lost.


You see, I have this problem... I'm easily distracted. VERY easily distracted. No matter what I'm doing, where I am, or who I'm with, Sacha Kravig can be distracted. I may come back from class with several things on my mind that I want to articulate to you, the people who read my blog, but by the time I actually get onto my blog and have sorted through all of the new and interesting posts by my friends, my mind is so turbulent and inspired that I've completely lost my own idea in the midst of their greatness. Reading other people's work causes me to forget why my work might have been important. Drinking tea makes me... drink tea. I spend my whole time drinking tea, thinking about how I should brew it the next time, and why I like bowls better than tea cups, instead of processing my ideas. Music distracts me the most... which is frustrating. I've always wished that I could be someone who does homework, writes, and goes through most of life with music in the background. But the truth is, I can't. I get caught up in it, I get lost in it. I find so much beauty in what I'm listening to, that I forget to care about the beautiful things in my hands.  I lose my ideas.


My mind is such a fickle friend... 


Am I the only one who has those days?  Those days when you sit down to blog/journal/whatever and all you can think of is quotes? 
Where did MY words go???
Those days when I sit down at Sibelius to try and finish my composition and all I can hear in my head is other people's melodies. Those days when you're so lost in your own grey matter that you stick to writing poems instead of the well-constructed blog post you were going to write. Those times when the language you speak all day becomes so hackneyed to your tongue that you resort to communication through gestures -- convinced that you have nothing worth saying.


Today has been one of those days. English and French have failed me. Even my thoughts are ANYTHING but put together. I sat down to write a well-constructed blog post about my Major change and where it's taking my mind and my hobbies these days. But I made the mistake of reading the works of Emily, Becka, Heather, Amanda, and Elliot... I absorbed it all, I took it all in. 


I'm good at that. I'm good at taking things in. I'm good at appreciating things. But I can't seem to walk the fine line between appreciating something, and losing myself in it. 


So, what's the point? What's the point... ?


Maybe there isn't one. Maybe this is the scariest, most chaotic blog post I've ever written...  and maybe it doesn't go any further, and maybe I can't think of some great words to end this. But I got it out. I wrote it. I processed what was stuck in my head, clogging the sinuses of my thinking, and keeping me from breathing free. So it's gone. I give this chaos to you, my reader. 




Don't get lost in the minds of others. Appreciate someone else's beauty, but then endure the pain, and take the time to figure out what you think, what you believe, and what you want...


and then make it more coherent than I did.

THIS IS COMMUNICATION.

I am communicating. I am being communicated with. Efficiently, effectively, wholly, entirely, and passionately.

          Hands and voices.

                    Hands and voices.

The creation is cyclical.

       Passion drives the hands.

             Hands guides the voices.

                    Voices draw the passion from the core to the external world where sense have     doors open wide. Receiving

    And as the senses are satisfied, the hands will move. 

Hungry.

Passionate.

Desiring more...

From the voices.

Alleluia.

Let me cause men to sing.

       Let me draw passion from the core of existence.

             Let notes become beings.

                  Let these melodies sustain me, flow through my veins.

                        Let this existence be beauty and my song be mine.

Yours.

     Ours.

           The sounds of voices, men and melodies, instruments and organs -- the reverberation off of the stone walls around me. I weep.  My tears fall as the notes from my lips and my vocal chords vibrate as my heart fills. The chords grows, the swell is an ocean of sound ... I’m happy to ride this wave. This draws me to land, pulls me closer to life! It grows, ever larger! Ever stronger! I’m lost in the foaming blue of these powerful chords... and then, finally, it breaks upon the shore! The final crescendo!

and silence.

            I have no breath. Only tears. Nerves and senses searching for more... searching the echoing silence for more. Satisfaction and desperation. Hidden in my tears. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will do this for the rest of my life. I will write, compose, conduct, live the notes in my head. It's time to pursue my dreams.

The Conversation of Trees

A dialogue of whispers and gasps and air.

A conversation that moves my hair and my soul as well.

I thought the birds were beautiful, but then I looked higher...

The sky, a tower. 

The branches above my head create a darkened web of what is earth.

And the silence is broken by the sounds of soil... growing... 

Up.

I turn and sway like one of them, a crescendo fills my mind, my heart reverberates.

What is locked inside my ribs, and what is released in this clean air!

The same! 

The same are the lives of bones and marrow, leaves and roots, flesh and grass...

For all flesh is but dust, all dust is but soil. 

And soil is the mother of the greatness around, the leaves on the ground, the vibrations of sound that pound through my chest to where small birds make a nest...

To where the birds’ conversation is much like the trees, and the rhythm of movement is defined by one thing...

Up.

The earth is a slipper, and the quiet soles make no noise, no movement...

no awe-inspiring steps to jettison us on our way.

But yet it moves, yet it breathes.

In. Out.

Up.

blueandwhite

I’d rather see in white and blue.

The salt conquering my nostrils too...

My senses bathed in azul and foam,

This silent pounding of being alone...

Alone and in love with my pantheistic world.

Alone and content to embrace the elements,

Kiss the sea, and make these living stones a part of me.

My soul, in pieces, floats on this main, 

my heart, contented, is filled with peace again.

The sacred silence of the holy masses floods my indiscrete passions -- the fluid motions of a life in this fashion.

But my mind is re-created into white and blue.

These sacred masses may be lost to this moment, but I am alive, my senses thrive, my mind is full, my heart is ready;

the whites of my eyes meet the blue of the sky, and the sea is lost in between.

But its whites and blues are not lost to me.

I am the sea.

I am free.

So give me light! Give me blue...

Give me white.

Bring my colors to life!

Consecrate the movements of spray and foam!

Make my home beneath the waves,

Let’s create a life in an azul world, a salvation to the wretches in the cold of grey.

The beauty of life is not in kneeling.

The beauty of life is in seeing and breathing.

For the Spirit dwells in whites and blues.

Settle not for lesser hues.

Be still and breathe.

Be still and see.

This God in white, this God in blue.

Be still and know He’s inside you.

Your world of white... mixed with blue.

Where foam meets wave.

Where wave meets sky.

Where sky meets cloud.

Where the pantheistic breaths of life are carnival masks, guising themselves as flesh and grass.

Where my ear drums ring and sing and cling to the idea that my loneliness is buried deep within the worlds of blue and white.

Sea and sky.

Spray and foam.

Find me there and take me home.

To my house of blue in a world of white. 

Slacklining.

            
            Slacklining. It's beautiful. Anyone can do it. Everyone gets hurt on it. No one should miss it. First time up, everyone looks like an idiot. Only the few and the very proud have mastered it to the point that it's beautiful. It's an art. And a difficult one. The person who has conquered the art of slacklining can truly be proud... 


            Incense. It's burning next to me... the ashes slowly, ever so slowly, dropping onto the ground beside me. There are patches of new flowers scattered on the ground here. They want an early Spring too. I hope they're not disappointed. The smoke from the incense is dancing in between the flower patches. I bet they can smell it better than I can. 


            Hammocks. Three of them. Filled, of course... Who can say no to a Spring day in the sun, encased by colored fabric, swinging at the level of the singing birds.


Slacklining. Incense. Hammocks.

                                          Today is a good day.

The Blower's Daughter

       The dancing curls of smoke love to gravitate toward my cracked window. This incense came straight from India, and I don’t want to waste it, so the thought of closing my windows passes through my mind. But just as easily I dismiss it; today is a perfect day and my desire is to give the singing birds an audience, the whispering trees an intruder, and the budding blossoms an admirer, is stronger than my desire to trap the small curling smoke rings.  The sun is playing games -- unable to decide whether he wants to shine on the growing grass, or to hide behind the fluffy clouds that scatter the deep blue expanse I call sky. I don’t blame him. If I could spend the day as a glowing orb, tucked within the billows of white and grey, I would. But, as he cannot decide, I will learn to appreciate the different shadows and shades cast by the changing light. I will wait in expectancy for the moments of heat that will warm my back, that will sting in my eyes, and remind me of summer, soundtracks, and sandals. 

      I don’t need the sun’s full attention. The glowing end of my incense is charming enough for me at present... his only playmates are billows of smoke which, for now, prefer my open window. Even the ash drops away -- content to rest on the tray beneath it. But yet he burns, yet he glows. He is content to rest after his long journey from India, content to burn his life away playing with smoke rings. He’s a good friend.

     Duruflé’s Requiem is crescendoing through my room. It’s reached my favorite part... The climax of the Sanctus. It’s sheer glory, really. Duruflé was a perfectionist. I’m not. 
                  I don’t think so...
                                      I don’t know.


 Maybe I am. 


When it comes to brushing my teeth I’m not. When it comes to organizing my desk I’m not. Obviously. I sit at it now, watching ash fall from my incense, too close to my French Sociology papers. 

I’m not a perfectionist.

      Maybe I should be...  But I’m not. I’m Sacha. I’m perfect. I’m perfectly Sacha. But a perfectionist, I am not. 

      The sun pops out and the greening trees become neon. I remember learning about leaves in science class as a child. Photo synthesis, glucose, the roots and how they absorb the water from the ground. Growing. Trees are always growing. Always changing. They grow because of what they absorb.  

I do that. 

        Just like these little neon leaves. I’m deficient in vitamin D, so it’s important for me. But I absorb more than just sun rays. I absorb people. I absorb emotions. I absorb information, facts, dates, words, syntax, sounds, smells, sights and pleasures. My life is a story of absorption! And this absorbing makes me grow! 

        Grow... I grow. A lot. All the time. Growing, growing, growing...  I’m a barefoot triumph of nature. A triumph that so often thinks it’s defeated. But I’m perfect. I’m not a perfectionist. I am perfect. Summer, soundtracks, sandals... Sacha. Perfect. 

        The same song just played twice on my iTunes. That irritates me, and I’m not sure why. I stretch my arm because it’s sore. The soreness gets worse... I think it’s from kickboxing. I worked it a bit too hard. Oh well... I’ll know better next time. 

Nope... a perfectionist I am not. 

       Many in my family are perfectionists. I think it’s half the definition of being a Kravig. Some how I missed the boat. But I’m okay with that. It’s perfectly okay. It’s perfect. I’m absorbing perfectly, my photosynthesis is tripping right along, and I’m growing. Perfect. 

      Miserere Mei Deus is pretty much perfect. Boys choirs are pretty much perfect. And a descant puts the cherry on top of cluster chords, resonant basses, and the just noticeable reverb from a church in Oxford. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’ve been there. I wish that I had had a choir to test out the reverb... But instead I circled the edges of the church whistling, testing it for myself. 

     I have this thing for testing reverb. Whenever I enter a new cathedral or hall, I test it. The best I’ve found so far was in Avignon. 7 seconds. I’m going to take a choir there someday. 

My incense is almost gone. Must be time for lunch.


      But, "The Blower's Daughter" just popped onto my iTunes.  Maybe lunch can wait...  for something beautiful. Because that, my friend, would be perfect.

Par fenêtre...

If there is but life in the solid silence of fallen mountains,

 in the rush and rage of pools meeting fountains.

The stagnancy of this movement, the constant roar, 

the silence envelopes the strength of peace.

Peace.

Is it peace or is it the end?

An endless circle, the particle process, the advance of the cyclical climax of thought...

Or lack there of. 

But who really cares?

The senseless masses breathe in the deep breaths of sunlight and shadow, 

hills and meadow.

Shale and sleet and bread and meat.

But the fallen of mountains rest quiet by the fountains.

And the children of the senseless find treasures.

The Conversation of Trees

A dialogue of whispers and gasps and air.

A conversation that moves my hair and my soul as well.

I thought the birds were beautiful, but then I looked higher...

The sky, a tower. 

The branches above my head create a darkened web of what is earth.

And the silence is broken by the sounds of soil... growing... 

Up.

I turn and sway like one of them, a crescendo fills my mind, my heart reverberates.

What is locked inside my ribs, and what is released in this clean air!

The same! 

The same are the lives of bones and marrow, leaves and roots, flesh and grass...

For all flesh is but dust, all dust is but soil. 

And soil is the mother of the greatness around, the leaves on the ground, the vibrations of sound that pound through my chest to where small birds make a nest...

To where the birds’ conversation is much like the trees, and the rhythm of movement is defined by one thing...

Up.

The earth is a slipper, and the quiet soles make no noise, no movement...

no awe-inspiring steps to jettison us on our way.

But yet it moves, yet it breathes.

In. Out.

Up.

atheism

Why is atheism cool?    ...  Why?  Tell me. Tell me why atheism is the new thing to do and why all of my friends seem caught in this cycle of Godless jokes, games, books, and lifestyles. What ever happened to sold-out Christians? Whatever it was, it hurt.  Whatever it was, I don’t want it. Whatever drug they’re taking, I’m jumping lines. Whatever it is. I’m not interested.     

So why do I pretend to be interested?  I play with it, like fire...  Like kittens. Like a baby dragon. Like I have it under control and like I’m not in harm’s way. Like my hands are big enough to wisely guide my own fate. 

False. 

So false...  I can’t keep doing this. I need to decide, make decisions, hold to my promises, take the time to figure out who I am. And then take the time each day to make sure I stay that way.

"And now the weak say I have strength

By the spirit of power that raised Christ from the dead

And now the poor stand and confess

That my portion is Him and I'm more than blessed

Let now our hearts burn with a flame

A fire consuming all for your Son's holy name

And with the heavens we declare

You are our king

We love you Lord, we worship you

You are our God, you alone are good

You asked your Son to carry this

The heavy cross our weight of sin

I love you Lord, I worship you

Hope which was lost, now stands renewed

I give my life to honor this

The love of Christ, the savior king

Let now your church shine as the bride

That you soar in your heart as you offered up your life

Let now the lost be welcomed home

By the saved and redeemed those adopted as your own

I give my life to honor this

The love of Christ, the savior king"

C'est tout.

“I’m so glad you came... It’s been raining all day.  It is such a cold world, such a break down world without you...” 

So I turn my face to the wind... What I smell is real, what I feel is truth, what I’m seeking is you... “You brought hope to those of us who had none.”

Turn again. Away from the wind... let the gust catch your sails, let the real smells and truths inside carry you forward. Because that’s all you have... When the Mona Lisa Smile has faded and when the nakedness of life is cut by the raw path of the orphans - heading home...   All you can do is smile. Smile again. And again...  Laugh. Again and again...   Name the ocean and then sail it. Catch the tide and then tame it. Or let it tame you. I’d rather be tamed by the oceans then set free by the political masses and poverty mindsets surrounding our beaches. These white sands only hold freedom if you have the courage to touch the water... People die in deserts. 

But people also die in water...  People die in the air. People die in peace. People die in war. 

People die. 

I’m alive. For now. I am called to worship... to sing out. To declare “things that are not, as if they are.” I live daily and I die daily. I am filled and I am emptied. 

So I turn my face to the wind... the salty wind. The wind I’ve waited for. The change I’ve hoped for... Soon the tide will change and the boat will sail. These hopes and dreams will never fail. Boats sink, winds bring storms. Tides break and the compass falls overboard. But my hopes and dreams can rescue me...  My mind is free.