Excerpt from Not a Day on Any Calendar by Rumi
My Life is not Mine.
If someone were to play music, it would have to be very sweet.
We’re drinking wine, but not through lips.
We’re sleeping it off, but not in bed.
Rub the cup across your forehead.
This day is outside and dying.
Give up wanting what other people have.
That way you’re safe.
“Where, where can I be safe?” you ask.
This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.
Thoughts take form with words,
but this daylight is beyond and before
thinking and imagining. Those two,
they are so thirsty, but this gives smoothness
to water. Their mouths are dry, and they are tired.
The rest of this poem is too blurry
for them to read.
A lot of people are following the typical NYE formula this year: “New Year! New Me!” “This time I’m going to stick to my New Year’s Resolution,” or “I’m going to live for me this year.” As with all the other holidays so far, with the exception of Halloween because I live for that holiday, I am not celebrating New Years this way. I’m not going to partake in resolutions or declarations of change and evolution. I’m actually going to take this year day by day.
To make promises of mass personal overhaul, for me, is absurd. If I’ve learned nothing else this year, I’ve definitely learned that it takes longer than 365 days to “reprogram” over 26 years of, for lack of a better phrase, “fucked up thinking”. I was so hoping after my break up last Christmas, that I was going to emerge a new and improved Devo by June of 2013. That did not happen.
The truth of the matter is I reached that point in the year and realized I still have a lot of shit to work out. I still have a lot of thought processes to reprogram. Rome wasn't built in a day, cliche but true (here’s a little secret I told my teens, a lot of cliches are true. So you should probably stop worrying whether or not they are cliche.). I’m not going to be a better me in the next 365 days but I can assure you I will be better today than I was the day before. All I can hope for is to be happy, healthy, and working toward realistic goals.
So, for the sake of being completely honest with you and myself, here is a list of realistic goals I hope to achieve this coming year:
1. Play more guitar
2. Play more bass
3. Finally take these vocal lessons I paid $100 for
4. Write more often
5. Exceed my total of 17 books read in 2013 by reading 19 books in 2014
6. Take my profession more seriously and obtain a job at a University or Charter/Private school
7. Smile more.
8. Think/Act more positively
9. Love more things, more often.
10. Be nicer to my mom.
11. Hang out with my siblings more.
12. finish my left arm tattoos
13. Take a hip-hop dance class (probably closer to the end of the year)
14. Fall in love (Whatever that means)
What do you think, pretty realistic?
So why the poem at the beginning of the post. I chose that poem, mostly because I wanted you all to think something profound and enlightening was going to follow it. haha You tell me if I was successful? The other reason I chose that poem is because of the second stanza “Give up wanting..” and the last stanza “The rest of this poem is too blurry to read.” I want to challenge all of my friends and family to give up wanting what others have and truly be happy with the blessings bestowed upon you. There is more to life than material things and desire. Cherish what you have already and then watch the things you want manifest before your eyes. Also I want you all to get so drunk with me tonight that the rest of any poem just looks like a giant blur. Love you all, Happy New Year!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment