musings of a melancholic

The Saint and I returned Sunday afternoon from our anniversary trip number 6. The trip was not unlike many other anniversary trips with its emotional ups and downs, adjustments of expectations, weeping disappointments, passionate embraces, deep slumber, and incredibly good food.

It always surprises me, how predictably unstable I am anytime we “plan” romance. I really should be used to it by now, and even keep it at the forefront of my planning while anticipating the celebration. It's not as though I haven't tried to better myself. I have experimented with many different scenarios. I have tried to keep it low key, just a small dinner with very little planning…inevitable disappointment. I have tried the whole shebang, with a week away in a new city and plenty of diversions. Inevitable exhaustion…and disappointment.

{This is not a complaint on my part for Joel’s ability to romance me. Au contraire. In fact, it has little to do with Joel – and is often my issues with discontentment, expectation, and disappointment.} Alas, this weekend? Well, you probably can guess...disappointment (but mixed in with a lot of fabulousness as well - just.like.life). I can give you a list of really viable reasons that added to the general inability for us to easily connect…but that entirely aside, it seemed the heavens determined that we were going to have to fight like hell to connect.

So, like the raging bulls we are, we butted heads, our horns intertwined and bloody, wounding the other even in the retreat…and at the end of it – we walk away knowing what we knew walking into it – just as we did six years ago this past Sunday.

I adore Joel.
Joel adores me.

Saintly gardener,
I see a weeping window, hot water beading down.
I see bearded face through La Fin du Monde;
I see willing-feet resting on the balcony of my sad symphony - anxious to be honorably charged to save...
I see a high-backed couch, banter the preferred tongue.
I see a cleansing whirlpool, swirling together desire and despair.
I see the sharp sea air smacking our cheeks with delight.
I see green paint and American women in cloche hats.
I see a hero with late-night pizza and hidden chocolate surprises.
I see your unending and tireless devotion to the me I had long given up on.

For you, my patience,
I will attempt to give a voice to that which has gone unsaid.

~your ever-weeping tree…

I remember the poem we had read at our wedding...

It seems even more apt now.

"The Buried Life"
Matthew Arnold

"Alas! is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal

To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the mass of men conceal'd

Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

I knew they lived and moved

Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest

Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet

The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb

Our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?
Ah! well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get free

Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!"

From Anniversary Six

Anniversary Six

Hold the one you love today for a little longer.
And remind them that you love them,
just as they are.

~a wife

Brr....it's cold here in Seattle, and that reminds me...

It's almost December, which means if you have decided to join my photography project for the month, you will need to join the Flickr group I have created so that we can all collaborate together. I am very excited to give these itchy-hands a project and a reason to have my camera on me at all times. {note: i do already}.

About the Project:

Birthed from Kelly's September photo project (30 days of self), I have realized my enjoyment not only in taking photographs, but in the collaboration and betterment of craft that comes from sharing the project with others. I had personal communication with some lovely people that I have never even met - but now consider good friends. In addition, I believe that I grew as a photographer and am now looking for structured ways to continue this improvement. December provides a beautiful backdrop for many photographs, and because twilight is my favorite time of day, I have decided to embark into a daily photo assignment.

The Requirements:

A daily photo of your December evenings. This may include you, your loved ones, or no people at all. Then post your picture to the flickr group. Log in daily to see comments on your photos and provide comments and encouragement for others photos. ANYONE and EVERYONE can join! (If you cannot commit to daily photos, perhaps just post a few on the weekends!)

Get ready to share the beauty of your evenings with us,
crm

i was introduced to a new personality test website - one that combines many different tests into one little treasure trove of delight.

as you may have guessed, and some of you already know, i am a sucker for personality tests...finding them sometimes humorous and sometimes enlightening.

this one made me laugh: my results

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion		34%
Stability		34%
Orderliness		82%
Accommodation		46%
Interdependence		43%
Intellectual		70%
Mystical		90%
Artistic		76%
Religious		83%
Hedonism		83%
Materialism		70%
Narcissism		43%
Adventurousness		10%
Work ethic		63%
Humanitarian		43%
Conflict seeking		70%
Need to dominate		90%

Romantic		70%
Avoidant		70%
Anti-authority		83%
Wealth		30%
Dependency		30%
Change averse		23%
Cautiousness		30%
Individuality		70%
Sexuality		30%
Peter pan complex		30%
Family drive		50%
Physical Fitness		%
Histrionic		56%
Paranoia		70%
Vanity		70%
Honor		63%
Thriftiness		16%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by

Now let's mull on this:

Highest:

Need to dominate
Mystical
Anti-Authority
Hedonism
Religious
Orderly

EEK. Hedonistic AND Orderly? Now that's just a fucky combo if i've ever heard one...

Lowest:

Well, a blank on physical fitness tells ya something.
Thriftiness
Sexuality {oh dear lordy}
Wealth
Dependence
Caution
Stability {i do love me some change}
Extraversion

Well now isn't that just a sassy little mix.

Took a similarity quiz for the saint and i:

Jung Compatibility Test

Introversion		83%
		63%
Extroversion		30%
		63%
Intuitive		46%
		70%
Sensing		73%
		13%
Feeling		66%
		63%
Thinking		56%
		56%
Judging		86%
		43%
Perceiving		23%
		76%

scale key - you them

Your type - ISFJ, Their type - ENFP
Your overall similarity is 60%.
Your overall complementarity is 65.7628205128205%.

Take Jung Compatibility Test

I take issue with their definition of similarity and compatibility here...I think they are two different things. To be similar is to be the same, to be compatible is to have a mix of similar/opposite. Therefore, I bet the higher your similarity score, I would conjecture that the more work your relationship will be, simply due to the lack of opposite traits - and a reason why the saint and i have not had to do very much work...we are different enough. But otherwise, an enlightening test...(despite me being an INFJ most of the time - this one gauged me ISFJ)

this is fun

and perhaps my favorite, though freud would be so disappointed in me...

Freudian Inventory Results

Oral (30%) you appear to be stubbornly and irrationally against receiving help even when it might be the more intelligent option.
Anal (83%) you appear to be overly self controlled, organized, and possibly subservient to authority, this effectively narrows your exposure to a wider set of options and ideas lowering the odds that you will make the best decisions in life.
Phallic (30%) you appear to have negative issues regarding sexuality and/or have an uncertain sexual identity.
Latency (33%) you appear to be overly practical; don't undervalue abstract learning, abstract learning increases your ability to make good decisions (and predictions) in the real world so it would be 'impractical' to shun it.
Genital (50%) you appear to be somewhere between a progressive/openminded and regressive/closeminded outlook on life.

Take Free Freudian Inventory Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

____________________________

i am happy to report that i will be spending the weekend celebrating the day i wore a gown and submitted to the first and only thing in my life that has ever been worthy of submission [except christ, duh]...and since you all know how i am not easily dominated, congrats to joel for the attempt.

too-dah-looh, for now.
~crm

i am owl.

i am deer.

i am weeping willow.

i am elf owl.

our genus shares a name.

i turn my sight 180 degrees, always looking at what was.

i dart illusively into the night, my screech portending wisdom or death.

my sight is blurred, so i must instead feel.

i am nocturnal.

i am deer.

i freeze in fear and caution,

i live in the middle - between thicket and prairie.

i stretch my neck down while listening to the aching groans of oak and evergreen

and only when safe,

do i proceed with my lichen meal.

i am still.

i am willow.

i take root in the fallen,

growing fast and growing old - to some medicinal, to some a weed.

i extend towards the earth in both limb and root.

pushing ever inward.

i am solitary.

and although we must,

i really do not want to die.

_________________________________________

Today i want to have an affair with an encyclopedia.

Like...well, do you know the scene in Sense and Sensibility where the youngest daughter, Margaret Dashwood, is hiding in the great library with an atlas the size of a chalkboard? I want to be there today - my curls & ribbons disheveled and dress tangled in my knobby knees as I sit before a big window and pour over learning...

if i were in charge of the academic lesson plans of my life, my class schedule would look something like this: