I sometimes wonder is every piece of fiction written has simply been trying to describe our dreams to one another  :)

Eve Ramble!
(click below!)

   There's a christmas tree in the corner of my living room; it's too big for the space really but I bought it large for that purpose. Christmas in my mind has always been an opportunity to recapture the feeling of being tiny surrounded by giant branches that fill all my senses. Brushing bristles are the favourite and that rich smell a close second.

[Fair warning? This isn't a happy ramble]. For the first time in about a decade I'm not light sensitive, the tree's not making me hurt. Memories are clearer too. [I want to say some form of punishment, but that's the coward's way. So "get on with the fascination" (Rush, Limelight)]. I learn from them as much as I can and let the others pass by for this year, knowing that another time will give opportunities to learn more. Uh, well, that's after coffee, before coffee I was a growling mess. Well coffee.. and Korra (also Rush and today's scifi) because cartoons and overstimulation while doing yoga's a good way to wake up! Anyway, I'm rambling again.. where..? clarity and meditation.. if you've read the beginning few of these thingys then you know I've fucked up a few times, sometimes big time. Christmas is a double-edged sword, there was grief, once, one christmas, and each since is a little piece of that and each sequentially. Gradually building and healing. Until in my mind I can run a hand through the pine trees and wonder how they grow.

These days I take moments like this one, when the house is quiet and the pets are sleeping. The little girl who laughs loudly next door has gone to her dad's for the day and the squirrels and birds are fed, happy-ish. I do something like this, write my way through the clouds, or dance chaotically, or sit still and think (uh, meditate?) about it all for a bit. By now I've learnt to know when the clouds [*] are coming and I've got a couple of tricks for flowing through the storm. [* gah, words are constricting, uh, give it a go anyway, hope this works..]

For me, 'bad' memories cluster into patterns that are intrinsically familiar. There are moments [like when you're stretching and a muscle suddenly tugs taught] - to relax - nudge back out of that pattern and let yourself flow further through the chain [or deep breath and take it on with a different tact]. And others when it can be so easy to let yourself slip into the cycle [whatever that pattern of behaviour is.. self harm, nagging pessimistic voice etc]; these tend to be my most dangerous. I've spent a fair amount of my life quietly giving in to the urge to ... ... oh come on, the abyss, you know what I mean... it's taken time to build my resistances. It's a very low level [sub conscious] draw, too low to always combat actively, sometimes you just have to have already put in the work beforehand. [There are times when it's appropriate to allow yourself to climb around above the abyss (be it 'meditation' [it feels pompous saying that today..?] or getting wasted in a reasonably safe environment with your mates or whatever) and ..blah.. mind..akin to..muscle ..builds through use.]

A lot of my 'meditations' over the last year [ah, here goes] have been focused on building something that I lost in the gallery of the court room [one day I looked away, I watched the stone owl out of the window, and I regret not watching his face right then; maybe I would've seen him for what he was sooner, if I'da had the courage.. and every time someone called me brave thereafter it pushed me deeper].. a piece of backbone. I only remembered this last year...
      ...the year before I remembered the security guard who (probably shouldn't have but did) let me take in my touchstone (a metal ball-bearing ~4cm diameter) to crown court every time [I would play with it and wonder why his awful taste in fantasy books (with covers of bold wizards and naked maidens) hadn't clued me in on whatever it was the adults understood, and how could I be so stupid or wrong or what or maybe..? gah, childhood]. Anyway, that's one that I've built enough backbone to navigate a little today, I'll leave the 'crying under the christmas tree behind the sofa' for next year. Ah ptsd, you're so much in the christmas spirit.
      Take a deep breath and slow the universe to a heartbeat:
They tickle as they pass along your arm and then you get wafts of the smell reaching in arch like a double-bass soaring up to crescendo with a drum rhythmically kicking in the powerful earthy undertone, meanwhile the bristles sound twinkling high notes across the taste of the smell as they scatter off your skin back into their own, untampered, pattern on the branch. There are baby bristles along the end, move time forward and backward in your mind's eye; see it young with few leaves; watch as it grows how each one strengthens the branch, watch what this branch could be if the whole tree keeps going up and it becomes a grounding limb... the universe is amazing.

      Happy holidays people and thanks for reading. Hope it's helpful somehow.

Best thoroughly cheesy christmas mix so far this year ;)  [Add: oh wow, this mix gets a bit much towards the end. lol Gecko though]

p.s. it's nearly christmas so there's less commas. Just for you man :P