Payne's Gray


Emma caught me staring at the back of my hands last weekend and mentioned that they were tiny.
That wasn't what I was thinking about, however.
Our fingers, red from running across the freakishly cold parking lot, mine short, hers long.
Nails, both pared down to the tips, hers from her lifelong chronic nail biting and mine because I just cut them down so I could practice guitar again, unpainted. 

I was looking from my hands to Em's, noticing the scars and remembering the stories that went along with them. 
And thinking about how deeply intertwined our own stories were. 

Now I'm sitting at the table, helping Nica with her math and writing. Listening to The Lumineers and Collin Hays (Darn, I knew I grabbed that character name from somewhere other than my imagination)because my little sister has good taste in music.
Drinking my third cup of black coffee and getting excited to see Ray LaMontagne tomorrow night at the Chicago Theatre, and for the end of NaNoWriMo. 

We're just grayscale humans in a technicolor universe.

12 comments:

  1. You have no idea how happy i am to hear someone else who loves ray lamontagne's music!! he is amazing! you must take pictures and share how the concert was!! please :)i love the border at the top of your blog, i now truely think we could be best friends from our similar tastes in music and whatnots :)

    sam..aka..samantha

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  2. I shall take pictures and tell you all about it :)
    You are a truly cool person, definite friend material and whatnot.

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  3. I just realized the John Green reference-y-ness of your blog title.

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  4. i study every minute detail of the Writer's Block everytime i sit to stare at this white comment box. my heart drips dry and hardens when the words that carry my life recede from my veins and the spatters on the Block Wall run the course of gravity to their feared ends of dried boredom. And i wipe down the Wall to start over. Happy thoughts lift me over but might not set me down, sad ones seep me through and lose part of me to the absorbing Wall, angry ones to tear through and leave me to trip on the remains.

    don't know if i've had a friend long enough, or held one close enough to have as deep a living history. but i have one who's known and held me =P seriously didn't see that one coming. each day my hoping grows to have such a beautiful and perfect friend. but it hurts to wait.

    music lives as ever it has... pain tries all the more to befriend... time is ever the older brother... and blessings are graciously manifold and hope prevalent though hidden.

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  5. I got off my google reader just to comment and say that I really like ALL of your posts (yes, I do read them even if I never comment.) but I absolutely adore the last sentence of this one.

    "We're just grayscale humans in a technicolor universe."

    so. darn. good.

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    1. Thanks Ali.
      Nice to see you here. You're so awesome.

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  6. I enjoy how you recount your day like you're telling a story. And it's a good story.

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    1. I have the curse of always talking about life as if I'm writing a book.
      My brother and his friend read my childhood journals and were confused because it was written like fiction instead of a linear story.

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  7. Well... (sorry it took this long, i've been pretty busy... and prolly should be =p) there's allot of things i know i believe that are wrong, there are a few things i believe that are right, there are many things i believe that i don't know i do and prolly won't until those parts of me get poked a little harder. As to the why's, there are many differing sociological answers. But i'll stick with the personal ones =p

    And i won't list all of them... so to start i'll go with the belief that God has a stellar sense of humor... most of which i don't get and may never, we'll have to see. But what i can grasp sometimes makes me smile and laugh if it doesn't hurt too much. I can see His humor in allot of the things He's done in my life... not every aspect, but i can't wait to find out how it works. I also believe He is all good and cool and amazing and loves me. I believe i don't know how much He loves me. I can see that in the lives of others and their daily testimony's in addition to the triumphs and joys i am blessed to experience but often don't acknowledge. I believe God came down to earth from heaven as a man, specifically Jesus, and saved me from all the crap i was born into from the moment i let Him. i'm still in it... but i believe He's working great things in me. well, great from man's perspective. Every so often i'll realize that some part of me is brighter than the utter and extreme darkness that it was. I believe He provides endless opportunities and second chances... for which i am so grateful. I know i would have ceased to exist by some path, almost any path would've done it, if He hadn't kept giving me His trust and strength. I believe He protects me from myself and others, those i see and don't see, and keeps me sane. The peace and comfort i sought from so many other places are only found in Him. This last belief is a hard one to explain for it is hard to understand. But it resonates within my soul and bends my heart to join His... flow of love with His hand writing the notes of my loving deeds, a record of my life on five lines- a minute few measures, or even just one measure, in the score of His love. I believe my part goes past the notes i've tried to sing as He's promised He has a plan for me. Life will get harder yet, but i believe He'll pick me up when i can no longer carry on.

    quite inadequate writings. I would refer to the older hymns and the words of many great metal bands for a deeper understanding as i agree with most of them. but i hope it's answered your inquiry, at least in part. good question =)

    oh, didn't really answer the last one... kinda didn't answer the others either =p
    but faith... is that certitude and resolute belief in the promised hope which i too often lack. I pray that as time continues his meandering stroll, i will learn more of love, possess more faith and give more of my self.

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"Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole"
_Adam Duritz

I love hearing things that aren't my own pathetic echoes.