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Much love,
Dani

]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/8835815/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/8835815/ Sun, 21 May 2006 14:08:38 PDT
...And we'll collect the moments one by one
I guess that's how the future's done.

Mushaboom
--Feist

Sorry for the lack of attentiveness to recent works, journals, etcetera, my friends. I've been meditating on the endless possibilities... ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/8195339/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/8195339/ Sat, 18 Mar 2006 07:21:04 PST

What I am trying to say if is not already abundantly clear, my dear deviants, is that I am about to embark for the first time on that much sought after adventure known as home ownership. This has been my one BIG dream for the whole of my existence on this earth. That might sound a bit simple to some and a bit materialistic to others, but to me it is the symbol of finally obtaining happiness, comfort, stability, enough success to get me where I am today. I have said before that I am a domestic soul. This means that I take pleasure in the simple things in life like cooking a nice meal to share with friends, puttering about in the garden, sitting on the deck enjoying the air and beauty of the world around you, and even spending half a day or more doing chores around the house. To me, it is the small things in life that matter most and if I can achieve one big thing that encompasses all of those small things, I will indeed be a happy girl. Not to say that I am not happy now. I am. But it is hard living under someone else's roof at 29 years of age, feeling like nothing is really yours and that you are always imposing, and not being able to have a peaceful moment to yourself or private time with your lover without feeling self conscious. In short, it is time I become a grown up. It's funny to me that so many people think that this happens when one becomes 18 years of age. Looking back on what I DIDN'T know and how FAR I was from anything resembling a real life makes me laugh and makes me appreciate every line in my face and silver hair that pops up even more. I earned them, dammit! And I have worked hard, struggled, and earned myself the right to become a home owner. Go me!

My beloved Shane is moving in with me, but I will be the one who owns the house until such time as we may see fit to take things to the next level. I have learned a thing or two from the school of hard knocks and while deep down I feel that he truly is THE one, I am not so impractical is to not give myself an out should things go awry. In the meantime, we are looking forward to inhabiting the same home for the first time and learning and growing from the process. It is all very exciting and I don't know if I can stand it until the end of next month when we close. Like Shane says, however, I have made it 29 years, surely another month won't kill me.

Wish us luck. I shall be driving you all batty with photos of the house, yard, surrounding land, etc. very soon. I am also taking the summer off from school, so I hope to get going on some beautiful Idaho scenery shots while I am out and about learning to fly fish and camping. Hold me to that!



Dani ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7708741/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7708741/ Wed, 25 Jan 2006 21:22:11 PST ...Now all those simple things are simply too
Complicated for my life,
How'd I get so faithful to my freedom?
A selfish kind of life
When all I ever wanted was the simple things,
A simple kind of life...

Simple Kind of Life
--No Doubt

You said it, Gwen, baby! If ever there was a song that summed up me in a nutshell, it is this one. As I get closer to 30 I have noticed one unfailing thing in my life. People, especially women my age who are mother's or want to be, are forever hounding me with the "when are you gonna have babies" question. Some of my best friends, God love them, have somehow tagged me as someone who is sure to reproduce and be soccer mom extraordinaire. I cannot for the life of me figure out why. At present, I can think of 3 reasons why bearing offspring might sound "neat" (and I need a hell of a lot more than 3 to ever go there). 1) I am fascinated with names and would enjoy the opportunity to give a person a really unique one. 2) I love my gynecologist (how weird is that??) and am confident that he is great at obstetrics. 3) ...and this is the only sane sounding reason of the bunch. About 13 years ago I had a little girl when I was little more than one myself and gave her up for adoption. To help ease the pain of separation from the child I bore, I promised myself that one day I would have babies when I was fit to be a mother. Therein, folks, lies the problem. Children who do not belong to my friends or immediate relatives freak me out. I always sense that they are looking at me and sizing up my aptitude as a responsible adult - in the child rearing sense, of course. I get flipped out when my animals don't behave right. I cannot imagine maintaining sanity for longer than about 6 months of motherhood. The idea of being responsible for anyone other than me for 18 years is terrifying and I feel resentful of children I don't even have when I think about it. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who are parents who dig it immensely. So I have seen some positive examples of the joy that breeding can bring to some people's lives. But I also know plenty of parents who just seem tired, miserable, and overwhelmed all the time. Those whose children are grown or are close to being grown usually end up heartbroken over some of the bad choices their kids make. Do I really want to make myself this nuts just to be part of some mommy-cult these people keep trying to get me to join?

Now, ironically enough, I am a domestic soul. I have a spirit that needs to wander, sure, but that is just about geography. I am monogamous to the core and find the idea of matrimony just wonderful on so many levels. Even after having been there and been burned. Something about partnership and being so totally connected with someone thrills me deeply. I love the simple pleasures of domesticity like some people love opera or mother nature. It just feels right all the way down in my soul. Guess what, though? The rest of the world seems to be jaded on the idea of marriage, or maybe just mine. Everyone is talking about babies, no one is talking about when I am going to get married. This seems kind of ass-backwards in my opinion. But what do I know? I have no baby with which to glean insider knowledge like these people seem to have.

]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7482193/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7482193/ Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:52:26 PST

God, grant me the serenity to ACCEPT the things I cannot change

Courage to change the things I CAN

And the WISDOM to know the difference


The "Serenity Prayer" has been my mantra for a long time and breathing has often been a means of stabilizing my mood and helping me to focus on what is important and forget what is not. Lately, I have forgotten to do both. My New Year's resolution is to REMEMBER to do my breathing, say my mantra, ACCEPT and RELAX as much as my busy life will allow for... Wish me luck.


Dani ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7308094/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7308094/ Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:27:53 PST
My aunt's psycho hose beast daughter-in-law decided to try to file a protection order against her for completely ludicrous reasons. We wasted time and money to go into court all prepared to fight only to find that in the interim between filing and the court date, the hooker figured out that she had no case and so had a lawyer tell the judge they moved to dismiss 2.3 seconds after we all got there. Meanwhile, the issues still aren't resolved and the woman is keeping both my cousin (her husband) and my aunt's grandson from her. Life's all dandy as long as she is pulling the strings.

Of greater concern is the fact that my other aunt has recently been pronounced terminally ill. She asked for my mother and myself to come see her before she dies. My mother can't make it and I can, so I am tacking this visit onto a trip I was already making to pick up my brother and fly with him home to Maine for Christmas. It will be wonderful to be home with the parents and sibs, but all of the goings on prior to and during the trip are stressing me out already.

To top this off, my boyfriend, who is my rock and helps get me through tough times like no one else can, cannot go with me for any of this due to his employer's restrictions on holiday time off.

To all this I must say: Poopie! Bah Humbug!

However, I am still thankful for and counting my blessings each day. Things could be a lot worse, and I know this all too well. ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7145460/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7145460/ Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:54:58 PST ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7036887/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/7036887/ Sun, 13 Nov 2005 14:57:28 PST Mood: Lazy
Listening to: Erotic City/George Clinton & P. Funk
Reading: Uppity Women of Medieval Times
Watching: Batman Begins

I haven't shot anything in quite sometime. I think I mentioned before that the rains are upon us here in Idaho and that makes the opportunities for outdoor photos, which is what I feel like doing, somewhat limited. What I did do was find some photos I shot in late summer when I was doing a Humanities project for school. The lovely thing is, not only did I find a few that I wanted to post, I found pictures with evidence of sunshine in them. Helped to brighten this otherwise gray, dreary day. Did nothing to warm my ice block feet, though. *shiver* Now, the only thing I wish I had was Photoshop for borders and such. I went through a virtuous phase and decided to get all legal software, start buying CD's again, that sort of thing... Since Photoshop does everything but make your toast in the morning (although I suppose you could use it to draw some realistic looking toast) it is out of my price range for software at the present. Any suggestions on freeware that does the basic image cleanup and border type stuff would be appreciated. Until I find something like that or buy PS, I am afraid the images I do submit will be quite naked.

]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/6974065/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/6974065/ Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:41:08 PST Mood: A-OK
Listening to: Home by Marc Broussard
Reading: Uppity Women of Medieval Times

DA is wonderful for having given me a free trial of subscriber status (oh, how I missed that asterisk), but terrible for teasing me with all these lovely features and lack of ads... Still, I love them. I think I will spend some time wandering through the pages of my fellow deviants to see what I have missed this past year+. I am anxious to get shooting again, but haven't been able to due to rain and a hectic work schedule. I'll get there.

Tomorrow is my first and only day off after 7 on. Prior to that, I worked for 11 straight and had two off. The next couple of weeks will make up for all of that with holidays/extra leave taken adjacent to weekends. It has been a long, hard year at work; but it is wonderful to say that I LOVE my job. Being fulfilled by my work is more amazing than words can say. I'm not even all that upset that I am still in limbo regarding whether or not I will be required to leave the country next month.

I can't think of anymore mundane details to prattle on about, so I leave you with this: How do you help someone understand something you feel deeply about on an emotional and spiritual level, such as the desire to be married? How do you explain the metaphysical portion of yourself and what your soul craves, or, more specifically, why it craves the things it does? Ironically enough for a Communication major, I am certainly struggling with this one.

]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/6910059/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/6910059/ Sun, 30 Oct 2005 19:39:28 PST Hello all. This is just a quick note to let everyone know that I am back, that I will not be forfeiting my devID as I had previously mentioned, and that I will make it a point to begin submissions/comments/communications, etc as soon as possible.

I have a page on MySpace if any of you are on there and want to see recent pics of me and read up on what is up with me lately. It is here. I've missed everyone and would love to catch up and see what is new with all of you. As time permits I'll be visiting everyone's page.

Life is good. Life is stable. It is time to pay attention to friends and my need for expression again. It is time to appreciate beauty again.


Dani ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/2066368/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/2066368/ Mon, 22 Mar 2004 23:41:45 PST
Death. Divorce. Illness. Life. Growth. Connections. Realizations. Seeing myself for the first time. Delving into the deep unknown of who I really am. Ends bring new beginnings and on and on it goes... It must be Spring in more ways than one.

It's funny how a girl like me can drive 9,000 miles alone with no problem, but be absolutely terrified of TRUE intimacy. Roots, ties, and real responsibilities are all strangers in my house. They may have been there. But I never recognized them. I never had the capablity to feel the way I feel things now. To feel has always been to admit where things are wrong, to lose control, to be weak.

Now I realize that you have to admit your weaknesses and deal with your feelings to learn and grow stronger. Let go of the pride and the ego to achieve true confidence. Scramble over the rocks instead of seeking the easiest path for stability. Learning to balance on flat, steady ground is one thing. Staying balanced when things are unsafe, unsteady, untidy, or otherwise unpleasant takes a certain mastery.

What is all this about? All this is about the way things are for me now. Today. And it's about people who have had significant roles in major turning points in my life. Many of them in negative ways. One in particular who is now gone from this world. I wrote about him here [link]

I am saying "goodbye" to a good many things these days as part of my personal evolution. Today I say goodbye to David, who made an undeniable impact on my life. I hope that whatever happens when someone passes, a soul that is basically good, though often misguided, can find peace.

Is the end. ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1317596/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1317596/ Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:50:12 PDT
The food is non-descript. Neither good nor bad. Therefore evoking no emotion. No danger of passion. Safe for those who are dining and being alone. No reminder that they could be sharing something delightful with someone because it is not delightful. Merely filling. And only temporarily so. Somehow we can go to these places, carefully avoid eye contact with the other solo diners and enjoy a perfectly numb experience. Oblivious anonymity.

While you are savoring nothingness there is also nothing music playing. Lite rock. Also passionless and uninspiring. This is key to making the empty carb seeking masses even more comfortable in their ambiguity. But not too comfortable as the propietors wish to send you packing feeling falsely fulfilled and slightly used. Like a bad experience with a lover. The whoring of chow mein... ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1278518/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1278518/ Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:57:18 PDT my story so much as my memories and the story of the man with whom I shared a good portion of this year I speak of...

Today, I took a 7 hour (roundtrip) drive to go and visit some places I knew the first time I lived in Idaho. I took my camera, but I did no shooting. I just drove and thought.

During this period in my life, I came to be involved with a man whom I had known when I was much younger. In fact, David is 30 years my senior. And there are some other interesting details, but again I have a point to make. Needless to say, this was not the healthiest relationship or thing I could have done at that time in my life. But at the time it worked. We both needed what the other had to offer at the time and so it was... It was all at once the most incredible and one of the more awful times in my life. I shall explain the finer points.

David is many things. He is an artist. He is a body builder. He is a landscaper, a carpenter, a mad scientist type who devised things that no one else I know could imagine. He is a hippie and a believer in being positive to the point of being in denial and not liking anything remotely " dark" in nature. He is also a contradiction of himself. He is aggressive and loud and mean when he is frustrated. He is an alcoholic who has nearly destroyed himself despite his healthful diet and body builder lifestyle. He once kicked me out of the house for wanting to buy some peach ice cream. When he has a cold, he calls doctors offices and screams that he needs an appointment immediately as he may be dying. Now, in fact, he is dying. He has cirhosis of the liver.

I say that this time was incredible for many reasons. The first being that I came to live with David on a whim. I had gone up to visit with a family member who was going to help him work on this crazy house he was building at the time. He asked me to stay after said family member left and I did. I had never built a house and I thought it might be fun. During this time we laughed like mad, took standard hippie drugs and savored life alone togther. The house was out of this world. It had angles and a breezeway and marvelous windows overlooking the woods every which way. We slept in a tower that consisted solely of a bed platform and a space for the TV. There was no plumbing and we concocted more efficient ways to shower on a daily basis. David painted in his studio while I mastered drywall hanging and mudding. We listened to Indian flute music, The Beatles, and Chuck Berry wired throughout the house. One day we woke up and decided to take a trip all the way to Palm Springs, California and back up via the coast, visiting all kinds of people he knew along the way... For all these reasons and then some it was a magical time for me.

For reasons I would rather not discuss, on top of those things I mentioned about him above, it was a horrible time, too. There was lots of ranting and drama and disgusting, filthy things. It was like one extreme or the other all the time. And for those reasons, it was something I wanted to put behind me and forget after I left there. And I succeeded at ignoring it for a long time until recently. And I realized recently that all things that have happened to me, good and bad, are a part of who I am and were generally because of decisions I made. And since I can have no regrets, I cannot forget or loathe this person or his memory any longer.

This all came about because I drove to the place where we lived together and found the house, once so prominent on the hillside, gone. I almost believed I had forgotten where it was. I turned around and came back. And as I drove down the lower road below where the house once stood. I saw on the hillside what looked to be the only remaining remnants of what was there. The outhouse and the doghouse, both of which had stood on the edge of the hill, were laying on their sides and had slid most of the way down until they rested on trees that had been in their path. I saw this and I felt disbelief and hurt and a pang of sorrow for David. That house had been his vision and his dream. Something which he had had to give up because of the choices he had made, but which still must have been very much a part of him. He is weak in mind and that is why he cannot help who he is or what he has done to himself. But I still feel very badly that he will leave this world with barely a trace of him left. His one true creation bulldozed carelessly to the ground.

When he is gone I wi... ]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1261658/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1261658/ Fri, 10 Oct 2003 23:39:40 PDT
Tonight was the first truly cold night since my arrival here. And I could smell the outside air as plainly as if I stood in the doorway just as it was being opened. Allowing sweetness to assail my senses. I smelled cool, crisp fall air with another familiar scent mingled in. I smelled fire. Like a bonfire in the middle of a field. The smell of wet leaves surrounding. Warming to the call of the flames. The smell of dead wood. Sweeter and more ripe than that which still lives and grows. Sending out a merry crackling sound as it at last gives it's soul back to the earth through the ashes.

I smelled these things and I heard the drums that I remembered. Speaking a tribal and universal language that all bodies understand concsiously or otherwise. I heard the laughter of the joyous people. Some soft chuckles and some raucous guffaws ringing out far and wide. I saw the warm, bright hues of their faces. All shining with a brilliance as though the fire they watched was made of pure gold that danced as if that were all it was ever meant to do. It's richness and worth defined by the sheer glow of all those it touched, not by it's weight or currency.

I saw and smelled these things and I revelled too. I remember dancing to those drums and feeling that exquisite combination of warmth and cold. It was then that I remember the thing that was never there. It was then that in my mind the delicious chill was closed out by an encircling and loving heat. A feeling that quenched my hunger and thirst and made all right with the world on a night that was already bursting with goodness. I felt arms which I have never felt. Strong, protective arms wrapping me in a loving and delicate, yet firm embrace. And I thought: This is peace... And I hope that when I find it within myself, I will know this true and perfect delight somewhere along this long road.

]]> ~danisan http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1159464/ http://danisan.deviantart.com/journal/1159464/ Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:49:34 PDT
Any questions?

Okay... Why the preceding pep talk? Elementary, my dear Deviants. I have found HOME. I have been feeling this ever since I arrived here. But I was too afraid to acknowledge it. This last year has been a wild ride. And I was afraid to say anything final or definite. But, I kid you not folks, I have arrived. I am still living out of a suitcase due to my current living situation, but I assure you that my bags are unpacked for good in a much broader sense. I mean, no one can say they will live out their days someplace. But I think it is safe for me to project a good number of years here in Boise.

Tonight I went to a neighborhood street fair. It was a fine cool evening. I got to watch the sunset on golden foothills and purple mountains. I watched an awesome tribal/funk type band work old men and new age hippies alike into a frenzy and I was caught up in the same frenzy. I danced with abandon and felt euphorically high (not just from the smell of hippies or the "herbal" odors wafting through the night air either). I felt a strong sense of community like I have never known. I felt pure joy at watching people from all walks of life get down as if their very lives depended on it. I felt peace in the truest sense. I felt a deeply resounding calm in my heart. And I nearly cried as I looked to the sky and thanked God silently for leading me in the right direction and helping me to find my own little corner of the world.

Here's to tasting life and finding your niche in all things. Both are priceless and precious things.


to all!
Dani ]]> ~danisan