Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. ~Anonymous

The image at left was my bedroom wall a month ago. I was busy making myself a physical wall to match the mental one slowly forming in my mind. Each brick was a day, an emotion, a thought, a memory. Something I needed to see because I couldn't trust my own mind. Some were good, but in truth, most were bad.

Over the last few months I've played with a lot of metaphors. I've been in a well, held a slippery rope, wandered the woods, built foundation for future walls, and done everything I could to wrap my mind around the situation. To grasp the ramifications of reality. To somehow deal with the confusion of my present and face the great unknown I used to refer to as my future. The metaphors were pretty. They were rich and colorful, much like the scraps of construction paper I taped up daily, and did what they could. But they weren't clarity. They weren't... real.

There are a lot of quotes regarding walls. I actually chose the one I did for this blog because a lovely, amazing, wonderful teenage daughter of a friend of mine posted it on her facebook a while back, and I not only loved the quote, but the layers behind it---behind her. Did I mention she's amazing? In truth, I should have just used my own personal thoughts on walls, but I've never said them aloud before. Never shared the truth before. Walls are dangerous. Walls are a barrier on at least one side. No matter how much graffiti you put on them, no matter how many weeds grow up to cover the cracks, if you are behind a wall, or standing in front of one, you feel barricaded. Perhaps frustratingly so. Perhaps with a false sense of security. Regardless, it's a barricade. It takes energy and effort to sustain it. And much like the futility of the continued strain it takes to hate someone, continuing to block or be blocked is unhealthy.

My true thoughts on walls? Well, that image up there, my own colorful reminder of my mental state, will make a lot more sense after I say this. I don't build walls to hide behind... but rather to climb upon for a better view. When I remembered that---when I looked at what I'd written out, stared at, studied, and processed---I found some clarity, not in the whispers of the moon or the songs of the shoreline, but in my own head. And with some clarity achieved, the colorful bricks of my pretend wall came down about a week ago.

Today is an anniversary of the last time I tore down my walls. One of those special handful of days that changes your life forever. One of those days you never forget, no matter how far removed from it you become. That day was one of those blurred yellow bricks. That day, that scrap of paper on my wall, included four words that both scared and thrilled me. That day... today... will never lose its meaning, no matter how high my walls get, no matter how far I have to climb to sit atop them. I'll always remember that on that day, this day, I was willing to tear them all down and see what the world looked like from ground level.

And while only a couple of people will truly understand this blog, I needed to say something today. I couldn't let today go by without some sort of comment. But I hate leaving people out. So, since it's Thursday, let's turn it into something more than me trying to grasp what today is, or rather, what I suddenly find it isn't. Let's have some good old garage talk.

I mentioned graffiti on the walls, let's go there. Do you pay attention to graffiti? Do you notice what it's written on or just the writing/drawing itself? What kind of graffiti grabs your eye? Do you have a favorite piece of graffiti?

Me? As a kid, I lived near a lot of train tracks and I think my appreciation for graffiti started there---as I sat waiting for the train to pass and had nothing better to do than to watch the various styles of graffiti zoom past me on the train cars themselves. I did have a favorite piece of graffiti. Only discovered a few years ago, but definitely my favorite. A red door with "voice?" written over it. I looked at it every day. I let my muse roll it around a few different scenarios and genres. For whatever reason, I really liked it---though it's been covered now by the anons...

So what about you? Thoughts on graffiti... A favorite piece... Gimme some Thursday love. Of course, I'm going to be busy surviving the today for the first portion of this blog and won't be responding to any of them today. But when the sun rises tomorrow, as it tends to do, no matter what, I'll be back to comment. Happy 01/19 Thursday. #NWNC