music – a thousand new paths

an exciting engagement month

Published on December 2, 2013March 14, 2014 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

Wow! I can’t believe that I’ve been engaged for a month already…and that it’s been almost that long since my last blog post. Needless to say, this has been one amazing, crazy, busy month.

Graduate school completely overwhelmed me from about two weeks ago through last Wednesday. I have no idea why I get so stressed, especially since I’m doing well in my classes. I have to constantly remind myself that things are going well, and there’s no need to stress. Then when I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed with grad school, I was feeling homesick. I just wanted to be back in Georgia for Mercer’s homecoming and family Thanksgiving/Christmas decorating. But it’s all good since Cason kept reminding me that we will be home oh so soon for Christmas break and lots of wedding planning.

Overall, though, things are great. Here are some of the highlights from November:

I got engaged, which you already knew!

My cohort hosted an engagement party for Cason and I, which you may not have known.

I went to a Mercer basketball game in Austin, which was amazing even though my guys didn’t take home a win that night. I met a Mercer ADPi alum, and it was really neat to connect over that!

I became the Membership Education Advisor for the Zeta Chi chapter of ADPi here at Baylor. I got to meet the new officers on the Membership Education team as well as the other advisors. I’m super excited to be involved with Alpha Delta Pi as an alum/Pi member!

Cason and I went to see John Mayer in Oklahoma City, which was amazing beyond words! Phillip Phillips opened for John, and he was also awesome. Even though John didn’t play “Why Georgia,” he played “Gravity,” “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” “No Such Thing,” and several songs from his newer albums. I love how he mixes a lot of the older stuff in with his new music. I much prefer that over going to a concert and basically listening to the artist’s newest album. Funny story: John started to play a cover of a song, and this guy sitting next to Cason started yelling, “That’s gravity! That’s gravity!” Then John Mayer looked right over at the guy and was like, “No dude, it’s not gravity,” and basically told the guy that it was a good try though. It was interesting though because John Mayer also told the guy that he (John) would have totally done something like that in a concert–like yell out during a quiet song, I guess. It’s just really cool to see an artist roll with the punches and interact with the audience. At one point a group of people counted to three together and yelled, “We love you, John,” and he made a comment about how he’d never seen a group count to three before. He said he always hears, “We love you,” but he thought it was cool to actually see the group of people counting before they yelled together. When I saw John in Atlanta years ago, he also took time to read practically every poster within sight and responded to each one in the middle of the concert. I know everyone has their fair share of reasons to dislike John Mayer, but he puts on a heck of a concert and really interacts with the audience. It was just generally an all-around fantastic weekend. (Oh, did I mention we were on the third row? Win.)

Not much else is going on besides preparing for finals, getting ready to go home, and wedding planning, but I’ll hopefully have more updates soon!

until the dawn appears

Published on February 13, 2013 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

I’ve been listening to Matthew Perryman Jones on repeat for days. There’s something so soothing about his voice, and his lyrics speak straight to my heart. This one song resounds in my mind long after I’ve turned the music off. The first two verses of Until the Dawn Appears reflect the past year or more of my life, but the song reminds me that the struggle isn’t the end result. There are far better eternal days ahead than the fleeting ones of the past, and that truth brings hope in light of worldly despair. I mean, how awesome is it to know that we are justified by our faith in Christ and promised life eternal, free of sorrow and tears? “And my heart will hang on until that dawn appears.”

Check out the song and tell me what you think. I’m thinking about making another print for the last few lines of the song, but I thought I’d go ahead and put this one out there.

I’ve been turning up the stones in my own discontent,
And I’m finding out where all my hidden sorrows went.
They’ve been laying there for years;
I kept them out of view,
But it’s time I dust you off and take a good look at you.
Oh, how long?
Oh, how long?
Well it’s easier to clench your fists and grind your teeth
Than to look into the sadness that lives underneath.
Well you can kill off all those feelings,
They’ll just turn to ghosts;
They’ll take over your house and become the host.
Oh, how long?
Oh, how long?
Well a man of sorrows walked the shores of Galilee,
And his eyes were cast with joy towards the Crystal Sea.
Well the shadows will be gone and all these bitter tears,
And my heart will hang on that until the dawn appears.
Oh, how long?
Oh, how long?
Oh, you, you won’t let me go….

homecoming no. 8

Published on October 21, 2012October 22, 2012 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

Do you ever have one of those days that takes you back several years and at the same time makes you wonder how the future will turn out?

My best friend from high school was nominated for homecoming court for her university. When I found out about this a couple of weeks ago, I was not surprised at all. Carmen is the kind of person who seems to instantly click with anyone she meets. Carmen genuinely cares about people, and that really inspires the way she interacts with others. It’s no surprise to me that everyone sees the best in her because that’s exactly what she does–she sees the best in everyone. I am very proud of her for staying true to herself throughout college and for loving and inspiring others around her.

This is a photo of Mary Kathryn, myself, Carmen, and Carmen’s sister, Joy Beth, from the homecoming game today:

Honestly, the fact that Carmen was on the court was not what took me back to the days of high school. It was more of the fact that this was one of the few times Carmen, Mary Kathryn, and I have been together since high school. The summer right before my freshman year in high school, Mary Kathryn and I met when we were trying out for cheerleading and volleyball. Carmen and I met the week before school started when we were both shopping for school supplies in Office Max with our moms. I remember her mom picking up a rolling backpack with light up wheels, and we all laughed about how much we would get made fun of if we had those for the first day of high school. In those moments, I had no idea just how much these two would mean to me over the course of high school.

This photo is from the first day of my junior year of high school.

Looking back on how far we have come together, and sometimes apart got me to thinking about where we will end up in five, ten, fifteen plus years. We all seem to be going our separate ways: getting married, applying to Teach for America, living abroad in China. Our lives really couldn’t be taking us in more different directions, but there is something in me that really wants to believe that the past we have all shared together is stronger than anything in the future that will threaten to pull us apart. Perhaps that is wishful thinking, or perhaps that is exactly the kind of thinking that keeps good friends together–probably the former. And even if we do not remain close (because let’s face it, we don’t always talk or hang out like we used to), we still have our memories that we have shared together. I know that sounds trite, but there really is something powerful about a memory, don’t you think?

To close, here is one of my more recent favorite songs about high school memories:

When I think about you, I think about seventeen;
I think about my old jeep. I think about the stars in the sky.
Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night.

the opposite of love

Published on October 19, 2012October 22, 2012 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

Today I requested Dave Matthews tickets from my dad for ‘graduation,’ in December. The concert is actually during finals week, which I think will be the best option for escaping the madness of studying and testing, at least for an evening. When I found out The Lumineers are opening for DMB, I instantly opened Spotify and put their album on repeat. Love them.

The more I listened to the CD–at work with nothing else to do but that and a psychology report–the more I began to recognize the particular songs that felt most familiar. You know, the songs that you hear and you wonder how in the world someone could know you well enough to write a song about you, especially considering they’ve never even met you. That is how I define good music.

She’ll tear a hole in you, the one you can’t repair
But I still love her, I don’t really care

Stubborn Love is one of those songs, for me. Listen to it. Read the lyrics. (Trust me, you’ll want to do that or else everything I am about to say won’t make a whole lot of sense.)
The guy is singing about a girl who seems to get love all wrong, but he loves her anyway. I know that girl, and I’m pretty familiar with that guy. What I know about that girl is this: something happened to her to make her the way she is. I believe that the most basic desire of any human being is to love and to be love, and I just don’t think that anyone pushes that away or runs from it without having been burned by a false, incomplete version of ‘love.’ This guy gets that, and he recognizes that to leave her is to confirm her newfound belief that love just doesn’t exist. He chooses to love her through her pain, and I respect that because I feel like those guys are so hard to find…especially when you think about the fact that there are also guys out there who have been just as burned by ‘love.’ The idea of “stubborn love” is really just committment in a nutshell. Love is about comitting to a person regardless of their past or the long road ahead. After all, we all have scars from all the times we have fallen on this path we have been walking.

Also, stubborn love makes me think about how stubborn I am, and there are people who choose to love me anyway. That’s a blessing I take for granted all too often, and being stubborn makes it even harder to accept the love that people try to give. Anyway, I like this song. I like how it sounds. I like the lyrics. I like that there are deep underlying meanings and themes. I like the psychology of it. I just wanted to share that with you.

It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all
The opposite of love is indifference.

In closing, here’s some other questions I’ve been pondering:
Am I in a ‘stubborn love’ kind of relationship with anyone?
Am I the stubborn one or the loving one?
And what is it that I am indifferent about that I really should be loving more?