On Ordinary

One of my favorite times with you was the Saturday morning you surprised me with coffee before work.  You told me you had heard of this really great place and even though I had no idea how significant a well-crafted latte would become to me, I was excited to be chauffeured to the office with a quick stop for caffeinated goodness on the way.

"What if I didn't work on Saturdays?" I mused as we walked back to the car.  I don't think you responded.

And so the morning drive continued without incident, you dropped me off right before the Farmer's Market vendors started unloading their trucks, preparing for the day's activities.

A few months later, I got Saturdays off and we both worked Monday through Friday like "normal" adults do.  This isn't super significant, except to say the surprise coffee trip only happened once.  And maybe it should have happened more, or maybe the novelty of it made it matter most to my aching yet hopeful heart.

And I am still trying to process these feelings and hurts and choices, but when is it enough?


I dreamed about you last night, so I figured this was the most appropriate form of response.

On Being Mean

I had a bad day yesterday.  Nothing was wrong, except I hated everything and took it out on someone I care very much about and traffic and to be honest, was legitimately lucky that I didn't get into a car accident. (Trust me, there was plenty of time for it to happen...)

I know that everyone has bad days now and then, for good reason or for none at all, but I am still sorry I haven't figured out how to manage all those things that inevitably start to snowball and end up exploding in an awkwardly guttural yell that leaves the back of my throat itchy and raw for days.

And I am still learning that people are good and true and reliable and all of the things that you don't realize you need until they're sitting in front of you being needed.

It's still hard for me to believe I'm deserving of all the "second chances" that inevitably make an appearance in this life, but maybe now I can slowly realize that I am.

All the Feels

I am here to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the quiet unfolding of events over the past few weeks.  I feel lucky/blessed/etc/etc to be in this place, but the truth is I have put in a lot of work and made several fucking hard decisions to get here.  And, yes, I was not expecting this "so soon," but I can't deny that something is happening.

For now that is enough to keep me hopeful, to continue getting to know this peculiar person and to be okay with all the not knowings of something new and real and fragile.

It's not the worst place to be, I suppose.

On at Least Trying to Be

In the words of Hush Puppy: "I wanna be cohesive."

My painful realization of the day yesterday was this: I am obsessed with pursuing/being in a romantic relationship.

So...shit.  This self-awareness endeavor is no joke. 

Now what?

On Night Hikes and Why Being Alone in the Dark with Your Dog Isn't Always a Bad Idea

Because someone new
Because I am afraid
Because I am not in control
Because I am tired
Because the dark
Because I am nervous for the unknown
Because sometimes the things I desire are very far away
Because I am still hopeful
Because I am not easily charmed
Because I fall too quickly
Because she is one of my best friends
Because I still want to adopt
Because "I see that I'm a little piece in a big, big universe. And that makes things right."

Also, cohesion.

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. -Adrienne Rich

Scarred Knees

I am told that I have not been content with the things I have, or the places I am in--would this be life in general? As of late, I have caught myself saying, "once I have _______, ___________, & _______, THEN I will be happy and never want anything every again." Guess what happens when I get ____________, _______________, & ____________? Yeah, I think you get it. There are new things to fill in the old blanks every single time. I am ashamed to confess there is such a disconnect between the life I say I want to lead and the one that I actually do. Maybe I am not so different than those I love to hate. Those who have so much material wealth they don't seem to know what to do with themselves. And they DO appear to be very happy. Maybe they are? And maybe I am missing a lot of things. Like the fact that Jesus is here in a neighbor stopping to greet me, or my mom leaving a 2 minute voicemail, or Brian reminding me that I am more than my paycheck or having my shit figured out. So the Prius would be a perk and a new laptop would be lovely, but a gentle and kind spirit? I'm trying to fill in the blanks.

tired eyes.

I am somewhat amused by how quickly God answers some prayers; and yet for others still asks us to wait.

And in other news, WHOOPEE!!!

in defense of nothing.

The royal we are still very young in terms of days and years. And so it startles my mellowing frame to find out how busy we are becoming. I feel bad when I don't have plans or goals, and even guilty if I spend an evening in "nothing." Buuuuut, I think there is still plenty of life left for me to be busy. I just hope that I can never in all honesty excuse myself from living because I am too busy for it. It seems strange, but we humans are good at making crooked paths straight. And excusing ourselves from life because of all that busyness re-aligns the road, so to speak.
I'm not saying that I haven't excused myself several times, but I hope I haven't put any of you on the back burner because of it. She is an attractive quality, but a stressful burden, if you really invest in her.
And I know there are all these verses in the Bible about being still and small voices and rest for weary souls. I'm fairly certain that Jesus took the gift of nothing seriously. And I'm pretty sure He knew how curious I'd become over a yoke that was so abnormally light.

All the Pretty Horses.

Since it took me so long to actually get to this book, &even longer to read it, I figured that I would give you an honest, yet humble review.
I suppose my favorite thing about this book was that it took me a while to break it in. Or it took a while to break me in. Western fiction is not a genre I have any particular affinity for, and there is plenty of other literature in the world for me to sit around with. So, even though the book came highly recommended from a reputable source, I would be lying if I said I wasn't mostly intrigued by the cover.
McCarthy's mastery of style, however, could not be ignored, and luckily, like a green colt, I was broken in after about sixty pages. The poignancy of McCarthy's diction, the structured coherence of his characters, and his overall knowledge of the craft made this novel worth taking a little more time on.
Here is my favorite passage in the book; it's on page 135.

She watched him, not unkindly. She smiled. Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. The events that cause them can never be forgotten, can they?

Find this book and read it. There's some caballos in it, too.

The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don`t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn`t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I find that tenderness often goes underestimated.

I am not the wisest of children, &I expect You to come in rushing wind, &loud sounds, and fantastic displays of light &noise &magnitude. I do not find it half so believeable when You come to me through other women, &sweet words, and flowers, and fellowship, & "you`re too tender"s, & not behaving as I ought. I say that I want closeness with the Lord, but search me and know that I am often found lying quietly in the evening, waiting for the lightning, when He is already gently raining love &trust over me.
&that`s all I got. In a feeble attempt to mimick Buchner, I stretched my hands out, &whispered "Please, Lord," over &over. And do you know what He told me? He told me that He loved me, &He told me to trust Him.
That`s all.

patient hope in freshly fallen snow

I am whelmed over.