Sometimes it's better not to rationalize what you feel.

From a time before college. A time before Portland. A time before living on my own. ... A time before 'growing up' meant doing things you did not really want to do. A time before I knew what I would get to do that was never really planned. Before bungee jumping and food allergies. Before I was finally the one to move away. A time before airplanes and a boyfriend. A time before...now. A time no less simple or uncomplicated. Just, before.

This is a story I am sure to rewrite again and again until I find exactly what I am trying to say.

I have my mother to blame for my love of flowers,
which is not such a dark thing to blame your  mother for.
It is most definitely her fault though. 
I remember, summers at the farmer’s market.
Always waiting until we were ready to leave 
to go to the vendor we had asked to save our favorites.
It did not occur to me then 
that we did not have money for flowers
--but she bought them anyway. 
I learned from her
to love summers and flowers;
and that beauty is worth the price you pay.
At least, it is worth it for flowers
--More than makeup or high heels.
Flowers cause no pain.
And so I learned to love those summers, 
just us girls: my sister and my mother and I,
between my father and my stepfather,
between one school year and the next,
deep in that place of rest
between one remembered event and another.
It is a gentle space
too quickly unappreciated
for its lack of busyness 
and for its brevity.

Unofficial Title: [Something New This Way Comes]

I want to write
but it has been such a long time.
All of the words try to come out
ahead of each other.
As you can imagine,
this makes communication difficult.
Pretty soon, there is no message.
Just me breathing in so many words.
My lungs become jealous for Oxygen
--and that’s not fair because, well,
I need both.
And yet I get neither.
I guess I am out of practice.
I always forget how clumsy practice can be,
even for simplicities like breathing.
Breathe before you speak.
Or risk running before you can yet walk.

It's been a long time.

Luck Runs Out

I am not a lucky person by my own standards or anyone that I know. I don't find $100 folded up on the ground when I need money...or even $5. My health is not a constant. When I don't study for tests, I don't pull A's with made up elegance. No pots of gold. No four leaf clovers. The wishes I make on stars, birthday candles, eye lashes, and in tunnels are all still in the works if they are coming at all.

On the other hand, I suffer from no great amount of bad luck. The mirrors remain in tact. The things I do on Friday the 13th prosper. Black cats are ... just like white cats except, well, black. And so on.

But it takes a lot more than luck to get by. Luck runs out. It leaves. It wears thin. It turns sour. And yet... yet I continue to make it. Despite all of the "almosts" and close calls that have filled the pages of my life daily, I am still here and still heading into some kind of future. It bewilders me. It is not by my amazingly strong will either. Many a time my stubborn will has been determined to go in what turns out to be the wrong direction.

I think it is called it blessing. I think it is named grace.
...I think it makes me want to paint again.

And I would. But I cannot yet breathe. My lungs are full of water ...or mud. Better yet, my lungs are vacuumed shut and emptied. Yes, that is the feeling. And I keep wondering if I will ever breathe again. Oxygen would be so sweet. Like sugar. Or maybe less sweet and more like fine salt. Or cold. Like snowflakes. I forget just now. What's worse is I feel myself arguing against it. "If I let myself breathe again, it will consume me for the rest of my life."

But I forget how naturally it comes. It does not distract from the rest of life. It is no threat. So what if it consumes my life? Without it, there is no inhale.exhale. rhythm. Without it, I am certain to forget how easily luck runs out and how gently grace finds you when you stop running.

Real Quick:

...a reading from Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love by Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Gollins Pratt. I found this in a book I randomly picked up while I was babysitting a sleeping child.

"When we speak of hospitality we are always addressing issues of inclusion and exclusion. Each of us makes choices about who will and who will not be included in our lives...Issues of inclusion and exclusion, while personal, are not just personal. Our entire culture excludes many people. If you are in a wheelchair, for example, you are excluded because there are places you can't go. If you are very young, if you are very old, you are excluded... Hospitality has an inescapable moral dimension to it... It is an issue involving what it means to be human. All of our talk about hospitable openness doesn't mean anything as long as some people continue to be tossed aside...

"But calling hospitality a moral issue does not tell us the whole truth about hospitality either. A moral issue can become bogged down in legalisms, and hospitality is no legalistic ethical issue. It is instead a spiritual practice, a way of becoming more human, a way of understanding yourself. Hospitality is both the answer to modern alienation and injustice and a path to a deeper spirituality."

mr. sun, sun mr. golden sun...

I wanted to start this post announcing my first and deepest love for the sun and sunshine and summer and warmth. And then I realized there are many things that were first loves and very deep loves. Stars (And yes the sun is a star but the sun keeps me warm. It's a very different sort of relationship than the nocturnal stars.) And sunshine. Being barefoot. Chocolate chip cookies...or really, cookies. Pie. Fruit. Family. Friends. Rivers. Lakes. Mountains. Clouds. Wind. All the pieces of all the homes I have ever loved.

Apparently, I am a woman who has loved a lot more than I first thought. This a great comfort to me as today... today feels empty. This is because the sky is the color of concrete and it is driving me mad. It is too high up, too intangible, too unstable for me to reach up and paint it. I have to wait for it to change its mind. But I feel like it gets stuck sometimes. Like the sky itself could have seasonal affective disorder and needs a good dose of Vitamin D and the like. And when the sky gets stuck, I get stuck. I want to go to sleep until the Sun feels like waking up. When he comes to wake me up in person THEN I will get up.

YA! Take that.

Because, we are totally on a first name basis, the Sun and I. He's on the speed dial [that I've never set up] and we hang out when he's not too busy with you know, galactic star stuff.



Even I'm rolling my eyes at myself now. I can only swallow so much B.S.

But seriously, when the sky is blank and empty like concrete, I begin plotting. I begin dreaming. I begin hoping for a real dawn.

The view from my high school back in the day.