home alone

the roommates have gone away for the weekend, leaving me with blackberry jam and toast and tea. so, i'm sitting here on this glorious, lazy saturday morning, in the lazy boy with the keyboard on my lap. toast crust sits next to tea bag, and coldplay is streaming from vh1.com. how long must you wait for it? chris martin sings, and i can answer the question: three more days. august 27 will be fantastic day with the release of coldplay and aimee mann into the marketplace. getting to listen to these new collections of songs feels like prophecy: i'll be listening to these cds relentlessly in ireland, i think, and i'm anticipating the memories soon to be associated with songs like "god put a smile upon your face". it will be good.

i finished etty yesterday. i sat at my familiar table under the spruce tree, with a squirrel and two crows as companions, and i knew her time was imminent: any page now she would be called up to be transported to auschwitz, where she would die. i knew this as i read page one. yet, i was still shocked, horrified when it abruptly happened.

(nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard, chris sings.)

we left the camp singing are etty's last known written words.
her life, her hope, her words are a miracle.

oh my soul. how i long to grow into it. etty has given me a new vocabulary.

synapses

this week has been heavy on my shoulders. and maybe it's because i am a girl and i shoulder too much. or maybe it's these synapses and seratonin and bad connections: chemical imbalances blah blah blah. but. it still gets heavy. and i still shoulder it. and then i start staring off into space too long and laundry piles up.

i get stuck.
sparrow asked today, as i talked to her with my headset on, if i know what i need to surface. i said i don't know. so she lights her candle.
and the fact that someone somewhere would light a candle for me makes my shoulders feel less heavy.

so i babysat two boys tonight.
i didn't want to. i did not want to be needed by a smiley, climby, towheaded three-year-old, and his baby brother.

harrison climbed all over me, and showed me his new trains. the boy is obsessed with trains, and has many locomotive engines. the new one's name is donald. i played with one called lady. baby sam, with this round, bald head and halfmoon grin, crawled feverishly after us, trying to keep the pace.

the boys (along with their parents) live in the middle of nowhere; their long, windy gravel driveway is a mile off the main road. no power lines. no streetlights. no traffic.
we watched a deer and her twin fawns out in the pasture that will soon be dakota's new home. we watched a bunny chomp blades of grass by the patio chair.

we read o the places you'll go and i about cried as i read aloud the waiting places. (the boys didn't seem to notice.)
and then kisses goodnight. sam and a rocking chair and bottle.
harrison and the three blankets i had to tuck him under.

then, quiet. nowhere to go and surrounded by the vastness of moonlight behind trees and cicadas loud.
i spent a good hour with etty and allison krauss' new favorite.

tonight is what i desperately needed.
and to think i even got paid.

boys, diaries, and david perry

my friend dave just started his very own blog...very much worth your time. see for yourself HERE.

note to self

so. yesterday. i was going to write about the oddness of my sunday, my sabbath. i purposely left my cell phone and watch at home as i left for church. i was so tired of being under their thumb. i.e. thy kingdom come, thy will be done and me: i wonder who just called? is it noon yet? for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. forever and ever. amen.

i got to church late, sat on the pews with no backs, next to the pregnant woman who had to sit down during hymns. i get so dizzy, she said.
becca preached a shoeless gospel (we were all barefoot) and i smiled. then communion. somehow, the cup passed me before the host, and i was left host-less, with only the blood of christ. how strange, i thought. and then i sat down and giggled. only here, in this shoeless place could this happen and it feel alright.

kristina and i then had a quick lunch, and she asked me to come with her to the intergalactic bead show at the fairgrounds.
phoneless, watchless, i shrugged. sure. why not? so. we went. and there were many beads. and people in purple shirts with bright yellow 'security' on their backs. and very blue cotton candy. and a sign that read: we are now serving cappuccino. i remembered friendship bracelets and safety pins and little beads on denim jackets. i thought of my childhood neighbor, ruth anderson, and her endless beads in the back room: little drawer upon little drawer. stale smoke always hung in the room as i fingered the beads, and she always told me i'd inherit them someday. visions of christmas ornaments and jewelry in my 9 year old imagination strung along into my 23 year old forethoughts, all via an underwhelming intergalactic bead show. we left. and we were fast upon the scattered thunderstorms . as we drove head on into downtown, you could see the wall of rain like fog around the skyline. and then we were pelted. thunderlightning simultaneously. then. over.

see?

(i had a message from constance awaiting me when i got home.)

then. today. (ahem. chapter 2.)
back to watches and phones and headsets and appointments. sales.
what was a blank page of possibility this time yesterday is now a full week of scheduled something or other. nearly every moment is filled up already. i go go go. i don't stop.

and let this be a note to yourself: when you start thinking, hey i haven't been pulled over in a very long time; maybe i'm invisible to radar or you start reconsidering the replacement of your burnt-out right headlight because it's not that big a deal anyway, or you think, it's 11 o'clock and this road is deserted. this song feels better with speed anyway--i think i'll turn it up and step on the gas: you are about to be pulled over. and ticketed, for that matter. doubly fined for your lack of illuminated right side.

where were you headed in such a hurry the cop asked. home i said, and it was a really good song. i'm sorry.
i just wanted to get home.

annie, you've got to slow down. you won't always have the luxury of coplights and fines to remind you.
sigh.

(the end.)