peach

it's late and breezy in this very peach room. the windows are opened wide, and i'm listening to the oddly familiar night sounds filling my childhood bedroom. time out of time here. now. if i close my eyes tight enough, i can almost make myself believe that my father will be waking up in a few short hours, shaving in the bathroom, just like the eighteen years of perpetual 5:30 am buzzzzz and old spice i suddenly remember so clearly. but no. it's only me and my mother and two old cats now. and mom will get up and make the coffee tomorrow, as she has daily done forever, and i will sleep til the last possible moment, when she'll wake me. just like always.

it's calm now. and i hear crickets. no cicadas here like nashville, so everything sounds subtle, muffled even. the wind will pick up again though, blowing in a possible storm off the lake. who knows. everything here is lake effect and unpredictable. ask my mom. she knows.

if you make it fun, it's fun

the above is one of the many proverbs of the obvious that my sister, peggy and i enjoy coming up with. others? it is always good to buy a snickers bar.
yeah. this is what i do in erie, pa.

actually, i have had a full day of play. bobby and i threw sticks and stones and pinecones from a lakefront cliff this morning, after eating peanut butter sandwiches on the park bench. we played cars, re-enacting the aforementioned stick/stone/pinecone throwing adventure. we built block towers and knocked them over. we ate hotdogs on the living room floor: a picnic.

now, it is early thanksgiving here in erie. and i'm on my way out the door to pick up my mother and aunt mary helen for the occasion.

kids are screaming for me outside. i am finally popular.
fun.

chickens

leaving nashville in a bit. room is a mess. did i forget something? nah, i'm bringing all of you with me.

and i'm so tired. note to self: no more denny's coffee at midnight. (though staying awake with sco was tops.)
my next few days:
today: erie, pa
monday: nyc and vicky.
tuesday: jersey
wednesday: belfast

and i'm taking you with me. all of you. wait, i said that already. see? this is why i write lists.

more later.
(and soon.)

love.

ahoy.

"this is my first night as an unemployed girl," i said to my friends yesterday. congratulations! they replied, toasting.

yesterday was lasts and firsts.
today is lasts and firsts once again, and we're all breathing that way i think.

we can all stop planning what we're going to do to commemorate terrorists and trade towers and fear and heroism, pentagons and endless tickertape. we can exhale and say it's been a year. we've survived. it's really been a year. and here we are. we are anniversary survivors as well.

i feel like the dogwood tree next to my father's grave. i know full well the permanence of death, and i do not have to look far to see immense grief, but there is a constant season of bloom despite. blooming as resurrection.

we're all dogwood trees.

wholly

i spent the morning with the orange-rising sun on my back and goosepimples on my arms, as i sat outside with tea and anne bradstreet. she entrusted her tears to God's bottle. i typically bottle my own, sell them like books to whoever will buy.

you cannot expect authentic prayer to just enhance your life as it is, a merton-inspired sparrow said yesterday, and i'm gulping.

i think about my desire for wholeness, and my motives. sometimes wholeness is simply fodder for good--better--writing. do i really want to upset the status quo in my life? do i really want to risk anything? most times, not really.

then i think, oh shit. i am risking. everything really and this is not melodrama. but then what is everything?

love goes risking everything she's got julie once sang. there goes love. i'm risking everything i'm afraid of. everything i balk at. and for what? a story of redemption on paper? hope? a veil lifted?

i believe in the wall of God right now. and i believe in climbing. and i believe that i only know how to climb through words.
but i'm afraid of heights and hard falls.

becca says that there is no difference, really, between flying and falling if both are sustained by grace.
i believe despite my unbelief.

i believe.