hello

'Happy' by Maxwell Tomlinson

It's nice to meet you, 2012. 

Z.D. & J.G.-L.

I love her, I love him, I love them. 
I love this. :)
From HelloGiggles. 




(She's playing a ukulele. It doesn't get better than that.)

the stars are brightly shining

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining. 

It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth!

Long lay the world in sin and error, pining

'Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope; the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Fall on your knees. 

O hear the angel voices

O night divine

O night when Christ was born

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace. 

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we

Let all within us praise His holy name! 

Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever!

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

O holy night. 

Merry Christmas! 

glitter

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12-16-11

egg sandwiches

That little blonde sister of mine, beautifully Four, ate dinner with me tonight. Egg sandwiches, sitting on stools in the kitchen, elbows on the countertop. In between bites, she looked at me seriously and told me about her life.
'" Mr. Fox, What Time is It?" is Darth Maul's favorite game,' she said. 'Me and Darth Vader don't like it so well, but sometimes when Darth Maul doesn't have anyone to play with, we'll play it with him.'  She took another bite. 'We like it at Ice Skating, though, even though Darth Vader doesn't take ice skating lessons with me. He does his homework.'

I nodded, and hoped she doesn't grow up too fast.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

All your life, you were only waiting

for this moment to arrive.

wheels

I loved this captivating project by Katy Beveridge. Read more here.

11.23.11

poem for a clear sunday

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

~ Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

the sum

I'm sick; I'm not doing well.
I'm writing home because
I need your help.
Living the dream ain't so dreamy, darling.
Living the dream ain't me.
'Cause I can't kill this animal between my ears,
and I can't stop feeding it what I've fed it for years.
Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?

What good is freedom if my heart's a slave to sin?
My allegiance lies with me.
Oh my pride is overwhelming!

My hands ready, my body poised for malevolence,
but I can't keep fighting it
and I can't swim through the tears.
Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?

I'd like a little of your blood, but that's all.
Just enough forgiveness to keep on being careless.
Am I more than the sum of the things I have and haven't done?

How do we undo what's already been done?
With nothing to stand on we fall.
We've been falling before we first arrived.

Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?
Am I more than the sum of the things I have and haven't done?
Am I more?

~ Give and Take by Abandon Kansas

The most true and beautiful song on a stunning album.

west

I want to go away. I want to jump in a car alone and drive west, drive and drive until I hit Utah, Nevada, Arizona, sand dunes, red rocks, and the sun-bleached road always streaming ahead, running away just like me. I want to listen to this song over and over and over, and try to justify myself. (Tell me I'm no loner. Tell me I'm not crazy, or maybe just a little bit.)

    

photo by Tim Chao

john and george

:)

wishes

For happiness, for stickers, for glitter, for love.

Rubber ducks and rainy days. Apple cider. Shooting stars. 

Bonfires, ice cream, cats and 

      books books books books books.

For dogs in the lake, for canoes, for June.

For colored pencils, Christmas lights, my baby sister's laugh. 

Pockets full of rocks. Letters in the mailbox. 

Music every minute, with silence in between. 

Solitude. Good company. People that I love.

Blank white paper. Black ink pens. 

For spiderwebs. For seashells. For light green sprouts.

For roadtrips. Adventures. Brand-new joys.

And stories. Lots of stories, to tell and be told. 

For my brother's hug around me. 

For concert tickets, stained glass windows, jack-o-lanterns,

pirate gold.

Thunderstorms, romance, chocolate, snow.

poem for a grey thursday

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

beginning

photo by Rand Renfrow

Come on. Let's go. 

carpool

Driving home at the very welcome end of the day. We were stalled in traffic between the driver making out with his girlfriend and the driver texting into her lap, with a trail of brake lights crawling over the hill and out of sight. I had one wrist resting on the steering wheel, and thoughts running thick through my head. I smiled a little despite myself. I glanced out the window for composure, then glanced at you in the passenger seat. You were wearing a secret smile, too, and looking out the window. And even though we were both miles away, it was as though we'd touched for a second.

photo by CJ Sewers

I may be dreaming, but I'm longing to belong to you.

narcissus

All the leaves are falling, swirling, spiraling down more quickly every day. The wind keeps getting colder, and the nights are dark too early. I can feel the old loneliness creeping back. I try to push it off, to look for the gold in the long afternoons. 

I've planted some bulbs, and they live in a bowl on my bookcase. Making something grow is wonderful when everything outside is deadening. No life yet, but if I'm lucky I should have narcissus by Christmas. 

...they're awfully ugly, aren't they? :)

poem for a heavy tuesday

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of
      time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for 
      haste,
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still--
      Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed 
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.


~ The Master Speed by Robert Frost

autumn music

Na Na Nothing - Mike Doughty  { Clever and a little angry. "You get na-na-nothing, I found out that I'm a chump and you were cold, cold hearted to me." }


You Got It (acoustic) - Family Force 5  { So catchy, so snappy. It just makes me grin. "Heaven must be shampoo." }


The Last Crusade - Sam Roberts Band  { "You play the king and you play the pawn, you give up and you soldier on." }


There She Goes - The La's  { You know this song. But it's time you were reacquainted. This song was my summer. "There...she...goes.... There she goes again..." } 


So Much Love - The Rocket Summer  { I frequently sing this at the top of my lungs when I'm alone. "I've never had this feeling; it feels like gold! You got so much love in you." }


Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros  { Learn it, love it, sing it forever. "Ohh home! let me go home. Home is wherever with you." }

A few dark songs, a few sunny songs. It's fall. This is how it goes. 

owl

photo by Rick Wylie

eight things

1. October. Oh, how I love October. Crisp air, warm sunshine. These are bright days. 
2. The hat I'm knitting out of smoky red wool. It's fluffy. 
3. My four-year-old sister, who said to me, "I really think you should see this," and then zipped up her jacket all by herself. 
4. The apple I managed to peel in one long, curly strip. I made applesauce.
5. Hot tea out of big, thick mugs, or the little white teapot. 
6. Reading outside and hearing woodpeckers. 
7. Good music, and lots of it. 
8. Hope. 

Lately happiness has been everywhere. It feels like late-afternoon sunshine.

500 Days of Summer

poem for an autumn wednesday

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. 

And what did I see I had not seen before?

Only a question less or a question more;

Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,

House without air, I leave you and lock your door.

Wild swans, come over the town, come over

The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

~ Wild Swans by Edna St. Vincent Millay

afternoon epiphany

Today I sat out on the back lawn at school, cramming in the free hour before French 101. I had a head cold and no lunch.
But the sky was singularly blue, deep enough to drown in. A few full-bodied clouds sailed slowly over the mountains. They were dazzlingly white. I sat there on the short soft grass, and the sun was butter.
  And I had the first coherent thought I've had in a while:

Life could be worse. This isn't so bad.

I smiled a little, and my day was better after that.

{photo taken by me, a while ago, and very far from here}

'I've been convincing myself that I'm worthwhile

'Cause I'm worth what I'll convince myself to be.'

(If You Want It) by Relient K

photo by Aey Laboratories 

you're already home if you feel loved

Sometimes, in the long low nights of the summer, I've gone outside onto the porch or the grass. I'll sit alone in the twilight and wait for the dusk to deepen. I wait for the stars to come out, one by one. And I listen to the trains go by somewhere out of sight.

This song gives me the same feeling as those summer nights. 

*I realize that the video is set in the wrong season. Just listen. Just listen. 

fox

{found on tumblr}

This made me smile :)

the one

I'm looking for my perfect ice cream eating partner.
It will have to be someone with whom I can order double scoops on a cone and share, with two spoons. Chocolate brownie with butter pecan. Cookies&Cream with peach.  Mocha mudslide with mint chocolate chip. They will have to enjoy quirky flavor mixing.
They shouldn't eat too fast. There needs to be time for savoring. For a little conversation and a little silence. For smiling with cold lips.
They will have to enjoy their ice cream. It's not just a food. It's an experience. And when I meet someone who feels the same way -- that's when I'll know.    I've found The One.

photo from habit

It's almost the end of summer. These are the kinds of things I think about.

somewhere beyond the sea

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One week of summer left. The ocean is calling me. That's where I'd like to be.  

This made me happy today. 

excerpts

And it's August. Somehow, I feel more excited than I have all summer, although I couldn't tell you why. I just have the feeling that good things are about to happen. Do you ever get that?


I've started a list of things I could do with my life. So far, my favorite option is skipping college and moving to Hawaii to become a surfer. Thoughts?


My ukulele popped a string, and I ran out of white thread, and I got chemical burns from the bathroom cleanser I was using. But I had an ice cream sandwich and things looked better. You were right.


The whole sky turned purple tonight. Every inch of it. It was stunning. You should have seen it.


Love.

poem for a solitary monday

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


~ "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry 
     copyright © 1998 by Wendell Berry

missing

      Once in a while, there will be people you miss too much when you leave them -- so that in your head, they become bigger and deeper and fresher and more golden than they really are. And when you finally see them again after so much waiting, they can't possibly live up to your inflated expectations. And all your anticipation turns flat, like a bottle of soda that's been sitting in the sun. 
       
       But sometimes you see them again, a little tentatively (because you've been disillusioned before), only to find that the way you remember them is just a faint echo of who they really are. That who they are is better than you realized, and that you were right to miss them all along. 

photo by Spencer Fields

This is for my best friend, because he asked for it. 

"'Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?' He paused again, his eyes misty now, then went on. 'I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.'" 


~ from The Chosen by Chaim Potok, page 217

summertime blues

I've been eating vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. Listening to the Beach Boys. Swinging in my back yard. Biking to the pool.

It's like I'm twelve years old again, barefoot and suntanned, with newly-minted friends and fresh optimism.

And suddenly I realize that June has slipped by altogether. Evaporated like water in this heat.  

Days like these, my biggest worry is that the days will all slide by this quickly, and leave me nothing to remember. That one day I'll wake up and it will be fall, and I'll have bigger worries than the slippery nature of summer.

 photo by McGallo

The story of my life, I can't quite comprehend
Don't tell me if you know how it ends
When everywhere you go feels like a mirror maze
And you're not sure how you're stuck in this place
                   And you've got no where else to go; you're lost within your own home
                   You're trying so hard to win
You keep trying, it's embarrassing
                   And how, you don't even know, but you know you're off the track
                   And how did you get in here? Thinking, 'how did I get in here?'

I'll help you break the walls down
I'll help you break the walls down
And bust you out, and take you home
Believe you me, you are not alone
I'll help you break the walls down

Does anybody know a February wind?
I was hoping that by now we would be at the end of this
When you open up a book and read a thousand lines
But you don't really read, you just move your eyes

And all the weight we carry
Will disappear and I will willingly
Embrace your soul
Lay your head
So come on home,
                      come on home,
                                    come on home
I'll help you break the walls down

~"Walls" by The Rocket Summer

poem for a pensive Sunday

The Lord feeds some of His prisoners better than others.
It could be said of Him that He is not a just god but an
      indifferent god.
That He is not to be trusted to reward the righteous and
      punish the unscrupulous.
That He maketh the poor poorer but is otherwise undependable.


It could be said of Him that it is His school of the germane
      that produced the Congressional Record.
That it is His vision of justice that gave us cost accounting.


It could be said of Him that though we walk with Him all
      the days of our lives we will never fathom Him
Because He is empty.


These are the dark images of our Lord
That make it seem needful for us to pray not unto Him
But ourselves.
But when we do that we find that indeed we are truly lost
And we rush back into the safer fold, impressed by His care 
      for us. 


~ "Psalm" by Reed Whittemore


Why is it that whenever I ask questions like these, I ask myself, instead of Him? As if I had any of the answers.

the nap hat and other curiosities

This is...a nap hat. You know you want one. It's designed by Kawamura Ganjavian, and you can read more about it on their website.  

But that's not all! They make lots of other rad stuff as well! Such as this:

As far as I can make out, this is...recycled light. Read about it for yourself. 

Then there's the Oyster.

 Heat Me.

And, of course, 

The Earshell.

Check out their website. They have all sorts of projects, ideas and art profiled (and other things I'm not sure how to classify). You're sure to waste lots of time browsing through the mind-boggling array of items (and buildings and social experiments) that they've created.

kindness

"I love cerebral palsy. It makes me try harder and be kind. . . . If people read my book, I want them to smile. I want people to think, 'Ryan would help me if I needed it.' If they were in a wheelchair, I'd push it. If they couldn't get their food on their own, I'd get it. If they need help with their math homework or want me to sing at their birthday party, they should call me. I want to read [my book] at schools, so kids know it's okay to talk to their parents when they're scared and frustrated. Kids should know they can always be successful in their heart."


From an interview with Ryan D'Emidio, a 15-year-old memoirist with cerebral palsy. Read the entire interview at the Washington Post.

my life

validation

(My fantastic best friend posted this video on facebook several weeks ago, and I'm stealing it from him to share with the wide world. )


I only intended to watch the beginning, because it was late at night and who really has fifteen minutes for youtube, anyway? But as I watched, I involuntarily began grinning giddily from the pure sweetness and whimsy and optimism. I think you will, too. 

sigh no more

Serve God, love me and mend

This is not the end

Live unbruised, we are friends

I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more

One foot in sea and one on shore

My heart was never pure

You know me

But man is a giddy thing

Oh, man is a giddy thing

Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you

It will set you free

Be more like the man you were made to be

There is a design, an alignment, a cry 

of my heart to see 

The beauty of love as it was made to be

~ "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons

I feel like the last to join the Mumford and Sons Bandwagon of Cool, but they are really incredibly talented. The album is a wonderful backdrop to a rainy day (or a day when it's only raining on you).

poem for a mellow sunday

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange --

The size of it made us all laugh. 

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave --

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It's new. 

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list 

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I'm glad I exist. 

~ "The Orange" by Wendy Cope

the van

Today, I want to run away from the world.

I want to find a Vanagon for sale, cheap, a little beat up. One that's been around the block a few times and seen a lot of life. And I want to dig out my paintbrush and turn it every color thinkable, with a big bright rainbow swoosh down each side, a sun slopping a bit down the windshield, white clouds on a sky-blue roof.

I'll fill the back with couch cushions and glowsticks, sleeping bags and peanut m&ms. Then I'll fill it with the people I love most, C and L and J and S and B and that girl down the street I've been wanting to befriend. We'll wear tye-dye. 

We'll drive west, aiming for the ocean. We'll avoid the highways, favoring the roads less traveled. When night comes, we'll camp outside under trees or under stars. If it rains, we'll pile together in the back of the van and barely sleep at all. 

The van is be guaranteed to break down at least twice, each time leaving us in a bit of predicament. Tempers will flare. We'll argue heatedly, hating each other for the moment, each threatening to leave and head home on the next Greyhound. Somehow we'll pull through. We'll get the van started again, and each decide to stick with it and with each other for a little longer. 

That night someone will pull out a guitar and start singing Bob Dylan into the last of the melting sunset. We'll join in, because that's why we went on this trip, after all. We'll slap mosquitoes and lie on the hard ground and settle into the night. And despite the fact that it's just another night lying in the dirt, sweat not quite dry on our skin and the too-closeness of many people over a long time, the stars will still shine down. A quiet breeze will kick up, like a sigh over our huddled dark shapes. And that moment will be enough. 

poem for spring

One flower at a time, please
however small the face.


Two flowers are one flower 
too many, a distraction.


Three flowers in a vase begin
to be a little noisy


Like cocktail conversation,
everybody talking.


A crowd of flowers is a crowd 
of flatterers (forgive me).


One flower at a time. I want
to hear what it is saying.


~ "Bouquets" by Robert Francis

{photo by roco}

Today was spring, beautifully and completely. It is also three days until my birthday. :) These two facts are making me feel rather optimistic about life. I hope today gave you a few reasons to feel optimistic, too.

I'm not that kind of girl.

But here I am, the only one awake, crying quietly to "Never Grow Up".
Tonight, it just hits too close to home.

I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone.


Oh, Taylor, sometimes you read my heart like a book.

the day after death

"I do love you! I do! I'll never leave you! Why won't you believe me?"

Then comes the chaos; the tide turns, and suddenly everything is so much more uncertain. It's so late that it's early, and it's cold and dark and the crowds of people are suddenly much more threatening than it ever seemed they could be. 

"Are you with him? That man? The heretic, the traitor, the madman? No? But surely - "

And the rooster crows, and your soul feels like ice inside you. The world spins, and everything turns dark. 

What's left now, the day after death? Only darkness, numbness, fear. Despair.

It's the end. He went to death alone. Now you're alone, alone with your own terror and heartache and regret. 

An endless day is followed by an endless night. 

new year's morning, under starlight

The night was heady and frosty. There was no wind and the air was cold and still. The stars were brilliant and hung low in the sky. There were so many stars that their light made the sky a deep cobalt blue. There wasn't a moon but the starlight served better than moonlight.


Francie stood on tiptoe and stretched her arms wide. "Oh, I want to hold it all!" she cried. "I want to hold the way the night is -- cold without wind. And the way the stars are so near and shiny. I want to hold all of it tight until it hollers out, 'Let me go! Let me go!'" 


She looked out over Brooklyn. The starlight half revealed, half concealed. She looked out over the flat roofs, uneven in height, broken once in a while by a slanting roof from a house left over from older times. The chimney pots on the roofs . . . and on some, the shadowing looming of pigeon cotes . . . sometimes, faintly heard, the sleepy cooing of pigeons . . . the twin spires of the Church, remotely brooding over the dark tenements. . . . And at the end of their street, the great Bridge that threw itself like a sigh across the East River and was lost . . . lost . . . on the other shore. The dark East River beneath the Bridge, and far away, the misty-gray skyline of New York, looking like a city cut from cardboard.


~ from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith. 1943.  Chapter 46, pp. 403-404, 406. 


Someday I will write like this. I want to write with the same passion. With the same truth.

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One thing I love about photography is that it lets us see,  just for a fractured second, what life looks like through the eyes of someone else. 

life goes on (part 2)

So you've had one of those days.

The sky is gray and your worries seem to pull you down like pocketfuls of stones. 

You've run out of momentum, and any forward motion is plodding drudgery and seems much too hard to be worthwhile. 

You walk through a crowd of eyes that slide on by, slipping, glancing off of you as though you weren't there at all. 

You've come to the end of your nerve and your grit, and would sell your soul for a hug from someone who cares. 

It gets better, friend. Life goes on. 

The sun might not come out tomorrow. But it will come out again.

One day you'll wake up and find that the dark clouds that dogged your steps for so long are behind you, and there's a fresh scent on the breeze that comes in through your open window.

The days turn over, the seasons change, and life goes on.  

Count on it. Wait for it. And never give up hope.