8.21.12

a confession (just one thing)

I like the way you say my name. The way you say it before a serious statement, a secret, a revelation. Before questions. After compliments.
I like the way you say it sometimes, and blink, and slowly shake your head, as though you've lost all your words.
I like the way you mock me with it.
My favorite is the way you say my name when we haven't seen each other in a while, and you smile at me, and I smile at you, and it becomes the beginning of a conversation.
There's no subtext, no hidden meaning. But you say it like it means something. Like it's a name worth saying.

(unrelated picture I took and liked :)

chameleon

photo by Michael Molthagen

return

I got back from a trip recently. On paper, it wouldn't seem like anything momentous: it was a trip to a state I've been to a hundred times before, to see people I've seen a lot of in the past. But I came back with a flickering light lit up full force. Something about reaffirming that the people I love love me too lifted a lot of self-doubt and self-loathing. It's easier to notice when things are going all right.

Here it is: the end of the hiatus. The words still aren't exactly the way I wanted them, but here they are. Thank you for your patience:)

last-week-of-spring music

Watching You Watch Him ~ Eric Hutchinson [Jangly, jaunty and bittersweet. "I love you like a broken record plays, but I'm a windowpane, a phantom limb, when I'm watching you watch him."]

Emmylou ~ First Aid Kit [Dreamy and poetic. This is bliss-out music. "Now so much I know: that things just don't grow if you don't bless them with your patience."]

See the World ~ Gomez [This is a road trip, lemonade in the summertime kind of song. Probably my favorite, at the moment. "The answer's still the same: See the world, find an old-fashioned girl, And when all's been said and done, The things that are given, not won, Are the things that you earn."]

Motorcycle Drive By ~ Third Eye Blind [Old song, of course. But it's the kind of song that can break your heart, and heal it at the same time. It's poetry.]

Clark Gable ~ Postal Service ["I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired. I thought it classic. I want so badly to believe that there is truth, that love is real."

To the Dogs or Whoever ~ Josh Ritter [I adore this man. He always sings like he's having such a good time."I thought I heard somebody calling in the dark, I thought I heard somebody call."]

Transition songs, for the gap between spring and summer. Mostly bittersweet, moving-on songs. Ah, there's so much good music out there! It excites me. :)

Paris by night

"One night we hit the town....At eleven-thirty, we drove up to the Place du Tertre, where we struggled past the barkers and milling tourists in the narrow streets. At the Lapin Agile we paid two thousand francs and squeezed our way to some stools in back. The air was foggy with tobacco smoke, and a chap played boogie-woogie on an upright piano. We ordered brandied cherries, but they never arrived. Finally, a man with a good baritone voice sang four traditional French folk songs, and then we crammed our way outside again and breathed deeply in the cool night air. We strolled along the terrace in front of Sacre-Cour to stare down at the city. Paris was serene and quiet in the moonlight, and seemed to stretch away to infinity.
      "...We headed off to the Left Bank, where we found a jolly nightclub called Le Club Saint-Yves....The audience was made up of simple folk, all French, who were obviously having fun. What the singers lacked in voice, they made up for in personality and verve. After the club closed, at 3:00 a.m., we went on to Les Halles and walked around....It was cold and dark, but the vast marketplace was beautiful under splotches of yellow electric light. As dawn lightened the edges of the sky, we found ourselves at Au Pied de Cochon for a traditional bowl of onion soup, glasses of red wine, and cups of coffee. At five-fifteen, we straggled home."

~ Julia Child, My Life in France

nothing

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
(Romans 8:28-29)


Sometimes things like this will suddenly pop into my head and bowl me over. NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. 
Wow.
 Happy Easter, friends.