a champagne toast

There are hazards to befriending a drummer. You will be drummed upon frequently. Your knees, your forearms, the top of your head: anything within drumming distance is fair game.
For Christmas, he will use his drumsticks to knit you a scarf. He will make you mixtapes with metal songs oddly and wonderfully combined with the Jonas Brothers.
When you make scones, he'll smudge your forehead with batter before you're quick enough to stop him.

None of that encompasses the hazards of befriending a heavy metal screamer. He will send you the angrily beautiful lyrics he's written, and ask your opinion of them. He'll encourage you to write your own.
He'll send you haikus on scraps of paper in the mail. He'll give you tea and chocolate and music and advice. And in the dark of the movie theatre, when the White Orc appears suddenly onscreen, he'll grab your hand and bite it, and then grin at you in the silver light.

The very most dangerous hazard isn't any of these.
It's the 6 AM when you're alone in the airport with your feet propped up on your carry-on suitcase, and melancholy muzak dripping from the ceiling. You suddenly have to blink very hard, because 1,000 miles feels so real and tangible and solid all at once.

No one warns you of these perils in the beginning. But even if they did, it wouldn't change a thing. Sometimes friendships, like goldfish, grow to fill the space they occupy. And with that chance, 1,000 miles seems no less huge, but a little more golden.

I'll be the one free of jealousy.

My words are stuck and my camera is broken, but hey, the music's still here.

I love you, and I miss you. What else is there to say?

{Far More ~ The Honorary Title}

a letter

Someday I'll live in a house with  spiral staircase, and a fireplace in the kitchen, and a big dog underfoot. Every room will be a different color. Every room will have books.
I want to take a train to somewhere brand new, and read a new book, and stare out the window at the blurring woods. On that train, I want to sit across from someone who likes the same kind of adventures I do.
I want to watch snow fall into the sea. I want to climb to the top of a lighthouse.
I want to play upright bass in a jazz band on the corner of Main Street at Christmastime.
I want to sit in a cafe alone, and watch the jazz band across the street play their hearts out to the passing pedestrians.
I want to write a story that will make someone happy. And another that will make someone cry.
I want to write a poem that makes someone feel less alone.
I want to write a book worth reading twice.
I want to hold the hand of someone kind, with a nice smile. I want to write haiku love letters.

I'd tell you all my secrets. Really, I would. But secrets are slippery and quick, and when I try to let them go, my heart closes up before they hit the air.
Someday, I hope my honesty is quicker than my secrecy.
I want my bravery to be faster than my fear.

11.25.12

:)

six things

1. Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches. 
2. I turned on my car this morning to discover that one of my radio presets is playing Christmas music already. [No! Too soon!]
3. Cheap tea, copiously.
4. Unintentional honesty. Everything I write is too personal for comfort.
5. Good people saying kind things.
6. Sunday Afternoons.

There's a lot I want to say. It's just taking a while to puzzle out the right words.  

It's almost Thanksgiving. I'm glad.

poem for one of those thursdays

If ignorance is bliss, Father said,
shouldn't you be looking blissful?
You should check to see if you have
the right kind of ignorance. If you're
not getting the benefits that most people
get from acting stupid, then you should
go back to what you always were ––
being too smart for your own good.

~ The Benefits of Ignorance by Hal Sirowitz

indecorum

Tonight, in the store that smelled of citrus, I lightly touched the $10 teacups, and ruffled the $200 dresses, and then caught sight of my chipped nail polish. I paused, and curled my fingers into light fists. I was suddenly aware of my old flannel  and my scuffed converse. In that airy place of light and sparkle, I felt distinctly out of place and inelegant. I felt like something decidedly less than lovely.

{photo from Anthropologie}