Now that the daylight dies away, by all thy grace and love,
Thee, Maker of the world we pray to watch our bed above.
Let dreams depart and phantoms fly, the offspring of the night,
Keep us like shrines beneath thine eye, pure in our foes despite.
This grace on thy redeemed confer, Father, co-equal Son,
And Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Eternal three in One.

Zaya loves it because it rhymes. Can’t blame him for that! Rhymes DO rock.

I’m half-way done painting my giant fall leaf but I’ve been told it looks like an angry Christmas tree, with which I unfortunately agree with. It makes me feel like I stole one from a Christmas tree farm in the middle of the night and all its tree friends are giving me this haunting glare. Must be the encroaching Halloween. I might have to change it into a layer of chaos and start again. I blame my paints, I need new colors. And I blame my brushes, they’re in fairly ghetto condition.

Trick or Treat!

I was driving along, well, a road as a matter of fact, and a truck on the opposite side of the divided highway flashed his brights at me as a warning to the upcoming speed trap where a cop was hiding – and very well might I add because I didn’t see him until I had almost passed him. Now I’m one of those drivers that, upon arriving at my destination, can’t for the life of me remember actually driving there. Although I don’t speed, I’m probably just as much a menace because of how slow I’m going. I think I walk the same way, slowly, with my head in the clouds. So anyway, I got to thinking…it’s nice to look out for one another, stranger or fairy or what-have-you. We’re all just doing our best, trying to make it with what we’ve been handed, fighting our own battles. I wouldn’t have gotten a ticket but the passer-by did save my heart rate from escalating which happens any time I see a cop, even when I’m doing nothing wrong, braking no laws, that I’m aware of at least. (It’s a wonder some of them are high on power because people like me fret at the simple sight of them. Unless of course I was stuck in a burning building or something in which case it would be lovely to see them.) So thanks sir-passer-by-er. The next time I’m in line at the checkout with a cart full of groceries, I’ll let the person behind me with a few simple items go first. I got your back if you got mine. You dig?

I’ve got weed on my mind. Not the extracurricular activity, the actual ones that grow in the ground. There needs to be population control in our front yard, stat. There are these green ones (I know, green, right?) that have itty bitty leaves on them and make my hands super sticky. They sort of act like vines and creep out onto and into all its neighbor friends and hold on for dear life. The good news is that if I was able to get the main root out, a big chunk of it is gone, just like that. Poof! So it got me thinking, aside from the fact that weeds are unwanted and kill the things that are supposed to be growing where they are growing, we’re kind of like weeds ourselves. Reaching out, holding hands, keeping everyone afloat, reproducing, (insert cheesy elevator music here). And the reason we need to look out for each other is that, at a moments notice, we could be poof-ed ourselves. Poof! Except that exclamation isn’t a good one like the aforementioned. It’s a mean one with brows furrowed and a growly under-dot.

In the mean time I’ll continue my research concerning Nutella. I had some on a banana for the first time a couple of weeks ago and now I can’t help but put it on everything. The words “don’t knock it ‘till you try it” really apply here because I thought it looked pretty icky in the commercials. First of all, they advertise it as being healthy, but it’s awfully and wonderfully sugary. Secondly, they mention nothing of chocolate aside from “a hint of cocoa,” which is really silly because the stuff tastes like a thicker version of chocolate syrup – super delicious. Now, I won’t go into detail, but it’s a homerun atop some pancakes and a foul ball, and I mean waaaaaay beyond the left field foul ball marker thingy, on meat-lovers pizza. ..Don’t judge me. I was being innovative. Or trying at least.

….hmm….

….see, no mojo, even on the keystrokes side of things. Nap time ensues.

My leaf is coming right along. I’m so glad I finally found something upon which to transfer this inner chaos. It’s certainly turning out wonderfully messy and all the while I find a toothpick’s worth of peace. It’s all about baby steps…they’re wobbly and often they fall, but then, if they’re not atop cement or in the midst of a rose bush, it’s followed by laughter, which helps.

You want to know something strange? I can’t seem to fall asleep unless my feet are touching. It’s like they’re lovers and can’t be at peace without the other’s touch. None of that sleeping with one leg under the covers and one leg on top of the covers for me. Aren’t my feet so very sweet?

I’ve been working on a painting of squares and as I glanced at it this morning I think I’ll scrap it to the same place I sent those clichés. It’s quite geometric and I’ve been feeling all chaotic and twirly plus a little bit of scrunchy so we’re totally not feeling each other. I might turn it into one giant, off-centered leaf. Zaya loves leaves and I’ll relate to the jagged edges and veiny texture. Plus their scrunchy this time of year, so the only explanation is that we’ve been brought together by cupid. Bless you, dear cupid. Now, how do I translate something audio into something visual?

July’s end is upon me and I hardly remember its arrival. I would have liked to chat more. It kind of reminds me of my Uncle at family gatherings. I always make it a point in my head to talk to him and then I have to leave after I finally remember to say hello.

So I was driving to the store for some bananas when it was raining and my eyes fell upon the ripples of a puddle. They stayed for several minutes as they do when the object of attraction triggers a fast flash of, say, 12 memories all at once. They’re never inter-related on any scale, especially time (which is interesting in this case because ripples in any amount of water, from puddle to ocean, inevitably lead me to ponder time). I suppose I should mention I was at a stop light.

And so the flash goes…

…lying with my head on a pillow that lay on a lap that belonged to a boy that sat on a couch that sat on the floor that was owned by my old apartment…

…shadows of branches that my tree let dance on the ceiling orchestrated by cinnamon-apple candles…

…running with my pregnant belly in circles around the path that I only loved in the fall…

…drinking coffee and eating strawberries, contemplating the dunking of the strawberries in that very coffee…

…crying on the bed of my freshman year dorm room, over and over and over again because I didn’t understand why it was so important to leave home…

Of the estimated 12 memories, those are all I remember of the flash. Funny, I can’t remember memories.

I seem to use every peaceful moment I get to take off to somewhere else in my imagination. Does that mean I’m bored with my life as it is or that I just disagree with what’s real? I’m fairly certain my real is very different from anyone else’s real. Though I would hope everyone had that same thought, otherwise it’d be like a department store showcase with a wooden floor that spins round and round and all the people standing on it turn into mannequins.

Suffice it to say I took a hiatus. A hippopotamus hiatus. A partly harrowing, partly heavenly, humbling, hippopotamus hiatus. I don’t know where to begin, and I don’t have it in me to play catch up.

So we’ll start with this moment. This moment where I once again fill a blank template with my insides. I’m scared I’ve lost my touch as they say practice makes perfect and I, my friends, am horrendously out of practice. I think I may have even forgotten how to spell along with some other grammatical rules that used to be so pleasing, uplifting for me. One of many parts I’m missing.

I’m different. I’ve been playing the one-step-forward, two-steps-back game and I hate line dancing as much as I hate crocs. I think it’s mostly good though. Turning into a mommy I lost quite a bit of my person, but then gained things I never knew existed. A fair trade. A blessed trade. A trade I will never second-guess.

I make it my promise to you, oh empty room of echoes, to restore warmth once again. We’ll see if I can swing a visit once a week. Maybe put up some pictures, bring in a couch and work towards staying a long while.

It was that day in July when the weather was anything but July-like. The breeze was almost too cool, but hadn’t yet crossed the line. The sun was soon to set as I sat on the front, cement step. I had sat there before, but never for a long enough period of time to notice anything of interest really. I sipped on a lovely white wine in a beautiful wine glass – one I had sipped from many times before. The evening smelled like something homemade. Tears occasionally would fall from my face…the reason unknown to me. Exhaustion maybe. Or maybe I had finally reached that state of relaxation I had been pining for. The way the sun was hop-scotching through the trees and rooftops made the grass look like an intricate, patchwork quilt. The neighbor across the street was painting something, I think it was a door, but I was too far away to catch the color and too busy wrinkling my nose at her awful crocs (whose invention was terribly disappointing). Some punk kid mowed his neighbor’s lawn and then crossed the street to do his own. The old woman, who scarcely makes an appearance outside her home, came out to pay him for a job well done. He seemed polite enough. A tiny, white yippy dog meandered up and down the street but would only go so far either direction…kind of like there was an invisible fence set for him. A couple with a double stroller had to dodge his poop as they walked on the sidewalk, up the hill, underneath the old, wise trees. A guy with a worn, beaten truck stopped by the mailbox to deposit something, maybe a bill, then grabbed a football and some cleats from the bed of his truck. Headed to the park I bet, to play a game with some friends. There goes that damn dog again. If I close my eyes, the sparkle of the sun on them feels like time travel…I sip more wine and decide to go to Paris for a few minutes. Mom and dad leave for dinner with some friends and I twirl the braid in my hair. It’s falling out from the days’ activities. I smell cut grass and gasoline. There are lots of dogs barking in the background but I can only hear them if I concentrate.

As a mosquito gets me, I’m brought back to reality, wondering what time it is. I remembered myself as I was before and am reminded again of what I have to give to this whole other, precious human being. How do you keep a hold of who you were before – not lose her – and still give everything away?

I lay awake at night and marvel at the artistic genius of the human body. You can’t go through something like pregnancy and delivery and the days following without being in complete awe and realization that we are made with beautiful and purposeful detail. I’m certain I’m incapable of making known these thoughts with words – it’s one of those things you just have to experience, and what a shame to go through life without doing so! There’s much there that we don’t understand, that’s beyond our ability to comprehend, I think. Even more intensely unbelievable is the power of the human spirit. Never will you know your boundaries until you’re pushed to your absolute limit – when something is so immeasurably difficult that you’re convinced the world is spinning outside the window without you. But then you start to walk faster to climb up out of the grave you thought you wanted to dig for yourself, and then jog a little, and then sprint as fast as you can to catch up because you realize that you’re perfectly capable and you have no choice but to survive, to choose to be happy, to endure. Another realization – the true power of hope. Maybe it doesn’t feel like you’re being strong, but once you get there, you turn around and see that your limits are much deeper than you ever expected. What’s the point of life without testing these limits?  Eventually death will be just around the corner and we’ll look back and realize that all these hard times were true blessings, to make us stronger, to imprint something on our souls that we will remember when, the next time something even harder comes along – and it absolutely will – we know we can handle it. 

The true power of someone, who’s only source of communication is crying, to teach an adult is nothing short of miraculous. Joy will always be waiting at the end -the kind that you feel inside and then turns into tears of release. It’s very real, and very, very worth the fight.

calm, clear, addicting caress, stationary, star-filled, serenity.

i can feel the soft ripple

of the water move over my skin and it makes me

howl

in both sadness and joy.

i tell it to unearth everything unbalanced and it complies on the condition of favors.

i must visit often. i must hold on to the intense peace and hear my breath.

and i must do my best to open the ugly pores and make available the

rotting seeds.