Instead

Instead

When I feel like taking a bath, and I want to stay in until the water gets cold, because it is the only place I can truly be alone. Instead I add bubbles and make up a song to sing.
When I feel like staying in bed for 30 minutes after I wake up, just to think about it all. Instead, I will get up and do Cinderella's morning routine (minus the mice).
When I feel like wasting my time to look at all the pictures on their facebook, the ones I am no longer apart of (or ever was for that matter). Instead, I go and look at photography on flickr. When I look at beautiful pictures, I can't help it but I always cry.
When I feel like closing the door and pushing my back into the heater mounted on the wall. Instead, I will fling the door wide open and dive into the day as if it were deep water.
When I am afraid, and I want to stay quite. Instead, I will tell stories of my childhood to remember who I am.
When I am hurt, and I want to hate. Instead, I will lay in the arms of my Beloved, and let Him whisper my heart back to life and into love!

Today is that day. I am diving in with a humbled heart, and a new tune in my head, with confidence in my beloved. I will not be afraid, I will choose love.
I will always choose love!

remembered or forgotten, this is love

I thought of my stomach as a furnace heating the rest of my body, yet easily forgetting my fingers and toes, as I drank the last of my hot tea. We sat across from each other with blankets draped across our shoulders, as most girls do. Our empty cups now abandoned to the floor, left to be forgotten.

"What is your favorite memory of him?" I pried
I spoke of her husband, they are in their first year of marriage, and yet it seems as if something is missing already. She smiled, and I knew she already had a memory picked out, yet she delayed and then spoke;

"In the beginning of our relationship, he would always help me with the work on the house. I liked this! Now, He is busy and doesn't have much time, you know?"
I saw the pain of her neglect, yet the desire to be understanding of him with the way her head tilted to the side.

"Well, once I was hanging the clothes on the..."
She motioned as if she were hanging clothes on a line. Sometimes we have to play charades, because of our own language barrier.

"Line?" I asked
"Da (yes), on the ...line. He came to help me with this, and as we were working he would move the clothes and make faces at me, and just playing around. It was fun, I don't know why, but this is my favorite memory."

Never in all of my life have I pictured something as perfect between two people in my head, as this. I adore the fact that she didn't say a memory of the time when they went here, or the time he took her there, it was just a time when they were simply together.

She would have her hair piled on top of her head, and wouldn't have any make-up on, because she was just doing chores. How the sun would be alight making everything bright, and all of the particles caught up in the spring wind visible. He would come from around the house, and at the very sight of him walking to her she would smile. He would move the damp towel hanging between them, and kiss her hello, and oh how it would be a kiss like James Stewart and Grace Kelly, for a moment they would forget about chores. She would blush and eventually take another shirt from the basket signaling him to go away or help, and of course he would help. He would do anything to be near her, and to make her laugh. He is addicted to being noticed by her. Every so often he would lift the clothes between them and make faces, completely enraptured by her reaction. Soon they would make a game out of who could hang the most clothes in the shortest amount of time. I can imagine the way they would laugh together.

This is love.

I picture my stomach as a furnace warming my heart, as I drink these day dreams down. Valentines day is approaching, and it has me thinking about "loovvee." Even though I don't have my own someone to kiss through a cloths line, I do hope I will, one day. I am sure it will become a favorite memory among many to me as well. I find myself hoping that he will remember this, and show her that he isn't too busy, and that he certainly hasn't forgotten.

Nuka

I am ruined with a simplistic lifestyle, I am absolutely ruined! I can never go back to the way it was, business as stubborn as a determined woodpecker pecking away at your skull into your brain.
After today I realized, I have been living my life with a constant heaviness, after awhile you forget you're carrying extra weight. Then a hard day will ome along and you mulfunction, but you live and continue to do so, added weight building all the while.
I felt the burden lift today, "how?" you ask.
I sat on a hard wooden floor next to a wood burning furnace, and cracked walnuts for hours.
As I was sitting there peeling back the sharp shell to reveal the sweet golden meat, I felt the weight evaporate with the heat of the furnace. I realized somthing, for once I wasn't rushing, for once I could take my time. I enjoyed cracking the nuts and hearing their stories, and what beautiful stories they were.
In this day I have tasted patience, and contentment, and simplicity, and nuka's (nuts) I declare I will never live under the weight of business again, I have been set free. The Lord has cracked my hardened shell, and He is refining me into pure gold!!
I am ruined
Oh but I am blessed

"Teach me some melodious sonnet"

The sound of a harmonica is a wondrous thing. It's soft purr as it's musician breaths life into it's skeletal frame, and the high pitches as it's master empties their heart through that small metal conduit. There is something about making breath music that is so epic to me. I am not talking about the overweight man that just climbed a small flight of stairs heavy breathing, but the man that has breath locked in his lungs waiting to escape, it's dying anthem melodious harmony. As I listen, my own lungs clap along as if it is a familiar tune that my ears have never heard before.
This morning I awoke in a quaint Romanian house to George (gah-or-gay) playing "Come thou fount" on his harmonica. I cannot describe the simplicity and beauty of that moment. A wave of pure delight overcame me as my lungs hummed along to the melody. I sat very still until the last note sounded, and he then told me of how his mother sang to him this song and her mother to her. He said "it brings a joy into my heart when I play the notes, it's like nostalgia..you know?" I was surprised he knew that English word, I just smiled and said "oh, I know."
All day long I have sang this song to myself, I don't think I will ever stop appreciating it, especially not after this morning.

Mitchell and Evelyn

I remember growing up and always having a sort of resentment towards my parents. It wasn't always this way, like when I was a kid my dad was the greatest dad in the world, and my mom was the most perfect mother that there was. I don't know when it all changed, but I started to lose respect for them and their opinions, I was so disrespectful even when outwardly I acted respectful. I remember sitting in the living room and telling them everything I hated about them and how I just can't wait to get out of there.

I remember this one day my dad took me with him on one of his usual hikes, and we got into an argument with him about something or another, I told him he was so prideful. I wont ever forget the look on his face when I said that, he just looked back at me and said "oh you think I am prideful, huh?" I think we ended up settling our issue before we left and even made a detour to Dairy Queen on the way home, but even as I liked my dipped cone of victory I remember thinking he wasn't the prideful one, it was me.

I remember the fights and the arguments, I remember so many of the horrid thoughts, I can't forget the terrible intentions I had towards my very own parents. Tonight I was kept awake thinking about all of these things, and suddenly as if a veil was lifted or the story was finally told in full, I saw it and I felt it. Like a rush of rapids flowing into my very being so I felt a pure love for my parents. I cried thinking of all the beautiful moments that I missed so caught up in my delusion of bitterness.

I was so overwhelmed with love for my dad, how humble he is. He is always serving and giving of himself, and he never asks for anything, just love. I can remember the times he would come into my room and wake me up by rubbing my back and asking if I wanted some pancakes. I think of the twenty mile bike ride we went on, just the two of us, and we stopped on this bridge that was above all the trees and it was so narrow. On that day I declared that my favorite spot in the entire world (that I have seen so far). I think about all the nights he tucked me in and spread my little blanket over me and gave me whiskers. I even remember when my sister and I were supposed to be taking our nap we would stay awake talking about how much we loved dad. I think of the times my mom would yell at him and later I would find him laying on their bed and he was so hurt. He wasn't so prideful that he couldn't show emotion, ya know? I even remember the time my mom was going to leave us, and my sister and my dad and I sat in the living room and he gently told us that he loved us, and that everything is going to be ok, and to not worry about a thing. I remember believing him in that moment, I was so safe with my dad. I am so safe with my dad.

Oh and my mother, we have had our fair share of intense moments, but then again we have had such wonderful ones too. I notice one thing about me that is odd, I share all of my mothers favorites. Our favorite animal is a koala bear, and our favorite smell is eucalyptus, and our favorite color is green, I think I do this so I can feel closer to her. Even with my dad I love Alfred Hitchcock because we watched so many of his films together, just him and I. I love writing because my dad was in journalism for awhile, I even love photography because he took pictures. When I have my own car I will change the oil myself because he showed me how, and when I have my own lawn I will mow the yard (I would always do the back and he would do the front).

I don't know if it is the Christmas air that has got me thinking about my family so much, but I do know that for the first time since I was maybe 8, I felt a pure deep and irrevocable love and appreciation for my beloved parents. I miss them, finally I really miss them, after being on my own for 2 years, I have an ache in my stomach to be held by my dad and listen to my mom hum as she cooks. I have always loved them, and I think it is time I show them my affection in a more tangible way.

Don't get me wrong, it hasn't always been resentment and bitterness all these years, but I think even one day of ill advances towards my selfless and admirable parents would still have been altogether undeserved and utterly ridiculous.

Golden Grams

She grew up in a town called 'Hope'
"That's beautiful, isn't it?" She said as we sipped our Chai Lattes in the over crowded Barnes and Noble, I laughed to myself as I watched the people franticly searching through the titles on the jumbled shelves for the contents of Christmas lists so lengthy. "Hope, Michigan. It is beautiful, Grandma. It suits you." She really isn't my Grandma, but I call her that because she feels like one to me. How loving and lowly she is.
I always thought you could tell alot about someone by knowing where it was they grew up, or came from. I think it is why I can't stay in one place for too long, because I haven't come from one place. I believe I will be destined to wander all the days of my life in wait of a place called home, which I know I will not find here in this world. In this case, Hope Michigan, was altogether Fay Wilson.
She spoke of her divorce, the man that ran around on her for ten years and then told her to leave, and she did. She moved into a little trailer in lynchburg serving her children and seeking the Lord. Unlike most who have lost loves, Fay never loved another. She stayed faithful to him unto his last breathe and I suspect unto hers too.
Beautiful Fay never lost hope, trusting that in the end everything would be fine. She had hope for her children, she had hope in her Lord, she had hope for herself. I think back to last week listening to Grandma talking about her life as if it was so far away yet it all happened so fast, and I honor her. I honor her for her selflessness, I honor her for the elegance that was never lost, I honor her for never being in denial but approaching every situation with a hope so strong that even Michigan acknowledged it!