Second

We wake up in darkness these days. Most of the time as we uncurl and uncover from the trappings of sleep, we are faced with heavy blankets of grey. We know dawn is upon us but not because we see its light.  Knowing things in your head does not always remind your heart.

Some days the dark grey lifts, and we search for the warmth of sun soaked summers from the other side of the window pane, careful not to touch the glass and remember the cold.

Stepping outside, we can no longer stay asleep, lungs flooded with the remnants of a frigid night and filled with the scent of snow and frozen ground. Every breath we take floats up to the sky, a smoke signal.
 "I am here."
 "I am alive."

Alive in a world of dead and dormant things.

It's as though we are driving across the pages of a vast sketchbook.  Shades of grey, shocks of white like a blank page before us.  The trees reach to the tops, laid bare, twisted and scratching at the sky.  Men in bright yellow coats and dingy work gloves make their way through rows of trees, sweeping the forest floor of the dead and dying. Bare becomes more barren, rows of trees like hospital hallways, and static.  Tidy little piles of limbs are assembled into half moons.

The river is iced over in some places, but the solid white fades to transparent panes where it thins.  The places the river runs, it is bold and brown, swollen with the melted snow and freezing rains.

We brace for the wind, careful to shield our flesh from the deep, immediate ache of cold on parts we dared expose.  Things are quieter now, the world heard through wool, felt through layers we've carefully put on.  Having nearly forgotten color, surrounded by silence, we paint the world red for a day, creating a flurry of sights, smells and sounds to distract from the dark that all too quickly ends our days. When our work is done, the darkness is already imminent.   We slip into the forest again.  Even as the tires tread smooth and silent, the scent of smoke seeps in.

The grey curls around the trunks of the trees, but the bright orange petals of a bonfire in full bloom are nowhere to be found.  Instead, the forest floor flickers with the subtle glow of a candle behind lantern glass. The world burns slowly, almost imperceptibly.

February fades as flames burn out.  Ashes run with the river, meeting the first of the unfrozen ground.  Life begins again.

From Inside the Box

I've been trying to get all my favorite photos together over the past few months, and I've been transferring them from one computer to another.  It's been a longer process than I've hoped, not including any inherent-in-my-being procrastination. 

I spent the last few days looking back on some of these. It's a weird time to be reliving all of this from outside of it. When I look at these pictures I see...wide open.  I see an eternal horizon, I see the colors of sunset drizzling down ancient mountains.  I see sagebrush trailing off as far as the eye can see.  Somewhere inside of me, that feeling I felt in Tucumcari, where I had to fling open the doors of my Jeep and just RUN until I couldn't run anymore...it stirs inside of me, for better or for worse. 

Right now I can't decide which it is.  I'm accomplishing a goal I set for myself right now, and I'm happy about that, and I've stuck with it despite nausea, mood changes, injuries and insecurity.  I've had fun, laughing and going out and doing things with people I love, exploring and indulging and laughing, listening....

But everything feels like it's outside the box I'm in.  I feel like I'm looking at everything from behind a screen. 

What you can't see in the pictures above is the hot wind at your back.  Or the smell of sagebrush and juniper and earth.  You can't feel the way the sun can be sitting on your shoulder, or the power of a wind whipping up the lip of a canyon.  

Worse, I don't know if I built my little plexiglass box or not sometimes.  I'm sure that I did, as I've been trying to fend off attacks and trying to be strong despite getting salt ground into some wounds.  I know that for every brick I took down from my wall to hand to someone, I've taken it up and reinforced it with another now.  It isn't what I wanted and it's probably what no one needs.  If I could hand you back those bricks I would.  Maybe one day...maybe not.  

But I know I'm not the only one.  We build our cages and we lock ourselves in them.  We think it'll protect us, and we're wrong.  We have to fly, or our wings stop working.  We have to feel every muscle even when it hurts, so we know how strong we are.  Physically I'm doing that.  

Emotionally, I'm...holed up in my room watching tornado shows. My heart is screaming at me "People.always.leave!" and I'm trying to drown it out with...dreams of racing up on things that could kill me in seconds flat and feeling their force. Of staring straight in the face of something I've always been afraid of. Behind this screen I can hear the tornado roar, I can watch it toss trees and tear down buildings. My heart can beat a little faster watching a close call.  But I'm safe, because it's just pixels. Nothing is real. Nothing is actually happening.  I can tuck up under the blankets and watch in wide-eyed wonder without so much as a raindrop dampening my day. 

And I guess that's fine, in some cases.  But right now?  I don't want to be in the cage.  I don't want the people I love in theirs either.   I want to smell the sagebrush, I want to feel the wind, and I want to feel the charge in the air just before a storm.  I want to run.

I want to be outside of these walls.

A Little While...

So...the absence was notable.  For me at least, maybe no one else out there. But I'm back. 

I guess lately I've been more of the sort who wants to tuck themselves away up in a tower somewhere.  Maybe here at home.  I have a million things that my heart wants to say and for the longest time I've wanted to touch the keys and pour it all here, but I haven't. 

What can you say when you don't even really know how you feel? How can you feel when you're trying so hard NOT to feel?

I feel bottom of the bottle empty sometimes.  I feel sad.  Sometimes I feel better off.  Sometimes I feel like it's time to blast off, and go somewhere.  

New Year's Eve, when I drove with an old friend of mine, my heart sighed out "I want to go home" and home was New Mexico.   

Right now my heart feels too fragile.  I want to go home because I know that when I stand in the shadow of the mountain I'll feel the same way.  I know that the mountain will always be there, sunrise, sunset, storm or clear weather.  I know no amount of digging away at the stone will remove it, even if I dig away every day for the rest of my life.  I know I could tear all the skin from my bones beating at it and NOTHING would change it.  Solid stone, dwarfing magnitude, healing silence.  

I know I could stand at Tsankawi and scream at the top of my lungs and it would carry out to the valley and to the river and that someone somewhere just might look up and hear it, even miles away, and I want that.

I know THERE is something I bought with blood sweat and tears.  I know there is where I was bravest. 

And I need that.

I know what I should do. I know without doubt that it's what I should do, what I must do. 

I wake up sometimes wondering how I'm going to do it without destroying myself. 

I need to feel safe. 

I don't want to be alone, but alone works better for me when I'm like this. 

If this explains the absence, I'm glad. 

Or I'm trying to be.

One step at a time.

Furry and Frivolous- The Saga of the Drips, a Pictorial

So I had some time on my hands, and my pet was around doing silly things.  Hence this.

Sit back and relax for some kitty antics.

Natural curiosity attracts the wild creature to her prey...the evil drip.

Being a natural detective, she goes straight for the origin.

"Starts here..."

"comes out of this shiny thing...here."

"I'm goin' in!"

"You gonna help, or you just gonna sit there with that phone thingie?"

She decided this was a better vantage point.

"I got this!"

Catlike reflexes engaged!

Evil, yet delicious drips acquired!

The End. 

Hold your applause. :P

Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe

One thing I can do is dream. I've always had it in me. I'm a daydreamer who just takes it to bed and keeps it going.

When I was dreaming of a white Christmas, I wasn't really picturing being forced off the expressway into whiteout conditions between cornfields with ravines dug on either side that our car could slip into at any moment.

Sometimes my heart runs away with my mind and creates pictures. Some I've seen before...maybe I'm Zuzu, and Daddy can scoop me up and give me the petals and make everything ok again.

Maybe I'll be restless and wander out to get a sandwich, and I'll sit down at a piano with that special someone, and he'll sing a whole song about counting your blessings instead of sheep.  Maybe we'll go to the window and he'll ever so gently slip his arm around my waist as the snow falls serenely outside.   Maybe we'll sit by a fire and sip cocoa.

Maybe everyone I love will be in the same place and we'll all get along, and there'll be music and meals and laughter.  The tree will be beautiful, and everyone will linger and talk and have a glass of wine and stay for awhile.  Maybe some grinch will change their mind and carve the roast beast.

Sometimes it does you harm to dream.  Sometimes you need to put your feet on the ground and realize life isn't like that.  You don't always get the Red Ryder carbine-action 200 shot Range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.

Sometimes I'll be Home for Christmas is playing in the background, and you're alone, and you've lost someone.  You're sad for what could have been, what wasn't, and what your life will be like.  Christmas is sometimes just hard, and lonely, and reminds you of the things you're missing.  I'll admit, I've been finding Christmas a little bit that way this year.  I was trying to enjoy it, but coming up short.

I'm down here in Jacksonville.  I've been here for Christmases past, when I was younger and my cousin Laura and I dressed up in identical nightgowns and every piece of costume jewelry in the household, added some shades and sashayed down the creaky old stairs to the adults.  I've been in secret spy clubs with passwords and laminated cards where our only task was to find the presents and figure out what they were.  There's a lot of history here.

This year, we came down early.  We sat in the front room with some much needed wine after the harrowing drive and chatted.  We formed a search party for a dying phone.  We met Louie, the new pup, and patted Toby, the old pup, on the head.  We watched White Christmas and we putzed around and we retired to our couches or beds or air mattresses.

We did the shop til you drop, and then we had a wonderful dinner of prime rib at the same dining room table we've had big family meals at for as long as I can remember.  My cousins and I stayed at the table awhile after, chatting about shows and movies and people.   We exchanged gifts and had another glass.  It was really nice.

But it wasn't til tonight that I got there.  My uncle and cousins came up after the Illini game ended, my aunt surprised me with birthday cake, and everyone piled into the living room.  My uncle pulled up a chair, grabbed the remote and polled the audience for the Christmas movie we'd watch.  Same as always.  All 3 dogs joined us, sometimes creating a Christmas Vacationy sort of chaos, sometimes sitting quietly.  We settled on the end of the Grinch, and something about hearing everyone recite their favorite parts made me smile.  When that was over, we put on A Christmas Story.   Somewhere during that, I took this picture.  Because when I looked around me, I saw that no, maybe I had no dad to scoop me up and make everything ok.  Maybe this year wasn't the one for gentle snow and handholding and singing.  But there's such a safety and a comfort in unspoken tradition- in that gather round we have.  People pull up chairs, corners of sofas, slices of floor...and we just sit together, and watch something we've all seen 100 times.  And that's Christmas, and that's family....and that's perfect, for me.

I've been thinking about it a long time this year, because some of the people I love the most are suffering, and this season tends to get salt in those wounds, even when you try hard to fight it.  I've got wounds of my own, some new and some old.

But to whomever reads this...I hope you can find your Christmas.  I hope you can hold onto something that makes you feel safe and loved.  That's what I wish for you.

And to all a good night.

A Million Little Pieces

The first time I ran across a pomegranate in the "wild," (y'know, the grocery store...) I knew that I liked the flavor.  And it looked exotic, and it was different, and it was something to do.

So I bought it and I took it home, and when a friend came over, we tried to crack into it. Keep in mind I knew nothing about the fruit.  It was completely alien to me.  I didn't really even know which parts were edible.   I found out that it was tough to get into.   So I got out my big knife, and I sliced it in quarters the way you'd do with an apple or an orange or really, most any other kinda-spherical fruit.

As soon as it was sliced open, rivers of almost bloodlike red poured out.  It immediately stained the counter, our hands, and the wooden cutting board, and the stains seemed rather indelible. We laughed and picked at it and we tried the skeletal, tough whitish part, in case it was edible.  It wasn't.  We gnawed on it all of 30 seconds before we discovered this. It was bitter and had no redeemable use.  So we tried to tear it apart.  This just resulted in more bleeding, more staining and more laughing.

Eventually, we decided even though the wifi was spotty up in White Rock, googling might do us some good. It turns out if you soak the pomegranate when it's cut like that, it's easy to separate the little alien seeds from their little alien pods.  It turns out also that the little alien seeds that contain the ruby red juice are where all the good stuff is.  Seemed like a lot of work for a bunch of tiny seeds.

Still, we soaked it.  We brushed off the arils into the water- they sink while the pith floats, making it relatively easy to separate what you want from what you don't.  A few minutes later, hands still slightly pink, and counters still stained, we got the prize- tiny little gems bursting with tangy juice.

I was separating one of these suckers tonight, and it made me think.  I always think in metaphors, and there's a lot to think about this week.  There's a lot of pain and a lot of confusion and a lot of....stuff.

I guess I was thinking about the things you do and why you do them.  Usually it's worth it to you in some way.   Then I was thinking about people, and the people that are worth it to you- the relationships.  I think it starts out a lot like this situation did.  You know nothing.  You know there's something there that's attractive, and you want to get at it, but you don't even know how.  Maybe you pass it up or maybe you take it home and stare at it awhile.  Then you get inside of it.  The friendship forms and it stains, hopefully indelibly. This is the first part where you can tuck and run, because this is the first time it's ever risky.  Sitting on your counter, you can stare at it or let it go bad.  Open on the counter it's gonna start to affect your life.

But you're not done yet.  It's a part of you, but you haven't figured out how it works yet.  If you put in that work, you find 530 (if the Greeks were right) perfect little reasons it was worth all that work.  It's sweet and it's tart and it's good for you. And you're probably still going to keep getting stained, but it's worth it.

For me that's how it works. And if I find those 530 reasons, I'll take the stains and I'll take the soak and I'll take the work.  Because it's worth it.

I don't find pomegranates often. They're not always in season. They're expensive.  They're rare enough to be a special treat for me.   And I guess...that's how I see the most important people in my life. Or it is tonight.

Sometimes you have to sort through and figure out why.  Why are you gonna let yourself get hurt? Why are you gonna keep trying?  Why risk it?  Why run into pith and gnaw on bitterness and ruin some of your own things?

And I guess you have to figure out how far you'll go for those 530 reasons, and if the sweetness inside of the thing is worth enough to you to risk it.

Things I Learned from My Mom

So....today is my Mom's birthday (and in her honor, we won't say which one)

I thought it would be neat, since she's joined the blogosphere, to make a different kind of birthday card, and tell whoever is out there reading this some things I've learned in thirty years with my mom.

30. If you don't want to heat all of Illinois, you need to SHUT THAT DOOR!
29. Why wouldn't a woman be able to change the oil in a car?
28. Road trips are a good thing.
27. You can still have fun on a kraft mac and cheese budget.
26. But eventually, you gotta switch from Kraft Mac and Cheese to Lunchables?
25. Do what you do because it's what you do.
24. Go potty before you leave the house!
23. Brush your hair so you look presentable whenever you go out.
22. It's ok to be an individual- you aren't like anyone else.
21. Don't forget to be good to people though.
20. Everyone's got a little artistic streak or creative side in them.
19. Creativity is important, and you should be proud of it.
18. Travel.
17. Look out the window or you'll miss a bunch of stuff that was just outside your window.
16. Don't be afraid to be smart.
15. SOMETIMES it's ok to just do nothing.
14. Hard work is important.
13. Scrub under your nails.
12. Make your bed.
11. Thank people
10. Believe in little miracles (and big ones)
9. No matter what happens to you, you can get through it.
8. You need to learn to be independent.
7. Even though you can do it on your own, it doesn't mean you shouldn't let people help you.
6. Don't take too much medicine-let your body get strong enough to fight it.
5. Do what you have to do even if it hurts.
4. Love.
3. Remember that your family is important.
2. Remember that you're loved.
1. You can be a strong, amazing woman who can do anything you put your mind to.

So thanks Mom, and Happy Birthday!