I love you.
I love you too, but you know I'm crazy.
Crazy for being here?
No, I mean really crazy.
Yes. You are really crazy.
No I mean I take crazy pills for it.
I snort crazy pills, he whispered.
I held his face in my hands. I'm going to build a tiny house and live in the woods.
I'll come live with you.
No, you can't. You're not allowed.
I will come and live with you whether you want me to or not.
No. You're too tall.
I love you. I'll always love you. No matter where we go. 
Near or far.
Mostly near. No. I'm serious. I'll always love you even if it's platonic. I'll always love you even if we're like Jerry and Elaine.
That is really sweet.
I know.

Holding every new, perfect baby, I think, "You have your whole life ahead of you. It will unfurl and you will make good choices and bad choices." And it makes me want to hold that baby close to my chest and never let it grow up.

I feel that what I have struggled against my whole life, is to not picture God as a mean-guy holding a legal pad, making a tally mark for each sin of mine.  As a grader.  As an auditor.  Looking for the things I am great at hiding from everyone but him.

My heart knows he loves me,
my head's so hard to convince some days.

I hate that I tell myself lies, when there is such a different God that gave me life.

Help me to know you, God.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
1 John 3:1

“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.” 
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

Prayer XVII

On a hard futon bed in the home of a Chinese lady, I give myself to you God. I listen to the empty space in the room. I listen to my heartbeat and my ocean of blood inside my sack of skin. I listen to the ocean as it tells me there is no greater joy than you. That the pain of being here and the happiness of being here is nothing compared to how big you are. Help me know it and give in, to You.


"I said what do you do with the pieces of a broken heart? And how can a man like me remain in the light? And if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?"
Chinese Translation, M Ward

rocky mountain heart

There's this smell and feeling of camping from when I was a kid that I try to recreate sometimes.
It happens especially in October.

The air comes through the window, a little cold but not menacing, and you can close your eyes and think you're in a tent, and think the world is yours, and think that you're alone but safe, and hear a fire crackling somewhere and that your parents love you and that you have a raincoat that you can put on that is four different colors and sneakers with Velcro and that when you get out there, there are pine cones and dirt and that this is real happiness with your family, and Poptarts, and it took so long to drive here and you can dry your sneakers on the fire if they get wet and the air smells only like conifers.

Right now I've got the window open and I can feel the rain coming in and--

I'm behind on all my homework from being lazy.
I'm behind on all my friendships from being sick.

But I feel safe and loved and safe for a minute.

and my love, my darling
I reach for you.

Dialogues with Izzy

Me: Poor guy, I mean God bless his soul, but--
Izzy: No, I'm done thinking God bless his soul.


----


I think of all of my friends as if I was sitting next to them in a class.
I wouldn't talk to any of them.
Not even you.


---

Emma: No, it's from Hamlet, and he doesn't know it. Poor...poor...poor somebody.
Me: "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well."
Izzy:.........Sure.

Had a dream about N--- last night: we were at a swimming pool or a high school football stadium, but we were together holding hands was all that mattered. Woke up to my alarm, and in my sleepy fog, I was surprised he hadn't texted me. Once the fog wore off, I remembered he was never going to send me midnight texts again.

I took a walk around the block. Drank in Utah October, the air cleaned up from the rain. Thought about all the things I will never get to do with him that I always wanted. Thought about camping with him and talking his ear off. Thought about the planetarium and the aquarium. Thought about Southern Utah and the farm, and thought about my little bridge over the canal that I wanted to picnic with him and throw crumbs to the ducks. Thought about the songs I would never sing along to with him, and thought about how weird it is now for us to build our lives separately.

And then I thought about that imaginary camping trip, and how I would say
"I just can't believe all the stars."
He'd say something scientific.
I'd say
"What a gift from God." I'd sigh deep. He'd roll his eyes in the dark, stoke the fire.
He would say something about his version of science.
I'd question his proof, and then I'd question his proof for the proof.
He would try to change the subject.
I'd already have started crying.
His face would become a wall.
I'd cry my mascara into his white t-shirt, like usual, whispering, Please God, I don't know why You don't save him.
He'd say we're going to be just fine and he would get up to find a log to throw on the fire. And it would go like this for a lot of years.

Which is why--

Which is why now and which is why the planetarium and the crumbs and the ducks will have to wait.

God be merciful to me

Redeem me Father.
Save me from the noise.
Keep me in the garden.
Close my eyes.

I want to go everywhere, and I want to take you with me.

i don't really mind being a star crossed lover.
during the day.

"I've gone and quit my worshippin' of the false gods and golden sins, 'cause we made love in the Tower of Babel and it fell down." 
Jenny Lewis

a life that's good

I feel like I am constantly drinking from this full cup, that keeps getting better. I never knew life like this before. I love my job. I love my friends. I love my God and hold nothing against him anymore. I stopped worrying about the things I couldn't control and here I am, excited to get out of bed each day and do another one. Not ticking days off the calendar, hoping God takes me home. Instead I hope that God uses me, and I look forward to all the seconds I get to be on the court for the game.

I'm overwhelmed by joy. It feels like falling in love each day.

Quotes

"Will you have a drink sir?"
"Certainly, I will have 10 drinks."
 Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms


"This olive oil better be from olives imported from Italy and pressed locally."
-Celisse, at a hipster restaurant

Mom: There's more champagne if anyone wants some!
Judy: But you might need to be sober for Jeopardy.

"My room smells like musty adults."
-Celisse, apologetically

"All of my time off gets used up in out-of-state weddings. I mean, I know it's for a good cause, but..."
-James K.


"Noah used to sit under the kitchen table and eat sugar out of the sugar bowl and--"
"Fish Oil."
"No.  Tums.  Because you thought they were candy."
"Oh I still eat Tums to this day for that reason."
- Emma and Noah

"I drive a stupid Camry that smells like the Pentagon."
-Christine

"I think he, even, is surprised that he has five kids."
-Ashleigh

Me: That girl is wearing the same shirt as me.
Celisse: What, that homeless guy?

Little 5 year old girl at Walmart: Can I lay on the bag of salad we're getting? Salad feels so good.

"But the old man always thought of (the sea) as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them."

-Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Quotes

"I'm a little bit paranoid about pot lucks, at best."
-Karen

"I was so alone that everyday was like eating my own heart."
 -Junot Diaz

I visibly cooked some one else a dinner last night.

Today I went to the dentist and the hygienist was awful. He was so nice and over educatory. I immediately thought up ways to avoid getting him in six months for the second cleaning. What I want is someone who won't try to talk to me at all. Give me that girl from three years ago who doesn't understand how they make decaf coffee beans, because I don't either and I want HER cleaning my teeth. 

By noon I was sitting up tall in my chair at work and really taking care of business. It's easy to feel overly confident when you pull your hair into a pony tail and all the guys in licensure pause to listen to what you say from your side of the office.

"I miss you," is what I whisper. I miss your freckles that I only noticed on Thursdays. I miss telling you what I heard on NPR on my way to work. I miss you when you haven't moved in chess for a few hours. When an Arby's commercial comes on. 

I start to write you a letter, twenty times a day, that says I was wrong and we're kidding ourselves to say we can meet someone else good enough. Like a politician, I pretend I like other people's babies. I eat healthier. I decline comments on how I spend my free time. Like a politician I stop writing the letter for the good of us both. For what we signed up for. For the long run.

I sigh, even though I sit up so straight, and the sigh becomes all the hours of my day. And when I finally drive home, I want to drive home to your house. To your mood swings and your diatribes and your bullet points. To your balcony, to your steak dinners, to setting our silverware out, to feeding the cat. 

I'd do the last night over if I could. 

Wouldn't argue.

I'd hold hands and smile and think it was the beginning again. I'd choreograph every moment so that the words would  never  come  out.