I think one thing I love about winter and the early morning is the special role of routines. Even though I don't think about it as often, there's still something reverent about a routine - dependable, precious, comforting, purposeful, predictably illuminating - that makes me crave them. Probably why I thought it would be a good idea to get up really early during the winter.

Well, now we are moving and what I really want is to put everything back where it belongs. For a moment I will feel settled and then free to grow and move and act and have my being from there. Today I know that will never happen again. Frankly, I know that I am moving because there were times when I felt that this house restricted me. But now the time has come and I am so lost without the routines. Without the familiar orientation of things. It is hard for me to find myself. I don't know how much longer it will be before I can find this again.

I know everyone's personality is different, but I always feel the most free to dare and create when there are a few things I know to be stable. Without a place to be, I feel shuttered away.

How much of this is about having a comfortable house? I don't know. I love it but I also love stretching my arms and having Sarah and Andrea there. I don't want to reach that far.

It's not early, but in this peaceful place it feels like it could be. It's cooler out, and cloudy, which grows that certain green glow. As far as my bedroom goes, in the verdant months it feels like a tree house. the two windows are all grown over with vines and close trees and as far as I'm concerned it seems the whole room is resting in them.

Little Stories

I. In which... Sarah uses her Hands Aptly

Here we are. I am on the bed. Andrea is in the doorway. Sarah is in the middle of the room explaining something to us. There is no corelation between the movement of her hands and the meaning of her words, but it still helps us understand what she says. She is probably telling us a story about how the cabin will be. She says we will eat a lot of food and go on some walks and it probably will not snow because it's too late in March. Maybe she is saying that everyone will end up mailing her checks and it will be fine. She forgets to mention a few things: that the mattresses are crackly and covered with plastic. That there is a porch swing. That you can climb on the roof as long as you know it is hot. At this point none of us know that we will have to drive through a thick fog coming to and going from.




II. In Which... Michael loves a little tree.

Look! Michael has found a tree. You may not see it from here, but it is a pretty sapling with dark pink flesh. This, of course, sounds un-ethical. Perhaps you think that Michael is a power hungry dude convinced that he owns everything he sees, with no consideration of what the tree needs to survive
(maybe, for example, it's native climate). But there you are wrong. There were so many in the forest and he couldn't stand to see it lost among a crowd, so he brought it home.

Just kidding. You can tell by his outfit that Michael is clearly on his way to a Pearl Jam concert. As he was walking, he heard this little tree rocking out to Jeremy's Daughter and is going to stow it away in his boot so they can share the jams with each other.

III. In which... Four Girls Spend a long afternoon in Giggles

Asking when the giggles would stop was like asking when the breeze would stop blowing or the sun would stop shining or icing would stop resting on cake. There's no answer for such a thing, but if you were really pressed to give one, well, you'd probably have to settle on 'never.'



IV. In Which Levi Discovers Happiness

Turn around, bright eyes.



V. In which... Zach propositions a Little Dish (of ice cream)

Say, are you here alone?
No! The people who invited you here left?
I'm so sorry; it seems awfully lonely over there at your table.
You know, I'd love to have your company over here.



VI. In which... Michael discovers his mortality

Sometime ago, doing the same thing he does everyday, something twitched or hiccuped somewheres and Michael cut into his hand. Looking at his tender muscle, examining the thin skin that manages to keep us together, Michael blinked a few times in learning how close his insides are to the outside.


VII. In which... the past calls out to me with a vital message.














Ms. Hen, very proud, arrived at the market with a new dress, of the color blue.
She had two bags and a bonnet.
That proud Ms. Hen!
Not even talking to the other hens!
That proud hen, didn't look at anybody. Didn't look to the right or the left.
She was walking upright, with amusing movements from one side to the other, showing off her new dress.
Suddenly: Down!
Ms. Hen and her new dress fell in a mudpuddle.

VIII. In which... Ms. Squirrel tries to work her way in

When I first saw this lady out the kitchen window, I thought it was a boy and deserved to be the new mascot of Easter! I was lucky enough to watch this squirrel through her entire lunch, amazed at how fearless she was under my gaze. It was then I learned: she is trying to make Lucious fall for her. Perched, patient, self-sufficient, watchful, made of graceful curves, and delicately nibbly. These are clearly the qualities he admires. I wonder how many meals she spends on the posts nearby our windows.


IX. In which... I spice things up

Here we are and lent is over. I don't know if I lived up to my full potential in my endeavors. Although I certainly had some gleaming moments, I think I went at this project all wrong. I wanted the discipline, sure, but I think I wanted it because I thought I would gain creative or writerly clarity through measuring myself out. I also think that what the early bird finds is quiet. In that deep quiet and still is where the faintest rustle of a bud beginning to burst can be heard. I never let myself quiet down that much, so I'm still on the chase. Chase like a game of tag (or even, 'chase,' the game) where we all run around trying to get something. If we succeed, our captive is immediately freed and we start out running again. With that, I'll go.

On a sunny March day Sarah and Michael and I first brought the kitties home. Sarah bought a cardboard carrier box that was decorated with cartoon-y space ships and planets. It was an apt illustration of how the experience would be so new for these little animals that they may just as well be floating through outer space. When we got home and let them out on the carpet, they walked around on tense and wobbly legs, timidly toppling around on their new terrain. To these weak framed fluff balls, Michael kept calling "Hello, life! Hello, life!" Since that day, I often think of the presence created by the lives of things around us. Sometimes I think of dead days that can't carry themselves and the brief spurts of life that find their way through them. In those bright moments I also think "Hello, life!"

I am going to do something a little crazy and be religious for a second. I've been re-thinking how similar religions are. Like how everyone is trying to pin the tail on the same donkey but we've been blindfolded and spun around so many times that it's hard. Also how human thought and connection and ability grows and changes and evolves on the same timeline. In this, the story of Jesus' life and the new covenant changes the way i think about people interacting with god. I sometimes think it marked a change in how all people interact with god. So, the reading for this Sunday (when i get confirmed...???) is this:

"The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. "

It is from jeremiah. Let me tell you what it means. It means that there was a period of time on the planet when people needed an external spiritual mediator. However, now god and truth and stuff can rest inside people. All people can have an internal spiritual flow of experience and connection with god and each other. this makes sense, also, when you think about sin as separation from god. If sin is the point where people became so self-aware that they needed a mediator to connect to their spiritual selves, we no longer need that mediator, ok? This authoritative tone is completely tongue-in-cheek. Please remember that any definition i have for words like 'god' and 'spiritual' rambles around in circles and is basically undefined. You can tell I am not convinced in reverence by how inconsistent my capitalization is. I can't even take words seriously, much less god and stuff.

there is a little girl in my class who tells me every hour that her nose is still running, like it's something new, like she's surprised every time she realizes that it hasn't stopped. that is how i feel about both this blog entry and my life.

hello, life!

anniversary

today is my 10 day anniversary of not posting anything. There are two main reasons for this: (1) last week I was so sick and sick of being sick and discouraged and dejected about my body that I was too depressed to do anything. (2) This week Michael has been on jury duty and around a lot more than usual and I have been going to the doctor a lot and busy.

I am going to add a lot of things and move backwards in time. oh yea, and I'm going to mark the separation between days with webdings. If you thought this blog was a little bit sophisticated, think again.

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Here is Michael on the vernal equinox. (Today!) He is feeling very balanced in (1) parts of sunlight v. darkness and (2) ushering in justice through his service on a jury. I wish you the same wash of peace.

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On the day before the first day of spring i saw my first flowering tree. This morning i wrote about a fox stealing a chicken.

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Here is zach. he is a good friend long time. here is a coffee shop. once again, when i go to a coffee shop concert in the evening i feel in the 90's. there are moments like this (cue kelly clarkson) when i find myself inside the adulthood that i dreamed about and idolized. and then i don't feel like myself but i do feel like a part of a good story. this is actually a very difficult picture to take, so admire the craftsmanship in my care not to include any hipsters. although i wish hannah was in the photo because her baseball cap was true.

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Here we are at Solly Brothers' farm. On Tuesday i felt very selfish.

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Here is when michael and i went to war. I kid. This is the building that they are tearing down by Whole Foods to make the Barnes on the parkway. It's very eerie and full of rubble. You can see the whole skeleton of the building and grid of the rooms from different corners and angles. The layers of wires and old beds and murals and harsh pink and blue and lavender painted walls. It's like the city is being crudely awakened to just how childlike the inhabitants of that building were, how they served their time in some garish eternal nursery.

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hanging out with tennyson last friday. drinking in center city. bikes on the bus. like, so three years ago. love!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mornings quiet and fresh I can't tell where I am. There's the same peace from getting up and weeding wet grasses, the same fear of going somewhere alone, the longing for waking up in the mountains, or affording coffee every morning. and then there's Girard where I slip back decades and see shadows of men in coordinated suits and soulful ladies swishing down past children with jump-ropes and hula hoops and it's all simple and idealized but it sure feels like a paradise frozen in time. and maybe lost altogether. I wonder how grown up I am from the greenhouse, from bumblebee where we were all so infatuated with each other and seeing the world through each story and endearing every mannerism in people and rattling of floorboards with it's Own Special Truth and thin socks and weird light fixtures and rice.

scooter kiss

too tired too tired too tired. warm and fresh this weekend but by now i fell all washed out.