two hundred. twenty three.

Life is a branch & it is a dove // handcrafted by confusing love

Where have I been?
Not here, clearly.
I've been on some trains recently, that's something. I make little notes of things to remember to tell you later, but I've been doing a bad job of it recently.
But on the train I wrote a few things down.
Nothing very interesting, but for some reason I find everything interesting on trains.
Ok, I pretty much find everything interesting ever.
Except March Madness.

On the train there is a man sipping something from a Two Brothers bottle. "I love Two Brothers!" I want to lean forward and whisper, but don't.
In front of him a young man hangs his head in slumber, hands clasped as if in prayer. I notice how clean his nails are. Peeking out the back of his rabbit fur cap is a single shy curl.
The woman in front of him plays solitaire on her ipad. I cannot see her face but her hands old, and she's a wizard at solitaire.
They all sit close to the windows on the bottom level, and it gives the welcoming appearance that they might be alright if you sat next to them. But see what happens when you do, how they shift uncomfortably in their seat and subtly let you know what an inconvenience your presence is.
I sit up top in the single seat, so that I can see farther out the windows when I'm pretending to read but really just watching people.
I sit in the single seat so that no one can mistake me for being friendly, even though I consider myself pretty friendly, or at least terribly curious which usually amounts to the same thing. But when I first started taking trains by myself when I was younger my Dad would make sure I sat in the single seat so he didn't have to worry about stranger danger. It's one of those funny things that stuck and now I habitually sit there without even thinking twice.

Perhaps I make it too grand, this life of mine.
This nonsense over strangers in trains.
Catching my breath over bridges and in cities and under stars.
I get teary-eyed at dumb things, like the cook next door giving me one of his stale donuts as we talk about traveling.
And the baby-faced college student customer who suggests a C.S. Lewis book club.
And the older woman who brings me a neck pillow for my plane ride to Ireland.
Certain songs and the starkness of this land right now stop me constantly.
Quite grateful. It makes moments of fear and doubt that much less significant, such simple blessings as reminders to not be afraid.
Tarry a little longer, friends. These moments are not to be missed.

two hundred. twenty two.

A song for someone who needs somewhere to long for - homesick

Walks these days are great.
& quiet - the quietest I can remember.
I felt offensive even whispering for Kanoa to keep up as we tramped through the snow. It began snowing moments after we arrived one day and we relished it, running where we would and sitting where we wanted. Twice I heard loud cracks in the forest, startled me. I had to comfort myself the same way I comfort myself when I'm alone in our house - by telling myself that it's old and is liable to make noises. There in the trees I was in a home-of-sorts and those trees are old, older than me, and given to shifting and cracking. Several times Kanoa would raise her nose to the air and I would raise mine too, trying to smell what she smelled.
I've come to love winter and arrive home unwilling to take off thick socks and warm boots.

Greg said some things today about walks and what we learn. "Participation," he said. "It's about participating in what we have. It means paying attention, being grateful."
We say similar things, but I think we mean it in different ways. Greg always says "You just have to get hip to it" which could mean any number of different things. He has an ominous way of talking sometimes, makes me feel like Greg knows things I don't know. He comes across like the crazy guy with the stringy hair, but gosh he's fascinating sometimes. He's hip to it. Whatever it is.

Nose-picker Joe is back from his travels and everyday he's digging. We had a great conversation about how cold weather matures people and how powerful literature comes from places where the writers have a season to be contemplative, when weather forces them inside, and the musings that come from the lingering darkness. But you know, I really struggled to take Joe seriously because I was so caught up with his nose-picking.


Change is slow but I feel it taking shape

I hope these next six months are as crazy as I think they might be.
Do you want to know something?
I'm going to Ireland!!
[I never use exclamation points because they seem awfully intimidating, but in this case I need them!!!]
Like a small child, I am ridiculously excited to have a flight long enough to watch a movie and eat free food.
I won't be there long, just a week, but I'll be there.
Holler if you have Ireland tips. I've been googling lots of random things in anticipation.

two hundred. twenty one.

There’s a blind woman  who lives on the house on the top of the hill that leads down to the lake.

She can remember how slowly the blindness came on.

Each day grew dimmer. Memories of her last days are caught in vignette, the edges darkening until there was no light or image left.

Each day grew louder and her feet had to learn to step without first seeing.

Now she lives alone by the lake.

The first time she made it down to the water by herself the wind blew through the aspen tree and the leaves all began clapping their hands for her.

She took a bow.

“Just because you cannot perceive the light does not mean there isn't light there.”

She reached her hand into the sunlit spot and felt the warmth.

She’s lived there for a year or two now and has been blind for five or six.

It set on when she was perfect and 28. She doesn’t know what she looks like anymore. She always used to ask her mother when she put her hair up: “Does it look alright?” Nervously, she would rake her fingers through. “Are there any bumps?”

Her mother would smooth the top. “None! You’ve adapted so well.”

She does her own hair now and asks her dog sometimes. “Fallon, does it look alright?”

He’d stick his cold nose in her hand to confirm.

“What’s the last thing you remember seeing?”

It wasn’t the last thing but it was the most important. She could see it still. The light grew softly from behind the tips of the pine trees. It was dawn and the horizon was all trees. They etched their way across the skyline and across her mind’s eye. She saw them often.

“Space,” she replied. “Just vastness – I can’t sense it anymore. Everything is so near, everything that I can sense is only within that reach. My eye could span farthest. I miss the sky.”

Sometimes she tilts her head up and opens her arms and it’s almost there; she can almost grasp the scope of the expanse.

But never quite.

“What does the sky look like today?” she’ll ask.

In the mornings she might forget, at first. She would open her eyes to darkness – always darkness. She’d blink several times before she remembered.

Several times when her mother came over to the house, random lights were left on because the blind woman would subconsciously turn them on when she walked into a room, a habit so familiar that she had no idea she had done it.

The hall light was nearly always on.

“It’s ok, dear. It lets people know that someone’s home.”

two hundred. twenty.

"Faith & Promise keep me honest"

these days are good days, the best days.
[wouldn't you know it, though, the tea has gone cold...]
the air is chilly on my skin and i'm alive once again - more alive than i have been

it's strange as things change to remember again how the doors are smaller in the cold.
In summer they swell with the heat and to close them takes great effort. We throw ourselves at them - especially in the dark basement when it's dark outside and the quicker the door closes the more sure I can be that no one is going to barge in on me.
it surprised me this evening how easily it swung shut and locked, so much so that I had to double check and make sure that the door was secure at all.

we are smaller in the winter, too. my ring is loose on my finger, and our skin grows thin so that the cold seeps into our bones.
one day i'll mind it.
for now it's more than enough to walk around the house wearing a scarf and slippers, to add an extra blanket on my bed at night.

it's busy times, though, and i'm struggling to find time to go outside. when i do, it's bliss. camping a few weekends back and walking when i can. i took myself on a date to the orchard and made a pie with the apples. a concert outside & lake michigan after.

we have finally fixed our record player. i play iron & wine on it when the light changes and the sun streams through the maple leaves just before it disappears behind the houses.

such funny things at work these days - eugene came out as i was going in and he is so very different. gave me a hug and told me to hurry inside before i froze because it was him who was hurried.
the crazy old man lost his teeth and asked tom to help him find them.
the crazy old man brought me a caramel apple.

i have four books i want to read: The Great Gatsby, Orthodoxy, Jane Eyre and Les Miserables (once more).
despairing because i'll never have the time.

two hundred. nineteen.

When people appreciate the raucous hilarity of subtlety, I just die.
Right? You can smile at someone, even a total stranger, and just know that you both are inwardly laughing at the same thing and you float like a balloon because you've harnessed the power of a secret joke.
No? Just me?
I shared a secret joke with a customer today.
We'll call him Bernardo. He could pass for a Bernardo. Or a Luigi. I hope you have a mental picture of what that means.
He was in sometime last week at the same time the writer who clears his throat [incessantly] was in.
The writer left first, and this customer came up after he walked out the door.
"Have you ever noticed how often that guy clears his throat?" Bernardo asked me, almost incredulous.
I laughed. "All the time."
"Yes! Like twice a minute! Doesn't it drive you crazy?"
I shrugged.
"He's so nice. I don't mind. It is funny though."
He shook his head at me. "I mean...how many times did he clear his throat. It seriously must have been at least twice a minute. Maybe once every ten seconds."
"Let's count next time," I said.
He laughed.
"Ok, next time we'll count," he said as he was leaving.

That next time was today.
"Medium Americano with room," Bernardo said when he came in, not noticing the writer sitting with his wife at a table.
I made it and handed to him. He walked over to the counter and began pouring cream in.
The writer cleared his throat.
Bernardo's head snapped up, then craned around looking for me. When our eyes met he had to duck his head because he had already started laughing.
He waited four more throat clearings, stirring his coffee and laughing, before walking out the door.
"Have a nice day," he said with a sly smile and holding his hand up. It was both a wave and the number 5 for how many times the writer had cleared his throat.
Well played, Bernardo.

Twice in the past week I've been called an old soul.
I'm aged by a love for old music and old things. I'm aged by heartbreak and loss. Aged by literature and fierce joys. I've aged a hundred years more by the time the leaves in the tree have stopped rustling in the dark this evening.
With all of the strings on my fingers there are still things I forget.

two hundred. eighteen.

I write so much less here.
It's not that I have less to say
In conversations my words come tumbling out when it's my turn to talk & I've written novels for letters.
Just putting my words in different places these days.

Everything always makes so much more sense when the weather turns cooler.
My head is clearer and the music is better and the sky is overwhelming and my hands are at my heart because of it.
It is your hands I wish I could grab and say "Don't you know this all?"
It doesn't work that way, though.

My book list is ever advancing. One day, though, I must stop reading about things and do them better. I've always thought that there would be a cap on how much you could read about something before you could really just jump up and do it, but I don't think there is. I believe that I could read about something and think on it for ages, for forever, and never really do a thing about it.
I was talking with a friend about this recently - it had something to do with generosity at the time. How to give things away? & everyone has an opinion. I could talk about it and ask for wisdom on it and read about good ways to give away money, time, possessions for the rest of my days and never really do anything about it.
And yet the reading and the talking and the thinking about the thing is almost enough to make me forget that I've not done anything at all. But not quite, because every once in a while I'll remember, and despair at what my indecision has made me.
So. Working on being bold enough to do.

Hope you are feeling the fullness and feeling quite rooted these days.
My heart & soul grow fuller and more grounded
[but my feet are restless
there are still some things to find.]

two hundred. seventeen.

I was up earlier than usual this morning (for a Saturday morning, that is).
Inspiration strikes when Kim Janssen is singing and I typed the morning away, sipping on iced coffee and kept company by the dogs.

This lack of rain means no mowing, and the spiders have declared the uncut, dry grass their own - webs are covering much of our lawn. They look like tiny layers of fog lying over tiny kingdoms hidden in the grass.

A candle labeled "Joy" burns at my desk and it's that which I feel this morning.
I've pulled aside the curtain and light floods this room.
We're almost ready.
We always use the word "nearly" to describe where we are in terms of getting there.
Nearly there.
It's the "nearly" that fills our steps with longing and this forward motion, the promise and the hope that sits neatly in that word.

for the beauty of the earth 


I'm learning as I'm writing, which is the best way to write.
It's nearly time for that chat.
We'll keep pushing forward -
let's find our feet sandy from the beach.

this our hymn of grateful praise

If you were here with me we'd sit in this room and be able to say nearly everything on our minds.
One day we'll get there.