January 2012
4 posts
1 tag
Have you ever had those days when you have words sticking in your throat?
I have things I want to say, but no words to say them with.
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Resolution Revolution
It’s that cheesy time of year again when millions of promises are made, only to be broken, discarded, or totally forgotten over the next few months.
So I’m not completely a New Year’s cynic; I actually think there’s a lot of value in mapping out the goals you want to make happen over the course of the upcoming year. I just get frustrated at the amount of resolutions, in...
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You are in love: you spend a significant part of every day together. You know his favorite songs and the way he likes to do his laundry and he knows that you have a little bit of an inferiority complex, but he loves you anyway. You try a new restaurant every Saturday morning because he loves breakfast, even though you only tolerate what you consider to be the worst meal of the day. You’ve...
December 2011
11 posts
“And it seemed to her for the moment that this love was the greatest truth in her...”
– Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
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Today, I:
…painted my nails.
…curled my hair.
…had family photos taken.
…ate a burrito.
…watched too much TV.
…walked my dog Raz.
…drank coffee and flirted with a barista.
…enjoyed an empty house.
…longed to go.
…rested.
…was content to be exactly where I am and who I am today.
“Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world. I...”
– Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”
November 2011
9 posts
1 tag
I guess I want to tell you about goodbyes. How they don’t get easier with practice. How they wrench your soul. How they take who you were and force you into someone different.
I guess I want you to know that its okay to say goodbye. We say goodbyes daily: to the stars, to our housemates, to our breakfasts, to our beds. Goodbyes are always temporary; that’s important to remember. No...
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you fill me
every time I open my mouth to sing.
every time I read the words you wrote
just for me.
every time I remember what you’ve already done
to show me
that you love me.
you fill me
and I overflow,
emotion spilling...
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i had kind of planned a picnic, but amie made me see
that a picnic was more my thing than yours and that
day was supposed to be about you. so instead you
came over early in the morning and i made you
breakfast, eggs and bacon, and i even ate
the eggs, cringing. i gave you that pre-
sent you weren’t really expecting and
we didn’t do much else, maybe a
few mad men episodes....
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Sarah Healy, "When The Words Don't Fit" →
“We were a good story. Nothing more. He is what I would have chosen when I thought I could choose. So, I suppose that’s the point: Love chooses us.”
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“If you share (with your heart), yeah, you give (with your heart), what you share...”
– Noah and the Whale, “Give A Little Love”
October 2011
9 posts
1 tag
ill
she is sick with a cold. her eyes are rimmed in red, snot
drips across the space above her mouth, and she sneezes,
tiny baby sneezes, to which i reply, “bless you” or “salud,”
depending on which language i’m feeling more. yesterday
she sat on my lap and we watched cartoons together; we
were almost cuddling and i appreciated the physical atten-
tion. i like...
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Tom Robinson's Feet First Series →
We travel the world
In the company of love
Your feet beside mine
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“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as...”
– 1 John 4:16b-21
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People
I have high expectations of people, especially the people I know well and love the most.
But here’s the thing: people are people. That icky sinful nature always - and I do mean always - gets the better of us. We lie to make ourselves look better and we cheat to get the best portion and we consistently put our own interest above others’: we fall short all the time. Particularly in our...
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i taste anticipation when i think of you - all those months
spent hopelessly waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting…
there was nothing i could do to speed up the process of
moving you closer to me. so i dreamed of the bohemian
life we would live together, a life full of music and books
and meaningful words floating through the air between
us. i wanted nothing more than the...
September 2011
8 posts
1 tag
The sky is cloudy today, but the sun’s warmth is still
seeping in the ground from the hot summer. It is
almost my favorite kind of weather, right behind a
rainy morning that turns into a sunshiny afternoon.
Talking about the weather doesn’t matter too much;
it counts as one of those topics of conversation that
is just used to fill an awkward silence. You could
make it mean more,...
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Gilligan
It’s been half a year since I’ve seen him.
I sashay down the soccer field, partially because my slightly heeled shoes are sinking into the damp ground, partially because I’m aware that the eyes of an entire high school student body are on me. And for good reason, too; the last time I was here, I was about ten pounds heavier with stringy, frizzy hair and dark glasses that hid...
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Costume Party
Jerry called out my name when he saw me from across the room and it surprised me. He was a popular senior, although popular by private Christian missionary school standards, meaning he was on the worship team and vocal ensemble and brought up Jesus in almost all of his conversations. I only knew Jerry because of a play we had both been in earlier in the school year. We had never hung out outside...
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We got sushi once, you, me, and a couple of your
friends. It was nice, like a glimpse of what that
last year could have looked like. I giggled and
tried not to let my nervous fingers play with the
black strands of unfamiliar hair lying limply
across my collarbone. Did you notice that I wore
that shirt you always liked me to wear? I wore it
just for you. I wore it because you rescued me
...
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“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.” - William Wordsworth
My Brit...
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“Jack became my boyfriend. My first boyfriend. He was sweet and generous and...”
– Patricia Weitz, College Girl
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a paradoxical, parenthetical thought drifts between the
spokes of the large metal fan in my bedroom and lands
on a pillow, where my dog rests her curly-haired head:
i want to be known. my heart pounds against the semi-
indestructible walls i very carefully constructed so many
years ago. i would let it out, except i tried that once or
twice before and now i live in extended panic of what
...
August 2011
15 posts
1 tag
Just a few thoughts from late at night when my mind starts turning and won’t stop…
- I wonder what percentage of missionary kids end up being involved in missions when they grow up?
- High school students accept truths about God the way they accept their chemistry homework. I wish I could go back to being like that.
- It isn’t about what you do; it’s about the attitude...
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My brother moved into his sophomore residence at my alma mater today.
Ok, that sounds more than a little strange. Alma mater? Already? When I can still remember my very first day as a college student, when stepping onto campus still feels a little like home, when my heart is still full of emotion at the thought of my four years in that place?
I graduated barely three months ago and when people...
On Sundays, I drive back and forth between Aliso Viejo and San Juan Capistrano several times throughout the day for various church services. I’ve lately been trying to come up with a way to fill up the two-hour gap between the time that my sister has to be at church in the evenings and the time that I am supposed to show up. During the last couple of weeks, I’ve ended up at Barnes...
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First Day (September 2007)
It’s a morning’s tentativeness, keeping her here under the whisker-soft fingertips of the sun while time’s lullabies keep whispering on and smiling lilies lay silently near It’s a fresh breath of sunshine and a startling moan and the new-present smell of tired nerves, lingering into a day to learn of the jingling duties that have become her own It’s the quiet experience of being lost in a world...