Afterlife

"...afterlife... like you're going up there and will see all your family and friends? Is everyone in heaven? like Napoleon and Hitler...?"

"You think Hitler made it to heaven?"

"I don't know, I don't really like the idea of heaven and hell, I'd rather think that Hitler went up there and God gave him some therapy or something"

I love my mother.

Hold On

Something new,
and the old sets in.
Maybe it's because,
the start is always so familiar.
The same excitement.
The same hope.
Or maybe it's because,
the end is so familiar too.
The same pain.
The same loss.
So here I am,
holding onto hope,
and wishing it was easy.

Project Table

I think, maybe, that I can do anything.

My Boyfriend Rain

I love the rain,
And he likes me
Lulls me to bed so patiently
He fills my senses
With sweet scents and
Calming sounds so pleasingly
He tells me how to wash away
A day, today or everyday
Let go, he says
Then shows me how
To let it roll
Roll and roll and roll away
He waits for me
To give up for him
To close my eyes
And give into him
With breath like that I can't resist
Not as his soothing sounds persists
To sleep, he says and I obey
Its time to roll away this day

mismatch me

It's funny how long we wait on the simplest thing. Things that take little time, little money, and little thought. It's also funny what ideas we get stuck in our head and how long they'll stay there. Years and years ago I heard Martha Stuart give this idea, and I've always remembered it. I was going to do that. Years later and I still never had. A decade after having had my first $20 college set of flatware with the band of color on the edge (we all had them, didn't we?). They gave me a good run, but I grew tired and maybe a little bit embarrassed serving dinner parties without 'grown-up-ware'. The idea was this: flatware that only match in color, not pieces. That's an idea that I can get behind. I'm not matchy matchy. And I don't have enough style to coordinate Design A bowls with Design B plates. But what I can do, is buy one of every variety and make them all white. So here's my $8 goodwill start to a new collection of flatware.

PS How awesome is it to not worry about breaking one dish in a set!!! And I'm giving all the oddball, outcasts a good home :)

might smite the smitten

I'm not sure how I got here. Stumbling along the etymology of love. Maybe because I want to be smitten, and in wanting to be smitten I wondered if I could smite. It turns out I can smite. You can smite too. And apparently we all smite quite violently in fact.

You see in the past participle of smite, lies the adjective of smitten... hefty with three definitions:
1 - struck, as with a hard blow
2 - grievously or disastrously stricken or afflicted
3 - very much in love

One of these things seems not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

It struck me, excuse me, it smite me as funny how our language of love originates so violently. That from the same words as "He smitten thousands of men with his sword", we can suddenly be struck with love just as violently. Disastrously stricken with love. Slain by love. How romantic.

Moving backwards from smitten to 'smite' I realize that the verb, the action itself has no mention of love in it's definition:

1 - to strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, stick, or other weapon
2 - to deliver or deal a blow, hit, etc by striking hard
3 - to strike down, injure, or slay
4 - to afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect
5 - to affect mentally or morally with a sudden pang

Who knew? That from this violent verb, after we are struck, slain, attacked with disastrous and sudden blows... we end up in love. Love is somehow the aftermath. Huh.

It seems that in language, just as in life, pain seems symbiotic to love. Dependent and maybe even defining it.

What I realized today, that for thousands and thousands of years as humans and hearts and language evolve... we've always known that we're fucked when it comes to love.

look lightly

The sun is shining
Shining too brightly
It drops my eyes
Cast down and front
looking lightly

I'm walking again
But the sun is shining
Shining so brightly it makes me miss
the blades of green
the buds of pink
my eyes dropped
cast down and front
looking lightly

I watch my path
the step before my step
and miss the spring
as it blooms around me

I see the pavement
roll beneath me
same as it always does
warm or cold
rain or snow
looking lightly
with the sun shining
oh so brightly

To my next boyfriend

Come on, give in and try with me.
Take a breath and try for me.
Forget where you've been and all you've done and be right here, right now with me.
Ask too many questions so I can give too many answers.
Want to know me and show me how much.
Give me all the attention you want to give to me, I'll give it right back to you.
Hear me and hear the words I do not say.
Tell me and tell me all of it.
See me and see right through me.
Let go with me. Right now, let go with me.
Try with me, whole-heartedly try with me.
Try for us.
For what we could be
Can be.
Are being right now.
But let's be here longer.

Only People

Well, it turns out people are only people. I shouldn't have thought any more or any less of them. People generally aren't serial killers nor are they heroic fathers. People just fall through on their word, string you along and fail to produce. After how many conversations, Tim never showed, even after all his enthusiasm. So I moved onto second on the list Mike. Same enthusiasm... same outcome. No show. I finally got rid of my dresser to the 3rd on the list Jessie, who showed... well, sorta... sent her dad to come pick it up.

There you have it, people are just people after all - 2/3 unreliable, 1/3 who will make someone else do it for them.

I am loved and I love.... and that is what's most important.