Survival
Weekends,
Wind-in-my-hair car rides,
Volume knob turned up so high
the music eats my thoughts --
these make me feel alive.
Swimming,
Lavender soap bar's smell,
Sun slanting through my window
and warming my shoulders --
these make me feel alive.
Cooking,
Niece's arms 'round my neck,
My neighbor's foster daughter
shadowing me like a sister --
these make me feel alive.
Bookshelves,
Scrubbing floors and toilet bowls,
A dinner date with my friend
over ninety years old --
these make me feel alive.
Weekdays,
9-5 I survive
at a desk in a cubicle
looking at a screen --
these let me pay my bills.
Entwined
are living and surviving;
My 9-5 lets me live
but my living
lets me survive.
Did I Lose That?
A sacred stillness hangs over the Attic of Lost Things like a long-untouched window drape in an abandoned home just before it's billowed wide. Dust particles twirling slowly in a single shaft of hazy sunlight are the only visible movement in the room. There is not a sound. The dust particles ask, "What happens if you pull the drape?"
My eyes close. My chest tightens. Memories flash in sharp, noisy, vivid color beneath my closed eyelids. A deep breath fills my lungs and is released in a slow exhalation through my nose. It's time.
I slide my hand into the chest on the floor before me, and close my fingers around something soft. It wriggles, and my yelp shatters the stillness.
"Misty!" The kitten blinks at me, then begins to squirm. "Oh, Misty!" Surprise has drawn tears to my eyes. "Oh, baby girl. Baby. Where did you go?" I hug the tiny creature against my chest and bury my face in her velvety body, relishing the feel of her soft fur against my skin. "Oh, Misty. I'm so so sorry I couldn't find you. I couldn't -- " My voice cracks. "I couldn't take care of you." I hang on to the kitten like she is a tiny buoy as I cry, and she peers up at me, expressionless, watching, her ears twitching thoughtfully every few moments as though I am a puzzle she is trying to solve.
Misty continues to watch me, head cocked slightly to the side, as I bury my hand in the chest time after time, drawing things I have lost into the light one after another.
A white and pink conch shell, still glittering with sand crystals.
A smooth grayish stone from my first time at the ocean -- had it fallen out of my pocket? I turn it over and over in my palm, reliving that day's salt-watered awe, the crashing of laughter into waves into a golden sky.
A railway card, its plastic laminate peeling on the corners.
A three-inch-tall doll with a blonde ponytail and a pink sleeveless dress -- Stacy.
Too many dried flowers to count, some tied in bunches with bits of dried reed.
Books -- so many books. Well-loved books with dog-eared pages and faded covers.
Glasses, two pairs of them. I shudder, remembering classrooms and sweaty underarms and panic -- how would I see the board? How would I write down the sight words? How would I tell my mom? Would I get another pair?
My old cell phone -- my jaw drops. Over a year's worth of lovingly snapped photos, a video of my niece saying "I wub you" again and again, voice memos of song drafts, many spontaneously recorded against backgrounds of birdsongs, traffic, or the hiss of a coffee pot, some hardly decipherable because of the tears choking out my voice, and so so many text messages, miles and miles of kind words, meaningful connections, encouraging paragraphs, that I had wished I'd engraved into my mind.
Several pieces of paper with notes scrawled across them -- I pause on one that says, "Don't forget to smile, Darling." I stare at it so long it begins to blur, and then two teardrops fall onto it, and I watch the 'D' and the 'n' in 'Darling' expand and slant. "No!" I cry, yanking it out from beneath my face, dabbing at the droplets with the tip of my finger. "No, no, no." Frustration roils up in me. "Crap, crap, crap. Please. Don't go away. Don't. Don't go." Am I talking to the words on the page? Or to a set of broad shoulders, a hand in my hair, a deep laugh that had cracked open my loneliness? Hurriedly, with shaking hands, I fold the paper back down its original crease.
A Camelbak water bottle, dirt clinging to the sides of it.
A pair of jeans, a handful of earrings, a silver anklet, a wrinkled-up plane ticket.
A red Valentine, a metal spoon, a postcard, a wad of cash, makeup brushes.
Where is it? I am no longer fingering every object, not giving myself enough time to sink into the memories. Why can't I find it?
Eventually the chest has been emptied. Around me on the floor lay all my lost things, the array of a life full and oftentimes careless and yet... it isn't here.
Where is my Trust? I scramble to my feet, peer behind the chest to see if there is another hiding elsewhere in the room, stoop to rummage through my lost things once again, and finally straighten with hands on my hips and let out a huff.
Shouldn't it be here? I wanted to see Trust. I wanted to touch it, to hold it up to the single shaft of light and memorize it, to savor it and breathe it, to try to remember what it felt like and when and how it was lost. Lips pursed, I stand quiet in deep thought, looking carefully down over the spread of lost things.
Finally, "Ah." I whisper into the still room. "I see." My shells, my toys, my notes... all these things I had lost myself.
None had been stolen from me.
Mail: Disclaimer Enclosed
"Come right in!" You hear my voice float out the open window of my heart as you approach, and then I appear beside the linen curtains, giving you a welcoming wave. A refreshing breeze blows out the window from the inside, making the gauzy curtains billow a little and the air surrounding my heart smell inviting and slightly sweet, like orchids in May. "I've got the kettle on for tea," I add, and you see me move away from the window toward the door, presumably to meet you as you enter.
From the sidewalk outside my heart, you can see that a golden glow like sunlight brightens the interior. In the same way as the breeze, the light pours through the open window, adding warmth and vibrancy of color to the vicinity. You smile, and glance through the window. In the living room, a tall and well-filled bookcase stands guard over a round, cozy room. An ivy sits atop the bookshelf, green leaves spilling down over the titles. Beside the shelf, a guitar is leaned outside its case against the plush armrest of a sofa, and a few music sheets are strewn across the couch's seat. A small coffee table in the middle of room bears an open journal, an uncapped pen, and a half-drunk glass of water atop a homemade crocheted coaster. Eagerly, you head up the front steps toward the door. Then your head cocks to one side.
Where a brass doorknob should be placed, there is a round head of prickly cactus. Sage green, white tipped, and dangerous-looking, it startles you. "Um," you hesitantly lift your hand to give the door a light rap, and chuckle, "wanna let me in?"
"Oh, it's not locked," you hear me reply. "Make yourself at home." The sound of retreating footsteps follows a water kettle's shrill whistle into the kitchen. You wait a beat, then push on the door. Of course, it doesn't budge. It may not be locked, but it is latched. The doorknob -- the cactus -- is going to need to be turned.
A ginger poke reveals that this cactus is NOT all bite, no bark. Wincing, you cradle your wounded fingertip. "Elle..." you call, and knock again, a bit harder this time. "Would you mind opening it up for me?"
"Why?" I sound bemused, unworried, distracted by my tea-making. "It's open."
"It's not... open. It's, I can't..." You sigh. "Is this the only way in?"
"Yes." My voice has quieted to a more serious tone, almost watchful. Waiting. My heart holds its breath. What are you going to do?
"Okay..." you say softly. You're not walking away. You're wrapping your hand around that cactus-head, and turning it. Then, as the door swings in, your sparkling eyes are laughing down at me. "I gotta get you a new doorknob," you comment.
I burst out laughing. "Please do. I trust you to pick out a good one. I might still need some help getting the old one off, though."
Rewriting Jo
Dawn's light came creeping across my quilt in warm beams, yet I resisted its coax to open my eyes. With a heavy sigh, I contemptuously yanked my pillow from beneath my head and slapped it across my face. My body wriggled down further into my blankets. Eventually, it was the aroma of Hannah's simmering applesauce, combined with the hoot of a tea kettle, that drew me from the haven of my bed.
Downstairs, the house seemed insensitively cheery. At my appearance, Hannah smiled and ladled applesauce into a bowl for me, adding a small pat of butter and an extra sprinkle of cinnamon on top the way she knew I liked it, and set the bowl at my place at the table while muttering about the state of my tangled hair. Marmee sat with a pleasant expression at the end of the table penning letters, her hand moving in graceful, unhurried strokes across the middle of a page. Beth and Amy lounged across from each other on the front window seat, outlined in the hazy glow that poured in through the window, sipping tea and murmuring to one another about an incident that had happened the week before at Amy's school. The rumple of frustration already in my spirit was further offended by everyone's blissful oblivion. I took up my dish of applesauce, clattering my spoon crossly against the side of my bowl, and headed toward the side door without a word of greeting to anyone.
"I'm taking my breakfast out onto the hills," I called hastily over my shoulder before anyone could object, and purposely allowed the door to slam behind me so I could have the satisfaction of its bang.
It was a fine day, fair golden sunlight shining through the morning fog upon the green grass like a painting. I looked at it, and tears blurred the scene. As I headed toward the spot of yesterday's fateful meeting with Laurie, a breeze lifted my tousled hair, and I felt compelled to scoop up the hem of my dress with my free hand and run full speed into the face of the wind. It whipped into my face, purging me, drying my eyes, and flung my hair and skirts streaming behind me until I arrived panting at the top of the hill. Onto the grass I dropped, and sat staring into my bowl of applesauce.
In my mind rang the greeting that had met me at this spot yesterday. "Where's the Jew's-harp, Jo?*" Laurie had called out to me jauntily then. I lifted my head now to look in the direction from which he had come the morning before, recalling the figure's dark mop of curls and eager, almost feverishly hopeful expression.
'I love you,' I thought wildly now. 'I love you, I love you, I love you, and you shall never, ever know it!' A wet cry choked out of me, and then I doubled over toward the vibrant grass, a hunched puddle of linen and wool and windswept hair, and my fists pounded the ground as untold longing racketed my body. I would never belong to that slender dark-headed figure whose swinging gait and cajoling voice were as familiar to me as my own skin, and nearly as integral. For the last time, Laurie had met me with open arms, clear eyes and and an all-encompassing invitation into his heart and soul and future. Yesterday, we'd been two halves that made a whole, and today, the hillside and sky with all their space and color were not large enough to hold the void I felt.
"I've loved you ever since I've known you, Jo, couldn't help it!*" Laurie had declared earnestly to me at this very spot the day before, and my mind had replied silently, 'So have we! We both! Amy and me! She couldn't help it any more than I could! But I cannot say so! Do not drive me to it!' Laurie had wept, had later buried his head of curls vehemently in his arms atop that mossy fencepost down the hill that I could see now from today's perch, and had stormed piteously, "I can't love anyone else, and I'll never forget you, Jo!*" and I'd steeled myself into the role of consoler, entreating, "You'll get over this after awhile, and find some lovely accomplished girl, who will adore you, and make a fine mistress for your fine house. I shouldn't. You'd be ashamed of me, and we should quarrel...*" In the privacy of my mind I'd finished my thoughts, somewhat bitterly, but with steadfast resolve, 'Amy! It will be Amy! Amy will make you a fine wife. She loves you! She's not like me, she'd never vex you, and she could not bear to lose you, and so it must be Amy. It must be Amy for you, and not me.'
At the last, after begging and pleading with him, I'd allowed myself to tell Laurie one final truth: that I didn't expect to ever marry. Indignant, he'd argued with this, too, desperate to change my mind, eyes accusatory and ablaze with disappointment. I could still hear his hurt voice in my mind, assuring me, "There'll come a time when you will care for somebody, and you'll love him tremendously, and live and die for him, and I shall have to stand by and see it.*" I had nearly grabbed him by the shoulders, had longed to shout fiercely into his face, 'You are seeing it! You're right! You know me well. And I'm living and dying for you now. I love you, I love you...'
But I could not. Because my sister, my golden-haired, lofty-minded, dainty-fingered artist of a younger sister, loved him, too.
Swallowing the last of my tears, I turned away now from the path leading down the hillside where we'd walked together the morning before -- away from the fence we'd sat atop side-by-side many a sunny afternoon and joked of running away to join a pirate ship -- away from the shady grove where we'd murmured secrets and echoed dreams and dashed helter-skelter racing to be the first one to his front door -- away from him. Chores beckoned me. Floors needed to be swept, and dishes dried. And I, beneath the risen sun and with all the birds of the hillside as my witnesses, determined within my spirit never again to wallow in my own sorrow over this.
*direct quotations from 'Little Women' 1868, Louisa May Alcott
What Will I Find?
If I begin to unpack my thoughts in this way, allowing thoughts to flow directly from my mind to my fingertips to the screen, I am not entirely sure what will appear on said screen before my eyes. What if I don't like it? what if the unabridged, unedited version of my mind is repulsive to me? What if it is to others?
But -- isn't this why we write? To find out what lives inside of us? And not only what lives inside us as the writers, but to discover what lives inside of all of humankind? Isn't that the point of it all? I write to learn things I didn't know I knew until I began to write them down, and this, too, is a surprise to me even as I write it.
I am supposed to write until my head is empty, and a part of me worries that will never happen because a writer always brims with more words waiting to be spoken. Well, written, I should say. And yet -- somehow, I know my head will empty itself. Because I know so well the familiar feeling of writing in my journal, almost frantic, scribbling lines of thought into existence upon my page in black ink, desperate to pour ideas and feelings and the very idea of being alive, onto a page and capture it there, where it will remain, stained in ink, long after I've forgotten I ever felt that way or had that epiphany or underwent that experience. I know the feeling of dumping myself onto page after page after page, and then, suddenly -- it's enough. I'm done. My pen drops, I let out a breath, I scan the last sentence of my page, I give a shake to my aching wrist, massage my cramped fingers, look at the window, and bask in the feeling that my innards are now clinging to a page, rescued from the abyss of the mystery of my being and held there to paper for me to look back upon later. My head is empty in that moment. My words have run freely, and they have run out. In those moments, I feel overflowingly full, yet marvelously emptied and unburdened. It is that sweet moment of both. Both empty, and full. Reminiscent, and hopeful. Clearheaded, yet awed at the mystery. Both the excavator and the hidden treasure, at the same time.
So, because I know this feeling, I am not worried that I will have to keep tapping away at this keyboard for eternity. I know there will be a moment in which my words have run their race and my head is, for an instant, empty.
What a gift this challenge has given to me to be able to freely write until I reach that point. A mess and tangle of words usually reserved for my journal will appear for all the world to see, and that thought does not make me afraid.
This is one of the greatest gifts of being an artist, of any kind, and writing is art -- this not being afraid. Most of the world is afraid to show their vulnerabilities, and we are, too. But we cannot give in to that fear. To create art is to embrace vulnerability. it is to expose it in others, too, to bring out the worst and the best in humans.
Sometimes I am afraid I will never be able to do that -- that all of my writing falls short, and always will. That I will never write something that perfectly captures a moment, the essence of a perosn. And I am right to think my writing will fall short. I know I am. In part because I am a human, and in part because existence is to broad a thing to be captured into words, no matter how expertly spun. The thing that is wrong is for that to make me afraid. If I choose not to write because I am afraid it will not be perfect, that would be like choosing not to live because life isnt perfect, and that is unthinkable. Life is unbearably, achingly beautiful, and is the furthest thing from perfect. What if my writing, too, then, could be both? What if it could be so wonderful it makes my heart ache, and yet be flawed, at the same time?
Isnt that what it means to be alive?
I hit my sweet spot. I havent yet realized the meaning of my words, but I found the spot when my fingers wanted to stop, and my brain had no follow-up thought.
Signing off, L.
Brave Enough to Love
Someone New, Hozier.
Coffee date, narpy.
A Lot in Common with You, Steve Ross.
Your Eyes, Antent.
Bloom, The Paper Kites.
Honey + Tea, Mozi.
Walking Side by Side, Jared Stokes.
I Like to be with You in the Sun, Bridget St John.
You Are Gold, The National Parks.
Flowers in Your Hair, The Lumineers.
When I’m With You, JJ Heller.
warm glow, Hippo Campus.
All Summer Long, Chris Rea.
Something Tells Me (I Could Fall in Love with You), BAILEN.
No No No, Beirut.
im scared of falling in love, Phora.
Afraid to Feel, LF System.
feelings are fatal, mxmtoon.
It’s Not You, It’s Me, Lindsey Webster.
I Have to Go, Eredaze.
Before it Hurts, Anne Sila.
August (Acoustic), flipturn.
Dog Days are Over, Florence + The Machine.
Alone Again, Dokken.
To the Mountains, Lizzy McAlpine.
I Have Made Mistakes, The Oh Hellos.
Hello My Old Heart, The Oh Hellos.
October, Clay Finnesand.
Words I Couldn’t Say, Rascal Flatts.
Brave Enough, Lindsey Stirling.
Maybe I Think I Love You, Fritz Hager.
Winter Song, The Head and the Heart.
is it too late?, rei brown.
You've moved on, and that's Okay, Jaidee Cooper.
I Will Remember You, Sarah McLachlan.