if i could...

...i would tell you that i'm sorry
i'm sorry that someone made you think that your story doesn't matter
that your heart and your dreams and your voice don't matter
...i would tell you that they do
...i would tell you that what we need,
exactly what we need,
is the story that only you can tell
the dreams that only you can imagine
the heart that only you can share
...i would tell you that i'm scared too
...that i don't know either
...that i'm sorry she damaged you
...that i'm sorry he hurt you
...that your heart deserves so much more
...that we're all a little broken
...i would tell you that you don't need to be what you think i need
or what you think they want
...that i am content to just have you be you
we are content to have you be you
the worst version of yourself
the best version of yourself
so you can stop fighting with yourself
...i would tell you that who you are now is just a glimpse of who you will be
but that you are more wonderful than you know
...i would tell you that i don't know how to love you well
but i'm willing to try so that you can love yourself
please love yourself
care for yourself
believe in yourself
because i care for you
i believe in you
for you
with you
and i will keep believing in you, for you, with you
until you believe in you, for you, with you.

home

home [hohm]

-noun
1. the place in which one's domestic attentions are centered
2. a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.
3. any place of residence or refuge

-adverb
1. deep; to the heart

2. to the mark or point aimed at

what a home should be: stories, memories, places, available, ready, tangible, real, comfortable, challenging, encouraging, cozy, loud, funny, open, stuffed with love, portable, big, kind, forgiving, full, light, delightful, colorful, mine

i have a sudden urge to pack everything up and move to portland, to seattle, to boston but to never leave this place, even when my friends have sent their boxes to nebraska and africa and colorado and nicaragua and the very ends of the earth. i have spent four years building this place from the very ground all the way to the sky. i built other homes too, to shelter my heart wherever it goes, and it feels all too unnatural to begin pulling nails from support beams and fill holes with stucco and cover walls with primer to create a new canvas, a blank slate, for ages 22-25 and it feels all too unnatural to cram too many people and stories and memories into one little room when what i need is an open field, with wild flowers, stacks of pillows and an eternal nightlight.

i wonder if life is constant building and rebuilding of homes, shelter for your heart, for the place that you're at at one exact moment in time until time reaches its destination and starts again and you bring the home that you've packed and folded and carried with you to a new place, to start again

what my next home should be: strong, full of adopted babies and dreams and accomplishments, perfected imperfections, rest, exploration, adventure, leisure books, cookbooks, notebooks, bravery, new, stories, memories, comfortable, encouraging, delightful, forgiving, mine.

define yourself

"You are bigger than words and greater than the sum of your parts. Transcend concrete language. Define your reality. Make your identity conform to you. Let other people see it--even feel it from your soul. Join me in the parade of complex, thinking, feeling, dreaming and contradictorily messy human beings: We're here, we're human and we're choosing to live through it!"

--Dina Hornreich, from Yentl's Revenge

food + fun

on tonight's menu:

fusilli and summer vegetables with basil-cannellini sauce
serves 4

"Fresh basil combines with cannellini beans for a sauce that envelops the medley of colorful vegetables and chewy fusilli pasta in rich, creamy flavor."

ingredients:
2 large cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus additional as needed
1 cup firmly packed fresh basil leaves
1 (16-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound fusilli or other curly pasta
3 scallions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
freshly ground black pepper

directions:
put the pasta water on to boil in a large covered pot.
in a food processor, process the garlic with the 1/2 teaspoon salt
add the basil and process until minced
add the beans and 2 tablespoons of the oil and process until smooth
taste and adjust the seasonings. set aside.

salt the water when it comes to a boil, add the fusilli, and cook, stirring occasionally until it is al dente, about ten minutes.

while the pasta cooks, heat the remaining one tablespoon oil in a saucepan over medium heat
add the scallions, bell pepper, and zucchini. cover and cook until softened, about five minutes.
add the tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste.
stir in the basil-cannellini sauce and keep warm over very low heat.





follow up with a game of balderdash
personal favorites:

yeevil: the small flap of skin found on a rhinoceros' eyelids
paradiddle: a word or phrase that creates internal rhymes at the beginning and end of the sentence or paragraph

(for the sake of your sanity, only play with people of equal ability/competitiveness...just a suggestion....)

twenty-four + one

twenty-four hours in a day never seemed quite like enough. twenty-eight, i think, would make things much more manageable. one extra hour for flipping through pages and highlighting and typing responses. one extra hour for folding and organizing and disinfecting. one for laughing and storytelling and listening. one for quiet:


one to sit with a blanket and a cup of tea and ignore the to-do list that has reached two-pages
one to avoid the "i should shower ats...." and the "will i have time fors...?"

one to sit with a blanket and a cup of tea and my journal.
one to sit with a blanket and a cup of tea and jesus.


this morning, i woke frustratingly early. and since there are only twenty-four hours in this day, i left my bed unmade, i stepped over sweaters and socks on the floor, i didn't touch the dishes or plan an english lesson, i didn't turn on 30 day shred or go on a run, i didn't transcribe interviews or analyze data, i didn't write poetry or edit papers.

i sat in the stillness of morning in my near-empty home, after 148 long hours and too much cherry coke and moments of joy mixed with crankiness mixed with longing.

i sat with cs lewis and was happy.

"Happiness had not come to her early in life. A thousand years of it would not have made her blasee. Her palate for all the joys of sense and intellect and spirit was fresh and unspoiled. Nothing would have been wasted on her. She liked more things and liked them more than anyone I have ever known."

--CS Lewis, A Grief Observed

(Can this be about me??)

music monday

we laugh until we think we'll die

barefoot on a summer night

nothin' new is sweeter than with you

home, let me go home
home is wherever i'm with you

woulda, coulda, shoulda

All The Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' In The Sun,
Talkin' 'Bout The Things
They Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda Done...
But All Those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All Ran Away And Hid
From One Little Did.

- Shel Silverstein

meet my friends woulda, coulda, and shoulda



they've been around for quite some time
sometimes we sit and remember
all those woulda-coulda-shoulda things

crushes kept secret
adventures turned down
opportunities lost


it is april 11, 2010 and there are 42 days until i graduate from college
there are so many things that have yet to be crossed off of my list
i have six weeks left
what am i to do to make all these things a did?

1. find courage
2. be brave
3. go on adventures
4. take every opportunity for every fun thing
5. tell secret crushes

yikes.

any other suggestions??

synonyms/antonyms

fear [feer]
-noun

1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid

2. a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights.

3. concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
4. reverential awe, esp. toward God.
5. that which causes a feeling of being afraid; that of which a person is afraid

synonyms: anxiety, aversion, the jitters antonyms: bravery, dreams, love

Synonyms (including, but not limited to): lighting an oven with a match by myself, difficult phone calls, snakes, parrots, eels and cockroaches, God (see definition four), hereditary divorce, the day that a family member dies, accidentally taking something illegal though airport security, dating, forgetting birthdays, Voldemort, forgetting anything, leaving the straightener on and accidentally burning down my house, hoarding instead of giving, bouncing my rent check, giving bad advice, blood, reading poetry aloud, small planes, infidelity, gas stations alone at night, etc, etc, etc.

But I would need a billion bony fingers on a million bony hands to count the things that make me an antonym (AKA: what I love): jumping out of a helicopter at 14,000 feet, traveling alone, my ever-changing opinion, giraffes, Harry Potter (duh), Beverley (Zamibia), Mohammed (West Bank), Monicah (Kenya), mangoes, crushes, photography, solitude, journaling, kisses, birthday parties, Catch Phrase, babies, difficult phone calls, God, rejecting family legacies, life, remembering, good hair days, giving instead of hoarding, a challenge, listening, talking, food, reading poetry aloud, faithfulness, security, my job, "I Want You Back"--Jackson 5, summertime, not knowing if I can do it and doing it anyways, sing-a-longs, unstuckness, etc, etc, etc.

To Be Continued...