Posts

Lampyridae 06.20.22

Hello Little Beautiful,  Welcome Home.  Tonight while we were listening to our favorite radio program--I wonder if you can remember it now--you fell fast asleep on the couch. I got up, but you stayed sleeping. Your hair which seems so neat and tidy during the day always grows full and fuzzes out while you sleep, clinging to your face and sticking to the pillows and cushions as your head lulls back and forth with every deep breath.  I made tea, careful to keep the kettle from whistling and waking you.  It hasn't rained in at least two weeks, and the change seems to mark the true beginning of summer. The unforgiving recession of winter and the drastic overhaul of spring seem to end in a lingering ellipses, not an omission but a pause. Before the heat of summer comes to bear in full force, there is a short space of calm between the wet and the heat. Maybe its the weather's confusion, but it feels to me, like clarity.  The dark outside our door was a blur of shade a...
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Mud Pies 10.04.21

Hello Little Beautiful, Welcome Home.  I wish you could remember how beautiful Avalon was this morning. The sun rose lazily, and the forest air distilled into pure honey, glazing every breeze with a chill and gilding every bough in gold. Everything was cold and wet, studded over with dew. As the morning came, the earth seemed to give off a cool exhale that rose to meet the sun. The cabin roof dripped, the gutters muttered, and the wind tapped at the living room windows. The breeze through the kitchen was the clearest I’ve ever felt, and the rain at noon only revitalized it.             I let you out to play in the mud; nothing could keep you from it. On any ordinary day, you would have been thrilled by any mud construction, but today I was making bread in the kitchen, and the impulse to mimic my art with mud was far too strong for you to resist. For nearly two hours, I watched you through the window over the sink as you formed mud pies, carried the...
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Nyctophilia 09.08.21

            Hello Little Beautiful. Welcome Home. About two weeks ago, you crept back down the stairs an hour after I had tucked you in. I was sitting in my Adirondack rocker out on the back porch, and you crawled right up into my lap. You just pushed in under my little blanket and curled up around my cup of tea as if it were the most natural thing. I think you didn’t want me to send you back to bed, so you were completely quiet and just watched the night with me. You’re infected with Nyctophilia now. That’s probably my fault.         Now, when it gets close to bedtime, you fill the conversation with comments about dusk. Where you used to riddle me with questions about where the sun retired to, how it got its gold back after it dropped it all into the lake, and if dropping its gold made the sun, in fact, an autumn-time tree; you, now, fill the dusk with comments and questions about the rising purple, the appearin...
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Fever 09.01.21

               Hello, Little Beautiful. Welcome home. This morning, you crawled into my bed and snuggled right up to me. Usually, I would have been pleasantly woken up, but this morning you were hot and sweaty—feverish, though you don’t really understand that concept yet. You wouldn’t tell me how you were feeling or answer any questions; you merely wanted to be covered up in bed with me. So that’s what we did until the sun rose and your fever finally broke. Once your temperature lowered, I gave you a cold bath and dressed you in clean clothes. You ate a little for me, but now you’re asleep on my lap. Your breathing is a lot easier than it was this morning. I can feel your heart against my chest, our inhales and exhales in sync. I wonder what it was like for you, waking up, not knowing what a fever was but knowing something was wrong. I am realizing that even then, with no true concept of the danger, you were afraid; and aware of tha...
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Green Sweater 08.04.21

           Hello, Little Beautiful.           Welcome Home.           This morning the world was so quiet and warm. When I slipped into your bedroom, I tried to be as silent as I could. You were a mess, your hair all tossed and your face all wrinkled up in the sheets. I laid down next to you as gently as I could, wrapping my arm over you just as lightly. Your breathing was so deep and you were so warm, I almost fell asleep right there beside you, even with my socked feet hanging off your bed.           But the best part of my morning was brushing my fingertips so carefully across your face. You took your first intentional breath of the day, and I got to see it. Then you opened those beautiful doe eyes of yours. You smiled at me.           Today, it’s a toothy grin full of ...
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Come Down, O Thou Great Jehovah

  This won't be a well-written post; I'm too tired for that.  I'm tired of things that I can't justify to any other person. I'm tired of love--all the abundant affection that I feel so utterly undeserving of. I got a gift just recently for my birthday, and I can't even look at it without feeling so undeserving of having received what I asked for. Who was I to ask for it? I bring no value to anything.  I'm not being self-loathing. I'm being honest.  Even when I show love towards others, it fulfills my own desire to love and be loving. I can't see a single person without filtering them through myself. I can't consider a single situation without weighing how it would affect me. I can't see a classmate or a friend without comparing myself to them subconsciously--almost to an unnervingly subconscious level.  I could live if only I wasn't always there. Living without myself in the picture would be so much easier....
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Hung Jury

For years, my mind has been split over myself. It must decide, as it does with all things, how to categorize me. It ponders over my value, stresses over it. For as long as I can remember, my mind has been the host of trials, endless trials through which I attempt to prove myself. In my mind’s unwittingly narrow scope, it takes my circumstances, acquaintances, and reactions into account. It attempts to balance the equation, pushing attributes and dreams from one side to the other and back again. But, today, I had a marvelous thought.  What has been achieved by this endless judgement? What have I gained by parading myself about in chains, questioning my motives and value at every turn. What if, for once, I was grateful.  It sounds almost bizarre to say of myself.  I’m grateful. For what? For me.  I am grateful for myself.  I have been here, faithfully every single day of my life. I have gotten up every morning, eaten every meal, and tucked myself in at night. I ha...
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