this is the result of years of battle, the scars run deep. the tears flow free.

if writing down a record of how you feel at this exact moment helps you remember…i am not sure that i want to.

there is a certain responsibility in holding onto things. i am tired of fighting this war, of the wounds reopening every few months. “if you don’t fight, who will?” (i am told) but fighting a one woman battle against the forces of inertia is an exercise in ulcers and frustration.

where do you draw the line, though? i need you (all) to fight with me, but there shouldn’t even be conflict here. i am hungry for something new to challenge me, for the excitement to come back. i love this place, but not enough to sacrifice my joy.

it is time to move on, and it is terrifying sometimes. But I am ready.

You’re right. None of us are meant to be alone. It gets us into trouble in so many ways. I mean, if you choose it, that is one thing. But to choose solitude, or at least be content with it…well.

-I imagine that this process is a lot easier when we’re honest about what we’re looking for.

Would you have been this honest 10 years ago? Or even 5?

-No, but we delude ourselves into this journey that has taken years, and now we find ourselves successful in some ways, but all seeking this connection that we still haven’t found. Finding the connection doesn’t fix everything, but then we can focus on other things.

So I guess it comes to the fact that we are here, in this time and place, and we have a choice to make. We never found our way before this, and we’re surprised to find ourselves in the dark, holding on.

-It really is a choice. We choose our life, our love, in the infinite confusion that is now. We can’t stop running from things that make sense. We have been doing it too long, it is almost an addiction. We are afraid to make mistakes, to make the wrong choice. But we’re running from what could be the easiest choice.

I am not going to get an answer to this, am I?

there are a dozen things on the list that I carry in my head. technology tries to help me but in the end, I am left with this.
write it down, go from here to there to here, with these people and this event and and…
there is no sitting still.

I’ve been dreaming lately. I’ve always dreamed, sometimes I dream the future and it comes true, sometimes I dream the present and my fears. there have been dreams about every noun. I dream through the lens of my camera. I live in a place that is no longer new to me, I miss the warm sun and thousand year old streets and year-round flowers.

writing will begin again, with honesty, with the kind of raw power that I used to carry in every word. I forgot to hold onto that part of me when I started speaking more than I was writing. I want to write my book, the book of the things I learned. It is so difficult to be honest now when everything is analyzed to death. just be.

Here is the truth. Each day is wonderful, even in silence sitting side by side. The past has never been more distant.

It has been a long winter. Not necessarily bad, but…long. It is mid-March and I look outside to see gray skies, the pervasive gray that hovers over my thoughts and makes everything the same.

I started setting up my haft-sin table in preparation for Naw-Ruz (the first day of spring and the Baha’i New Year) and am dreaming of summer, picnics, flowy dresses and sunlight.

For now, the gray skies follow.

There are a few ways to count lucky stars. In the quiet way, 1 2 3 in a row, listed in order, in a way that makes you think of libraries, lace doilies, and trying too hard. Then there are the shouting, the in-your-face counters, in a desperate plea for attention, with too much cologne or comments on walls (graffiti or otherwise). The entire spectrum isn’t important, just stay away from the extremes.

As usual, moderation is key but there are elements of the extremes that can be included without being that person. We all know those people. No need to discuss it further.  Moving on:

Telling stories. I have never been a storyteller. How I have kept this going for nearly 10 years is completely baffling. But storytellers are the best counters, the best givers of the gift of understanding luck/mercy/fate while acknowledging the hard work involved. I know some great storytellers, and most of them have lived enough life that their stories are actually worth the time it takes to listen and understand.

My stories are little pieces, dancing for the chance to get out but to tell them in the way they need to be told is so difficult. Counting lucky stars is even harder. You have to know your audience, and here I write to blank faces. I write to the people that still read this, the people that haunt, the former friends and new ones, the stranger that found this little corner of my claimed piece of the cloud…there are no eyes to look into. Sometimes it traps me, and my stories drown under the weight.

I saw a child tonight whose perfection made my heart stop. I literally became dizzy. My dear friend reached into the incubation unit to comfort her son, this innocent soul and I loved him immediately and without reservation or thought. This is a story.

Spending quiet moments with you, the perfect times when I look up to match eyes and the wrinkles we all get when we smile at each other. This is an ongoing story.

I’ll sing my children to sleep some day with the stories of my family, my Faith, my love. I’ll sing them to sleep with the stories of the world, the stories of things that are good. I’ll have to learn the songs, first, but I’ll count my lucky stars and I’ll show them how to count theirs too. We’ll be the counters that dance in green grass with bare feet, the ones who stare up at the heavens at a never-ending universe and laugh to be alive.

Intense summer thunderstorms

Shiny surfaces

Lunches on the picnic bench near my office.

Delicacy

Antique Stores

(I Like: #1,#2,#3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9)

I wrote part of this about a year ago when I was still living at home.

She read the story of two broken hearts , pausing every few minutes to sip her cup of hot milk (now a nightly routine).  The sound and smell of the wood turning to ashes in the fireplaces, the dishwasher on its thousandth cycle, and the sudden silence as the family settled into their dreams for the night…everything suddenly still.

Sometimes she wishes she could write like this.  Writing on paper is an exercise in chaos.  Right now, she wishes she could write with honesty about all of the beautiful, painful moments.  She has always hidden these moments in her heart, behind words, in the secret places where regret and joy sit side by side.

She is starstruck with genius. The smarts, you see, take hold and she wants to be surrounded by a library: the smell of old books, furniture that wishes to be reborn, the scratches on the floor and the quiet whisper of pages.

Writing is like an addiction that she doesn’t have time for anymore. The words sit unopened, rattling around in her brain, occasionally wasted, but mostly just dusty.

the best thing about walking through a crowd is the variety.  to know all of their stories would be too much, we only see pieces of the parts of the person that they are.

humans are so strange.  we are laughing and shouting and listening and waiting.  we chase our children as they scramble unsteadily, praying that they are not preyed upon.  we are consumed with ourselves and keep consuming.  we give more of ourselves, take without thinking or asking.

we taste the wonderful things like…ice cream, sharp cheddar cheese, chocolate chip cookies with just the right amount of chocolate chips, homemade chicken rice soup, sugar snap peas, watermelon, and home fries.

an infant is comforted, a grandmother grasps her grandchild’s hand to be steady, a husband and wife learn to love and be everything that they are.  our friends surround us, make us smile when everything is going wrong.

music surrounds us, fills our bones and moves our feet.  tears fall on the perfect notes, we cringe on the sour ones but that is music too.

feet on the grass, eyes to the sky, the wind is just right and we smile into the sun.

out in the wide wide world the barbs and stones are thrown, out there we are just little sparks seeking the Light, little souls in an infinite set of worlds.

this is life, and it is wonderful.