They Capture Light Well

After the wedding I let Joe drive and we ended up at Thriftway with chocolate milks in our hands. I forget the name of the brand now. Something about moo, something with double vowels. Not too creative. I had been a little aggressive in my conversation with the cashier - I wasn't wearing shoes, I was over compensating. The boss from my summer job, (also named Joe) had said that most of his past girlfriends never wore shoes. He also told me they all had dreads. I never knew how to react to that statement, me with my little beaded knots of hair, so I would lean down and pull another root of ivy from the ground. Damn non-native plant life. 

I am nervous right now, can you tell?

Well, we sat outside Thriftway on a plant box with a wide enough lip for people to sit. It was made out of brick, or something like it. An obsolete building material kept around for aesthetic value only. I never want to resemble brick. Joe was talking about the wedding, "A pastor friend told me something the other day: he said that people do a lot of thinking, if not the most, at weddings and funerals. The think their thoughts at funerals, and at weddings. That's a reason I bought new pants today." (I still don't understand how that relates, but I'll let it remain a mystery.) 

I was momentarily captivated by the light coming from the street lamps. There was so much of it. It trickled down through the thick summer air and pooled in the parking lot. 

I don't remember what I said particularly about the wedding, but I had the over-arching impression of innocence and eloquence. ence ence ence. They captured the light well, with white sheets stretched out as drapes and shades along the sun-edge of the sitting area. I thought a lot. I decided I wasn't praying enough for my future One Love, and then I took that decision back. There is so much to pray for. I keep telling people that I just want a dog and a house in the mountains. Maybe that statement is real, will become reality.

I am afraid to use too many sentences that include the word I. I am afraid to spend too much time making assumptions about other people. I am afraid that I will never find the balance between the two and begin to be a real writer. When one is real, does she even have to begin?

Before I Forget

And once the creeds fade from the lips of the people
the pictures will still remain.
staying the same on the flags my dad placed in front of our
steeple of a house

we called it a home.
I keep choosing words because the pictures they paint are also made out of stone.

Window View

When the ceder
 branchs twist 
she turns her 
collar to the 
wind

The weather
 can enclose the
world
within it's
hands

I wished to fly

We were walking by the water back to our car parked by the tram. We had just had the full Portland Blues experience, purchased by 12 cans of food and a lot of smiling. I wanted to dwell on the idea of a society dominated by hagglers. Goods for Goods, no longer paying homage to Mammon.
Becca looked up and said, "I have this friend, he traded everything he owned since when I first met him." She stopped momentarily to trail her hand along a chain link fence, "He started with stuff, and then started trading that stuff for other, more compact stuff like tools and knifes that would fit in his backpack. He consolidated. Then he traded more. Now all he really has left is his back pack.."
We piled into the subaru and drove home listening to mix CDs.


And now its time for a poorly written reflection:
Today I realized that everything is based on actions. Every relationship depends on the action and inaction of the words you use, the time you show up, the acts of love you commit to. This is not a subtle and intricately woven question concerning life. This is a frank statement that I may or may not even believe as truth, but regardless it is significant enough for me to write about now. I can think about my emotions and beliefs and how they translate to other people all I want - but the only way other people will realize anything that I feel is through action. Active expressing, active doing.


I wish to consolidate my words.

Small Story Sunday

There are very few places today where you can sing as loud as you want.

My sister and I were brushing shoulders as we reached to fill our plastic containers with strawberries from the neighbor's garden. I was surprised to find so many ready, red, ripe. June this year brought with it a lot of rain and very little sun; "A low season, a real pain in the ass.." The Farmers trail off as they walk through wet fields, gathering moldering hay into piles with rakes and tractors. They lean down with matches and gasoline, watching as their march, april, and may turns its atoms into ash. One thousand dollars in ten minutes.
But nothing can lesson the sweet of the first strawberry of summer, and my sister and I are almost dancing with our hands, happy to be outside in cut off jeans and flowers in our hair (weeds from the ditches but we don't care, they are orange, blue!) - we lift leaves to reveal each fruit, a tiny world caught up there, and in each seed another tiny world. Each seed must lead potentially to another, and I am almost dizzy for a moment with the weight of it all. Picking one, I hold it in my hand and for a moment, I hold one thousand worlds. --And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

Tomorrow I lose my wisdom, teeth. I think I sentimentally attach to things and dates and places. (Don't we all? Maybe I am being selfish with that analysis..) Anyways, they have spent so much time with me; hiding snug along my jaw line somewhere, waiting to make their move all these years. For some reason I think that I will be different tomorrow, after the surgery. I really do. I'm clinging onto my last remaining physicality of childhood. No more ducking around the question of adulthood. As of tomorrow its a Statement. A downright Assertion. My friend Michael, who is currently 100 miles from the Oregon-Idaho border, assures me that I am being overly sentimental. He assures me of a lot of things actually, whether or not he is aware of it. Primarily, that it is possible to live a life like the ones we read about in english class. (He walked to his current location from Canby, by the way, and he plans to continue on until he reaches Nebraska.) I guess the lives we all read about in English class all have one thing in common: A climactic point where the protagonist addresses a challenge or solves a question.
Tomorrow this protagonist does one of these things, or both.
To dentistry, friends.
Cheers.

Drawing a Blank

I'm still alive, I promise.

Congratulations to the Graduates whom I love. Namely Bai, her best friendy Kayla (who is joining me at spu next year!) and you too, tyler! 

Sister of mine, you are such a stable, hardworking woman. I love the way we talk with each other, your ability to forgive my nerdly jokes, and the way you care about your family. Your a bombshell, one of the prettiest girls I have ever known/seen. I wish you would come make your life with me in Seattle but you have things to do, other places to see. I am so excited to hear about the FFA adventures that are coming your way this year. ah life! love! ces't la vie!

Small Town Wave

A crane fly is climbing across my computer screen as I type this. In the spirit of summer I opt to let it live: there is a Mr. Crane Fly anxiously awaiting her return somewhere out there, I'm sure. This fits in smoothly with my midnight conversation over the last several hours. Dear Friend on the trampoline, that was really nice. But you seem to just have your heart set on that Mrs. Crane Fly, don't you? We are so different.
Its too bad that for all either of us know, She is out there climbing across someone else's computer screen tonight.
And Dear Friend in the driveway, I know I just needed to listen to what you were saying. And I did, I did in the spirit of summer and the type of me-to-you connection we keep up over the 300 miles that usually span the distance between my bed and yours. For the next three months we've simplified that number to a prime three. I don't think that equation works out correctly, but math was never our best subject.
Either way I pray that God sends a few of the right things to say in my direction - however let me be anything but super-fixer-upper-friend. I'm a James Taylor type Handyman, give me your situation and I'll give my two cents and a year-long down payment.

And who wants that?

And who wants to read a blog that starts and ends with ungrammatical conjunctions, strangely hyphenated nouns, and loosely-tied-sentimental-metaphors?
A Mr. Crane Fly, hopefully.