What I Remember

So here's what I remember

Running and running and running from utter darkness

Fear

A kindness that you don't understand

A familiarity

An excuse to finally be the full version of me

Real

Long afternoons in the sun drinking coffee and telling our stories

Laughing at long shared jokes and memories.

A much needed friendship.

Trust

Fear

Texts from a far away savior

Held by the hand and led to support

And comfort and love.

Two women rising up before me with strong arms,

Strong convictions,

Passionate devotion.

Fear

Elation

Standing above the world,

Finally finally finally free,

Cutting my ropes loose with reckless abandon,

Till

A voice. A message.

Breaking.

And breaking.

And breaking.

And breaking.

A man who made me laugh

And laugh,

Let me push the limits

Too far.

I pushed too far.

I invited it.

Reveled in laughing torture

Talking about real,

mixed with history

And musicals, and food,

Economy and elections.

Remember a face,

Humiliated and

broken,

Broken,

Broken,

Angry and scared,

Furious.

Worry, and fear and anger and betrayal

Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain

Nightmares upon nightmares

Screams, fights,

Anger

Fear

Ropes.

Goodbye,

Over and over and over

I'm sorry

Over and over and over

I deserved it

Over and over and over

So There's This Guy Who Falls Into A Hole......

So There's This Guy Who Falls Into A Hole…...

(Inspired by The West Wing S2E10, Noel.
Leo to Josh: "A man is walking down the street, and falls into a hole. 

The hole is so deep, and the walls so slick, that he can't get out. 

He sees a doctor walking down the street, and calls out to him. "Hey doc, I've fallen in this hole- can you help me out?" The doctor writes him a prescription, throws it in the hole, and keeps walking. 

Then the guy sees a priest walking down the street, and calls out, "Hey father, I've fallen in this hole, can you help me out?" The priest writes down a prayer on a piece of paper, throws it in the hole, and keeps walking. 

Then the guy sees one of his good friends. He calls out, "Hey friend, I've fallen in this hole, can you help me out?" His friend comes over, and jumps in the hole with him. 

The guy says, "What are you, crazy? Now we're both in the hole!" 

His friend says, "Yes, but I've been here before, and I know the way out.")

Sometimes there's so much in your head,

So much you ache to say,

But you have to tie it up

And try to be mundane instead.

If you let it out it'll break another person

Tie them into your knot,

Tangle them where they don't want to go,

Making what was suspicion, certain.

So you hold it back, trying to be okay

Let everything be alright

Trying not to allow the pain to flood in

And ruin the one good moment of the day.

But it rides on your shoulders wherever you are

No relief can it find

Potent and permanent

Pushing you way too far.

You ask me what I want, how am I feeling,

I want to take the lid off the box

Let even a whisper of relief flood in

Let that breath be freeing.

Because every dark rope has an end

And every dark cage has a lock

every dark hole has a bottom,

The secret is finding the friend

Who can slide down the rope,

Unlock the cage,

Show you path out of the hole

A whisper the words of hope.

Precarious

Precarious

All the words we've never said.

All the times I've worried,

you've worried……

All the times we can't be together.

You've touched my life,

sparked it into being whole,

ripped it into being torn.

Apart we are not the same.

Apart we are simply a facade,

waiting for a way

to be together again.

Apart we are only half the sentence,

half the joke,

half the conundrum,

half the catch 22.

Cake without topping.

Jello without marshmallows,

2,000 miles away.

In sync, out of step,

afraid to go forward,

afraid to go back.

Longing to meet in the middle.

Just wondering how to get there.

Meet Me There

Meet Me There

There on the dock over blue blue water.

Waves making the old wood boards sway beneath me,

challenging my balance

but adding to my calm.

Meet me there.

There where we have sat,

talked, laughed.

There where my music takes me away,

and my body learns once more to bend to my whims.

There where life becomes….

Flexible.

Meet me there.

A few hours of peace was never a hard price to pay for a pile of chores left undone.

What does this mean? 1:Corinthians 13:4-8 Martin Luther style

What does this Mean?

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Martin Luther style.

1: Love is patient

What does this mean?

Love will sit in the parking lot for whatever time you need, to pick you up.

Love will do the laundry you've ignored for weeks.

Love will not mind when you suddenly decide to spend Saturday with friends and leave the homework supervision to it.

Love will sit on the husband's waiting bench while you shop.

Love will drive you 4 hours in a binding snowstorm to see a concert you're desperate to see.

Love waits.

2: Love is kind.

What does this mean?

Love tells you you're beautiful when you're not.

Love helps you fold laundry in the middle of its favorite show.

Love will dig up half the yard for a garden you only have in your head.

Love will not say I told you so.

Love will hold your hand and make it be okay, even at 2 AM.

3: Love does not envy.

What does this mean?

Love will let you sleep when you are both exausted and not be angry about not having a turn.

Love will let you take a weekend away while it is forced to drive kids to 6 different places on its own.

Love does not wish to have the peace of mind you have, but instead seeks to share it.

4: Love does not boast.

What does this mean?

Love will not point out that it is smarter than you.

Love does not claim to be the bread winner.

Love does not point out that it could have done a better job fixing the playhouse than you.

Love does not talk about you like a trophy wife, or husband.

Love does not claim better cooking skills.

5: Love is not proud.

What does this mean?

Love does not take all the credit for your children's academic success.

Love does not stand over you and claim you as a dependant.

Love does not show off its talents but uses them for the good of others.

Love does not simply take from you what it desires.

6: Love does not dishonor others.

What does this mean?

Love does not take the glory for itself or lay the blame upon another, but supports the team as a whole, win or lose.

Love does not treat the elderly as senile and unimportant.

Love does not ask for favors that are inappropriate, or dangerous.

Love does not lead you astray.

7: Love is not self-seeking.

What does this mean?

Love does not enter into a relationship for money, sex, family name, or position.

Love does not demand of its partner what they do not wish to give.

Love considers it's partner before making personal requests upon them.

Love always has it's partners best interest in mind.

8: Love is not easily angered.

What does this mean?

Love will listen before jumping to conclusions.

Love will attempt to understand the situation.

Love will let mistakes go.

Love will look for a constructive resolution.

9: Love keeps no record of wrongs.

What does this mean?

Love forgives.

Love does not bring painful situations up over and over again.

Love does not want to get back at you.

Love does not believe you ‘owe it one’.

Love wants to begin again.

10: Love does not delight in evil.

What does this Mean?

Love does not want anyone to fail.

Love does not say ‘it serves him right’.

Love does not say ‘she was asking for it’.

Love does not celebrate getting a raise over someone else's loss.

Love is not happy that a person has been removed from their lives, but prays for that person.

11: Love rejoices with the truth.

What does this mean?

Love finds the truth to be a begining, not an end.

Love find truth a relief and not a burden.

Love will stand in the kitchen and bug you till it all spills out.

Love will meet with your teacher and find solutions to your difficulties.

Love will hold you while you cry even if your words are painful.

12: Love always protects.

What does this mean?

Love will set boundaries for biking in the neighborhood.

Love will set curfew.

Love will pick you up any time any where and ask no questions.

Love will meet you just to talk if only to keep you safe from harm for a few more minutes.

Love will stay on the phone.

13: Love always trusts.

What does this mean?

Love will not hold you captive.

Love knows you will come around on your own.

Love allows you to choose your own path.

Love allows you to try new things, or old things.

Love believes in you no matter what.

14: Love always hopes.

What does this mean?

Love will wait for you to come to church.

Love believes one day you will know you are a child of God.

Love thinks that one day you will let go of that ancient pain.

Love supports you in every endeavour till you find your place.

Love keeps going on a wish and a prayer that it will have the resources to help you find your place in this world.

Love wants you to one day no-longer be in pain and confusion.

15: Love always perseveres.

What does this mean?

Love will sit up typing for you while you speak your history paper till 2AM.

Love will help you solve your physics projects hang-ups three nights in a row.

Love will learn Latin and chemistry for you, to help you pass classes it failed in college.

Love goes on living when it's spouse is gone.

Love will find your lost earring, your lost glasses, your lost contact, your lost knife, your lost wallet.

Love will keep saying yes.

16: Love never fails.

What does this mean?

Love shares it's experiences even when they are hard to speak.

Love outlasts the storm.

Love keeps living.

Love sometimes means not liking, but still loving.

Love can always find forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation.

Love clings to Jesus and puts him in the middle.

Love hangs it's only Son, Itself, on an old wooden cross, and takes on the sin of every jeering voice in the crowd, and every human being ever made.

Love is born in a barn, lives as a homeless man, suffers like a criminal, and dies like a traitor.

And Love lives again.

Life in Specific

Life in Specific

For Lynn, I love it that you ‘get me’.

At the end of a long day

you're sitting on the deck with a nice chilled beer in your hand and the sun on your face……

Of course, you're there because you're waiting for the dogs to pee so you can bring them back in before they destroy your brand new plant for the third time.

And the beer is a root beer because you're not done shuffling kids around yet and you have an evening work meeting in 2 hours.

And anyway, the chair is pinching you because it's plastic and the arm is broken and you haven't had spring clean up yet really.

And this is when you hear a full blown argument erupt in the kitchen over whether or not there is a natural occurring biological substance that can cross the blood brain barrier. So while you're solving that issue using Google, you discover that your wifi is down and while your tech son goes to fix it, and you try to put your children where they need to be to do their homework effectively,

the dogs dig up your new plant.

The answer by the way is yes. It is frankincense.

Which could in a roundabout way explain why Jesus never cried. The Frankincense was making the calming aromatics around him, and the pheromones of a mother's love for her baby, flood his brain with peace.

And you congratulate yourself in sounding like an educated adult, even if it was only in your head. Especially since baby Jesus must have cried.

Except now your youngest child is eating cupcakes and fruit loops before a three hour gymnastics practice.

Your teenage son is in the front porch with headphones on hopefully looking up Latin terms on his phone, but probably watching you tube.

And your 16 year old is in the kitchen making the dinner you know damn well you should be making yourself.

There's nothing general about it. It's the same every day.

Of course, you wouldn't wish them away for anything.

Sung in South Dakota

Harold's Song

Two little boys

with some nails and a hammer

built themselves a treehouse

amongst a lot of clamour.

Filled it up with memories,

lights and posters hung above,

had some wild adventures

and maybe learned to love.

And as those little boys grew up

so came their teenage trappings.

Pirate boat turned clubhouse

where girls could come a rapping.

Oh the lessons on that floor

that paved the way to preference

of lust and need and maybe love

between the boys I referenced.

As other friends would come and go

their bond would never break

desire, humor, sorrow, fear,

even anger could it take.

But years pass by and defenses fail

and minds can be deceived

and ‘maybe love’ turned very real,

must now somehow be grieved.

My tree house stood alone and empty

so I burned it to the ground

but it exists within my memory

where that sorrows always found.

I share it with many other houses

and other girls and boys

whose fallen hideouts and secret spaces

now hold silence where once was joy.

But now and again their eyes grow bright

remembering those lives with laughter

the times they had, the dreams they shared,

thinking “screw what followed after”.