skookum tumtum

I was so asking for that word, wasting away my midnight in an endless thesaurus loop. If that's not a sign I should be asleep, I don't know what else could get me to bed.

No, I'm not crazy. Look it up.

snapshot

Huzzah, my camera lives! I finally bought new batteries and am now catching up on all the memories I missed.
So here's the photo that originally went with my
Bohemian Rhapsody post---I'm Sharpie-ing henna to A's ankle.

Because that's just how cool we are.
{more gypsy wanderings here}

love in real life

Love, like anything, is relative. Sometimes it's made of hot-house bouquets sent cross-country to your doorstep, or Willoughby wildflowers swept up in a knotted bow. Sometimes it's that chance meeting around a corner that sets your heart doubletime, or those cozy conversations of discovery and connection. Sometimes, I imagine, it sweeps you off your feet.

But today---and most days---it's in the everyday.

This morning I woke up to a taller-than-me little sister and bare feet on a frozen floor. The world was winter-white and sparkling-new. My house was a flurry of pre-school rush and last minute uniform-swapping. I spent an hour with scissors and glue, cut-and-pasting the final flourishes to my neo-Victorian valentines. The roads were clear on my drive out of town, the sky a ski-blue. My grandma made sure I left with chocolates for the second half of my trip; my grandpa called me baby. I cried out of love and a terrible, swelling sadness. One world contains so very much.

At work, girls gossiped over reservations and red roses, smiling at my own night of best friend and chinese takeout. I met A later, still worrying over Love Day words, finally deciding on a simple sentence before slipping my last glittered message into the box. We walked home in golden sunset, hands fisted in pockets and breath cotton in the air. We ate dinner on the floor, backs to the couch. We snuck hot water bottles into the Dollar Theatre, paying for tickets in the last of our silver coins.

Now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, sink scrubbed clean and dishwasher murmuring behind me, and I am so full. All seems awash in the possibility of living; I feel an overwhelming sense of greatness. My world is warm. My tomorrow is bright. Life is loving, day to day and past to future.

It seems too little, simply to say: thank You.

{map via}

andiamo!

It's official: I'm in. By September of this year, I'll call Siena home.
{butterflies. that's all I have to say.}

r.i.p.

my hot water bottle died.
again.
that's two in one winter.

he didn't even have a name yet.

a poem, lyric and filled with possibility

When I have a song stuck in my head, I have only to listen through it once to forget it, freeing up the space for more pertinent tasks.

That hasn't worked so well this time around.

Sure, at this point it's just the cool thing to do, but maybe by posting the link, I can get back to focusing on my American Lit homework---a catharsis, of sorts. You might think the words of Jefferson, Wheatley, Emerson and Lincoln would be enough of a distraction, but behind those words is that constant beat. What did they ever say if not YES, WE CAN?

bohemian rhapsody

It started out a whim, a casual conversation about barefeet and weekend take-out. Within seconds it was a plan: bring headscarves and a poem. And tonight it was a dream, one warm room transformed in the light of mismatched candles and the spices of Bengal tea.

Our first theme night of the year had a whole lot of gypsy to it; we came in color and flair to sit crosslegged on the floor and share a bowl of rice. We covered the floor in sheepskins and silk cushions. We doodled henna with a Sharpie. We listened to an amalgam of world music, one minute swaying to salsa and the next humming reverently to an Om chant. It was a night of laughter and love, secrets and Sarah Crew. The pink and red anklet 'round my bare foot jingled hippie happiness all the way home.

Pictures to come, but for now a few poems; we all have an early morning tomorrow and it's time to let these bangles rest.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

from A: {an 8:00 class. snap snap.}

Up. Stand up.
Out. In and out.
and out again.
blues and white light
surround.
wisps of breath
spread. melt.
together. together with
me.
new light. new me.
hours still to go.
go.

Jacq: {she loves butter. and I love the unexpected dinosaur.}

Orange peacocks and buttered earth
Orange peacocks
eat my heart
when I'm not at home.
Pages blow in the wind
releases poems
into palid air
air that was breathed
by dinosaurs.
The love, lodging in the
capillaries of my soul
longs to transpire
and fill the buttered earth
and heal the buttered earth.

E: {I really was reading Churchill. and Zurich just sounded right.}

you and I walk seventh street
and always the whole thing goes both ways.

in the library I read Churchill
(IN PEACE: GOODWILL)
but the grey language of winter sings
untitled laments---
letters filed in drawers,
and Churchill, too.
I stand still, here,
and always you keep waiting.

you're throwing away
those autumnly voices
yet I collect them,
and always I am one step behind.

in Zurich
I keep crossing my fingers
but I consider to find Ourselves it takes time
the same as physicists figuring the universe.