pearls and a pencil

The plate had finally reached me. There was one left. I grabbed for it. I popped open the fortune cookie, which read: Travel and romance go together now. After reading it aloud, I tucked it away with the other five golden fortunes I hope will turn out to be fate.
* * *
I put my pearls back in, brushed my teeth, wiped the mascara from under my eyes and stepped back to evaluate. Taking a pencil from the drawer, I spiraled my hair upward, using the pencil to fasten it in place. Pearls and a pencil. Classy-casual. Red coat over blue button-up shirt, I stepped out. Ready. Confident. I tucked a 1965 German dictionary under-arm. Making sure the pencil cleared my up-and-under, I ducked my head and slid myself into the car.
* * *
Wearing funky earrings, a sporty skirt and faux-sheered calf-length boots with laces, she's the epitome of fashion-cool. She's got a FREE TIBET shirt and classic black flats, and, somehow, deep down she could make them work in the same outfit. Her A-line bob polishes everything off. And, even though it looks as though she'd never be able to pull it back, leaving her with only one hairstyle option, she'll prove you wrong. Two ponytails or one, it works and it's absolutely darling. Throwing a scarf over her Sunday outfit, she's out the door, cool earrings bobbing as she hops along the front walk.

He loves her. She's a power tool to his soft and hidden self, drilling information into him, relentless in her attempt to stop him from revealing more about his life. She's made of concrete walls; tough to the touch. He is open pastures and green vistas; very don't-fence-me-in, if only she'd ask. He loves even the harsh sides of her in his sweet style of devotion. You can sense it in the way he looks at her when she talks; in the way he looks at her when anyone is talking. And yet, I still feel there is hope.
* * *
We're sitting on the couch looking up cars. High-end. European-made. We talk the ups and downs, the fasts and slows of A6's and 300 series. He lets me go off about streamlined trunk and tail light design. One hour later, we joined the rest of the crowd for cupcakes. I think I'm a little bit in love with him. The thought popped into my head as I sunk my teeth into a pink-frosted cupcake and smiled at him from across the room.

He loves her. And yet, I still feel there is hope. Not as in love-hope. Just hope. Hope after a few evenings at our table, a map at our fingertips, tracing European trails with our fingers. Why Florence? His eyes lit up as my mouth rounded and pronounced Duomo. It was one of those moments. One of those connections. He just understood. There was a pause. And then he traced both hands over Greece. If you're talking architecture, why not start here? I looked up at him, his darling eyes as blue as the Aegean. We can start anywhere you want to. I raised my eyebrows suggesting an up-for-anything attitude.
* * *
I parked the car on the downward slope, staring into the Salt Lake Valley. I secured the pencil in my hair and walked in, feeling good in my red coat. The house was filled with family; sisters with dark hair and eyes, and flawless olive skin; a mother happy to hug upon meeting. He was in the dining room, a map directly behind him. He traced the border of Germany and the Netherlands as I've seen him do a dozen times, showing an aunt and uncle where he'll make his new home. This time, however, it was final. He looked up with wide eyes. I handed him the dictionary and explained I had pulled it from my Dad's collection from his German Lit. college days. He wowed at the sight of it, grateful for the sentiment. He immediately scooted the ribbon off to look inside. The note read, See you there. And I signed my name.

He loves her. I think he always will. And yet, I've found new life in this new person; this connection; this charming too-good-to-be-true guy who will board a plane in 48 hours. As guests shuffled out, he watched as I folded up his pocket-size Eurorail map and tucked it inside the dictionary. I'll put it in my back pocket, he said, smiling. I looked up at him and smiled back, well-aware of the book's anything-but-convenient size. We lingered at the door for quite awhile. Each scuffing our feet on the slate, eyes down. Then I finally spoke up. Well...I wasn't sure what to follow it up with. See you there, he said, nodding, like that's what I should be thinking, too. He gave me a hug, opened the door and watched as I walked down the steps. I turned around at the sound of his voice. Hey. Thanks for coming. He paused. Thanks...a lot. I gave a shy, sure and turned towards my car. I pulled the pencil from my hair and drove slowly down the road, hand rotating my pearl earring with my fingers.

I am here

Once upon a time, my Creative Writing class was assigned to write a sestina. And it was hard. I didn't get past the first stanza, and that stanza wasn't even completely finished, either. Far from it.

So why I can finish one off two years later is a complete mystery, but in one mad fit of words, I did. And, seeing as it's about love, I figured it might live well enough here among the YTS.

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

Hope hovers in the sky today,
Spring measured in teaspoons
like the love I so delicately hold in cupped hands.
Kept close, it hums its own song
of prayer and promise in new light---
but I cannot match it to words.

Trembling now, it could break with words.
This dawn is yet too fragile today,
and almost too bright the light
might shatter this heart that beats in the spoon
of my palms, its rhythm-song
directed by your hands.

A whole world---what a handful!
We exchange ourselves in chance words,
a close chorus that sings
tomorrow is today.
Together they fit like stacked spoons,
collection of our combined light.

Perhaps too much, this light?
A flame too readily lit by my hands?
And yet we've tested this slowly by the spoonful:
a word, a laugh, another word . . .
No, I do not think today
is too much to ask of your singing.

For I am confident in my song---
it is the only one big enough to fill love's light.
Walking surely today,
a torch in one steady hand,
I balance (in the other) your words
as an egg on a spoon.

With every step I take, spooning
new notes from internal song,
I give you my word:
Love held transparent to the light.
Tomorrow is at hand;
you hold it in your today.

My heart, spooned from me with every word,
sings testament to your light
and hammers against my hand: we are today!

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

A word from M now, yes? I miss you.

Bless his soul...

In rendezvous delight, my heart collides your smile
a grateful summer set of sunlight bursting across our sky
To say hello from now till now again a circle complete
Of yesterdays of hopes and dreams and fortitude's of life
Dearest darling, cutest woman beautiful prim rose of breath itself
to own the trails of reminiscences before they even just begin
is holding your hand upon my bellows of my soul within
Besought my love belong my sweetness folded across this voice
Belong my Somerset of sunlight as dreams attain reality
In joyous rendezvous your smile collides my heart

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Annie's last line has me thinking Whitman---goodly, glorious Whitman. So often his words echo my thoughts, and (through the silly-sad realization that I've never actually had an original idea) I revel in them. I celebrate myself, and sing myself. Early morning hours awake and alive have no comparison. I am satisfied---I see, dance, laugh, sing. The air bites but the sun shines; the world is open and humming. I believe in you my soul. I can handle it.

Today hasn't been much of an adventure as far as happenings go, but I feel excited about very nearly everything. The way my hair swept up into an easy French twist. How my heels click on the frozen concrete. When Professor Matthews shouted "yes!" at my comment this morning. Sincerity from one of my students, thanking me for showing him the light in Heart of Darkness. Chatting with coworkers, eyes alight in the fire of conversation. Coming to a conclusion without really thinking anything through: Waiting be damned. I am going to live. He'll catch up. Because I am amazing and lovely and every sort of color and I am brilliant and confident and I am true.

Yes, today I sing a Song of Myself, but to sing such is really praises for the masses. Because Leaves of Grass is just another way to shout Humanity! Because just as individual spears of grass make the green hill, so are we interconnected. Our differences point to our commonality. I am not alone. I am not the only one to ever have felt this way. I celebrate the part because I am part of something greater, something eternal.The epic is all I, I, I---but I think there's something to be said that it ends in you.

{Listening to the YTS Love Mix. Wondering how we got it so good.
Hoping everyone holds a piece of this happiness in their hearts.}

Why I eat gummy bears..

Tommorrow let's celebrate! Passion. Emotion. Love.
Right now I am at my internship at the Springville Museum of Art, eating gummy bears. Sharlene Stule and I listen to classical music up in the library attic. I hear the clock tick and catch reflections of my dark hair ("Is that really me?") in the rows of alphabetically-arranged metallic cabinets. I don't even like gummy bears.

You know, I often overflow with tears. My eyes brim--like that game you play as a second-grader when you try and make your classmate laugh so hard that milk shoots out from her nose--and tears fall in spite of my consistent efforts to miraculously grow retracting muscles near my tear ducts. Call it a curse or a blessing, either way it is me. And lately I have thought: BLESSING. Truth be told--I love that I cry.
Sometimes you just feel a nearly spiritual inclination to look into the mirror and fall in love with yourself and to find all of those facets of yourself (like crying) somehow endearing. Odd? Maybe. Healthy? Definitely. When I try this trick I sometimes think, "I hate mirrors. I will be so sick of looking at myself by the time I reach age 30." or simply, "Ewww." Looking at your reflection becomes more about the act of seeing yourself than surveying surface elements. Replace "I like my mouth" or "My nose curves upward in a bizarre beak-like fashion" with "My mind scintillated and shone with brillance as I just wrote that beautiful essay" Today--for some reason-- when I gazed at myself, I took a voyeuristic approach. A skeptical and strangely removed look at ME. After self-criticisms up the wahzoo, I suddenly went back to Hawaii.
I didn't know what to think. What do you tell yourself when you realize that you will leave your tropical paradise? That soon you will run smack into the rough brick wall of reality? My roommates and I had woken up at literally 4 am to go to the Hukilau Beach (across the street) and watch the sunrise. Sitting in the sand, bundling up (cold is SUCH a relative sensation), and absorbing the pure rays for the last time, I felt too sleepy to feel grateful. After laughing and talking and snapping some photos, my friends went home. I stayed by myself. I ran up and down the beach barefoot. Normal joggers in normal clothes passed me by. After a little bit of hesitation, I stripped down. Yes, you better believe it. I walked into the waves with my green underwear and white bra. A couple of kids watched me from a distance. I dove in. Swim. Swim! Laughing underwater kind of destroys the perfect breaststroke. I had always wanted to do this. I did it. I walked out of the water--my tan body contrasted against my yellow-blonde mess of hair and my embarassingly paste-white stomach--with a sense of self that I will never forget. Who cares if I was going home? I sure didn't. I just loved that moment when I felt like my own novelist in my real-life novel.
So, basically, I hope that everyday--not just on Valentine's Day--that I experience that head-over-heels, butterflies-in-the-tummy, take-my-breath-away emotion. The emotion that inevitably comes when I venture into sincere self-appreciation. Like right now: I still swallow those somewhat stale, sugary beasts. I still don't like them. Honestly, I think they are perfectly STUPID waste of calories. Yet, I do it in honor of my mother. She loves gummy bears and so does Grammy. Haribo Heaven at Grammy's house every Sunday. My self-awareness of all of these factors makes me sigh. Oh. I LOVE myself.

it's good to be in love (it really does suit you)

When it's unrequited, or even just unsure, love dances dangerously from ironic to the veritably insane. Every day begins in a hope, most usually dashed by twilight. You walk to class with only one name on your mind; you anticipate chance meetings with heart racing and blood pounding. Doodling betrays your secret, too-long emails to confidant confirm it. For what it does to us, the very thought of falling in like should be banished. "Curse it!" I cry, on those darker nights, fully given to the romanticised view of heartbreak: all grey thunder and the rain lashing at the windows. But the truth is, we wouldn't have it any other way.

It is so much happier to be in love than without it. Without it, those long lulls of no one and no thing are more bleak than ever before. A crush, no matter how small, makes bright the darkest hour---and though it's somewhat ridiculous (if they only knew the power they possess!), simply your name said out loud may be cause for dancing. That name becomes a rhythm, soon becomes a song. Doodles chronicle mood in joyful spins or patient dots. The emails tell the story, detail to detail. And that chance meeting sets your heart on fire, bright and burning: you are invincible. The heartache will come, and the occasional grey day might stand in your way, but the end is forever worth it all. Being in love is simply a version of being in hope: a mood struck through with blue sky and summer sun.

Basics with Brooke

I apologize for posting twice in a row. AND for my jumbled/depressing previous post.


Yesterday I spent a good 30 (actually more like 40...I epitomize procrastination) minutes making a new playlist with a number of velvety voices guiding me on the journey of love. The ups and downs of life's greatest rollercoaster following the slight shifts in tone or pitch or tempo or crescendo and the poem in every girl's heart expressed in the lovely lyrics. After listening to my latest theme songs for the umpteenth time, "The Thief" (Brooke Fraser) or "Realize" (Colbie), I adopted a more forgiving, optimistic theme song, "Love is Waiting" (Brooke again.) I pronounced my playlist "BASICS WITH BROOKE."
On that same theme...Here are a couple of the requested quotes (Martha, I hope these are what you wanted) on love:

“There is no risk-free way to love. The possibility of being devastated is always there, but the possibility of joy exists only when you put your battered heart right on the table by trusting that you’re lovable.” Martha Beck

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." ee cummings

And finally...(drumroll)..for some reason this one always unearths a (predictable) small spring of tears in my eye. Perhaps it is because I often play the role in romance of a useless armored-knight tightly bound up in duct tape and sheltered by a barbed-wire or electric fence (depends on the day) rather than the cliche--yet enviable--role of the brave warrior saving another's soul or even the princess swooning in vulnerablity.

“She would give him all the armour she had hitherto used to keep herself safe…She loved him.” Peter Carey