two years ago today
you said, “i think he’s stopped breathing”
you got a text saying “he just died”
you got a 6 am phone call
you got a call your son had died
you told me you loved me.

two years ago today it was the most gorgeous sunrise He could have thought up.

dearests, we are loved.

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when i let the unexpected in, i feel as if the ocean is rushing into my body.  soaking seeping filling expanding,  ah, it’s the feeling of realized hope.  beloved, did we know it would feel like this?  no, no we didn’t but something must have whispered to us, quietly, in our ear, something that made us drive the thousand miles, whether we knew the name for this hope or not, something must have whispered to us that said, “go” or “come” or “hope” or “dare” or simply the hardest request to be made of our exhausted hearts, “try again.”

beloved.  be loved.

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expanding.

setting
down
ro
o
t
s
.

it’s beginning to take shape for me.  this place and its people are becoming home.  i’m beginning to feel safe enough
to
set
down
such
ro
o
t
s
.
to let the little twigs dig into the red ground and wrap themselves around.

i would have never picked this place for myself and i don’t know how long i stay.  but it is becoming home to me.  this is the place i return to.

winona, those were my streets and roads.  we shared the same blood, the black clay: the pigment and stain of my hair and freckles. we survived the same winters: resilient, and fearlessly cautious.  i did not fear those streets in the middle of the night; fearless for the wrong reasons in those days.

here, i live on the surface of their ground.  i am a traveller given a place to stay.  and as the land begins to trust me, it will begin to teach me, and in time, tell me its secrets.  it will whisper to me of things that are not my blood rite.  i’ll live among history that is not my heritage.  i may always be the strange tongued child, but i shall be folded in around the table.

let me comb the last of the river water out of my strands of hair and pick the last of the ice out of my shoulder blade,

so that i may dress in the magnolia leaves and bathe my hair in the red dirt.

we are loved, dearest, so very loved.

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Dearest,

next to you, yeah, right there, to your right, sitting on one of those wood chairs with not enough padding, is me.  not because there’s some ghost of me still left in that library, goodness knows, my fingerprints are still lightly to be found on the top of dusty books on the top shelves or in stacks, and not because Wreck this Journal would also come with me to the library, and not because i’ve sat doing work for long crazy nonsocial hours just like you.  i’m right there to your right because yea, i understand.  and you’re right there next to me because yea, you understand.  we know life is loving deeper than we understand and loving more than maybe we ever meant to.  we know that the tears of laughing fits are just as significant and intimate as the tears of grayer griefs and blacker losses.  we know the glorious depths and fear defying (and fear embracing) heights.  we know the deep healing hoping touch of a hug.  we know that midnight and 2am and 6am are not just hours of the night.  we know how critically precious a moment is.  we’ve known much.  and yet, we know we’re babies in our Abba’s arms, coming to listen.  and in the overflow, love.  because, well, love wins.

loved.

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a letter came in the mail on christmas eve.

a letter that just felt special before i’d even opened it.

a letter that made me say “stop” to the world.  yes, i know i need to be getting ready for church.  yes, i know you’re asking me a question.  yes, i know, i know.

it’s something about what the years of knowing do to us.  little pieces of us that get woven together.  something knitted near our hearts that we can’t quite explain.

your words were stunning.  and you said it so well: “To my memory, it does seem as though our friendship would go in waves as our lives would synchronize for a moment (or come to a crashing halt, or increase in speed rapidly)”.

thank you for a synchronized moment.

merry christmas, dearest.

we are loved.  so very very loved.

 

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dear joanna,

here in virginia it is snowing. you know how first snowfalls are, always beautiful and romantic and causing the admirer to wrap both hands around a common coffee cup and just stare out the window with that specific content and giddy smile on our faces.

and there’s a stillness in the evenings that must be experienced, that muted tone of cars driving slower, that clear crunch of the snow, and the way the light haloes around street lamps.  tonight, i dropped my body into that iced over blanket of snow and just laid there.  i could not have possibly breathed deeper or laughed with more sincerity over beauty.

snow clumped along the edges of magnolia trees still make me slow my step and tug a bit at the dog’s leash so i may take in a sight i never experienced before.  these trees are all around my house but never have i experienced evergreens with big waxy leaves instead of slim pine needles.

advent comes with the lighting of the candles.  the smell of roses (whether they are present or not).  my plaid scarf and patterned tights.  my mother arriving by train.  christmas caroling with a viola.  parades and christmas parties.

and more love than we can hold in our two hands.  more love than we can embrace in our two arms.  more love than we can wrap our bodies around.

live in that love.  breathe in that love.  let it overwhelm you.  let it expand you.  let it in.  and then breathe it out.

thank you for passing on a message encouraging me to write again.  i hope all is well in wisconsin.

dearest, we are so very loved.

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(written on the flight home)

i had forgotten how tufts of fog forget to evaporate in the humid hills.
i had forgotten how cornstalks are our vast ocean.
i had forgotten watching black water slip under the bridge.
i had forgotten what a city not big enough for traffic was.
i had forgotten the walk between Memorial and Cathedral.
i had forgotten two new red houses in my mother’s community.
i had forgotten what it was to live without a cat’s movements.
i had forgotten how to show my mom the girl instead of the painting.
i had forgotten to stop running.
i had forgotten myself.  whoever she is.
i had forgotten particular feelings.

these things startled me.

i had not forgotten that we have the privilege to say “how are you?”
i had not forgotten how to hug a brother.
i had not forgotten how to sit across the table from you.
i had not forgotten her illogical logic when she is about to cry.

These things were present.

We sat at a table.  7 of us in all.  for the first time since they wed.  on the day the others purchased their very first house.  as you and i sat there, were you wondering what we are doing with our lives, too?  (let your kitchen be proof we are never alone)

we sat at a table.  3 of us in all.  ”i feel like we’re in a movie,” you said.  what have you learned in your first year of marriage?  what have you learned after a year in Virginia?  life doesn’t happen the way we plan.  ask the third girl who hangs up her unworn ivory dress.  the cars drive slowly on the sunny streets.

we sat on a stranger’s doorstep and said in unison, “didn’t have a choice”.  you sat in my living room as my mother recounted how we used to be such quiet kids who wouldn’t talk to each other.  but that was 9 years ago.  we’ve kept less secrets since then.

for giving me the chance to tell the god of abandonment that i am not afraid, thank Yyou.

dearest, can we even begin to see how loved we are?

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“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” — R.M. Rilke

some words capture our heart with such piercing accuracy.

thank you for the reminder, dearest.

we live in love.

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be.

be whole.

we can do this together.

here’s my hand.

just know, dearest, that you are loved.

June 20th

It wrecked me today to watch a girl embrace her father freely.

Happy Father’s Day, daddy.

Dearest, you are loved.