hey you summertime

in stripes and 110 degree heat.


i don't need to explain to any mother how long summer days are.
they just are.
and it was by the end of this one that our house wasn't near big enough for myself and all three of them at once so the unruly little chicks were politely booted out back.
i later glanced up through the kitchen window to find them standing there together, huddled around the wooden swing that hangs from our pecan tree while all three busily chased the pink ice cream running over the tops of their cones to their fingers and hands.
small graces.

the sun only held them a few moments more before our summer ended and i called them back in.

pizzas off the grill with guilt-free drinks and spinning hooray for earth - true loves

  

and the sickness spreads

day 53

i blame elliot.

there's a ship that sails by my window

day 5

there's a ship that sails on by.

  

[sunday] i'm in love

Day 1

counting the significant and not so significant days gone by has turned into somewhat of a security blanket for me.
or maybe it's simply become a way for me to measure time missed. a way for my mind to quietly work its way back when it needs to.


9 weeks of shooting in black and white.
Lack of Color Here (LOCH) project. take one.
see you after christmas.

"i wonder if her hair would be white"

                                                   kehl springs - az '10

day 82

get low.
one of the best movies i've seen in years.

  

legend

day 81

"Sometimes I feel like that tree on the hill, where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock.
i am out of the fold.
standing alone in the sun and the snow, i feel like I am not part of the rest. they welcome me and are kind, but I see [them] as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me.

mother told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life.
So I must remember this day. It is beautiful..."

--sarah (these is my words/nancy turner)

spare moments over the past few weeks have been spent chipping away at the growing list of books left unread on my shelves for more months than i'd probably allow myself to admit. i blame my new boyfriend, droid. - tv is so pissed.

somewhere in the midst of prime time premiers and a my 93 pt word on wordfued (bam!), i managed to fit an umpteenth reading of a favorite novel in for bookclub tomorrow night.

sarah is still one of my favorite characters. maybe because i share many of her same sentiments on the idea of happiness.


i've struggled my entire adult life to find words that could loosely define my idea of happiness to others. i've always known that bliss was never a state that appealed to me and all of my happiest moments seem to be accompanied with a tinge of melancholy...

much to my dismay we went camping this past weekend. i went exploring with the boys as soon as we got there, while spencer stayed to set up.
behind a huge log pile, at the end of a stoned path there were 2 lone trees. crooked and out of place, the grass matted more that 3 feet out around the base of their trunks. the late afternoon sun set a harsh contrast to their gnarled bark and the miles of tall pines behind them, calling me to lift the camera roped around my neck. i must remember this day. this day is beautiful.

...pictures are my mouthpiece, i've known this about myself, and this picture specifically is the closest i've come to any sort of definition of that which my brain finds difficult to verbally define.

because of the color of the wheat fields

day 78

"it has done me good", said the fox.

  

put on an argyle sweater and put on a smile

day 75

i've learned to be okay with changing my mind.
to allow myself to feel differently than i've previously stated i felt.
i'm bombastic. i claim ideas and beliefs before they ever finish materializing in my head.
i'm okay with this.
with coming to my own place of understanding a little less quietly than others and slowly zigzagging along from place to place.

i've learned that all of these places, my places, are infinite and ever-changing,
and focusing on the race from point a to b feels useless when point b simply doesn't exist.

   

you float like a feather in a beautiful world (i want you to notice)

day 69

i am ready.
i am ready.
i am fine.









scala & kolancy brothers: creep (radiohead). colorblind (counting crows). joga (bjork)

:: this belgian girls' choir is the best thing that's happened to me all year ::

  

my mind glides off into a large empty space - i pirouette there absently

day 67

conversationally, we reference the design almost too casually at times; sketch its rude outlines on chalkboards and paper as if it were the floor plan for an addition to ones house.  but when we really take time to ponder...it is breathtaking. overpowering. and i cannot decide which creates in me the most awe – its very vastness, or its every intricate, individualized detail.

neal a maxwell

   

we shared a history

day 62

we went to see toy story 3 with the boys over the holiday.
i audibly chocked down a sob when each toy reached out to the other and held hands inside the fire's embers, resolved to their lives' immediate end.

they're just toys, they're just toys, they're just toys.

i caught a glimpse of elliot's profile as the screen sparked to bright amber. i didn't recognize him. or i missed him. i'm not sure which. - the two feelings are one in the same. - i wrapped an arm around his chest, gripping his tiny shoulder in a protective gesture to fasten him to myself, anticipating the imminent pain of separation. he quickly squirmed, ducked his head under my arm and wiggled free from my grip.
as part of a new resolve to remain still, i dropped my shoulders, laid my head back and allowed the fires of separation to drown my body.
i know they aren't mine to keep.


eisley - ambulance

  

this place is not a state but a process

day 39

they were wedded and it was beautiful.

i heard the start of hoppipolla play through the loudspeakers as i set foot on the wedding venue's spread of green lawn. i thought of how i made him promise he'd play it when i left. i paused, looked ahead. the bride sat crosslegged on the grass next to redheaded pigtails on a freckled face while boys in suits played bocce at the other end of the lawn. i bent down to take a picture - a desperate attempt to pocket just how big the moment felt. - then i turned to stare at the rest of them, and not my idea of them, but them, held in all white chairs, circled around a pile of kids. i closed my eyes, felt a familiar pain in my chest sink to my knees, and smiled. 
that was it. memory's tainted cloud lightened, an answer. as if permission was granted to experience happy things.

when i [ask]...i get no answer. but a rather special sort of no answer. it is not the locked door, but more like a silent, compassionate gaze. as though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. like, 'peace, child; you don't understand.'

--a grief observed (c.s. lewis)

i told him, i just had the most emotional moment of my life.
he laughed. with me, i think. i didn't need to say anything else.

   

carried to ohio in a storm of bees

day 21.

(the days all run together anyway.)

i signed into my email(s) for the first time in nearly a month. - i think that's what they would diagnose as avoidance. 
thank you. the kind words extended to our family have meant everything.
in similar context, "i'm sorry" has always felt a hollow thing to leave my lips. it's not. it's full. and it fills.
music fills. friends fill. family fills.
the narrow line etched gracefully between bliss and melancholy fills.
and now,
our hearts are full.

the national - bloodbuzz ohio

"you can do hard things"

 
day 19.

stages of grief.
denial. anger. bargaining. depression. acceptance.

the process of sorting out the emotional chaos left over from these last two weeks is proving to be difficult. the near impossible kind of difficult. never having experienced any kind of real loss before now, i can only liken the emotional process to steering a ship, a horribly unreliable ship, through a giant storm; to safely make it through all of this, we remain conscious. auto-pilot is not an option. the second we let go of the helm, it spins wildly out of control and, in keeping with dramatics, we capsize. - e.g. shatter your cell phone by spiking it in the middle of your living room floor. (stage: anger.)

so as i sail my tiny ship through waters my life has yet to witness before now, my eyes are open. - as frightening as it is to look, my eyes are open. - i am conscious and aware of the impact of this moment. and as uncomfortable as it is to become vulnerable to it, i will allow myself to be. i will choose to let it change me. it is difficult, but in the words of a speaker whose name i never thought i'd need to remember, [i] can do hard things.
and i can.

stages of grief.
near impossible. ugly. vulnerable. beautiful.

   

:::

day 16.

i struggle with how to make 'thank you' match what i feel.

   

our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family

day 15.

we've never known where our elliot came from before now.
he doesn't resemble his mother, father, grandparents, cousins. - an orphan.
then looking through old photos this week we saw him for the first time.
he's her. almost identical.

he's our wheat field.

 

i swear that [her] feet are wheels

day 14.

all material in nature,
the mountains and the streams and the air and we,
are made of light which has been spent,
and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow,
and the shadow belongs to light.

-- louis kahn

i'm sure i've mentioned my love for my architect; a son's journey before.

if i haven't, i should have. its premise makes complete sense to me now more than ever.

 

green plastic watering can

day 12.

"What does that mean -- tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected", said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens: men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. And look...The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me. The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back to the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wheat in the wind..."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near...

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry." said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."

--- antoine de saint-exupery (the little prince)

one of my very favorites.

  

walk in the park

day 11.

love. so much love. and grace. and selflessness.
people are good. and not just now, but always were.

we're ill equipped to face the realities of this life alone. there is strength in numbers, in family, in friends. rally the troops, people, we'd be broken without them.

matter of time

day 10 and everything after.

on day 10 i learned how to cope with crisis; retract inward and run.
so i did. as fast as i could until it felt like my heart would explode, praying for the fire in the back of my throat to ignite my entire body. and it did.
then i crumbled.
like a little child, face down on the floor next to my baby's crib where she laid sleeping and sobbed. for me, for her, for them. mostly for them. eventually sobs slowed, turned to cries, then to stillness. i allowed the pulse of jonah's calm, even breaths to fill my ears. escape. not peace, but escape. for me, for right now, it's enough.

on day 10 we lost spencer's beautiful, beautiful sister.
words could never do her justice, they'd only fail me.