If These Things Are
If efts can be so abundant in a forest surrounded by people
If song can be born of unimaginable grief
If laughter finds its way into our living rooms
Then surely we will rise like the sun
We have all witnessed things beyond our wildest dreams come true
Who are we not to believe in miracles?
After all that life has shaped and unfurled
After all that has been dreamed into being
Why not build on the audacity of hope?
Why not lean in to the impossible with our best in mind
With the grandest and most delightful magic a being can possess
Come now, humans
Actually be the beings that you are
The entire universe is in your corner
Make room for the impossible
Soft Things
Soft Things
Like evening light
Mossy mounds
My love’s hands
The gentle intention of the word “Yes,” like water follows water.
Ferns unfold and reach with “Yes”
Soft Ones
Like descending tones
Hermit thrushes often heard, rarely seen
Loons and Beavers glide across still water leaving the faintest hint of a wake
Soft Days
Receiving water from a trickling spring
Putting my bones to rest as the sun puts out the day like a candle
Wanting nothing more
What an honor. How far we have come to be soft.
Crazy Heart
Calling all Believers. May we walk hungry, knowing that there will be nourishment.
Calling all Dreamers. May we walk willingly, knowing that it’s going to hurt like hell. May we smile while we cry into each other’s laps. There’s blissful unawareness, but this, this is laughter in a hurricane.
Calling all the Courageous. May we lose it all, so that we can actually look. So that we see what we have.
Calling all Givers. Keep it at the ready. Keep it in your fingertips.
Calling all Healers. After you fill your own cup, it’s the effortless that will save us.
Calling all Freaks. Let’s walk! It’s time. Come out and love yourself. Bring all of your unlovables. Let’s burn them in ceremony. Bring all your breakables. Watch how we can care for them, together.
Ask for it. I dare you.
Walk exposed and open-hearted. Ask strangers to help you heal. They are going to rise up and carry you. Because we’re always carrying each other and it’s time to acknowledge it.
We are out there loving you like water. Like sunlight. Like photosynthesis. Go ahead and love your bones. Laugh at your crazy heart because it’s capable of such unparalleled foolishness.
Run parallel to me. Let’s hit this wall so hard we break through.
Hitch
Go and Cry with a Stranger
Do it in their Car.
Get in their car, completely in. Take your heart out and put it in their Teeth.
And Listen.
Listen to them say they work too much.
Listen to them say they’re underpaid. Hear them geek out on how their truck works.
Let them crack you open a Bud, even if you think it’s yucky.
Listen to them talk about the land they love, and the wife they lost.
The way they can’t seem to find love, or make it stay.
Listen to the way death scares them.
Relate to them, admitting that as women in our late 20s, we’re turning into mothers, whether we want to admit it or not.
Let them tell you you’re courageous.
Let them lecture you on how you’re crazy.
Listen to them talk about how hard it is to control thier teenager, or run thier business.
About how they’d kill for their mama.
About being there when the Berlin Wall came down.
About how they got in trouble and cleaned themselves up.
How your health is everything.
How family is everything.
How they lost their daughter and granddaughter in a plane crash in Alaska.
Listen to how they believe there is good in all of us, though it can be hard to see.
Listen to them speak of holding their baby sister in their arms as she slips away.
Talk about Cancer.
Talk about being someone’s sibling.
Talk about being in the room with death and how it was beautiful, and sad.
And Cry.
Tell them the Truth.
Tell them you’re Scared too.
Show them you’re Alive.
And then they’ll walk with you…Always.
Worth It
Worth it?
How can I even talk about this?
Worth the time? The steps? The discomfort? I guess I’m not sure what you mean.
Yesterday, I stood waist deep in Grinnell Lake, fully clothed, in the icy rain. I ran into it. I laughed, and yipped like a coyote. I did it because I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know how it felt.
It’s worth it to me to spend days in the elements, for the gratitude it gives me. I want to get rocked, that’s what I’m after.
It’s worth it to me to design my life around these adventures. It’s worth every penny I earn, and then some.
Oh, the things which are worth it to me!
Exposure. As internal as it is external. From the inside out.
If I didn’t stand like I do, if I didn’t put it all out there, if I didn’t grin at the clouds that roll in, I’d be someone else.
So, “worth it” is not a question that makes sense.
I don’t make sense.
How I’m able to stand here, with my feet firmly planted on the ground, and my head in the clouds, is something I’ve given up trying to understand. I supposed that puts my heart everywhere. Which is just right.
