i felt like i was trying to navigate the new system using my tablet like a paddle in quicksand. the computer felt alien and clumsy. now it is me that is full of electricity. 

after hours bouncing and buzzing, bursting with hope and happiness, waiting without word, we finally left to drive home. in the darkness, i sang, projecting prayers like headlights into the night. 

we stopped at our house by the river and stepped into the cold air. i felt so awake and alive. eager and anxious. the stars in mount tremper shine like angels, and i thought about how far she had travelled to come to us. 

sweet baby. assembled atoms, a constellation of chromosomes, a sculpture of stardust, a miracle of molecules.

her little body, even now, pushing its way into the world. perhaps her lungs have already met the air. filled it, even as it filled her, with her voice. 

we will talk, you and i, mabel.

we will look at clouds and through microscopes, wander in the woods, put our feet in cold water. we will talk about gardens and geese and god.

i will ask you if you remember where you were before this. i will tell you about tonight. the story as i am living it is not full of the details and the delivery, but the waiting, the wondering, the watching the phone and the watching the clock. i don’t know the centimeters of the dilation of the cervix, only the opening of my heart. it is praying like reaching. it is believing like beaming. 

i will tell you how much you are loved, and that you always have been. 

i am so excited, and grateful, and overwhelmed.

but not overwhelmed like today at work, where i cried because i couldn’t feel myself, in the whirlwind of expectation. but overwhelmed like this, where i am crying because i can feel the deepest parts of myself, in the wonder of anticipation. 

when you’re struggling sometime, again in your life, to be born into something new, i want to be this again, close by, hopeful, and holding a sacred spot for you. ready to applaud your arrival, shower you with love, and celebrate your life.

we are your family, and we will be there for you. and soon, you will be here with us.

welcome home, mabel.

happy birth day!

my brother, in black and white,

in love with his lady, heavy laden,

proud and pregnant, smiling papa.

pictures, 

sunshine, 

sunday.

i see him, almost squealing

with delight, da-da. soon

enough. to make your heart swell. 

i cut down a tree or two today.

i would say,

in his honor.

When she arrives, serene, certain,

splendid,

everything changes. 

we breathe. 

we’re holding our breath.

we believe. 

tall as trees, and as tentative: spring-time.

Sweet season of expectation. 

Our fertile future.

Ring-a-ling-a-ling, our May Bell.

See you in May, Belle.

We love you, Mabel. 

So I’m in the middle of the blizzard and thinking about things like how life is like a snowstorm. Seems like such a big deal at the time. But the streets clear, and the sun shines, and the spring comes. If you’re lucky you can get some good snuggles in while it lasts. Maybe you play in it, slide down it, make an angel of yourself. Maybe you stomp your feet and shake your head and curse your creaking joints. But either way, after the plowing of trucks comes the plowing of tractors, and everything melts back into the earth again. A new season. 

Every moment of your life is like a crystalline snowflake: incredibly unique, remarkably exquisite, terribly transient. Let them collect for a moment on your eyelashes. Let them land on your cheeks like a thousand little kisses. Or sit inside, while the seconds of your life stack like snowdrifts, and appreciate the accumulation. Stare into the fire; reflect in its reflection; let your heart thaw. 

The cold can make people bitter. The cold can make people pack up and head south. The cold can make people stay inside, isolated and depressed. 

I am knitting together words like wool to make prayers like parkas. I want to send you out in the storm to shovel a widow’s walk, to play like a preschooler, to stand in the soft silence. Go, pilgrim, ruddy-cheeked, with a bottle of bourbon and a handful of matches. Bring the cheerful reminder of death to the people who take it too seriously, bring the sensibility of shelter to the people who are frostbitten by flippancy, bring the wonder of winter to those wishing for summer. It is beautiful, a beautiful life. 

this moment of appreciation for life goes out to my amazing dad, whose life i appreciate so much, whose life has given me my own, and whose birthday is tomorrow. he’s always down for a cup of hot chocolate over a poem, or a walk through the flurries, or to help me shovel my car out before work at 6 am. i love you, dad.

God’s purpose, like a pebble, plopped into the primordial pond- and here we are, surfing a ripple of His reason. Like God’s suggestion was a seed, sprouted in the light of a thousand suns, and the revolutions of the planet are the accumulating rings of that towering tree of time. And here we are, carving our names into the bark.

Merely a moment, but marvelously momentous.

Sometimes, as the hourglass drains, I want to laugh and build a sandcastle. Sometimes, I want to sit silently and watch the waves erode the shore. But mostly, I want to hold onto each gritty grain of grace, each precious present, each never-again-now that I am in. Altogether they can be indistinguishable and overwhelming, but truly, appreciated individually, each is a jewel under the microscope of mindfulness. 

So, I want to be the Tibetan monk making a sand mandala. I want to place each second of sand into a sacred symbol. I want to concentrate on my celebration of life, not just crash the party. Be deliberate, not drunk. 

Today is my mother’s birthday, and Reva Williams. Glistening gems, these girls. Gifts to me. 

I am mulling over memories, gratefully appreciating the colorful contributions these women have made to my life. I am placing these pieces into the pattern of who I am. 

And of course, knowing, all along, that God is the wind, God is breath. The meaningful mandala I am making will return to the swirling sea. The monks wear masks, but God is always laughing.

These lovely lives will turn back into light and all this sand will melt together in the fire of love, to become the glass of a window or a mirror, so we can see the Truth.

Of who we are. Of who God is. Of what Love is. 

Hallelujah.

And Happy Birthday.

so if our most intimate relationships are, at best, intended to mirror and model our relationship with the Divine, then i’ve concluded that where religion’s most crucial component is faith, the boundaries of which are circumscribed by trust, marriage’s most necessary element is commitment, the extent of which is determined by hope. 

i caught myself spending too much emotional energy the past couple days trying to coordinate circumstances and line up logistics for next year as a newlywed, and this afternoon had a refreshing remembrance of a simple truth- that a successful relationship is not realized in the fulfillment of expectations. it is found in faithful endurance, with the freedom to evolve, and the flexibility to embrace the wild variability of life.

my experience is that an impassioned spiritual engagement requires the sacrifice of assumptions in order to surrender to amazement and appreciate the satisfaction of acceptance. it is about grace, generosity, and gratitude. i applied this to my anxiety today, and decided that instead of trying to finagle my future and my fiance to fit my fancy, i will just let everything unfold upon the foundation of an unwavering commitment to love and honor each other.

the wisdom i offered at the celebration of my brother’s wedding implored them to remember that it is the promising of devotion, not a destination: that the commitment is to a person, not a path. and, “to revel in the relationship because it allows each of you to be more fully yourself, so that your unique and precious lives are enhanced, elaborated, empowered”. i speak it now, to myself. and i know how lucky i am that it is true, and that we’ll always be true to each other.

someday we’ll settle, purchase a property, and putter around in the pajamas of predictability. but for now, we are wide open and waiting, happy and hopeful. here’s to whatever comes next and however it shows up and wherever it takes us. 

Down the path of pine needles,

Past the plaques of poems and proverbs,

The light leans through lifted limbs.

Birds, balanced on beautiful boughs, bring song to the silence.

Ferns rise from the forest floor, protecting pine cones, surrounding spruce seedlings.

I stand at the entrance of a sacred stone labyrinth. 

I take a step and say, “For peace”.

Then another; “Openness to guidance”.

My reverent requests.

“Patience in faith.”

“Hope in love.”

Over and over, this, my prayer, my petition.

I arrive at the center of the circle, and kneel on the moss. I drop my folded paper with penciled dreams into a broken basket, bow low to kiss the rock.

I give thanks.

I am reminded though this exercise that the journey is always inward. And at the center of ourselves, we find God.

My soul sings. 
I allow my voice to join. In a hymn of promise in praise, appreciation and awe. 

I return through the maze, amazed, to the entrance, the exit.

Death, rebirth, I remember. 

Wings flutter as leaves drift to the ground. 

I can hear the river. 
I can touch the truth.

I take Victoria’s hand and walk the path, white blazes on the trees.

Bridges over brooks, benches, blue sky.

All the answers to the questions I’ve been asking are the same:

Everything is a gift, love.

You have what you need: Love.

Be what the world needs. Love.

This, here, now, is Love. 

Today is cold rain and hot tea,

blankets and books.

Tomorrow will be white walls, white lights, white pills. 

But, yesterday, yesterday was green grass and blue skies. 

(Feeling very alive and amazed and appreciative.)

Orange and yellow leaves, grey bark, black and brown dogs. 

(The beautiful backyard of my parents home.)

I slipped out of my sneakers and laid my socks beside them. I took off my jacket. 

(My blood to keep me warm.)

I danced under the falling leaves, racing, reaching to catch them.

(Knowing my nimble days are numbered.)

Then I pressed my nose into the springy moss, and breathed deeply of the earth. Cool and damp and clean. 

(The richness to which I will return.)

I stood up and stood very still, leaning on the strong stone wall, admiring the birds as they appeared. Red-breasted robins and black-and-white warblers turned the trees into a theater with their fluting and fussing and fluttering.

(Admission to their spectacle requiring only that one look and listen- too high a price for most, I suppose.)

Above me, in a streak of sky between the colorful crowns of the trees, I saw the shining ship of a plane, far away, but close to my heart. My mother and father would touch down soon, flown from France on the wings of the wind, carried by the grace of God and the scheming of science. I thought about my sweet father, who, having seen so much of the world from a vantage point that contains constellations and the curvature of the earth, still seeds and tends this little lot of land with such consistent care. 

(There are many memories here, of football and soccer, baseball and barbecues, talks and tents, raking and relaxing, snowmen and springtime. I am overcome with how precious this place is to me.)

Turning to the house, gorgeous and glittering in the sunlight, I wondered about the hands that laid the bricks, cut the marble. Through the windows I could see treasures from trips overseas or collected at craft fairs, the christmas cactus and trumpet tree blooming. I thought of my mother, who has filled this house with her selective stylings, with smells of good cooking, and with her love and laughter. 

(Across the street, my neighbor of many years will be closing on her house tomorrow. The rooms are bare, the belongings gone. I recognized, standing with the grass between my toes, that one day, perhaps not too long from now, this property, this piece of paradise, will no longer be ours. The doors to the deck won’t be opened by my father going to the grill, the gardens won’t be kneeled in by my mother in the spring, the dogs won’t be barking and beating on the back door. It is the truth about time, but hard to fully appreciate; there, in that moment, it was poignant and profound, painful and perfect.)

I walked inside, stopping first to praise the flowers, who are also living such brief and beautiful lives. I could still hear the birds, whose bodies were busy and filled with song. I cleaned the kitchen and prepared a meal, ready to welcome home my parents, and tell them I love them. Words that could never convey the enormity of my emotion, or the depth of my gratitude. 

Someday I will die. This body will fail and this house will fall. Generations regenerate, stars combust and collapse. But I have faith in a fantasy that God, who churns this incredible universe, will spread us like butter at Christmas, golden and delicious, and full of delight. We will enjoy being enjoyed, brought into warm bodies, to nourish their spirits with ours. Enfolded, again, in the unfolding of the One. 

In the meantime, I will love this warm body I’ve been given, grateful for all that nourishes it. I will love and I will leap through the lawn, catching leaves like they’re falling stars.

(Which, derivatively, they are.)

Happy October. Have a home brew.

the coffee pot was going, and so was the wash. the zippers and things in the dryer sent out a familiar clank and clang. the doors and windows were open, the fresh field was flying in, filling the house, and the dog was curled up in the hallway. everything felt like home, easy, natural. 

she hummed while she had her hands on me. 

like a mud dauber, i thought. 

manipulating my muscle in a way that felt more informed by intuition than anatomy.

seemed less like fingers feeling fascia than finding frequencies. 

i felt totally relaxed, and exceptionally attentive. 

i learned so much about myself. how my bones connect to each other, how i hold my head, how i support my spine. in the kneading, i was known. 

i am not my body. but i am in it. suddenly more fully than ever. 

thanks jesse.

For an infinite player there is no such thing as an hour of time. There can be an hour of love, or a day of grieving, or a season of learning, or a period of labor.
An infinite player does not begin working for the purpose of filling up a period of time with work, but for the purpose of filling up work with time. Work is not an infinite player’s way of passing time, but of engendering possibility. Work is not a way of arriving at a desired present and securing it against an unpredictable future, but of moving toward a future which itself has a future.
…
For the finite player in us freedom is a function of time. We must have time to be free. For the infinite player in us time is a function of freedom. We are free to have time. A finite player puts play into time. An infinite player puts time into play.

James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

russia, rebuilt from rubble. gold again, after the grey and guns were gone. churches, celebrated once more, after communism’s carelessness. but the remarkable restoration, the painstaking preservation, is so humbly human before the swelling sea. there are doors in st petersburg that they close against the ocean’s overflow. but the rising tide of history will at last turn mosaics to memory, statues to sand. 

my parents have returned from the land of the tsars, with phones full of photos. the opulence is overwhelming. the architecture and artistry, the palaces and people, the domes and the dynasties, the boats and ballets. the richness of russia is unrivaled.

i am awed by the amount of people and power that have helped construct that city’s monuments. i am fascinated by the endurance of those endeavors, as well as the fragility of those facades. they represent both a record of time and a resistance to it. but soon enough, the material things will be meaningless. catherine’s commissions will crumble. peter’s privilege will be plundered. only the legacy of love will linger. so that a monday in a museum in the middle of my parents marriage is as momentous as the majesty of a monarch. so that the jewels in the great halls are no more significant than the joy on their faces in the pictures. 

i think about the kingdom i am helping to create. the moments that make up the mosaic of my life. the threads of the tapestry. 

may its glory be in grace. its art, appreciation. may its monuments be built to mystery. and music. and mercy. and may its doors never be swung shut. not for the sea. not for the siege. not for the sinner. 

Starting my Sunday in the Creator’s most compelling church- the garden. Where each petal is a praise chorus, and every stem a sermon. Roots reach deeply into the soil that we should know the redemption of death, compost turned to chrysanthemum and cleome. Vines spiral and climb toward Heaven, petunias pour out of their pots. It is uncontainable life, that promise of abundance, fulfilled. Wait on God, his rain and his timing, his breeze and his bees. Let your life be a colorful celebration of your complete dependence on him. Be patient with the pruning, humble in the heat, still in the silence. But each morning, turn your face to God’s glory, open your heart, and absorb the gifts of his love. Stretch. Sprout. Shine. Sing. Let your spirit swell, your soul sweeten. Then, spent, surrender.

The bright white columns of the porch, paralleled by the gargantuan grey tree trunk, send the eye upward, to appreciate the morning’s intensely blue sky. The sun is bright but not yet strong enough to heat up the patio I’m sitting on. I’m surrounded by flowers, most of which I can’t name, only marvel at. The tomatoes are getting tall enough to create a wall between the herb garden and the road, and I feel perfectly enchanted in this little piece of paradise. The dogs, sweet and lazily licking the freshly fallen pools of water, will sporadically jump up to enthusiastically chase a car and growl. It’s terrible and terrific and no doubt terrifying for the passerbys. But here, it seems, each life flourishes in its unique being. The butterflies and the bees, the dogs and the deer, the plants and the people. My coffee is delicious, some sort of caramel drizzle, and my bagel has a satisfying crunch. Farm fresh eggs, baby spinach, and beet greens have my plate as colorful as my environment. I whisper my prayers of gratitude, I laugh out loud. I might grab the guitar for a few minutes before I set off on the day’s adventures. Grounded now, amazed by grace, and filled with joy, I breathe God’s goodness into my body, then set it into motion.

saturday, sunshine. salmon and snow peas. stars and satellites. 

my father and i stand in the long lawn, heads craned back, calling out constellations. against the silhouette of the dark pines, flashing fireflies mirror the studded sky. from the pond, protected by a wise, old weeping willow, frogs cough and croak. 

we are full of good food and sweet wine. we are full of wonder. we are humbled, by our own smallness. the sweeping stellar show highlights the truth we already know- this is God’s game, in which we play by grace alone. 

life is a precious thing. tell the people that you love that you love them. cry. clink glasses. sing along to the radio. fall asleep, and wake up, in prayer. enjoy everything.