An Interesting Paradox

It's supposed to snow tonight. Five A.M. is what the weatherman said. But I don't know if I believe him. "Trust not in the arm of flesh." Or that's the gist of it, anyway.
What I do know is what I felt that night; what I felt in my pocket.  We were walking back in the dark, and it was windy and piercingly chill. The leaves were blowing down the sidewalk just like they do in the scary movies. I was wearing brown boots that crunched the blowing leaves as we walked. I put my hands in my pocket and I felt something. A pebble? No, a marble. It was cold and hard, and my fingers were cold and stiff, but within the lining of my pocket I clenched my cold fingers around the cold marble and suddenly both began to warm. An interesting paradox, like our philosophical discussions. The cold meeting the cold made both warm. I think I may have discovered cold fusion.

Chlorophyll

It was September 19th. She remembered very clearly. She woke up and ran down three flights of stairs. When she walked out the door, the air sparked her. It was different, the oxygen as she stepped out into the world at that specific moment was different. She blinked and subconsciously she knew what it was. It was Autumn. She took a deeper breath and it became part of her. The seasons, it seemed, mimicked her life. She had Spring to create, Summer to enjoy, and Autumn.... Autumn will be a trek into the wilderness for her, the first steps that will become the wild softness of Winter. Autumn is when she embarks on life's most daring adventures. The world winds down, the leaves conclude their stories, but something inside of her wakes up.  It nuzzles its way up through the pile of auburn leaves in her soul and says, "You're ready, now." That is always how it has been for her. Since before she was born. Her spirit waited, and then when Autumn came, she came too.

Grandmother's Pearls

I've been searching, tearing apart the house for Grandmother's pearls.
I've been through all the knick-knacks, all the top drawers, and in the carved wooden box in the back of  Mom's closet. I can't seem to find them. I know they're somewhere. I've seen them. I know how precious they are. We wouldn't lose those.... Not intentionally. They are beautiful, and soft, and real. They're not a fake, five-dollar strand.
I just need something like that manifest in life. I've been searching, searching for something beautiful and real. Not photoshopped or cinematic. I just want something tangible, that shows that the things we want in life can happen, and they're not just pipe dreams and wisps of smoke and memory, like Grandmother's pearls.
We have them. I've seen them. They are soft and beautiful and real. I just don't know where to find them.

A response to myself; String and Clay 2

How can I know what I think, until I read what I write? I thought a lot of things in June that didn't prove true come August. August. What a beautiful month. It's the inbetween month with no holidays that is cut short by impending autumn. But it's still summer. August is like a game of perpetual emotional limbo. Not here. Not there. That's how I feel. I'm still under construction, but I've put a few bits of twine in and a little bit of mud. Now I'm out baking in the sun.  I know a few things now about myself that I didn't before, things that might interest you. I once thought I was too young, that day with the Roxberry banners. I know I'm not too young now. I'm not too old, either. I'm just me.  You seemed to have realized that and you're ok with it too. You've got these clear eyes. They're clear, but their color is murky. They're like Elton John, you see, because as he so wisely stated, I can't quite tell "if they're green, or they're blue." I thought about Elton John this morning. I thought about his music and lyrics. "Hold me close now, Tiny Dancer." I'd like you to take me and say that to me. I'd feel a little more complete if that happened, I think. The thing is, I told myself that couldn't happen until I was finished creating myself, or I'd feel emotionally compromised, like I let you affect who I was trying to become, which I'd always thought was going to be strictly between me and The Man Upstairs. I have one thing to say to that previous person, who thought she was above so much. Who you are is a mosaic of three parts. It's one part of how God  moulds you, another part of how you design yourself, and a third part of how other people paint themselves permanently into the canvas of your soul. So create yourself as best you can, but let others come in and paint right alongside you. You'll end up so beautiful if you do.

Take your life, and put it in a box. Now put that box in a bigger box, mail that box to yourself and what do you have? A package and too much time on your hands.  But seriously, pack up your life and you will realize you have too much of it. You will see that life is better when you are like Cormac McCarthy: a minimalist. All you need in life can fit in a shopping cart. Just one. And yet we fill shopping carts o'er and o'er again, because like Lay's potato chips, one was ne'er enough. So here's the plan. We take this summer, and we grab what we need from it, and leave what we don't. We leave our sadness, our shoes and worries on the front porch for the boy scouts to pick up and give to Goodwill. We take sunburns, skinned knees and change.... Lots of change. Nickles, dimes, quarters, but maybe not pennies. We'll leave those on the ground because we may need to come back and pick them up for luck later. We take different change, too. We take the-last-week-of-august change. We take that because we have to, but then we turn it into an adventure. You don't have to go far for adventure. 10 blocks = adventure. So grab your novels and vintage tea set and come over 10 blocks to my new backyard. You'll see when you get here.

Latitude and Longitude

There are a few ways to look at this. There are a lot of things I could say and excuses I could make, but the longitude and latitude of it is that I wasn't who you were expecting me to be, nor were you what I was expecting.  Expectations are a funny thing. I don't know why humans expect anything anymore because it rarely happens the way we expect. It's like we feel entitled to good things, or something. Are we? Because I'm a human, does that give me the right to expect that you would be a certain way and give me certain things to make me happy? It's not selfish, really, because I tried to give you what I hoped would make you feel pleasant, and so I expected (there's that word again) the same. Well it's not that you didn't meet expectations, it's just we weren't taking the same test. You see, you were in Albania and I'm over here in Ohio. They're the same level, but there is an unexpected dichotomy of an ocean to pass. Well, thank goodness for modern transportation. You fly out half-way, and I'll come meet you in the air. We'll jump out an land on our feet on an island in the middle of that ocean I didn't like and eat bananas. It might be paradise.

The Human Library Card

This summer is like a borrowed book. It's like the book you let me borrow, actually. I only have it for a brief time, I knew that from the outset.
I still took it though, knowing that I have to give it back eventually, that it can't be mine forever; not tangibly, anyway.
I can still take the letters off the page and churn them into my mind, so that what I can't hold in the physical, I can hold in my mind.... convert it into plasma, energy, synapsis, so that it lasts forever.
See, this book, "The World's Greatest Salesman".... It's inspiring, right? Well, you are inspiring too.
See? This summer is like a borrowed book.
See, this book, "The World's Greatest Salesman".... It's deep, right? Well, you are profound.
See? This summer is like a borrowed book.
See, when you gave me that book, you gave me a little part of yourself you didn't know about.
See, those underlined words you forgot were there was a little chink of yourself that I got to taste.
See? You are the book, and I borrowed you for a summer.
But don't worry. I will give you back in the fall.